Back in 2023, a group of developers grew tired of waiting. The XRP Ledger’s validators refused to adopt Hooks, a lightweight smart-contract feature that lets accounts control their transactions with small bits of code. Instead of waiting, these developers forked the XRP Ledger’s open-source code, added Hooks, created a new network called Xahau, launched their own token, and set up a governance system powered by smart contracts running directly on their accounts. Ripple’s CTO even praised this move as the best way forward for the technology at the time.
Fast forward three years, and the original XRP Ledger is finally catching up. The parent chain is now rolling out native programmability. The XLS-100d amendment introduces Smart Escrows built on WebAssembly, with a devnet already live for testing. Meanwhile, XLS-101, a proposed standard for general smart contracts, openly cites Xahau’s Hooks and the Ethereum Virtual Machine as its inspirations. So, what began as a fork sparked by missing features is now influencing the main chain’s own smart contract plans.
Unlike common forks that arise from money fights or ideological splits, this one was born purely from a technical feature gap. Xahau positions itself not as a mere sidechain but as an independent Layer 1 blockchain, charting its own course with some unique capabilities that the XRP Ledger doesn’t have, and vice versa. Meanwhile, the ecosystem now hosts three competing ways to run smart contracts: Xahau’s Hooks, the EVM sidechain running Solidity where over $25,000 in value is locked, and WebAssembly directly on the main XRP Ledger.
The pressing question becomes what value Xahau holds now that the original ledger offers smart contract functionality it once rejected. Traders and developers alike watch XAH, the native asset of Xahau, to see how this dynamic will unfold. It’s a rare case of a fork’s original reason for existence being adopted by its parent chain years later, opening debates about innovation, competition, and coexistence in blockchain ecosystems.
This is informational content and does not constitute financial advice.
