Crypto Academy | Season 2 | Homework Task 1: Blockchain and Platforms by @alphafx

Thank you @alphafx for taking us back to grasp the understanding of what Blockchain entails.
For the assignment task, I would like to talk about Ripple and Cardano blockchain platforms

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Blockchain

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Blockchain is simply an increasing list of documentations called blocks that are linked through servers(nodes) randomly positioned worldwide. As mentioned in the lecture, all information, including transaction histories are recorded on blocks and appended to existing blocks on the system so everyone can have access to it, thus it's decentralized.

RIPPLE

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Ripple is a payment settling, currency exchange, and remittance system intended for banks and payment networks. Ripple aims at supplying a system with direct transfer of assets, usually currencies
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The transfer of assets from one bank to another has been made simple and less costly with Ripple applying Internet of Value(IOV) concept.

The Internet of Value (IoV) is a concept proposed by Ripple which envisions an internet where value is transferred as easily, cheaply, and reliably as data is transferred now.
The Internet of Value will enable the exchange of any asset that is of value to someone, including stocks, votes, frequent flyer points, securities, intellectual property, music, scientific discoveries, and more
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Transfering assets across boundaries from one bank to another can tend to cost a fortune and also be time-consuming. This is because all banks are not connect to the same network system, thus transferring money internationally would have to go through a series to transfers involving intermediary banks that share common networks before the assets is delivered to the recipient which would have involved a lot of transaction fees and time wasted.

The creation of Ripple was to address the above setback related to the banking system.
Ryan Fugger started such an initiative way back in 2004, calling it RipplePay which was later acquired by Jed McCaleb and Chris Larsen in 2012 who founded OpenCoin later, to be called Ripple Labs.

Ripplenet has its own cryptocurrency known as XRP with 100 billion XRP tokens pre-mined.
The foundation holds 6.33 billion tokens to keep the system founded. Ripple has distributed 44.26 billion tokens in partnership and business development agreements. The remaining 49.4 billion tokens are entrusted in escrow to compensate for the amount burnt as transaction fees whenever a transaction is validated.

ABOUT RIPPLE

1. It is based on a set of rules known as the Ripple Transaction Protocol
2. Applys Proof-of-Stake (uses computers as validators for transactions made)
3. Ripple network is accessed via gateways.
4. Deploys XRP as its mainnet token

Property	Remark
Industrial Use cases	Finance
Governing body	Ripple Labs Inc.
Ledger Type	Permissioned
Consensus Algorithm	Proof of Correctness
Smart Contract Compatibility	No
Transaction confirmation time	3-5 seconds
Token rank	4th

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CARDANO

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Cardano is an open-source decentralized blockchain platform created purposely to run smart contracts with fewer scalabilities and fees during transactions.
In 2017, Charles Hoskinson of IOHK along with Cardano Foundation and Emurgo launched the Cardano blockchain with the aim of providing a more balanced and sustainable ecosystem as compared to Bitcoin and Ethereum.

Cardano runs on Ouroboros Proof of Stake technology which prioritizes save on energy costs and enables faster transaction processing.
It has its native cryptocurrency called Ada(ADA) which currently has a market cap of $44.94B with a 31.95B circulating supply.

Property	Remark
Industrial Use cases	Multi-use
Governing body	Cardano Foundation
Ledger Type	Permissionless/Public
Consensus Algorithm	Ouroboros Proof of Stake(POS)
Smart Contract Compatibility	Yes
Speed	20s
Token rank	6th

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Comparison of RIPPLE and CARDANO

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Similarities
Both blockchains support Saas platform which allows users to access their platform from any device with an internet connection and browser.

Differences

1. Cardano supports smart contract which Ripple lacks.
2. Cardano has a multi-use case which gives it the ability to dominate the digital assest space while Ripple is centered on bank, handling fiat payments across boundaries.
3. Ripple has a faster transaction speed of 2-3 seconds as compared to Cardano with 20s transaction speed.
4. Cardano runs a decentralized exchange while Ripple trades the benefits of open decentralisztion for speed and efficiency

Trading Pattern of XRP and ADA

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From the above chart, the current prices of XRP and ADA are $1.791 and $1.399 respectively.
In general, XRP has been performing in the recent days with a marketcap of $83,105,387,230 as compared to $47,322,999,875 of ADA.
XRP has a market supply of $45,404,000,000(~45 Bn) whiles ADA has only $31,948,300,000(~32 Bn) supply. XRP has experienced a 1-week percentage change of %49.387 while ADA has %18.147 change.

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Conclusion

Ripple blockcahin with its native token, XRP can boost of having the current upperhand over Cardano's ADA with reference to the chart above.
In my opinion, it it just a matter of time until Cardano surpasses Ripple since it has multi-use which gives it the potential to increase its digital assets space with time. Ripple only deals with aiding payments of fiat currencies internationally which limits its digital assest space to only the banking industries.

Thanks for your attention.

Reference

Cc:
@alphafx