June 10, 2025 Singapore – The creators of the XRP Ledger will release a new sidechain compatible with Ethereum smart contracts in the second quarter of 2025. The news was delivered by Ripple chief technology officer David Schwartz at the Apex 2025 conference in Singapore.
This sidechain is already testing on a test network and should be released in full in the next few months. It will allow developers to run Ethereum-compatible applications (dApps) on the XRP Ledger, bringing together the speed and low fees of XRP transactions with the capability of Ethereum smart contracts.
Ripple and a developer group named Peersyst are constructing the project. It makes it compatible with Ethereum using a toolset known as evmOS. Axelar will enable the sidechain to be connected to the main XRP Ledger via a bridge. The new sidechain will use wrapped XRP to pay transaction fees.
Although the XRP Ledger already includes its own mechanism to enable smart contracts, it is not yet compatible with the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) most Ethereum developers work with. That will be corrected with this sidechain, which will allow more developers to develop on the XRP network.
Its complete rollout is planned later this quarter, following further testing and validator configuration.
This story is still developing.
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