Ripple CTO’s Epic Take on XRP Smart Contracts Stuns Crypto Community

Vet, the cofounder of xrpcafe and an XRPL dUNL validator, shared in a recent X post Ripple CTO David Schwartz’s perspective on the introduction of smart contracts on the XRP Ledger (XRPL).

The X post reads: “Joel Katz on XRP Smart Contracts:It’s not all or nothing, some programmability is better than nothing. Useful, small and safe to allow real world use cases without compromising existing use cases of the XRPL.Challenge is to go slowly and incrementally increase confidence.”

.@JoelKatz on #XRP Smart Contracts:

It’s not all or nothing, some programmability is better than nothing. Useful, small and safe to allow real world use cases without compromising existing use cases of the XRPL.

Challenge is to go slowly and incrementally increase confidence.

— Vet 🏴‍☠️ (@Vet_X0) September 18, 2024

This viewpoint represents a cautious and step-by-step implementation of smart contracts on XRP Ledger. The phrase “useful, small, and safe” suggests smart contract capabilities that would allow for a range of real-world applications without compromising the key use cases that XRP already serves.

“The challenge is to go slowly and incrementally increase confidence” as indicated by the Ripple CTO suggests that there is currently no rush to enter the complex world of smart contracts, but rather to take a step-by-step approach.

The Ripple CTO yesterday held a Space to discuss programmability on the XRPL, highlighting earlier that his thinking had evolved on the topic. Mayukha Vadari, a senior software engineer at RippleX, recently solicited feedback from the XRP community on what they would want to see in a programmability system created for the XRPL mainnet.

Ripple to bring new programmability to XRPL in 2025

In an early September announcement, Ripple stated that it, along with the broader XRP community, was committed to bringing new programmability, including smart contracts, to the XRPL dev ecosystem in 2025 – through the XRPL EVM sidechain (which is already in the works) and by exploring native capabilities on XRPL Mainnet.

As regards the XRPL EVM sidechain, the Ripple CTO responded to an X user saying: “I hope the XRPL EVM sidechain is extremely successful and competitive as a smart contract platform and will be another XRP ecosystem. And, of course, the risk to XRPL is much lower there. I think there’s also a use case for smart contracts directly on XRPL.”

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