Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, has stated that the XRP Ledger (XRPL) Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain is a smart plan to bring more developers into the XRPL community. Launched in June, this sidechain works with Ethereum and allows smart contracts, using XRP as its main token.
According to Schwartz, the sidechain “extends the capabilities of the ecosystem without changing the fundamentals that make the XRPL reliable.” It’s designed to attract developers who know the Solidity language, helping them create new and creative applications.
Schwartz admitted that XRPL has fewer developers. It has only 168 developers, compared to Ethereum’s 8,500 and Solana’s 4,000. Still, he thinks the sidechain will encourage experiments that will help XRPL to grow over time.
The network already has $94,000 in decentralized finance (DeFi) apps, with Moai Finance being the top exchange. Ripple plans to support this growth with grants, community funding, and partnerships with big institutions. This will unlock the doors for lending, tokenization, and tapping into XRPL’s liquidity pools.
The launch of the sidechain indicates Ripple’s effort to enter a multi-chain world. This combines XRPL’s fast transactions with Ethereum’s flexible features. Ripple’s push to grow its ecosystem comes as cross-chain solutions gain popularity, and this sidechain is poised to attract more developers and enhance XRPL’s competitiveness.
David Schwartz also highlighted that the sidechain’s early progress has been slow, but it holds great potential for new ideas. This step fits Ripple’s goal to improve its blockchain system, which could increase XRP’s use and value. As the industry watches closely, the success of this project might change XRPL’s place in the global blockchain scene.
