Best Ripple (XRP) article I’ve read on reddit so far
Off the start, let me state that I am holding a nominal amount of XRP, and take a conservative view of its potential. That said, half the fun of crypto (well, for me anyway) is thinking strategically about what will happen to coins, and I have thus spent some time ruminating on XRP, Ripple, and SWELL.
With that out of the way, let us turn to the task at hand.
Our first consideration is Ripple as a for-profit company. Looking at their business model, it is clear the revenue potential of Ripple's software arm is little more than an accountant's rounding error when taken along side the revenue potential of XRP. Thus we can conclude that the long-term focus of Ripple is on generating revenue via XRP, which will be achieved via bank adoption and the subsequent growth in XRP's price. It is thus untenable to hold the view that Ripple is not interested in XRP, or to think that it will drop XRP for a different, bank-only coin. Moreover, the "XRP is a pre-mined pump-and-dump scam" is also an untenable position as the price of XRP is inexorably linked to bank adoption, which itself is dependent of XRP stability. If a pump-and-dump was truly their aim, they would have already initiated this process, which is a view that is unsupported by exchange activity.
So, with Ripple's (obvious) motivations defined, how could a company go about achieving this goal? Well, there is a bit of a sequencing problem here: for banks to use XRP they need a large network of participants, but Ripple won't get a large network of participants unless they have something of value to offer (e.g. XRP). To break this cycle, an intermediary "something of value" was established: speed. You go with the "speed" narrative and say, "this network will decrease transaction times, and you can use whatever asset you want, but XRP vests the best return." Yes, it will stroke fear among the crypto-purists who are largely detached from reality (which will, and has, hurt XRP), but once a large enough network is established the incentive to use XRP will naturally emerge (aka, so many institutions are using the network, it only makes sense to use XRP for settlement). This is the route they have gone down, and is, realistically, the only viable solution. Once this path has been decided upon, the next question is where to start introducing the network?
An argument can be made to try and introduce the network in N.A. and the E.U. first, given how they are the financial centres of the world. However, because of this size they are also more resistant to change, especially when it comes to mission critical aspects of their operations. Thus, the strategic path is entering into emerging markets; these banks need every edge they can get to compete in the global market, and are thus going to be more receptive to new ideas that can give them that edge. This is what Ripple has done for a few years in targeting Asia, India, and parts of the Middle East. Of course, these emerging markets are also going to be wary of going too far down the Ripple path, lest it be the wrong one. So to assuage their concerns, Ripple also must turn around and show them evidence that the financial strongholds of the world (read: N.A and the E.U) are also trending in this direction. Once again, we see this reasoning in Ripple's pilot projects with banks in these regions.
Enter SWELL
In my experience, there are two types of conferences: knowledge-sharing conferences ("this is where we are, these are the challenges ahead, and this is what we are going to do about them") and announcement conferences ("look at what we did!"). Of course, no conference is purely one or the other and will always contain both components, but they can be broadly classified in this way based off their main focus. With this in mind, the question now becomes "why Toronto and why now?"
First, let us write down what we know: (i) SWELL is occurring adjacent to SWIFT's conference, (ii) SWIFT's conference is (very likely based on what we know about them to-date) a knowledge-sharing conference. If we assume the null hypothesis that SWELL is a knowledge-sharing conference, then what is the answer to "why here and why now?"
Under this null hypothesis, a knowledge-sharing conference by Ripple will be focused on highlighting the "this is where we are, these are the challenges ahead, and this is what we are doing about them" aspect of their company. This will likely entail re-capping how some of their pilot projects have done so-as-to allow conference goers the opportunity to easily evaluate Ripple's trajectory against SWIFT's trajectory, thereby demonstrating how they are the better of the two options. As a pretence for a conference this seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but it is also somewhat redundant. There is no doubt the power-players know all about Ripple (it is literally their job to keep tabs on the industry), and they are certainly well aware of blockchain tech (see: the universal settlement coin), so, again, there is a certain level of redundancy to a conference of this sort by Ripple (Fintech is a small community and word travels fast in small communities; plus Ripple has an incentive to keep other banks in the loop re: how successful their projects are, and likely have communication channels set up just for this purpose). Of course, that is not to say a somewhat redundant conference is bad; there is, genuinely, a lot of value in getting everyone under one roof to "grease the wheels" so-to-speak. Overall, on the balance of probabilities, I would give this scenario a 40-45% chance of occurring, and would not be let-down in the slightest if it were to happen.
If we examine the alternative hypothesis (that the conference is an announcement conference), then the "why here and why now?" question becomes more clear. As stated earlier, it is highly probable that the power-players are keeping tabs on Ripple and the sector in general, so an announcement conference will allow all these players the opportunity to not only probe Ripple for the nitty gritty details immediately (and thereby put pressure on them to move quickly for fear that rival banks will gain first mover advantage based off this new information), but also enable them to turn around and immediately get a response from SWIFT, who will, to at least some extent, be caught off-guard (no-one know exactly what their competitors are up to, even if they have a general idea and contingency plans for various scenarios). Say what you will about the psychopathic tendencies of the financial sector, there is still a large human component to business, and an announcement conference would tap into that human aspect, namely nudging (shoving?) the power-players towards Ripple in a "first mover race," as opposed to suggesting to them that Ripple is better via a knowledge-conference that has them critically examine Ripple and SWIFT side-by-side (which they are likely already in the process of doing internally).
But what might they announce? After all, the "first mover" argument can be made for Ripple today, so the announcement must be something that tips the scales from "let's learn about Ripple and its tech" to "let's consider deploying Ripple and its tech." That is, under this alternative hypothesis, the most logical announcement is one that presents a genuine pressure re: adopting the tech, thus why Ripple needs to be nearby when the announcement comes. Otherwise, any announcement would likely have the same effect as if it came via tweet.
I think the following are (most to least) likely to occur:
More lock-up details (this is likely coming regardless of conference type)
More partnerships (also likely to come regardless of conference type).
A formal proof that their system works. Last I heard Ripple was still missing a formal, mathematical proof that everything they've built is 100% guaranteed to work as they claim, which is kind of a big deal. Fintech is mission critical, so banks need guarantees about what will and will not occur with the tech.
Regulation details. With Asia's recent steps as of late, there is the off-chance we may get some clarity on regulations. This would be very good for Ripple as the only thing banks fear more than uncertainty is regulatory fines (if large chunks of their assets are frozen/seized, or if they are kicked out of a market, that is devastating for them; plus no-one likes 9 or 10 figure fines).
XRP adoption (don't hold your breath).
Overall, on the balance of probabilities, I would give an announcement conference a 55-60% chance of occurring.
Regardless of what the conference turns out to be, it will be interesting to see how everything pans out afterwards.