XRP Ledger is set to fix its lending code before anyone can use it

A batch of bug fixes is set to go live on the XRP Ledger on Friday, and some of them patch the lending system Ripple has pitched to banks and payment companies since June — a system that hasn’t been switched on yet and is still 10 votes short of approval.

Validators are the independent servers that agree on which transactions count. A change to the network’s rules needs backing from more than 80% of the 35 validators the network trusts by default, which works out to 29, and that backing has to hold for two straight weeks.

Under the plan, a lender deposits XRP or another token into a vault, and a loan broker lends that money out for a fixed term. The ledger records the loan and tracks repayments, and the broker decides offchain whether a borrowe

Borrowers don’t post collateral, so the broker’s judgment is all that stands between lenders and a default. Ripple has pitched the setup to payment companies that need cash while a cross-border settlement clears.

The bug-fix package, called fixCleanup3_4_0, had exactly 29 votes as of Monday, according to the XRPL Dashboard. It’s nine days into its two-week countdown and on course to go live around 09:34 UTC on Oct. 23. It has no votes to spare, so one validator pulling support would restart the clock.

The lending system has 19 votes. The vaults that would hold lenders’ money are a separate change and have 21. Neither has started a countdown, so even if both hit 29 votes today, lending couldn’t go live before early November.

Separately, the patch also closes a loophole that could let an account allowed only to burn, or destroy, tokens on an issuer’s behalf create new ones under certain conditions, according to the xrpld 3.4.0 release notes.

It will further changes how vaults round amounts and how the lending code decides when a loan is late or in default.