Ripple Wants to Bring Ethereum Smart Contracts to the XRP Ledger

With the beginning of the test phase of Ripple’s new XRP Ledger (XRPL) sidechain, interaction with the Ethereum-compatible decentralized application (Dapps) will be approved.

The test phase was announced by Peersyst technology (a blockchain development firm) in a tweet on October 17th, mentioning that the new sidechain is compatible with Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM). EVM is the software that runs smart contracts on the Ethereum network.

What Do Ripple Users Stand to Gain From This Development?

With this, Ripple users will have access to decentralized apps (dApps) like Uniswap (Should it port over) and Web3 wallets like XUMM wallet and Metamask to ensure interoperability between both networks.

It should also be noted that the new sidechain has a cross-chain bridge feature that enables the easy transfer of XRP and other digital assets between the EVM sidechain and XRP Ledger devnet.

The EVM-compatible sidechain was built on the robust Tendermint protocol that is bent on processing 1000 Transactions per second (TPS). This will boost the platform’s scalability, thereby increasing s the efficiency of the network.

Aside from everyday Ripple users, developers will also benefit from the platform, as cited by Ripple software engineer, Mayukha Vadari. He stated that:

“Developers no longer need to choose between XRPL and EVM-Compatible chains.”

He also said that developers will have access to XRPL fast, cheap transaction costs and bring solidity-based smart contracts to XRPL.

Ripple’s Timeline to Bring It to Life

In a tweet dated Oct 17, 2022, Ripple stated they are “Introducing the first phase of bringing an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain to the #XRPLedger.”

They further made a clarion call to developers to experiment with it, saying:

“EVM developers, we invite you to experiment with the functionality on Devnet and enjoy the best of Ethereum and XRPL for your #DeFi applications.”

The tweet announced the first phase of the three-part process, noting that the EVM sidechain is now available for testing on the XRPL Devnet. The second phase will happen in early 2023, allowing users or anyone to join the EVM chain since it will transition to a permissionless chain. 

However, the third phase, according to Mayukha Vadari, is the end goal that will take place in the second quarter of 2023, when the software will be fully deployed.

No Noticeable Price Change for XRP Following the Announcement

This kind of news easily influences the underlying token’s price on a typical trading day. Unfortunately, there was no significant change in the Ripple token (XRP) price following this development.

It’s good we reiterate that, in fact, the current market condition won’t even favor any price change, irrespective of the token in question.

At the time of writing, XRP was trading for $0.476 per unit. However, there has been an increase of about 23% for the month.

The adoption and development of the Ripple network have also been affected due to the two-year proceeding by the U.S Security Exchange Commission (SEC) led by Gary Gensler against it.