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- XRP Ledger developers introduce Rippled 2.0, featuring essential amendments such as XLS-38 Cross-Chain Bridge and XLS-40 Decentralized Identity.
- Ripple faces ongoing legal scrutiny from the SEC focusing on XRP sales to institutional investors.
XRP Ledger developers have unveiled the launch of Rippled 2.0, featuring two significant feature amendments, XLS-38 Cross-Chain Bridge and XLS-40 Decentralized Identity, along with various fix amendments and enhancements.
The XLS-38 Cross-Chain Bridge enables the seamless movement of XRP and fungible tokens within XRPL Mainnet, XRPL Sidechains, and the planned EVM sidechain. The Cross-Chain Bridge boasts security measures through independent witness servers certifying transactions crossing chains.
Additionally, the XLS-40 Decentralized Identity (DID) empowers users with full control over their online identity in a self-sovereign manner. This DID implementation adheres to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard, fostering verified, self-sovereign digital identification interoperable across distributed ledgers or networks.
XLS-40 introduces a lightweight amendment, incorporating a new ledger object manipulated by associated transactions. The release also includes API updates, unveiling API v2 to enhance response consistency by removing obsolete fields and methods while refining readability.
Several challenges emerged, including issues related to authorized trustlines and a combination of flags when the exchange rate on an offer diverges from the order book rate. These challenges were classified as core ledger updates. When introducing new features to the XRPL Mainnet, XLS specifications involving fundamental changes to the core protocol undergo an amendment procedure, subject to a vote by the validator community.
To achieve approval, an amendment must garner at least an 80% “yes” or “accept” vote from validators, and this threshold must be maintained for a minimum of two weeks. If both criteria are met, the amendment is ratified, and the functionality outlined in the XLS standard is implemented on the mainnet. This procedural sequence repeats for each amendment independently.
The XRP Price Action and SEC Battle
Last year, the US courts ruled in favor of Ripple noting that the XRP sales do not constitute a securities laws violation. However, the overhang remains due to the separate observations for the retail and the institutional sale of XRP.
This categorization holds significant importance in the SEC’s legal action, as they argue that obtaining access to these documents is crucial for Judge Torres to make well-informed decisions regarding potential injunctions and civil penalties against Ripple.
The recent legal filing specifically focused on XRP sales to institutional investors. Both Ripple and the SEC shall conclude discovery related to remedies by February 12. Following the submission of remedy-related briefs and a reply brief from the SEC, Judge Analisa Torres will determine the appropriate penalty for Ripple’s sale of XRP to US institutional investors.
🚀 #Ripple vs. SEC: The stakes are high! 💼 #SEC escalates demands in #XRP lawsuit, seeking Ripple's financial secrets for 2022-2023 & vital 'Institutional Sales' contracts. Ripple's resistance heats up the courtroom. 🚀 pic.twitter.com/xACtLjEw0t
— Marcel Knobloch aka Collin Brown (@CollinBrownXRP) January 12, 2024
The SEC is honing in on the $770 million generated from XRP sales to institutions. The requested statements are likely to provide the SEC with insights into the proceeds and expenses associated with these sales.
Recently, after the spot Bitcoin ETF approval, there have been talks about the possibility of spot XRP ETF by mid-2024. However, with the ongoing SEC battle, this isn’t going to be an easy milestone to attain.
The XRP price has been once again under pressure trading 3.16% down at $0.5987 and a market cap of $32.4 billion.
