<blockquote>
  <p><strong>Changing the Reserve Requirements</strong></p>
  
  <p>The XRP Ledger has a mechanism to adjust the reserve requirements for long-term changes in the value of XRP. Any changes have to be approved by the consensus process. See Fee Voting for more information."</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Basically, give it some time and they will change the requirement.  </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2018-01-08T12:07:14.750Z
2018-01-10T11:37:08.833Z
2018-01-10T11:37:08.833Z
DaveB
<p>The issue is that for safety reasons Ripple currently has no way to remove the account root ledger node to completely remove a Ripple account. Since the reserves exist to help limit the size of the current ledger, any un-deletable ledger node requires a non-refundable XRP reserve (although if the XRP reserves are lowered, as they have been in the past, the difference becomes spendable again). Note that a Ripple account can use all of their XRP in transaction fees, just not in payments or trades.</p>

<p>There is a good discussion on why Ripple doesn't allow for account deletion on the <a href="https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&amp;t=32#p271" rel="nofollow">Ripple forums</a>. Basically, doing so would make it possible for a user (or client) to in error re-create the same Ripple account/address (e.g. if someone uses an old Ripple secret to "recover" their account). That would make old transactions signed by that account now be potentially valid against this "new" account (since Ripple uses a simple sequence number per account to prevent replays).</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-25T18:40:46.487Z
2014-05-25T18:40:46.487Z
dchapes
<p>I understand the Ripple <a href="https://ripple.com/wiki/Reserves" rel="noreferrer">reserve system</a>. You need some XRP in order for you to preserve your account into the Ripple network and additional XRP to assign trust line to your account. I also understand that you cannot spend this reserve because otherwise your account will be removed from the network and forgotten.</p>

<p>However, what if I want to recover the XRP from an account because I don't need the account anymore? Shouldn't it be possible to spend the reserve XRP on your own risk?</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-05-25T18:32:16.863Z
"8c" is 8 cents or USD 0.08, the current value Gracchus calculated for the 20 XRP account reserve.
dchapes
<ripple><xrp-reserve>
Why can't I spend my reserve XRP and delete my address from the network?
Steven Roose
# Why can't I spend my reserve XRP and delete my address from the network?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-05-24)

I understand the Ripple [reserve system](https://ripple.com/wiki/Reserves). You need some XRP in order for you to preserve your account into the Ripple network and additional XRP to assign trust line to your account. I also understand that you cannot spend this reserve because otherwise your account will be removed from the network and forgotten.

However, what if I want to recover the XRP from an account because I don't need the account anymore? Shouldn't it be possible to spend the reserve XRP on your own risk?

**Tags:** ripple, xrp-reserve

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: "8c" is 8 cents or USD 0.08, the current value Gracchus calculated for the 20 XRP account reserve.  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-05-25. Score: 3 | Accepted answer

The issue is that for safety reasons Ripple currently has no way to remove the account root ledger node to completely remove a Ripple account. Since the reserves exist to help limit the size of the current ledger, any un-deletable ledger node requires a non-refundable XRP reserve (although if the XRP reserves are lowered, as they have been in the past, the difference becomes spendable again). Note that a Ripple account can use all of their XRP in transaction fees, just not in payments or trades.

There is a good discussion on why Ripple doesn't allow for account deletion on the [Ripple forums](https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32#p271). Basically, doing so would make it possible for a user (or client) to in error re-create the same Ripple account/address (e.g. if someone uses an old Ripple secret to "recover" their account). That would make old transactions signed by that account now be potentially valid against this "new" account (since Ripple uses a simple sequence number per account to prevent replays).


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### Answer by username_2 on 2018-01-08. Score: 2

> **Changing the Reserve Requirements**
>
> The XRP Ledger has a mechanism to adjust the reserve requirements for long-term changes in the value of XRP. Any changes have to be approved by the consensus process. See Fee Voting for more information."

Basically, give it some time and they will change the requirement.


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