NFTs on the XRP Ledger (XLS-20)

How native, non-fungible tokens work on the XRP Ledger through the XLS-20 standard.

The XRP Ledger supports non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as a native protocol feature, standardized as XLS-20, rather than as a third-party smart contract standard (in contrast to, for example, Ethereum's ERC-721, which is implemented entirely at the application/contract layer).

Why a native standard

Because NFT support is built directly into the rippled protocol, minting, transferring, offering, and burning NFTs benefit from the same properties as any other XRPL transaction: fast finality, tiny fixed fees (paid and burned like any other transaction — see Transaction Fees and Burning), and no dependency on a specific third-party contract's code being correct, unaudited-contract-risk-free, or still maintained.

Key features of XLS-20 NFTs

• Minting and burning are native transaction types (NFTokenMint, NFTokenBurn).
• Built-in royalties. A creator can specify a royalty percentage that is automatically paid to them on secondary sales, enforced at the protocol level rather than depending on a marketplace's goodwill or a contract that could be bypassed.
• Native offers and trading, similar in spirit to the order-book DEX — buy and sell offers for a specific NFT can be created and accepted directly, with optional support for offers denominated in issued currencies, not just XRP.
• Optional transferability restrictions, such as marking an NFT as non-transferable (soulbound-style) or restricting who can hold it, depending on the flags set at mint time.
• Taxons and metadata, allowing NFTs to be grouped and linked to off-ledger metadata (typically via a URI, similar to other NFT standards).

Reserve implications

Minting NFTs, like other ledger objects, interacts with the owner reserve system — holding many NFTs on an account increases the XRP that account must keep reserved, though the XRPL includes mechanisms (such as NFT "pages," which group multiple NFTs together in the underlying data structure) specifically designed to keep this cost efficient even for accounts holding large NFT collections.

Ecosystem context

XLS-20 activated on XRPL mainnet in 2024 and has been used by a range of NFT marketplaces and creators building specifically on the XRPL, positioning the ledger as a low-fee, fast-settlement alternative to NFT activity on more congestion-prone or higher-fee chains. See Notable XRPL Projects for examples of what has been built using this and other XRPL-native features.