XRP and the ledger beneath it
XRP is the digital asset built into the XRP Ledger, commonly shortened to XRPL. The ledger is an open network maintained by peer-to-peer servers running open-source software. XRP is one part of that system: the asset. The ledger is the shared database and transaction-processing network on which the asset moves.
The distinction matters because the ledger can record more than XRP balances. It also supports issued assets, offers on its decentralized exchange, escrows, checks, payment channels, and other ledger objects. XRP remains special because it is native to the protocol and does not depend on an outside issuer or trust line.
Supply and units
The official XRPL introduction records that 100 billion XRP existed when the ledger was created. XRP is not produced through mining, and the protocol does not issue block rewards. The smallest unit is a drop: one XRP equals one million drops.
Transaction costs reduce the total amount of XRP because the cost specified in an included transaction is destroyed rather than transferred to a validator or another account. The reduction from ordinary use is normally very small, but the mechanism is important: validators do not earn XRP fees for confirming transactions.
What XRP does inside XRPL
Every funded XRPL account must satisfy a reserve requirement, and transactions generally specify a cost in XRP. These mechanisms discourage spam and excessive growth of ledger state. XRP can also be transferred directly between addresses and can serve as an intermediary asset when a payment crosses between different assets through available exchange liquidity.
Those protocol roles do not determine a market price or guarantee demand. Market value is set outside the protocol by buyers and sellers. A technically useful asset can still be volatile, and ownership does not create a claim on a company, revenue stream, or promised return.
A practical definition
A careful one-sentence definition is: XRP is the finite-supply, counterparty-free native asset of the open-source XRP Ledger. It can move on the ledger, cover protocol costs and reserves, and participate in ledger-native payment and exchange paths.
That definition avoids two common mistakes: treating XRP and Ripple as interchangeable, or treating XRP as the whole network. Ripple is a company. XRP is an asset. XRPL is the network and shared ledger.
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