XRP Ledger and Wallet have features that distinguish it from others and make it unique.

Consensus

Consensus is the most essential property of any decentralized payment system. The XRP Ledger is managed by a network of independent XRP Ledger servers or validating servers that are in charge of accepting, processing and sharing information of the transactions. Validators agree on a specific subset of the candidate transactions to be considered for the next ledger. This is called the Consensus process.

On-Ledger Decentralized Exchange

The XRP Ledger differs from other cryptocurrency networks by running a fully-functional exchange where users can trade issued currencies for XRP or each other. With the help of the exchange, businesses (called Gateways) can issue any currency they want to customers, and those customers can freely trade issued currencies for XRP or other issued currencies issued by any gateway. You can see an example of how this works by checking our blog post on the XAU gateway.

Be careful and only trade assets from known and trusted gateways.

XRP Ledger Reserve

The XRP Ledger protocol requires that each XRP Ledger wallet holds a small amount of XRP at all times. This is called Reserve. Its purpose is spam protection, and it also prevents the Ledger of growing excessively large as a result of malicious use. The overwhelming growth of the ledger could limit the possibilities of improvements and technology used.

1. Base reserve

The current minimum reserve requirement is 20 XRP. (This is the cost of an address that owns no other objects in the ledger.)

2. Owner reserve

5 XRP per each trust line (until disabled),

5 XRP per each open order (until executed or canceled).

Read more about it on our blog or the official XRP Ledger explanation.

Secret Key

The secret key is a ~29 character long alphanumeric string starting with the letter “s”. The secret key can help you import an existing XRP Ledger wallet to your account.

Do not share your secret key with anyone and keep it in a safe place (paper copy or offline storage)!

How to find it:

  • Go to "WALLET"
  • Click "Advanced"
  • Click "Show secret key"
  • Type in your GateHub password
  • Store your key in a safe place

Address

An XRP Ledger wallet (also called XRP Ledger address or XRP Ledger account) is provided to every new user on GateHub.

A XRP Ledger public address has the following attributes:

  • Between 25 and 35 characters in length
  • Starts with the character “r”
  • Uses alphanumeric characters, excluding the number "0" capital letter "O", the capital letter "I", and lowercase letter "l"
  • Is case-sensitive