Today I will be examining Ripple. Ripple is one of the more controversial cryptocurrencies out there right now. It started out as a Paypal style online payment service and pivoted into becoming a digital currency.
It’s marketed as the banker’s cryptocurrency and is basically a digital fiat, that is centralized and completely controlled by the Ripple company who owns an overwhelming majority of the supply of tokens.
This has led to criticism that Ripple defeats the whole purpose of cryptocurrency, which is to have a decentralized, apolitical, censorship-resistant, permissionless, trustless, sound money.
Ripple’s critics do have a point, as Ripple has included the ability to freeze wallets, and censor transactions into the protocol, and fully plan to work with authorities and embrace regulatory guidelines.
"Bitcoin may end up being the Napster of digital assets. It's shown what's possible. But Spotify, iTunes, Pandora engaged the system and regulators, and they ruled the day."
–@bgarlinghouse speaking at #Codecon watch the full interview now. https://t.co/IaclqUntrH— Ripple (@Ripple) May 30, 2018
Criticism aside, Ripple is currently the 3rd largest cryptocurrency by market cap at $25.5 billion USD, although only 39 million of the 100 million coins are circulating at the moment. It has been embraced by the CNBC Fast Money team and other mainstream media outlets.
Ripple has been lauded by the establishment and Wall St. leading many traders to believe it has a vibrant future. Ripple has also been announcing a litany of partnerships, with banks and remittance companies.
Love it or hate it, today we will be taking a look at how to buy Ripple.
Where can I buy Ripple XRP?
Ripple is one of the most popular and widely traded coins. It’s currently listed on 148 exchanges according to Coinmarketcap. I won’t be covering all the exchanges it trades on for obvious reasons, but I will be including the most popular exchanges, with the most volume.
1. Bithumb
Bithumb is a cryptocurrency exchange based in Seoul, South Korea. Founded in 2013.
2. Bitbank
Bitbank is a Chinese based exchange and wallet services provider, launched in October 2015.
3. Binance
Binance is the world’s leading cryptocurrency exchange based in China, launched with an ICO and token in 2017.
4. Huobi
The Huobi exchange has headquarters in Singapore and has offices in Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and the United States.
5. OKEx
OKEx is a Chinese exchange that was founded in Hong Kong in 2014 and announced an expansion to Malta in 2018.
6. Upbit
Upbit is a Korean exchange that is one of the more recently launched. They were raided by authorities under suspicion of fraud in May 2018.
7. Bitfinex
Bitfinex is a Hong Kong-based exchange that has been operating since 2014. In 2017 they were hacked for $70 million USD, and released a token to pay back their customers.
8. Coinone
Coinone is Korea’s third-largest exchange, and it recently launched a physical, brick and mortar exchange in South Korea.
9. HitBTC
HitBTC is a cryptocurrency exchange from an unknown location that launched in 2014, it requires no AML/KYC.
10. Bitstamp
Bitstamp is a bitcoin exchange based in Luxembourg, it started in 2011 in Slovenia and moved to the UK in 2013 before finally moving again to Luxembourg.
How to purchase Ripple with a Credit Card
Due to Ripple’s popularity, there are various ways to purchase the Ripple XRP tokens without purchasing them from an exchange. This can be very convenient if you have never used a cryptocurrency trading exchange, or don’t already own another cryptocurrency like Bitcoin or Ethereum to use to purchase Ripple tokens from an exchange.
The easiest way to buy Ripple with a credit or debit card is to log on to Changelly.
Changelly is a cryptocurrency exchange that allows you to exchange one coin for another. They have recently started offering Ripple (and other cryptocurrencies) for purchase via Visa/Mastercard.
1: You need to create an account
Click the green signup link in the upper right corner and follow the onscreen instructions and provide the pertinent info to create your account with Changelly.
Once your account is created you can now begin to buy/sell cryptocurrency.
