How XRP Labs “Hooks” Could Unlock A New World For The XRPL

XRP Labs founder and lead developer Wietse Wind announced the launch of the public beta testnet for the Hooks Amendment. Build for the XRP Ledger, “Hooks” has been highly anticipated in XRP’s community.

When fully implemented, Hooks is set to enable smart contract functionality to the XRP Ledger on its layer one. Thus, the amendment will become a key component for the XRPL and will allow it to store small data objects.

With the capacity, the XRP Ledger will be able to expand its use cases and functionalities. In addition to high transaction throughput, cost-efficient, and fast settlements, the platform could have advanced or simple functions, as explained by XRP Labs:

Hooks are small, efficient pieces of code being defined on an XRPL account, allowing logic to be executed before and/or after XRPL transactions. 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.

The public beta testnet will allow developers to try, “break”, code, and experiment with Hooks. In that way, XRP Labs can “drafted with confidence” an amendment to be put up for voting at the end of 2021. Emi Yoshikawa Vice-president for Corporate Strategy & Operations at Ripple said:

Super exciting! “Hooks” would significantly expand potential use cases of the XRP Ledger! Hooks add smart contract functionality to the XRP Ledger: ‘layer one’ custom code (…).

XRPL Hooks New Use Cases Could Boost Demand For XRP

XRP Labs presents four possible scenarios where Hooks could make a real impact for XRPL users. First, a user could send XRP to a second user with custom logic. Therefore, allowing a payment to be received by the Hook and send a percentage of the transaction to a separate account.

Another use case could be implemented with corporations or banking institutions to program the Hook with a function that rejects or accepts payment if the senders fulfill certain conditions, like having an account.

Conversely, an outgoing transaction can be denied by a user’s Hook account if the destination account appears on a “BlockList provided by an on-ledger oracle”. The user still would have the capacity to program the Hook to follow or disregard this instruction. In doing so, XRPL could have an efficient tool to fight scammers and other illegal activities.

Finally, an institution could control a Hooks account to redirect payment to Cold Storage. Also, the institution could program the Hook’s account to require two signatures to send funds. Thus, the amendment could expand XRPL uses cases and boost XRP demand.

XRP has seen an important rally in the last week. At the time of writing, XRP is trading at $1,35 with sideways movement in the daily chart. The tokens have followed the general sentiment in the market but still registered a 155.5% profit in the 30-day chart.