Welcome Steemers to my little corner of the Steemit Universe where I provide my view points on crypto currencies and more!

What is Ripple?

Ripple is an open payment system where currency can be transferred. It is fully distributed and open to the public for usage. Ripples goal is to provide an alternative option for payment methods such as the status quo (Banks and other financial institutions), Ripple is able to do this in a speedy manner with little to no delays and someday may be a replacement to the SWIFT network that is currently in place for wire transfers. The Ripple network is designed to allow the seamless transfer of any form of currency, whether dollars, euros, pounds, yen or bitcoins

Key Elements

Ripple is similar to Bitcoin in the fact that the currency itself is based on cryptography and solving hashes in order to power the network. The major difference between the two is that Ripples approach is to be a fee free currency or as close as one can be to that. Each transaction takes a very small fee(Less than 1 cent). The purpose of the fee is to add extra security on the Ripple Network by adding a checksum against DDOS attacks.

Controversy

crypto currencies are a new way of making payments that bypass banks and other financial institutions. Ripple, on the other hand, is working with banks to help them speed up cross-border payments and reduce fees. Some see Ripple as going against what cryptocurrencies should stand for, which is why many don’t like the standard.

Another reason why some are not fond of Ripple XRP is that it’s not decentralized like Bitcoins and other currencies. The company created all coins before the launch and still owns more than half of the supply.

Epilogue:
I see Ripple being the "yin" to the "tang" within the crypto world, in the world of the wild wild west we need some stability and Ripple provides that. It's infrastructure is safe, standard, and secure. Ripple is not trying to be flashy but provide what was promised; a fast easy way to transfer money around the world with minimal hassle. That is why I believe Ripple has a great potential to see an upward trend in valuation.

If you are interested in getting into crypto currencies you can sign up to Coinbase using my affiliate link. If you sign up with $100 we both get 10 bucks for free!

Additionally you can make donations to the wallet addresses below:

Bitcoin:
1MvdahiwEb8mAWmy62YeqRJUfCHKb8nqyW
Ether:
0x33662b1aad86efe17a54445a2c5a15e5ce4cce56
Lite Coin:
LP8Lenqebq2KJ2dc7HbtaV1gMdL2xR3C6r

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this article.