I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this, and I'm perfectly fine with that. From my point of view, my reasoning is sound and the supporting technical details back my conclusions. So, here goes:
Most people look at Ripple and see a coin for 25 cents that they can get more of than if they invested in a $1 or $10 coin. But the fallacy of that thinking is that that 25 cent coin is already at $10 billion market cap. So, for it to even rise to $1, it would have to quadruple it's market cap. Right now, that would make it bigger than Bitcoin, and I don't see that happening.
Second point: Cursory research reveals that Ripple is trying to replace the banking SWIFT payment system. It would be much faster, cheaper, and more audit-able. So, naturally, upon reading that, one would think that banks have to buy 20 gazillion Ripples to transfer their money, and then the receiving bank converts that Ripple back to fiat... Except that's not how it works at all.
XRP is used to pay the transfer fees. One article I read stated that about $100 in Ripple should be enough to cover about a year's worth of transaction fees on the network for a bank. So if we're going "all-in", expecting mass adoption by banks, even if that mass adoption happens, no banks are going to holding more than a few thousand Ripples.
Third point: How has the market cap increased by 4X over time, but the price stayed roughly the same? My analysis of this is that the founders are dumping millions of XRP per month for other coins/fiat. Originally, they were selling about 300 million XRP per month... You know, to fund their operations... Now they have a new contract in which they can sell off 1 billion XRP per month. So every time you buy Ripple, you're putting your money is someone else's pockets. If the founders would just HODL, the price would be around $1 per XRP. But as it currently stands, we the people have to match them for every couple million they pull out of their own system. Once they run out of Ripple they are willing to sell, then the price might rise... But how long will that be? How many of your hard-earned dollars are you willing to give to bank moguls that are already rich?
Now this post would be remiss if I didn't at least try to point out some positives of this crypto. Firstly, it is relatively stable. If you want your 25 cents to be worth 25 cents tomorrow, XRP is a good place to stash it. Second, they are going out and making partnerships with banks and financial institutions, so after they run out of XRP to burn, it may start rising pretty rapidly. But even then, a 10X increase in market cap would have it higher than all of the money in crypto right now... So your best ROI that I can see right now is maybe 10X. And the time-frame on that is completely ineffable.
In conclusion, I personally hate this cryptocurrency, and I don't feel like it deserves to be in the top 100, much less the top 3. If Bitcoin is digital gold, and Litecoin digital silver, then XRP is digital copper. All it ever does is "ripple" up and down as more people buy in and the founders cash out. If anyone can explain why this is a good investment, I would love to hear about it. It's completely possible that I'm wrong, and I don't mind being told so, as long as you have some supporting evidence to back it up.
Also this is my first post on Steemit, so thanks for taking the time to read it!