Users Can Now Use XRP on EVM and Cosmos Chains as Coreum Launches XRPL Bridge

Coreum has now launched its XRP Ledger (XRPL) bridge, allowing network participants to move XRP from the XRPL to Coreum, the Cosmos ecosystem, and other supported EVM-compatible chains.

Reza Bashash, the co-founder of Coreum and Sologenic, first spotlighted this functionality in a recent post on X. Bashash shared a snapshot of the XRP dashboard on the official Coreum explorer, showing that the Coreum network is now home to 1.2 XRP tokens. 

👀 pic.twitter.com/VPCBDAko5w

— Reza Bashash (@rezabashash) March 12, 2024

Coreum has been hinting at the imminent release of its comprehensive XRPL bridge since last year amid the success of the initial bridge rollout a year ago. Recall that the team first launched a bridge between the XRPL and the Coreum network in Q4 2022. 

However, this bridge had limited capabilities, only allowing the transfer of Coreum (COREUM) tokens from the XRP Ledger to the Coreum blockchain. The Crypto Basic reported last December that network participants had already bridged over 37 million COREUM with this bridge.

In December 2023, the Sologenic team, creators of Coreum, announced plans to enhance the bridge’s functionalities by integrating advanced interoperability features and facilitating the seamless transfer of multiple assets. 

Coreum Now Home to XRP

The recent milestone fulfills this vision, enabling the smooth transfer of XRP and other assets from the XRPL to Coreum. Nonetheless, the team has not released any official announcement on the launch, with plans to hold an X AMA on the bridge’s capabilities tomorrow at 10 AM (PST).

The official Coreum X account also teased the launch on Monday, depicting a connection between the EVM-compatible blockchains supported by Coreum and the XRPL. Responding to the depiction, Bob Ras, co-founder of Coreum, provided a detailed overview of the bridge’s capabilities.

According to him, the bridge would facilitate interoperability with EVM-compatible networks, including Polkadot, Avalanche, Ethereum, and BNB Smart Chain. This interoperability will be possible through the use of the Inter-Blockchain Communication (IBC) protocol.

On the horizon soon: Expanding support for interoperability with EVM-compatible networks such as Ethereum, BNB Smart Chain, Polkadot, and Avalanche through IBC. This will allow assets from those chains to flow back and forth between #Coreum and these blockchains seamlessly!

— Bob Ras (@bobrasX) March 11, 2024

For the uninitiated, Inter-Blockchain Communication is a set of protocols and standards that allow different blockchain networks to communicate and transfer assets or data between each other in a decentralized manner. 

Implications for XRP

Bob Ras emphasized that the use of IBC for blockchain interoperability will allow market participants to transfer assets from the supported blockchains to Coreum and also between the supported blockchains. Essentially, users could bridge XRP to Coreum and other networks like Ethereum or Polkadot.

Seeing as the Cosmos team is behind the IBC protocol, this development would also allow XRP to be bridged to the Cosmos ecosystem. Data from the Coreum explorer indicates that market participants have bridged 4.1 XRP with 3 holders as of press time. 

This low figure, coupled with the absence of an official announcement, could indicate that the bridge is not yet fully operational for the public. Once operational, it could open doors for users to leverage XRP on AMMs in the Coreum ecosystem and other possibilities, such as staking and smart contract functionalities.