Introduction
Many newbies are aware of this new Ripple coin and are confused, about whether should I buy the Ripple XRP coin or not? Well, you’re on the right path. To clear your doubts, this article will give a thorough analysis of what a Ripple coin is, the difference between Ripple, Dogecoin, and, Bitcoin, the price of Ripple coin in the past few years, ripple coin price predictions for the next few months, and a quick brief on whether you should buy a Ripple XRP coin or not.
Ripple XRP has been in the news for the last few months with its value increased by more than 5000% this year. This explosive growth has brought the attention of investors and late-comers to the crypto space. However, the crypto world has been lacking transparency and regulation and therefore has been a favorite of speculators looking to make a quick buck. This article will take a deep dive into the Ripple XRP cryptocurrency and help you understand if you should buy Ripple XRP or not. Let’s check it out.
What Is Ripple And How To Buy It?
You might be thinking, Ripple is just like other cryptocurrencies. The process of mining and the features might be almost the same. But, you’re dreaming! Ripple is very much different from other coins. And, to be more precise, Ripple isn’t a coin. Then, what is Ripple? And, how is it connected to the banking system? Well, keep on reading further. Ripple is a payment system that settles transactions across the world. Arthur Britto, David Schwartz, Ryan Fugger had started Ripple in 2012. Currently, Ripple Labs own the Ripple XRP coin. In today’s time, there are 500 employees all over the world. Basically, Ripple has three products. It includes xCurrent, xRapid, and xVia. But, in 2020, SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple saying that they are selling unregistered securities in the market. To date, this case is going on in court.
You can also buy Ripple from many exchanges and wallets but among them only some that accept Ripple. It includes Bitstamp, Freewallet, and Kraken. The first step involves opening an account. You just need to fill in your personal details and open your account. Eventually, it will ask you to deposit money in the wallet, and then you can buy Ripple’s cryptocurrency XRP and IOUs. On other hand, you also have the option to buy Ripple XRP using a credit/debit card or a Paypal account. After purchasing, you will get your Ripple coins in your wallet.
Brief History About Ripple
Ripple XRP coin got started back in 2012, but the history states back in 2005. The banks were facing a huge problem to do payments overseas, majorly because the currencies were different. For eg, assuming a Turkish company wants to do a payment to a London company. But, Turkish bank doesn’t use Euro currency, so there are many hurdles in the payment system. The bank then too tries to do the transaction but charges huge fees. Ryan Fugger noticed this flaw. Thus, he developed a system that would ease the payment system all across the world via the network. “RipplePay” was the name given to this system. And, this was a huge success. Jed McCaleb also developed a cryptocurrency (XRP) along with Chris Larsen and Arthur Britto built it.
Later on in 2012, Jed McCaleb and Chris Larsen went to Ryan Fugger and it was then when Ripple was born. They changed the name of Ripplepay to Opencoin. In 2013, Opencoin also got funded by angel investors, raised $2.5 million, and changed it to RippleLabs. Eventually, in 2014, Ripple became 2nd largest cryptocurrency in the world. Eventually, German bank Fidor accepted this international payment protocol. Slowly, many banks like Santander and the Royal Bank of Canada accepted the Ripple coin. Again, the company dropped the word Labs from its name. Thus, later many exchanges allowed people to buy Ripple XRP on their platform.
How Does Ripple Work?
There might be a question that how does Ripple mining take place? Well, there is no mining of the Ripple coin. Strange isn’t it. Just like the internet has its protocol, even RippleNet has its protocol called RXRP. The RippleNet is a network that works on a set of rules called RTXP. Now, the RTXP consists of computers and a validator. Validators are basically people who try to validate or verify a transaction over a public shared ledger. So, when the validators receive a payment they ask the other validators to verify the transaction. This is done on a voting basis. If more than 80% of validators say that a transaction is valid, they will add it to the Ledger called a Unique Node List (UNL). But, for the work the validators do, they don’t get any coins like miners get bitcoin.
