A new Solana DEX design has reignited a debate about whose blockchain solved decentralized exchange problems first — and an ex-Ripple developer says the answer goes back more than a decade.
What sparked it
- At Solana Summit Germany, Thomas Gehrmann unveiled Mato, a Solana-based DEX that uses a continuous clearing auction to combat front-running and order-sequencing games.
- Crypto commentator Crypto Goblin highlighted Mato’s core idea: instead of matching orders one-by-one, Mato streams orders across a user-set time window and clears demand and supply in parallel at a dynamically updating market price. The aim is fairness — no single actor controls sequencing and no taker gets priority.
The Ripple response
- Former Ripple developer Matt Hamilton pushed back, arguing that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) solved these market-structure problems years ago. “This problem was solved 15 years ago on the XRP Ledger,” he wrote, calling XRPL “the very first DEX in existence.”
- Hamilton added that while he welcomed Solana’s work, he worries the industry keeps re-inventing the same ideas instead of building on earlier designs.
Why XRPL is part of the discussion
- The XRP Ledger launched in 2012 with a built-in, central limit order book DEX that lets users trade XRP and issued tokens natively on the ledger — long before DeFi became a mainstream term.
- XRPL’s exchange functionality is integrated into the protocol itself rather than implemented solely via smart contracts. Documentation says the ledger supports order-book trading, AMMs, or a combination, depending on liquidity.
- Ripple and XRPL proponents point to continuous operation since 2012 as evidence that the network was an early DeFi/DEX pioneer.
XRPL is still evolving
- XRPL isn’t standing still: the XRPL Foundation has proposed “AMM Swappable Curves” to add StableSwap-style curves and concentrated liquidity to the native AMM.
- The ledger is also voting on XLS-65 and XLS-66, amendments that would introduce native vaults and fixed-rate lending — enabling pooled asset vaults and fixed-term loans without relying on external smart contracts.
- On the enterprise side, Ripple and Bitso recently launched MXNB, a Mexican peso stablecoin on XRPL tied into Ripple’s Payments on DEX rails for regulated settlement.
Not identical solutions
- Mato’s continuous clearing auction and XRPL’s long-running native order book are different technical approaches. Mato emphasizes parallel processing within a timed auction window; XRPL built order book mechanics into the ledger from the start and later added AMM tooling.
- Still, the exchange of comments underscores how older blockchain architectures are resurfacing in modern debates about fairness, front-running and market design.
Bottom line
As Solana builders experiment with new DEX primitives, proponents of older platforms like XRPL are reminding the market that some solutions — particularly around order sequencing and on-ledger exchange primitives — have been explored before. Mato and XRPL offer different implementations toward the same goal: fairer on-chain trading.
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