Former Ripple Principal Developer Advocate Matt Hamilton defended the utility of the $XRP token and stated that smart contracts are coming to the cryptocurrency’s ledger. These could be used to power decentralized applications in the same way that Ethereum and the BNB Chain are.
Hamilton, who is now the Principal Developer Advocate at Protocol Labs, still spends time on Twitter dispelling myths about XRP and XRPL Ledger. In response to a user who claimed $XRP has “no utility and is heavily centralized,” he stated that it is “literally used daily for cross-border payments, NFTs, web monetization, and so on.”
When a user pointed out that the cryptocurrency’s ledger does not support smart contracts, Hamilton responded by saying that most of the functionality required – such as fungible tokens, NFTs, escrows, decentralized exchanges, and more – is already built in, and confirmed smart contracts are on the way.
Hamilton has previously stated that “in the early days of Bitcoin Talk, you could earn 5 BTC by posting FUD that XRP was centralised and a scam,” and that this is “the source of the vast majority of the disinformation spread about XRP to this day.”
It’s unclear whether the former Ripple executive was referring to smart contracts directly on the $XRP Ledger or through another solution when he mentioned them.
Flare will airdrop Spark (FLR) tokens to XRP holders, according to CryptoGlobe. When the network goes live, each eligible holder will receive 15% of their claimable FLR tokens immediately, with the ability to claim an average of 3% per month thereafter.
Token holders will be able to earn a return on their holdings by committing Spark tokens as collateral to secure the trustless issuance and redemption of FXRP, a protocol designed to “safely enable the trustless issuance, usage, and redemption of XRP on Flare.”
The Flare network will bring Ethereum-based smart contracts to networks that are not Ethereum Virtual Machine compatible, such as the XRP Ledger. XLM, LTC, and DOGE will also be supported.
Furthermore, analysts have stated that the development of an Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible sidechain for the XRP Ledger, as it has been for some of its competitors, could be “very bullish” for the cryptocurrency.
