XRP wallet

The firm Ripple was formed in 2012 under the corporation OpenCoin, and development on the early iteration of XRP officially began under Jed McCaleb and Chris Larsen in late 2012.

XRP is primarily used as a means of payment and liquidity within Ripple’s RippleNet — its global payments and liquidity network. Essentially, XRP functions within a distributed ledger where transactions are processed and settled via gateways — akin to a series of private blockchains.

The Ripple Transaction Protocol is the core of the network which enables participating users and entities (i.e., financial institutions) to send and receive XRP (or fiat currencies) with a settlement time of 4 seconds and negligible transaction fees. RippleNet can process roughly 1,500 transactions per second (TPS).

There are currently more than 200 banks and payment providers in the RippleNet ecosystem.

RippleNet also enables participants to rapidly exchange fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies, making it an ideal solution for institutions moving large sums that are looking for a quick settlement and low transaction costs. However, within RippleNet, XRP functions more as a liquidity source for the exchange of currencies than a pure cryptocurrency in the sense of Bitcoin.

The network is controlled by a set of validators, which makes the network more centralized than a public blockchain such as Bitcoin or Ethereum — although Ripple plans on making more strides in decentralizing the protocol.

The primary target audience of RippleNet and XRP are financial institutions (i.e., banks) and payment providers. Ripple’s chief financial products — xCurrent, xRapid, and xVia — all target financial institutions, payment providers, and enterprises.

Of the three primary products, xCurrent is the most popular and is viewed as a rival to the outdated SWIFT system. Essentially, xCurrent empowers banks and payment providers to process cross-border payments with swift settlement times, low costs, and bidirectional messaging. The vast portion of Ripple’s financial customers are users of the xCurrent product.

However, XRP is not actually required in the xCurrent system.

Rather, xRapid is Ripple’s product that leverages XRP for liquidity sourcing. Referred to as ‘on-demand liquidity,’ xRapid is a system for reducing the need for nostro accounts that subsequently lower liquidity costs for international payments. xRapid is an add-on option to xCurrent, with XRP functioning as the intermediary digital asset that unlocks liquidity.

xVia is a payments interface with APIs for businesses to plug into the RippleNet and make payments — XRP is not required.

When you first buy asset, you’re issued with two keys: public and private.

• A public key serves as an address that can be shared with other parties to perform transactions.
• A private key represents a randomly generated number that signs transactions and protects your assets from malicious attacks. If it gets compromised or lost, you won’t be able to access your wallet to spend, withdraw, or transfer your tokens.

To safeguard and keep track of your keys, you can use online or offline wallets. Online wallets, also known as hot wallets, store private keys on systems or devices that are connected to the internet. Hot wallets are easy and convenient to use, however, they come with several drawbacks. Besides being susceptible to attacks and a honeypot for hackers, with hot wallets, the custody of private keys is often entrusted to a third party such as a crypto exchange, which means you never have full control over your funds. The safer choice are specialized hardware wallets that store private keys offline. Stealing private keys from a hardware wallet would require physical access to the wallet and corresponding PIN or the recovery phrase. What’s more, with hardware wallet, you don’t need to rely on third party custodians.

Ledger Nano is the industry-leading hardware wallet. With more than five million customers, Ledger Nano wallets have several layers of security that protect private keys, and hence your assets:

• Your private keys are stored on secure element chips.
• A PIN code and a 24-word recovery phrase are required to access the wallet.
• Ledger Nano crypto wallets have been built using highly durable materials for protection against physical damage.

With full isolation between private keys and your computer/mobile, Ledger Nano cold wallets keep your keys secure and give you complete control over your tokens.