His inquiry attracted different responses from both supporters and industry commentators on detailed explanations of how the XRP Ledger functions and what role XRP plays within it. The conversation drew in notable voices, including Santiago Velez and David Schwartz, Ripple’s Chief Technology Officer.
This mechanism was central to the Ledger’s early design and was part of the system’s built-in decentralized exchange (DEX), the first of its kind in crypto history. As such, the token operates as a bridge currency that allows easy inter-currency pathfinding without relying on intermediaries or centralized issuers. According to Velez, no other large Layer-1 blockchain is built with this specific function in mind, apart from Stellar, which originated as a fork of XRP.
However, Melker posed another question about the token’s long-term economic sustainability: whether these design strengths translate into lasting demand for the token itself. He pointed out that while the ledger’s features serve technical purposes, they do not necessarily guarantee consistent price appreciation.
In his view, spam prevention does not generate token demand. Pathfinding may bypass the altcoin in some cases, and stablecoins’ stability and simplicity have become more appealing to institutions than XRP. This opens the question of whether it is adopted anywhere near the scale that it’s being promoted.
