| Launched |
2009 |
2015 |
2012 |
| Primary use case |
Store of value, payments |
Smart contracts, DeFi, dApps |
Cross-border payments, remittances |
| Consensus mechanism |
Proof of Work (mining) |
Proof of Stake (since Sep 2022) |
Federated Byzantine Agreement (no mining) |
| Max supply |
21 million BTC (hard cap) |
No hard cap (issuance reduced post-Merge) |
100 billion XRP (pre-issued) |
| Transaction speed |
~10 minutes per block |
~12 seconds per block |
3–5 seconds |
| Transaction fee |
Variable, can be high during congestion |
Variable gas fees, Layer 2s reduce cost |
Extremely low (fractions of a cent) |
| Smart contracts |
No (Bitcoin Script is limited) |
Yes, full Turing-complete |
Limited (Hooks, Sidechains in development) |
| ETF availability |
Yes, US spot ETFs since Jan 2024 |
Yes, US spot ETFs since 2024 |
Pending, filings in progress as of 2026 |
| Regulatory status (US) |
Commodity (CFTC) |
Commodity (CFTC) |
Court ruling 2023: XRP itself not a security |
| Best wallets |
Ledger, Trezor, Electrum, BlueWallet |
Ledger, MetaMask, Rabby, Rainbow |
Ledger, Xaman (XUMM), Trust Wallet |