SteCK0

>So if you're buying a token as a speculative asset, is it a good or bad thing that much of the theory of its present value is built on something that's converging to zero versus something that, while small today, is stable and growing? To be specific, XRP has nothing "stable and growing" besides misinformation and conspiracy slop for low information retail. It's ranked 50th by chain TVL, 46th by developer count, has pitiful usage metrics, is constantly ignored by stablecoin issuers (including Ripple itself who only put 10% of RLUSD on there), etc. What XRP isn't: A bet on fundamental exposure to a "banks + blockchain" thesis around a utility token. What XRP is: Being long on an infinite number of confused, conspiracy theory-obsessed, QAnon cult, low information retail buyers bidding a bank-themed meme coin because they have no idea what they're even buying. They think they're buying exposure to Ripple announcements, and Ripple has been complicit (see Monica Long internal Ripple emails where she admits to *loving* the use of influencers to spark speculation and "will only correct misinformation if needed") in fueling this confusion. They think banks will use XRP as a bridge, and by doing so, XRP becomes more valuable, which *you* know isn't true because Ripple said so to the SEC under oath. As general principles, 1. I'm not buying any tokens who have no defensible moat, no adoption, dwindling value accrual, and no alignment between token value accrual and protocol adoption. 2. Present speculation should be based around future fundamentals; not present speculation around more future speculation (vaporware). XRP doesn't even have the possibility of having future fundamentals and your own descriptions of what XRP/XRPL was designed around makes clear it will never have any fundamentals. >Right. The design of the ledger is intentionally expensive to operate and so the people who bear those burdens have to charge for them. I think it's pretty obvious that a ledger that is cheap to run in the superior option more likely to win in the market even if there's less money to be made in running it. What do you mean "pretty obvious?" You're speaking as if Ripple's design choices nailed product market fit and did so with ease. Ripple has been dead wrong in every single decision they've made (no smart contracts), which is why XRPL/XRP has no adoption. It's a coin that "lives" on narratives, conspiracies, misinformation and social media content; not as used blockchain technology and adoption. XRP holders don't even use blockchains for the most part. They don't even know what DeFi Llama is to even look up adoption metrics and usage of chains and protocols. They watch videos from XRP dedicated channels, buy it on a CEX, and then post about it on social media. Ripple is now trying to pivot (EVM side chain, RLUSD in 2024) and buy their way out with acquisitions of companies to course correct. However, none of those things create any value for XRP holders. They have no claim and no exposure to any of Ripple's product launches or acquisitions, and nothing about the way that XRP/XRPL could ever even be used would drive value accrual to the token. >How do you think these two things connect? It's not like more nodes makes the blockchain work better. XRPL suffers no technical impediments to using it as a DEX. I agree this is evidence to support something, but I don't see how it bears on this issue. I'm not talking about more nodes; I'm talking about economic incentives to run infrastructure and protocols having fees for being used. These things connect because your claim that protocols having revenue and fees is a deterrent to them being adopted, yet those protocols have way more usage than XRPL. We're not talking about high fees per user per transaction; we're talking about small fees times very high volume, and having that value accrue to token holders. >I agree that demand for RLUSD is not very high on XRPL right now. But I'm not sure why a token holder would care very much about current utility. Again, that's what you're paying for, so the more of it, the more you pay. You care about what is likely to change. If you're saying the lack of middlemen imposing unnecessary fees on transactions makes people less want to transact, I have a hard time understanding how that logic works. 1. Demand isn't high for RLUSD on XRPL because nothing has high demand on XRPL because XRPL is an obsolete, irrelevant chain. 2. A protocol isn't a "middleman" to itself. A protocol having fees doesn't make it a "middleman" any more than a protocol without fees. In fact, XRPL has fees ( base gas fee is 0.00001 XRP), too, so by your own definition of "Fees = middleman", then XRPL is a middleman, too. 3. What I'm arguing that a token holder should care about having alignment between the adoption and success of their protocol. Low fees per transaction multiplied by a high number of transactions -> accruing to token holders >I don't understand who benefits from a small ability to charge fees today that we think is going to decrease over time. 1. Low fees per transaction multiplied by a high number of transactions -> accruing to token holders benefits token holders. 2. The fact that L1s have diminishing margins is an argument for why they're overvalued; not an argument that fees accruing to token holders doesn't make sense. Other protocols and applications have healthy and growing margins on a widening total addressable market. These tokens aren't even in the top 10. >I think by the criteria I think you're using, all cryptocurrencies today are meme coins. But I don't think that's right. All tokens all fall into one of two categories: They're either meme coins or they have claims to cash flows. It's that simple. Plenty of protocols have value accrual to their own tokens. Aave protocol revenue-> AAVE token buyback Hyperliquid protocol revenue -> HYPE token buyback PumpFun protocol revenue -> PUMP token buyback Chainlink protocol revenue -> LINK token buyback Ethena protocol revenue -> ENA token buyback Maple protocol revenue -> SYRUP token buyback Jupiter protocol revenue-> JUP token buyback Ethereum protocol revenue -> User fees + MEV Solana protocol revenue -> User fees + MEV VERSUS Ripple dumps XRP -> Ripple buys companies for itself and does Ripple stock buy backs XRP has no value accrual, unlike the tokens of the protocols I listed. >I'm not saying the value comes from speculation. I'm saying that today's price is largely driven by expected future speculative demand. I think that's an empiric fact. I agree, price comes from fundamentals + speculation, however, speculation *should* be based around *future fundamentals." XRP's speculation isn't based around any future fundamentals. It's based on the amplification of misinformation, fake partnerships, and the false conflation of Ripple equity to XRP tokens. Ripple is complifict in this misinformation and faux-hype. Take the recent Ripple Prime announement for example, which officially states that it's about "enhancing the utility and reach of Ripple's RLUSD", but then Brad tweets from his personal account: "XRP is at the center of everything Ripple does. Lock in." to faux hype and confuse XRP holders into continue bidding the meme coin, despite it having zero fundamental value accrual or exposure to anything Ripple Prime could even conceivably do. RLUSD is 90% issued on Ethereum. RLUSD profits go to Ripple Labs. Even moving billions in RLUSD volume on XRPL at a cost of 0.00001 XRP accrues no value to XRP holders. Yet, Brad is engaging in carnival barker tactics to get low information retail to bid XRP on the back of this Ripple Prime announcement. >I do think that it's very difficult to distinguish today's cryptocurrencies on the basis of current utility. They all pretty much do the same things and it's trivial to create a new token that does the same things as any current token. No, they don't all "pretty much do the same things." Crazy thing to write. L1s do the same thing, but still have wide variation in adoption, performance, and features. Then, there are many other protocols who do very different things (orchestration layer protocols, oracles, interoperability, lending, Perps, prediction markets, stablecoins, RWA tokenization platforms, etc). It's trivial to create a new token; It isn't trivial to take market share from the respective market leaders or to have tokens that have fundamental economic alignment with the success of the protocols.