About
Ripple (XRP) is a digital asset built for global payments, designed to act as a bridge between different fiat currencies and other digital assets. Launched in 2012 by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto, it was created as a more sustainable, faster, and cheaper alternative to Bitcoin. The native asset, XRP, operates on the XRP Ledger (XRPL), an open-source, permission-less, and decentralized blockchain technology.
Unlike many other cryptocurrencies that focus on replacing the banking system, Ripple was designed to integrate with it. It allows financial institutions to settle cross-border transactions in real-time (3–5 seconds) with extremely low fees. A key feature of Ripple is its Escrow system, where the company, Ripple Labs, locked away a majority of the XRP supply to be released into the market at a controlled, predictable rate. This mechanism is intended to provide supply transparency and market stability, ensuring that the vast majority of XRP isn't dumped into the market all at once.
