If you are like me after ripple soared to second place on coinmarketcap, you went and read the whitepaper. To cut the long story short, it wasn't as juicy as I thought which made it hard to understand where all the ripple was coming from. Don't get me wrong, the inter-ledger protocol is pretty cool, but it relies on adoption to be of any value. If banks implement the ripple network, then there would be a path forward for transactions in XRP through real-time fiat conversions into any currency. Unfortunately, that requires two things. One, the ripple network has to be implemented across many financial institutions across the globe. If you know anything about old financial institutions, they don't make changes until it costs them more to do business as usual, which means adoption will not happen in the foreseeable future. Two, just because they operate on the ripple network doesn't mean they will touch cryptos. Maybe you can get some fringe institutions to do a test run, but that requires getting past regulations and all sort of logistical hurdles. You have a better chance at getting Trump to build that wall than to get any institution whose sole job is to make money into investing money without any upfront guarantee of returns. Which means ripple is only mooning because the tide just came in, its only a matter of time before it goes back out and the ripples fade into obscurity.