As far as its classification, Ripple it is not technically a cryptocurrency [...]
Do you have an official checklist or at least some criteria published somewhere for what makes some digital asset a "cryptocurrency"? I'm genuinely interested, since I've seen various discussions about this topic over the years and the results range from "it has to be PoW and anonymously mineable and named Bitcoin" to "the USD on my credit card are trading at a different price than actual USD and secured by crypto, sooo..."
Sarcasm aside, I think this post has a good question. The opening paragraph of the wikipedia article about ripple calls it a cryptocurrency. Salty's use of the adverb "technically" seems to imply that he does have such a list of necessary and sufficient conditions. I'd like to know more as well.