Ripple and the personalized cryptocurrency that she created, XRP, have a moment.

Gaining the attention of new investors (so much so that XRP has climbed more than 1,000% earlier this year) as well as new customers (with ads that are running slowly and steadily), starting up Business blockchain was the subject of crypto in 2018.

Still, newcomers should note that much of the excitement stems from some of the start-up's claims – namely that its technology could revolutionize international payments, innovating on outdated methods for forward messages and money between financial giants.

Not only does Ripple claim that its products are cheaper and faster, but it also claims they are generally more efficient than the services on the market today, a claim that depends primarily on its use of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.

Still, not all Ripple products are created equal to XRP and its $ 35 billion market.

In fact, XRP, the asset that you can buy and redeem, is only one small piece of a suite of products offered by San Francisco startups (some of which do not use cryptocurrency at all).

In the following piece, we present Ripple's three products today – xCurrent, xRapid and xVia – and explain where XRP is inscribed.

xCurrent

Built on a distributed registry called Interledger, xCurrent does not run on the same technology as XRP (which uses a separate system called XRP Ledger).

It should be noted that, although Interledger was built by Ripple executives, it is not managed by the company – it is incubated in a W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) group, managed by a long-standing non-profit organization. Internet standards.

As such, xCurrent's main goal is to ensure interoperability between all currencies, not just cryptocurrencies.

By having connectors that have value in a number of currencies, xCurrent allows banks to deal with each other, even if the sender wants to pay in US dollars but the recipient wants to receive it from them. money in euros.

The product also has a messaging platform "used to coordinate the exchange of information between banks," said Thomas, who allows one or the other Other banks to send data.

The email platform allows for real-time updates so that simple errors, such as errors in the spelling of the recipient's name, do not delay payments to be facilitated quickly. Another feature is tracking payments to their endpoint, while preserving customer confidentiality.

As Stefan Thomas, Ripple's technical director, explains:

"It provides a single source of truth for transaction counterparties while preserving the confidentiality of identifiable payment information from bank customers."

So while some of the hype around XRP was about xCurrent customers, the product itself does not necessarily depend on cryptocurrency.

In the same way that xCurrent can handle dollars, euros and other fiduciary currencies, as well as bitcoin, ether and other cryptocurrencies, XRP can be exchanged via the system.

xRapid

However, when XRP is exchanged via the xCurrent system, Ripple defines it as a new product called xRapid.

Throughout the year, a number of existing and new Ripple customers have come forward to express their interest in experimenting with the use of XRP via xRapid.

In simple terms, xRapid is a liquidity solution. Companies can exchange assets in XRP for faster transfer through Ripple's xCurrent payment protocol. In short, this means that these companies would create a demand for XRP in the public market.

And while the product supports other cryptocurrencies, it is said that XRP has express benefits.

Thomas told CoinDesk:

"While other digital assets could technically be applied, XRP is faster and cheaper – at penny and about three seconds per transaction."

Major remittance providers, such as Western Union and Moneygram, began piloting xRapid in their businesses; to have a handful of others.

While only one company – Cuallix – began using xRapid in real money transactions, Ripple tweeted in January that "three of the top five money transfer companies could soon follow his example". (This triggered a familiar refrain on the part of skeptics, who say banks will never embrace cryptocurrency.)

Still, Thomas remains confident that xRapid would become more attractive to financial institutions around the world.

"What boosts value, it's use," said Thomas, "a quantifiable way to see this is like the amount of liquidity that goes through the token." So, I think it's like the name of the game here, it's trying to get as much liquidity through it, and more liquidity, more value, and that's what we're trying to do. "

For Ripple, xRapid represents the last step of a consortium effort called RippleNet, where XRP is the central asset linking all its disparate payment protocols.

Thomas told CoinDesk:

"As a store of value, given that we are very invested in the success of the XRP doctrine, because of our participation in the XRP, we are obviously convinced of the long-term potential for XRP to increase in value as adoption improves. "

xVia

That said, Ripple also wants to transfer customers to its xVia product, a payment interface designed to make the user experience of xCurrent and xRapid more intuitive.

In the same way that WhatsApp hides the complex inner workings of online instant messaging with a sleek user interface, xVia seeks to mask the complexity of facilitating payments through other Ripple products.

As such, xVia does not use the XRP cryptocurrency of the default company, although this is an option.

Just as xCurrent allows users to track payments, xVia does the same thing, allowing users to generate invoices for their transactions.

Although this is the final step in Ripple's ecosystem of products, a couple of money transfer providers – Brazil-based Beetech and Canada-based Zip Remit – announced plans to launch the company. use the product.

Still, there still seems to be some confusion about what the product itself is, with a representative on Reddit explaining that it's the payments facilitator themselves.

This probably stems not only from the overlap of all Ripple products between them, but also from the fact that little is said at this stage about xVia.

Disclaimer: CoinDesk is a subsidiary of Digital Currency Group, which owns an interest in Ripple.

Stack of XRP coins on a computer keyboard image via Shutterstock

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