2: Select Ripple (XRP) from the list of Currencies
Next, select USD for the first currency and Ripple (XRP) for the second currency, and then click the green exchange button, as shown in this picture:
If you are already logged in to the website, it will take you the payment process page, if you’re not, you’ll need to log in.
3: Confirmation of order details
You’ll need to doublecheck and confirm the order details. It should also tell an estimated time for you to receive your tokens.
4: Input your Ripple wallet address to receive your XRP
Just like the title says, provide the address where you wish for Changelly to send your XRP tokens. Some wallets may require you to use a destination tag, to securely complete the transaction safely.
5: You’ll need to confirm the transaction details again
They will ask you to click another confirmation button to ensure the order amount is correct and to make the payment.
6: Enter your credit or debit card information to purchase
This step is self-explanatory, provide the payment info for your card to make the purchase.
7: Confirm your purchase
You will receive a text message (SMS) or an email to confirm your purchase, you’ll need to confirm. Upon confirmation, Changelly will send your tokens to the Ripple wallet you provided in your purchase information, within the estimated time they provided in step 3.
How to buy Ripple with PayPal
To buy Ripple with PayPal, there is no way that I know of to do it directly.
All methods of purchasing Ripple this way require you to buy Bitcoin via PayPal first, then you exchange the Bitcoin on any exchange that offers an XRP/BTC trading pair.
You should be warned ahead of time that purchasing Bitcoin this way often has a very steep premium, as much as 50% of the market price at times, because PayPal is very risky for the seller. PayPal’s policies on disputes lead them to almost always side with the purchaser.
This means that if the person buying the Bitcoin invokes a chargeback or disputes the purchase then the money is usually refunded to the purchaser by PayPal, at the expense of the seller, even if they have already sent the Bitcoin. PayPal’s policies encourage scammers and discourage vendors.
Because of this risk, sellers charge extremely high premiums to ensure that they are protected because PayPal’s policies are notoriously one-sided and biased against sellers.
Step 1: Buy Bitcoin with PayPal
To purchase Bitcoin with PayPal, there are a few different ways to go about accomplishing this.
- You can buy Bitcoin with PayPal from Paxful, which also allows 300 other methods for purchasing Bitcoin, like Western Union, any credit or debit card, gift cards, and Itunes credits, etc.
- You can buy Bitcoin with PayPal from Xcoins.io which also offers credit/debit card purchases and direct bank transfers.
- You can buy Bitcoin with PayPal on LocalBitcoins, which also offers a variety of other payment methods as well.
Step 2: Convert your Bitcoin to Ripple
After you have received your Bitcoin via one of the PayPal purchasing methods mentioned above, the next step is to convert the BTC into XRP.
The easiest and most painless way to do this is to decide on one of the exchanges, I have listed above, that have an XRP/BTC trading pair and make your exchange this way. Once you have decided which exchange to use, you will need to create an account with that exchange, and then deposit your BTC to your newly created trading account.
Once your deposit has confirmed your funds will be available to trade. Find the XRP/BTC pay and sell all your BTC for XRP. The order may take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours to complete depending on quantity and volume. Once it completes, your account will be credited with your XRP tokens.
Now that you have your XRP tokens in your exchange account you can withdrawal the to any XRP wallet, and store them safely.
In Conclusion
I hope this guide is an easy to understand explanation of a few ways to get your hands on some XRP tokens. Ripple has been one of the biggest percentage gainers in all of crypto, even surpassing Bitcoin in gains. This year the price action has been bearish along with the whole cryptocurrency market, but that is expected to change in a big way according to Ripple. They have a lot of high profile partnerships and other strategies in the works to carve out a market share.
They have also had some high profile press with Ashton Kutcher making a 4 million dollar charity donation on the Ellen Degeneres show in XRP tokens. This is just one of many recent such examples. In the last couple days, we have seen a pretty substantial jump in token price for XRP. If you’re a fan of what Ripple is trying to do, 2018 still may hold some surprises yet.