The Ripple team plans to introduce more programmable features to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), as revealed by DL News and the company’s CTO, David Schwartz.
The Ethereum-inspired update includes the launch of smart contracts for payment management and a new lending protocol.
According to Schwartz, the aim is to gain the benefits of programmability while minimizing associated risks. The team does not seek to achieve the same flexibility as Ethereum but aims to expand XRPL’s functionality. For instance, smart contracts will allow automatic conversion of received funds into a user’s preferred asset.
The lending protocol, slated for launch in the third quarter, will be a hybrid model. An off-chain agent will handle borrower curation and debt collection. XRPL will tokenize interest in repayments and distribute payments.
“It’s a kind of good separation between TradFi on the frontend and DeFi on the backend,” explained Schwartz.
Alongside technical upgrades, Ripple continues to acquire other companies.
“Our mergers and acquisitions department is very busy. We have several potential deals at various stages,” stated Schwartz.
Previously, Ripple acquired crypto broker Hidden Road and custodial firms Metaco and Standard Custody. According to Schwartz, crypto companies have a unique opportunity for acquisitions as traditional financial giants from Wall Street have yet to actively compete for these assets.
In June, investment firm Guggenheim Treasury Services launched digital commercial paper on XRPL.
Later, Circle issued the USDC stablecoin on Ripple’s network.