Ripple’s CTO, David Schwartz, says the company should have prioritized native smart contract capabilities on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) much earlier.
Speaking during a recent X Spaces session titled “Programmability on the XRPL,” Schwartz explained that Ripple’s early skepticism toward smart contracts delayed the development of the feature at the Layer-1 level. In his view, this hesitation ultimately slowed developer innovation across the XRPL ecosystem.
Early Hesitation
Launched in 2012, the XRP Ledger was designed for speed, reliability, and payments, not complex, programmable applications. Consequently, Ripple initially saw no need to develop smart contracts.
After Ethereum launched in 2015, smart contracts gained popularity in the crypto space, and many projects began exploring them. While XRPL developers were making moves to introduce the feature, Ripple remained hesitant.
According to Schwartz, the company’s early stance reflected a belief that smart contracts had to be perfect or industry-leading to justify implementation. In hindsight, he admits this mindset caused Ripple to overlook the value of incremental progress.
Current Limitations Faced by Developers
Furthermore, Schwartz acknowledged that developers currently face challenges building directly on the XRP Ledger. According to him, developers must either propose new features to the blockchain, which requires community approval through amendments, or focus solely on creating wallets and front-end applications.
While noting that building wallets and user interfaces is essential, Schwartz emphasized that this approach is not ideal for creating sustainable businesses on the blockchain.
Underestimating the Value of Small Progress
In addition, he noted that even basic smart contract functionality would have delivered meaningful benefits. The CTO suggested that this basic functionality could have enabled developers to differentiate their products with unique on-chain features and to implement custom business logic.
Distinguishing products on-chain, according to Schwartz, tends to give developers a better experience on the ledger and influences their decisions about which blockchain to build on.
AMM Isn’t Enough
Furthermore, Schwartz noted that while XRPL’s Automated Market Maker (AMM) is a powerful feature, its impact is limited without surrounding tools such as smart contracts, which would have enabled deeper integration and programmability.
In essence, he believes that even the simplest smart contract functionality would have enabled developers to build new products on top of existing features.
Meanwhile, Ripple began exploring smart contract capabilities on the XRPL last year. The initiative has already produced significant results, with the feature deployed on XRPL’s AlphaNet earlier this month, enabling developers to test it before its eventual rollout on the mainnet.
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