XRP tokens occupy the 3rd position in the cryptocurrency rating by market capitalization. Being a banking cryptocurrency, Ripple raises many questions among users. In particular, the relationship between Ripple products and the XRP tokens themselves is not clear. Today we will talk about how Ripple works and what users invest in when they buy Ripple.
Ripple Labs operates in two directions: the development of the XRP cryptocurrency and the RippleNet ecosystem. It is a private company registered in Delaware, operating in sunny California. Ryan Fugger and Jed McCaleb worked on the creation of Ripple, the idea began to sprout from 2004.
Ripple Labs Tokens - XRP
Although the people call the cryptocurrency “Ripple”, the developers themselves do not use this name. In fact, XRP is a product of Ripple Labs, but not a "company." Ripple is an independent private company, XRP is a digital asset of XRP Ledger, XRP Ledger is a blockchain with source code.
Investing in Ripple is closed to retail investors. Buying XRP tokens does not mean investing in Ripple - these are different things.
XRP and XRP Ledger are connected in a completely “standard” way - a cryptocurrency and a registry for storing possession records. Starting from 2013, the program code of the blockchain became publicly available, a guide came to such a decision in order to disperse the view that XRP is centralized.
Surprisingly, users still have doubts about the centralization of XRP. The reason is too extensive control of the validator nodes. In addition, there are doubts about the number of tokens held by users - today it is only 36%. Also, out of 100 billion tokens, 52 are deposited.
XRP tokens can most often be exchanged only for other cryptocurrencies, although paired with a dollar, XRP is traded on such exchanges as Bitstamp, Kraken, etc. Transaction speed is only 4 seconds, and performance is comparable to VISA.
XRP is also used in the RippleNet ecosystem, but in a rather small volume.
Ripple Labs Ecosystem - RippleNet
It is a set of tools. The main function is a more perfect analogue to the existing value transfer systems. Includes three payment systems: xRapid, xVia, xCurrent.
xCurrent allows banks to communicate online, as well as traditional Swift. You can make instant international payments without being limited to XRP.
xRapid is almost the same as xCurrent, but payments can only be made in XRP.
xVia is an API that allows corporations, banks, and payment providers to interact with each other. The API creates a “channel” that allows participants to interact through a standardized ecosystem. xVia allows, for example, billing. The full list of tools included in xVia is quite extensive.
