XRP's consensus model truly blows my mind

Steelmanning the XRPLedger, the XRP coin and Ripple, three interrelated crypto projects that drive both mania and skepticism

Brady Dale

Dec 14, 2025

Welcome, welcome!

To the first episode of Front Stage Exit’s podcast, Diamond Rhino.

For more first episode, I decided to dive deep into the cryptocurrency XRP, its chain, XRPLedger and the company that made it all possible: Ripple. I’m attempting to steelman these projects, to make the best case I can for them.

Why? Because it’s said that one of the best ways to hone your own thinking is to try to make the case for something you don’t agree with.

I have never bought the story of Ripple and XRP. I have mostly expressed that by just not writing about either much, but I plan to take a different approach with this podcast. I plan to go right at things I’m not crazy about, to check my instincts, to see if there’s any there there.

And I will tell you that I learned one thing about XRP that really blew my mind.

If you already knew it, when you get to it, I’ll be impressed. Let me know.

It’s no secret! It’s a very basic fact about the chain, but I had no idea.

If you would have told me this in a conversation at a bar, I wouldn’t have believed you. I would have thought you were taking the piss.

On podcasting

I feel mostly good about how much I learned taping, editing and producing this episode. I see through a glass darkly about how to do these better going forward.

One thing that is definitely not perfect in here is my introductions of the various clips I pulled in. Please forgive me. But all the sources are cited in the show notes and below. I’ll make that clearer next time.

If the outro music on this one doesn’t make you smile, well… I don’t know. It should. It really should.

Show notes

Welcome to the first episode of Diamond Rhino, which should come out every Sunday. Let me know if I got anything horribly wrong, and please bear with me as I get my workflow down. I learned a lot doing this episode. Next one should go better.

Sound clips came from these videos:

XRPL Foundation - Consensus