What’s Ripple?
The first thing to know is that Ripple is both a platform and a currency. The Ripple platform is an open source protocol which is designed to allow fast and cheap transactions. Also Ripple is the second most dominant cryptocurrency after Bitcoin and Ethereum. Unlike Bitcoin that was never intended to be a simple payment machine, Ripple is definitely going to rule all the international transactions worldwide.
The protocol as a working prototype was created away back in 2004. But the real birth was given to XRP in 2013, when Jed McCaleb encouraged several world rank investors to invest in Ripple Labs.
What’s made it unique?
Unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, Ripple doesn’t have a blockchain. Ripple has its own patented technology: the Ripple protocol consensus algorithm (RPCA). Ripple is based on a shared public database that makes use of a consensus process between those validating servers to ensure integrity. Those validating servers can belong to anyone, from individuals to banks. The main purpose of the Ripple platform is to move lots of money around the world as rapidly as possible.
Ripple uses gateways, which are best described as something similar to a global ledger made up of private blockchains. A gateway is essentially a digital portal that governments, companies, and financial institutions use to join the network. This mechanism is called the Ripple Transaction Protocol (RTXP), also known as RippleNet.
Ripple has been stable since its release with over 35 million transactions processed without issue. Ripple handles 1,500 transactions per second (tps) and has been updated to be able to scale to Visa levels of 50,000 transactions per second. In comparison, Bitcoin can handle 3-6 tps (not including scaling layers) and Ethereum 15 tps.
When a company, or financial institution joins RippleNet, it can transact with other gateways at a much faster speed and a fraction of the cost. RippleNet also makes it possible to receive payments from any fiat (ex. USD, EUR,) or cryptocurrency (ex. BTC, ETH)
Today Ripple’s already being used in such major banks as UniCredit, Western Union, Santander and UBS. Ripple company has partners and investors, among which are such major brands as Microsoft and Google.
Ripple’s benefits
Full anonymity. Unlike fiat payments, you don’t need to provide your personal data to top up your wallet.
High transaction performance speed (faster than SWIFT) and high scalability. The transaction confirmation time for XRP is around 4 seconds, while for Ethereum this figure exceeds 2 minutes, and for the Bitcoin, it is more than 1 hour at the moment.
Minimal platform’s commission. The current minimum transaction cost required by the network for a standard transaction is around 0.00001 XRP.
A good investment. The value of the Ripple is steadily growing year by year as the platform has secured more and more partners.
Easily accessible. Unlike most of the cryptocurrencies, XRP can’t be mined. But the coin can be bought on any popular crypto exchange.
What is Ripple perfect for?
Ripple gained a great popularity among cryptocurrency community as a perfect payment solution, especially among the crypto-gamblers.
Ripple (XRP) became the 20th digital asset supported by well-known cryptocurrency betting website – 1xBit.com. 1xBit is the leader at the cryptocurrency gambling, worked since 2016 and provides a wide range of bets.
Due to such advantages as an anonymity, which is also provided by 1xBit, a high transaction performance speed, necessary for live betting, and others, described before, Ripple was chosen to be presented at 1xBit gambling platform along with other 20 cryptocurrency tokens.