I wrote a version of this headline—titled "Is Ripple for real?"—six years ago for Fortune. At the time, and on many occasions since, I have pondered that exact question. A big reason for this is that XRP, the token often associated with Ripple, is different than other cryptocurrencies. Unlike other blockchain projects, there has never been any mining or proof-of-stake mechanism. Instead, the XRP founders simply conjured 100 billion of the tokens out of thin air in 2012, and ever since people have been trying to figure out what the stuff is for.
Ripple, meanwhile, has gone through more identities than Madonna. When I first heard of it in 2013, people claimed the XRP ledger was a more versatile version of Bitcoin and that it would render the original cryptocurrency obsolete. Two years later, during the "blockchain not Bitcoin" era, Ripple tried to be besties with the big banks—only to be rudely brushed off when the banks realized they wanted nothing to do with XRP. For its next act, Ripple tried to disrupt the remittance industry—giving large buckets of XRP to Western Union and MoneyGram, only to see the companies sell it all for a quick buck and then leave Ripple high and dry.
