Ripple is a blockchain-based digital payment network and protocol with its own XRP cryptocurrency.
Instead of using blockchain mining, Ripple uses a consensus mechanism through a group of servers owned by a bank to confirm transactions.
Ripple transactions consume less energy than bitcoin, are confirmed in seconds, and cost very little, while bitcoin transactions consume more energy, take longer to confirm, and involve higher transaction costs.
Ripple (XRP) is among the most valuable blockchain-based tokens by market cap.
Verge (XVG) is an open-source decentralized cryptocurrency that claims to offer completely anonymous transactions by hiding the location and IP address of the participants in the transaction.
An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miner is a computerized device or hardware that uses an ASIC solely to mine bitcoin or another cryptocurrency.
Blockchain is a type of shared database that differs from a regular database in how it stores information; Blockchains store data in blocks, which are then linked to each other using cryptography.