What is Ripple? A Complete Guide

In this article, we will take a deep dive into what makes Ripple different from Bitcoin and where all you can use it for online gambling.

Ripple was founded In May 2011, by programmer Jed McCaleb. Ripple aims to be a cross-border payment system that enabled a decentralized cross-border system without depending on mining. In 2014, McCaleb left Ripple and founded another decentralized payment protocol named “Stellar.” Brag Garlinghouse, who has an extensive background in several major technology companies, including Senior VP at Yahoo!, eventually took over as the CEO of the company.

What is Ripple Coin?

A lot of newcomers think that Ripple and XRP are the same entity when, in reality, they are completely different. Ripple aka Ripple Labs is a privately-held enterprise company with its own executive team which aims to create and enable a global network of financial institutions and banks.  XRP is a digital currency, also known as Ripple, which is used to power the XRP ledger. The ledger is an open-source product created by Ripple, which aims to connect banks in a network to enable fast and efficient international payments with minimal extra costs.

Why was Ripple needed?

The Ripple protocol is sorely needed because the international payment mechanism, as we know it, is broken. While other sectors have taken exponential steps, the international payment space has remained woefully primitive. Here are some of the biggest problems with international payments:

• Bloated Transaction Fees: International payment systems like SWIFT tends to have multiple banks acting as bridges between the origin bank and the destination bank. The fees that these banks charge becomes very bloaty towards the end.
• Exchange Rates: Importers and exporters are both affected by exchange rates. Banks charge a premium on foreign exchange, which is often a significant margin above the mid-market exchange rate.
• Tracking of Payments: It is impossible to track the payments between the different parties.
• Time: The entire process takes a long amount of time.

Consider this for a second – $155 trillion moves across borders every year. Even if banks collect just 2% as transaction fees, that’s still a whopping $3.1 trillion. This outdated cross-border transaction mechanism is the reason why cryptos were created in the first place. However, while most of the cryptos were created out of defiance to the banking system, Ripple’s approach is a tad different. Ripple wants to work closely with the banks and financial institutions and help them create change from within.

The best part is, Ripple has already collaborated with several banks to create some intriguing PoCs. ATB Financial – the largest Alberta-based financial institution – has collaborated with SAP SE, Germany’s ReiseBank AG, and Ripple to send the first real international blockchain payment from Canada to Germany. They were able to send 1000 CAD, which would have usually taken 2-5 working days, within 20 seconds! To make matters even more staggering, they improved their POC and cut down the transaction time even further to 10 seconds.

One of the biggest differences between Bitcoin and Ripple is the latter has no mining within its ecosystem. In fact, all the 100 billion XRP tokens have already been “pre-mined,” meaning, they are already out there in the ecosystem. The majority of the tokens are locked up in an escrow wallet. The company periodically releases coins from the wallet into the Ripple network for necessary liquidity.

Ripple Payment Protocol

According to Wikipedia, “Ripple is a real-time gross settlement system, currency exchange, and remittance network.” Real-time gross settlement or RTGS is a fund transfer system where money or securities can transfer from one bank to another in a real-time and gross basis. Let’s understand the terms involved here:

• Real-time: There is no waiting period for the transaction and they are settled as soon as they are processed. This makes Ripple much faster than Bitcoin.
• Gross Settlement: This means that the transactions are settled as soon as they are initiated and are not bundled with other transactions.
• Settlement: All payments made are final and irrevocable. They can’t be reversed.

Ripple has another useful innovation called “RippleNet.” RippleNet is a network of institutional payment-providers (banks, MSBs, etc.) that use solutions developed by Ripple. Ripple has three main products:

• xRapid: This is Ripple’s commercial product that will allow banks to use the XRP token to transfer money globally. This will allow banks to take full advantage of its low transaction fees and scalability.
• xCurrent: This product will allow its partner banks to transfer money globally. The best part is that users will be able to track how and where their money moves. xCurrent doesn’t use XRP tokens.
• xVia: This is a payment interface designed to make the user experience of xCurrent and xRapid more intuitive and introduces more abstraction. xVia doesn’t use XRP tokens

Gambling with XRP

So, is XRP a good token to use while gambling? To be honest, the number of casinos accepting XRP is pretty limited compared to Bitcoin. Furthermore, Betcoin.ag, LuckyGames.io, Bitsler, Rocket Run, Zet Casino, and 1xSlot. xrpfaucet.info and CoinFaucet.io are good options if you are looking into XRP faucets.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while it is true that a lot of casinos are not offering XRP gambling, the numbers will inevitably rise because of its sheer popularity and speed. Ripple is an exciting cryptocurrency that is looking to solve a genuine problem, i.e., international transactions. If you are looking at it purely from an investor’s point-of-view, then Ripple is a worthy addition to your portfolio.