Issued tokens versus XRP

XRP is the ledger’s native asset. Issued tokens are balances an issuer owes you. They can have extra rules. They are not “another kind of XRP.”

Wallets show both as numbers. The risks are not the same. Mixing them up is how people hold an IOU and think they hold the native asset.

Every account can hold XRP. Sending XRP needs a destination address and enough XRP above reserve to pay the fee. No issuer sits in the middle.

An issued token needs an issuer account, usually a trust line, and it obeys that issuer’s settings: freeze, clawback, transfer fees, and authorization if required. The ticker is a label. The issuer address is the identity. A token called USD from an issuer you have not checked is a promise from that account, not a dollar bill.

Real example: on the XRP Ledger, XRP is created only by the ledger’s original supply rules, while issued tokens are created when an issuer owes them on a trust line. The docs spell out that split on purpose. Source: Tokens.