Ripple Protocol (RTXP or RippleNet)

ChrisLarsen 2025-9-29 15:06 65635人围观 XRP

Statement: All content is for reference only, without any investment advice, and at your own risk Ripple Protocol (also known as Ripple Transaction Protocol, RTXP or RippleNet). The Ripple protocol is an open, distributed payment network protocol. Its cor

Disclaimer: All content is for reference only, no investment advice, please bear at your own risk

Ripple Protocol (also known as Ripple Transaction Protocol, RTXP or RippleNet).

The Ripple protocol is an open, distributed payment network protocol whose core goal is to enable the seamless, instant, and low-cost transfer of value like information around the world. It is much more than just a cryptocurrency (XRP), but a complete financial settlement ecosystem.

1. Core goals and philosophy

Unlike Bitcoin, which aims to create a "decentralized peer-to-peer electronic cash system," Ripple is designed to serve traditional financial institutions (especially banks) and payment providers, solving long-standing pain points in cross-border payments:

Slow: usually takes 3-5 days.
High cost: multiple intermediary agency banks are involved, and fees are charged at each level.
Opaque: The remitter cannot predict the final amount received.
Lack of liquidity: A large amount of funds need to be deposited in correspondent bank (Nostro account).

Ripple provides a set of protocol standards that allow any connected institution to conduct fast and low-cost value settlement in a standardized manner.

2. Core components

The Ripple protocol ecosystem consists of several key components:

1. RippleNet
This is a network of global financial institutions, market makers, and payment providers that jointly use Ripple's technology and protocols for payments. Think of it as an upgraded version of the SWIFT network using the Ripple protocol.

2. Distributed Ledger (XRP Ledger)
An open source, decentralized blockchain network maintained by independent validator nodes around the world. It records all account balances and transactions. Its native cryptocurrency is XRP.

3. Gateways
This is the bridge between the traditional financial world and the Ripple network. A gateway is a trusted entity (usually a bank, currency exchanger) responsible for digitizing fiat currencies (such as US dollars, euros) or other assets (such as gold, Bitcoin) and injecting them into the Ripple network. The user deposits legal currency into the gateway, and the gateway issues a corresponding number of IOUs (I Owe You, a credit certificate) to the user on its account book.

4. Market Makers
Usually large financial institutions, they provide buy and sell orders for various currency pairs (such as USD/EUR, XRP/CNY) on the ledger, providing liquidity to the network so that path finding can be completed at the best price.

3. Core technical characteristics

1. Consensus Algorithm (Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm, RPCA)
This is the most fundamental difference between Ripple and blockchains such as Bitcoin.

No Mining: It is not Proof of Work (PoW). A unique set of trusted validator nodes (UNL) reach consensus on the transaction set and ledger state through multiple rounds of voting.
Efficient and energy-saving: Because there is no mining competition, the speed is extremely fast (confirmation in 3-5 seconds), the energy consumption is extremely low, and the cost is almost negligible.
Centralization vs. decentralization trade-off: Critics believe that its validator node list (UNL), originally recommended by Ripple, is too centralized. But over time, the list of nodes has become more diverse and decentralized.

2. Pathfinding
This is the most powerful feature of Ripple. When a user wants to use one currency (such as Japanese yen) to pay for another currency (such as euros), he does not need to have euros in advance. The path finding algorithm will automatically search gateways and order books throughout the network to find the optimal exchange path.
Paths can be very complex, for example:JPY (Gateways A) -> XRP -> EUR (Gateways B) or JPY -> USD -> BTC -> EUR。
The system will calculate the lowest cost and fastest path for the user.

3. Native asset: XRP
XRP plays three key roles in the Ripple ecosystem:

Bridge Currency: In path finding, XRP often serves as an efficient and neutral "bridge" to connect two less liquid currencies and reduce exchange costs and time. This is what it was originally designed for.
Transaction Fee & Anti-Spam: Each transaction will destroy a very small amount of XRP (about 10 drops, 1 XRP = 1,000,000 drops). This provides an economic cost in preventing spam attacks.
Liquidity tools: Financial institutions can use XRP as a source currency or target currency to provide liquidity.

4. Working principle (an example of cross-border payment)

Suppose Alice in Japan wants to send $100 to Bob in the United States.

Access: Both Alice and Bob's banks are connected to RippleNet.
Initiation: Alice initiates a remittance through her Japanese bank to pay Japanese yen.
Path search: The Bank of Japan's Ripple software uses the path search function and finds that the optimal path is: convert Alice's Japanese yen into XRP through a market maker, and then send the XRP to the market maker in the United States and exchange it for US dollars.
Consensus and settlement: The transaction is broadcast to the XRP ledger network, and the validator nodes reach consensus within seconds. The ledger is updated and fund settlement is completed.
Delivery: Bob receives $100 almost instantly in his US bank account.

The whole process is completed within 3-5 seconds, the handling fee is extremely low, and both Alice and Bob's banks clearly know the cost and arrival time.

5. Key differences between Ripple and Bitcoin/Ethereum

characteristic	Ripple (XRP Ledger)	Bitcoin / Ethereum
core goals	Enterprise-level payment settlement	Decentralized Electronic Cash/World Computer
consensus mechanism	RPCA (consensus voting)	Proof-of-Work (Mining)
Transaction confirmation	3-5 seconds	10 minutes - more than 1 hour
transaction costs	Very low ($0.0002)	Variable, may be high
energy efficiency	Efficient (no mining)	Huge energy consumption
Token issuance	All XRP exists at birth	Continuously generated through mining
governance	Relatively centralized (Ripple has a great influence)	Decentralized (community driven)

Summarize

The Ripple protocol is a pragmatic blockchain solution. It does not pursue extreme decentralization, but finds a balance between efficiency, cost, and regulatory compliance, aiming to empower the existing financial system rather than overthrow it.

Its technical core lies in:

The efficient consensus algorithm achieves bank-level transaction speeds.
The gateway system connects the fiat currency and crypto worlds.
Pathfinding intelligently optimizes the flow of cross-currency payments.
XRP acts as a built-in bridge currency and security mechanism.

Therefore, when Radar claims that it is based on the Ripple protocol, it means that it has inherited this mature, efficient, payment-oriented underlying architecture, and innovated and developed on this basis (such as the introduction of the VBC reward mechanism).

Recommended reading: Treemap public chain, RADR system and DeFi, GameFi, oracles - technology oracles (Oracles) DeFi decentralized finance GameFi (Game Finance) "game" and "finance" Chainlink (chain link) a decentralized oracle (Oracle) network treemap public chain (Conflux) and Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) treemap public chain's "dual chain" architecture --- Conflux Core (treemap space) / Conflux Combining the relationship between eSpace (Ethereum Compatible Space) RADR system and tree map public chain