Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse calls attention to an ongoing initiative to introduce enhanced programmability to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) development ecosystem.

Garlinghouse made this known in a tweet today while reacting to a series of announcements from Ripple’s official X handle.

Ripple Announces 3 Key Initiatives in Korea

According to the announcement, Ripple unveiled three key initiatives aimed at strengthening the foundations of crypto infrastructure to foster institutional adoption and blockchain utility. The announcement comes ahead of Ripple’s XRPL Zone Seoul conference in South Korea, which is slated to take place on September 4.

Ripple Partners FutureVerse

Riple disclosed that its custody arm, Ripple Custody, has partnered with metaverse-focused entity FutureVerse to secure its assets safely.

FutureVerse is not a stranger to the XRPL ecosystem. Before now, the metaverse company had already adopted the XRPL NFT standard, leveraging the network’s high throughput capabilities and low transaction fees.

In addition, FutureVerse supplies network liquidity via its integration with the XRPL native decentralized exchange (DEX) and utilizes XRP as a gas token on its Root Network. Furthermore, Ripple participated in FutureVerse’s $54 million Series A funding round in 2023.

With the recent partnership, FutureVerse will leverage the Ripple Custody solution to store its digital assets before they are minted on the Ottó blockchain.

Upcoming Programmability in XRP Ledger

Second, Ripple disclosed that it is working with the broader XRP community to enhance XRPL with new programmability, such as smart contracts, by 2025.

The company aims to achieve this feat through the XRPL EVM sidechain, which is currently in development. Additionally, Ripple said it will also explore the possibility of enabling native smart contracts on the XRPL Mainnet.

In a follow-up blog post, Ripple explained that these efforts will equip developers and users with greater flexibility for multiple use cases. The ultimate goal of this move is to attract more developers to the XRPL ecosystem.

Korea’s Yonsei University Joins Ripple’s UBRI

Lastly, Ripple announced that it has added Korea’s Yonsei University as its 58th global partner under the University Blockchain Research Initiative (UBRI) program.

Since the program’s inception, Ripple has committed over $60 million to support blockchain-related academic excellence and research by providing grants, technical resources, and strategic partnerships.

Ripple CEO Reacts

Reacting to the development, Ripple’s CEO expressed optimism about the recently unveiled initiatives. Specifically, he noted that the XRP community has been requesting enhanced programmability that could introduce smart contracts to the blockchain.

With new programmability in the works for the XRP Ledger (something the XRP community has rightly been asking for) and the growing opportunity for Ripple’s enterprise products to serve crypto-native customers (such as @futureverse using Ripple Custody) – the foundations of crypto… https://t.co/ZLQXl0BcOD

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) September 3, 2024

According to him, the ongoing development of advanced programmability on XRPL and FutureVerse’s adoption of its custody solution demonstrates the practical use of crypto technology in the real world.