Good day everybody,
Welcome to CryptoGod-1's blog on all things crypto. Today I am going to do a quite write up regarding a recent article I saw, outlining how Ripple (XRP) are looking at bringing Ethereum (ETH) smart contracts onto their blockchain. This would bring more accessibility to both ecosystems within their blockchains, making the networks more interoperable for all users.
What is Ripple (XRP)?
I am certain at this stage we have all encounter Ethereum (ETH) in one format or another, whether it be through D'apps, the native coin itself, or things like NFT's hosted on the Ethereum Blockchain. So what is Ripple? Without overdoing it with technical mumbo jumbo, Ripple is a blockchain-based digital payment network and protocol with its own token, known as XRP. Its main process is a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, very similar in ways to the international SWIFT system for banking transfers. SWIFT is used by banks and financial middlemen dealing across currencies, which is an area Ripple is looking to gain access into and become the leading Cryptocurrency for banking.
Ripple is the name of the company and the network, and XRP is the cryptocurrency token. The purpose of XRP is to serve as an intermediate mechanism of exchange between two currencies or networks—as a sort of temporary settlement layer denomination. Ripple was first released in 2012 and was co-founded by Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb. Rather than making use of blockchain mining, it uses a consensus mechanism, via a group of bank-owned servers, to confirm transactions. These transactions are confirmed in seconds, cost very little, and its system is intended to be used primarily by banks but individual investors can speculate on the price of XRP.
Currently they are in the middle of a two year long lawsuit from the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (SEC), which has arguably affected the adoption and development of the global settlement network. The network also continues to push towards a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) space since it first piloted a CBDC Private Ledger for banks in March 2021. In September 2022 it partnered with The Royal Monetary Authority of Bhutan towards a CBDC.
Ripple & Ethereum
Basically, what has happened is that Ripple are testing and creating a way for developers to deploy smart contracts which were made for the larger and more popular Ethereum right onto the XRP Ledger (XRPL) blockchain. This is hoped to be done with little effort, as the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) is a piece of software which runs smart smart contracts on Ethereum. The plan from Ripple is have a computable sidechain where developers will be able to deploy and interact with Ethereum-compatible decentralized applications (DApps) in the future.
The benefits for Ripple and XRPL have huge potential, because of the work developers have already put into building Ethereum smart contracts which could be leveraged in the entirely separate Ripple ecosystem. As it will make use of Solidity, the same code used in applications and smart contracts on the Ethereum network and other EVM blockchains, it should be seamless in going from one to the other. The biggest difference will be the use of XRP as its native currency, unlike Ethereum with makes use of ETH. This will allow developers to access XRPL's fast, low-cost transactions and bring Solidity based smart contracts to XRPL. The XRP-based EVM-compatible sidechain was custom-built by the Tendermint protocol, and aims to process 1000 transactions per second (TPS).
Ripple Sidechain & the Endgoal?
The Sidechain, which is a blockchain that runs in parallel with the main XRPL blockchain, is live on the companies devnet. The devnet is where developers have the ability to test test implementations troubleshoot new technologies before they go live on the main network. The launch was announced on Monday October 17th 2022 via Twitter, as shown below, and describes how the new sidechain will be compatible with the EVM.
Where will this lead? Assuming all the testing and bugs are worked out without too much difficulty, there are plans to launch the second phase of three in early 2023. The third phase is planned for the second quarter, when Ripple will be in a position to fully deploy the software. This was announced by Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz, who told coindesk:
“The bridge in the final solution will be decentralized and all components of the solution will be production ready to handle real world scale and use cases."
“Our goal in 2023 is to have an EVM sidechain connected to the XRPL mainnet,”
Users of Ripple could potentially gain access to decentralized applications like Uniswap and Web3 wallets such as Metamask and XUMM Wallet. This is all assuming those D'apps port over. If they do, the fact the new sidechain will have a cross-chain bridge built into it means XRP and other assets could be transferred between the EVM-supported sidechain and the XRP Ledger Devnet.
Ripple is also going beyond just enabling smart contract from the Ethereum network. Back in January it launched its own NFT protocol on its devnet, known as XLS-20. This will allow developers to launch NFT's directly onto the XRPL mainnet, once it goes live. In speaking with Decrypt, a spokesperson for Ripple said:
"We are optimistic for the eventual adoption of XLS-20 and are thankful the community is so dedicated to a secure and trustworthy rollout."
"Security is fundamental especially in a time where industry wide exploits have become a regular occurrence."
With the first phase now live on the devnet, developers will be keen to dive in and see where it leads. From there the second phase will see the EVM-compatible sidechain transition to a “permission less” chain with improved scalability. Finally, the third and final phase will look to achieve block times similar to that of the XRP Ledger, and this will all be expected in early 2023.
I hope you enjoyed the article and found it interesting to see the developments that Ripple(XRP) are creating to make the EVM and its benefits accessible on the cheaper XRP network. Exciting times ahead.
Have a great day.
Peace. CryptoGod-1.
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