XRPL validator Vet recently reviewed the 7.8 million $XRP wallets, assessing how they might be affected by future quantum computing risks.
He examined the full history of 7,810,364 accounts on the $XRP Ledger. His findings show that 23.16 billion $XRP is currently held in wallets that are considered safe from quantum threats.
Key Points
- Vet reviewed 7,810,364 $XRP accounts, identifying 23.16 billion $XRP as currently quantum safe.
- About 76.82 billion $XRP across 5.6 million accounts is exposed, but 96% belongs to active users.
- Wallets inactive for 5+ years hold 2.94% of supply, while pre-2014 accounts make up just 0.02%.
- 27.21% of accounts (2.13 million wallets) are quantum safe, mainly due to no transaction history or key rotation.
What Makes a Wallet Safe?
Vet stressed that a wallet’s safety depends on whether it has ever signed a transaction. If it hasn’t, its public key stays hidden, which makes it harder for a quantum computer to attack.
Based on this, he found that a large share of $XRP already sits in protected accounts. He also pointed out that the long-term solution will likely involve new quantum-resistant encryption, which will allow users to move their funds into safer wallets.
However, not everyone will be able to do that. Some users may have lost access to their wallets, forgotten their keys, or simply be unable to act due to personal situations. Those accounts could remain at risk in the future.
Dormant $XRP Wallets
According to Vet, dormant wallets were the most difficult part of the issue. Notably, active users can move their funds without much trouble, but inactive accounts are harder to deal with because no one knows why they have been left untouched.
This raises an important question for the community: should those funds remain exposed, or should there be a way to protect them?
He then assessed all 7.8 million accounts and their activity and found that 76.82 billion $XRP, spread across 5.6 million accounts, is considered exposed when looking at the full history alone.
However, 96% of that exposed $XRP belongs to active accounts, meaning those users are still engaged and likely to move their funds when needed.
When Vet broke the data down by time, he found that wallets inactive for at least 5 years hold 2.94% of the total $XRP supply, or 3.83% of exposed $XRP. At the far end, accounts that have not been active since 2013 make up just 0.02% of the total supply, or 0.03% of exposed $XRP.
He noted that this pattern follows a long-tail distribution, with 1.33 million accounts in the 5+ year group compared to just 14,710 accounts from before 2014.
For context, the XRPL validator compared this to Bitcoin, where early holdings linked to Satoshi make up about 5% of total supply, much of which may never move to safer addresses.
Safe and Exposed $XRP Supply
Vet’s findings show that 27.21% of all XRPL accounts, or about 2.13 million wallets, holding 23.16 billion $XRP, are currently safe from quantum threats. He divided these into two main groups.
Of this category, 24.56% of accounts are safe because they have never signed a transaction. Meanwhile, 2.65% of the accounts are safe because they have taken extra steps by rotating keys and disabling their master keys.
He also highlighted 242 multi-signature wallets that together hold 36.60 billion $XRP, which is 36.6% of the total supply. These include major wallets such as Ripple’s escrow accounts.
Despite this, he stressed that multi-signature wallets are not automatically safe. They still require proper key management and regular updates to stay protected.
Looking at the earliest accounts, often compared to Bitcoin’s early-era wallets, he found they represent only 0.02% of the total $XRP supply that is both inactive and exposed. He also noted that exposure increases as more recently active accounts are included, which shows the importance of ongoing activity and maintenance.
Overall, the 23.16 billion $XRP identified as safe belongs to wallets that either never revealed their public keys or have already taken steps to improve their security.
Four-Phase Roadmap to Quantum Resilience
Right now, the $XRP Ledger uses standard cryptography methods such as Ed25519 and secp256k1, which could become vulnerable in the future but remain safe today.
To prepare for this, Ripple has already set out a plan. Earlier this month, they introduced a four-phase roadmap to make the network fully ready for quantum threats by 2028. Work is already in progress, including early testing of new systems, while later stages will bring updates to the main network.
