Ripple Aiming for More Developers With Ethereum Sidechain: CTO

XRP Ledger’s Ethereum sidechain could lead to more experimentation within the network’s ecosystem, while potentially attracting fresh talent, according to Ripple CTO David Schwartz.

A lot of Ethereum-based applications are “just garbage,” but developers’ overarching focus on experimentation “is good,” and could benefit XRP Ledger, he told Decrypt in a recent interview.

“The XRP Ledger’s set of developers is not as big as I think it should be,” he said, attributing part of that to the fact that “we don’t have programmability at layer-1.”

In June, Ripple said that XRP Ledger was entering a multi-chain era with the debut of the XRPL EVM Sidechain. The network supports smart contracts, allowing people to create applications in the same way that they would on Ethereum, while using XRP as its native token.

“If you understand Solidity and building on the EVM platform, you’re welcome here,” Schwartz said, referring to Ethereum’s primary programming language.

In April, Standard Chartered analyst Geoff Kendrick penciled in a year-end price target of $5.50 for XRP, saying the cryptocurrency is “positioned at the heart” of cross-border and cross-currency payments. However, he flagged a “small number of developers” within XRP Ledger’s ecosystem as one of the biggest headwinds for the token.

XRP Ledger’s ecosystem has 168 total developers, while Ethereum and Solana are home to around 8,500 and 4,000 developers, respectively, according to Developer Report. 

“I think it is fair to say that we haven’t been quite as successful in terms of the sort of number of developers,” he said. “We definitely are trying to attract more developers.”

Alongside the networks mainnet debut, Ripple said that the Ethereum-compatible network unlocks new possibilities within XRP Ledger’s ecosystem, including apps that are dedicated to lending and tokenization. They can also tap into “XRPL’s deep liquidity,” it said.

So far, the XRPL EVM Sidechain has gotten off to a quiet start, but Schwartz said Ripple is trying to “encourage people with grants, community funding, [and] driving institutional adoption.” 

As of Wednesday, XRPL’s EVM sidechain had $94,000 worth of assets being used within DeFi applications, according to crypto data provider DefiLlama. The most popular application was Moai Finance, a decentralized exchange with $54 in trading volume over the past day.