XRP - the full guide

1. TL;DR

XRP is the native token of the XRP Ledger (XRPL), a public ledger that has been running since June 2012. The ledger was designed for payments and for issuing and trading assets: validators agree on a new ledger roughly every 3 to 5 seconds, there is no mining, and a standard transaction costs a fraction of a cent. ^[10][11][1]

XRP is not the same thing as Ripple, the private company. Ripple builds payment and financial products and holds a large amount of XRP, but the ledger is open-source software run by independent validators. This distinction matters for almost every question in this guide. ^[10][12]

All XRP was created at the start; no new XRP can be minted. At the time of writing a query to a public XRPL server showed about 99.986 billion XRP in existence, slightly below the original 100 billion because every transaction fee is destroyed. Ripple's own page showed 62.33 billion XRP distributed and 37.66 billion XRP held by Ripple on 2026-06-30, of which 32.6 billion sat in on-ledger escrow. ^[14][13][17]

The legal history is unusually well documented. A US court found in 2023 that Ripple's sales of XRP to institutional buyers broke securities registration rules, while other sales did not. A final judgment in August 2024 set a 125 million dollar penalty, and in August 2025 both sides dropped their appeals, leaving that judgment in place. ^[26][25][28] In March 2026 the SEC, in an interpretive release issued together with CFTC guidance, listed XRP among its examples of "digital commodities", which it describes as not themselves securities. ^[41]

Before holding XRP, understand four practical points: exchanges require a destination tag, a new account needs a minimum reserve (1 XRP at the time of writing), you must pick the XRP Ledger network when withdrawing, and a large share of the supply is still controlled by one company. ^[4][3][17]

2. Live stats

The figures below update automatically from public market data; everything else on this page was checked at the time of writing.

3. What problem does it try to solve

Sending money across borders today usually means a chain of banks. Each holds accounts at the next one, each adds a fee, and each closes on its own business hours. For many corridors a sender has to pre-fund an account in the destination currency, which ties up capital that sits idle until it is used. ^[37][17]

The XRP Ledger tries to be a neutral shared ledger where value can move in seconds at negligible cost. Its built-in decentralized exchange lets a payment convert between currencies on the way. XRP's original role was to act as a bridge asset between two currencies, so that a payment from one currency to another does not need pre-funded accounts on the other side. ^[37][11]

Think of it as a train station for money. Different currencies and tokens arrive on their own tracks, and XRP is the common platform where they can meet. Whether anyone prefers to transfer through that platform rather than use a stablecoin directly is exactly the question the rest of this guide examines. ^[37]

Over time the pitch has widened. Ripple and the XRPL community now emphasise tokenized assets, a dollar stablecoin (RLUSD) and compliance tools such as credentials for identity checks, in addition to payments. Some of those features are live and some are still on a roadmap; chapter 7 separates them. ^[32][20]

A fair way to read the project is to ask two separate questions. First, does the XRP Ledger work as technology for moving and trading value? Second, does that work create lasting demand for the XRP token itself? The first question can be tested with documentation and a live ledger. The second depends on choices made by banks, payment firms and users, which is why the later chapters keep the two apart. ^[11][13]

4. History, founders, organization and governance

Founding and the Ripple company

According to the XRPL project's own history page, David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto began developing the ledger in early 2011 and the XRP Ledger launched in June 2012. The company that later became Ripple was started in September 2012 as NewCoin, renamed OpenCoin and then Ripple Labs in 2013. Chris Larsen joined shortly after the ledger launched and was OpenCoin's CEO at its founding. ^[10]

The same page says the founders gifted 80 billion XRP, about 80 percent of the supply, to the company after the ledger went live. That origin explains the concentration discussed in chapters 6 and 11: unlike mined coins, XRP started with a fixed supply that was handed to one organization first. ^[10]

Ripple as a company

Ripple has grown from a ledger-adjacent startup into a financial infrastructure company. In 2025 it completed the acquisition of the prime broker Hidden Road, now called Ripple Prime, and announced a 1 billion dollar acquisition of the treasury software company GTreasury. On 2025-11-05 it announced a 500 million dollar raise at a 40 billion dollar valuation. Ripple's own statements in that release are company claims, including more than 95 billion dollars of Ripple Payments volume and 75 regulatory licenses. ^[34][35][36]

