Your key, your XRP
On an exchange, your XRP is a line in their books. In your own wallet, only your secret key can move it.
A visual guide about 1 minute
XRP, seen from the inside
Pat buys some XRP and sends a little to a friend across the world. Yerk shows you everything that happens in between. Sound on!
The animated guide
1 / 7
Pat buys XRP
Not financial advice. Just plumbing.
The big ideas, in one breath each
Math instead of trust
A signature proves the owner approved a payment. Anyone can check it; nobody can fake it or change it.
Agreement, not a race
Validators compare notes and vote. No puzzles, no mining rigs, and a new ledger page every few seconds.
Final means final
Once a page is validated, it never changes. No waiting for “more confirmations.”
A fee that vanishes
The tiny fee is destroyed, not paid to anyone. It exists so spamming the network costs something.
A bridge between currencies
XRP is built into the ledger, so a swap can route through it: dollars to XRP to pesos, when that’s cheaper.
By the numbers
- 3–6 s
- from sent to settled
- 0.00001
- XRP minimum fee (10 drops), destroyed
- 1,000,000
- drops in one XRP
- 1 XRP
- reserve to keep an account open
The whole trip, step by step
Names, addresses and amounts in this guide are made-up examples.
-
Pat buys XRP
Pat swaps $100 for XRP in an exchange app.
The exchange matches Pat’s order with someone selling. At that point the XRP is only a line in the exchange’s own books; the XRP Ledger hasn’t been touched yet. So Pat moves it to a wallet of Pat’s own.
-
A wallet with a secret
Pat’s wallet has a secret key only Pat holds, and an address anyone can see.
The secret (private) key is a huge random number that never leaves the phone. A public key comes from it, and is hashed down into an address that starts with “r”. Every account keeps 1 XRP locked as a reserve.
-
Pat sends 10 XRP to Sam
The payment is sealed with Pat’s secret key: a signature nobody can fake.
The payment says who it’s from, who it’s to, how much, and a tiny fee. Amounts are counted in drops: one XRP is a million drops. The signature proves Pat approved it, and anyone can check it without ever seeing the key.
-
Off around the world
The payment hops from computer to computer all over the world.
Pat’s wallet hands it to one server, which checks it and passes it to its neighbours, who pass it on. Within moments, servers everywhere have a copy.
-
The computers vote
Validators check the payments and vote. When nearly all agree, it’s settled. No mining!
Each validator proposes which transactions belong in the next page of the ledger and compares with the validators it trusts. A transaction needs at least half to agree at first, and the bar rises each round; anything disputed waits for the next page. Cheating would take over 80% of trusted validators working together.
-
Written in pen, forever
It’s added to one shared record that everyone keeps, and it can never be changed.
Every server applies the agreed transactions in the same order, so every copy matches. The new ledger page is sealed and linked to the page before it. The fee is destroyed, paid to no one, which keeps spam expensive.
-
Sam’s got it
Sam has the 10 XRP in about 4 seconds, for a fraction of a cent. That’s XRP!
From send to final usually takes 3 to 6 seconds. Yerk takes XRP too, and if this tour helped, you can tip us below.
Support Yerk with XRP
Liked the tour? Send any amount of XRP to say thanks. It keeps Yerk making things like this.
Address
rEx5x5Mqbs7EZrG1XxkFpqQeVco5TApY4P
Destination tag
9878
Please add the destination tag 9878. It tells us the XRP is a gift. A donation is a gift; it doesn’t buy credits.
Want credits instead? Open Yerk and pay with XRP. Prefer Cash App? Tip us there.
Questions people ask
How does an XRP transaction work?
The sender’s wallet writes a payment, signs it with its private key and sends it to a server, which passes it to the rest of the network. Validators agree on which transactions go into the next ledger page, every server applies them in the same order, and once the page is validated the payment is final. It usually takes 3 to 6 seconds.
Is XRP mined?
No. The XRP Ledger has no mining. Validators agree by comparing notes and voting, so there is no puzzle to solve and no race to win.
Where does the XRP transaction fee go?
Nowhere. The fee, at least 10 drops (0.00001 XRP), is destroyed. It is not paid to anyone; it just makes spam expensive.
Why does an XRP wallet need 1 XRP to stay open?
Every account must hold a reserve, currently 1 XRP, plus 0.2 XRP for each extra item it owns. The reserve keeps the shared ledger from filling up with empty accounts.
What is an XRP destination tag?
A number added to a payment that tells a shared address who or what the payment is for, like an apartment number on a building’s address. Exchanges use it to know which customer to credit.
Can I pay for Yerk with XRP?
Yes. Yerk.app makes pictures and videos in your browser, and you can buy credits with XRP or Cash App. Eligible new accounts can get free starting credits. Start free.
Where the facts come from
Reviewed 2026-10-22 against the XRP Ledger’s official documentation at xrpl.org: accounts and addresses, reserves, transaction cost, the transaction lifecycle, source and destination tags, the consensus protocol and its principles, ledgers, and autobridging. Reserves and fees can change by network vote.