XRP Ledger sponsored accounts: who pays the reserve

XRP Ledger developers are trying out a method for opening accounts that hold zero XRP, according to CoinDesk. A code proposal adds a transaction called SponsoredAccountCreate, which lets an existing account open a new one and carry its reserve. This article looks at what the reserve rule does today, what the new transaction would change, and what still has to happen before it can be used.

The change in one paragraph

Every account on the XRP Ledger must keep a minimum amount of XRP locked while it exists. The proposal, filed on Oct. 15, does not remove that rule. It moves the bill. A sponsoring account pays the reserve for a new account, so the new wallet can be created and stay at a zero XRP balance. CoinDesk reported that the code creates the account directly, with no XRP sent into it at all.

Under the hood: the reserve before and after

A reserve is a deposit the ledger demands for keeping an account alive. Today it is 1 XRP per account. The point is defence, not revenue. Each account takes up space in the shared ledger that every node must store. If accounts were free, anyone could flood the network with empty wallets. Making each one lock up some value puts a price on that space.

The new transaction keeps that price but lets someone else pay it. Here are the moving parts as the fact sheet describes them:

• Today: a new account only becomes active once it receives XRP, and that XRP covers its own reserve.
• Sponsor: under the proposal, an existing account sends SponsoredAccountCreate and takes on the reserve for the new account.
• New account: it is created directly and can hold a zero XRP balance.
• Keys: the design rests on the Sponsored Fees and Reserves standard, under which the paying account covers network costs but does not gain control of the user's private keys.
• Fees: a wider sponsorship mechanism would also let sponsors pay transaction fees on behalf of their users.

The total reserve the network asks for stays the same. What changes is who locks it. In plain terms, the anti-spam cost shifts from the person who holds the wallet to the business that opens it. That keeps the defence in place, because the sponsor still has to commit value for every account it creates.

Why the reserve matters at scale

For one person, a small reserve is a minor step. For a company it adds up. CoinDesk gave an example: a firm that opens 100,000 accounts would have to lock 100,000 XRP just to meet the reserve rule. Sponsorship does not make that cost vanish. But it lets the firm hold the reserve in its own account, instead of pre-funding each customer wallet one by one.

There is a second, quieter problem. A wallet built only to hold stablecoins still needs XRP before it can be switched on. That forces an app to buy and move a token its user may never touch. The proposal removes that step, because the account can be opened directly without any XRP transfer.

Who is affected

Payment apps and wallet providers are the main audience. CoinDesk noted that Ripple has partnered with Privy, which is owned by Stripe, to bring embedded wallets to XRP Ledger apps. An embedded wallet is one created inside an app, often without the user handling setup. The partnership is meant to support payments in XRP and in Ripple's RLUSD stablecoin, including automated transfers sent by AI agents. As things stand, each of those wallets must receive XRP before it works, even when it is only meant to hold stablecoins.

Users would see fewer setup steps. Developers would gain a cleaner way to open many accounts. Sponsors take on a real cost, and with it a real choice about how many accounts they are willing to carry. Validators decide whether any of this goes live.

Status and next steps

The work is not finished. According to CoinDesk, the pull request is still open and has two unresolved findings from automated code review. It also depends on sponsorship changes that are not yet active on mainnet.

Those changes arrive through the XRP Ledger amendment process. An amendment is a rule change that turns on only when enough trusted validators vote for it. CoinDesk, citing XRPL Dashboard, reported that as of Oct. 19 the sponsorship amendment had 11 votes among the 35 trusted validators, while 29 are required. Until that threshold is met, SponsoredAccountCreate cannot be used on the main network, whatever happens to the code itself.

So two separate tracks are worth watching. One is the code: the open review findings and whether the pull request is accepted. The other is the vote: whether the sponsorship amendment gathers enough validator support. Apps can open zero-XRP accounts in practice only when both are done.

Sources

• CoinDesk, 28 Oct 2026

AI wrote this summary from the primary documents and reports cited above. It went live automatically after checks that figures match those sources and nothing is copied; there was no human review. It explains a protocol or rule change and is not investment advice.