Like many crypto purists, I stayed away from Ripple (XRP) for a long time, because I viewed it as a centralized "banker's coin" that was the complete antithesis of bitcoin. After all, Ripple has marketed itself as a cross border payment solution for the banks, and the total supply of XRP is an astronomical 100 Billion, which is 4,762 X the 21 Million maximum supply of bitcoin! (Dividing the current price of $14,000 BTC by $4,762 creates a price per Ripple of $2.94.)
Cliff High in an interesting character. I'll admit it ... I'm a sucker for the "woo-woo" stuff. I find quantum physics, and the metaphysical absolutely fascinating. Cliff has created "web bot" software that scrapes the internet for language that is given emotional values in order to "somewhat" predict future trends of cryptos, and even world events. He writes monthly reports that he sells at halfpasthuman.com based on his interpretations of his web bot data, and he has had an AMAZINGLY accurate run when it comes to crypto predictions, in particular.
In April, 2017, Cliff's web bot report indicated Ripple was looking like it would have an upward move. Between April and May, Ripple went from $0.003 to a high of $0.39 ... a 13000% increase! In more recent reports, Cliff has predicted bitcoin will go up 10x in 2018 to around $100,000.
Using the same math as above, if bitcoin were to end 2018 around $100,000, it could predict a price for Ripple of around $21 per XRP!
It's philosophical bias that has prevented so many people from participating in the rise in value of bitcoin. I decided to buy into Ripple on 12/24/17, when it was $1, because I wasn't going to allow MY philosophical bias to prevent ME from making money with Ripple. After all, let's get real here, that's the real reason everyone is in this space. We're not trying to prove a philosophical point, we're trying to get our piece of the biggest wealth redistribution event in human history.
I didn't do much with Ripple. I left it on an exchange for almost 20 days, until I decided that just wasn't very wise and moved it to my Ledger Nano S hardware wallet. I downloaded the Ripple app to my computer, went to the exchange and withdrew it to my Nano.
Wow! I have never seen anything FLY off the exchange faster ... or cheaper!
With BTC there are so many confirms it can literally take hours to be transferred, and it's transaction fees are absolutely outrageous. Ripple was practically an instant transfer for the price of just 1 XRP.
There are two parts to Ripple ... the payment gateway and the XRP token. I've watched interviews with bankers who have expressed curiosity regarding the payment gateway, but who had zero interest in the XRP token. This has caused some to question the validity and value of the XRP token that we're able to purchase and trade on exchanges.
The banks may or may not choose to use the Ripple platform or the XRP token, but one thing is for certain, there are some serious advantages offered by this centralized coin. First off, no infighting or endless hard forks. Miners are not needed because of Ripple's centralized system, which means extremely low transaction fees. And it's FAST ... I mean, man is it fast!
If the banks don't want anything to do with XRP, the Ripple token could end up being used as a peer-to-peer currency, much the same way BTC was used many moons ago. Yes, there is Litecoin, "The silver to bitcoin's gold," but blocks have a 2.5 minute confirmation time, whereas Ripple confirms in mere seconds. And Ripple's max supply is still 1,000 x the max supply of 84,000,000 Litecoin (which I own, too, btw). This could potentially keep the price of Ripple more within reason for the masses to use as digital money.
The point of this article is not to try to convince you to buy XRP. The Ripple train is moving and will get to its destination with or without you. There are thousands of coins out there, and you should own what you like and believe in. For me, I'm seeing benefits to XRP that I didn't previously consider, and I believe it has a bright, and long term future, with or without the banks.
If you found value to this article, please "Upvote" and "Follow" so others have an easier time finding my articles.