Ripple is the catchall name for the cryptocurrency platform, the transactional protocol for which is actually XRP, in the same fashion as Ethereum is the name for the platform that facilitates trades in Ether. Like other cryptocurrencies, Ripple is built atop the idea of a distributed ledger network which requires various parties to participate in validating transactions, rather than any singular centralized authority. That facilitates transactions all over the world, and transfer fees are far cheaper than the likes of bitcoin. Unlike other cryptocurrencies, XRP transfers are effectively immediate, requiring no typical confirmation time. Ripple was originally founded by a single company, Ripple Labs, and continues to be backed by it, rather than the larger network of developers that continue bitcoin’s development. It also doesn’t have a fluctuating amount of its currency in existence. Where bitcoin has a continually growing pool with an eventual maximum, and Ethereum theoretically has no limit, Ripple was created with all of its 100 billion XRP tokens right out of the gate. That number is maintained with no mining and most of the tokens are owned and held by Ripple Labs itself — around 60 billion at the latest count. Even at the recently reduced value of around half a dollar per XRP, that means Ripple Labs is currently sitting on around $20 billion worth of the cryptocurrency (note: Ripple’s price crashed hard recently, and may be worth far less than $60 billion by time you read this). It holds 55 billion XRP in an escrow account, which allows it to sell up to a billion per month if it so chooses in order to fund new projects and acquisitions. Selling such an amount would likely have a drastic effect on the cryptocurrency’s value, and isn’t something Ripple Labs plans to do anytime soon. In actuality, Ripple Labs is looking to leverage the technology behind XRP to allow for faster banking transactions around the world. While Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are built on the idea of separating financial transactions from the financial organizations of traditional currencies, Ripple is almost the opposite in every sense. XRP by Ripple price can be found on this page alongside the market capitalization and additional stats.
Aion is a revolutionary multi-tier blockchain platform that has been created to solve the pressing issue of limited operability between existing blockchains while still remaining capable of handling its own applications. It supports custom blockchain architectures, and it provides cross-chain interoperability. The Aion project comes at a very appropriate period, in a time where there’s an ever-growing number of blockchains.Thus, interoperability is more important now that it ever has been. Interoperability will expand the horizons of multiple other blockchain platforms, not to mention those of enterprise-oriented companies. The project is led by Matthew Spoke, the CEO of Nuco and board member on the EEA. Other big names include Jin Tu, Nuco’s CTO, who has more than 15 years of experience in enterprise engineering and more than four years in the blockchain industry, and Peter Vessenes who has co-founded the Bitcoin Foundation. The token is the blockchain’s power-source. It’s used for securing the network, for creating new blockchains, as well as for monetizing inter-chain bridges. AION token is actually an ERC-20 token. In fact, the token is first offered as an ERC-20 token on the Ethereum blockchain, and only then it can be changed to the official AION network token. When that happens, the token can freely stream between two blockchains. The best thing about this is that investors are not required to change their Aion Ethereum token (ERC-20) for the Aion-1 token, as they will always be interchangeable. In order to buy AION, you will need to first purchase another cryptocurrency, preferably Bitcoin or Ethereum. Fortunately, AION is supported by some very popular crypto exchanges out there such as BitForex, Binance, Ethfinex, Liqui, and Bancor Network. There's a good chance that Aion, with its unique approach of solving interoperability issues, will become somewhat of a necessity for the cryptosphere in the following period.