Can XRP really be copied? A community member says the answer isn’t just about open-source code or chain forks — it’s about patented architecture and the real-world plumbing that moves value between banks. Wilberforce Theophilus, an active voice in the XRP community, points to two U.S. patents held by Ripple Labs to explain why a lookalike token would struggle to replicate XRP’s role. U.S. Patent No. 10,902,416 describes a system for settling cross-border payments that uses a digital asset as a bridge between currencies and institutions. The patented flow focuses on full settlement without the need for pre-funded accounts, outlining how liquidity is sourced, exchanged and settled using XRP to reduce cost and time. According to Wilberforce, this patent covers the end-to-end settlement mechanics in a way that a rival token could not simply copy. A second patent, U.S. Patent No. 11,998,003, builds on that foundation and targets interoperability between different ledgers and payment networks. It describes methods for linking disparate systems into a single payment flow that can operate across jurisdictions and infrastructures. Wilberforce argues that this is the real barrier to replication: even if another team builds a fast blockchain, they cannot duplicate the legally protected architecture that ties banks, payment providers and blockchains together with XRP embedded as the settlement medium. Those two patents are part of Ripple Labs’ broader intellectual property portfolio. The company holds roughly 39 patents worldwide, with about 18 granted to date. That IP protection sits alongside — and helps explain the limits of — a common counterargument: parts of the XRP Ledger are open source, so anyone can study the code or fork a similar ledger. Technically, a team could reproduce a consensus mechanism, transaction speeds, fee structure and even issue a token that looks like XRP on paper. But XRP’s value, proponents say, is far more than code. It rests on over a decade of live operation, deep cross-border liquidity, and Ripple’s real-world relationships with banks, payment providers and regulators. The ledger software governs how transactions are processed, but the patented systems describe how XRP is used legally and operationally as a bridge asset between financial institutions — a role Ripple has actively promoted, including recent expansion moves such as a partnership with Riyad Bank in the Middle East. Bottom line: while open-source elements of the ledger can be replicated in a narrow technical sense, the combination of patented settlement architecture, network liquidity and institutional ties makes a functional, legally equivalent copy of XRP much harder to achieve in practice — at least according to community observers and Ripple’s own IP strategy. Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news

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