Ripple has recommended withdrawing the XRP Ledger's pending XChainBridge amendment after concluding that its primary use case is already served by Axelar and broader developer demand has not emerged to justify maintaining the code.
Key Takeaways
Ripple recommends withdrawing XChainBridge (XLS-38) after Axelar replaced its intended XRPL EVM Sidechain bridge role
The amendment would add native asset bridges using independent witness servers between connected ledgers
Removing XChainBridge could eliminate more than 10,000 lines from the xrpld server codebase
Ripple controls one validator vote and cannot withdraw or activate the amendment unilaterally
Ripple Recommends Withdrawing XChainBridge Amendment
Mayukha Vadari, a senior software engineer at RippleX, announced the recommendation on Aug. 27. XChainBridge, also known as XLS-38, remains in the XRPL validator voting process and has not activated on the mainnet. Ripple estimated that withdrawing the proposal would allow developers to remove more than 10,000 lines of code from xrpld, the server software that powers the network. No code has been removed yet, and Ripple cannot complete the process independently.
XRP Ledger No Longer Needs XLS-38
XLS-38 was designed to provide a protocol-level framework for moving XRP and issued assets between the XRP Ledger and connected networks. Its intended users included public sidechains, private ledgers, permissioned networks and experimental chains. The system relies on independent witness servers to monitor events on each connected ledger. One of the proposal's main use cases was connecting the XRPL mainnet with its Ethereum Virtual Machine-compatible sidechain. Ripple later selected Axelar to provide that connection instead, and the XRPL EVM Sidechain launched with Axelar as its mainnet bridge in June 2025. This development connects to Ripple's broader expansion, including the Ripple Prime Delta One service launch.
Weak Developer Demand Changed Ripple's Assessment
Ripple initially kept XLS-38 available because developers could still use it for private sidechains and specialized networks that Axelar was not designed to support. However, the company found little evidence of active projects requiring the native bridge. No production deployment has publicly identified XLS-38 as essential to its planned operations. Maintaining the inactive implementation still requires reviews, tests and compatibility work whenever developers update xrpld. Ripple argued that this creates an ongoing maintenance burden without providing a corresponding mainnet benefit. This interoperability decision parallels the broader quantum-safe cross-chain infrastructure developments, including the Postquant Labs quantum cross-chain swap protocol and the RLUSD crossing $2 billion on XRPL.
Withdrawal Would Proceed Through Staged Software Changes
Ripple proposed beginning with a pull request that marks XChainBridge as obsolete in the xrpld codebase. Servers upgrading to that release would automatically vote against activation. Support would decline as validators install the updated software. Once active validators recognize the amendment as obsolete, developers could remove the XChainBridge implementation and the related fixXChainRewardRounding code in a later release. Ripple operates only one validator vote among the network's independent participants. An XRPL amendment normally requires support from more than 80% of trusted validators for two continuous weeks before activation. With 35 validators in the current default configuration, at least 29 affirmative votes would exceed that threshold. Ripple has asked developers or organizations building with XLS-38 to present specific use cases before the staged withdrawal begins.
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