rippled-zig

XRP Ledger protocol implementation in Zig for education and research.

Status: Alpha - Educational implementation based on XRPL specification
NOT for production use with real value

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Overview

rippled-zig is an implementation of the XRP Ledger protocol in Zig, created for learning, research, and experimentation. It implements XRPL features based on the protocol specification, with a focus on memory safety and code clarity.

Purpose: Educational platform for understanding XRPL and learning Zig systems programming.

NOT: A production replacement for the official rippled (https://github.com/XRPLF/rippled)

What's Implemented

Based on XRPL specification:

• 25 transaction type structures (Payment, DEX, Escrow, Channels, Checks, NFTs, etc.)
• 30 RPC method skeletons
• Byzantine Fault Tolerant consensus logic
• Cryptographic primitives (RIPEMD-160, Ed25519, SHA-512)
• Serialization framework
• Network protocol structures
• Database and infrastructure

Total: 14,988 lines of Zig code with 80+ tests

Current Limitations

NOT Validated Against:

• Real XRPL mainnet or testnet
• rippled's actual behavior
• Real network transaction formats
• Production security requirements

Known Gaps:

• secp256k1 signature verification (partial)
• Exact serialization format matching
• Network protocol compatibility
• Real-world edge cases

Validation Status: Unit tested, needs comprehensive real-network validation

Installation

Requirements: Zig 0.15.1+

git clone https://github.com/SMC17/rippled-zig.git
cd rippled-zig
zig build
zig build test

Use Cases

Appropriate For:

• Learning XRP Ledger protocol
• Understanding Byzantine consensus
• Studying Zig systems programming
• Educational projects
• Research and experimentation
• XRPL protocol documentation

NOT Appropriate For:

• Production validators
• Managing real XRP or assets
• Critical infrastructure
• Mainnet operations
• Any use requiring production reliability

Architecture

Clean, educational codebase:

• src/consensus.zig - Byzantine consensus algorithm
• src/transaction.zig - Transaction validation
• src/crypto.zig - Cryptographic operations
• src/ledger.zig - Ledger state management
• See ARCHITECTURE.md for details

Comparison with rippled

Advantages:

• Memory safe (Zig compile-time guarantees)
• Fast builds (<1 second vs 5-10 minutes)
• Clean code (15k lines vs 200k+)
• Educational value (easier to understand)

Disadvantages:

• Not battle-tested (rippled has 10+ years)
• Not validated against real network
• Missing production hardening
• Smaller community

Recommendation: Use rippled for production, rippled-zig for learning

Contributing

Contributions welcome to help validate and improve!

Priority:

• Validation against real testnet data
• Comparison with rippled behavior
• Security review
• Test coverage expansion

See CONTRIBUTING.md

Security Warning

IMPORTANT: This is experimental software.

• NOT security audited
• NOT validated against production network
• MAY have bugs or vulnerabilities
• DO NOT use with real value without extensive validation

For production use, see official rippled: https://github.com/XRPLF/rippled

Long-term Goal

Work toward verified compatibility with rippled through:

• Systematic validation against real network
• Byte-level comparison with rippled
• Security auditing
• Community testing

Timeline: Months to years of validation before production readiness

License

ISC License - Same as rippled

Resources

• Official rippled: https://github.com/XRPLF/rippled
• XRPL Documentation: https://xrpl.org/docs
• Zig Language: https://ziglang.org/

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An educational implementation of XRPL in Zig. Learn the protocol, understand the code, contribute to validation.

Use rippled for production. Use rippled-zig for learning.