What is XRP? XRP is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, an open-source public blockchain designed for fast settlement, payments, asset issuance, and exchange. The XRP Ledger launched in 2012 with 100 billion XRP created at genesis, rather than through mining.
Core technology and blockchain architecture
The XRP Ledger is a public Layer 1 network that records XRP balances, issued currencies, trust lines, escrows, payment channels, NFTs, and decentralized-exchange offers. It generally settles transactions in approximately 3–5 seconds, while its transaction fees are fractions of a cent. The commonly specified minimum fee is 10 drops, equal to 0.00001 XRP, although fees can rise during congestion.
Unlike proof-of-work blockchains, the XRP Ledger does not use mining. Unlike proof-of-stake networks, it does not issue new XRP to validators as staking rewards. XRP is required to pay network fees, and each fee is permanently destroyed rather than distributed to validators.
The ledger includes a built-in decentralized exchange with order-book trading and payment pathfinding. XLS-30 added a protocol-level automated market maker, allowing liquidity providers to deposit asset pairs into pools and receive pool shares. The network also supports issued tokens, stablecoins, native NFTs through XLS-20, escrow, multisignature authorization, and tokenized assets.
The separate XRPL EVM Sidechain launched its mainnet on 30 June 2025. It provides Ethereum-compatible smart contracts and uses wrapped XRP, or eXRP, as its native asset and gas token. The sidechain has separate validators, consensus rules, and ledger state, so it is not the same network as the XRP Ledger mainnet.
Consensus mechanism and network security
The XRP Ledger uses the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol, often called the Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm, or RPCA. Independent validators receive transactions, check them against protocol rules, exchange proposals, and vote on the next ledger state. A ledger is confirmed when the required supermajority agrees.
Each server uses a Unique Node List, or UNL, containing validators it considers trustworthy and sufficiently independent. Servers can configure different lists, but enough overlap among trusted validators is necessary for safe agreement. The model is designed to continue operating when some validators are offline or malfunctioning.
Validators do not receive newly issued XRP for securing the network. Security instead depends on reliable validator operators, cryptographic signatures, protocol compliance, and sufficient validator diversity. This creates a different trust and governance model from both mining-based and staking-based blockchains.
What is XRP used for?
XRP is used for transfers, transaction fees, liquidity, trading, and settlement on the XRP Ledger. It can serve as a bridge asset between currencies or issued assets, allowing payment providers to move value without maintaining prefunded accounts in every currency corridor.
Ripple’s institutional payment products use digital assets, stablecoins, and local currencies for cross-border settlement and payouts. XRP may be used in certain corridors, depending on the product and payment structure. The ledger’s native DEX and AMM also support non-custodial trading, while its token and NFT functions support stablecoins, tokenized assets, collectibles, credentials, and other digital representations.
Who is behind XRP and where is it based?
The XRP Ledger was developed by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto. Development began in 2011, and the ledger and XRP launched in 2012. Chris Larsen joined the founding company, which was initially known as NewCoin, Inc. and later became associated with OpenCoin, Ripple Labs, and Ripple.
Ripple Labs, Inc. is a United States company associated with the commercial development of XRP-related payment and blockchain infrastructure. Ripple operates from San Francisco, California, and has international offices and activities. The XRP Ledger itself is open-source and maintained by independent validators, developers, and ecosystem contributors rather than being a proprietary Ripple database.
Ripple is therefore a company connected to the XRP ecosystem, while XRP is the native asset of the public XRP Ledger. The reference implementation is developed publicly through the XRPLF/rippled repository. The XRPL Foundation also participates in ecosystem stewardship and default validator-list infrastructure.
Tokenomics and supply
All 100 billion XRP were created at launch. No new XRP is produced through mining, staking, or validator rewards. The CoinStats snapshot captured on 1 October 2026 recorded a circulating supply of 63,092,975,951 XRP and a total supply of 99,985,612,577 XRP.
The founders transferred 80 billion XRP to Ripple’s predecessor company for ecosystem development. Ripple later placed 55 billion XRP into on-ledger escrow. The escrow structure consisted of 55 contracts containing 1 billion XRP each, with up to 1 billion XRP becoming available in a monthly release. Unused XRP could be returned to escrow, so the monthly figure was a release limit rather than a guaranteed permanent increase in circulation.
XRP has no mining inflation, but its supply can change through the movement of previously issued holdings and escrow releases. At the same time, every transaction fee is destroyed permanently. This creates a limited deflationary effect, although fee destruction is small compared with the quantities managed through escrow.
Key partnerships and ecosystem integrations
Ripple has connected the XRP ecosystem with institutional payments, custody, stablecoins, and financial-market infrastructure. Its Ripple Payments platform supports settlement involving stablecoins, crypto assets, and local currencies. RLUSD, Ripple’s dollar-backed stablecoin, operates on the XRP Ledger and is designed for dollar-denominated payments, collateral, and treasury activity.
Ripple announced a $1.25 billion acquisition of Hidden Road in April 2025 and later announced that the transaction had closed in October 2025. It also announced an agreement to acquire Rail for $200 million in August 2025, subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals. These integrations extend the ecosystem toward prime brokerage, stablecoin payments, corporate treasury, and institutional liquidity.
The XRPL EVM Sidechain also uses interoperability infrastructure, including Axelar-related bridge integrations, to connect EVM-compatible applications with the broader XRP ecosystem.
Competitive advantages and current development
The XRP Ledger’s main differentiators are rapid settlement, low fees, low energy use, fixed original supply, and native payment and trading infrastructure. Its built-in DEX, AMM, token issuance, escrow, and compliance-oriented asset controls reduce the need to recreate core financial functions through separate smart contracts.
Development remained active in 2026. xrpld 3.4.0 was released on 17 September 2026, adding or advancing LendingProtocolV1_1, closed-ended vaults, cash-basis accounting, amendment-gated fixes, and build and testing improvements. Broader development priorities include lending, sponsored fees and reserves, multi-purpose tokens, permissioned DEX functions, AMM refinement, tokenization, and EVM interoperability.
At the 1 October 2026 snapshot, XRP was priced at $1.49, with a 24h change of -0.11%. Its market cap was $93.98B (rank #5), 24h volume was $3.98B, and its all-time high was $3.65, the current price is 59.19% below it.