Most people tend to think of XRP, or the third largest cryptocurrency, as Ripple. Although Ripple, XRP and the XRP Ledger are tied together under an ecosystem, they are completely different things intended to play different roles.
“Let me be clear: Ripple is different than XRP.” Ripple’s current CEO Brad Garlinghouse made this very statement in 2022, establishing the difference.
In a nutshell, the best way to think about this is to look at Ripple as a company, XRP as a coin, and the XRP Ledger as a blockchain. However, not many people seem to know this as they have been exchanging each other for over 10 years.
This confusion stems from the early stages of the project, when the branding was intentionally extensive. Let's talk more about it.
Why is there confusion?
The early branding and historical mislabeling of Ripple, XRP, and the XRP Ledger are two major factors that contributed to this confusion that still exists today.
Ripple, XRP and XRP Ledger are often used interchangeably
The XRP Ledger was first announced in 2012 as the Ripple Consensus Ledger. At the time, the network, protocol, and even the native cryptocurrency XRP were all branded “Ripple.” Many continued this unified branding and referred to the ledger and XRP as Ripple.
The situation became even worse after private companies were established. The company was initially called NewCoin but was later rebranded to Ripple.
Although Ripple claims to be a separate ledger, the perceived connection between the company and the coin has led people to use terms such as “Ripple blockchain” and “Ripple coin” when referring to XRP.
History of misrepresentation in media and exchanges
Cryptocurrency exchanges and media contributed to the false position of investors mislabeling Ripple, XRP, and the XRP Ledger.
The media over-connected XRP and Ripple, with some people routinely writing headlines such as “Ripple price exceeded $3 today” instead of “XRP price exceeded $3 today.” In May 2021, Brad Garlinghouse corrected this after CNBC listed “Ripple” at the top of its cryptocurrency rankings and called the jump in XRP price a “Ripple rally.”
“Thank you (Joe Kernen) and (Andrew Ross Sorkin) for talking about Ripple’s traction, the difference between Ripple and XRP, and the need for regulatory clarity. Regarding your second point…I have corrected your graphic,” Garlinghouse wrote.
Kraken, Binance, and many other crypto exchanges were also guilty of misrepresenting XRP and Ripple. In 2022, former FOX business journalist Eleanor Tellet labeled XRPL the “Ripple Network” and criticized Kraken for listing XRP under the “Ripple” header.
Now that we know what caused the confusion, let us explain how XRP, Ripple, and the XRP Ledger are different from each other.
What is Ripple?
Ripple is a private blockchain company that will oversee use case development and adoption of the XRP Ledger. Although Ripple holds the majority of its XRP supply in escrow, the company remains structurally independent from XRP or the XRP Ledger.
Overview of Ripple Labs
Ripple Labs was started as NewCoin in September 2012 by Chris Larsen, Jed McCaleb, David Schwartz, and Arthur Britto.
Shortly after its founding, the company was rebranded between 2012 and 2015 as OpenCoin, then Ripple Labs, and then shortened to Ripple.
The founders founded Ripple to provide a better alternative to the traditional banking system. Using the XRP and XRPL networks, you can now settle cross-border payments in 3-5 seconds with near-zero cost fees. Therefore, Ripple is basically the primary user on the network that aims to introduce use cases for the XRP Ledger.
As an incentive to do this, Ripple was given 80% (or 80 billion) of the total supply of XRP to fund payment solutions, provide liquidity, and provide a seed market through partnerships, all with the aim of promoting the XRPL network.
RippleNet and payment solutions
RippleNet is Ripple's alternative to traditional payment networks like SWIFT. RippleNet itself is not a blockchain. Rather, it leverages the XRP Ledger and XRP coins to provide faster and cheaper transactions across borders.
As of October 2025, more than 300 financial institutions are reported to be participating in RippleNet, including SBI Holdings, Bank of Japan, American Express, Standard Chartered, Santander in the UK and Spain, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
The network processed a whopping $1.3 trillion per quarter in Q2 2025 alone.
Besides RippleNet, the company also offers other products such as on-demand liquidity (ODL), Ripple CBDC platform, and RLUSD stablecoin.
