On October 17, Ripple said that a sidechain compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM), which runs parallel to the main XRP Ledger (XRPL) blockchain, is now live on the devnet, which is where developers can test implementations before they go live on the main network.
Sidechain uses the Solidity coding language, the same code used to program applications and smart contracts on the Ethereum network and other EVM-compatible blockchains.
Through this move, Ripple and XRPL are likely to benefit in terms of scalability as developers have included in building Ethereum smart contracts that can be entirely leveraged within the Ripple ecosystem.
Even so, this is only the first step of a three-part process. The second phase will take place in early 2023. The third phase is expected in Q2/2023 after Ripple fully deploys the software.
“Our goal in 2023 is to have an EVM sidechain connected to the XRPL mainnet,” said Ripple Chief Technology Officer David Schwartz. “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.”
However, Ripple is looking to do more than just enable Ethereum-based smart contracts. The project launched its own NFT protocol for XRPL as XLS-20 earlier this year, a move that allows developers to launch NFT directly onto the XRPL mainnet. The XLS-20 technology was approved to launch on the XRPL mainnet on September 13 but has not yet gone live.
XRP Price Reaction
Ripple’s native XRP token has not shown much change to the devnet deployment, gaining just 1.5% on the day.
XRP is currently trading at $0.474, down 13% over the past week. However, progress with the ongoing SEC battle has boosted XRP prices by 26% over the past month, when most other altcoins have continued to decline. It is likely to get another boost if the company is victorious against the SEC, which has accused it of carrying out an unregistered securities sale.
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