The Currency of the Ripple Network

With the Ripple network, users can send and receive money in any currency practically for free. Additionally, Ripple has its own native currency, known as XRP. Users need a small amount of XRP to make transactions, and can use XRP to make direct, instantaneous peer-to-peer payments within the Ripple network

(If you don’t have an account yet, go here to create a Ripple Wallet.)

XRP Keeps Ripple Secure

1. Users must have a small account reserve of 20 XRP in their Ripple Wallets in order to activate their accounts.
2. Users must have a small action reserve of 5 XRP in their Ripple Wallets for each “charged item” (e.g. a trust line, offer).
3. Each transaction on Ripple costs a tiny fraction of XRP as a security cost to prevent people from abusing the system.
4. The purpose of reserve requirements is to prevent ledger spam so they are a nominal amount. These features have a negligible impact on regular users, but their cumulative effect prevents bots or spammers from overloading the network with automatic transaction requests or new accounts.

It takes only a minimal amount of XRP to activate your account and begin using the Ripple network: the required reserves are equivalent to less than a dollar, and the security cost for each transaction is about 1/1000th of a cent. These features have a negligible impact on regular users, but their cumulative effect prevents bots or spammers from overloading the network with automatic transaction requests or new accounts.

XRP is a Powerful Digital Currency

XRP is a math-based digital currency that functions as “digital cash” within the Ripple network. Like any currency, XRP has real-world value, and all Ripple users can send and receive money in XRP.

There’s no third party involved. XRP transactions don’t incur any fees or delays from going through a third-party institution like a bank or currency exchange.

Transactions happen instantly. The time it takes to move money within Ripple is the time it takes to update Ripple’s network of servers, usually just a few seconds.

XRP is not subject to inflation. Ripple Labs created 100 billion XRP within the Ripple network, and that amount will never increase.

How to Get XRP

There are two simple ways to get XRP: you can buy XRP directly from a seller, or you can get XRP for free from Ripple Labs in one of their giveaways. Here is a helpful guide about getting XRP.

Buying XRP

You can find a list of entities that are buying and selling XRP here

Getting Free XRP

Ripple Labs is committed to giving away the majority of the 100 billion XRP in existence to large numbers of people. They have started distributing XRP to early adopters through a variety of giveaways and promotions. Go here to learn about what giveaways are currently active.