What Is Ripple?
Ripple is a company that provides global payment solutions. Its digital payment platform, RippleNet, enables payments to be made anywhere in the world in about three seconds and is already used by traditional financial institutions including Santander and Bank of America.
RippleNet is built on the public distributed ledger database XRP Ledger (XRPL), which is high-performance and environmentally sustainable, thanks to its speed, low cost, scalability, and energy efficiency. It supports a range of services, including decentralised exchange, cross-currency payments, batched micropayments, and issuing currencies.
The native cryptocurrency of the XRPL is XRP, which can be sent directly between XRPL addresses, making it a convenient bridge currency. It is used as a bridge between all trades on the decentralised exchange to ensure there is sufficient liquidity, as well as to pay XRPL fees and secure payment channels for batched micropayments.
Ways to Invest in Ripple
Whatever your experience and investment goals, XRP may have something to offer as it can be bought for both the short and long term. We will look at why both approaches can be profitable below.
Buy and hold Ripple
This is a strategy that anyone can follow as it simply involves buying XRP and holding onto it for a period of time. Skills such as technical analysis are not required for this strategy. In fact, very little time and effort is required to potentially make a profit, just be sure to buy in at a good XRP price.
XRP cannot be staked for passive income but it can be used to pay fees on the XRPL.
Best Ripple wallets
Private wallets are a popular place to store coins for long-term investors as they mean you always have custody of and access to your coins. They can also provide you with a bit of extra security.
Hardware wallets such as Trezor, BitBox, and Ledger are the most secure, but you will have to pay for this level of security. Alternatively, you can download a software wallet onto your computer or mobile device for free, which tends to be more user intuitive.
Trade Ripple (XRP Trading)
You can also buy and sell XRP much more frequently to generate returns more often, taking advantage of the XRP price volatility. People who are trading XRP often use skills such as technical analysis to identify the best times to buy and sell.
Private wallets are less useful to traders because they need to access their coins on an exchange regularly. Exchanges provide free web wallets, which although less secure, tend to be the most convenient option for traders.
Should I Buy Ripple Now?
This is up to you; just make sure to read all the available information before making your decision. XRP has a capped maximum supply, and with some XRP being destroyed through transaction costs, XRP is actually slightly deflationary. This could help XRP conserve its value in the long term.
The use of XRP for escrow, securing payment channels, and providing a bridge between currencies on the decentralised exchange creates utility and demand for the coin, giving it value on the XRPL.
As XRP is needed to pay fees on the XRPL, there should be more demand for it as the number of people using the XRPL grows. With XRPL-based payment solutions such as RippleNet already being applied by world-leading institutions for financial transactions, Ripple appears to be a valuable project, of which XRP is an important part.
