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Ripple recently made some key announcements at the ongoing XRPL events in Korea and Japan, all in service of the goal of strengthening the foundations of crypto infrastructure to support blockchain utility and usability for institutional adoption.

Ripple President Monica Long, in a recent tweet, has lauded the company's efforts in boosting blockchain utility and usability for institutional adoption. In a major move, AI and metaverse tech company Futureverse is partnering with Ripple Custody to securely hold its assets.

According to a recent release, Ripple will be integrating Ripple Custody to enable Futureverse to securely manage its digital assets. Futureverse has already adopted the XRPL NFT standard, uses XRP as the gas token on the Root Network and is integrated with the XRPL DEX to supply network liquidity.

Long lauded this move, noting that custody remains a critical entry point to tokenization. "Everyone - from big banks to crypto natives - needs secure and compliant infrastructure to power enterprise use cases. Excited to further our partnership with futureverse," Long added.

Ripple’s University Blockchain Research Initiative has also added Korea’s Yonsei University as its 58th global partner.

XRP Ledger to receive new programmability

Ripple is committed to bringing new programmability, including smart contracts, to the XRPL developer ecosystem in 2025.

Progress toward smart contract functionality is already underway in the XRP Ledger ecosystem, with the XRPL EVM Sidechain, which was developed in collaboration with Peersyst and is nearing live deployment on the devnet.

This momentum is expected to pick up in early 2025, marking a significant year for programmability on the platform. This sidechain will enable Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) compatibility for the XRP community.

Programmability on the XRP Ledger is expected to improve as a result of two significant developments: the implementation of native smart contract capabilities on the XRP Ledger mainnet, which is presently in the research phase, and the launch of the XRPL EVM Sidechain, which is scheduled to go live in the coming months.