Review Ripple ($XRP) – Superior global payments business across 55+ Countries
XRP, which was first introduced in 2012, has grown to become one of the world’s major cryptocurrencies.
What is Ripple?
Ripple is a payment system that processes international money transfers via the use of blockchain technology. It is financial system that functions as both a cryptocurrency ($XRP) and a digital payment network. Known for charging cheap transaction costs and completing transactions in record speed, and it has worked with hundreds of financial institutions that have used its technology. The company’s primary process is a payment settlement asset exchange and remittance system, comparable to the SWIFT system for international money and security transfers, which banks and financial intermediaries utilize when transacting in multiple currencies.
Ripple runs on an open-source, peer-to-peer decentralized infrastructure that enables the frictionless movement of money in any currency, including dollars, yen, euros, and cryptocurrencies such as litecoin and bitcoin.
Rather of using typical blockchain mining techniques, the Ripple network employs a novel distributed consensus mechanism, to validate transactions, participating nodes conduct a poll to determine the transaction’s legitimacy. This occurs nearly instantly, allowing for rapid confirmations in the lack of a central authority. Transactions consume less energy than bitcoin transactions, are confirmed in seconds, and are extremely inexpensive, whereas bitcoin transactions consume more energy, take longer to confirm, and have higher transaction fees.
History of Ripple
Jed McCaleb, an American programmer and entrepreneur who dropped out of UC Berkeley, came up with the idea for Ripple in 2011. He started his company, called OpenCoin, in 2012. He had already made Mt. Gox, which was supposed to be a place where Magic: The Gathering cards could be traded, but it turned out to be a very important and very bad place to buy and sell bitcoins. McCaleb had Arthur Britto and David Schwartz, two of his co-developers, help him build Ripple. As a result, Britto and Schwartz had Ryan Fugger bring their idea to life, as Fugger turned his OpenCoin system into Ripple
Over 100 banks had agreed to use Ripple by 2018. Most used the infrastructure’s messaging features rather than the XRP cryptocurrency itself. The firm filed a class-action lawsuit against itself because it sold XRP tokens without having to register them. This meant that they made millions of dollars from the sales. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple’s leadership allowed the sale of unregistered securities. In 2020, as part of its legal case against Ripple, the SEC said that the company was selling unregistered securities
There was a big rise in the value of XRP in April 2021, even though the U.S. was accusing Ripple of raising more than one billion dollars by selling XRP on allegedly unregistered securities selling.
XRP token
At its commencement, 100 billion XRP units were generated, an official figure that will neither rise or decrease in accordance with the protocol. The XRP inventors provided the corporation with 80% of all XRP, while retaining 20% for themselves. This feature of XRP is one of the reasons banks and corporations have embraced the digital currency; there is no mining process to mint new units of XRP due to its centralization
XRP’s primary use is as a bridge currency. When money is converted in traditional settlement procedures, the USD is used as the common currency. XRP was created with the goal of eventually displacing the USD as the preferred settlement currency for financial organizations. By initially converting the value of a fiat currency to the digital XRP, rather than USD, exchange rate costs and margins may be avoided, while processing times can be shortened. You can purchase XRP as an investment, a coin to swap for other cryptocurrencies, or a way of funding Ripple network transactions
How does it work?
When it comes to Ripple and XRP, there are two primary technologies to be aware of. The XRP ledger (XRPL) and the Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm are two examples (RPCA). This is how they operate.
Ledger XRP (XRPL)
RippleNet is constructed on top of its own distributed ledger database like a blockchain, dubbed XRP Ledger (XRPL), which holds accounting information about network members and reconciles transfers between numerous currency pairings. The transaction ledger is maintained by a committee of validators who function similarly to miners and full-node operators in order to reach consensus in three to five seconds—instead of the ten minutes required by Bitcoin. Validators validate transactions for no monetary incentive because there are no miners vying to confirm transactions for block rewards.
