Ripple has announced major upcoming developments in the programmability of the XRP Ledger, targeting early 2025 as a pivotal moment for the platform. According to Blog post According to the Ripple team on September 2, these improvements will significantly increase the utility of the ledger by integrating smart contracts and expanded developer tools, marking “a significant year for programmability.”
Ripple Develops Native Smart Contracts
The initiative to expand programmability on the XRP Ledger includes two major advances, starting with introducing native smart contract capabilities directly on the XRP Ledger Mainnet. This capability, which is still in the research phase, represents a fundamental shift in the structure of the ledger, with the goal of enabling developers to implement smart contracts that can be executed automatically without central oversight.
Meanwhile, Ripple is moving closer to deploying the XRPL EVM Sidechain in collaboration with Peersyst Technology. The XRPL EVM Sidechain is expected to launch on the devnet soon, promising a significant acceleration in programming features in early 2025. “This sidechain will bring Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility to the XRP community, allowing developers to use familiar programming tools and languages, thereby expanding the appeal of the XRP Ledger to the global developer community,” Ripple says.
The XRPL EVM sidechain is designed to be a game changer, featuring Axelar as a bridge to facilitate seamless transactions between it and the XRP Ledger and over 55 other chains. This architecture not only expands the usability of XRP, but also improves its functionality across multiple platforms. Wrapped XRP (eXRP) will act as both a native asset and a gas token within the sidechain, ensuring that transactions are secure and efficient.
The native smart contract functionality on the XRP Ledger mainnet builds on the inherent features of the ledger such as Escrows, NFTs, trusted trust lines, payment channels, decentralized exchanges (DEXs), and automated market makers (AMMs). “This growing suite of layer 1 improvements is designed to accelerate the pace of innovation and facilitate broad adoption among developers,” the blog post reads.
Despite the promise of enhanced flexibility and capacity, the XRP Ledger modification process, which is essential to implementing the new layer 1 features, will remain the same, ensuring that updates are secure and beneficial across the community. However, “the upcoming smart contract functionality will provide additional flexibility for these developers by enabling permissionless development in a way that complements the modification functionality.”
Overall, Ripple is emphasizing its commitment to accelerating momentum “further in early 2025.” Ripple says that both native smart contract capabilities as well as the EVM sidechain “will address the common needs of institutional DeFi users and developers, enabling them to design solutions that fit their specific business or dApp requirements,” adding that “Ripple and the broader XRP community are committed to fostering a platform that not only advances technology but also empowers developers and businesses to build revolutionary applications.”
Via X, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse Confirmed The strategic significance of these developments: “With the new programmability in the works for the XRP Ledger (something the XRP community has rightly been asking for) and the growing opportunity for Ripple’s institutional products to serve crypto-native clients — the foundations of a crypto infrastructure that serves real-world use cases are becoming increasingly strong by the day.”
At the time of publishing this report, XRP was trading at $0.5668.
Featured image created using DALL.E, chart from TradingView.com
Comments are closed, but trackbacks and pingbacks are open.