XRP (XRP) is the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, an open blockchain that went live in 2012. It pays the small fees that protect the network from spam, covers the reserve that every account must hold, and can serve as a bridge when one currency is converted into another. All 100 billion XRP were created at launch; none are mined, and the supply shrinks slowly as transaction fees are destroyed.
This entry covers the coin; the network itself is described in XRP Ledger (XRPL). XRP is closely linked to, but separate from, Ripple, the San Francisco company that received 80 billion of the original coins, keeps much of its holding in escrow and sells payment services built around XRP. Unlike Bitcoin (BTC), XRP has no miners, and its legal status in the United States was the subject of a lawsuit that ended in 2025.
XRP in plain terms
Think of an airport currency exchange that has to keep stacks of dozens of foreign notes in its drawer, just in case. XRP's pitch is to keep one neutral token in the drawer instead: turn dollars into XRP, send the XRP across the world in a few seconds, and turn it into pesos or rupees at the other end. The token is only held for the moment it takes to cross.
Every action on the network costs a tiny sliver of XRP that is thrown away rather than paid to anyone, like a stamp that is cancelled once used. Opening an account also needs a small deposit that stays locked, a little like the key deposit at a gym. Together these stop anyone flooding the ledger with millions of junk payments or empty accounts.
History
The XRP Ledger was built by David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto and launched in 2012, the year the company OpenCoin was founded with Chris Larsen; it was renamed Ripple Labs in 2013 and later simply Ripple. McCaleb left and went on to co-found Stellar (XLM). In December 2017 Ripple locked 55 billion XRP into 55 escrow contracts of 1 billion each, set to unlock one a month; whatever it does not use is usually locked up again. In 2018 it launched a service, now part of Ripple Payments, that uses XRP to move money between currencies without pre-funded accounts.
The SEC case
In December 2020 the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple and two executives, alleging that sales of XRP were an unregistered securities offering. On 13 July 2023 Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP is not in itself a security: Ripple's sales of about $728.9 million of XRP to institutional buyers were investment contracts under the Howey Test, but its anonymous sales on exchanges and its distributions to employees were not. In August 2024 she fined Ripple about $125 million and barred further unregistered institutional sales. Both sides appealed; in 2025, under new leadership, the SEC sought to settle, Torres declined in June to cut the penalty, and on 7 August 2025 both sides dropped their appeals, leaving her judgment in force.
Supply, fees and reserves
XRP divides into one million "drops". Transactions are confirmed every few seconds by validators using a voting form of consensus, and the minimum fee of 10 drops is destroyed, an automatic form of burning tokens. Each account must also keep a reserve that grows with the objects it owns on the ledger, such as trust lines and open offers:
- is the base reserve, 1 XRP per account since validators voted to lower it on 2 December 2024 (from 10 XRP).
- is the owner reserve, 0.2 XRP for each object (from 2 XRP).
- is the number of objects the account owns.
An account holding three trust lines and two open offers has , so its reserve is XRP. That amount cannot be spent while the objects exist, though the reserve falls again as they are removed.
Uses and market
- Bridge currency. Payment firms use XRP to settle cross-border payments, buying it in one currency and selling it in another instead of keeping money in nostro accounts abroad.
- Trading. XRP is the base asset of the ledger's built-in decentralized exchange and is listed on most large exchanges.
- Stablecoin settlement. Ripple's dollar stablecoin, Ripple USD (RLUSD), launched on 17 December 2024 under a trust charter from NYDFS, runs on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum; it is a separate asset that uses XRP for network fees.
- Funds. The first US spot XRP exchange-traded fund, from Canary Capital, began trading on Nasdaq on 13 November 2025, and other issuers followed.
Criticism and risks
Critics point to the concentration of supply: Ripple and its founders received most of the coins at launch, and monthly escrow releases leave holders exposed to the company's selling decisions. Some argue the network is less decentralized than mined chains because most validators follow a recommended list. Like other cryptocurrencies, XRP's price is volatile, its treatment varies between countries, and Ripple's commercial success does not automatically translate into demand for the coin.