I have a small bone to pick with every display of information or communication (including Ripple’s PR team) that refers to ‘XRP’ as ‘Ripple’.
If I’m honest, its more of a tiny stone in a shoe but I think the potential misconceptions of what Ripple does as an organisation and ‘Ripple (XRP)’ the cryptocurrency may be leading some of us mildly astray — or at least we could use some clarification so we’re all a little bit more informed.
As you’re here I assume you know what a blockchain is and some basics around cryptocurrency (their concept as a digital asset; what they are and how they are exchanged on blockchains).
If you’re looking for an XRP price prediction, you might find one in one of
Ripple
Ripple is an organisation — https://ripple.com
RippleNet
Ripple’s solution to a singular experience to send money globally. Its an ecosystem currently made up of xCurrent; xRapid and xVia — https://ripple.com/solutions/
Interledger Protocol (ILP)
Invented by Ripple, developed by the Interledger W3C Community Group, it is
xCurrent
Ripple’s bank-to-bank cross-border (international) settlement solution. Its Ripple’s pièce de résistance and could be seen as a potential replacement to SWIFT — https://ripple.com/solutions/process-payments/
xRapid (X-R-P-d…)
Ripple’s liquidity (cold hard FIAT exchanges— $ USD; £ GBP; € EUR; ¥ YEN etc) solution for payment providers; other financial institutions and RippleNet exchanging in XRP— https://ripple.com/solutions/source-liquidity/
XRP
The digital asset required for conducting xRapid transactions.
xVia
Ripple’s standardised ‘I want to send a payment’ component for RippleNet —
Removing the stone
When an institution using RippleNet (this is more than a bank, we’re talking payment processors and what not as well) require liquidity, they’ll hopefully use xRapid (and need XRP when they do).
Institutions on RippleNet could in theory not use xRapid for liquidity and stick to their traditional legacy means if they feel like it… but in my view they are demotivated to do so because xRapid is likely to be quicker or cheaper once they have implemented it (and everyone likes a frictionless ecosystem).
When institutions sign up to RippleNet and want to use xRapid, they will probably buy XRP from Ripple. If they do buy XRP instead of simply receive some, it is highly unlikely they will buy at prevailing public market rate —