Ripple-backed developer XRPL Labs reveals that an amendment that will introduce a burst of new features to the XRP Ledger (XRPL) is now in beta testnet.
In a tweet, XRPL Labs discloses that the testnet for Hooks is now live after nearly nine months of development.
“July 30th, 2020 we announced our vision on the Hooks Amendment for the XRP Ledger to add business logic support (smart contracts) to the XRP Ledger. We published blogs, insights, concepts & considerations along the way. We are really proud to present our PUBLIC BETA TESTNET today.”
Hooks are small pieces of code defined on an XRPL account that add smart contract functionality by allowing logic to be executed before or after a transaction on the XRP Ledger.
“These Hooks can be really simple, like: ‘reject payments < 10 XRP’, or ‘for all outgoing payments, send 10% to my savings account,’ or more advanced.”
XRPL Labs adds that it is hoping the testnet will pave the way for a fully developed product that could be deployed within the next eight months.
“It’s time for testing, coding, having fun & breaking things, so a future amendment to add Hooks to the XRP Ledger livenet can be drafted with confidence, hopefully at the end of 2021.”
While developers for the leading smart-contract blockchain Ethereum typically use the Solidity programming language to write smart contracts, XRPL Labs says Hooks are usually written in the C language.
For an amendment to sail through, an 80% approval rating will be required from the validators of the XRP ledger. If an amendment stays above that threshold for two weeks, it is activated.
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