How Does the XRP Ledger Work?

The ledger is maintained by independent participants of a global “XRP Community,” of which Ripple is an active member.

Independent validator nodes come to an agreement on the order and validity of XRP transactions. This agreement, called consensus, serves as final and irreversible settlement. The ledger reaches consensus on all outstanding transactions every 3-5 seconds, at which point a new ledger is issued. Anyone can be a validator, and active validators on the ledger today include universities, exchanges and financial institutions. There are currently 36 validators, and Ripple runs 6 of them—16%.

Interested in running a validator? Learn how to get started here.