Ripple, the blockchain infrastructure provider behind the open-source, public blockchain XRP Ledger (XRPL), has unveiled its development plans for the network in 2025, building on already existing features.

According to a blog post, Ripple will focus on enhancing XRPL’s institutional decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem this year, with a focus on regulatory compliance, programmability, and expanded lending.

XRPL’s Roadmap for 2025

Ripple said the new features will enable institutions using XRPL to meet regulatory requirements, offer advanced lending options, and allow developers more flexibility while building and deploying their applications.

XRPL will enhance its identity stack, adding Credentials as a lightweight feature to the already existing decentralized identity (DID) standard. While DID allows XRPL users to create verifiable identities without relying on centralized intermediaries, Credentials will allow users to attest specific criteria to their DID.

The combination of DID and Credentials will enable the introduction of a Permissioned decentralized exchange (DEX) and Permissioned Domains. These features will establish environments that require specific credentials, allowing institutions to engage in decentralized trading while complying with regulatory requirements like anti-money laundering and know-your-customer rules.

Ripple will also introduce Multi-Purpose Tokens (MPTs), which is a new standard for tokenized assets. This standard seeks to bridge the gap between fungible and non-fungible tokens (NFTs); hence, MPTs can be likened to semi-fungible tokens.

In the real-world assets (RWAs) and tokenization space, institutions often find it difficult to represent traditional finance instruments like stocks and bonds on blockchains because of intricate data requirements like expiry dates. With MPTs, institutions can tokenize assets with their associated key metadata, giving them more flexibility than fungible tokens but less uniqueness than NFTs.

Unlocking New Possibilities For XRPL

For the upcoming lending feature, XRPL will allow crypto-native businesses to integrate lending with Ripple payments, DEX, RWAs, and stablecoins. This feature will make use of a default Ripple USD (RLUSD) vault to reduce liquidity fragmentation and automated market making (AMM) for swaps.

Furthermore, XRPL’s expanded programmability will empower builders to unlock new possibilities for the network while preserving what makes the blockchain unique.

XRPL will introduce Extensions, which will enable developers to attach pieces of code to existing primitives, enhancing the network’s functionality without the need for new smart contracts. As a result, there will be escrows, AMMs, and even an XRPL Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) sidechain.

Meanwhile, most of these new features are already being voted on by XRPL validators and will soon be rolled out.