Exchange XRP (XRP)

XRP Ledger is an open-source, permissionless blockchain platform. It was built to make its native cryptocurrency the most practical to use for applications across financial services. It also aims to improve cross-border transactions.  

One of the most significant benefits of the XRP is the low-cost transactions (around $0.0002 per transaction), speed (settling transactions in 3-5 seconds), and improved scalability (around 1500 transactions per second). It also claims to be carbon neutral and energy efficient. The transaction fees are burnt, slightly decreasing the supply of the tokens, making the cryptocurrency more scarce over time. 

XRP Ledger was launched in 2012 by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto with the goal to make a more energy-efficient alternative to Bitcoin. In September 2012 the Ripple company was launched together with Chris Larsen. The Ripple company is often seen as the same thing as XRP, though according to the company management the XRP token and ts underlying XRPL blockchain are different from the technology company that focuses on improving the worldwide payment systems. 

The XRP Ledger blockchain offers a wide variety of applications and payment use-cases, including micropayments, DeFi, and NFT. On the official website, the developers can see numerous tutorials to understand how to use different coding languages and tools, build applications, manage accounts, etc. It also helps developers to build solutions for improving efficiency, allowing easier transfers, tokenization, and the use of DeFi, CBDCs, and stablecoins. 

The XRP blockchain is different from other networks of the consensus mechanism it is using. To validate transactions it applies a unique Federated Consensus mechanism, where the designated independent servers known as validators reach the consensus on the order and outcome of the transactions. All servers work according to the same rules and any transaction that follows the protocol is confirmed straight away. The transactions are transparent and public and anyone can become a validator. 

At the time of writing, there are about 150 validators on the network, operated by companies, exchange platforms, universities, and individuals across the globe. With the Federated Consensus transactions can be processed without a single point of failure as no one is taking decisions independently. 

XRP is a native token of the network. At the time of launch, 100 billion tokens were pre-mined, which represents the total supply of the asset, and no more tokens can be created. 80 billion were provided for sale to fund future operations and development and 20 billion tokens were spread between the founders. New coins enter the market only when the Ripple organization decides to sell the assets from the pre-mined stash on the secondary market. 

XRP serves as a bridge between the hard-match fiat currencies, so if there is no fiat pair available, one can buy Ripple and then sell Ripple to get the needed currency. 

In 2017 the organization transferred 55 billion into an escrow account from where a max of 1 billion tokens a month can be sold on the secondary market. It was done to improve the transparency and predictability of XRP sales. If there are tokens left unsold they are returned to escrow and redistributed at a later period. The information about the tokens left in the escrow is published on the official Ripple website. 

The XRP token can be swapped on most of the centralized and decentralized exchanges across the world, including Binance, FTX, Bitstamp, and Huobi.