I, for one, am excited for the moment a cryptocurrency arrives that is actually usable for its supposed use. Every time someone claims to be a cryptocurrency for X (be it file sharing, IoT, attention, etc.), X is really just speculation.
[1] https://www.ccn.com/a-number-of-iota-wallets-emptied-by-hack...
The key problem is that IOTA's incompetence is pervasive. e.g. https://hackernoon.com/why-i-find-iota-deeply-alarming-934f1...
No bank would use such a volatile currency for payments, for obvious reasons. If someone ends up using a technology based on the Ripple codebase, that's another story, but it is more like company X hiring the people behind Ripple for a consulting gig, then company X betting their fortunes on XRP.
IOTA also claimed to have a partnership Microsoft, when in fact it turned out they used Azure for hosting. The lack of any journalistic standards in cryptocurrencies is a huge issue.
Ignoring BoE, Ripple's customers that are using XRP in production are:
Moneygram, Cuallix, Mercury FX, and IDT.
There are also 100 customers using xCurrent (the pre-XRP product that's used to transfer fiat). Upgrading to xRapid would increase the speed and decrease the costs of such transfer, so I imagine there will a conversion of some of those 100 customers to using xRapid, and thus, XRP.
Ripple is just a old fashion money-wiring business, but uses the XRP as internal booking Symbol.
You are completely wrong. Ripple is decentralized by way of validation of transactions done through their distributed consensus protocol, which is done through validator nodes sitting across the world at places like MIT and Microsoft.
Well, I have this feeling with Nano. Intstant, free and scalable transactions. The first 2 are definitely there. The last one looks promising, and some load tests for that are scheduled.
That the entire network should be able to handle 7000 tps with the power of a single windmill is also cool.
To me, this is potentially the internet money that was promised with bitcoin.
I noticed sometimes these posts get downvoted, so here is an interview with the main developer. Decide for yourself: https://youtu.be/hAy4GDV7tvQ
If you wonder why people are downvoting you, its because at least this post reads like you are promoting some random cryptocurrency here and you haven't even bothered to say whether you have a vested interest in it succeeding (because you hold coins or otherwise).
I guess if someone is interested incrypto and talks positive about a certain coin, there is a 99.99% chance they own it.
I never saw this requirement with companies though. "My macbook is great because of x and y". Let's downvote him because he probably owns Apple stocks without telling.
There's a few I follow (VeChain, Monero, Nano, GET) but like you I find it quite hard to imagine more than a handful that could realistically achieve the aim(s) they've set out to do.