Ripple is inviting feedback from its developer community on a plan to introduce federated sidechains on the XRP Ledger.
Fast Facts:
- “Among the most-requested features we have heard from developers and contributors to the XRP Ledger is smart-contract capabilities brought about by the exponential growth in decentralized finance … However, we at Ripple have long advocated against features that would compromise the XRP Ledger’s highly efficient focus on payments,” wrote David Schwartz, Ripple’s chief technology officer, in a blog post.
- Federated sidechains, Schwartz wrote, “will enable developers to implement new features, such as native smart contracts that interoperate seamlessly with XRP and the XRP Ledger, while also allowing the XRP Ledger to maintain its existing, ‘lean and efficient’ feature set.”
- Ripple will need to build build new federated software that will connect sidechains to the XRP Ledger mainnet, Schwartz explained. Each federated sidechain would function as its own blockchain, and XRP or the sidechain’s native asset could be moved from one chain to another.