Ripple is a technology company that develops the Ripple Payment protocol and exchange network. Although XRP is often referred to as Ripple, it is important to know that XRP is an open-source digital asset independent of Ripple, which is a technology company. Founded in 2012 and originally named OpenCoin and renamed Ripple Labs in 2013 and rebranded Ripple in 2015. Ripple is a global payment network with major international banks and financial services providers as its customers.

Overview

Ripple is the company behind XRP, and it’s a payment settlement system and currency exchange network that can process transactions globally. Ripple is a money transfer network designed to serve the needs of the financial services industry. Ripple was designed from the very beginning to essentially be a replacement for SWIFT (a leading money transfer network) or to otherwise replace the settlement layer between major financial institutions.

As the Ripple community expanded, Ripple created the XRPTalk, which spanned off from Bitcoiltalk. The XRP Talk forum was the main catalyst behind the growth of the XRP community and it was replaced by XRPChat, which has grown to become one of the largest in the cryptosphere.

Ripple added Escrow and Payment Channels, which helped boost its scalability and performance. The new features enable companies to adopt the Ripple Consensus Ledger (RCL), and the Interledger Protocol (ILP). This allows them to benefit from XRP technology, as they experience faster and cheaper cross-border payments.

History

2004
Ripple Project (Ripplepay.com) was founded by Ryan Fugger who is the predecessor of the current XRP ledger.

2005
Ripplepay.com launched.

2011
Jed McCaleb started developing a digital currency system (XRP Ledger) together with David Schwartz and Arthur Britto.

2012

• Chris Larsen and Jessie Powell joined Jed McCaleb to discuss the concept of the digital currency system.
• Ryan Fugger passed over the ownership of Ripplepay to Jed MeCaleb's team.
• Jed McCaleb's team founded OpenCoin Inc.  in September 2012.

2013
Opencoin was rebranded to Ripple Labs in September 2013.

2015
Ripple Lab was rebranded to Ripple in October 2015.

2016

• Launched the Global Payment Steering Group to oversee the creation and maintenance of Ripple payment transaction rules, formalize standards for activity using technology and other actions to promote the implementation of Ripple payment capabilities.
• Santander became the first bank in the United Kingdom to use Ripple for cross-border payment.

2017

• Ripple signed with 10 new banks including Axis Bank and Yes Bank in India, Akbank in Turkey and BBVA bank in Spain.
• 47-bank consortium from Japan joined Ripple and other 57 major customers from America and other regions joined the platform.
• Received a boost from Kraken adding four different XRP trading pairs, including XRP/CAD, XRP/JPY, XRP/EUR, and XRP/USD.

2020
XRP Ledger (XRPL) Foundation was established in September 2020 and raised $5.5 million from Ripple, Coil, and GateHub. XRPL Foundation is an independent and nonprofit entity with a mission to accelerate the development and adoption of the decentralized XRP Ledger.^[19]

2021
Ripple announced a plan to launch its Liquidity Hub in 2022 to help financial services firms offer their customers the ability to buy and sell. Liquidity Hub is a turn-key liquidity and global payout platform, built specifically for enterprise needs supporting a variety of digital assets and connecting organizations to a rich set of liquidity venues to source optimized pricing via smart order algorithms.^[9][10]

Technology

XRP Ledger Technology
The XRP Ledger (XRPL) is a decentralized public blockchain that allows for the fast, low-cost, real-time transfer of XRP, fiat currencies, and other digital assets. It is also open source, meaning anyone can participate in its development. XRP Ledger was created in 2012 by Ripple co-founder and CEO Chris Larsen. Initially, it was used to power the Ripple payment network, but it has since been adopted by other companies such as Coil and Omni to innovate upon diverse Web3 implications.
XRP Ledger is a decentralized platform allowing for peer-to-peer asset transfer. A consensus algorithm validates connections on the network, which makes the network incredibly fast and secure.

Ripple Consensus Algorithm
Consensus algorithms are solutions designed to address something known as the “Byzantine Generals’ Problem. In the case of Bitcoin, it uses the Proof-of-Work consensus algorithm, while Ethereum uses the Proof-of-Stake consensus algorithm to address the problem. 
The Ripple Consensus Algorithm helps the protocol address the issues faced by the current system of cross-border transfers. Current systems take days to settle a transfer and are opaque, which means the receiver has no idea when they will receive the funds in their account. On the other hand, Ripple addresses transactions in mere seconds. The Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm relies on nodes that verify transactions by reaching a consensus. However, the consensus algorithm makes it impossible for validators to agree to a malicious transaction.^[18]

Use Cases

Ripple Liquidity Hub
Liquidity Hub is a turn-key liquidity and global payout platform, built specifically for enterprise needs. With Liquidity Hub and Ripple’s suite of products, businesses can access optimized crypto liquidity and an extensive payout rail network to power crypto payments, crypto treasury operations, and a variety of other solutions.^[13]

Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)
Complete platform for minting, managing, transacting, and destroying CBDCs. Each solution is built on a private ledger that is based upon XRP Ledger technology—a proven blockchain that has transacted over 70 million times over the course of 10 years and is trusted by financial institutions around the world.^[14]

Partnership / Collaboration

• Novatti
  Novatti uses Ripple's payments solution to drive customer growth. Novatti is a leading digital payments company that enables businesses across 58 countries- from corner stores and startups to global organizations - to pay and be paid from any device, anywhere.^[1]
• Modulr
  Molulr is a leading embedded payments platform in the UK and Europe, enabling customers to make payments 24/7, 368 days a year in seconds. Ripple enables Modulr to deliver seamless payments.^[2]
• Tranglo
  Tranglo is one of Asia's leading cross-border payments hubs providing 25 countries with technology that makes cross-border transactions faster, affordable and more secure. Tranglo partnered with Ripple to provide accessible and equitable financial services to the public.^[3]
• I-Remit
  I-Remit is the largest Filipino-owned non-bank remittance service provider in partnership with more than 100 financial institutions in 30 countries across the globe. Ripple helps I-Remit provide low cost, real-time cross-border payments around the world. ^[4]
• MoneyMatch
  MoneyMatch is a Malaysia-incorporated FinTech company focused on delivering a more efficient cross-border payments service by providing same-day, low-cost global payments to both SMEs and individuals. MoneyMatch and Ripple make it cheaper and faster for Malaysian small and medium enterprises to pay global suppliers.^[5]
• Siam Commercial Bank (SCB)
  SCB is Thailand’s longest established bank and one of the largest banks in terms of market capital assets, offering four models for inbound services with more than $300M. Ripple helps SCB drive innovation with instant cross-border remittances.^[6]
• Sentbe
  Sentbe is a financial services firm based in Korea and Singapore offering online international remittances across Southeast Asia and beyond. Ripple helps Sentbe provide faster, cheaper and convenient remittances for migrant workers in Korea.^[7]
• MoneyNetint
  MoneyNetint is a financial services company based in the U.K. providing cross-border receipts and payments to corporate clients around the world. RippleNet gives MoneyNetint easy access to new corridors.^[8]

Issues / Criticism

Legal Issues

Ripple Labs Inc. resolves criminal investigation

May 2015 - Ripple Labs Inc. and its wholly-owned subsidiary, XRP II LLC, formerly XRP Fund II LLC, agreed to resolve a criminal investigation in exchange for a settlement agreement calling for a series of substantial remedial measures, including a migration of a portion of Ripple’s virtual currency business to a separate entity, the company’s ongoing cooperation in other investigations, an extensive remedial framework to ensure future compliance with federal laws and forfeiture and penalties totaling $700,000, announced U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California, Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery of the U.S. Treasury Department Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and Chief Richard Weber of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation Division.^[16]

SEC charges Ripple and two executives

December 2020 - The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that it filed an action against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives, who are also significant security holders, alleging that they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering. The complaint alleged that Ripple raised funds, beginning in 2013, through the sale of digital assets known as XRP in an unregistered securities offering to investors in the U.S. and worldwide. Ripple also allegedly distributed billions of XRP in exchange for non-cash consideration, such as labor and market-making services.^[20]

Ripple and the SEC file final briefs for the long-standing case

December 2022 - Ripple and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused one another of stretching the law, as they argued for a ruling on whether the XRP, the world's seventh-largest cryptocurrency, is a security. The SEC sued Ripple and its current and former chief executives in December 2020, alleging they have been conducting a $1.3 billion unregistered securities offering since the token's creation. The final round of briefs seeking summary judgement brings the case closer to a ruling that could further define what digital assets are considered securities in the U.S. Ripple argued that the SEC was seeking a ruling that XRP was in investment contract, but without any contract, any investor rights, and any issuer obligations.^[21][22]

Criticism

March 2019 - A Forbes author and IT expert, after his in-depth analysis, brought up various points that lead to the conclusion that the Ripple business model, at its core, is a pump and dump scheme, as it undergoes numerous activities to increase the value of the XRP cryptocurrency. Unlike most crypto pump and dumps, however, Ripple takes numerous steps to obscure this basic fact.

The starting point in the chart above is the issuance of many billions of XRP tokens printing Monopoly money out of thin air. To obscure Ripple founders' intention, however, an open source 'community' - not technically Ripple itself - issued the tokens. Many people in the crypto community don't even consider XRP to be a cryptocurrency at all, because it's not decentralized. One of the strongest indicators that Ripple is a going concern is the dozens of customers it touts. Look more closely, however, and most such companies are 'partners', not customers. Pump and dump schemes leverage the perceived value of the asset in question, not its intrinsic value separate from the speculative interest in the asset.^[15]