What is Ripple?
Ripple is a payment network for banks and financial institutions that allows them to send and receive currency and settle transactions more quickly and more cheaply than their existing back-end systems. Ripple is both a payment network (RippleNet) and a cryptocurrency (Ripple XRP) created in 2012. RippleNet connects banks and other big institutions and allows them to transfer money and other assets through the network. All transactions are recorded on the decentralized XRP Ledger. With a market cap of roughly 92.5 Billion USD, XRP is the 2nd largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin.
Is it a good investment?
Definitely. Wouldn’t it be awesome to have bought Bitcoin or Ethereum when they were still trading at under 2-3$? Well, at least for now, you still have the chance to do this with XRP. At the time this post was written 1 XRP was trading at 2.39 $.
Who uses Ripple?
Ripple announced a slew of new bank partners at once, including Santander and UBS. Last month, Ripple added American Express, a big buzzy name that renewed attention on Ripple and boosted XRP.
More recently, Bloomberg added XRP, litecoin, and ether data to its terminals last month. And this week, SBI Holdings, a financial firm in Asia, and SBI Ripple Asia, a joint venture created last year by SBI Holdings and Ripple, announced that a number of Japanese credit card companies will use RippleNet.
Until now, the entities that have shown the biggest interest in XRP are several banks, Google and Apple. Until now, 15 of the 50 largest banks in the world are already planning to integrate XRP in the near future. The main reason being the vast amount of money Ripple can save for those banks, thus, increasing their profit margins.
What is the difference between ripple and bitcoin?
The main difference between bitcoin and ripple is the fact that BTC confirms transactions with the use of miners, while XRP cannot be mined.
Where to buy Ripples?
So how can you actually buy Ripple? They’re available the same way as any other cryptocurrency: make an account on an exchange like Bitstamp and buy them using your local currency. You can store them in an online wallet such as Gatehub, from where you can also send them to other Ripple users. However, a safer method is to store them offline in a wallet like the Ledger. But keep in mind that investing in Ripples and other cryptocurrencies can be risky. So make sure to never invest more than you can afford to lose.