The ecosystem for Ripple’s XRP Ledger (XRPL) is scheduled to change a lot in 2025 thanks to new developments that will improve its usefulness, link it with other networks and make it more attractive to developers. According to reports, the Q2 for XRPL is expected to witness further institutional adoption.
The major events in the second quarter of 2025 XRPL EVM Sidechain’s mainnet launch, new native smart contracts appearing via Extensions and Axelar’s interoperability network.
On March 31, 2025, the XRPL EVM Sidechain from Peersyst was put into test mode after it passed a security audit in February. Scheduled to be released on the mainnet in Q2, the sidechain uses Cosmos SDK and evmOS, so it works with all Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) contracts.
Thanks to this, Ethereum smart contracts can be launched directly on a sidechain linked to the XRP Ledger via Axelar. Squid Router allows users to send testnet XRP and other tokens between networks and Grove is the initial external RPC provider for these operations.
At the same time, XRP Ledger is working toward the addition of native smart contracts. Rather than introducing entirely new contracts, the initiative starts with Extensions, a new option where developers can simply add code to basic XRPL tools.
The next Extension, Smart Escrows, is planned for a Q3 2025 announcement and will come with a Smart Contract devnet expected for Q4. At the same time, XRPL is focusing on improving how decentralized finance (DeFi) operates.
After finishing developing its own DEX in November 2024, XRPL began a four-phase setup process. In Q2 2025, it will offer advanced options on its DEX, including liquidity pools, different tokens swaps and more sophisticated orders and will also help with real-world asset (RWA) tokenization.
In February, Axelar revealed that it will add XRP Ledger into its network during the second quarter of 2025. Thanks to this integration, XRPL will connect with more than 60 blockchain platforms which means users of Ethereum and Cosmos can access liquidity across many DeFi services. With these changes, XRPL can now support more decentralized software and trading options.
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