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 (https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/bitcoin) 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.

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Cardano (ticker symbol, ADA) is a decentralized proof of stake (PoS) blockchain designed to be a more efficient alternative to proof of work (PoW) networks.

Cardano's cryptocurrency is named Ada after Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (1815-1852), who is commonly regarded as the first computer programmer. Ada is used in the blockchain's PoS consensus mechanism. It is given as a reward for work done for the blockchain by users participating in a stake pool.

Charles Hoskinson, the co-founder of Ethereum, began the development of Cardano in 2015 and launched the platform in 2017.

 Cardano has positioned itself as an alternative to Ethereum. Both platforms are used for similar applications, such as smart contracts, and have goals of building a connected and decentralized system.

Cardano considers itself an updated version of Ethereum and has anointed itself a "third-generation" platform, compared with Ethereum’s "second-generation" credentials. The blockchain platform also has a goal of providing banking services to the world’s unbanked.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Cardano is a blockchain platform that was founded in 2015 by Charles Hoskinson. It was launched in 2017.

Cardano aims to be a decentralized application (DApp) development platform with a multi-asset ledger and verifiable smart contracts.

Cardano runs on the proof-of-stake Ouroboros consensus protocol.

The primary cryptocurrency of Cardano is called "Ada."

Cardano oversight is decentralized and shared by the Cardano Foundation, IOHK, and EMURGO.

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Solana (SOL) is a high throughput cryptocurrency based on the Proof of History (PoH) and Proof of Stake (PoS) consensus. Built by a team of networking engineers, Solana aims to become the blockchain infrastructure for modern internet applications.

Who is the founding team behind Solana?

Solana was founded by 4 co-founders, led by Anatoly Yakovenko.

Anatoly Yakovenko wrote and published a whitepaper on the concept of Proof of History in November 2017. Proof of History is a concept introduced to keep time between computers in a network in sync which forms the basis of scaling the number of transactions.

Greg Fitzgerald, whom used to be Anatoly's colleague at Qualcomm participated in the project by suggesting and writing the Proof of History codebase in the Rust programming language.

Stephen Akridge and Raj Gokal joined the project shortly later and together the 4 individuals incorporated the new blockchain network called Solana in 2018.

What Makes Solana Unique?

Solana is a general-purpose blockchain similar to Ethereum. It has a different technical underlying such that developers write applications using Rust instead of Solidity or Vyper. End-user applications in the Solana ecosystem includes decentralized finance (DeFi), non-fungible tokens (NFT), marketplaces, games, e-commerce and more.

One of its biggest feature is its scalability in which Solana is able to process over 700,000 transactions per second. Its high throughput capability appeals to high frequency traders, in which spearheaded by FTX and Alameda Research.

What is the SOL currency used for?

Solana's native currency is SOL. Solana (SOL) is used to pay for transaction fees and staking in order to support the network.

Solana in 2022

Solana crypto price experienced a hyperbolic growth in 2021. With the advent of multichain and increased adoption of DeFi and NFT, Solana managed to capture a large market share. Developers were attracted by the technical underlying and started building dapps such as Star Atlas, Mercurial, Orca, Saber, and more. Yield farming on Solana caught on shortly after that as a way to attract liquidity and activities to the network. In 2022, it remains to be seen if Solana and its ecosystem of dapps is able to capture market share.

While Solana has been on a high note, it did experienced some setback with network outages lasting as long as over 16 hours on September 15th, 2021. The Solana team and node operators coordinated a reset in order to revive the network. Despite that, Solana coin managed to remain steady above $150 after the incident occurred.

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Polygon (Previously Matic Network) is the first well-structured, easy-to-use platform for Ethereum scaling and infrastructure development. Its core component is Polygon SDK, a modular, flexible framework that supports building multiple types of applications.

Using Polygon, one can create Optimistic Rollup chains, ZK Rollup chains, stand-alone chains or any other kind of infra required by the developer. 

Polygon effectively transforms Ethereum into a full-fledged multi-chain system (aka Internet of Blockchains). This multi-chain system is akin to other ones such as Polkadot, Cosmos, Avalanche, etc with the advantages of Ethereum’s security, vibrant ecosystem and openness.

Nothing will change for the existing ecosystem built on the Plasma-POS chain. With Polygon, new features are being built around the existing proven technology to expand the ability to cater to diverse needs from the developer ecosystem. Polygon will continue to develop the core technology so that it can scale to a larger ecosystem.