Ripple’s developer arm RippleX announced on Tuesday the launch of the NFT-Devnet, where they have deployed the XLS-20 amendment. Cryptographer and leading software engineer at RippleX, Nik Bougalis tweeted about the release and noted that the NFT-Devnet was available for anyone wanting to begin testing proposed native NFT extensions to the XRP Ledger [XRPL].
Bougalis stated,
Ripple and the team have planned earlier in May 2021 to issue non-fungible tokens [NFTs] on the XRPL. In May, the General Manager at RippleX, Monica Long proposed “additional functionality that would provide enhanced NFT support on the XRP ledger.” She had noted,
“Pending implementation and an 80% vote in favor of enabling the amendment, developers would be able to support more NFTs at lower cost, offer to buy or sell NFTs, leverage auction functionality, and direct a cut of secondary sales to the original issuer on the XRPL.”
RippleX had invited developers to provide feedback on the proposal.
Shortly after in November, Long spoke about the XLS-20 standard for minting NFTs on the XRPL and stated,
“So it’s really going to be up to the amendment process. That’s kind of the beautiful thing about these blockchains, is they’re decentralized and open. But it means, you know, it’s a timeline that’s in the hands of the community, really.”
Things appeared to have been running smoothly on the developers’ end as the NFT-Devenet was finally launched.
RippleX NFT-Devnet
As per Bougalis,
“The @RippleXDev team launched the NFT-Devnet to make it easy for developers to experiment, by building and testing apps that use these new extensions to the core ledger protocol.
And if you’re a #pythonista, check out xrpl-py 1.3.0 which supports XLS-20d:”
It shall be noted that this was a devnet and its launch did not impact the XRPL. Bougalis added that the launch only highlighted the value they placed on responsible development and scaling.
The NFT-Devnet will be used to evaluate the quality of the implementation and to understand the operational implications the XLS-20d spec will have on the ledger.
XRP+NFTs=…?
The XRP community had been waiting for new XRPL capabilities for a long time now. Especially, given the murky outlook of the Ripple vs. SEC lawsuit, this could offer a breath of fresh air to XRP and Ripple communities. Ripple CEO, Brad Garlinghouse shared the update stating “new year, new #XRPL capabilities”.
Meanwhile, others have already started spotting advertisements for XRP NFTs. Mochi Donuts shared,
Adding to the ongoing momentum, XUMM wallet, a non-custodial client for the XRPL also supported the XLS20d and offer users an understanding of how it would work.
As Ripple and its ecosystem expand, the XRP community may have a lot more to look forward to in terms of the utilization of their digital assets.