XRP is the digital coin of the XRP Ledger, a public blockchain built in 2011 and 2012 for fast, cheap payments and currency exchange. It is often confused with Ripple, the company that received most of the coins at launch and still controls a large share of them. This guide explains how the ledger confirms transactions without miners or stakers, how Ripple's escrow releases work, what the SEC lawsuit decided and how it ended, what using the ledger costs, the XRP funds now trading in the US, and the risks. The crypto hub covers the wider asset class.
How does the XRP Ledger reach agreement without mining?
Servers on the XRP Ledger agree on each new ledger by listening to validators they trust, so nobody mines blocks or stakes coins.
The ledger advances in versions, each holding every balance plus the transactions applied since the version before. Each server keeps a Unique Node List, or UNL, of validators run by different parties that are unlikely to collude. Validators propose a set of transactions, shift their proposals toward what their trusted peers propose over several rounds, and declare a ledger validated, and final, once enough of them agree. According to xrpl.org, the ledger keeps running as long as fewer than 20% of trusted validators are faulty, confirming an invalid transaction would take more than 80% of them colluding, and anything in between halts progress rather than letting the chain split. Settlement typically takes 3 to 5 seconds, a figure Bitwise cited when it launched its XRP fund.
There is no block reward, so the protocol pays validators nothing and never issues new XRP. That is the main economic contrast with bitcoin, whose miners are paid in new coins, and with Ethereum and Solana, whose stakers are; bitcoin vs Ethereum compares the mining and staking models. The trade-off is that safety rests on the validator lists servers choose, so the choice of list is itself a point of trust. The ledger's early record also has a gap: ledgers 1 to 32,569, roughly its first week, were lost, although every account's state carried forward. How blockchain works compares consensus designs in general terms.
Is Ripple the same thing as XRP?
No: Ripple is a private company, and XRP is the coin of an open ledger that runs on independently operated servers.
The confusion dates from the start. Engineers David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb and Arthur Britto began building the ledger in 2011, originally calling the project and its coins Ripple, and launched it in June 2012. In September 2012 they and Chris Larsen formed a company, first named NewCoin and then OpenCoin, that became Ripple Labs and later just Ripple. The founders gifted 80 billion of the 100 billion XRP created at launch to that company in exchange for developing the ledger. The ledger software is open source, and the XRPL Foundation, an independent nonprofit founded on September 24, 2020, also supports its development.
Ripple uses XRP for liquidity in its cross-border payments business, has regularly sold XRP over the years and remains by far the largest single holder, mostly through escrow. That concentration is why Ripple's sales and legal battles have moved the price of a coin whose network the company does not run alone.
How much XRP is locked in escrow?
About 31.1 billion XRP, roughly 31% of all XRP, sat in Ripple's escrow after the November 1, 2026 release, by an on-ledger count from xrp-insights.com.
Ripple locked 55 billion XRP into escrow in December 2017 so the amount it could sell would follow a schedule. The ledger itself enforces the lock: each escrow has a release time, and before then nobody, Ripple included, can move the coins. One billion XRP becomes releasable on the first day of each month. Whatever Ripple does not plan to use goes back into new escrows that release roughly 32 months later, which is why the program has outlived its original 55-month timetable; in November 2026 the last escrow on the ledger was due to release in July 2029.
Worked example: The November 2026 escrow cycle
- Escrow balance before the release: about 31.4 billion XRP
- Released on November 1, 2026: 1.0 billion XRP, leaving 30.4 billion
- Locked back into new escrows the same day: 0.7 billion XRP
- Balance afterward: 30.4 + 0.7 = 31.1 billion XRP
- Net XRP freed for Ripple to use: 1.0 − 0.7 = 0.3 billion, or $300 million at an illustrative $1 per XRP
The yearly pattern has been steady. In the 12 releases from December 2025 to November 2026, 12 billion XRP was released, 8.4 billion, or 70%, was re-escrowed and 3.6 billion stayed out. At 300 million a month, the 31.1 billion still locked would last about eight and a half more years, though Ripple can change how much it re-locks. That monthly flow is a scheduled addition to the XRP Ripple can spend or sell.
