Buy XRP

XRP is the cryptocurrency associated with Ripple, a company focused on cross-border payments. Important distinction: Ripple is a private company building payment technology for banks. XRP is an independent digital asset on its own open-source ledger. Related, but not the same thing.

The XRP Ledger launched in June 2012, making it one of the oldest blockchains still running. David Schwartz, Jed McCaleb, and Arthur Britto created it before Ripple (then called OpenCoin) formally existed. Unlike Bitcoin, there was no mining. All 100 billion XRP tokens were created at launch. Ripple received a large allocation and has distributed tokens over the years, something critics have never stopped pointing out.

Technically, XRP prioritises payment settlement above everything else. Transactions confirm in 3 to 5 seconds. Fees cost less than a penny. A consensus protocol where trusted validators agree on the ledger state makes this possible, trading off some decentralisation for raw speed. Faster and cheaper than Bitcoin or Ethereum for simple transfers? Absolutely. But the validator set is smaller and historically overlapped heavily with Ripple-affiliated nodes, though diversification has improved.

For years, the SEC lawsuit consumed the XRP story. December 2020: the Securities and Exchange Commission sued Ripple Labs, alleging XRP sales were unregistered securities. July 2023: Judge Torres ruled programmatic exchange sales were not securities transactions, though direct institutional sales from Ripple violated securities law. A settlement followed in 2025 with a reduced fine. Significant for the industry, though the legal precedent is technically limited to one district court. XRP's price roughly doubled in the weeks after the initial partial ruling.

Market positioning centres on institutional payment corridors. Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity product (now Ripple Payments) uses XRP as a bridge currency. Instead of pre-funding accounts abroad, financial institutions convert to XRP, transfer instantly, then convert to local currency on arrival. Several banks and payment providers have tested this approach. Whether it displaces traditional correspondent banking at meaningful scale remains an open and genuinely uncertain question.

By market cap, XRP has sat consistently in the top ten, occasionally reaching third or fourth. An all-time high near $3.84 came in January 2018. Years of trading under $1 followed before recovery. Price movements have correlated more with legal developments than network usage, which tells you something about what's driving the valuation.

Buying XRP through Banxa is simple. Select XRP, enter your amount, choose your payment method (card, bank transfer, Apple Pay, or other local options), and provide your XRP wallet address. One detail worth knowing: XRP wallets require a minimum reserve of 10 XRP to activate. That's a protocol-level requirement, not a Banxa restriction. Most orders settle within minutes. Banxa is publicly listed and operates under multiple licences with full regulatory compliance.

Crypto markets are volatile. XRP carries additional uncertainty around regulatory classification depending on jurisdiction. This is not financial advice.