XRP is now available on LocalCoinSwap as an official trading pair, making LocalCoinSwap one of the only crypto exchanges online where XRP can be exchanged peer-to-peer (P2P).
Bringing a wide variety of coins and tokens to the LocalCoinSwap P2P cryptocurrency exchange is incredibly important to us, as it not only gives you freedom to choose to use P2P exchanges in the first place, but also greater choice on how you trade and engage with other crypto users around the world in ways that best suit you and not the exchange, or even the countries regulating the exchange. So, now that Ripple's XRP is an official trading pair, let’s take some time to familiarize ourselves a little with both Ripple and XRP.
What is Ripple?
Ripple is a software solutions company headquartered in San Francisco, California, USA which is working on modernizing the approach to global real-time settlement, particularly in the banking industry. Global settlement is something that happens every day all over the world. It is essentially the process of moving funds between countries, regions or even different banks. One of the biggest issues for banks and their customers are cross-border settlements. Typically, a settlement can take 3-5 days by more traditional methods, and that’s only if you don’t run into any further delays or failures which can be quite common. Settlement pathways of recent years have been not only slow but also unreliable and, worst of all, incredibly expensive. It’s estimated that $1.6 trillion (USD) is wasted on these outdated systems costing not only the banks but more importantly the customers, far more than they potentially need to. Ripple intends to find the solution to the difficulty and expense of large or time sensitive global cross-border settlements by using tools created using advanced blockchain technologies.
Currently, Ripple has two main settlement methods as components of their RippleNet platform. The first is called xCurrent and the other is powered by the use of XRP called, xRapid.
xCurrent is Ripple’s enterprise software solution which essentially allows banks to settle cross-border payments with end-to-end tracking. Banks or other financial institutions can message each other in real-time to confirm payment details before initiating the transaction, this is further assisted by a rulebook developed by the Ripplenet committee to ensure consistency and legal clarity for every transaction. The xCurrent approach is targeted at enterprises who may not be ready to jump into the use of cryptocurrency, however, interestingly enough they are now finding more enterprise customers are keen to discuss using xRapid after seeing further potential to improve settlement efficiency and costs using XRP. This transition from non-cryptocurrency protocol to cryptocurrency protocol is what makes it quite interesting to learn about xCurrent when getting familiar with Ripple even if you are purely interested in the cryptocurrency aspect as it seems it could be a stepping stone to adoption and use of cryptocurrency.
The other settlement option is xRapid. Built for commercial use and sitting on top of xCurrent, xRapid is a real-time settlement platform designed to speed up international payments. Backed by XRP tokens, xRapid addresses the issue of reducing liquidity costs and making cross-border payment faster. The approach taken by xRapid is one that might feel a little more familiar to those of us that have been exchanging crypto for a while because that’s to some degree what it does. When a bank in the US needs to send money to a bank in Mexico, it can take multiple days for the money to be converted into pesos. With xRapid, the US bank puts their dollars into XRP, sends the XRP, and on the other end, the bank in Mexico converts the XRP into pesos. It all happens in seconds. When using exchanges that have direct access to fiat deposits and withdrawals this entire transaction could be settled in a very brief period, this reduces the settlement time of a large transaction from what used to be days to minutes.
What is XRP?
While you will often see and hear XRP referred to as Ripple, the coin is actually called XRP. The XRP coin was launched in 2012 and is very quick to transfer as it uses a more centralized system to process transactions and it can provide very fast speeds with a high level of stability. The XRP network can consistently handle 1,500 transactions per second (TPS), but in July 2017 under testing, it was found to handle 50,000 TPS, so it is considered potentially to be very scalable in the future.
Storing XRP
One of the benefits of buying XRP on our LocalCoinSwap P2P exchange is that you have the option to store it with us in the wallet located on the platform. 95% of all funds in the LocalCoinSwap marketplace are kept in cold storage, making it a very secure and safe option.
Alternatively, if you prefer to store XRP in your own wallet, unlike a Bitcoin wallet and many other cryptocurrencies you are likely familiar with, Ripple requires you to “book a wallet” for storing your XRP. Booking a wallet requires 20 XRP so when you buy XRP, take some time to consider where you are going to store it and choose wisely so you don’t end up wasting a bunch of XRP on wallet addresses you may only use once or twice. When you transfer into a new XRP wallet, 20 XRP will be held to book that address. So, for example, sending 100 XRP to a new wallet would leave you with 80 XRP spendable, this is to protect the network against spam attacks and other malicious behaviors. Commonly people use a Ledger device to store XRP. When used correctly, this is very secure option however many people also like to use a free and open source XRP wallet called Toast Wallet which is available for all major platforms including Android, MacOS and even a browser-based version for Google Chrome. If you do decide to buy XRP and keep it on the LocalCoinSwap platform, there’s no requirement to book an address so you won’t have to worry about spending the extra 20 XRP.
A common criticism of XRP and Ripple is their use of a centralized network and, while this may bother some people, it’s hard to argue with the speed, efficiency and use cases it is proving to be useful for as more adoption of the Ripple protocols continues to take place. Love it or hate it we strongly believe that P2P trading is especially about choice. The more options we can provide, the better you can find the cryptocurrency that suits your needs and start trading and making money with your peer-to-peer trade preferences in mind.
How to Buy and Sell XRP on LocalCoinSwap?
One of the main advantages of being able to trade XRP on a P2P exchange such as LocalCoinSwap is that it gives you the ability to create your own crypto business on your own terms. P2P cryptocurrency trading exchanges generally have more payment methods and allow for faster transactions than centralized exchanges. In addition, by choosing to trade on a P2P exchange, such as LocalCoinSwap, you have the ability to determine which type of trading will be profitable for you and then create buy or sell ads on the exchange that are popular in your area or community.
In addition, all trades on LocalCoinSwap are secured via escrow protection. There are also no withdrawal or deposit limits on the site and, as a community-owned exchange, LocalCoinSwap also distributes 100% of any profit from the exchange back to the LCS community, so you know that by buying and selling cryptocurrency on the LocalCoinSwap platform you are not only trading on your own terms, but you are also giving back to the crypto community that supports your exchange at the same time. Wouldn't you prefer to trade on an exchange that you own AND receive dividends every quarter?
Over the next week, we will be uploading tutorials to help you get started buying or selling XRP on LocalCoinSwap!
Want to Stay Up To Date with Ripple or XRP News?
When it comes to finding out more or getting involved your first port of call should be the official Ripple Website as they have a large number of resources and information about XRP and their other projects. Ripple is also active on Facebook and has a very strong Twitter presence of over 900K followers on the Official Ripple account. If Reddit is more your thing, there is an active Ripple community there as well. Of course, we highly suggest that you come and join us on the LocalCoinSwap Telegram or in our LocalCoinSwap Discord channel to chat with our community about P2P trading using XRP as we have a community of devoted P2P traders keen to chat about all things Ripple, XRP and LocalCoinSwap.
Why not be the first to try P2P trading with XRP on LocalCoinSwap? It only takes a few minutes to set up your buy or sell ads and you could start making money with us today!