The organisation was set up in 2012 and instead of focusing on creating a decentralized network and sidelining the banks, Ripple wants to connect all financial institutions like banks, payment providers, digital exchanges and companies to the RippleNet. The aim is to use XRP to send money faster worldwide via a single centralized blockchain, whereby banks, for example, can continue to monitor transactions. XRP is the currency on the RippleNet that serves to enable transactions such as Ether on the Ethereum blockchain.
A unique functional aspect is that the XRP network is extremely fast. For comparison, bitcoin processes approx. 15 transactions per second, while Ripple can process 1500 transactions per second. Because it is centralized, large banks join forces with Ripple to possibly apply the blockchain technology behind the XRP in their own structure. These are banks such as UBS, Santander, Bank of America, but companies such as Google also support blockchain technology. You can see Ripple as a competitor to the SWIFT system, where it then operates on a centralized blockchain protocol.
