History of Ripple
The first idea of Ripple started in 2004 by Ryan Fugger. The first prototype of Ripple was a decentralized digital monetary system, called Ripple Pay, which aimed to provide a global payment solution with high security.
In 2012, Fugger handed over the project to an US-based technology company which is OpenCoin. From this point on, Ripple focuses on becoming a protocol that offers payment solutions for banks and financial institutions. From 2013 to 2015, the company OpenCoin changed its name to Ripple Labs and eventually to Ripple.
Ripple has now partnered with more than 100 banks including Bank of America, UBS, Standard Chartered, Barclays, JP Morgan, Santander and American Express.
XRP Ledger
Inspired by the inception of Bitcoin, Ripple deploys XRP Ledger (XRPL) technology and XRP token.
XRPL is an open-source distributed ledger that enables the exchange of multiple currency pairs and stores the accounting information of real-time transactions. These transactions will be secured and verified by network participants on XRP Ledger consensus mechanism.
XRPL Consensus Mechanism
XRP Ledger tailors its own consensus mechanism which is Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA).
Anyone participating in the network (also known as nodes) will run a Ripple validator node and choose trusted nodes to form a Unique Node (UNL) list. Ripple encourages customers to use the nodes on this list to validate their transactions.
A transaction is considered valid when it is agreed by the majority of the UNL list. The network will reach consensus when all nodes submit the same set of transaction data to the ledger.
Ripple Net
Ripple Net is the exclusive technology of Ripple company. Ripple Net is a payment solution system for banks and financial institutions with a suite of 3 products: xRapid, xCurrent and xVia.
- xRapid: an on-demand liquidity solution that uses XRP as a bridge currency between fiat currencies.
- xCurrent: an solution for tracking and instant settlement of global payments between RippleNet members.
- xVia: a standardized API-based interface that allows banks and other financial service providers to interact within a single framework – without the need to integrate multiple payment networks.
XRP Token
XRP is the utility token issued by the company Ripple, designed to be suitable for payments:
- Speed: transactions on XRPL are settled in 3-5 seconds
- Scalability: XRPL is capable of handling more than 1,500 transactions/second
- Distributed: XRPL has 140 distributed validator nodes worldwide
- Transparency: data on XRPL is updated in real time, including information about transaction processing time, network transaction fees, number of transactions per second
- Stable & Sustainable: as it doesn’t use the Proof-of-Work (PoW) consensus mechanism, XRPL consumes less operating energy than Bitcoin and other PoW coins.
XRP is mainly used for the following purposes:
- Medium of exchange in xRapid
- Reserve requirement of at least 20 XRP to make the transfer
- Pay transaction fees in XRPL network
Specifications
- Ticker: XRP
- Blockchain: XRP Ledger
- Maximum supply: 100,000,000,000
- Total supply: 99,990,263,493
- Circulating supply: 46,620,000,000
XRP token price today
How to buy XRP
XRP has been listed on Attlas Exchange.
Traders can easily and securely buy XRP with lowest fees on Attlas Exchange.
Step 1: Download the app and register an account
Step 2: Select Market on the toolbar at the main screen
Step 3: Select Spot
Step 4: Find XRP
Step 5: Select Buy
Summary
This article is an overview of Ripple and XRP, not a financial advise.
Users are advised to do their own research before making any trading decisions.