Ripple’s developer arm has floated a blueprint to bring privacy-coin-like functionality to the XRP Ledger—without abandoning the network’s long-standing emphasis on public supply integrity and compliance tooling.

In a new XRP Ledger Standards (XRPLF) discussion opened on September 13, Ripple engineers Murat Cenk and Aanchal Malhotra propose “Confidential Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPTs),” an amendment that would encrypt balances and transfer amounts using EC-ElGamal and zero-knowledge proofs, while preserving the accounting semantics of XRPL’s existing MPT framework. RippleX subsequently highlighted the proposal on X, drawing mainstream attention to what could be the most consequential privacy addition yet considered for XRPL.

Is XRP Becoming A Privacy Coin?

At its core, the draft introduces confidentiality at the token layer without obscuring aggregate supply.

Confidential MPTs provide confidential transfers and balances using EC-ElGamal encryption and Zero-Knowledge Proofs (ZKPs), while preserving XLS-33 semantics,” the authors write. Crucially, they stress that “Public auditability” remains intact because issuance limits continue to be enforced by the network’s existing invariant—OutstandingAmount never exceeding MaxAmount—so validators can verify that no new tokens are silently minted even if individual balances are encrypted.

The design leans on a practical architectural compromise. Instead of redefining supply math for a private system, issuers would maintain a designated “second account” that the ledger treats like any other holder. Public supply metrics, including OutstandingAmount, then account for both public and confidential balances, with a new ConfidentialOutstandingAmount field tracking the private portion. This lets validators enforce the same XLS-33 rule set they already understand, while transactions themselves rely on equality proofs and range

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Author: Jake Simmons