Ripple is decentralized remittance platform. It lets us transfer fiat currencies, digital currencies, and commodities. It uses the blockchain data structure and has its own consensus protocol. In ripple docs, you will not find the term blocks and blockchain; they use the term ledger instead.
In ripple, money and commodity transfer happens via a trust chain in a manner similar to how it happens in a hawala network. In ripple, there are two kinds of nodes, that is, gateways and regular nodes. Gateways support deposit and withdrawal of one or more currencies and/or commodities. To become a gateway in a ripple network, you need permission as gateways to form a trust chain. Gateways are usually registered financial institutions, exchanges, ...
