XRP is a digital assets for representing the transfer of value across the Ripple network, also known as the ripple net created and operated by an US based technology company Ripple Labs. The main goal for ripple is to connect banks, payment providers and digital asset exchanges to provide a solution for real time and cost effective global money transfers. X rapid is an on demand liquidity solution provided by Ripple Labs. It is designed for financial Institute's to use ripples XRP assets as a bridge currency between fiat currencies when making cross border payments XRP and X rapid are relying on ripples patented technology called the ripple protocol, consensus algorithm or RPC a in short, and all the information of ripple accounts and XRP transactions are stored in a common shared ledger, also known as the XRP. Ledger. The Ledger is managed by a network of independent validating nodes that constantly compare their transaction records. These nodes can belong to anyone from individuals to banks, however, ripple recommends its clients to use list of identified trusted participants also known as unique node list or UNL. To validate their transactions. The nodes in the unique node list continually exchange transactions with other nodes on the list. And the goal of consensus is for each node to apply the same set of transactions to the current ledger. transactions that are agreed upon by a super majority of nodes are considered valid. You can imagine this as a large group of trusted people, and the network needs agreement from all of them to make a decision, but if one of them doesn't agree, nothing will happen until the problem is solved.

How does it work?

 Let's take a simple example. Bob from Australia wants to send $100 to Alice who is based in India, Bob transfers the money via service that is provided by a financial institution that is using the ex rapid solution. The service then connects into asset exchanges in both the originating and destination country. Bob's $100 is exchanged into XRP which provides the necessary liquidity to power the final payments and in seconds that XRP is exchanged into Indian rupees and it's accessible by Alice from the local asset exchange. Ripple also offers other solutions that do not use XRP cryptocurrency by default, X current is ripples enterprise solution that is designed for facilitating instantaneous settlement and end to end tracking of cross border payments between ripple net members ex current does not operate on the same technology as XRP as it is built around the inter ledger protocol ILP, which was designed by ripple as a protocol for connecting different Ledger's or payment networks. Ex current consists of four different components. The EX current messenger provides peer to peer communication between connected ripple net financial institutions, it is used to exchange information regarding risk and compliance fees FX rates, payment details and expected time of funds delivery. validator is used to cryptographically confirm the success or failure of a transaction and also to coordinate moving funds across the inter ledger. Financial institutions can run their own validator or can rely on a third party validator. ILP ledger is used as a sub ledger which can be incorporated into financial institutions current ledger, the ILP ledger is used to track credits, debits and liquidity across transacting parties. Funds are settled atomically meaning that they are settled instantly or not at all. FX ticker is used to define exchange rates between transacting parties. It is also good to note that the same way x current can handle dollars euros and other fiat currencies as well as Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. XRP can also be traded through the system IX via allows payments, originators and corporates to send international payments through a financial Institute's that's been connected to ripple nets using an API based standardized interface. Payments can be attached with rich information like an invoice or payment status.