A renewed debate over the decentralization of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) has emerged following criticism from Bitcoin advocate Bram Kanstein, who argued that XRP’s ledger history beginning at “Ledger 32,570,” rather than Ledger 1, is proof of longstanding centralization.

Kanstein cited this anomaly as evidence that XRP has never been fully decentralized.

Ripple CTO David Schwartz pushed back, maintaining that the incident in question reflects decentralized inaction rather than coordinated control, emphasizing that no orchestrated changes were made to rewrite history.

The controversy traces back to XRPL’s June 2012 launch, when a software bug caused the improper saving of ledger headers during the network’s first week.

As a result, Ledgers 1 through 32,569 were permanently lost, though the overall ledger state remained intact and continued forward.

Ledger 32,570 subsequently became the effective starting point for public history servers.

Critics argue this missing early record raises centralization concerns, while supporters contend the network simply continued operating without coordinated intervention, preserving its decentralized integrity.

In defending XRPL, Schwartz compared the episode to two early Bitcoin incidents that he claims demonstrated clearer centralization:the 2010 value overflow bug and the coordinated blockchain rollback that followed.

He argued these events required active intervention by Bitcoin stakeholders, illustrating that even Bitcoin’s immutability has relied on human coordination during crises.

The exchange highlights broader philosophical differences over how decentralization should be defined and assessed, particularly when foundational blockchain networks confront technical failures in their early stages.