Ripple is a real-time gross settlement (RTGS) aka: payment processing backend for large retailers, insurance companies, credit card companies, and clearinghouses. On the front end, the XRP token itself is just another value token like BTC, it has no further utility. Obtaining Ripple was a problem until recently, many exchanges were slow to adopt the coin, and only obscure locations allowed large volume buys. Since that time (over the past month) the coin is much more widespread and has seen gains of 300% followed by losses of 79%. With all of this up and down action we decided to take a much deeper look into Ripple as a frontrunner, and more importantly to see if CryptoCriterion feels comfortable endorsing it.
1.) Business – Ripple itself is based out of South Carolina by the OpenCoin company. It was initially thought up in 2012, and after collaboration with MIT and other institutions, they released the coin in 2013. The focus on the banking market did not take place until 2014, and was not wholly adopted and functional until 2017. Ripple Labs was a previous subsidiary of OpenCoin (OC) who created the first ‘wallet’ of sorts that allowed transactions between clients. Fast forward to the current time: Ripple is 80% owned by Korean state actors according to recently leaked documents. The front end is a mess, Ripple is near impossible to transact with unless you are on a Windows-based machine. The back end, or the actual payment processing protocol, has been upgraded numerous times and handles anywhere from 6-16 million transactions per second. DO NOT GET CONFUSED – This is NOT the transaction rate on the client side. Transactions as low as $400 are getting stuck or denied from most wallets as of this writing. Three main wallets have been created (Bread, Toast, and Ledger’s 3rd Party APP) to try and further the use potential of Ripple. All of these wallets have a catch. They either “eat” 20 XRP in the process to ‘open’ the wallet, or require a membership and hardware purchase. Most importantly, NONE of the money made from the corporate entity and the corporate blockchain is recycled back into the token. Therefore the token and company are not pegged to each other in any way, leaving some unanswered questions.
2.) BlockChain Utility – Ripple is currently supporting the backbone of 4% of the total global money transactions on a daily basis. The network, and it’s various side chains are creating REAL utility, right NOW. The only catch that I see currently, is that the client side transactions are not scaling with the growth of the token. Numerous complaints about Bread wallet, Ledger’s XRP Wallet, and even the Ripple Windows wallet exist. Most, if not all pertain to unsuccessful transactions or lost funds. Normally, this would be a development aspect, but it is affecting the utility of the coin at this current time.
3.) Development and the Future – Currently, Ripple has gone from a hard buy to a buy only if you plan on holding long-term. The Coinbase partnership that was supposed to take place early this year has been nerfed for a later date, if at all. This alone makes me wonder if there are more nefarious actions in the play. Korean instability can be directly charted to the market cap and cost of Ripple, which leads me to believe that this coin is directly tied to the South Korean market.
Overall CryptoCriterion gives Ripple the following scores based upon our internal metrics:
Utility: ★★★/★★★★★ (3/5) Great utility, but not for token holders. Until this is fixed, there is no more to comment on.
Investment Opportunity: ★★/★★★★★ (2/5) Two weeks ago, you could have made a killing. You can still grab this coin for less than $1, but keep in mind this is a HOLD. Long term growth is projected at 220%. (December 2018)
Trust: ★★★/★★★★★ (3/5) The network is stable enough to not outright LOSE coins in the everyday use, storage is an issue, but overall the network is tried and true. Without the token being pegged to any REAL LIFE asset, or utility, we cannot guarantee that manipulation of the price will/is not taking effect.
Places to purchase:
Binance
https://www.binance.com/?ref=13587372
Cryptopia
https://www.cryptopia.co.nz/Register?referrer=Jgr33nwood
LTC 398VKmPLBLwJ5pAmHxekht3ufwoRogprun
BTC 3FiCWY1Ue4DdcssEHQe1TicjqasTfgGQSJ
DOGE A2G2QXCjoZCqaH6CMgQ2cLtUVr32yYrron
ETH 0xef75d17542CF9F1530326a1FF3CBc7b4D2264bD1
Thanks for reading: Debate is the beginning of innovation, feel free to comment and I'll be sure to reply!
-jgr33nwood
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