Anyone may become an XRP validator, but to earn confidence and be utilized by others on the network, validators must join Ripple’s unique node list (UNL), therefore establishing them as a trusted validator. These centralized validators are crucial for preventing transaction double-spending and censorship. There are now just 35 active XRP validators, six of which are operated by the firm.
Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm (RPCA)
Rather than decentralization, XRP’s architecture is based on speed and cost. Unlike other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum, which are created on the blockchain and certified by miners using the Proof of Work consensus method, Ripple uses its own consensus mechanism, the Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm, to confirm transactions (RPCA).
By bypassing the energy-intensive mining associated with Proof of Work, transactions consume less energy than Bitcoin or Ethereum transactions, are confirmed faster, and cost less. However, this speed is accomplished in part because to XRP’s centralized architecture, which critics believe renders it less secure, censorship-resistant, and permissionless than open-source blockchain networks.
About RippleNet
Unlike the traditional ecosystem banks have worked with, RippleNet is a global network that financial institutions can use to transfer money faster, with more transparency, and for less fee. This is rather than of the many separate systems banks have worked with in the past. In order to use RippleNet, you only need to use one application programming interface (API). The company used to have products called xRapid, xCurrent, and xVia. In 2019, the company combined those solutions into one called RippleNet
Creating a New Global Payments Infrastructure
The needs of individuals and businesses sending cross-border payments have dramatically evolved. These customers are now demanding real-time, low-cost and fully trackable payments on a global scale. Yet, today’s global payments infrastructure yields an experience that is slow, costly and opaque. Ripple solves these pain points through RippleNet, a network of banks, payment providers and others. Employing Ripple’s solutions and a standardized ruleset allows for those connected on RippleNet to efficiently send and receive payments around the world.
Pros and Cons of Ripple
Pros
- Transactions cost just 0.0001 XRP, very low fee
- A lot of big financial institutions, like Santander, use Ripple
- Transactions are usually confirmed in 4 or 5 seconds, which is very quick
- Ripple’s exchange network can be used to buy and sell XRP, other cryptocurrencies, fiat currencies, and even gold
Cons
- XRP has already been mined. The value of XRP is hard to track because investors don’t know when a bunch of it could be put into use
- XRP is not as decentralized as other cryptocurrencies due to its default set of validators
- The SEC sued Ripple in 2020. Due to its decentralized nature, the SEC believes it should be registered as a security. Until this is settled, several institutions and exchanges are cautious of it.
How to buy XRP?
Exchanges that are the most well-known and liquid for trading XRP against other cryptocurrencies as well as fiat money include Binance, Huobi, Bitstamp, Bitfinex, Bithump or KuCoin, to name a few. Creating an account on one of these exchanges is required in order to purchase XRP, and if greater quantities of money are transacted, a full identification verification process is required.
Should you invest $XRP?
Ripple has grown over the last several years into a high-performance money transfer network that enables faster and cheaper transactions. XRP is still a high-risk investment, and this is true even when compared to other cryptocurrencies. The SEC action resulted in the removal of XRP from numerous major exchanges, and it has also drawn criticism from members of the cryptocurrency community since it is controlled by a private firm.
It’s not difficult to understand the potential of Ripple’s technology. An inefficient and outmoded method of international money transfers might be replaced by this new approach. The fact that it has formed agreements with financial institutions is encouraging. Furthermore, any good changes in its legal standing might result in an increase in its market price.
However, what the cryptocurrency has planned for 2022 remains a mystery. Consider making a small investment in XRP if you believe that the company’s growth will continue in the near future. Although it is not as safe as investing in stocks, if Ripple is successful, you may see a significant return on your investment.
Backers
Team
Investor
Find more information:
Website: https://ripple.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Ripple
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ripplepay
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Ripplepay
If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or ideas about the project, please email ventures@coincu.com.
DISCLAIMER: The Information on this website is provided as general market commentary, and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.
Marshall
Coincu Ventures