Perhaps best known for its value appreciation of 3773% in 2017, XRP has been one of the hottest digital currencies in 2017.

Ripple is currently LIVE on both QUOINEX and QRYPTOS. Available pairs on QUOINEX include: XRP/USD, XRP/JPY, XRP/SGD, XRP/EUR, XRP/HKD, XRP/IDR, XRP/AUD, XRP/PHP, XRP/CNY.

Today, we would like to feature XRP as our chosen Coin of the Week to explain what makes XRP one of the top cryptocurrencies of 2017.

XRP was introduced in 2012 and is, in essence a real-time payment system that facilitates payments across locations and banks. Developed by a team of crypto experts with experience in Bitcoin like Co-founder Chris Larsen and CTO Jed McCaleb, Ripple was one of the first currencies with functions other than being a medium for exchange.

1. What is Ripple’s vision and the main use case for XRP?

Ripple, the company, has a vision to enable the world to move money like information moves today. Ripple does this by reducing friction in cross-border payments, and have developed a set of products that leverage blockchain and digital asset technologies.

One of these products, xRapid, uses XRP to help financial institutions source on-demand liquidity (money) and send real-time payments. Companies, such as MoneyGram and Cuallix, are piloting xRapid today to send money more quickly and cost effectively across borders by using XRP.

XRP, the digital asset native to the XRP Ledger, is the best digital asset for payments because of its speed, low cost and scalability. Despite having activity volumes as high as bitcoin and ether, XRP’s ability to perform at scale makes it the ideal asset for solving a big challenge today: cross-border payments.

2. Why Consensus instead of Proof-of-Work as the underlying protocol?

XRP is the digital asset native to the XRP Ledger, a distributed ledger which uses Consensus instead of Proof-of-Work (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc.). In 2011, the creators of the XRP Ledger identified some challenges with Proof-of-Work including inefficient energy resource consumption, scalability issues and potentially conflicting economic incentives, which could weaken proposed governance structures. The creators decided to develop a Consensus protocol that doesn’t require “mining” in order to process transactions. This, in turn, has continued to make XRP better for payments in three unique ways:

1. Cost — transactions remain a fraction of a penny on average despite increased network transaction volume (higher than BTC and ETH)

2. Speed — the XRP Ledger is able to process transactions within 3–5 seconds

3. Scalability — transactions can take place at scale (1,500 TPS)

3. What makes XRP different from other digital assets?

XRP’s utility and the use case Ripple has developed for XRP help separate it from other digital assets. The first differentiator, its utility, is reflected in the digital asset’s ability to perform in cross-border payments even as network-transaction activity increases. The second, its real use case, is reflected in the companies that are piloting XRP via xRapid today to send money more efficiently across borders.

While some digital assets are still operating on theoretical concepts, with nothing to show but a white paper, XRP’s application in actual payments use cases proves that it has real value.

4. Is the XRP Ledger centralized?

This is a common misconception about the XRP Ledger. While Ripple contributes to the open-source code of the XRP Ledger, no single entity owns, controls, or administers the XRP Ledger. It is decentralized. If Ripple ceased to exist, the Ledger would continue on.

Similarly, no single entity centrally controls XRP. A fixed quantity of 100 billion units of XRP were created before Ripple (the company) was formed, and then a portion was gifted to Ripple. Today, Ripple still owns a little more than 60% of the total supply of XRP. In 2017, Ripple placed 55 billion XRP in cryptographically-secured escrow accounts on the XRP Ledger to create certainty of XRP supply at any given time. Each month, one (1) billion XRP is released to Ripple, which it can use to help build a robust and vibrant XRP ecosystem and long-term utility.

5. Are there other ways developers can use XRP to enable other use cases?

While Ripple is hyper-focused on removing friction in cross-border payments, there are others who are actively working with the XRP Ledger on a variety of use cases. The XRP Ledger is free to build on and open sourced with lots of users today. Examples include exchanges, market makers, and wallet providers who use the XRP Ledger, its fully documented libraries, and its open APIs for their business operations. Similarly, other innovative remittance companies have started to assess the viability of using XRP for money transfers because of its scalability, speed and low costs. Check out the rippled Github account to stay up to date on all things XRP Ledger.