XRP, a leading cryptocurrency, marked its 12th anniversary on June 2, a significant milestone in the digital asset's history. Arthur Britto, co-founder of Ripple Labs, initiated the code lines that generated 100 billion XRP tokens on this day in 2012, laying the foundation for what would become a major player in the cryptocurrency market.

However, the early days of the XRP Ledger were not without their challenges. Due to a significant bug, the earliest days of the XRP Ledger are irretrievable, meaning that the Ledger's history can only be traced back to December 2012, not its actual inception date. Ripple's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) explained in December 2019 that they were still actively fixing bugs during the early days, leading to multiple resets of the Ledger sequence and erasure of transaction history.

Despite these setbacks, Ripple Labs persevered, with Ripple CTO David Schwartz beginning to work with co-founders Arthur Britto and Jed McCaleb in late 2011. Schwartz's first commit was submitted in November 2011, marking the beginning of a journey that would see XRP become one of the most widely traded cryptocurrencies in the world.

Earlier this year, the XRP Ledger underwent a significant upgrade with the introduction of the automated market maker (AMM) feature. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed his excitement about this new feature, which has since seen the total XRP locked exceed five million, according to a recent update. Additionally, the number of active liquidity pools has surpassed 500, demonstrating the growing interest in XRP and its ecosystem.

Vet, the operator of the XRP Ledger dUNL, expressed optimism for volume and swaps to catch up, stating that the AMM/DEX is at the heart of all DeFi on the X social media platform. This sentiment echoes the broader excitement surrounding XRP and its potential to revolutionize the world of decentralized finance.