XRP is a cryptographically secured digital asset with verifiable mathematical properties, similar to how we can reliably verify gold as a substance made of atoms with 79 protons. Among other things, XRP is a cryptocurrency.

By design, 100 billion XRP were created at Ripple’s inception and, per the rules of the protocol, no more XRP can ever be created. Transactions are verified through Consensus, in which the entire network agrees on the same ledger. All of this happens independent of a central bank.

Some people take issue with XRP being “pre-mined,” but every cryptocurrency is designed from inception. It’s the philosophical underpinning of a new currency that determines whether the first 5% will be “mined” right away by its creator, while everyone else is forced to jump through hoops for the next 131 years, or whether the new currency will be generated and available immediately, or somewhere in between.

It has also been said that “real” cryptocurrencies have their own blockchain. XRP meets this requirement as well. XRP exists natively on the XRP Ledger as a counter-free asset, similar to Bitcoin. XRP forms a core part of its blockchain as part of an incentive scheme. There is a transaction fee to use the XRP Ledger (~.0001XRP) and it must be paid in XRP. This transaction fee is not collected by anyone; the XRP are destroyed and cease to exist. Having a cost associated with ledger entries helps prevent ledger flooding attacks.

https://ripple.com/xrp/

XRP consistently handles 1,500 transactions per second, 24x7, and can scale to handle the same throughput as Visa. (50,000 transactions per second, as of July 15, 2017.)

XRP transaction fee = 1/100th of a cent!

UTILITY

XRP comes with a utility that most people fail to recognize. Aside from providing an anti-spam mechanism, XRP comes equipped with GPS! The XRP Ledger has a pathfinding algorithm designed to route every transaction to the cheapest possible path. It’s currency agnostic and even has a built-in foreign exchange component.

XRP was designed as a settlement asset. It’s quick, scalable, and cheap. While banks may use the Ripple network to swap their own private IOUs, only a digital asset without counter-party risk can provide instant settlement.

XRP CANNOT BE FROZEN!

The XRP Ledger has no administrative functions.

Ripple doesn’t issue any assets on the ledger and there are no trust lines that end at Ripple.