What the XRP Ledger is · Lesson 1 of 4

A shared record anyone can check

The XRP Ledger is a public record of accounts and payments, kept in step by many computers at once.

The XRP Ledger is a blockchain: a public record of accounts and the transactions between them. It has no central owner. Instead, many independent computers, called servers, each keep a full copy and agree on every change together.

The record grows one ledger version at a time. Each version holds the transactions just agreed on and points back to the version before it, all the way to the first one. Once recorded, past entries can't be quietly rewritten.

Each new version also holds the complete current state: every account and its balances. So a server can join the network without first replaying the whole history.

Because the record is public, anyone can look up an account or a transaction without asking permission. You can watch new ledger versions appear in real time on the explorer at livenet.xrpl.org.

Sources

• What is the XRP Ledger? (xrpl.org) (checked 2026-10-22)
• Consensus Protocol (xrpl.org) (checked 2026-10-22)

General information about how the XRP Ledger works, not financial, legal or tax advice.