While I think ETH is in better shape than BTC I don't think people understand the magnitude of Codius being released.  It does everything Ethereum does but is faster, cheaper and more user friendly.  While I don't think it will kill Ethereum it will certainly take a significant market share from ETH.  Also, if Ethereum 2.0 is still 2 years away its going to be tough to survive.  Look at whats happened to ETC. 

https://ethereumworldnews.com/smart-contracts-will-never-be-the-same-as-ripple-xrp-revives-codius/

I agree completely about focusing on fundamentals.  Can you point me to some research about how BTC will overcome the scalability issues?  It seems that lightning network has major problems and without being able to run 750,000 transactions per second (according to David Chaum) no peer to peer network will work at scale.  I believe BTC currently handles 6 transactions per second.  XRP handles 1500 transactions per second on ledger and actually David Schwartz built XRP's payment channels natively allowing them to scale as necessary.  As far as I know they are the only ones prepared for the future.  I believe that if big Wall St. money pours in than XRP will be the decisive choice over the options which won't be able to adapt and overcome major hurdles.  I believe Ethereum 2.0 is 2 years away from its update however Codius, the smart contracts platform which Ripple built covers all the shortcomings of Ethereum and is available now. 

https://ethereumworldnews.com/smart-contracts-will-never-be-the-same-as-ripple-xrp-revives-codius/

It's unfortunate that so much of the cryptocurrency space focused on us vs them.  Ripple has an incredible vision for creating the internet of value.  They created very interoperable software in the ILP and they don't require you to use XRP.  They just know that it will be used because its the fastest, cheapest and most secure digital asset. The evidence of this is in R3 choosing XRP because its the fastest, cheapest and most secure digital asset.  Even with the disagreements Ripple had with R3 they chose XRP to settle payments on their platform because its the best. 

All of your answers can be found here.  Please let me know if you have any other questions.  XRP ledger is quite decentralized as Ripple only controls 7% of the XRP ledger and 27% of the UNL's.  These numbers are decreasing rapidly.  The XRP ledger will be completely decentralized in about a year. 

https://fudbingo.com/the-xrp-blockchain-is-centralised

Umm, wrong.  The court "battle" was settled recently and in fact, R3 has declared XRP the best digital asset for their 200+ customers to settle payments with.  haha. 

I'm disappointed as I spent some time on your original post and couldn't verify anything.  Ripple, the payments company is on pace to be the largest fintech company in the world and are absolutely crushing it.  XRP is the fastest, cheapest and most secure digital asset available and has the necessary liquidity to effectively handle small remittences- their target use case at the moment.  Ripple is solving a massive, real-world problem and XRP is a necessary tool to solve that.  They are becoming more and more decentralized from XRP and evidence of this is easily seen when looking at the XRP ledger- currently only 7% of the XRP Ledger is influenced by Ripple and 27% of the UNL's and its dropping. 

I'll ask you, what other digital asset CAN SOLVE for the internet of value? 

[/quote]

CZ is not a fool. The only reason he listed Ripple is the regularly high volume in trading. Ripple has good marketing and an impressive customer list. All banks of course  . Does not change the fact that there is no proof of work, no decentralisation and no open access. Also a supply than can increase anytime. I would not touch it.
[/quote]

Wow, again so much misinformation here.  Please spend some time here and let me know if you have any questions.  Ripple currently controls just 7% of the XRP Ledger and 27% of the UNL's.  You are correct that they use a different consensus mechanism because of the obvious flaws in proof of work.  Its not scalable and not sustainable for our planet.  Also, Ripple cannon increase the supply.  100 Billion were created and thats it. 

https://fudbingo.com/

Allow me to address all of your issues with XRP.  Ripple currently controls 7% of the XRP Ledger and 27% of the UNL's and these numbers are falling rapidly.  Its more decentralized than BTC and ETH in fact.

https://fudbingo.com/the-xrp-blockchain-is-centralised

Also, to clarify Ripple is a payments company and XRP happens to be the fastest, cheapest and most secure digital asset that is the obvious tool to use when solving for the internet of value.  Please correct me if I am wrong with facts.  I love hearing other viewpoints based on facts.  I believe XRP is the best digital asset to hold for 5 years but am open to being wrong and understanding why.  Thanks in advance!