Just like in a normal bank’s payment system, you had to pay huge fees and wait for days. But, in RippleNet you don’t have to wait for days. the transaction happens quickly. There were times when intermediary banks use to convert money from one currency to another. Now using RippleNet, they can easily convert the home currency to XRP and then XRP to foreign currency. Ripple XRP coins do not involve any transaction fees i.e they get destroyed later on. As per the XRP protocol, the company created only 100 billion Ripple coins in the market. The supply of Ripple coins is also scarce. Therefore, the price of ripple coins in the future might rise up and will urge people to buy the RippleXRP coins.
Difference Between Ripple, Dogecoin & Bitcoin
Currently, Ripple founders own 20 million Ripple XRP coins from 100 billion coins. Whereas Ripple Labs own 7 million, 20 million Ripple XRP coins are given to companies and individuals. The rest (approx 48 million) Ripple coins are sealed by smart contracts. Thus, if you want to buy Ripple XRP coins, you have a short supply. Now that you know a brief about Ripple, let’s find the difference between Ripple, Dogecoin, and, Bitcoin.
Ripple | Dogecoin | Bitcoin | |
Meaning | Ripple is a payment system to ease transactions globally. | Dogecoin is a cryptocurrency with DOGE as its coin | Bitcoin is also a cryptocurrency launched in 2008. |
Speed | 4 secs | 70 transactions per second | 10 mins |
Maximum supply | 100 billion coins | Unlimited supply | 21 million |
Mining | No | Yes | Yes |
Market Cap | $38,278,316,355 USD | $19,610,922,426 USD | $771,825,197,172 |
Is Ripple A Centralised System?
Many people have questioned whether Ripple is a centralized or a decentralized system. But, to be more precise, Ripple is more inclined towards a centralized system. In simple words, there is a control of some power over it. But, who controls Ripple coin? Although once Ripple gets published, no one even Ripple labs can control it. As you all know, there are only 100 billion coins. But, if Ripple Labs at some point in the future thinks of producing more coins, it would be a good deal for them. The price of the Ripple coin will touch new heights. Just like a central bank has the monopoly of supplying money in the economy, even here, Ripple Labs is a bank for RippleNet. Eventually, Ripple Labs itself has more of an influence on the Ripple coin.
How Does Ripple Make Money?
Ripple coin has a unique feature that it can also make money out of it. Since it is a payment system after all, not just a cryptocurrency. It won’t be bad to say that Ripple Labs is a profit-making company. While that’s not the case with other cryptos like Dogecoin, Bitcoin, etc. They earn money through interest, payment fees, sale of XRP, and investments.
Ripple XRP Coin Sales
As you know that out of 100 billion Ripple coins, 20 billion lies with the founders, 7 million with Ripple Labs, over 25 billion with companies. And the rest around 55 billion got sealed with smart contracts. The rules of Ripple Labs say that every month they will release 1 billion in the market. But, the company also sees to it that they don’t overload the load with XRP as more supply will reduce the price of the Ripple coin. So, whenever XRP coins get flushed in the market, the company easily makes $7.9 billion if we go by the current price of ripple coins which is $0.790234.
Payment & Interest Fees
Ripple’s major product RippleNet provides a payment service to many banks. But, how are they earning? Basically, whenever one bank transfers money to another bank, they charge a small transaction fee on it. The current transaction fee on RippleNet is 0.00001 XRP (10 drops). A drop is basically the smallest unit of 1 millionth XRP. Where the normal banking system charges 10% of the total sum, RippleNet is a cheap way of doing payments globally. By order, it is the second-largest source of income for Ripple coin.
Ripple Labs had started a Line of Credit product way back in 2020. This product is aimed at providing a loan facility whenever needed. The loan is thus issued in XRP. If you want to take a loan, and you already have XRP, then you can use that as collateral. Besides, the company doesn’t disclose its interest rates to anyone. Here, the company earns money from the interest received on the loans.