The XRPL Foundation

The first XRPL Foundation was founded as an independent nonprofit on 2020-09-24. In August 2024 the community announced a new XRP Ledger Foundation, started by XRPL Labs, XRPL Commons, the existing foundation and Ripple, with a proposed board that includes community representatives and a rotating chair. Key assets, including xrpl.org, the XRP trademarks, the GitHub repositories and operational control of the UNL publisher, were to move to the new body once it was ready. ^[10][12]

At the time of writing we did not confirm the final board composition or the completion date of that transfer from a primary source. Treat the foundation's exact structure as something to check on its own website. ^[12]

How the protocol is governed

The software that nodes run is open-source, and the foundation publishes the reference server implementation. Each server decides which validators it listens to, so no single party can change the rules by decree. We did not retrieve the detailed amendment-voting rules for this edition, so we leave them out. ^[1][12]

5. The technology, explained simply

Consensus without mining

Most blockchains pick the next block by proof-of-work or proof-of-stake. The XRP Ledger does neither. Every server picks a list of validators it trusts, called its Unique Node List (UNL). The documentation defines it as "a server's list of validators that it trusts not to collude." ^[2]

Imagine a committee deciding on a shared notebook. Each member listens only to the colleagues on their own list. They compare proposed pages, adjust over several rounds, and once a large enough share of each member's list agrees, that page is final. There is no later reorganisation of finalized pages. ^[1]

The documentation gives the fault-tolerance numbers: with fewer than 20 percent of a server's trusted validators faulty, consensus continues; confirming an invalid transaction would take collusion by more than 80 percent; and if 20 to 80 percent are faulty, the network stops making progress rather than diverging. The design therefore prefers halting to forking. ^[1]

The validator set

By default, a server uses two recommended lists, one published by the XRP Ledger Foundation and one by Ripple. The documentation does not state how many validators are on them. ^[2]

At the time of writing we decoded Ripple's published list at vl.ripple.com and it contained 35 validators. A public validator registry kept by XRPScan showed 184 mainnet entries, of which 35 were flagged as belonging to those default lists; registry entries are not a count of validators actively taking part in consensus. We could not retrieve the foundation's own list from our environment. These numbers change; check a live explorer before relying on them. ^[15][16]

Fees, reserves and destruction of fees

The reference transaction cost is 10 drops (a drop is one millionth of an XRP), and the fee rises temporarily if the network is busy. The fee is not paid to validators: the documentation says it is "irrevocably destroyed." Because fees are destroyed, the XRP supply only shrinks. A live query at the time of writing showed a base fee of 0.00001 XRP. ^[13][14]

To put the destruction in proportion: 100 billion XRP at the start minus the 99,985,592,505 XRP found at the time of writing means about 14.4 million XRP destroyed over roughly fourteen years, or about 0.014 percent of the original supply. Fee destruction is real but, at current usage, it does not noticeably change the supply. The calculation is ours, based on the ledger query and the history page. ^[10][14]

It also means that XRP holders and validators do not earn anything from fees. Validators on the XRP Ledger are not paid by the protocol for validating; whatever motivates them (running infrastructure for their own business, supporting the ecosystem) comes from outside the ledger. We did not find a primary source on validator funding, so treat that as an open question rather than a fact. ^[13][2]

An account must hold a minimum amount of XRP to exist on the ledger. At the time of writing the base reserve was 1 XRP and the owner reserve was 0.2 XRP for each object the account owns, such as a trust line or an offer. The reserve can change through fee voting, so the numbers are dated. ^[3][14]

Built-in features

The XRP Ledger has a native order-book exchange and, since an amendment activated in recent years, an automated market maker (AMM). An AMM pool holds two assets, at most one of which can be XRP, and liquidity providers earn a voted trading fee between 0 and 1 percent. The ledger routes each trade to the cheapest mix of order book and AMM. ^[6]

Issuing tokens (including stablecoins) is also a protocol feature rather than a smart contract. Ripple's February 2026 article lists Multi-Purpose Tokens, Credentials, Permissioned Domains and Deep Freeze as live at that time, and describes lending, a permissioned exchange and smart escrows as planned. Plans can slip, so we do not count them as delivered. ^[32]

The EVM sidechain

The XRPL EVM is a separate chain, not a feature of the XRP Ledger. The XRPL documentation defines a sidechain as an independent ledger with its own consensus and its own validators, which needs a UNL separate from the mainchain. The XRPL EVM docs describe a chain built on the Cosmos SDK and CometBFT, with proof-of-authority validators, that uses XRP as its gas token and receives XRP through a bridge. ^[7][8]

We found conflicting dates for its mainnet launch across official pages, so we do not state one. What matters for users: XRP on the EVM sidechain is a bridged representation on a different chain, with different risks from XRP on the XRP Ledger. ^[8][9]

6. The token

Supply

The XRPL history page says the founders gifted 80 billion XRP, about 80 percent of the supply, to the company. Supply began at 100 billion XRP and has not been increased. At the time of writing a query to a public server reported 99,985,592,505.357256 XRP in existence, which means about 14.4 million XRP has been destroyed through fees so far. ^[10][14]

The two Ripple figures sum to roughly the ledger total, which is how we read "held" as including escrow. ^[14][17]

Escrow

In 2017 Ripple locked 55 billion XRP into on-ledger escrows that release up to one billion XRP per month. The company says the schedule is an upper bound and that unused XRP goes back into new escrows. In its Q1 2025 report Ripple's escrow balance fell by 900 million XRP over the quarter, from about 38.03 billion to 37.13 billion. ^[18][19]

This is the most important thing to understand about supply. Escrow is transparent and verifiable on the ledger, which is better than an opaque lockup, but the company still decides what to do with each month's release. We found no Ripple quarterly report for Q2 2026 in our search, so the 2026 balance above comes from Ripple's XRP page. ^[18][19][17]

What XRP is used for

XRP pays transaction fees (which are destroyed), satisfies reserves, and serves as a bridge asset. Every account needs some XRP for fees and the reserve, but beyond that minimum, demand for XRP depends on how much people choose it as a bridge or as a store of value. ^[13][3][37]

Spot XRP exchange-traded funds also exist in the United States. Ripple's own article lists funds launching from September to November 2025 (REX-Osprey, Canary, Bitwise, Grayscale) and cites about 1.53 billion dollars in assets across seven funds, but the same article is inconsistent about the fund count, so treat the figure as indicative. ^[33]

7. Real adoption

We separate three kinds of evidence: live production usage that can be checked on-chain or in regulator filings, announcements and pilots, and narratives we could not verify.

8. The ISO 20022 connection

ISO 20022 is the messaging standard that banks and payment systems are adopting for structured payment data. It is a data format for messages, not a blockchain technology, so a public ledger cannot "be compliant" in the same way a bank system can be. ^[29]

What we could verify: Ripple said in 2020 that its RippleNet product was "aligned with ISO 20022 standards from the start" and that it is a member of the ISO 20022 Registration Management Group. Ripple's own documentation says its payment object is based on the pacs.008 message definition. These claims concern Ripple's products. ^[29][31]

On the ledger side, the xrpl.org developer blog describes CryptoIso20022 Interop, a community tool that turns pain.001 payment files into XRP Ledger payments and turns received payments back into camt.054 files. The conversion happens outside the ledger protocol. ^[30]

We found no primary source stating that the XRP Ledger protocol or XRP itself is "ISO 20022 compliant," and the claim circulates widely as a rumour. Membership in a standards body and message mapping are real, but they do not mean banks must use XRP. For the general explanation, see the ISO 20022 guide. ^[29][30][31]

9. Ecosystem and competitors

Inside the ecosystem

The ecosystem consists of Ripple's products (Ripple Payments, Ripple Prime, custody and the RLUSD stablecoin), independent wallets and exchanges, the order-book exchange and AMM on the ledger, issued tokens, and the XRPL EVM sidechain. Ripple's own February 2026 article is the clearest summary of what it considers live, and, as said, it also lists plans. ^[32][34][20]

The stablecoin is a useful example of how to read the ecosystem. On Ripple's transparency page, reserves exceeded the RLUSD in circulation by about 142 million dollars (2.60 billion against 2.46 billion), and an independent certified public accountant issues monthly attestations. That is more disclosure than many stablecoin issuers give, but it is still the issuer's own page, and an attestation is narrower than a full audit. ^[20]

Competitors

XRP competes on several fronts. Against other payment-focused public ledgers, Stellar is the closest comparison: it also targets cross-border payments, uses a trust-based consensus protocol (the Stellar Consensus Protocol) and relies on regulated on and off ramps called anchors. See the Stellar guide for a detailed comparison. ^[38][39]

