Buying, Wallets, and Full Review of the Ripple Currency

Ripple (XRP) is one of the most popular digital currencies in the world today. Its main difference from other currencies in the market is that it is not just a currency (sometimes referred to as Ripple XRP or simply Ripple), but also a network of a payment transfer protocol (RippleNet) where all currency transactions are made in a distributed manner. Currently, there are over a hundred financial institutions worldwide using RippleNet’s protocol (not the XRP currency, but the protocol itself), with its main purpose being to serve as a replacement for traditional SWIFT systems and to facilitate the handling of large amounts of currency by banks.

Ripple and its Currency Supply: An Overview

Similar to most cryptocurrencies today, the coins themselves – 100 billion (100,000,000,000) – were created before its launch, making them unmineable and their number fixed. Out of the 100 billion existing coins, 52% are in circulation, while the rest is held by Ripple the company and will be released gradually.

Every month, billions of XRP coins will be added to circulation, which are currently deposited in an escrow account. If the coins released to circulation are not used, they will be returned to the escrow account.

Behind the Ripple Coin: Who is the Creator?

The original Ripple system was created by a man named Ryan Fugger in 2004. In 2012, Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb took the concept of the currency and turned it into part of their company, Ripple Labs Inc. They even managed to raise initial funding from well-known venture capital firms like Google Ventures and Pantera. As mentioned earlier, they gradually convinced more and more financial institutions to invest in their project and attracted the attention of experts and financial journalists, such as Bloomberg.

How Does Ripple Work? An Overview

The currency’s database relies on a list of users called the Unique Node List, who act as validators in the transfer process. All users must agree that the transfer is secure through consensus. Currently, most validators are not affiliated with Ripple, although in its early years, more than 80% of nodes were owned by the company. It is important to note, however, that Ripple decides who is included in the Unique Node List from the outset.

The process of transferring currency on the Ripple network occurs through gateways as follows:

Let’s say we have gateway A and gateway B: The first user deposits money in gateway A and gateway A sends a command to gateway B to register the money with the second user. In fact, the money itself does not physically move, only its registration, so gateway B transfers money from its local database to the user located there. The transfer between the two gateways will be reconciled when a user from gateway B transfers money to gateway A and vice versa.

The Pros and Cons of Ripple Cryptocurrency

Advantages:

As the currency also serves as a payment network, transactions themselves are very fast, taking only about 4 seconds per transfer even for cross-border transactions. XRP is also a highly scalable currency, allowing for 1,500 transfers per second.

Another advantage stemming from its nature is relatively low transaction fees, which can save banks and users up to 60% in transaction costs (according to Ripple’s official website).

In addition to these two benefits, there is also a special application called Bitcoin Bridge that allows people to pay others in Bitcoin even if they do not hold Ripple themselves, which of course increases the currency’s attractiveness. The application was created in partnership with the Bitstamp trading platform.

Drawbacks:

Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, claims that XRP and the other two leading cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin and Ethereum) can definitely coexist and develop side by side since each has a different goal with a different underlying philosophy.

Another drawback that raises concerns is that the company behind the currency created all the coins before its launch and still holds over half of them, effectively creating centralized control of its own currency. In theory, it could flood the market and control supply as it sees fit. This is why Ripple Labs committed to holding the coins it controls in a trust account.

Perhaps the most significant drawback is regulatory. Firstly, there is an ongoing lawsuit against Ripple Labs for defrauding investors, claiming that XRP is an illegal security. Additionally, there are regulatory barriers preventing banks and financial institutions from holding cryptocurrencies legally in most countries. This means that these institutions, which would like to use XRP, cannot do so today – and until there is a regulatory change, this will not change, and they will have to use the RippleNet system exclusively.

Recommended Ripple Wallet:

Ripple is digital currency, which means there is a wide variety of wallets available for it. These are the recommended wallets:
(Top Recommended Digital Currency Wallets for Storing Bitcoin and Ethereum Cryptocurrencies – Click Here)

1)Hardware wallets – the most recommended wallets. A hardware wallet is an external hard drive that is currently the safest way to hold digital coins.

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