XRP (XRP) Quote Today, Chart and Value in Dollars USD

About Ripple XRP

The XRP cryptocurrency was launched in 2012 by Chris Larsen, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto with the intention of creating a decentralized monetary system with a real-time gross settlement system, exchange and remittance network. The maximum supply of XRP is 100 billion coins, all created at launch, which means it is not possible to produce additional XRP tokens. 80% of the total supply of XRP was given to fintech OpenCoin, a company that was later renamed to Ripple Labs in 2013 and renamed to Ripple in 2015. Ripple still holds more than half of the total supply of XRP, although a large part of the the company's XRP holdings are locked in escrow and can only be accessed periodically.

What is XRP and how does it work?

Ripple’s project has XRP cryptocurrency on its blockchain, which is native to its network called the XRP Ledger (XRPL). The XRP Ledger is quite unique among cryptocurrencies in that it uses neither Proof-of-Work (PoW) nor Proof-of-Stake (PoS) to gain consensus on the state of the ledger. Instead, it uses the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol, which aims to provide a robust, decentralized network that can process transactions quickly and efficiently. Each operator of an XRP Ledger node can choose which nodes they consider to be trustworthy.

To provide a real-time settlement layer with negligible fees and wait times, Ripple Labs uses a common shared ledger that stores blockchain data about user accounts and balances in a decentralized manner. This allows institutions and individuals to validate financial information in seconds.

Due to its speed and low cost, XRP can be used like any other cryptocurrency to transfer value from wallet to wallet. However, Ripple is actively pushing for XRP to be used in large-scale implementations, particularly when it comes to cross-border transfers, where XRP is being positioned as an asset that can act as a bridge in transactions involving different fiat currencies. . For this, Ripple created a service called On-Demand Liquidity (ODL).

Other potential use cases for XRP involve microtransactions related to online content (blogs, music, video) and the gaming industry. This allows XRP to serve as a cryptocurrency alternative to traditional financial solutions, something that some of the biggest blockchain players – such as Bitcoin and Ethereum – cannot do natively due to the high transaction costs on their respective networks.

XRP blockchain project

Software developer Ryan Fugger founded Ripplepay in 2004, long before Bitcoin and the frontier digital asset boom. At the time, Fugger wanted to create a reliable system that could provide secure financial transactions around the world.

Bitcoin founder Satoshi Nakamoto gave a nod of approval to what Rupplepay was doing in the late 2000s, stating, “Ripple is interesting because it is the only other system that does something with confidence besides concentrating it on one server. central". Fugger sold Rippleypay to Jed McCaleb (Stellar co-founder and Mt.Gox founder), Arthur Britto (PolySign co-founder and president) and David Schwartz (computer security and cryptography expert), who used the original formula and expanded on it with blockchain technology. The new owners renamed the company to OpenCoin.

The XRP as a cryptocurrency project was created in 2012, when the founders of OpenCoin, a US-based fintech, launched the XRP Ledger after the initial success of Bitcoin. The company was later renamed Ripple in 2015 and acquired a virtual currency license from the New York State Department of Financial Services a year later.

Ripple has developed a number of business-oriented solutions for the banking industry over the past decade. Services like xRapid and xVia, which facilitate high-frequency intrabank transactions, are built on top of xCurrent, the flagship product of Ripple's financial offering.

Given the settlement time of just a few seconds compared to the SWIFT system's 2-3 days, a large number of the world's biggest banks have joined RippleNet over the years. The network currently operates in over 40 countries and has over 200 members, including Barclays, Intesa Sanpaolo, National Australia Bank, Scotiabank, BBVA and American Express.

However, it is worth noting that most RippleNet members do not use XRP tokens for transactions, but use Ripple's decentralized settlement layer and software solutions without using the network's native digital currency.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a lawsuit against Ripple and its CEO Brad Garlinghouse in December 2020, accusing the company of selling $1,3 billion worth of XRP tokens through an unregistered bond offering. .

In late 2021, Ripple began pushing for a clearer distinction between Ripple, the fintech, and XRP, an independent cryptocurrency that powers Ripple's network. The change came as a result of most people in the cryptocurrency community using the name “Ripple” to refer to the platform’s underlying currency, which has caused a lot of confusion over the years.

Ripple's XRP price history

Launched in 2021, XRP is one of the oldest digital currencies in the cryptocurrency space. For the better part of the last decade, XRP tokens have been one of the most popular investment vehicles in the industry, available to be bought and traded on all popular cryptocurrency exchanges.

Our historical XRP price data shows that the price of XRP was $0,0067 in early August 2013. The price of the XRP coin remained largely unchanged until late 2013, when the crypto asset had a run of nearly 10 times it saw the price of the XRP token hit as high as $0,0614.

The crypto winter between 2015 and 2017 saw XRP fall back into the $0,0060 price range. Throughout 2017 and 2018, the price of XRP has increased more than 600 times and reached $3,92 in January 2018.

The XRP cryptocurrency dropped below the $1 dollar range in the following crypto crash and it wasn’t until April 2021 that the digital currency retested price levels over $1. To see where the XRP price is likely to go going and watching live XRP price trends, feel free to use our algorithmically generated XRP price prediction charts.

XRP market cap

Given the high volatility of the token price and a limited supply of 100 billion tokens, the market cap of XRP cryptocurrencies has undergone considerable changes over the years. Although XRP has a maximum supply of 100 billion coins, its circulating supply is artificially managed by Ripple, which still holds more than half of all existing tokens and periodically releases new tokens from its deposit.

Here’s what historical XRP price data tells us about the cryptocurrency’s most notable market capitalization milestones:

• $100 million - XRP surpassed the market cap of $100 million in September 2013
• $500M – XRP’s market cap reached the $500M milestone in late 2014
• $1 billion - XRP achieved unicorn status for the first time in February 2017
• $10 billion - Market cap of $10 billion was reached in May 2017
• $50 billion – The market cap of XRP reached $50 billion in the last week of 2017
• $100 billion - The total value of all XRP tokens in circulation reached $100 billion in January 2018

XRP supply

The supply of XRP is limited to 100 billion coins, which means that there is an artificially set final cap on total tokens, similar to Bitcoin. However, unlike new Bitcoins, which come into circulation in a process known as cryptocurrency mining, the launch of new XRP tokens is controlled by Ripple, the company behind XRP.

Of the maximum supply of 100 billion XRP tokens, more than half is still managed by Ripple. This characteristic of XRP has led many to criticize the cryptocurrency for being centrally controlled and that its parent company has too much control over the price of XRP and its circulating supply.

It's worth noting that Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in a 2021 interview that the company is open to new ideas about managing XRP, including burning tokens it holds in escrow.