Auroracoin & Paycoin are testament to the disingenuity of such an approach.  Real ripple market cap, as said is more than half that of btc, or mastercard at IPO.

Coinmarketcap does not show ripples true market cap (like XRP disbursed in business relations, to partners, Sweetheart deals etc. It just shows the amount not privately held by the for-profit corporation, that you have the potential to buy ..like from those who haven't already nearly given their free stakes (& sockpuppet stakes) away long ago because they can't figure out the clunky trust IOU models work.

XRP is not useful as more than anti-spam bridge currency, it's not equity in ripple labs.. certainly even huge institutions have no need for more than a modest amount, let alone home traders. Perhaps one of it's saving graces is that it can't be frozen or seized like your fiat funds in Ripple could. Which is the real value in ripple network, a quasi-decentralized value transmit network. It has the ability to innovate legacy systems,  it gets hype in fintech circles that bitcoin will never get because it panders to different purpose, and is fit for different mindset ..

Your only hope is that almost no-one else realises this and also continues to rely on coinmarketcap, finally migrating en masse from what they deem is a btc sinking ship should ripple ever surpass 50% dollar denominated market cap relative to btc on there (by which time it's already long since surpassed it completely)