Ripple has officially voted in favor of the XRP Ledger (XRPL) Sponsor amendment, bringing the proposed network upgrade closer to mainnet activation. The decision means Ripple has now endorsed all amendments included in the XRPL v3.3.0 upgrade, marking another step toward improving blockchain accessibility and institutional adoption.
According to XRP Ledger validator data, Ripple's Unique Node List (UNL) validator voted “Yea” on the Sponsor amendment, also known as XLS-68 Sponsored Fees and Reserves. The proposal aims to simplify user onboarding by allowing businesses, financial institutions, and token issuers to cover transaction fees and account reserve requirements.
Under the proposed system, sponsors can either co-sign transactions or provide funding in advance, enabling users to interact with the XRP Ledger without immediately holding XRP for network costs. Importantly, sponsored users would maintain complete control over their accounts and private keys.
The upgrade could support broader adoption of tokenized real-world assets (RWAs), digital payments, and blockchain-based financial services, including applications involving XRP and Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin.
However, the Sponsor amendment has not yet secured sufficient validator support for activation. It currently holds 31.43% consensus, with 11 of 35 UNL validators supporting the proposal. Mainnet implementation requires at least 80% approval, equivalent to 28 validators, maintained for two consecutive weeks.
Meanwhile, other XRP Ledger improvements, including PermissionDelegationV1_1 and BatchV1_1, were activated earlier in October. The FixCleanup3_4_0 amendment, which includes sponsorship-related fixes, is also approaching potential activation.
Despite these developments, XRP price has declined more than 5% following stronger-than-expected U.S. inflation data. The cryptocurrency traded near $1.31, fluctuating between $1.29 and $1.38 over 24 hours, while trading volume increased 38%.
Crypto analyst Ali Martinez identified $1.25 as a potential support level before a recovery toward $1.42 or possibly $1.60, depending on market conditions.
Derivatives data also reflected weakening sentiment, with XRP futures open interest declining 4% to $2.89 billion. Open interest dropped more than 5% on CME and 3.5% on Binance, although a subsequent hourly increase of nearly 0.6% suggested renewed trading activity.
Investors are now watching validator approval progress, XRP ETF inflows, and broader cryptocurrency market conditions for signs of XRP's next price direction.
