Ripple is the company behind XRP, and it’s a payment settlement system and currency exchange network that can process transactions globally “Ripple was designed from the very beginning to essentially be a replacement for SWIFT (a leading money transfer network) or to otherwise replace the settlement layer between major financial institutions,” says Pat White, CEO of Bitwave. It serves as a trusted agent between two parties in a transaction as the network can quickly confirm that the exchange went through properly. Ripple can facilitate exchanges for a variety of fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, to name one example. Whenever users make a transaction using the network, the network deducts a small amount of XRP, a cryptocurrency, as a fee. “The standard fee to conduct transactions on Ripple is set at 0.00001 XRP, which is minimal compared to the large fees charged by banks for conducting cross-border payments,” says El Lee, board member of Onchain Custodian.