Ripple's CTO, David Schwartz, admitted that the company should have prioritized integrating smart contract capabilities into the XRP Ledger (XRPL) earlier. During a recent X Spaces session, Schwartz explained that Ripple's initial skepticism towards smart contracts delayed their development at the Layer-1 level, hindering innovation within the XRPL ecosystem. The XRP Ledger, launched in 2012, was primarily designed for payments, unlike Ethereum, which popularized smart contracts in 2015. Schwartz noted that developers on XRPL face challenges due to the lack of native smart contract support, limiting their ability to create unique on-chain features. Although XRPL's Automated Market Maker (AMM) is a robust feature, its potential is restricted without smart contracts. Ripple is now testing smart contract capabilities on XRPL's AlphaNet, with plans for a mainnet rollout.