The XRP Ledger (XRPL), also called the Ripple Protocol, is a cryptocurrency platform launched in 2012 by

Ripple Labs Ripple Labs, Inc. is an American technology company which offers enterprise blockchain products on the XRP Ledger and other networks. Originally named Opencoin and renamed in 2015, the company was founded in 2012 and is based in San Francisco, C ...

. The XRPL employs the native cryptocurrency known as XRP, and supports tokens,

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

or other units of value such as

frequent flyer miles A frequent-flyer programme (FFP) is a loyalty program offered by an airline. Many airlines have frequent-flyer programmes designed to encourage airline customers enrolled in the programme to accumulate points (also called miles, kilometres, ...

or mobile minutes.

History

Development of the XRP Ledger began in 2011 by engineers David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto, with a discussion initiated by McCaleb on a public discussion board. The open-source project was originally called "Ripple", the unique consensus ledger was called the Ripple Consensus Ledger, the transaction protocol was called the Ripple Transaction Protocol or RTXP and the digital asset (known as "ripples") using XRP as the three-letter currency code to follow the naming convention of BTC for Bitcoin. The technology of the "XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol" was formally established in 2012. In May 2018, Ashton Kutcher gifted a charity sponsored by

Ellen DeGeneres Ellen Lee DeGeneres ( ; born January 26, 1958) is an American former comedian, actress, television host, writer, and producer. She began her career in stand-up comedy in the early 1980s, gaining national attention with a 1986 appearance on '' ...

$4 million in the currency, which was noted at the time to be the "third most-valuable cryptocurrency on the market". On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres of the

United States District Court for the Southern District of New York The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (in case citations, S.D.N.Y.) is a federal trial court whose geographic jurisdiction encompasses eight counties of the State of New York. Two of these are in New York Ci ...

issued a decision on motions for

summary judgment In law, a summary judgment, also referred to as judgment as a matter of law or summary disposition, is a Judgment (law), judgment entered by a court for one party and against another party summarily, i.e., without a full Trial (law), trial. Summa ...

and stated the XRP token itself is not a security, although the manner in which it is sold could constitute the sale of a security. "XRP, as a digital token, is not in and of itself a 'contract, transaction, or scheme' that embodies the Howey requirements of an investment contract".District court summary judgement
pdf, ''

Securities and Exchange Commission The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government, created in the aftermath of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Its primary purpose is to enforce laws against market m ...

v. Ripple Labs, Inc.'', 1:20-cv-10832-AT-SN ( S.D.N.Y., July 13, 2023). On March 2, 2025, President

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

announced that XRP was one of five digital assets that he intended to name to a planned U.S. crypto strategic reserve. On March 6, 2025, the

White House The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. Located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest (Washington, D.C.), NW in Washington, D.C., it has served as the residence of every U.S. president ...

officially published the order online.

Technical overview

The XRP Ledger operates on a consensus protocol that differs from traditional

proof-of-work Proof of work (also written as proof-of-work, an abbreviated PoW) is a form of Cryptography, cryptographic proof (truth), proof in which one party (the ''prover'') proves to others (the ''verifiers'') that a certain amount of a specific computatio ...

(PoW) and proof-of-stake (PoS) mechanisms. Transactions are validated by a network of independent validators who reach consensus every 3 to 5 seconds, enabling rapid transaction settlement. Users rely on a trusted list of validators known as the Unique Node List (UNL). While this approach provides faster transaction validation and security, though it has led to discussions about centralization within the network. The XRP Ledger

peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network, forming a peer-to-peer network of Node ...

overlay network An overlay network is a logical computer network that is protocol layering, layered on top of a physical network. The concept of overlay networking is distinct from the traditional model of OSI model, OSI layered networks, and almost always assum ...

is characterized by a

small-world network A small-world network is a graph characterized by a high clustering coefficient and low distances. In an example of the social network, high clustering implies the high probability that two friends of one person are friends themselves. The l ...

topology, featuring a tightly clustered structure and short paths between nodes. Information systems expert Mary Lacity notes that this platform "uses much less electricity than Bitcoin—about as much electricity as it costs to run an email server".

Role of Ripple Labs

Yale Yale University is a private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, and one of the nine colonial colleges ch ...

economist Gary Gorton notes, "Ripple and XRPL are not the same entity". Shortly after the XRPL was launched, McCaleb, Britto and Chris Larsen founded the company Open Coin in September 2012 to operate on the ledger. On September 26, 2013, OpenCoin officially changed its name to Ripple Labs, Inc and was at the time headed by Chris Larsen. Unlike many cryptocurrencies, XRP was pre-mined, with 100 billion tokens created at inception. The XRPL founders gifted 80 billion XRP, the platform's native currency, to Ripple Labs. Ripple Labs holds a portion of XRP and periodically releases tokens into circulation through sales, aiming to maintain market stability.

References

External links

* {{Cryptocurrencies, state=expanded Private currencies Cryptocurrency projects Foreign exchange companies Foreign exchange market Payment systems Mobile payments Micropayment Software using the ISC license

History

Technical overview

Role of Ripple Labs

See also

References

External links