Ripple officially introduced the XRP Ledger’s Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain to the mainnet in an bid to improve the ecosystem’s interoperability and allow developers to deploy their Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dapps) with the XRPL.
The development adds EVM-compatible smart contracts while maintaining a connection to the XRPL, giving developers access to the ecosystem at a low cost, Ripple said in a blog post. It is designed to eliminate the trade-off between EVM compatibility and XRPL’s own advantages, opening the door for dapps to lean into XRP’s payments infrastructure.
“The XRPL EVM Sidechain introduces a flexible environment for developers to deploy EVM-based applications, while maintaining a connection to the XRPL’s efficiency,” David Schwartz, Ripple’s chief technology officer and a co-creater of XRPL, said in the post. “It extends the capabilities of the ecosystem without changing the fundamentals that make the XRPL reliable.”
The sidechain operates as a separate blockchain that is parallel and connected to the XRP Ledger over the Axelar bridge, an interoperability protocol. XRPL’s native token, XRP
, will serve as the native gas token for the sidechain.
The chain is designed specifically for developers, as they can now build and deploy their EVM-based applications, while accessing XRPL’s network of over 6 million wallet holders, Ripple said. The sidechain is planned to eventually also integrate with Wormhole, another interoperability protocol, allowing even more developers to access the XRP ecosystem.
