Ripple Seeks to Axe Over 10K Lines of Code with XChainBridge Withdrawal
Ripple has proposed withdrawing XChainBridge and its related fix from the XRP Ledger (XRPL) community review process. The company argues that Axelar already handles the XRPL EVM Sidechain's main bridging needs, citing weak developer demand and maintenance costs.
The design of XChainBridge uses witness servers to verify activity across chains and support asset transfers, but Ripple claims expanding witness networks increases coordination demands and complicates accountability. Running a large public bridge also exceeded its operational expertise, according to the company.
Ripple selected Axelar in June 2024 as a substitute for private-sidechain use cases, but kept XChainBridge available for voting. The company cited Axelar's network of more than 75 validators, shared signing system, and regular security-key rotation, which reduces operational complexity.
Withdrawing XChainBridge would allow developers to remove over 10,000 lines from xrpld, the XRP Ledger core code.