XRP (Ripple) — the coin for fast transfers between countries

XRP in plain words

What cryptocurrency is in general is explained in what is cryptocurrency.

A worker from the Philippines who has a job in Japan sends money to their family. Through a transfer service, their yen turn into XRP, the coin reaches the Philippines in a few seconds, and there it turns into pesos. A bank transfer on the same route can take several days.

Ripple is a company that promotes XRP for payments and holds a large share of the coins. You can use the XRP coin without Ripple too, much as you can use gold without dealing with the company that owns a big gold mine.

1. network launch 06.2012, creators, 100 billion XRP, 80 billion handed to the company XRPL.org, «History» xrpl.org ↩

How the XRP coin works

How XRP works as a bridge between currencies

To turn yen into pesos, banks have to keep a stock of pesos in Japan or a stock of yen in the Philippines in advance, or pass the money along a chain of intermediary banks, which is slow and expensive.

Nobody needs a direct flight between every pair of cities, because passengers change planes at one big hub airport. XRP works as that hub: yen are swapped for XRP, the coin reaches another country in seconds, and there it is swapped for pesos, so nobody needs reserves of every currency in advance.

The coin is needed for just a few seconds. The transfer services take on the risk that its price changes during those seconds, and the sender does not have to think about it.

Where XRP is used and where it isn't

• From 2021 the Japanese transfer service SBI Remit sent money from Japan to the Philippines through XRP¹, and in September 2023 it added Vietnam and Indonesia².
• The XRP Ledger has a built-in exchange where one currency is swapped for another, and XRP often acts as the go-between there.
• Since November 2025, spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs) on XRP that hold the coins themselves have been trading in the US³. An exchange-traded fund is a way to invest in the price of XRP from a brokerage account, and you do not receive the coin itself.

Where Ripple works without the XRP coin:

• Some "Ripple partner banks" use only its payment-messaging system and do not touch the XRP coin.
• In December 2024 Ripple launched its own dollar stablecoin, RLUSD, on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum networks, and other networks were added later⁴⁵. Some payments now go in RLUSD, with no XRP involved. What a stablecoin is, the article what is a stablecoin explains.

News of a deal with the company Ripple does not by itself mean the deal uses the XRP coin.

Where all the XRP came from and why Ripple has so much

• All 100 billion XRP were issued in 2012 when the network launched, and no new ones can be mined; a one-time issue like this is called a premine⁶. On top of that, a tiny amount of XRP is burned, meaning it disappears for good, with every transfer, so the total number of coins shrinks very slowly. How coin issuance works in general is covered in what is issuance.
• The creators handed the company Ripple 80 billion of the 100 billion XRP⁶. In 2017 Ripple locked most of its XRP in special "safe" accounts that release coins in portions on a schedule, a bit like a deposit that only lets you withdraw a set amount each month⁷. How many coins are locked right now is shown by a block explorer, a website with all transfers.
  where to check: block explorer, e.g. blockchair.com

How the network reaches agreement without mining

The XRP Ledger network has neither mining nor staked coins. Transfers are checked by participating servers called validators. Each server chooses which other servers to trust, and a record is accepted once almost all the trusted servers agree. It is how you would settle a dispute by asking only the people you personally trust. What agreement in a network means is explained in what is consensus.

This approach is fast and uses little electricity. Even so, almost all servers rely on similar recommended trust lists, and the network is criticized because decisions in it depend on a small circle of validators. The network's design is covered in more detail on the page XRP Ledger.

What to know before sending XRP so you don't lose money

• When sending XRP to an exchange, include the destination tag. An exchange often receives XRP at one shared address and tells its customers apart by this number. It works like an apartment number in a street address: without it, the parcel reaches the building but cannot find the recipient. If you forget the tag, you will have to contact the exchange's support, and that does not always help.
• For your XRP Ledger account to work, it always holds a reserve, a small amount of XRP that cannot be spent. That is 1 coin plus a small extra for every connected token or other entry on the account⁸. You can get most of the reserve back only by closing the account itself on the network. Deleting the app is not enough for that. Closing the account is a separate operation, and it costs a little XRP⁹. Check the current reserve on the network's website.
  where to check: xrpl.org
• Videos and posts with fake giveaways like "Ripple is giving away XRP, send 1,000 coins and get 2,000 back" are always a scam: neither the company nor the network does this. How to recognize this kind of con is explained in phishing and scams.
• As with any cryptocurrency, the wallet keys, the secret codes in an app or device, are your responsibility alone. If you lose your seed phrase, the set of 12 or 24 words used to restore a wallet, nobody can get the coins back. What this phrase is and how to keep it safe are explained in what is a seed phrase and how to store crypto.

How an XRP transfer differs from a bank transfer and bitcoin

	XRP	Bank abroad	Bitcoin
Arrives in seconds?	yes	no	no
Works around the clock, every day?	yes	no	yes
Is the fee usually tiny?	yes	no	varies1
Need a bank account?	no	yes	no
Can a mistaken transfer be reversed?	no	varies	no
Can the amount lose value on the way?	varies2	no	varies3

1. Depends on how busy the Bitcoin network is. ↩
2. If you hold XRP longer than the few seconds of the transfer itself. ↩
3. While the transfer is being confirmed, usually from 10 minutes to an hour. ↩

Pros and cons of sending money via XRP, a bank and bitcoin

Bitcoin is covered in the bitcoin profile.

XRP coin risks

• The price of XRP swings a lot: something worth a hundred units today may be worth sixty or a hundred and forty a month from now. For a transfer that takes seconds this hardly matters; for holding the coin it does.
• Ripple owns many coins, and the company's decisions, its coin sales and news about its deals strongly affect the price of XRP, even though formally the coin does not depend on the company.
• From 2020 to 2025 the US securities regulator (SEC) had a court case against the company Ripple, and it ended in 2025 ⚖️¹⁰. The details are in the Ripple profile.

Where to check current data

Check the wallet reserve on the official network site

; a block explorer shows how much XRP Ripple has locked up at the moment.

Look up the current price and trading volume on a site that collects data from different exchanges.

Frequently asked questions

More detail on XRP

Before the spot funds, in April 2025, an XRP fund appeared in the US that multiplies price swings with borrowed money and does not hold XRP itself¹¹. The SEC's case against Ripple ended on 7 August 2025, when the appeals were withdrawn¹⁰. The current reserve level has been in effect since December 2024¹².