What Is The Difference Between Bitcoin And XRP? - Luno Discover

Skip to content

• Home

Account

• Sign in

Price Charts

• Bitcoin price
• Ethereum price
• Cardano price
• Chainlink price
• Solana price
• Uniswap price
• Avalanche price

Products

• Wallet
• Fees
• Exchange
• Business
• Luno API

Resources

• Discover
• Help Centre
• Status

About

• Company
• Careers
• Press

Sign Up

• Home
• News
  • Deep Dives
  • Markets
  • Adoption
  • Tech
  • Regulation
  • Weekly roundups
• Insights
  • Investing
  • Research
  • Security
  • Tech
• Community voices
• Basics
  • Introduction to cryptocurrency
  • Bitcoin basics
  • Bitcoin for Pros
  • Ethereum basics
  • Ethereum for Pros
  • Bitcoin Cash basics
  • Bitcoin Cash for Pros
  • Getting started
  • Markets for experts
  • Where does money come from
  • How to invest in cryptocurrency
  • Glossary
• Cryptocurrencies
  • Bitcoin
  • Bitcoin Cash
  • Litecoin
  • Ethereum
  • USDC
  • XRP
• Luno Life
  • Community
  • Company updates
  • Engineering
  • Press
  • Life at Luno
  • Product updates

Search this site: Search Discover Cryptocurrencies What is the difference between Bitcoin and XRP? What is the difference between Bitcoin and XRP?by Team Luno1 minute read

Bitcoin was developed as a digital decentralised currency with the aim of paying for goods and services. XRP, on the other hand, was created for banks and payment networks as a means of payment settlement, a money transfer system, and currency exchange.

The main aim of XRP was to form the basis of a system of direct asset transfers in real-time, which would offer a cheaper, more transparent, and secure alternative to current transfer payment methods, such as SWIFT. It is best known for doing so in the Ripple network, which is why it is sometimes called Ripple.

The Bitcoin network is maintained by a group of developers distributed around the world. All these developers contribute to the Bitcoin network on a voluntary basis. Bitcoin is decentralised. This means that it is not governed by any bank, government or entity. It was also created by a pseudonymous person or group of people known as Satoshi Nakamoto.

The XRP Ledger works through a unique consensus algorithm which uses a network of validating servers, rather than “proof of work” or “proof of stake”. The transaction speeds are faster. An XRP transaction confirmation takes an average of 3 – 5 seconds to complete – significantly faster than other cryptocurrencies or today’s traditional financial networks, which can take days.

Another major difference is that, unlike Bitcoin, XRP is not designed to be mined at all. With Bitcoin, miners get rewarded in the form of newly created Bitcoin. With XRP, a total of 100 billion XRP tokens were pre-mined, of which 38 billion were made available to the public market. The remaining amount of XRP tokens are held by Ripple labs and are periodically released.

XRP vs. Bitcoin

Feature	Bitcoin	Ripple
Start	2009	2012
Creator	Satoshi Nakamoto	XRP Ledger
Coin supply	21 million	100 billion
Mined	Yes	No
Average transaction time	10 minutes	5 seconds

Did you find this useful?

403 17

• Bitcoin
• Cryptocurrencies
• Hot Topics
• XRP

Investing in Crypto assets may result in the loss of capital.

May also interest you...

Cryptocurrencies

What is the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum?

Ethereum and Bitcoin are both cryptocurrencies but they are fundamentally different in their use cases. 1 minute read Cryptocurrencies

How do macroeconomic events impact Bitcoin?

Bitcoin’s price is linked directly to supply and demand, and events that impact the economy on a national and global level impact people’s need to buy or own (hodl) the cryptocurrency. 1 minute read Cryptocurrencies

What is Taproot?

Taproot makes it possible to process transactions in batches. 1 minute read Load More

• 
• 
• 
• 

We use cookies to make your experience with us better. By continuing to use our website without changing the settings, you are agreeing to our use of cookies, which include marketing cookies.

Allow All Manage Settings Close GDPR Cookie Settings

• Privacy Overview
• Strictly Necessary Cookies
• 3rd Party Cookies

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

Enable or Disable Cookies Enabled Disabled 3rd Party Cookies

This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.

Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.

Enable or Disable Cookies Enabled Disabled Enable All Save Changes