Ripple Labs’ development arm, RippleX, has issued an important update on the proposed XLS-40 amendment, which would integrate native support for W3C Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) on the XRP Ledger.
Ripple stated in a recent tweet that a minor edge case has been discovered in the XLS-40 decentralized identity spec that may lead users to create empty DID objects. A fix to this issue has been proposed and is currently under review, which will be introduced as a new amendment.
2/ Ripple’s validator has not yet cast a vote for #DID, and we do not plan to vote for it until the fix amendment has been made available. While the bug is minor, we believe that it’s best to have the fix out first.
— RippleX (@RippleXDev) March 13, 2024
The "AddthefixEmptyDID" amendment would fix an issue in which DIDs could become empty, which should not be possible because an empty DID object is equivalent to not having a DID object at all. This fix amendment is anticipated to be part of the next core XRPL software release, rippled version 2.2.0.
Discussions over the XLS-40 feature began in March 2023, and by January 2024, the XLS-40 Decentralized Identity feature amendment had been introduced as part of the rippled 2.0 release.
According to Ripple X, Ripple's validator has yet to vote for DID and does not intend to do so until the fixed amendment is made available. The reason is that it believes it is best to have the fix out first, even if the bug appears minor.
Decentralized Identity (DID) is a technology that allows users to control their online identity in a self-sovereign way. The XLS-40 DID implementation will employ the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard to provide a verifiable, self-sovereign digital identity that is compatible with any distributed ledger or network. This aims to provide a standardized and interoperable solution for digital identities on the XRP Ledger.
Despite the minor setback faced, the blockchain community is nonetheless enthused about the proposed XLS-40 feature, which could herald a new era of digital identity on XRP Ledger.
Expectations brewing for XRP Ledger AMM
In positive development news, the XRP Ledger AMM is anticipated to go live on March 22, having achieve a majority once again.
To add new features to the XRPL Mainnet, XLS specs that involve breaking changes to the core protocol must go through the amendment process, in which the validator community votes on the feature.
For an amendment to pass, at least 80% of validators must vote yes or accept, and this level must be maintained for at least two weeks.