A Short Intro
I think most of the experienced crypto enthusiasts will agree that FOMO and hype are our main enemies in crypto-world. And though crypto-community seems to become more sensible during last year, especially after January market crash I can still see many coins which are really overpriced for now and undeservedly reaching the billions market cap.
The reason is that some funders are pretty good at creating hype from any single minor event. Though there is nothing revolutionary in their ideas and the progress of development is not better but is often inferior to lesser-known projects many newbies keep buying useless coins and tokens, just because they think others will do the same.
Come on, guys, it's time to stop finally this!
I've already shared my opinion about Verge and EOS previously and today I would like to discuss Ripple...
Ripple (XRP)
Is it a cryptocurrency at all?
Once I've shared my opinion on bitcointalk saying that Ripple shouldn't even be considered as a cryptocurrency since it's a centralized system created by a corporation for corporations, it contradicts the basic principle that once bitcoin was created and later all other crypto-currencies. The reply was that Ripple is cryptocurrency since it uses the blockchain technology... Cool.
Is it a good investment?
Ok, maybe Ripple may be considered as a cryptocurrency, just because it's based on the blockchain, and maybe it has some value and adoption, it may provide fast, cheap and secure international transactions. But why do we "mere mortals" need it? It's designed to be used by banks and corporations and will be orientated to meet their needs in the future.
So, though there are many reasons to invest in cryptocurrency, I'm sure most of us are in mainly for the money and I'm sure absolutely everyone who buys Ripple is in only for money. But compared with Bitcoin, Ethereum and most of the altcoins, Ripple is not a good investment and let me explain why...
Use cases
Let's imagine that you need to transfer some amount of money from the USA to your friend in Japan so that you'll send USD and he'll receive JPY. The traditional wire transfer may take up to 3-5 days to complete and there may be many bureaucratic inconveniences. So instead you may change your USD to XRP, transfer them to your friend in a couple of minutes, which he'll change for JPY later. Ok, I agree, it's perfect and it's much faster and cheaper than BTC or ETH transaction.
But that's the only use case of Ripple since there is no reason to store your funds in XRP rather than on bank account. While decentralized currencies will provide you a complete freedom and privacy, Ripple network is under Ripple corporation and gateways verified by them. Yes, they are able to track and block your funds anytime they want, so it's a complete nonsense to use Ripple as a settlement layer.
Inflation and Deflation
So if we ignore the fact that there are many investors who just hodl the only adoption is the transactions and the deflation, which may cause the price to rise, depends on the currently active transactions volume.
On the other hand, Ripple Corp. did their best to ensure their control over the price. In case if you don't know, nearly 60% of total XRP supply is currently locked by them and me be issued any time to prevent sharp price jumps, which the hodlers are hopefully waiting for.
In short, Ripple may be a really useful project and may really improve current banking system, but considering it as a cryptocurrency equal to Bitcoin or as a profitable investment, in my opinion, is a least wrong.
That's all for today, many thanks for reading. Follows and upvotes will be highly appreciated!
Please, feel free to leave a reply and share your opinion, especially if you don't agree with me :)