Against the established banking system, the incumbent is the correspondent banking network. Ripple's range now includes products that are not built on XRP at all, such as prime brokerage and treasury software, which shows the company does not rely only on the token. ^[34][35]

Against stablecoins, the competition is arguably more direct. A payment settled in a dollar stablecoin never needs to convert through XRP, and Ripple has its own stablecoin (RLUSD), which is evidence the company itself sees stablecoins as central. We did not find independent market-share data for payment-focused ledgers, so we do not rank XRP among competitors. ^[20][32]

10. Regulation and legal history

SEC v. Ripple Labs

The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, arguing XRP sales were unregistered securities offerings. On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on summary judgment that Ripple's institutional sales violated Section 5 of the Securities Act, while its programmatic sales on exchanges, its other distributions and the sales by Garlinghouse and Larsen did not. ^[40][26]

On 2024-08-07 the court issued a final judgment with a civil penalty of 125,035,150 dollars and an injunction against violating the registration provisions of the Securities Act. In May 2025 the SEC and Ripple sought to settle for a lower penalty and to vacate the injunction; Commissioner Crenshaw dissented, and in June 2025 the judge rejected the proposal. ^{[25][26][28][27]}

On 2025-08-07 the parties filed a joint stipulation dismissing the SEC's appeal and Ripple's cross-appeal in the Second Circuit. The SEC says this resolved the enforcement action against Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen, and that the final judgment remains in effect. ^[25][28]

At the time of writing we found no further litigation in our searches. That is a statement about our search, not a legal opinion. The 2023 ruling concerned specific sales in a specific case; it did not declare XRP generally not a security for all purposes. ^[25][26]

The 2026 SEC and CFTC interpretive release

On March 17, 2026 the SEC published Release No. 33-11412, an interpretation of how the securities laws apply to crypto assets, together with guidance from the CFTC; it took effect on March 23, 2026. It sorts crypto assets into five categories and says that "digital commodities" are not themselves securities. XRP is one of sixteen assets the release lists as examples of digital commodities, alongside Stellar (XLM), Cardano (ADA) and Hedera (HBAR). The SEC says it picked these examples because each underlies a futures contract on a CFTC-regulated exchange. ^[41]

The release says it does not replace the Howey test, which remains binding precedent, that a non-security asset can still be sold as part of an investment contract, and that the Commission may refine or revise its views. It does not change the 2024 final judgment against Ripple. ^[41][25]

Licensing and Europe

Ripple announced preliminary approval for an electronic money institution licence in Luxembourg in January 2026. On 2026-07-06 it announced full authorisation as a crypto-asset service provider under MiCA from the Luxembourg regulator CSSF, covering the European Economic Area. ESMA's interim MiCA register confirms the CASP authorisation: it lists Ripple Payments Europe S.A. as authorised by the CSSF, with an authorisation date of 2026-06-29. The EMI approval is known only from Ripple's announcement. ^[24][23][42]

Separately, ESMA's register of white papers lists MiCA white papers for XRP itself, drawn up by third parties (the Liechtenstein exchange LCX and the German data provider Crypto Risk Metrics). A white paper is a disclosure document that is notified to a regulator, not approved by it. ^[43]

In the US, the OCC granted conditional approval on 2025-12-12 for a national trust bank intended to handle RLUSD reserves, and final approval was still pending according to Ripple's page. This matters for the stablecoin and custody business of the company, not for the status of XRP itself. ^[22]

11. Key risks

• Issuer concentration. One company controlled about 37.7 percent of XRP at the time of writing, mostly in escrow. If Ripple's strategy changes, the supply entering the market can change. ^[17][18]
• Governance and validator risk. The default recommended lists are published by two parties, and the number of validators on them is small (35 on Ripple's list at the time of writing). A trust-based design is only as independent as the lists people choose. ^[2][15]
• Demand risk. XRP is not required for most use of the ledger beyond fees and reserves. If payment firms use stablecoins directly, demand for XRP as a bridge may be limited. ^[13][3][20]
• Regulatory risk. The US case is resolved, but rules differ elsewhere and can change. The SEC's 2026 classification of XRP as a digital commodity is an interpretation, not a statute, and a future Commission could revise it. Ripple's authorisations (OCC conditional, MiCA) apply to Ripple, not to the token's status. ^{[25][41][22][23]}
• User error. Missing destination tags, reserve errors and wrong-network withdrawals are the most common ways to lose funds. See chapter 14. ^[4][3][8]
• Sidechain and bridge risk. XRP on the EVM sidechain relies on a bridge and a different validator set. ^[7][8]
• Information risk. Much of the adoption data comes from Ripple itself. ^[36][32]

This guide is educational and is not investment advice.

