XRP: The Best Digital Asset for Global Payments
XRP offers financial institutions the fastest, most reliable option for sourcing liquidity on demand.
What Is XRP?
XRP is a digital asset built for payments. It is the native digital asset on the XRP Ledger—an open-source, permissionless and decentralized blockchain technology that can settle transactions in 3-5 seconds.
XRP can be sent directly without needing a central intermediary, making it a convenient instrument in bridging two different currencies quickly and efficiently.
How Is XRP Used?
Faster, less costly and more scalable than any other digital asset, XRP and the XRP Ledger are used to power innovative technology across the payments space.
Ripple is focused on building technology to help unleash new utility for XRP and transform global payments. Third parties are also pursuing other XRP-related use cases.
XRP and the XRP Ledger are open-source technology that anyone can build on. To get started, learn more at XRPL.org.
How Does the XRP Ledger Work?
The ledger is maintained by independent participants of a global “XRP Community,” of which Ripple is an active member.
Independent validator nodes come to an agreement on the order and validity of XRP transactions. This agreement, called consensus, serves as final and irreversible settlement. The ledger reaches consensus on all outstanding transactions every 3-5 seconds, at which point a new ledger is issued. Anyone can be a validator, and active validators on the ledger today include universities, exchanges and financial institutions. There are currently 36 validators, and Ripple runs 6 of them—16%.
Interested in running a validator? Learn how to get started here.
Benefits of XRP in Payments
Fast
Payments moving across the XRP Ledger settle in 4 seconds.
Scalable
XRP consistently handles 1,500 transactions per second, 24x7, and can scale to handle the same throughput as Visa.*
*Source: 65,000+ transactions per second, as of July 15, 2019
Distributed
Run by a decentralized network of 150+ validators globally.
Stable
XRP’s seven-year track record of stable technology and governance makes it ready for institutional and enterprise use.
Eco-Friendly
The XRP Ledger settles XRP transactions instantly without the energy costs associated with proof of work (or mining).