Ripple (XRP)
Official webpage https://www.ripple.com/xrp/
The currency and platform XRP was launched by Ripple in 2012 and is intended to challenge the "old banks" through fast and cheap international transactions.
The platform has proven to work and delivered what it promised with a transaction time of about 4 seconds. From the beginning, they have been careful to get the banks involved and have succeeded with banks such as Santander and Axis Bank.
Among other things, they launched xRapid, which is intended to compete directly with SWIFT for transactions between banks. XRP acts as an intermediate currency and is converted directly to a corresponding FIAT. As a bank, for example, I can send GBP to the USA where they arrive as USD - but during the transaction they are converted to XRP.
Advantages
- They have brought with them banks and good partnerships. It is an organization that companies can trust, that follows laws and regulations, unlike maybe Bitcoin which has no centralized government.
- Fast international transactions.
- Good and functioning infrastructure.
- No inflation.
Disadvantages
- They are a centralized organization and must follow the laws of the governments that they abide by. This also means that they can freeze transactions and roll back dubious ones.
- Ripple Labs owns 61% of all XRPs.
- If governments and major banks decide that XRP and xRapid are a bad idea, there is a risk that the currency has no future at all.
- No support for anonymous / secret transactions.
Buying
They can be purchased directly by credit card or bank transfer at CoinBase.