Ripple Quick overview

Introduction

Ripple is a RTGS which means a real-time gross settlement system. It also goes by the name Ripple Transaction Protocol (TRXP) or Ripple protocol. It is built on a distributed open source Internet protocol, consensus ledger and native cryptocurrency called XRP (ripples). Ripple wants to enable a secure, instant and almost free global financial transactions of any size, with no chargebacks. It is based around a shared, public database or ledger.

In many ways Ripple is like Bitcoin. It’s XRP unit is a digital form of currency based on mathematical formulae and has a limited number of units. Unlike Bitcoin, Ripple can't be mined. Ripple doesn’t position itself as a competitor with Bitcoin, in fact, they consider their selves as a complement to Bitcoin. There are 100 billion ripples from which 50 billion are to be released for circulation, while the other 50 billion are to be taken by the company. Today one ripple equals $0.2014723.

Benefit to Bitcoin users

Ripple has promised expedited transactions and increased stability. As a disperse network, Ripple doesn’t depend on a single company to manage and secure the transaction database. There is no waiting on block confirmations and transaction confirmations go through the network in 4 seconds.

Technology

XRP

XRP is the native currency of the Ripple network and only exists within the Ripple system. Drop is the smallest unit that Ripple goes with. 1 XRP contains 1 million drops. When Ripple was created, it consisted of 100 billion XRP. No more were allowed to be created because of the protocol’s rules. Because of this, the system was designed so that the XRP is a short in supply asset. The available supply is decreasing as we speak.

XRP Distribution

There are 100 billion XRP. In the initial creation, Ripple had 100 billion XRP created. From these 100 billion the creators took 20 billion for themselves. The remaining 80 billion of the total were given away. This was a marketing scheme to make XRP popular and relevant.

Influencers

Brad Garlinghouse - Ripple’s CEO and a member of the Board of Directors. Before becoming the CEO of file collaboration service in Hightail, he was President of Consumer Applications at AOL from 2009 to 2012. He also held various positions at Yahoo! from 2003 to 2009, including Senior Vice President (SVP).

Asheesh Birla - the Vice President of Product for Ripple.

Patrick Griffin - the SVP of Business Development for Ripple.

Cameron Kinloch – the VP of Finance at Ripple.

Stefan Thomas – The CTO of Ripple.

Advantages

Ripple is known as a legal tender by several governments. This gives Ripple a high volume of activity in the financial institutions. It also gives them power to purchase material goods. Coming from this, you cannot evaluate Ripple like you would evaluate other coins, like Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc. These coins are assessed entirely on assumptions. Ripple operates differently from some other payment networks or cryptocurrencies. Instead of competing with financial institutions, its technology uses them to facilitate the payments. Ripple doesn’t want to dominate other currencies, but to support multiple digital currencies, including fiat currencies. Members of Ripple do not require conversion from local currency to Ripples (XRP). Ripple’s payment either goes through or fails.

• Quick block creation and transaction time (4 seconds)
• XRP consistently handles 1500 transactions per second and can scale to handle the same throughout as Visa.
• Open-source technology, built on the principles of blockchain with a growing set of validators.
• Ready for institutional and enterprise use.

Disadvantages

• Can’t be mined. Have to be purchased.
• Ripple wallets require you to have 20XRP to book your wallet address.
• The amount of XRPs owned by one company gives it a negative reputation.

Whitepaper

Ripple has been released in 2012. In this whitepaper, containing 8 pages, are explained the definitions, formalizations, existing consensus algorithms and ripples protocol components. Unlike Ethereum’s whitepaper which is 152 pages, Ripple’s whitepaper is 8 pages and everything is explained professionally.

Real Examples

Ripple has a few real-life use cases. Ripple technology is used by many banks around the world. This number will only continue to grow as time goes by. XRP’s digital asset is less subject to speculation compared to Ether. Everyone that is involved in XRP and Ripple wants it to maintain a stable price.

Investors

The Ripple payment protocol and exchange network was created by the company Ripple. The total funding amount is $93,600,000 and the biggest investors are SBI Investment with $55,000,000 and IDG Capital Partners with $28,000,000. Smaller investors are Santander InnoVentures with $4,000,000 and Core Innovation Capital with $3,500,000.

Conclusion

Overall Ripple is a cryptocurrency which works WITH the banks instead of against them. It might be the key factor in merging the new payment system with the old one. It has a growing number of nodes and its value is expected to rise in the near future.

Roadmap

It’s surprising that Ripple/XRP doesn’t have a road map. There are no mentions on the official web site or any social sites. There are a few roadmaps created by people that do not associate with Ripple, but there is nothing official out there.