Unit 1 · Ledger basics
How does the XRP Ledger work?
- 2 min read
- 4 sections
- 3 questions · +25 XP
A ledger closes every 3–5 seconds, fees are burned, and every wallet keeps a reserve.
A new ledger every few seconds
The XRP Ledger runs on validator consensus, not mining. Every 3–5 seconds a ledger with the latest transactions closes, and closed transactions are final.
The number on our live page is the ledger index. Each step up is one closed ledger.
Fees go to no one
A typical fee is about 0.00001 XRP. It is burned rather than paid to validators, so total XRP slowly shrinks.
Daily burns are usually around 1,000 XRP, tiny next to ~100 billion total, so it is not a price driver. Its job is to make spam expensive.
Every wallet holds a reserve
An account needs 1 XRP to exist, plus 0.2 XRP for each order or trust line it keeps.
So new accounts lock XRP as reserves. When many appear in a day, check whether they are real users or created in bulk.
Not every transaction is real use
Cheap fees mean self-transfers, spam micro-payments and bot orders all count. We show wallets and size buckets alongside raw counts.
See it on the site
Related terms
- XRP Ledger
- The public ledger where XRP lives. A new ledger version closes every 3–5 seconds.
- Fee burn
- XRP paid as fees is destroyed, so total supply slowly shrinks.
- Reserve
- An account must hold 1 XRP, plus 0.2 XRP for each object such as an order or trust line. Locked, not spent.
- Transaction hash
- A unique ID for each transaction. Anyone can look it up in a ledger explorer.