Ripple Seeks to Scrap XChainBridge Amendment Amid Low Demand and Axelar's Rise

Ripple is recommending that the XRP Ledger community drop the proposed XChainBridge (XLS-38) amendment due to lack of interest and demand. The amendment, which aimed to connect different blockchains and sidechains, has attracted little attention from developers. In a recent update, Ripple engineer Mayukha Vadari stated that Axelar already handles bridging for the XRPL EVM Sidechain, making XLS-38 redundant.

XLS-38 was designed to allow the XRP Ledger mainnet to connect with other blockchains and sidechains, using a system of 'witness servers' to monitor transactions. However, Ripple chose Axelar as the bridge for the XRPL EVM Sidechain due to its security features, user experience, decentralization, and long-term reliability.

Ripple is urging the community to withdraw XLS-38, citing that it would remove over 10,000 lines of unused code from the XRPL codebase. The withdrawal would require XRPL consensus, with validators upgrading to a version containing the change voting against the amendment. Once the network reaches consensus, the XChainBridge and related code will be removed entirely in a subsequent software update.

Ripple emphasized that removing XLS-38 does not mean giving up on connecting the XRP Ledger to other blockchains. Instead, different projects may require different bridging technologies, with tools like Axelar and Wormhole suited for some use cases, while others may benefit from ZK systems or Layer-2 networks.