Ripple (XRP), a cryptocurrency associated with cross-border payment solutions, has been in the limelight for the past few years specifically because of its court battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The bone of contention has been that Ripple’s native cryptocurrency, XRP, is a security and not a cryptocurrency like the likes of Ethereum’s ETH and Bitcoin’s BTC.
In this post, we shall shed light on some of the outstanding Ripple statistics to help you understand the network and its native cryptocurrency better.
Key Takeaways
Before delving into the detailed Ripple statistics, here are some of the top Ripple stats that might blow your mind:
- The maximum number of XRP tokens that will ever exist is 100 billion XRPs and are all pre-mined.
- At the moment, there are 50.30 billion XRP coins in circulation supply.
- The remaining 49.7 billion XRP coins are owned by Ripple Labs, the company behind Ripple.
- Ripple Labs initially owned 55 billion XRP coins in escrow wallets designed to release a maximum of 1 billion XRP tokens every month.
- Transactions on Ripple take an average of 4 seconds to be confirmed.
Ripple Labs statistics
1. Ripple Labs was founded in September 2012
Ripple Labs, which is the company behind Ripple’s decentralized network that focuses on cross-border payment solutions, was founded in 2012 under the name OpenCoin. OpenCoin later rebranded to Ripple Labs in 2013 before settling on the name Ripple in 2015.
2. The development of Ripple’s decentralized network, XRP Ledger, started in 2013
Initially, XRP Ledger was called Ripple Open Payment System before later moving to Ripple Consensus Ledger and lastly XRP Ledger.
Ripple has grouped all its XRP-related products operating on XRP Ledger into an offering called RippleNet. RippleNet offering offers connections to financial institutions through a single API and makes moving money faster, cheaper and more reliable.
3. Hundreds of financial institutions currently use RippleNet solutions
Remittance companies and banking giants like Bank of America, American Express, Santander, Banco Rendimento, and SBI Remit have integrated RippleNet for cross-border payments.
Through On-Demand Liquidity, a service that uses XRP as a source of liquidity during cross-border transactions, RippleNet has eliminated the need to pre-fund accounts.
4. Ripple Labs currently employs more than 750 employees
Over the years, Ripple Labs has grown to become one of the biggest blockchain companies with a workforce of over 750 employees. About half of these employees are based in the US and about 60 are based in their London office.
5. Ripple Labs currently has 9 offices
As it expands, Ripple Labs has established 9 offices around the world including its headquarters in San Francisco, California.
6. Ripple Labs has recorded a 300% year-to-year customer growth
According to the Kriptomat exchange, Ripple has attracted a 300% year-over-year customer growth despite its court case with SEC regarding its native cryptocurrency, XRP. The XRP digital currency is accepted by at least 4,500 merchants across the globe.
XRP statistics
7. On November 21, 2022, a single XRP token was worth $0.3514
As of press time, on November 21, 2022, the XRP price was $0.3514 per token.
8. XRP token price hit an all-time high (ATH) on Jan 4, 2018
XRP hit an all-time high of $3.84 on January 4, 2018, a year after Ripple locked away 55% of the total supply of XRP.
9. XRP price has decreased by about 90% from its ATH
Since it hit its ATH of $3.84 in January 2018, XRP has dropped by about 90.85% to its current price of $0.3514.
10. In early 2018 XRP was the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap value
At the height of its popularity, before the US SEC filed a lawsuit against its company and directors, XRP was the third-largest cryptocurrency by market cap at the beginning of 2018. At the time, it commanded a market cap of about $120 billion.
11. 100 billion XRP tokens were pre-mined at the launch
At launch, 100 billion XRP tokens were pre-mined and XRP Ledger maintains that limit to date. No more XRP tokens will be mined/created in future.
12. Out of the 100 billion tokens, Ripple initially distributed 55 billion tokens
Out of the total XRP supply, Ripple distributed 55 billion XRP tokens to users on different forums and escrowed most of the undistributed tokens.
13. In 2017, Ripple locked 55% of the total possible XRP supply into a series of escrows
Ripple locked 55 billion XRP tokens into a series of escrows in 2017 to provide additional predictability to its XRP supply. The escrows are on the XRP Ledger and have a mechanism that controls how the XRPs are released to the circulating supply.
14. The ledger escrows are set to release up to 1 billion XRP tokens a month
There are independent ledger escrows that are programmed to release a maximum of one billion XRP tokens each month. The limit is however just an upper limit on the amount of new XRP tokens that can be released into circulation every month.
However, the amount of XRP tokens released every month is much less than one billion. The leftover XRP out of the one billion is sent into an escrow and released in the first month of the year, where none of the other escrows releases any XRP.
15. Transactions on XRP Ledger incur zero traditional transaction fees
Transactions on the XRP Ledger do not incur traditional transaction fees. They instead require the sender to destroy a small amount of XRP per transaction making XRP a deflationary cryptocurrency.
