XRP

Lore & Background

Development of the XRP Ledger began in 2011 by engineers David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, with a discussion initiated by McCaleb on BitcoinTalk.org titled 'Bitcoin without mining'. The open-source project was originally called 'Ripple', the digital asset was known as 'ripples' using XRP as the three-letter currency code. In May 2018, Ashton Kutcher gifted a charity sponsored by Ellen DeGeneres $4 million in XRP, noted at the time as the 'third most-valuable cryptocurrency on the market'. On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP token itself is not a security, though the manner of sale could constitute a security. On March 2, 2025, President Donald Trump announced XRP as one of five digital assets for a planned U.S. crypto strategic reserve; the White House published the order on March 6, 2025.

In Their Own Story

The ledger hums with silent energy as a transaction request flashes across the global node network. Unlike the sluggish queues of traditional correspondent banking, the consensus validators reach agreement in mere seconds. A financial institution in Tokyo and another in New York exchange value instantly, the XRP acting as an invisible bridge that dissolves currency barriers without the friction of pre-funded nostro accounts.

Reader's Guide

The XRP Ledger operates on a consensus protocol different from proof-of-work and proof-of-stake. Transactions are validated by independent validators every 3 to 5 seconds. Users rely on a Unique Node List (UNL) of trusted validators. The network uses a small-world topology with tightly clustered structure and short paths. XRP was pre-mined, with 100 billion tokens created at inception; 80 billion XRP were gifted to Ripple Labs, which periodically releases tokens into circulation.

Did You Know?

• The XRP Ledger was originally called 'Ripple' and the transaction protocol was called the Ripple Transaction Protocol or RTXP.
• Information systems expert Mary Lacity notes the XRPL uses about as much electricity as it costs to run an email server.
• Ripple Labs was originally named OpenCoin, founded in September 2012 by McCaleb, Britto and Chris Larsen, and renamed to Ripple Labs on September 26, 2013.