Bitrabo Editorial
Ripple sets its sights on early 2025 as a groundbreaking year for the development of programmability on the XRP Ledger. Anticipating significant advancements, the platform aims to integrate smart contracts and enhance developer tools, heralding a crucial period for programmability.
Ripple’s Native Smart Contracts Initiative
The plan to widen programmability on the XRP Ledger involves two key progressions. Firstly, the introduction of native smart contract capabilities directly on the XRP Ledger Mainnet, which is still in the research phase. This introduction represents a significant shift in the ledger’s structure, enabling developers to execute smart contracts autonomously without central oversight.
Concurrently, Ripple is on the verge of launching the XRPL EVM Sidechain in cooperation with Peersyst Technology. This sidechain, set to go live on the devnet soon, will ramp up programmability features in early 2025. By providing Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility to the XRP community, developers can leverage familiar tools and programming languages, expanding the XRP Ledger’s appeal to a global developer audience.
The XRPL EVM Sidechain, featuring Axelar as the bridge, facilitates seamless transactions between it, the XRP Ledger, and over 55 other blockchains. This setup not only widens the utilization of XRP but also boosts its functionality across numerous platforms. Wrapped XRP (eXRP) acts as the native asset and gas token within the sidechain, ensuring secure and efficient transactions.
The native smart contract functionality on the XRP Ledger Mainnet leverages inherent features such as Escrows, NFTs, authorized trustlines, payment channels, and the decentralized exchange (DEX) and Automated Market Maker (AMM). These enhancements are designed to accelerate innovation and foster widespread adoption among developers.
The XRP Ledger’s amendment process, crucial for layer-1 features implementation, will remain unchanged to ensure secure and beneficial updates across the community. Nevertheless, the upcoming smart contract functionality will offer developers additional flexibility by enabling permissionless development.
Ripple reiterates its commitment to ramp up momentum in early 2025. The native smart contract capabilities and the EVM sidechain will cater to the needs of institutional DeFi users and developers, empowering them to customize solutions to specific business requirements. Ripple emphasizes nurturing a platform that not only advances technologically but also empowers developers and businesses to create innovative applications.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse underlines the strategic significance of these developments, highlighting the increasing robustness of crypto infrastructure catering to real-world use cases. At the time of writing, XRP was trading at $0.5668.