Ripple's Global Partner Success Lead, Luke Judges, has called for XRP to draw lessons from Solana's market strategies to enhance its competitiveness. Judges, who has extensive experience with Solana through founding startups and managing a validator node with over $30 million in staked assets, praised Solana's execution speed and pragmatic approach. Despite Solana's challenges, such as a declining validator count, its strategies are seen as beneficial for other Layer 1 blockchains. XRP is actively pursuing enhancements in smart contract functionality and native staking, marked by the recent launch of XRP Ledger Smart Contracts on AlphaNet. Ripple's CTO, David Schwartz, has also confirmed that discussions are underway to expand XRP's involvement in the DeFi sector.