XRP is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), an open-source blockchain launched in 2012 by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto. Unlike many cryptocurrencies, XRP was pre-issued with a fixed maximum supply of 100 billion coins at genesis—no new XRP can ever be created. The asset is designed for fast, low-cost, and scalable payments, with typical transaction confirmations occurring in 3–5 seconds and fees amounting to a tiny fraction of an XRP, often less than a cent.
Key Facts about XRP
Current Price: $2.93 USD
Market Cap: Approximately $164.9 billion
Circulating Supply: Around 59.1 billion XRP, about 59% of the maximum supply
All-Time High: $3.84 (January 2018)
Consensus Mechanism: Federated Consensus (not mining); anyone can run a validator node.
Primary Uses
Bridge asset for cross-border payments and liquidity
Base currency for the XRPL’s decentralized exchange
On-Demand Liquidity (ODL): Used by Ripple to facilitate fast, currency-agnostic transfers between financial institutions
