Ripple is the name of a payment network and the payment protocol which powers it. It was developed and released in 2012 by a company of the same name, in order to enable "secure, instant and nearly free global financial transactions". It is built on principles similar to those of Bitcoin, so many people consider it a cryptocurrency. However, unlike Bitcoin, the source code of Ripple's technology is owned privately by the company, which means that it cannot be verified by any outsider. Ripple is a very popular network: many banks across the world use it as the basis for their own settlement infrastructure, and its native currency XRP (ripples) has been consistently present in the top 5 cryptocurrencies by market capitalization for the past several years.