📢 XRP Ledger Developers Openly Protest Ripple's Development of Native Smart Contract Functionality
📧 Recently, Wietse Wind, founder of XRP Labs, sent an open letter to Ripple and the community at large, expressing his disappointment with Ripple's decision-making on smart contracts.
💰 Wind, the developer of the Xaman wallet (formerly Xumm) and the Hooks smart contract functionality, was unhappy with Ripple's announcement of the development of native smart contract functionality, especially since he himself has been working on this since 2020.
🔍 In the letter, Wind said that he was very disappointed because Ripple had previously said that it would not introduce native smart contracts, but now it has suddenly changed direction. He mentioned that he and his team have put in a lot of effort and time to turn Hooks from concept to reality.
📝 Wind recalled that they came up with the vision of Hooks, an innovative smart contract solution on the XRPL Ledger mainnet, four years ago. Despite the initial skepticism, they persevered, and now Hooks is a mature, battle-tested feature.
🤔 Meanwhile, Wind expressed concerns about Ripple's new strategy, which he believes could lead to duplication of work and ignore the efforts of their team. He mentioned that Ripple's CTO David Schwartz had previously said that the XRP Ledger is a "fixed-function ledger" and that smart contracts should be the business of other networks.
💡 In his letter, Wind emphasized that he hopes Ripple will reconsider their decision and truly work with community developers to leverage their contributions. He warned that Ripple now faces a choice: whether to support existing, proven technology or go down a path that could alienate developers and damage the ecosystem.
📣 Finally, Wind said that the future of smart contracts on the XRP ledger is uncertain. Ripple's next move will determine whether it really values the community's contributions or prefers a more centralized, corporate approach to development.
💬 What do you think of this open letter and Ripple's decision? Do you think Ripple's sudden change in strategic direction is good for the long-term development of the Ripple ecosystem? Share your thoughts in the comments!
