Ripples seem to be bootstrapped in that you have to have them to pay a transaction fee for a ripple transaction.  That's it.  All it's used for.  Current transaction fee for a Ripple transaction is 1/10,000 of a ripple.

So, you need 300 ripples to start an account (why so many?) and 1 ripple for all the transactions you will be doing.  Until there is sufficient transaction load to cause a higher transaction fee.

Am I missing something?  I don't understand paying BTC for them at this point.