XRP is a large cryptocurrency in terms of total market capitalization, ranking third after Bitcoin and Ethereum.

It is also considered one of the digital currencies that are strongly present in the Arab crypto community, as there is much talk about it in Arab circles interested in digital currencies.

XRP is a digital currency that is issued and managed in part by Ripple Inc, which provides payment solutions and also operates the “RippleNet” cross-border payment network.

Ripple began selling XRP in 2012, although the company has turned its attention away from the cryptocurrency toward a cross-border payment network in recent years.

How does XRP work?

Ripple has a long history of reshaping how the digital currency XRP fits into its business model, first adopting it as a fuel that supports cross-border payments technology, and then putting it on the side in its services such as “xCurrent”, “xRapid” and “xVia”, all of these services mentioned It improves international payments and makes them cheaper and faster.

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In late 2019, “xCurrent”, “xRapid” and “xVia” were renamed to “RippleNet,” the latter representing a payment network focused on rapid cross-border transfers between financial institutions.

In addition to RippleNet, Ripple also oversees the XRP Ledger, a blockchain-like network that facilitates payments in XRP.

Like other cryptocurrencies, XRP can be sent to and from the digital wallet regardless of international borders.

When Ripple was launched in 2012, Ripple marketed XRP as a faster and cheaper alternative to Bitcoin because transactions take place in a few seconds.

The XRP network can achieve this speed because its infrastructure is centralized and does not use Proof of Work (otherwise known as mining).

How is Ripple (XRP) different from Bitcoin (BTC)?

At Ripple, the panel of auditors works like bitcoin miners and their goal is to keep the transaction network intact, secure, and trusted.

These validators reach a consensus every 3-5 seconds and publish a new version with the latest transactions on the network periodically.

While anyone can run the code to be an XRP validator, this does not mean that any validator will be trusted by others in the network.

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To earn this trust, they have to create Ripple’s Unique Node List (UNL), a registry of trusted auditors sponsored by Ripple.

There are currently 35 active Ripple XRP Ledger validators, six of which are run by Ripple itself.

Ripple also offers a software suite called “RippleX” for developers and companies who build their businesses on XRP.

The platform includes tools and software to interact with Ripple Ledger and PayID and Interledger, two protocols developed independently of XRP.

The difference between “RippleNet” and “XRP”:

According ripple website, Banks such as Santander have used RippleNet to settle remittance payments and exchange currencies.

According to Ripple, it has settled nearly half a billion transactions and served 6 continents.

The service supports more than 55 countries and 120 currency pairs.

RippleNet’s On Demand Liquidity Service is the only network feature that uses XRP.

On-demand liquidity service is available in Australia, the Eurozone, the United States, Mexico and the Philippines.

The difference between BTC and XRP:

Unlike Bitcoin, which is mined, XRP is not mined.

Ripple minted the entire offer when the network was first launched, and Ripple intermittently issued parts of the escrow fund and sold them on the open market.

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Of the total 100,000,000,000 XRP supply, over 45 billion XRP is currently in circulation.

The XRP cryptocurrency design sacrifices decentralization for the sake of speed.

Since Ripple has eliminated the Proof of Work consensus mechanism adopted in Bitcoin, the network is arguably less secure, but can process transactions more quickly than Bitcoin because (UNL) validators are highly centralized, so they can agree on consensus and share data quickly.

XRP can facilitate faster transactions because there is no mining during the transaction.

Instead of miners competing for block rewards and entering transactions into the blockchain, Ripple validators verify transactions without the promise of a reward.

These validators are vetted by Ripple, and this trust is essential to designing XRP to prevent double spending (this trust model is no different from how credit cards or other digital payment networks work today).

Bitcoin	Ripple
Relying on the mechanism of proof of work (mining)	Trusted Parties Consensus Protocol (UNL)
Total volume 21 million BTC	The total volume is estimated at 100 billion XRP
Miners authenticate bitcoin transactions and work to keep the network secure in exchange for bitcoin rewards.	Verifiers keep a log of transactions, only UNL-accredited validators are trusted by the network.
It is not subject to a central authority	It is supervised by a private company.

in conclusion:

XRP is arguably less resistant to censorship, unlike open source blockchains such as Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Anyone can run a Bitcoin node and participate in the network consensus, but only Ripple-approved (UNL) nodes can participate in the XRP consensus.

In theory, they could easily collude to censor Ripple transactions, while Bitcoin’s Proof of Work system makes it impractical for miners to collude in censoring a particular transaction.

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