ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the Ripple protocol, discusses financial aspects of its token XRP, and explains the technical details of the architecture and the consensus mechanism. It describes the partnership of Ripple with various participating companies. Ripple is a distributed payment protocol and a real-time gross settlement system. Ripple protocol makes it possible to execute global financial transactions of any size in exchange for a minimal fee. The Ripple protocol mimics an age-old informal value transfer system commonly known as hawala and connects financial and non-financial brokers globally to take part in the exchange of assets. In the Ripple protocol, the user-level changes to the ledger are the results of transactions. RippleNet is a global network of banks and financial institutions interested in sending and receiving payments through the use of Ripple’s distributed financial technology. The success of RippleNet heavily depends on the participation of the partners in the network.