There's a lot to unravel here.  Look at fudgingo below and let me know if you have any questions.  I'll give you that BTC and XRP have very different consensus mechanisms.  David Schwartz recognized the faults in POW back in 2010-2013 when he created XRP and set things up differently.  He realized that POW doesn't scale and is not sustainable for the environment.  He's not alone though, David Chaum, who is a finalist for possible Satoshi just released his new project, Elixxir which looks really exciting.  Ripple currently controls 7% of the total network, that is a fact.  They have been very successful on their decentralization plan and will be completely decentralized in about a year.  Also, they never set out to be a peer to peer network, they are solving cross-border payments and all the friction associated with it.  Solving this problem is massive and will benefit the unbanked and very poor around the world much more than Wall St.  If you are sending money to a loved one in another country who makes $2/day now and you send $500 it can take up to 5 days to get there and cost $30.  Ripple, using XRP as a tool through partners like MercuryFX you can send $500 in 3 seconds and have it cost $2-3.  This will change lives in a meaningful way.   

https://fudbingo.com

Please spend a few minutes below regarding your misunderstanding of XRP.  The "its not a real cryptocurrency" argument is conveniently the very first one! You should also listen to David Schwartz, he's the chief CRYPTOGROPHER and CTO at Ripple.  He's a brilliant mind and a great person. Regarding market cap, its really a terrible way to rank digital assets.  For example if they used total supply vs circulating supply on CMC than XRP would have overtaken ETH a long time ago and would currently be much closer to dethroning BTC.  Its not a great barometer for comparing digital assets. 

https://fudbingo.com

I completely agree but as an XRP holder I must admit that it's really wonderful to see a totally independent company like R3 make such a bold commitment to expanding the XRP ecosystem.  With so many new, independent companies and people working on the XRP ecosystem its obvious that XRP is much, much more than a fundraiser for Ripple- something so many "purists" feel is something to worry about.  This new development builds an even stronger case that XRP is decentralized.  Ripple already only controls 7% of the network.  I'd imagine fun bingo below will be updated with these new developments!

https://fudbingo.com

No, I understand very well that I don't own shares of Ripple.  I own XRP which is not a security of Ripple.  I feel that XRP offers even greater upside potential than shares in Ripple for a number of reasons and plan on holding my XRP for 5 years or so. 

XRP was never designed as a peer to peer medium of exchange like BTC.  Ironically, after XRP solve for the cross-border payments use case and have massive levels of global liquidity and the price is stable somewhere orders of magnitude higher than we are now it will likely serve as the most functional "cryptocurrency". 

BTC's start was promising but from what I can tell cannot scale and is destroying the planet.  David Chaum, the creator of Elixxir which by the way I'm really excited about and will be investing in, estimates that for a successful peer to peer global payments network to work it needs to handle 750,000 transactions per second.  Last I checked BTC was around 6.  Also, lightning network seems to have massive problems and can't be relied upon.  Until we see a legitimate solution to scalability AND a way for mining to continue in a safe way BTC is a failure.  XRP is fast, cheap and not harmful to the planet.  The team is actively solving for the scalability demands of the future and they have already created a more robust and flexible smart contracts platform Codius than Ethereum.  Good luck to all!

Very well written article, thanks!  When focusing on fundamentals its never been a better time to be an XRP holder.  XRP has now been chosen by an unaffiliated entity (R3) as the best digital asset for cross-border payments.  More decentralization occurring within the ledger, all while the market is in panic around them.  Regarding the debate here in the comments, as an XRP holder I rest easy at night knowing that my interests (XRP going up in value) are indirectly aligned with Larsen, Zagone, Schwartz and others at Ripple.  It seems obvious to me that when 1% of the supply is released every month for institutional sales the proceeds of those sales serve a virtuous circle: Ripple is able to hire more top engineers to pursue the internet of value and the customers of those sales- the institutions USING XRP FOR CROSS BORDER PAYMENTS will serve to finally decouple XRP from dying POW tokens such as BTC.  Win-Win for everyone.  I really look forward to the day when the price of XRP moves completely independently of BTC as a result of institutional usage of XRP in their payment flows vs the market manipulation through retail investors that is the driving force now.  Guess what- that day is coming rapidly thanks to the amazing work happening in Singapore, Thailand, Brazil and the Middle East.

But I'll ask anyone who's skeptical of Ripple and their motivations- do you really believe they have worked tirelessly for more than 6 years to just dump their XRP holdings to cash out and tank the very asset they hold?  Is that how you see this playing out?  Thats so short-sighted and immature.