Ripple’s organizational partnerships
Ripple has many partnerships with the world's largest financial institutions, banks, custodians, and fintech providers to utilize its services.
As mentioned earlier, SBI Holdings, Standard Chartered, and 300 other institutions are currently using Ripplenet to settle cross-border payments.
In September 2025, Ripple partnered with Securitize to integrate the recently debuted dollar stablecoin RLUSD into the latter's tokenization platform, allowing investors in BlackRock and VanEck's tokenized money market funds to redeem their holdings into RLUSD on demand.
Central banks such as Georgia and Colombia also selected Ripple as a technology partner to oversee their 2023 CBDC pilots.
Ripple’s role in promoting the spread of XRP
Ripple has been instrumental in the institutional adoption of XRP and the XRP Ledger. Most of its services are backed by coins and networks.
For example, ODL uses XRP as a real-time bridge asset for international payments. This is one of the primary use cases for the XRP token.
The ODL service allows any partner who needs to convert their local currency to XRP to send XRP over the network and instantly convert it to the destination fiat currency (e.g. USD to XRP to GBP).
The company is also dabbling in other areas such as tokenization and institutional DeFi, all of which are providing further traction for the XRPL network.
What is XRP?
XRP refers to the actual cryptocurrency that powers the XRP Ledger. It is the base currency of the XRPL network, just as ETH is the currency of Ethereum.
XRP as a digital asset
XRP was created specifically for fast, low-cost global financial transactions. There are up to 100 billion coins, all of which were created (pre-mined) at the launch of the XRP Ledger. So, you may be wondering, how is supply managed?
Recall that approximately 80 billion XRP was allocated to Ripple to fund XRPL's growth. Ripple has locked the majority of these coins into time-locked escrow to create predictability of supply in the market.
Every month, 1 billion XRP is released from escrow, but in most cases not all coins make it to market. Unused tokens will be locked in escrow for a later date.
According to data from CoinMarketCap, there is currently only about 59.8 billion XRP in circulation.
Usage example
XRP directly addresses the biggest problems in international payment systems. It is now used by many institutions to process cross-border payments quickly and cost-effectively, which is a big problem with traditional systems like SWIFT.
The third largest cryptocurrency has made it easy for financial institutions to access liquidity in seconds through Ripple's ODL. Previously, if banks wanted to process international payments, they first had to pre-fund their Nostro and Vostro accounts in various foreign currencies to enhance liquidity.
ODL removes this need by using XRP as a bridge currency. In this case, the money is first converted to XRP, transferred in seconds, and then converted to the recipient's local currency.
Like other cryptocurrencies, XRP is also used for money transfers. This is due to the unique properties of blockchain that enable faster and cheaper payments compared to traditional providers such as Western Union.
XRP speed and cost advantages
XRP transactions are processed within 3-5 seconds and cost a minimum of 0.00001 XRP. This is equivalent to $0.0000297 at current prices. On the other hand, transfers via traditional systems such as SWIFT can take up to 3-5 business days. Even Bitcoin transactions can take up to 10 times or more to settle.
XRP's speed and cost advantages are primarily due to the XRP Ledger's unique consensus mechanism that relies solely on a list of trusted validators to quickly confirm transactions. We will discuss this in detail later in the article.
Comparison of XRP and other cryptocurrencies
XRP is similar to BTC, ETH, stablecoins, and other digital assets in that it is backed by a blockchain. However, the purpose is what sets it apart.
Just as BTC was created to enable peer-to-peer transactions without a central authority, XRP's primary purpose is to facilitate cross-border payments for financial institutions quickly and at low cost.
XRP has different pricing from stablecoins such as USDT and USDC. While the price of XRP is primarily driven by supply and demand in the public market, stablecoins are pegged to an underlying asset or currency and therefore have a stable value.
Here's a quick look at how XRP compares to BTC and ETH in terms of transaction purpose, speed, and consensus mechanism.
What is XRP Ledger?
