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XRP is the native currency of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), a public blockchain designed for fast, low-cost payments. It is often associated with Ripple, a US company that uses XRP in its cross-border payment products, but the ledger itself is open source and runs independently of the company. XRP settles transactions in a few seconds and does not rely on mining.

What is XRP?

Work on the XRP Ledger started in 2011, led by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, and the network went live in June 2012. All 100 billion XRP were created at launch; the founders gave 80 billion to the company that became Ripple. That company was founded in September 2012 as OpenCoin and renamed Ripple Labs in September 2013.

XRP is the asset; the XRP Ledger is the blockchain it runs on; Ripple is a private company that builds products on top of it and holds a large amount of XRP.

How the XRP Ledger works

Consensus without mining

Instead of proof of work or staking, the XRP Ledger uses its own consensus protocol. Each server chooses a list of validators it trusts, called a Unique Node List (UNL). Validators exchange proposals until enough of them agree on the next set of transactions, which then becomes final, usually within 3 to 5 seconds. According to the XRPL documentation, consensus can continue as long as fewer than 20% of trusted validators are faulty. Validators receive no block reward.

Fees, reserves and supply

Every transaction destroys a small amount of XRP: the minimum cost is 10 drops (0.00001 XRP) and it rises when the network is under heavy load. This fee is burned rather than paid to anyone, so the supply slowly decreases over time. To exist on the ledger, an account must also hold a reserve: 1 XRP as a base reserve plus 0.2 XRP for each object it owns, such as a trust line or an order.

No new XRP can ever be created. To make Ripple’s sales more predictable, the company locked 55 billion XRP in escrow on 8 December 2017, in 55 contracts of 1 billion XRP that unlock one per month; amounts not used are placed back in new escrow contracts, as explained in Ripple’s announcement.

A short history of XRP

• June 2012: launch of the XRP Ledger.
• 8 December 2017: Ripple completes the escrow of 55 billion XRP.
• 22 December 2020: the US SEC sues Ripple and two executives over unregistered sales of XRP.
• 13 July 2023: a federal judge rules that Ripple’s institutional sales were investment contracts, but that programmatic sales on exchanges were not.
• 7 August 2024: final judgment with a civil penalty of about 125 million dollars.
• March 2025: XRP is named among the assets for a planned US crypto strategic reserve.
• 7 August 2025: the SEC and Ripple drop their appeals, ending the case.
• 17 March 2026: an SEC interpretation of securities law names XRP as a digital commodity.

What XRP is used for

• Cross-border payments: XRP can act as a bridge currency between two fiat currencies, which is how Ripple uses it in its payment services.
• Fast transfers: sending value in seconds for a fraction of a cent.
• Built-in exchange: the ledger has a native decentralised exchange where users trade XRP and tokens issued on the XRPL.
• Tokens and stablecoins: companies issue assets on the ledger, including Ripple’s own dollar stablecoin, RLUSD.

What makes XRP different

The XRP Ledger was designed for payments from the start: transactions are fast and cheap, there is no mining and the native exchange has been part of the protocol for years. Its supply was fully created at launch, which means there is no issuance to validators. The strong link with a single company, Ripple, also sets it apart from community-born projects like Bitcoin.

Risks and criticism

Critics point to centralisation: the default lists of trusted validators are published by a small number of organisations, and Ripple still holds a large share of the supply through escrow, which it can sell. The long SEC case created years of uncertainty; even though it ended in 2025, regulation of crypto assets can still change. Like any crypto asset, XRP is volatile, and its price is not tied to the growth of Ripple’s business. Beware also of frequent scams promising XRP giveaways in the name of Ripple executives.

How to store XRP

XRP can be held on an exchange or in a wallet that supports the XRP Ledger, including several hardware wallets. A new self-custody account must be activated with at least 1 XRP, which stays locked as a reserve. When you send XRP to an exchange, always include the destination tag it gives you, or the funds may not be credited. Keep your secret key or recovery phrase offline, as explained in our guide to seed phrase security.