Skip to main content

Coinpath for Ledger-Based Networks

Payment-ledger blockchains — primarily Ripple (XRP Ledger) and Stellar (XLM) — work differently from both UTXO and EVM chains. Instead of simple value transfers, a single payment transaction can involve currency conversions, multiple issuers, and implicit intermediate transfers.

Challenges Specific to Payment Ledgers​

1. Cross-Currency Payments​

A sender can pay in one currency while the receiver receives a different currency. For example, Alice sends USD and Bob receives EUR — the ledger's built-in DEX converts between them automatically inside the same transaction.

Coinpath handles this by recording separate sent and received amounts and currencies on every edge, so the money-flow graph accurately reflects what each party actually sent and received.

2. Multiple Conversions in a Single Transaction​

A payment may pass through several order-book hops before settling. A single Ripple Payment transaction can trigger a chain like USD → XRP → EUR → GBP behind the scenes.

Coinpath extracts each intermediate hop as a distinct edge in the fund-flow graph, giving you visibility into the full conversion path rather than just the start and end points.

3. Multiple Issuers for the Same Currency​

On Ripple and Stellar, anyone can issue a token with the same symbol. "USD" from Gateway A is a different asset than "USD" from Gateway B. Two tokens named USD are not fungible unless they share the same issuer.

Coinpath distinguishes assets by (symbol + issuer) so that fund-flow edges are never incorrectly merged across different trust lines.

4. Implicit Transfers (Ripple-Specific)​

The Ripple API does not always surface every address-to-address transfer within a transaction. Some transfers happen implicitly as a side effect of order-book matching or path-finding.

Coinpath's pre-processing layer reconstructs all implicit value transfers between addresses, even when they are not explicitly listed in the raw transaction data.

Adaptations in the Money-Flow Graph​

To address these challenges, the Coinpath graph for ledger-based chains differs from EVM/UTXO graphs in several ways:

FeatureEVM / UTXOLedger-based
Edge currenciesSame on both sidesMay differ (sent currency ≠ received currency)
Same address at consecutive levelsNot allowedAllowed (self-trades from DEX matching)
Trade visibilityAll transfers explicitOnly taker side appears; maker side excluded from path
Pre-processingMinimalExtracts implicit transfers from raw tx data