The XRP Ledger is more like the engine that powers the XRP ecosystem. Both RippleNet and XRP are based on the XRP Ledger. It was created by the same founder as Ripple, but operates independently from Ripple.
XRP ledger basics
The XRPL network is a decentralized, public, layer 1 blockchain. This means that no single entity, even Ripple, can fully control the network. Anyone can choose to become a validator on the network from anywhere in the world.
XRPL is open source. That means anyone can inspect, modify, and build on it. Build smart contracts and decentralized applications (dApps) on the network.
The XRP Ledger also now supports Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) via a sidechain introduced in June 2025. This means any Ethereum dApps can run on XRPL via a layer 2 blockchain. In the first week alone, over 1,400 smart contracts were deployed on the sidechain.
consensus mechanism
As mentioned earlier, the XRP Ledger uses a proprietary consensus mechanism called the XRP Ledger Consensus Protocol. This is why transactions on the network complete within 3-5 seconds, and why you can't mine XRP like BTC or stake XRP in the traditional sense like ETH or SOL.
The protocol is based on a Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus mechanism, which ensures that XRPL continues to operate correctly even if a validator fails or behaves maliciously.
There are approximately 150 validator nodes on the XRPL network, operated by Ripple and institutions such as universities, exchanges, and independent operators. Every validator on the network has a list of other validators that it can trust not to behave maliciously. This is called the Unique Node List (UNL).
Once a transaction is made, a validator collects it and shares it with UNL. It will only be validated if at least 80% of the validators' UNL approve it. Interestingly, this entire process takes place within 3-5 seconds.
Smart contracts and tokenization features
With the recently released XRP EVM sidechain, anyone can now deploy Ethereum-compatible smart contracts and dApps to the XRP Ledger.
Apart from that, XRPL can natively support lightweight smart contract programmability at the protocol level through what are called “hooks.”
Currently, XRPL does not natively support Turing-complete smart contracts, so all the heavyweight dApps seen on Ethereum, such as Uniswap and Aave, cannot be built directly on top of XRPL, but can be built through sidechains.
On the other hand, tokenization is very possible with XRPL. Supported natively on the ledger, there is no need to deploy custom smart contracts.
Environmental and efficiency benefits
Bitcoin's Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism has long been the subject of criticism because mining new coins is energy-intensive. The XRP Ledger avoided this problem by choosing to use federated consensus, which does not require mining.
It is no exaggeration to say that XRPL is more environmentally friendly and scalable than Bitcoin. This ledger processes up to 1,500 transactions per second with near-zero fees.
How Ripple, XRP, and XRP Ledger work together
By now, it should be clear what the difference is between Ripple and XRP, and how each works together within the network. Ripple is promoting the adoption of XRPL by leveraging XRP and blockchain in its products. XRP serves as the base currency on the XRPL network, powering all transactions.
Ripple uses XRP and XRPL in payment solutions
RippleNet is an example of how Ripple uses the XRP and XRPL networks in its payment solutions. RippleNet leverages the XRP Ledger to enable real-time messaging, clearing, and settlement of cross-border financial transactions, much faster and cheaper than traditional alternatives.
Ripple also uses XRP as a bridge currency in its on-demand liquidity service, which eliminates the need for banks to pre-fund accounts in different local currencies just to facilitate international payments.
Independent developers building XRPL beyond Ripple
Ripple is not the only developer shipping products on XRPL. There are also other applications launched on the network by independent developers. Here are some examples:
1.xrp.Cafe
xrp.cafe is both an NFT marketplace and a launch pad for the XRPL ecosystem, allowing anyone to buy, sell, and mint NFTs on the XRP Ledger. The developer also created “First Ledger,” a Telegram-based trading bot for XRPL.
2. Zaman Wallet
Xaman is leading the self-custodial crypto wallet for the XRPL ecosystem. It was specifically designed to help users manage their digital assets on the XRP Ledger.
3. Sologenic
Sologenic is an XRP Ledger-based platform that aims to bridge traditional financial markets to cryptocurrencies. The platform allows users to trade tokenized stocks and ETFs using XRP.
