lll_lll 390 Posted Saturday at 07:48 PM We have recently surpassed the 1.5 million mark on XRP ledger recently. While it is an amazing milestone for XRPL and a sign of progress in terms of XRP adoption, I have been thinking about the negative consequences of this milestone. Unlike cryptocurrencies like BTC and ETC for which there is no cost to the number of accounts they have on ledger, the number of active accounts XRP has inverse relation to the performance of the ledger. This was a deliberate decision made about the design of the ledger because it gives XRP ledger more benefits in terms of features that can be added on-chain. Recently, I have heard that we are already hitting or exceeding the limit on the number of accounts that XRPL can handle from a couple of credible sources in Twitter. Ripple has been working on ways to make it more efficient in recent updates to XRP ledger also. Also among other things, Nick B. has an outstanding amendment waiting to get merged to the code base that allows anyone to delete the account for few XRP. With that as a backdrop, here is my question/ concern. During the last bull run, about 550 K accounts were added in a span of few weeks. With all the minor improvements and future amendments that are planned, do we think we are ready for another bull run that will most probably add another 550+ accounts without impacting the performance of XRP ledger? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dsimmo 437 Posted Saturday at 08:04 PM Where are the technical details of NikB's amendment? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lll_lll 390 Posted Saturday at 08:10 PM Here you go. Here is the discussion on the topic. Basically at a cost of 5 XRP, the old account can be deleted and the remaining funds can be transferred to a new account. 1 Spartaksus reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Drew 261 Posted Saturday at 09:47 PM "growing excessively large as the result of spam or malicious usage." Not because a design limitation exists. You've got to pay to play: good thing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lll_lll 390 Posted Sunday at 02:37 AM 4 hours ago, Drew said: growing excessively large Why? Why doesn’t BTC or ETC care about how many accounts that can be created? Why does XRP have the reserve? It is absolutely a design choice and a trade-off. The only thing I am trying to understand is the limits of this choice because no one seems to be talking about it. Maybe it is not an immediate problem and maybe Ripple devs have figured out a solution but I’d like to understand it more. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tinyaccount 9,028 Posted Sunday at 04:17 AM 1 hour ago, lll_lll said: Why does XRP have the reserve? I think it’s for the same reason as fees. Spam prevention. As against that if I have one XRP I can create thousands of accounts with it... so I don’t really understand that aspect. I’ve not noticed a minimum account creation transaction amount. So in theory to be malicious an actor could spam hundreds of thousands of new accounts for near zero cost. I don’t know if that is a risk that is mitigated in some way... 1 hour ago, lll_lll said: Why? The reason is because each account object takes some memory in nodes (and validators?). Memory is a finite resource whereas the potential account address space is for practical purposes near infinite. When you design enterprise level systems you need to consider scaling effects and edge cases.... some malicious moron spamming new accounts is one such. Or a bunch of new exchanges not using pooled wallets is another. As I understand it, this potential memory issue is at worst a considerable way into the future and therefore hasn’t hit the threshold of requires action yet (and won’t for a long while...). The potential for a DoS attack via account creation spam is perhaps a closer issue but I believe it’s easy enough for validators to simply cease listening to a malicious one. I suspect that would be a bit painful and require human intervention but can’t see it being an ongoing issue. I’ve made a bunch of assumptions in all this and could be wrong about any of it... happy to be educated. 1 Julian_Williams reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tinyaccount 9,028 Posted Sunday at 04:25 AM Actually a DoS account creation would hit the escalating fee protection and cease to be viable. So ignore that bit. 1 Julian_Williams reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
PunishmentOfLuxury 1,326 Posted Sunday at 05:49 AM 1 hour ago, Tinyaccount said: Actually a DoS account creation would hit the escalating fee protection and cease to be viable. So ignore that bit. I believe an account doesn't appear on the ledger until it's been funded with the 20 XRP minimum. 1 Tinyaccount reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tinyaccount 9,028 Posted Sunday at 09:21 AM 3 hours ago, PunishmentOfLuxury said: I believe an account doesn't appear on the ledger until it's been funded with the 20 XRP minimum. I dont think that is correct. I believe it’s there as a transaction irrespective of amount and the balance of that account is there as non zero. I have never tried funding an account with less than reserve so I can’t be sure though. Perhaps someone who knows for sure can advise. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
lll_lll 390 Posted Sunday at 03:49 PM 11 hours ago, Tinyaccount said: Why? It was a rhetorical question, but yes, what you have answered is my concern. We as a community focus on the shortcomings and scaling issues of BTC and ETH but we have our own scaling issues that isn't discussed much. As you have said per your understanding that this issue isn't an issue until far off on the future but the anecdotal evidence I have seen in few places where someone with credible source saying we are already there if not past the point. Technically speaking, I don't think it would be hard to determine the number of accounts where it starts being an issue. As I said above, what if in the next bull run, there are 550K new accounts added, will that effect the ledger or what if SBI VC goes live with its 23M customers and we get 2M new accounts? What effect will it have. By no means I am trying to raise an alarm. I am just trying to understand the limits of the system so that I can make an educated decision. 1 Tinyaccount reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Silenos 54 Posted Sunday at 06:34 PM 9 hours ago, Tinyaccount said: I dont think that is correct. I believe it’s there as a transaction irrespective of amount and the balance of that account is there as non zero. I have never tried funding an account with less than reserve so I can’t be sure though. Perhaps someone who knows for sure can advise. https://developers.ripple.com/reserves.html To submit transactions, an address must hold a minimum amount of XRP in the shared global ledger. You cannot send this XRP to other addresses. To fund a new address, you must send enough XRP to meet the reserve requirement. 1 Tinyaccount reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tinyaccount 9,028 Posted Sunday at 08:07 PM 1 hour ago, Silenos said: To fund a new address, you must send enough XRP to meet the reserve requirement. Do you know before I posted I went exactly there to look, and read that paragraph, but somehow missed this sentence. I’m getting sloppy in my old age. Thanks very much Silenos for showing us that. So there is no chance of the account creation spam I spoke of because each one takes the reserve amount to create. Currently 20 xrp. @PunishmentOfLuxury you were correct and I was wrong. I’ll never doubt you again. 1 PunishmentOfLuxury reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites