Ripple (XRP) price

What is Ripple?

Ripple XRP is a cryptocurrency, just like Bitcoin, which is based on a mathematical formula. It also acts as an open payment network within which the currency is transferred. Its main goal is to provide users with an alternative way of making payments, apart from credit cards, banks, and online payment systems.

History of Ripple XRP

Ryan Fugger first developed Ripple payment protocol in 2004. His main goal was to create a decentralized monetary system that could allow people to create their own money. In 2005, he debuted Ripplepay.com, a financial service that provided secure payment options over a global network. 

In May 2011, a team led by Jed McCaleb of the eDonkey network began developing a digital currency system where transactions could be verified by consensus among members. In 2012, the team co-founded OpenCoin, which worked on a new payment protocol called Ripple Transaction Protocol thus giving rise to digital currency Ripple XRP.

To maintain the security of Ripple XRP and ensure the credibility of transactions, OpenCoin programmed the digital currency to rely on a common ledger. A network of independent servers manages the network to compare transactions and maintain the value of Ripple coin.

OpenCoin connects banks payment providers and digital asset exchanges via RippleNet, to provide a frictionless experience for sending money globally. All transactions are usually recorded in a decentralized ledger. 

How Ripple XRP Works 

Ripple, the digital currency, is native to the RippleNet payment network and is currently the fourth largest digital currency with a market cap of more than $6.5 billion. The digital currency is used on the network to facilitate transactions which are processed in less than four seconds.

If a company, say in the U.S, wants to buy goods in Canada, its common practice to use a money transfer operator to pre-fund the seller’s account before the goods are delivered. The fact that this process usually takes days, whereas Ripple is virtually instant, makes Ripple XRP highly valuable and worthwhile for businesses. 

Using Ripple, a buyer in the U.S can make payments in the form of Ripple XRP for goods bought in Canada. The supplier in return will receive Ripples that can then be turned into Canadian dollars using a Ripple gateway.

Ripple XRP addresses the need for keeping money flowing freely across borders for international business. Its main goal is to build on the decentralized digital currency approach and do what the internet did to the international transfer of and access to information.

Owning Ripple 

Cryptocurrency coins are normally generated through mining, however, that is not the case with Ripple XRP. Ripple is not your typical cryptocurrency. You can buy it on various exchanges as there is no option to mine this coin. During its creation, the developers created and released 100 billion XRP coins. A few coins are usually destroyed every time a transaction takes place. 

XRP Price Prediction and Analysis

Ripple coins and Ripple shares are currently trading on an uptrend. The upward momentum has been driven largely by a major announcement by TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington. The investor is in the process of setting up a $100 million hedge fund for holding crypto assets. The fund will require limited partners to make investments in XRP and will use the cryptocurrency for all distributions and fees.