I do not think that Ripple will replace Bitcoin. Although, I think that Bitcoin with its slow and expensive transactions is much inferior to Ripple in technology. But bitcoin is the foundation. It's like gold in the usual world of money.
There are some altcoins that are much more faster and cheaper(even free transactions) than ripple already on the market. And many of them seems more decentralized than ripple. “Oh, surely if you consider the events at first they can only point to one conclusion” - I see that ripple is pumping to get others' bitcoins, neither more nor less
What do you mean saying that ripple will replace bitcoin? If it will replace it on coinmarcetcap - that is only numbers, give me 1m$ and I will make the coin from rank 900-1000 the coin number one on coinmarketcap. If you are talking about ripple replace bitcoin as a currency and all cryptos will be compare to ripple - I'll leave this market, where centralized currency took control ove decentralized one.
Answering your question - nothing special will happend. Except all this mining equipment and all THs will be forced to find new coin with same algo
perfect answer, if ripple replaces bitcoin , then everyone will shift back to centralized economies called banks, but the vision of our great master satoshi was a decentralized economy, read his white paper of bitcoin, i merely dought if atleast 1% of the crypto world ever read the white paper of bitcoin. ripple is a banks currency , they are swallowing bitcoins and other limited alts into their economy and destroying the decentralized economy
Just a little addition to your words - really doesn’t matter how much people have read satoshi's whitepaper, but, what is more material - how much people understood it right