Ripple: Why Bitcoiners Hate It And Banks Work With It

Within the cryptocurrency community, new projects are usually met with interest as well as scrutiny. However, when it comes to the blockchain-based company Ripple, many in the bitcoin community regard it with hostility. This is in stark contrast to the support the blockchain project has received from a significant number of traditional financial institutions.

What is Ripple?

San Francisco-headquartered Ripple is a company that seeks to harness the power of blockchain technology to develop a platform through which real-time payments can be made in a fast and secure manner. The company created the platform specifically for banks and other financial institutions. The project refers to itself as the “world’s only enterprise blockchain solution for global payments.”

The company has developed the payments network RippleNet, through which financial institution, such as banks and payment providers are able to stay connected to each other to engage in interbank payments. Through RippleNet it is possible to transfer fiat currency as well as access orders in an easy, fast, secure and cheap manner. There are three products available for interested parties, each with different capabilities and specifications. These are xCurrent, a banking payment solution, xRapid, a source of on demand liquidity, and xVia, used by businesses to plug into RippleNet to send payments.

RippleNet is based on the Ripple Protocol consensus algorithm (RPCA), which is a network of distributed consensus ledgers that are validated by trusted nodes. This differs from the blockchain that underlies the Bitcoin network. The native cryptographic token of the project is called Ripple and is denoted as XRP.