XRP & XRP Ledger glossary
Every term you will run into while researching, buying or holding XRP — defined without the marketing.
General
Bridge currency
An asset used as the middle leg between two currencies in a payment.
Circulating supply
XRP that is distributed and free to trade, used to calculate market cap.
Escrow
An on-ledger contract that locks XRP until a date, used by Ripple to cap monthly sales.
Market capitalisation
Live price multiplied by circulating supply.
Maximum supply
The 100 billion XRP created at genesis — the hard ceiling on supply.
Nostro/vostro accounts
Pre-funded bank accounts held abroad to make local payouts — the cost XRP-based settlement targets.
On-Demand Liquidity (ODL)
Ripple's product that sources liquidity for cross-border payments by bridging through XRP.
Ripple vs XRP
Ripple is a company; XRP is the asset on a public ledger the company does not own.
RippleNet
Ripple's network of payment products for financial institutions.
RLUSD
Ripple's US dollar stablecoin, issued on the XRP Ledger and Ethereum.
Stablecoin
A token designed to track a currency such as the US dollar.
XRP
The native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, used to pay transaction costs and to bridge between currencies.
XRP Ledger
Amendment
A protocol change that activates only after sustained supermajority support from validators.
Consensus
The process by which XRP Ledger validators agree on the order and outcome of transactions.
Drop
The smallest unit of XRP: one millionth of an XRP.
Issued currency
A token issued on the XRP Ledger by an account, such as a stablecoin.
Trust line
A ledger object recording how much of an issued asset you are willing to hold from a specific issuer.
Unique Node List (UNL)
The list of validators a given server trusts when it evaluates consensus.
Validator
A server that participates in XRP Ledger consensus by proposing and voting on transaction sets.
XRP Ledger (XRPL)
The open-source blockchain that XRP runs on, settling transactions by validator consensus rather than mining.
Trading
24-hour volume
How much of an asset traded across exchanges in the last day.
All-time high (ATH)
The highest price an asset has ever traded at.
Automated market maker (AMM)
Pooled liquidity that quotes prices algorithmically, added to the XRP Ledger by the XLS-30 amendment.
Decentralised exchange (DEX)
The order book built into the XRP Ledger protocol.
Dollar-cost averaging (DCA)
Buying a fixed amount on a schedule instead of all at once.
Exchange
A platform where you convert fiat currency to XRP and back.
Limit order
An order to buy or sell only at a price you specify.
Liquidity
How much can be traded without moving the price.
Order book
The live list of buy and sell orders for a trading pair.
Path-finding
The ledger's ability to route a payment through multiple markets to deliver an exact destination amount.
Recurring buy
An exchange feature that automates a scheduled purchase.
Slippage
The difference between the price you expected and the price you got.
Fees
Burn
Permanent removal of XRP from the supply via transaction costs.
Deposit fee
What an exchange charges to get money in, which varies hugely by payment method.
Maker and taker fees
Trading fees that differ depending on whether your order adds liquidity or removes it.
Spread
The gap between the buy and sell price, and often the largest hidden cost of buying XRP.
Total cost
Deposit fee, trading fee and spread combined — what you actually pay to acquire XRP.
Transaction cost
The small amount of XRP destroyed to submit a transaction, which rises when the network is busy.
Wallets
Cold storage
Keeping keys on a device that never touches the internet.
Custodial account
An account where a third party controls the keys to your crypto.
Destination tag
A number that tells an exchange which customer an incoming XRP payment belongs to.
Reserve requirement
A minimum XRP balance every ledger account must hold, plus a smaller amount per object it owns.
Seed phrase
The words that regenerate a wallet's private keys.
Self-custody
Holding your own private keys instead of trusting a platform to hold them.
Wallet
Software or hardware that stores the keys controlling an XRP Ledger account.
Regulation
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