Ripple affirms that federated sidechains will greatly expand the XRP Ledger's use cases, including adding DeFi, NFT, and smart contract capabilities. "If you try to put everything on a single chain, what happens is the chain grows slow and expensive, and it undermines people's ability to utilise it for simple payments," says CTO David Schwartz. In March of this year, the corporation also announced a CBDC trial project.