What did the SEC case decide, and how did it end?
The SEC case ended in August 2025 with Ripple owing a $125,035,150 penalty, after a 2023 ruling that split the question of whether XRP sales were securities.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| December 22, 2020 | The SEC sued Ripple, co-founder Christian Larsen and CEO Bradley Garlinghouse, alleging they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered securities offering |
| July 13, 2023 | Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple's $728.9 million of direct sales to institutions under written contracts were unregistered offers of securities, but that its blind sales on exchanges were not |
| August 7, 2024 | Final judgment: a $125,035,150 civil penalty and an injunction against further violations of the registration rules |
| October 2024 | The SEC appealed and Ripple cross-appealed |
| May 2025 | The two sides signed a settlement and asked the judge to lift the injunction; she refused |
| August 7, 2025 | Both appeals were dismissed by agreement, leaving the 2024 judgment, penalty and injunction in force |
The next day, the SEC granted Ripple a waiver so the injunction would not shut it out of certain private fundraising exemptions. In March 2026 the SEC and CFTC named XRP among 16 digital commodities in an interpretive release, a sharp turn from the agency's 2020 position. Congress had not passed market-structure legislation as of November 2, 2026; US crypto regulation tracks where that stands.
Worked example: How the lawsuit moved XRP's price
Bitstamp daily closes in US dollars.
- December 21, 2020, the day before the SEC filed: $0.51466
- December 29, 2020, a week later: $0.22136, a fall of (0.22136 ÷ 0.51466) − 1 = −57.0%
- July 12, 2023, the day before the ruling: $0.47104
- July 13, 2023: $0.81605, a one-day rise of (0.81605 ÷ 0.47104) − 1 = +73.2%
Legal and policy news has moved XRP by more than half within days, in both directions.
What does it cost to use the XRP Ledger?
Each standard transaction destroys at least 10 drops, or 0.00001 XRP, and every account must keep a small XRP reserve that it cannot send away.
The fee goes to nobody: the XRP is destroyed, which is why about 14.4 million XRP, a little over 0.01% of the original supply, had been burned by November 1, 2026. The fee rises automatically when the network is busy, which makes spam expensive. Reserves stop the shared ledger from filling with junk: every account needs a base reserve of 1 XRP, plus 0.2 XRP for each object it owns, such as a token balance, an open order or an escrow. Validators can vote to change both amounts, and xrpl.org notes a narrow exception that lets a new account funded with exactly 1 XRP open its first two token balances without the extra reserve.
Worked example: Reserve and fees for a typical account
- Base reserve: 1 XRP
- Objects owned: trust lines for two tokens, such as a dollar stablecoin, plus one open exchange order = 3 × 0.2 = 0.6 XRP
- Total that must stay in the account: 1 + 0.6 = 1.6 XRP
- Fees for 1,000 standard transactions: 1,000 × 10 drops = 10,000 drops = 0.01 XRP, destroyed
- Deleting the account later costs 200,000 drops, or 0.2 XRP, and frees the remaining balance
Much of what other blockchains do with smart contracts is built into the XRP Ledger as native features:
| Feature | What it does |
|---|---|
| Trust lines and issued tokens | Let companies issue tokens, such as dollar stablecoins, that holders choose to accept |
| Offers | Orders in exchange order books built into the ledger, for trading XRP and tokens |
| AMM pools | Pools of two assets that trade automatically against deposits |
| Escrow | Locks XRP until a set time or condition, the tool behind Ripple's schedule |
| Checks and payment channels | Deferred payments the recipient cashes later, and streams of small payments settled in bulk |
| Multi-signing | Requires several keys to approve a transaction |
| Price oracles | Store outside price data on the ledger for apps to read |
Can you buy an XRP ETF?
