What Is Ripple (XRP) and How Does Its Currency Exchange Work? 💸

SAN FRANCISCO — Thanks to the Bitcoin craze, cryptocurrencies are being thrust into the limelight- and now it's Ripple's time to shine. <br /> <br />According to CoinMarketCap, Ripple is currently the second most valuable digital currency on the market, second only to Bitcoin. It's both a payment network and a cryptocurrency. It uses blockchain technology, but is differentiated from other platforms by its ties with legitimate financial institutions, reports CNN Money. <br /> <br />Ripple's currency is known as XRP and is not mined by users. The company has control, initially creating 100 billion coins, with 38 billion currently in circulation. <br /> <br />The rest of the coins will reportedly be released into the market gradually- up to a billion XRP tokens a month. <br /> <br />Other cryptocurrencies have a stored value and can be used to buy goods and services. But XRPs mainly cover transaction fees as an anti-spam measure, and are destroyed soon after. <br /> <br />Ripple's main purpose is to facilitate global money transfers. Banks take 3 to 5 days to process cross-border payments, but transactions on the Ripple network are cleared in only 4 seconds. <br /> <br />The platform also boasts low fees, and can handle up to 1,500 transactions per second, compared to only seven on Bitcoin. <br /> <br />By and large, the core function of Ripple is markedly different from other cryptocurrencies available in the market. Whether or not it's a good investment is another thing entirely.