Reserve

Generating key pairs doesn't create an account in the XRP ledger. To prevent Ripple's ledger from growing excessively large, new accounts must be funded with a reserve amount of XRP from an existing amount to make them functional. The present reserve amount required is 20 XRP.

You can buy Ripple from a private exchange and send it to your Ripple's account ID. This transaction will create your account in the Ripple ledger. Now, your account will become functional and you can make transactions on Ripple. However, the reserve amount will remain locked.

The important point to note here is that funding an account doesn't give you access to an account. Only the person holding the secret key has access to its funds. It's possible to fund an address that doesn't have a secret key. However, this would result in a permanent loss of the sent XRP.

A Ripple account also has additional attributes such as a sequence number and history of transactions. The sequence number starts at 1, and every time a transaction is made it increases. It also holds the transaction history on how they affected the account's balances. The following image shows the front end of a simple ripple wallet: