Ripple cannot be mined. It's not even that it's impossible, but crypto-currency developers do not foresee just such an option. They minted about 100 billion coins, left themselves 65% of the extracted assets, and the remaining 35% were released to the market.
Ripple does not use blocking technology. Instead, the system operates on so-called "gateways," through which all transactions pass. Dozens of servers installed in the company's offices around the world are responsible for the operation of these gateways.
The compulsory commission for operations is only 0.00001 XRP. It is noteworthy that immediately after the transaction, this amount "burns up," that is completely disappearing from the system. This is done to reduce the likelihood of spam attacks. There is a special category of intruders who send out a huge number of false orders for transactions to overload and "collapse" the system. And if the average user does not even notice the withdrawal of the commission, then for the spammer who created a lot of applications, this will result in a round sum. That is, spam Ripple is simply not profitable. Also, the "combustion" of coins leads to a gradual decrease in their total quantity, which contributes to a natural increase in the market value of the ripple. The fewer coins in circulation, the higher their price.
The popularity of a ripple as a cryptocurrency is determined by the number of partner banks that use the Ripple payment system. So, in 2016 the company signed a contract with more than 20 banks, and the price of rivals immediately grew by 200%.
The little cost of ripple today is explained by a large number of coins issued. As the number of coins decreases and the popularity of the entire system increases, the cost of the ripple will naturally increase.