16. At the current rate of destruction, it would take 70,000 years to destroy all XRP tokens
According to xrpl.org, it is estimated that it would take about 70,000 years to destroy all XRP tokens going by the current rate of XRP destruction in every transaction. This eliminates any fears of XRP tokens being completely wiped out, especially since XRP prices and fees can be adjusted as the total supply of XRP changes.
17. XRP transactions take about 3 to 5 seconds
XRP transactions are usually confirmed within 3 to 5 seconds.
18. There are currently 36 validators verifying XRP transactions
The XRP Ledger is maintained by several independent participants of a global community and every XRP transaction requires consensus from these independent validator nodes.
Anyone can become a validator, and active validators on the ledger nowadays include universities, exchanges and financial institutions. At the moment, there are 36 validators.
19. Ripple Labs runs 6 validator nodes
Out of the 36 validator nodes currently running the XRP Ledger, 6 are run by Ripple Labs; meaning the company controls 16% of the network.
20. XRP is measured precisely to the nearest 0.000001 XRP, called a “drop” of XRP
According to XRP’s currency format reference, XRP is measured precisely to the nearest 0.000001 XRP, called a “drop” of XRP and Rippled APIs require all XRP amounts to be specified in drops of XRP. For example, when referring to 1 XRP, one should represent it as 1000000 drops.
21. Transfer fee in XRP Ledger protocol cannot be less than 0% or more than 100%
The transfer fee in the XRP Ledger protocol is represented by setting an issuing address. The transfer fee cannot be less than 0% or more than 100% and is rounded down to the nearest 0.0000001%.
The transfer fee applies to all tokens issued by the same account. If you want to have different transfer fees for different tokens, use multiple issuing addresses.
22. The transfer fee is specified as an integer representing the amount you must send for the recipient to be 1 billion of the units of the same token.
The transfer fee is specified in the TransferRate field in the XRP Ledger protocol, as an integer that represents the amount one should send for the recipient to get 1 billion units of the same token. For example, a TransferRate of 1005000000 is equivalent to a transfer fee of 0.5%.
By default, the TransferRate is set to no fee. When transacting, the value cannot be set to less than 1000000000 (“0%” fee) or more than 2000000000 (a “100%” fee).
23. Ripple’s co-founder, Jed McCaleb, was awarded 9 billion XRP
Ripple’s co-founder, Jed McCaleb, who resigned from Ripple Labs in 2014 to work on Stellar (XLM), was awarded 9 billion XRP by Ripple for his role in developing and founding the company. The entrepreneur revealed the total amount awarded to him in on XRP Talk in 2015 and he donated part of the tokens to charitable organizations, including GiveDirectly and Literacy Bridge and said that he shall be selling the rest as he receives them.
McCaleb receives his XRP tokens on a fixed schedule as the tokens are released from the XRP Ledger escrows.
24. Currently, a sender incurs a minimum of 0.00001 XRP (10 drops) for a standard transaction
According to data from Ripple, the current minimum transaction cost required by the network for a standard transaction is 0.00001 XRP (10 drops). It sometimes increases due to higher-than-usual activity on the network.
25. 15.5% of crypto investors in Asia own XRP
According to a survey done by Finder in 27 Asian countries, 25.5% own XRP.
26. 15.1% of crypto investors hold XRP in the USA and UK
According to Finder’s survey, out of the investors who own cryptocurrencies in the USA and UK, 15.1% of hold XRP. Crypto owners in these countries prefer Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and Dogecoin (DOGE) over XRP.
The adoption of XRP in the US has been greatly hampered by the SEC lawsuit against Ripple.
27. There are about 1.13 million XRP wallets
There currently exist about 1.3 million XRP wallets despite the current SEC lawsuit.
XRP wallets are created directly on the XRP Ledger, Ripple’s decentralized network, a features that other cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum lack. This helps prevent the creation of spam XRP wallets although it has in a way hindered the creation of very many wallets since Bitcoin, for example, enjoys about 200 million wallets.
28. There are 3 times more men XRP holders than women
The Finder survey found out that men dominate XRP ownership at a ratio of about 3:1 although data showed that women are warming up to the cryptocurrency.
SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple
29. The US SEC lawsuit against Ripple has been ongoing for the last 2 year
The US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple on December 2020 and has been ongoing since then although it is expected to be concluded in 2022 December.
30. Ripple was sued by the SEC over the alleged sale of $1.3 billion in unregistered securities
SEC accuses Ripple of raising about $1.3 billion through an unregistered security offering of a digital asset. The SEC argues that XRP is a security token and not a cryptocurrency and therefore the initial offering where Ripple raised about $1.3 billion was an unregistered security offering.
Ripple has however maintained that its native cryptocurrency, the XRP, is a cryptocurrency just like Bitcoin’s BTC, and Ethereum’s ETH.
Conclusion
Going by the above Ripple statistics, XRP is one of the largest and strongest cryptocurrencies seeing that it has maintained a position in the top ten list in terms of its market cap despite its two years court battle against the US SEC.
Although a majority of exchanges delisted XRP after the SEC lawsuit was filed, investors are anxious that a positive ruling will see most of the exchanges re-listing the coin.