Wow, almost no one believes in the next 5-10 years BTC loses the throne?  I see it playing out differently.  From what I can see the lightning network has serious flaws.  Also, if BTC were to hope to fulfill a peer-peer payments network as it was originally intended you still need better on network performance.  This is argued by David Chaum and David Schwartz. So BTC can't scale and can't fulfill its primary use case.  Unless they adapt quickly with something that hasn't been released as a possible solution?  A store of value by the way is not a use case.  If XRP penetrates the cross-border payments market which is imminent than I'd expect it to overtake BTC in less than 2 1/2 years.  My bet in 7-10 years is that Elixxir is king of the customer facing peer to peer payments (better bitcoin) and XRP handles all the back-end B2B solutions and smart contracts with Codius.

The only way XRP flourishes and is adopted is if it solves a real-world problem.  XRP and Ripple are separate.  Ripple can do well as a company selling payments technology software and XRP, the digital asset, can still fail.  I would argue that demonstrating 40-70% savings over current SWIFT enabled payments and eliminating the need for nostro/vostro accounts (10-27 TRILLION dollars) around the world is a very strong case for the usefulness of XRP.  Also, banks won't even be the first adopters of XRP in their payment flows its the remittence firms.  If your skepticism is rooted in support from the "bankers" would you expect the banks to be the first to use XRP?  Also, if this was the case wouldn't you have expected these mysterious banks of influence to have already influenced the SEC into a non-security official designation?  Even though that's never how it would happen. 

Sorry if I wasn't clear, can you please refute any of the above I've stated?  Why can't XRP be trusted? Please include sources.  Thanks in advance. 

Holding my FCT and NEO and buying XRP!  Never bought anything else or plan to except for Elixxir when its available. 

70% XRP, 15% FCT and 15% NEO.  Purchased most in Aug 17' but only purchased more XRP this year. 

haha, no I work in hedge fund technology sales and am just a very enthusiastic fan of blockchain and digital assets.  A couple of my clients who do really intensive fundamental research led me to XRP last July.  My portfolio is 70% XRP, 15% FCT and 15% NEO.  Can you please elaborate on why XRP can't be trusted?  Based on my research Ripple have done a fantastic job decentralizing the XRP ledger to where they only control 7% of the validators and only 25% of the UNL's.  Also, with the 55 Billion in escrow and them only legally allowed to release 1B per month for sale they have very little "control" at this point.  Interestingly, the ledger is public and their quarterly XRP report is totally verifiable.  Last Q their institutional sales of XRP were up over 400% so I'm not sure why XRP cannot be trusted.  Please let me know. 

Oh and I should clarify that they bring the most value to cross-border payments not domestic payments.  In the US the ACH system isn't great but its also not horrible.  With cross border payments XRP is saving remittence companies 40-70% and are bringing instant settlement with full transparency.  Its a totally different user experience.  For domestic payments such as PayPal they will eventually penetrate that market but its down the road.  In Japan and S Korea though they will be overhauling both domestic and cross border infrastructure and payments thanks largely to the SBI partnership.

Correct me if I'm wrong but when looking at the XRP ledger over the past 18 months it's presently significantly more decentralized than BTC and ETH.  Yes, they arrive at consensus differently and after exhaustive research I feel XRP is faster, less expensive and more secure.  Presently Ripple only controls 7% of the validators on the ledger and only 27% of the UNL's.  They have been replacing one of their validators for every new 2 independent ones that come up.  As the ecosystem and network are expanding faster than anything else its clear that XRP will be completely decentralized in roughly 1 year... while BTC and ETH become more centralized and destroy the planet with POW in the process.  Proof of work was a huge technology breakthrough and I'm grateful for all that Satoshi has brought to the world but its time to move on to Gen 2 and XRP is superior in every way.

Regarding the OP's question: I don't think anything in the market is a useful crypto currency.  With BTC transactions on ledger can take hours to settle and fees are outrageously high. Same with ETH and even for LTC.  XRP is currently the most useful but I would never actually use it as one because I expect the price to go up 200x over the next 5 years.  In 5 years I'd hate to think that I paid $1000 for a cup of coffee, lol.  Nano and XLM are fast but have zero liquidity so anything more than a micro payment will result in massive slippage and Nano has security issues.  David Chaum's new project Elixxir looks really promising but won't be available for a while.  I'll be investing in this along with holding my XRP and FCT long-term.