Ripple's rise is a reality check for the crypto community

One of the attractive things about the crypto community is the idealism of many of its members.

The underlying belief in the need to create greater financial inclusion has fueled a global revolution that feels similar to the rise of social media.

If the first two waves of the waves of the Web liberated access to information and global connectivity and commerce, the next wave is financial access and information security.

Yet while much of the social media discussion focuses on whether or not Bitcoin is a bubble, other elements of our recent history will prove instructive to how this revolution will play out.

The information monopolies of the mass media did not completely evaporate with the rise of the Internet. They simply evolved.

My being able to blog to a global audience from the comfort of my breakfast table shows that I as an individual do have a voice in the conversation.

But the gatekeepers did not disappear - they're just different companies with different business models now.

And this is what I think Bitcoin and Ripple's concurrent rise this year shows.

Bitcoin wasn't the first attempt at digital money, and it is obviously not the last, but its technology was designed to cut out middlemen.

Ripple's technology is built to address the middle man's problems Bitcoin was also attempting to solve, except instead of cutting out the banks, it allows the banks to adapt.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is a law of the universe that Newton taught us. People can be excited by or disgusted by Ripple's rise, but they shouldn't be surprised.

I currently own about $5 USD worth of Bitcoin (BTC) and no Ripple (XRP), so this post isn't meant to influence the discussion in any direction.

It is simply an observation of the game that I believe is ahead for the crypto community in the coming years.

Happy New Year, and thank you for reading,

- Josh

^{Josh Peterson is a writer living in Denver, CO. He is a 2016-2017 Robert Novak Journalism Program Fellow for The Fund for American Studies, studying the impact of artificial intelligence on democracy. He is also an advisor to PassageX, a blockchain startup tackling the secondary event ticket market, and the founder and publisher of The Coin Dispatch, a news and opinion site covering cryptocurrencies, blockchain, and artificial intelligence.}

^{Image Credit: Pexels}