Since 2008 when Bitcoin cryptocurrency was first conceived and then launched in 2009 by a person or a group whose actual identity is still unknown, the digital currency has grown exponentially. Today it is a widespread mode of transactions even though not in the league of regular fiat currencies.
However, by early 2018, the combined value of all the existing cryptos touched a staggering $824 billion, a 4500% increase over its value in 2017 of $17.7 billion. The major share of the crypto market is under the control of Bitcoin, which had a value of $285 billion at end-2017. It is still the largest cryptocurrency today with the highest market capitalization.
Several other cryptos have become the favorite of the common person. One crypto, hot on the heels of Bitcoin, is Ripple that has steadily gained prominence. In the one year between early 2017 and early 2018 alone, Ripple’s market capitalization value and its coin XRP skyrocketed by nearly 48,744%. At the end of 2018, the market cap of Ripple had touched $121 billion.
Ripple was established in 2012, much later than when Bitcoin hit the digital currency sphere. While Bitcoin has well-known and established Blockchain processes, Ripple is not so well understood in the crypto fraternity. But what makes it stand out from the rest of the major cryptos is that it is both a platform and a currency. As per the Ripple News, the Ripple platform is an open-source protocol created to enable fast processing times and cheap transactions.
Here are some facts about this crypto that you probably didn’t know about.
Facts About Ripple That Will Surprise You
- Not the official name: You might call the crypto Ripple, but that is not the coin’s official name. It is XRP. So, you cannot buy a few Ripples but have to buy XRP. The name Ripple has come into the mainstream crypto ecosystem probably because the catchy name is easy to remember. The coin is a product of Ripple Labs.
- Cannot be mined: The volume of a cryptocurrency increases when the coins are mined and brought into circulation. Users pool their resources like computing power and other resources on a massive scale to mine the coins and are rewarded with newly mined cryptos. For Ripple, however, there is a limit of 100 billion XRP that can be created, which has already been reached, although not all have yet been brought into circulation.
- Just 40% of XPR is in circulation: Surprised? Of the 100 billion XRP tokens officially in existence, not all are in the public domain. Ripple Labs, the creator owns 60 billion, 55 billion are in escrow accounts ready for distribution in the future, and 6.25 billion is directly owned. However, the numbers are poised to increase significantly over the next few years as Ripple Labs will release 1 billion XRP per month into circulation. Currently, at $0.80 per XRP, the total value in circulation is $31.52 billion, making it (by market cap) the third-largest crypto in the exchanges.
- Ripple has three products but one token: The main product of Ripple Labs is xCurrent that does not use the XRP token. It has been created to enable banks to transact with one another and provide matching services between all currencies, including crypto and fiat. The third offering from Ripple Labs is xRapid. Even though not widely used, it helps the trading of XRP through xCurrent and ensures that transactions are seamless and faster.
- Fast transaction time: Ripple has a distinct advantage over Bitcoin and Ethereum in transaction times. The average for Bitcoin is about 81 minutes and 10 to 30 minutes for Ethereum. Ripple boasts of 4 seconds transaction time and intends to make money transfer instantaneous and in real-time in the future. Further, the Ripple network can handle much higher transaction volumes than other coins.
- Payment transfer currency: It is generally thought that crypto is to be used as a payment currency like Bitcoin and a few others. But Ripple is not designed to be such, and you cannot pay your neighborhood store with Ripple. It is a mode of money transfer for shifting funds from Point A to Point B faster and more efficiently than other cryptos.
- Low transaction costs: One of the biggest hurdles of the top cryptocurrencies is the high transaction costs. In the cases of coins that are mined, these are fees paid as incentives to miners. Take Bitcoin that saw transaction fees peak to $20 in the early part of 2018. On the other hand, Ripple’s highest was in early 2018, too, at a minuscule $0.03. Due to these low transaction fees, adoption of XRP is increasing day by day along with its price. To know more about the future price of XRP, You must check out XRP Price Prediction.
- XRP is not a disruptive technology: Ripple and XRP are not a disruptive technology. Instead, the company is interested in revolutionizing the banking sector and uses blockchain technology to help financial institutions transfer money. Ripple is not branching out with new technologies and being a disruptor in this field. Instead, it uses the existing blockchain nodes to further expand banks’ capabilities in money transfer across the world much faster and, most importantly, at low transaction costs.
Conclusion
Currently, Ripple Labs is investing in companies and entering into partnerships to ensure that the XRP ecosystem becomes stronger. This will be achieved by enhancing the companies’ ownership stakes and generating income and revenue through future dividends. Ripple is now a major participant in the cryptocurrency market, mainly because of its real-world capability to transfer money over long distances across the world. This has made it the future of the working of financial institutions. However, investors in crypto should understand that Ripple architecture is quite different from other cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
