Ripple's Chief Technical Officer, David Schwartz, has detailed the design philosophy behind the XRP Ledger, emphasizing its operation without the need for miners or smart contracts. This explanation comes in the wake of a $120 million exploit on the DeFi protocol Balancer, which has sparked renewed criticism of smart contract dependencies. Schwartz highlighted that XRP Ledger validators do not earn transaction fees, unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum, where miners and validators are incentivized. Instead, XRP Ledger's validators assist nodes in reaching consensus on transaction order, aiming to prevent rent-seeking behavior and ensure transaction finality through mathematical certainty rather than financial incentives.