12. Bull case vs bear case

The bull case

Supporters point to a ledger that has run for more than a decade, settles in seconds for a tiny fee, and has built-in exchange features without relying on smart contracts. They add that Ripple has resolved its main US legal dispute, holds growing regulatory authorisations, owns real businesses (prime brokerage, treasury software) and issues a stablecoin with published reserves. US spot funds also give regulated access to XRP. Under this view, institutional adoption of the ledger would increase use of XRP as a bridge and as collateral. ^{[11][25][22][23][34][20][33]}

The bear case

Skeptics respond that most of Ripple's growth is in products that do not require XRP, such as the stablecoin, prime brokerage and treasury software. Fees are tiny and are destroyed, so network usage produces almost no demand for the token by design. Ripple's 37.7 percent holding and monthly escrow releases give one company large influence over supply. Validation depends on recommended lists published by two parties. Much of the adoption evidence is company-reported, and several features are still planned rather than live. ^{[13][17][18][2][36][32]}

Both cases rest on verifiable facts; they differ on whether usage of the network and of Ripple's products translates into demand for the token. The reader decides.

What both sides can monitor

Neither case is settled by argument alone; several things can be checked over time. One is the monthly escrow release and how much is returned to escrow. Another is the validator lists and who publishes them, including the transfer of the list publisher to the XRP Ledger Foundation. A third is whether the planned features in Ripple's February 2026 article (lending, permissioned trading, smart escrows) actually ship. A fourth is whether RLUSD circulation and reserves keep being attested. Finally, the final OCC approval for Ripple's trust bank was still pending at the time of writing. ^{[18][2][12][32][20][22]}

13. Scorecard

The scores follow the rubric used for every coin on this site; the reasoning for each category appears in the card.

14. How to buy and store

Before the exchange and wallet list, four XRP-specific pitfalls that cause most lost funds.

1. The destination tag when sending to an exchange. Exchanges usually keep many customers on one XRP address and use the destination tag to know whose balance to credit. The documentation defines it as a 32-bit unsigned number that indicates the beneficiary. A payment without the right tag can arrive at the exchange with no automatic way to credit you. Some receivers enable the RequireDest flag, which makes the ledger reject untagged payments, but this does not protect against a wrong tag. Always copy both the address and the tag. ^[4][5]

2. The reserve. At the time of writing the base reserve was 1 XRP and the owner reserve was 0.2 XRP per owned object. An account with less than the base reserve cannot be created, and each trust line or offer locks another 0.2 XRP while it exists. Reserves can change by validator vote, so verify the current values before sending a small amount to a new wallet. ^[3][14]

3. Use the XRP Ledger network only. Your exchange may let you pick a network when withdrawing. Choose the XRP Ledger (XRPL, sometimes labelled "XRP"). Do not send XRP to an address on the XRPL EVM sidechain or another chain unless you intend to bridge: the EVM sidechain is a separate ledger with its own validators, and tokens there are bridged or wrapped versions with a different risk profile. Wrong-network transfers are usually irreversible. ^[7][8]

Where to keep it. Two broad choices exist. Leaving XRP on an exchange is a custodial arrangement: the exchange holds the keys and you hold a claim on it. Moving it to your own non-custodial wallet means you hold the private key and the seed phrase, and nobody can help you if you lose them. A hardware wallet keeps the keys on a separate device. The right balance depends on the amount, how often you need to move it and how comfortable you are with backups. This is general safety information, not a recommendation of any product. The exchange and wallet list below shows the verified options.

4. Check what you hold. Wrapped or bridged "XRP" tokens on other chains are not the same asset as XRP on the XRP Ledger. If you hold issued tokens on the XRPL (for example a stablecoin), remember that each trust line locks part of your reserve. ^[3][7]

Two more habits: confirm that the first and last characters of the address match what the exchange displays, and use a block explorer such as the XRPL Explorer to confirm your test payment landed before sending the rest. ^[14]

15. Sources

16. Live chart

Price data comes from a public market feed and is shown for context only.