Ripple, developed in 2012, serves as a global payment network aimed at connecting banks and payment providers in order to make global payments easier, faster, and more secure than ever before.
The network also supports fiat currency and cryptocurrency transactions, which makes it unique among other cryptocurrencies on the market today. Ripple’s key value proposition lies in the fact that it enables secure, instant, and nearly free global transactions of any size with no chargebacks or mining fees.
This makes it an attractive solution for businesses who want to do business internationally and don’t want to pay excessive transaction fees to banks or PayPal.
Scalability
In simplest terms, scalability is how much a system can handle. When you go to a website like Facebook or LinkedIn, and it’s down because too many people are using it, you know there is a problem with its scalability.
On the one hand, you don’t want your platform to break down at every opportunity; on the other hand, if it doesn’t break down when used by millions every day and every hour, then it likely doesn’t have enough users or growth potential to be successful.
Scalability is a tricky topic with lots of variables, but one rule stands above all: You can have extreme performance or scalability; never both. Don’t know Where to buy XRP? Well, you can buy it from almost all of the popular crypto marketplace like coinbase.
Speed
Cross-border transactions can take up to several days. That may not seem like a long time. Still, it becomes problematic when you consider that businesses rely on timely payments. With blockchain technology behind Ripple, payment settlement takes only 4 seconds, and cross-border transfers are completed in 10 seconds or less.
Additionally, cross-border fees are significantly lower with blockchain than with traditional financial institutions. In fact, using global payment provider MoneyGram as an example, their fees per transaction can run between 5% -15%.
On average, it would be considered a good deal compared to international wire transfer fees, which generally range from $15 -$30 dollars per transaction – that’s already a huge improvement.
Security
Just like bitcoin, XRP Ledger is a distributed network, meaning that there is no central server to be hacked or shut down. In fact, even if every single node in XRP Ledger ceased to exist, it would continue to operate because it’s replicated on all participating servers.
When you make a transaction through XRP Ledger, your money goes straight from your account into your recipient’s—and that’s final. Even if someone intercepts and changes an individual packet of information (such as an address), it will be flagged as invalid by nodes on the network before it can do any damage.
All activity within XRP Ledger occurs via peer-to-peer communication, so every computer has access to every record.
Transaction Fees
When using traditional payment methods, such as a credit card or Western Union, you are charged various transaction fees. These charges increase your overall cost and negatively impact your profitability.
As a small business owner, it’s critical to saving money wherever possible to keep more money in your bank account while delivering better value to customers. With an online payment system like Ripple, these costs don’t exist—and that means you get to pass along cost savings to your customers and grow your bottom line simultaneously.
Customers pay no fees when they use a payment processor that uses Ripple protocol, ensuring they get what they need while you keep more of what they’re playing with.
Decentralization
Money transfers are increasingly moving online, which means they’re becoming faster, more convenient, and cheaper. That said, even though money can be transferred anywhere in seconds these days with no real cost—think Venmo—currency exchanges aren’t entirely decentralized.
You still need to go through a major financial institution like a bank or Paypal to complete your transaction. For example, if you transfer money from US dollars to pounds sterling on Paypal, that’s handled by a team of people at PayPal who want their cut.
When it comes to cryptocurrency platforms like Ripple, there are no banks or third parties involved in transactions; they are direct peer-to-peer deals between users. This is what makes these currency exchanges so attractive: there’s no fee.