1,400 week one smart contracts: XRP's EVM sidechain gives Ripple a jolt

The XRP Ledger’s long-awaited Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible sidechain, which rolled out on June 30, saw nearly 1,400 smart contracts deployed within its first week, signaling considerable developer demand for smart contract functionality on XRPL.

Built in collaboration with Peersyst Technology and Ripple, the EVM sidechain bridges Ethereum’s developer tools—like Solidity, MetaMask, and Hardhat—with the XRP Ledger’s high throughput, low fees, and 3.4-second block times. It reportedly supports up to 1,000 transactions per second, making it an option for decentralized applications.

In a social media post, Peersyst said, “The need for smart contracts on XRP is crystal clear. Almost 1.4k smart contracts deployed on Mainnet in only 1 week.” 

Ripple pushes for cross-chain growth

The longer-term vision for XRPL is becoming clearer as the EVM sidechain provides a new capability dimension.

The sidechain is designed to facilitate cross-chain action, helping to ensure that dApps can leverage and operate on the Ethereum and XRPL environments. This allows for possibilities in decentralized finance (DeFi), tokenizing real-world assets, financial services (such as lending), and rapid global payments at low cost.

The schedule for the sidechain release also coincides with the recent release of XRPL version 2.5.0, which ushered in several updates to the ledger’s core components. Together, these updates demonstrate Ripple’s mission to evolve XRPL into a complete blockchain operating system, not just a payment network.

Proving that it is on the path of cross-chain integration, Ripple announced that it has brought in Wormhole, a top-of-the-range multi-chain messaging replication protocol.

Wormhole enables cross-blockchain communication among dozens of applications. As such, developers can now create apps that interact with several networks and build on the XRPL.

Ripple says such cross-chain infrastructure is necessary to realize the next generation of Web3 applications, particularly in the financial space, where assets must be moved across different blockchains.

Developers could, for instance, build applications where users borrow tokens denominated in Ethereum but use XRP to close the loan and make the repayment.

Validators and partners back XRP’s EVM sidechain

The EVM sidechain not only lured developers but also received a surge in support from validators and network partners.

At launch, 25 independent firms had already spun validator nodes to support the network. 

Further, the ecosystem is seeing the addition of some of its most valuable integrations yet. Its bridge to the Axelar Network, a cross-chain giant, is already yielding dividends. A cross-chain daily volume of over $100 million has flowed across XRPL-enabled corridors, according to Axelar. Increased liquidity allows XRP to compete with more established smart contract ecosystems such as Ethereum and now Solana and Avalanche.

As the XRPL ecosystem grows, that EVM sidechain might become an on-ramp for thousands of developers seeking lower fees, faster speeds, and more access. XRP, which used to be known only for payments, could evolve into a multi-use blockchain that can support a wide variety of decentralized applications.

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