transaction fees - How Ripple is different from Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies?

How Ripple is different from Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies?

There are several major differences. Bitcoin is a currency with a built in payment system for its currency. Ripple is a payment system for arbitrary currencies with support for cross-currency transactions. One big difference is that currencies in Ripple are represented as debts (IOUs). This is much the way currencies are represented in the conventional banking system. When you say, "I have $5,000 in my bank account", what you mean is that the bank owes you $5,000. When you write someone a check, you are transferring debt so that their bank owes them more money and thus they consider you to have paid them. Ripple works this same way -- payments occur by a transfer of debt (IOU). You can generally get a Bitcoin transaction through for free if you're patient. Ripple transactions always have an XRP cost. In practice, this cost should remain very low. Transaction fees are destr...

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