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Part of the new Community Beginners Guide series. Other guides in this series: Beginners Guide: Intro. Quick overview of the series and purpose of the guides Beginners Guide: XRP First Steps Simple first steps to acquiring XRP including 1) opening a wallet, 2) wallet funding/ buying XRP, and 3) sending the first XRP. Beginners Guide: Desktop Wallet Step by step instructions in downloading and installing XRP CHAT WALLET, the creation and activation of new wallet and the first few steps to becoming a ripple user. Disclaimer: This post is goes over what a wallet is, what the common different types of wallets are and their differences, and how wallets can be used at a basic level. It doesn't discuss Ripple-specific details of wallets, like re-keying an account. Also, it doesn't explain explicitly how to make a wallet. See other community guides for that information. Difficulty level: LOW One thing that many people who are new to Ripple, or cryptocurrency in general, do not understand is what a wallet actually is. I think this is one of the places that cryptos need to up their game in order to continue to gain adoption because the way things are named in cryptocurrency can easily create confusion about what is actually happening. First you need to undertand what a wallet is not. A wallet is not like a physical wallet. There is not a file that contains a copy of all of your coins. A wallet it not like a bank vault. There's not server or hard drive that has your wallet stored on it as a folder with coins inside it like a bank vault. So, what is a wallet? A good real-world analogy is that a "wallet" in cryptocurrency is analogous to your seal or stamp plus your name. Think of cryptocurrencies like a community ledger board where no history is ever erased and anyone can come up to the board and tell everyone else that they have transferred some number of coins to someone else on the board. They way they do this it using their seal of authenticity. Everyone else can verify that that person is the one who wrote the message on the community ledger because their seal is on the message. And they know who the money came from and where it went to based on the name of the person sending and receiving it. If you wanted to know how much any person held then you would go through the entire ledger since the beginning of history and count up how much they have received and how much they have sent. This is how a wallet works in cryptocurrency. Except, in cryptocurrency, your seal (actually, the device you use to imprint your seal) is replaced by your "private" or "secret" key. It's like a seal in real life. If you lose exclusive access to the use of your seal, anyone who comes into possession of it can send a message in your name without others being able to know. In cryptocurrency, this means that anyone who has your private key can make a transaction using your coins without anyone else being able to know it's not you. So, with this information, let's get a bit more technical. A "wallet" is literally just a secret key, which is just a number. It is displayed in a format that uses letters and numbers instead of just the numerals we normally use, because if it didn't then it would be very long to display. This is like your seal in our earlier analogy. From the secret key, you can derive the public address mathematically. The public address is like your name in the earlier analogy. It is also just a number, same as the secret key. This public address is where you or other people will send coins so that they go in your "wallet" (more accurately, so that others know your public address should now own them). However, from the public address, you cannot easily figure out the secret key (technically you could, but the amount of computational time it would take is astronomical, like, at the current power and using current algorithms, more than the time that the universe has existed until now). You can think of this like how on a seal you generally have an easily recognizable symbol or word that links the symbol to a person. However, even if you know that symbol and have seen the seal, it is not easy to duplicate the device used to create the seal, which is your secret key. Of course, in cryptocurrency, this is much more secure than a seal in real life because it's much harder to actually go backwards from a public address to a secret key than it is to duplicate a seal. So, if you know a secret key then you can do whatever you want with the funds that are sent to the public address that is linked to that secret key. Why is this? Well, when you make a transaction, what you are doing at a very basic level is making a message that says "I am the owner of <your public address>. I am giving <number of xrp> to <address you're sending to>." Then, you use your private (secret) key to "digitally sign" the message. This is like applying your seal in the earlier analogy. Since your public address and secret key are linked, signing the message allows other people to verify that the person who has the private key linked to the address that the funds are coming from is really the one who made that message. The next time a new block is added to the blockchain, your message is looked at by the network, and if it determines that the signature is correct and that you have enough funds to make the transaction, your message will be added to the block and then added to the blockchain. From that point onwards, anyone who wants to can go and see/verify that the owner of that public address sent those coins to the other public address, and so that is how a wallet "holds value." There's not actually a piece of hard drive space or something that stores a unique "coin" file under your address, there is only the record of a number of coins being transferred from one account to the next in a trusted manner. In order to actually use the secret key (wallet) to interact with the network, you use a piece of wallet software, not to be confused with the wallet itself. This wallet software (among other things) automatically performs this "digital signing" operation. This is not the same thing as a wallet. Wallet software does not actually store any value. It only allows you to use the value stored in the actual wallet (the secret key) and do things with it on the ripple network. You can import any valid secret key into any valid piece of wallet software and use it to make transactions from that wallet. Now, you may have heard of something called a "paper wallet" or "cold wallet" or "hot wallet". What are these? A paper wallet originally meant literally a wallet that you print onto a piece of paper. Since a wallet is just a secret key, the most basic form of a paper wallet is literally writing down by hand your secret key on a piece of paper. Now, to make things easier on the user, most paper wallets will include the secret key, the public address, and a QR code matching each. The QR code is just another way to encode or display the number that is easy for a computer to interpret if you take a picture of it. Paper wallets are one type of "cold wallet," a cold wallet being any secret key that has never touched (been stored on) a computer that was connected to the internet at the time it was stored on that computer. A "hot wallet" is a wallet whose secret key has been stored on a computer that was connected to the internet. If you make a "cold" paper wallet, as long as you don't lose the paper wallet, don't physically show anyone else the private key, and don't type it into an internet-connected computer, you'll be the only one with access to it. As soon as you type it into an internet-connected computer, that wallet is now "hot" and has, theoretically, a chance to be stolen if your computer or any other piece of the path it travels is infected with some kind of malware. With this knowledge, the best practice is to have a "hot wallet" for XRP that you think you might want to spend in the short term, some small amount. Then you make a cold paper wallet and store any significant amount of XRP you buy in it. When you decide you want to sell it or use it months or years down the line, you enter the private key from the paper wallet or another way of storing it into any piece of ripple wallet software on a computer and internet connection you trust and send all the ripple to wherever you want it to go. Since this wallet is now "hot," you would ideally then make a new paper wallet and send any ripple you want to keep storing in it. Alternatively to entering the secret key into an internet connected computer and making the wallet hot, you can use what are called "offline transactions" to keep the wallet cold and still send ripple from it, which I could explain in more detail if you'd like. Now, there are some other alternatives to paper wallets for cold wallet options. I would argue that a superior option to a paper wallet is a deterministic wallet that uses a good passphrase. A deterministic wallet basically means that you make a passphrase that you remember (or write down and store somewhere safe, much like a paper wallet) which can then be used to derive a single secret key and from that secret key a public address linked to it. Every time you enter the same passphrase into the piece of software you used, it will give you the same secret key and public address. Therefore, you don't have to store the private key anywhere since you will always have access to it as long as you know the password. The advantage of this is that you can make a very good but easy to remember password and use it to generate your wallet address and not actually have to store anything physical anywhere. A private key would be almost impossible for anyone to memorize reliably, but a good mnemonic password (described below) can offer superior security and is able to be easily memorized. To then use (spend) the funds in your wallet at some later date, you would go back to the same tool you used to generate the wallet, input your passphrase, and it would give you the same secret key which you could then use exactly like a paper wallet secret key by entering it into some wallet software and either making it hot or using offline transactions. If you use a good deterministic wallet generator and a good password, this is one of the most secure options available. Alternatively, if you use a bad password, you could be royally screwed. If you want to go the paper wallet route, you'd be using this tool: https://github.com/ihomp/ripply-paper-wallet If you want to go the deterministic route, you'd be using this tool: https://termhn.github.io/ripplewarpwallet