4. Apex Protocol
Vertex Protocol is a decentralized exchange for trading on-chain tokens. Initially launched on Arbitrum, it was later deployed to the XRP Ledger via a sidechain.
Legal and regulatory implications
There was some impact on the partnership and fraudulent display between XRP, Ripple, and the XRP Ledger.
Ripple’s significant contributions to the network, including a whopping 80 billion XRP received from its founders, remain a point of contention for many crypto commentators regarding the claim that the XRP ledger is “decentralized.”
Some argue that a single entity, especially a commercial company like Ripple, with such a large allocation would have too much influence over the XRP market.
On the regulatory side, the exchange of XRP and Ripple has given rise to false reports that buyers are purchasing the Ripple company rather than the XRP coin. This formed part of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) claims against Ripple in a nearly five-year legal battle.
The SEC argued that Ripple was offering unregistered securities by selling XRP, arguing that XRP was a security because its value was tied to the company's efforts.
Common misconceptions about Ripple and XRP
The shared history between XRP, Ripple, and the XRP Ledger has led to certain misconceptions. Let's get the facts straight.
Ripple does not own the XRP ledger
Ripple and XRP Ledger may have been created by the same founder, but they operate independently of each other. Even if Ripple ceased to exist today, the network would continue to operate as it always has.
The reason is that the network is managed by a network of independent validators. Ripple also operates validator nodes, but they have the same rights and control as other participants.
XRP is not just a “Ripple coin”
It is wrong to call XRP a Ripple coin because Ripple does not issue XRP. The company does not own the virtual currency itself.
XRP was issued natively to the XRP Ledger to pay transaction fees and as a “bridge currency” to facilitate quick and low-cost payments across borders.
XRP Ledger is managed by independent validators
Many thought that Ripple would maintain XRPL solely and its validators would act as corporate nodes. However, as mentioned before, Ripple is only a participant in the network and has no special privileges.
The network is maintained by a decentralized network of over 150 validators operated by independent organizations such as universities (such as MIT), cryptocurrency exchanges, and community members.
XRP Ledger use cases beyond Ripple
The XRP Ledger can provide more than just Ripple and its services. Blockchain has many native features that enable other use cases.
Micropayments and cross-border remittances
Ripple's ability to offer faster and cheaper cross-border payments with its services is not its own privilege.
In fact, that functionality is an inherent technical property of the XRPL network. This means anyone, anywhere can decide to use XRPL to build a similarly efficient platform for micropayments and cross-border transactions.
Central bank digital currency (CBDC) pilot
The XRP Ledger can also be used to issue and manage central bank digital currencies.
Ripple itself has also proven this by launching its own private network based on XRPL. There, the central bank has full control and sovereignty to explore and pilot CBDC projects.
NFTs and tokenization in XRPL
If you remember, we mentioned earlier that the XRP Ledger natively supports asset tokenization. That's a big use case. You can easily leverage the network to mint, trade, and write a variety of tokenized assets, including non-fungible tokens and real-world assets.
The future of Ripple, XRP and the XRP Ledger
The resolution of the long-running legal battle between Ripple and the SEC is a major victory for the future of Ripple, XRP, and the entire network.
When the SEC sued Ripple in 2020, we saw how it affected the price of Ripple and XRP. However, when both parties finally filed for dismissal of the lawsuit in August 2025, the outlook became bullish, and XRP's price reflected that.
With that uncertainty removed, growth is expected across key sectors.
Prospects for institutional adoptions
Following the news that Ripple has ended its lawsuit with the SEC, the company was able to hire more institutional partners, including BNY Mellon. Perhaps it provides a glimpse into the possibility of further institutional implementation in the future.
Legal clarity and regulation in 2025
There is now some clarity that XRP does not qualify as a security, paving the way for XRP spot ETFs and institutional investors, which is healthy for the price of XRP. We expect to see more ETF launches and XRP digital asset treasury companies in the future.
XRPL expansion and developer ecosystem
All things considered, it's not hard to see the XRPL ecosystem expanding from here, especially with the launch of the EVM sidechain that bridges Ethereum and the XRP Ledger. We can expect an influx of liquidity into the XRPL ecosystem.
