What is an XRP Ledger RPC Node?
Access payments infrastructure
An XRP Ledger RPC node provides applications with access to production-grade payment infrastructure operating continuously since 2012 with 99.99%+ uptime. XRPL specializes in value transfer — sending payments across borders, currency exchange, tokenizing assets, and enabling instant settlement. Unlike general-purpose blockchains trying to support every use case, XRPL focuses exclusively on payments and does it exceptionally well: 3-5 second finality, 1,500+ TPS throughput, $0.0002 average fees, and enterprise adoption from financial institutions requiring reliability.
Why payments need specialized blockchain
Traditional cross-border payments take 3-5 days and cost 6-8% in fees. General blockchain payments inherit platform limitations — slow finality, high costs, or scalability constraints. XRPL purpose-built for payments solves these problems: instant 3-5 second settlement, negligible fees, 1,500+ TPS supporting massive payment volumes. Banks, payment providers, and remittance companies use XRPL because it delivers production payment infrastructure impossible on general-purpose chains.
XRP Ledger advantages:
- 3-5 second finality — instant payment settlement
- 1,500+ TPS — handles massive payment volumes
- $0.0002 fees — negligible transaction costs
- 12+ years proven — continuous operation since 2012
- Enterprise adoption — banks and payment providers
- Payment-optimized — purpose-built for value transfer
Federated Byzantine Agreement
Federated Byzantine Agreement (FBA) is XRPL's consensus mechanism enabling 3-5 second finality without mining or staking. Validators form consensus through agreement among trusted validator lists (UNLs), reaching finality when supermajority agrees on transaction ordering. This approach provides faster finality than proof-of-work, better decentralization than delegated proof-of-stake, and lower energy consumption than mining-based chains. FBA enables payment-optimized performance impossible with slower consensus mechanisms.
How XRP Ledger consensus works:
- Validators propose candidate transaction sets
- Validators agree on transaction ordering through rounds of voting
- Supermajority agreement (80%+) reaches consensus
- Validated ledger closed and new ledger begins
- Process completes in 3-5 seconds achieving finality
- No mining required, extremely energy efficient
Enterprise payment adoption
XRPL sees real-world enterprise adoption — financial institutions, payment providers, and banks integrate XRPL for instant cross-border settlement, reducing costs and settlement times dramatically compared to traditional correspondent banking. Ripple's On-Demand Liquidity (ODL) uses XRP for instant currency conversion enabling real-time cross-border payments. This enterprise traction demonstrates XRPL's production-readiness for mission-critical payment infrastructure.
This infrastructure represents battle-tested payment blockchain with proven track record at enterprise scale.