While the SEC increasingly enrages many within the cryptocurrency industry, Ripple wants to bring XRP to open-source projects after having opened doors for NFTs and Federated Sidechains.
Ripple has announced it is committing one billion XRP to the third wave of the XRPL Grants program which launched in 2021.
The fund aims to accelerate development and new use cases on the XRP Ledger (XRPL) and, to date, has awarded $6 million in total funding to more than 50 open-source projects built on the XRP Ledger.
The first two waves of the XRPL Grants program focused on projects related to NFTs and Federated Sidechains, respectively, and now for the third wave, it is seeking projects focused on open-source contributions.
As the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit lingers, the announcement revalidates the argument in favor of the XRP utility that Judge Torres mentioned as early as March 2021.
Expert discovery might help the court make up its mind over whether XRP is a security or not, although the SEC is mostly focused on the marketing and sales approach rather than the nature of the digital asset itself.
Through the XRPL Grants program, Ripple will provide financial, technical, and business support to introduce several new developer programs as part of the fund.
The 1 billion XRP will be disbursed to developers over the next 10 to 20 years so they can build and scale their apps from proof-of-concept to new businesses on the XRP Ledger.
XRPL Grants is designed to accelerate, train, mentor and scale projects developed by the XRPL community and features specific funds focused on sustainability, diversity, DeFi, and an accelerator.
• Accelerator program: A multi-month bootcamp that will provide projects on the XRPL with business and financial support, training and mentorship.
• Decentralized finance (DeFi): A program to support DeFi projects on the XRPL.
• Diversity & Inclusion (D&I): A fund to work with university partners to build a pipeline of diverse applicants, as well as partnerships with organizations and affiliation groups supporting underrepresented communities in software development.
• Sustainability: A program to address challenges related to sustainability, e.g. ESG NFTs, carbon credits tokenization.
• Expanded judging committee: Growing the panel of XRPL Grants program judges to ensure diverse viewpoints and expertise when evaluating projects.
Monica Long, GM of RippleX at Ripple, said: “The developer community has seen a tremendous growth and passion for building on the XRP Ledger that has only increased since the launch of the XRPL Grants program last year. With this new expansion, we are committing to participating in and supporting the developer community long-term.
As the community grows, and the infrastructure and apps ecosystem matures, we are also excited about the opportunity for RippleNet customers to benefit from the community’s offerings and vice versa.”
