Crypto Academy Week 9 - Homework Post for [@yohan2on]

Homework Content

1. What is altcoin
2. What is XRP
3. Market cap
4. Advantages and Disadvantages
5. How to hold XRP coin
6. Conclusion

What is altcoin

Form the name, alt stand for the alternative. The existence of Bitcoin pushes for the creation of other coins, or let me say the development of other coins. So in simple words, altcoins are coins other than Bitcoin. Most of these altcoins have rules that they operate on, different rules for different coins.

^Source

To get your investment in any of these altcoins, do your findings first. I will be looking at one of the altcoins. Hoping you get to understand much about Ripple(XRP) payment protocol.

What is XRP

Like I mentioned above, XRP is an altcoin that is also a digital asset like Bitcoin. XRP was built purposely for payment on the blockchain network(Ripple Network). XRP is the digital currency by the US-based company called Ripple Labs Inc under Arthur Britto, David Schwartz, and Ryan Fugger.

^Source
This company went ahead to design the payment network called RippleNet. So XRP is the token that is used over the network by financial institutions.

The project was to allow banks to transfer money at a more fast and low rate fee. This opens the XRP token to many financial institutions by 2018.

Market cap

So far XRP is not doing badly as compared with some other alternative coins. XRP is not a very popular coin, given that the target was financial institutions. With a drop early this year, as compared to last year, XRP still stands in a better position on the cryptocurrency chart.

Screenshot coinmarketcap.com

Advantages

• Market cap

XRP is in the rank fourth position on the cryptocurrency chat as of this date. As we all know, in the crypto world having a large market cap has to do with your reputation. Any investor will find it comfortable investing in XRP because of its position. This is not less risky for investors.

Screenshot coinmarketcap.com

• Affordable

The price per coin as of this post is which is very affordable for any category of investors. As compared to some other altcoins like LTC, BCH, DOT, ÑEO, etc. You will notice it cheaper to invest in XRP as of today date

• High speed

XRP solved the problem which financial institutions have been suffering for years. It presents speed up the movement of capital. The good about it was the ability for small businesses to used it too. Statistics show Ripple can handle 10 000 transactions in a second beating many other altcoins.

Disadvantages

• Limitation

As compared to another coin where the amount is limitless, XRP is different from that. All XRP are already in circulation, and non will be mined again, so no nodes of work on the network. This can XRP in limited supply and push the price higher.

• Shareholders

The chairman Chris Larsen holds a significant amount of shares, the same too as the CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Most members of the Ripple company holding the XRP token is a setback to the XRP token. XRP tokens in the hands of a particular set of people can cost the price to inflate.

• Decentralization

I talk about cryptography without mentioning the decentralized nature of the token. XRP is not decentralized. XRP was built proposed for banks to ease their transactions.

How to hold XRP coin

Like any other cryptocurrency, you need a wallet to hold your token. That is the same situation we have here with XRP coins. That is the most common means of holding XRP, is by owning an account on one of the software XRP wallets. I talk of software because we have the hardware XRP wallets.
For software wallets, we have Atomic wallet, which is both a mobile and desktop app and is free to use. Other web-based wallets like:

• Exarpy with 0.0025XRP transaction fee.
• Coinpayments with a transaction fee of 0.5 percentage flat rate.

Conclusion

The XRP has turned the workload in financial institutions, helping in doing more transactions in less time and with fewer fees. I think holding XRP tokens is a fruitful investment for the future. XRP is in a good position on the cryptocurrency chart, show it will one day become a global hub for money.

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Thanks
cc:
@yohan2on