What is Ripple?

For the People that don't know much about Ripple, I will give you a quick rundown of what their purpose as a currency is. First of all Ripple is not just XRP. It is actually an entire Company which stands behind multiple Technological Projects. Most of those Projects are intended to create a fast Bank to Bank Currency Transfer System. This is a huge deal because as you might know, right now it's a huge problem that regular money transfers can take over 1 Workday to finish. 

XRP

XRP is a Cryptocurrency that promises insanly high transaction speed and low fees. And if you look at the Currency that is exactly what you are getting. The average Transaction fee right now is around 0.005XRP. This might seem like a lot if you think about coins like Bitcoin and Ether which have huge USD price tags and small circulating Supplies, but because the Ripple price usually is around 1-2USD, because of the insance amount of coins in Circulation, it is an insanly low price. The transaction time is also incredibly low, ranging from 1 to maybe a few seconds.

The Advantages/Disadvantages of XRP

Centralization

The first thing you have to keep in mind when investing into XRP is that it is probably the most centralized Currency out there. What that means is that there is a Company controlling the XRP token and also owning a huge portion of its tokens. (around 60%) They did say that they will give out more Coins as the Time goes on, but it is still a Thing that scares of a lot of people from investing into XRP. Especially because the whole point of cryptocurrency is to have no bank to control/ manage transactions.

Working Product

Ripple is one of the few Cryptocurrencies that already have a working product. You can see this as a positive thing, but this can also be a bad thing because the only way the price can go up from positive news from companies using the product. I will talk more about that later.

Price

If you look at the Ripple price chart you will see something odd. In December of 2017 and in January 2018 you will see that the price went up by an insane amount in a very short amount of time. This usually is a bad sign because of a Thing called "Pump and Dump" Groups. What these Groups do is buy into a currency at the same Time with insane amounts of money and drive the price up. Later the insiders of the group sell there Coins at a much higher price. Many people think that the price action of ripple was fueled by a PAD-Group and by People which had FOMO (The Fear of missing out). When something like this happens there is usually a Problem where most people dont know what the Currency does or its usecase is. They just know the price is going up so they stay in it. Now if these people look into the currency and find out that it's actually not that great and also see that the price increase is slowing down, they will sell, driving the price down again. In my opinion, the XRP price is still a little bit too high.

Will it be used?

This is my biggest problem with the Currency. Banks are interested in Ripple, but not in XRP. They are actually looking at an entirely different thing. It is called RippleNet. It basically provides the same Stuff XRP provides, just without a cryptocurrency between. This creates a problem for Investors. What might happen is that the Value of the Company increases, but not the price of their Currency.

Conclusion

XRP is a Cryptocurrency with insanly good technological Aspects and a working product. It is controled by a Company, but is not bounded to the companys succes in providing aBank to Bank transfers System. The Price can increase, but only if companies will use the Technology and publicly anounce it. 

Should you invest (Personal Opinion)

I am invested in XRP. It makes up around 5% of my Crypto-Portfolio. But i would have to say that i have very low expectations right now that XRP will increase by drastic amounts in the near future. There just isnt a Use Case for such a Currency and because of the Fact that the Company owns 60% of all coins it seems like a really unsafe investment. You might ask why i am invested in it then. I still believe in the small chance that some banks might use XRP at some point and that that could drive the Price up by a noticable Amount. My Advice would be to not invest in it and if you really believe in it invest only a small percentage of your total Portfolio into it.