This is huge news for Ripple but apparently at the time of writing Ripple has tumbled more than 5% to .957 USD (under a dollar now). To be honest I do hold Ripple but I believe my analysis to be unbiased.
The news is huge that Ripple will help Saudi Arabia settle foreign currency transactions and shows Ripple has proven itself in the large scale banking and even central banking industry. It looks like other gulf countries including the UAE (United Arab Emirates) are going to be involved as well which could be really huge for Ripple. One thing that many have said though is that none of these banking organizations involved are really interested in XRP. They are using Ripple’s network but these transactions are not being funded or traded in XRP itself.
Some industry analysts have speculated that Ripple’s relationship with big banks is so strong that it may have strong incentive in the future to literally kill/dissolve XRP.
Despite this my outlook on Ripple is strong with the reservations about it mainly being a tool for large banks. Don’t get me wrong, the technology works well for transactions in terms of being low-fee, fast not having to sync the blockchain, very secure (aside from no first party wallets….) but can we trust this company to protect our interests and those of its large banking clients?
I think this is why Ripple has been volatile itself, from an investment standpoint it sounds great but also bad because Ripple is kind of a crypto-rebel by essentially being the tool that cryptocurrency was meant to fight or free us from (the tool of big banks and now Saudi Arabia’s central bank.).
To look at it from the other perspective though this could mean a huge rise for Ripple in valuation but it could also mean the opposite. Ripple has carved out an incredible niche but at the same time risks alienating its main users and investors. The question is what will Ripple as a private and centralized blockchain do?
I do agree the author of the quoted article above could very well have it right for the end game. It’s a shame because Ripple solves a number of key issues while also introducing security and trust issues at the same time. Ripple works well but will it literally sell us users and investors out to central banks in the future?
I’ve attempted to play the lotto and will seek Ripple’s comment on these concerns but regardless of assurances only time will tell where things head.