Ever since the Ripple project was launched, a lot of people have been opposing the idea. Then again, Ripple – and its XRP currency – are often wrongfully labeled as a cryptocurrency, since that is not entirely true. Ripple’s XRP token is a digital asset issued on a distributed ledger. It also shares some decentralization traits, although on a much smaller scale compared to Bitcoin. All XRP transactions pass through nodes and validators, similar to Bitcoin. However, on the Ripple network, those transactions do not rely on the mining protocol. That is not surprising since it is impossible to mine XRP whatsoever. Ripple also has a higher degree of governance, as the Ripple Consensus ledger relies on institutional validators run by global banks and a few other institutions. One thing Ripple provides the Bitcoin network cannot – in its current form – is a lightning-fast settlement speed. The consensus mechanism used by the Ripple Consensus ledger settles transactions in mere seconds, assuming the transaction took place using the XRP asset. It is evident Ripple can’t be put in the same category as bitcoin, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be successful. It is not a digital asset most diehard cryptocurrency users would like to have in their portfolio, but that is understandable