Topology Analysis of the XRP Ledger

TL;DR

This paper provides a detailed graph-theoretic analysis of the XRP Ledger's peer-to-peer network, revealing its structural properties, backbone nodes, and high churn rate, which impact its security and robustness.

Contribution

It offers the first comprehensive analysis of XRP Ledger's network topology and temporal dynamics, highlighting key structural features and their implications.

Findings

Identified a core group of backbone nodes

Observed high network churn with a third of nodes changing every five days

Implications for the network's resilience and security

Abstract

XRP Ledger is one of the oldest, well-established blockchains. Despite the popularity of the XRP Ledger, little is known about its underlying peer-to-peer network. The structural properties of a network impact its efficiency, security and robustness. We aim to close the knowledge gap by providing a detailed analysis of the XRP overlay network. In this paper we examine the graph-theoretic properties of the XRP Ledger peer-to-peer network and its temporal characteristics. We crawl the XRP Ledger over two months and collect 1,290 unique network snapshots. We uncover a small group of nodes that act as a networking backbone. In addition, we observe a high network churn, with a third of the nodes changing every five days. Our findings have strong implications for the resilience and safety of the XRP Ledger.