Crypto Academy Week 9 - Homework Post for [ @yohan2on ].. Altcoins - XRP

As task demands writing about altcoins and for this task, i have choosen to write about Ripple (XRP). so let's begin by introduction to altcoin;

Altcoins refer to all cryptocoins other than Bitcoin. As we all know that Bitcoin met remarkable success which facilitated launch of these coins from time to time. The common market trend for any competitor to survive in market is to offer some advantage over existing counterparts. Therefore altcoins have been claiming themselves as better alternatives and they have met success in some areas which we shall discuss below taking example of Ripple (XRP) . Although altcoins are very much similar to Bitcoin and have many overlapping features among themselves, but still there exist differences which paves way for sub categorization of altcoins into :

We generally call XRP as Ripple but technically speaking, Ripple is not a cryptocurrency but refers to the digital payment network or company . The cryptocurrency is actually XRP. But for sake of simplicity, by Ripple we mean XRP.

XRP transections are different from Bitcoin and Etherium in a way that it does not involve Proof of Work and mining. It however works on a similar system (Hash Tree) as that of blockchain. Transections are processed by trusted group of validators before recording on XRP Ledger. This sort of consensus mechanism is called Ripple Protocal Concensus algorithm. It offers many advantages over BTC.

Ripple as an altcoin has succeed in better delivery of certain services due to which it has got recognition in market and has been able to maintain its position at number 3. XRP price as of now is $ 1.76 with a 24-hour trading volume of $22.98B and market cap of $176.85B.

XRP ledger can handle about 1500 transections per second while that of BTC can handle about 2- 5 transections per second. It means that XRP is 600 times faster than BTC. Average transection speed of XRP is 3 sec where that of BTC is 10 seconds. Theee are some ot the clear cut advantage that XRP offers.

XRP transection fee is much lesser than BTC when both are measured in terms of same crypto or fiat. Ripple has gained popularity in the field of cross border transactions by setting a real world example in the form of Ripplenet. It is being widely adopted by traditional banking systems for multiple purposes.

Total supply of BTC caps only at 21 million while that of XRP is 100 billion. There is no mining mechanism of XRP so the process of release of XRP is different from that of BTC. Ripple has pre-mined pool of assets and are released in a controlled manner for diatribution from escrow account.

XRP ledger is more eco- friendly than BTC because energy expenditure in bitcoin mining is huge as BTC engages heavy hardware machinery like GPUs , ASIC etc. Carbon emission from BTC mining hardware has also caught attention of environmentalists.