Characteristics of Ripple
Ripple is the third largest market capitalization strength in terms of cryptocurrencies. It was launched in 2012 as a decentralized free software payment system and under this name we find both the financial protocol for transfers and the cryptocurrency better known as XRP.
However, until 2016 Ripple did not obtain the necessary accreditation to operate as a cryptocurrency, ending up being fined the previous year with a sum of 700,000 dollars. Just one year after obtaining its license, its capital had amounted to 55 million dollars in part due to its acceptance and subsequent collaboration with banks such as Santander, Siam Commercial Bank, Royal Bank of Canada or UniCredit, among others.
Differences between Ripple, Bitcoin and Ethereum
Among the most outstanding features, the speed of transfer stands out because for every second a total of 1,500 transactions can be carried out while other cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ethereum only allow 6 and 15 respectively. Likewise, completing a transaction takes around 4 - 5 seconds while with Ethereum it takes 2 minutes and with Bitcoin, it goes up to almost an hour.
Due to the importance of Bitcoin today, Ripple has a payment gateway that facilitates payment between its users with these two cryptocurrencies without the need to have their own wallet with that currency. Despite using a similar operation that allows the connection with other cryptocurrencies, it does not work under the blockchain technology.
Another main difference with respect to other cryptocurrencies is the absence of mining. It’s not possible to generate new Ripple units this way. Right from its launch, it was agreed that the maximum number of Ripple would be at 100 billion units, although not all of them are in circulation at this time. Ripple units are being released by their creators periodically. In addition, it’s worth underlining that nearly 20% of the market cap is owned by its creators.