XRP, the XRP Ledger and Ripple

Three names that are easy to mix up: a currency, a ledger and a company.

XRP is the currency. The XRP Ledger is the blockchain it lives on. Ripple is a company. They're connected, but they're not the same thing.

The ledger was built in 2011 and 2012 by Jed McCaleb, Arthur Britto and David Schwartz. In September 2012, Jed and Arthur, together with Chris Larsen, founded the company now called Ripple (first named OpenCoin), and 80 billion XRP were given to the company in exchange for developing the ledger.

The ledger itself was first called "Ripple" too, which is where the mix-up comes from. The name XRP came from "ripple credits", with an X, the letter used for currencies that don't belong to any country. Over time "XRP" became the name of the currency, and the company shortened its own name to Ripple.

Today no single company runs the XRP Ledger: its software is open source, anyone can run a server, and validators are run by many different parties. XRPGames isn't connected to Ripple or to any XRP Ledger organization.

Sources

What is XRP? (xrpl.org) (checked 2026-10-22)
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.