Hi there to all, Years ago i felt that Ripple would rise and back then i bought 1201 coins. They were all left in my Ripple wallet, which was offered by Ripple in 2014 when i got the coins, the following link shows how the website looked like back then and on the top right corner there is a wallet button https://web.archive.org/web/20140625062926/https://ripple.com/ The answer from Ripple support, which i find a bit disturbing. They answered to my problem, after sending 5 emails and they said: "Ripple does not operate any wallets" 1 month ago i went to access them and i was directed by Ripple to open an account on Gatehub and that my coins would appear there. I did all the necessary steps, send my id, utility bill and still my account is on pending for the last 4 weeks. I tried to contact via email Ripple and Gatehub but no one ever replied. Can anyone comment on this and is there a phone from ripple or gatehub to talk with someone? I am really curious how it is possible that a company like Ripple that is so mentioned and receives so much attention with 135+ employees does not have time to answer back. Either GateHub. I know is not a lot of money but this is about clarity and service over a company that might be the next future currency system that will offer a new age clever banking and transaction system. A lot of people lost their ripples, it seems like there is no much guarantee since Ripple shut down their wallet and give it to another company as they shifted their strategy from human / coin based to banking / solution based company. So money disappearing is a type of a theft or to say the least not responsible from Ripple not replying to such issues. Not every one is a master in financial but when someone buys something and is told by Ripple to place the money in their wallet. Back then, they gave also a bonus for this which makes Ripple's fault for not securing peoples money. I know this amount might be a joke for some people but it is not only about the money but about the clarity of Ripple. Anyone else had such an issue?

i created a new ripple wallet on gatehub and i bought some xrp and some ethereum. when i take my ripple address and ripple secret key and plug it into another wallet like rippex or theworldexchange.net. i can see both my ethereum balance and my xrp balance. does that mean that in the case that gatehub shuts down i will be able to access both my ethereum and xrp or any other coins i have on gatehub on another website if i have my secret key? or can i just access my xrp.

Have you heard the story about "Bitcoin Sign Guy?" If not you should read my latest blog! It's about how XRP investors can help promote XRP with swag... and even gold bronze, silver and gold coins?! I talk a bit about guerrilla advertising and then discuss the latest coin promotion that @Mercury is helping to organize. The official press release is contained near the end of the blog. Hope you enjoy the read - please leave any feedback on this thread & as always, please feel welcome to share or link to my blog on any other media (and thanks for doing so!) My blog announcements on other media: Twitter Reddit Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

Hi I'm very green at crypto I have heard of bankcoin and stored value where the value is not volatile stable have you heard of bankcoin

Newbie here..... invested in XRP in the last few months and have been monitoring this chat just as long. I been researching and looking for information on XRP coins destroyed. I checked in this chat room but found nothing answering my questions (search skills need polishing). Anyhoo, was wondering if anyone knows some questions I have below. 1. On average how many XRP coins will be destroyed over the course of a year. ( I know depends on usage...but if it is used say 5% of the currency out there) 2. What happens if all coins get destroyed? (I know, investors who have it in cold wallets, so it won't go to zero) But what about those who need them and then the coins get scarce. I wonder if this is the reason why coins could be worth $1000 per coin someday (soon I hope). 3. Are there any possibilities that Ripple will add coins. I see over 5 million coins have already been destroyed per the link below. So XRP is being used quite a bit. So I wonder once XRP is live and kicking how many coinss will be destroyed and how it could impact the price of each coin. https://xrpcharts.ripple.com/#/ Thanks.... sorry to be a newb and asking out of the gate here.