Yes: funds holding XRP have traded on US exchanges since September 2025, and the first spot XRP ETF listed in November 2025.
| Fund | Ticker | Exchange | First trading day |
|---|---|---|---|
| REX-Osprey XRP ETF | XRPR | Cboe BZX | September 18, 2025 |
| Canary XRP ETF | XRPC | Nasdaq | November 13, 2025 |
| Bitwise XRP ETF | XRP | NYSE | November 20, 2025 |
| Grayscale XRP Trust ETF | GXRP | NYSE Arca | November 24, 2025 |
| Franklin XRP ETF | XRPZ | NYSE Arca | November 24, 2025 |
REX-Osprey's fund is registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and holds most of its assets in spot XRP, with the rest in other XRP-backed products. Grayscale's and Franklin Templeton's funds are trusts that hold XRP directly and say they are not registered under that act, so its protections do not apply. Bitwise set a 0.34% management fee at launch. On xrp-insights.com's count, seven ETFs and index funds held about 1.20 billion XRP, roughly 1.2% of all XRP, on November 1, 2026. Funds charge ongoing fees and trade only during market hours; bitcoin ETFs vs owning bitcoin explains the same trade-off for bitcoin.
XRP's price history
XRP trades around the clock, and the latest price for one XRP is $1.25 (Nov 2, 2026).
Bitstamp, one of the longest-running XRP markets, shows three moves that define the coin's record:
| Move | From (daily close) | To (daily close) | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| The 2018 collapse | $2.75064 on January 7, 2018 | $0.14061 on March 12, 2020 | −94.9% |
| The late-2024 rally | $0.50298 on November 4, 2024 | $2.07924 on December 31, 2024 | +313.4% |
| The 2025 to 2026 slide | $3.55233 on July 22, 2025, a record | $0.99247 on August 16, 2026 | −72.1% |
On November 1, 2026, the close of $1.24901 was 64.8% below the July 2025 record.
| Asset | Last close | 1 year | 3 years (per year) | 5 years (per year) | 10 years (per year) | Worst drop from a high | Volatility (1 year) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| XRP | $1.26 | -50.2% | +27.6% | +2.1% | n/a | -83.6% (Mar 12, 2020) | 64.1% |
The table refreshes on its own, so it may tell a different story from the dated figures above. Its return columns are yearly averages that hide the path: XRP spent years far below its 2018 peak before rallying, and a multi-year average smooths that over. The drawdown column gives the largest peak-to-trough fall in the period, and the volatility column shows how violently the price has moved from day to day; for XRP both have been large. The XRP price page shows the full chart.
What are the risks of holding XRP?
XRP is volatile and can lose most or all of its value, and several of its risks come from how it was created and who holds it.
- Concentrated supply. Ripple's escrow alone holds about 31% of all XRP, and 300 million XRP a month has been leaving escrow on net. A change in how much Ripple sells, or in its finances, can move the market.
- Company risk. Ripple's legal and business news has driven some of XRP's largest moves, as the 2020 and 2023 swings show, even though the ledger runs independently.
- Validator trust. The ledger's safety depends on servers choosing validator lists that will not collude, and it stops confirming transactions if more than 20% of trusted validators fail.
- Price. The daily close fell 94.9% from January 2018 to March 2020 and 72.1% from July 2025 to August 2026.
- Rules can change again. XRP's legal status shifted sharply between 2020 and 2026, and market-structure law was still pending in Congress on November 2, 2026.
- Deposit and address mistakes. XRP sent to the wrong address, or to an exchange without the tag or memo its deposit instructions require, can be hard or impossible to recover; sent crypto to the wrong network covers what can and cannot be undone, and crypto scams covers fake giveaways and impersonators.
- Reserves lock some XRP. The 1 XRP base reserve cannot be sent, so very small balances are less usable than they look.
How to research a cryptocurrency lists questions to ask before buying any coin, and crypto market cycles explains why past booms are not a timing tool.