Ripple Partnerships 2021 list
Ripple has many partners with whom they are paired. There are more than 15 partners of Ripple Labs. This partnership includes dealing with many banks and financial institutions. The following is the list of banks and companies.
- Bank of America
- American Express and Santander
- SBI Holdings
- MoneyGram
- National Bank of
- Fujairah PJSC (NBF)
- MoneyMatch
- Standard Chartered Bank (SCB)
- Westpac Institutional
- Bank and Bank of Australia
- Royal Bank of Canada
- UniCredit, Reisebank and ATB
- National Bank of Abu Dhabi, UBS
- MUFG Bank
- DBS
- The Ripple Rulebook
Chart History Of Ripple XRP Prices
Ripple XRP got launched in the year 2012. The price of Ripple on August 4, 2013, was $0.0057384. After that for some years, the price was stagnant. But, the real success of Ripple coin started in 2018 when their payment system got accepted by various leading banks. Therefore, the price of the Ripple coin on January 5, 2018, was $2.93. The ripple coin price predictions as per the analysts said that the Ripple will now bloom in the market. But, it was once in a blue moon success. The price dropped drastically to $0.4879 in the next months. For the next few years, there were ups and downs noticed. Slowly, and steadily in 2021, the price again touched the peak on April 15, 2021. The price of Ripple at that time was $1.83768. If we talk about the current Ripple stock as of February 18, 2022, the price is $0.790778.
Ripple Coin Price Predictions For the Next 2 Months
The price of Ripple is constantly facing ups and downs in the past few years. The ripple coin price predictions might not be so accurate. It depends upon you. You should do a thorough analysis of the market and then only invest. Because, it is your money, and you should be aware of where you are investing. But we will try our best to give accurate ripple coin price predictions. If we look at the past few years, some major factors have influenced the price. In 2018, when Ripple labs signed major deals with big banks, this pushed the price of the ripple coin by 8.39 %.
If we look at the future vision, one factor will influence the price of the ripple a lot. First is the SEC lawsuit against Ripple and if Ripple wins, the share price will be shooted high in the sky. But, on the other hand, if they lose this case, The price will drop drastically. Therefore, the price of the Ripple stock is seeing a lot of ups and downs in recent months. Thus, the ripple coin price predictions say that it will form a downward slope. The price might range from a low of $0.65 to a high of $0.76.
Should I Buy Ripple (XRP) Coin?
You might be having questions, about whether I should buy a Ripple XRP coin or not? Well, there are some Pros and Cons to this also. As compared to other Cryptos, the Ripple coin is relatively cheaper. Also, the transaction fees involved are just 0.0001 XRP whereas that of bitcoin and ethereum are higher. Talking about security, Ripple coin is built on a very secure and safe protocol. It is very difficult for hackers to hack the system. Also, there is much price volatility seen in the market. The price of Ripple keeps on fluctuating every now and then.
But, Ripple is also prone to certain factors like the U.S lawsuit filed by SEC. Although many banks use RippleNet, they’re not using XRP coins. If Ripple Labs wins the case, chances are that the price will shoot high and vice versa. The decision of the court will be announced soon. Also, if Ripple labs announce in the future that they will circulate more coins, this will also boost your portfolio. So, if you wish to buy Ripple XRP coins, it is a good option, but you should invest a small percentage and wait for the decision of the court. You can opt for a long-term investment in Ripple. After that, watch the market, and if you feel it is performing well, invest a relatively larger amount.
Conclusion
While there are a number of cryptocurrencies to choose from, Ripple is one of the most popular after Bitcoin. It is considered a ‘safe’ investment because it has a close relationship with the established financial system. This means it is more likely to be adopted by banks and other financial institutions. This article discusses the reasons whether you should buy Ripple XRP coins or not. However, while the Ripple currency may prove to be a safer investment than others, it is still very volatile. The value of Ripple is dependent on the currency’s use, and it is currently used primarily as a payment network. However, it is possible that it could be used as a currency in the future. If this is the case, it is likely that the price of Ripple will increase. Thus, your portfolio will also rise.
