XRP is 100% "pre-mined" and controlled by a couple of big businesses, so, anyone who invest there - are just participating in another yet Ponzi scheme.
No surprise financial industry and government welcome it. They love such a tricky schemes to ripple-off people.
I do not think Ripple is a Ponzi scheme. People who don't understand say the same thing about bitcoin. In fact if one more person calls Bitcoin a ponzi scheme I think I might smash their face in with the dictionary so they can review the definition of ponzi scheme via the imprint on their face... but anywaaayyyy - I am not be a big ripple fan (I should say XRP fan) but I don't see it as competition for bitcoin. I see more of a compliment to bitcoin, another ally in the war against (traditional) banks and needless merchant fees. Some interesting payment systems would theoretically be designed on top of ripple, which would operate much more efficiently than what we have now, especially internationally. Paying $40 for a wire transfer needs to be a thing of the past. Now.
I can transfer a whole god damn 1080p movie (20,000,000 kb) to someone on the other side of the globe in no time for nearly no cost. Mind telling exactly why it costs $40 and takes 3-5 days to send any amount of money (an instruction to modify a SINGLE NUMBER somewhere.... mere bytes)? It's bullshit with current technology - time to move on, and hopefully bitcoin and ripple can make that happen.
Edit:
In other words, I see ripple as a tool to support the movement of existing (Current and future) currencies, fiat, crypto, whatever. Ideally, I'd love to see everyone using bitcoin. But if that wet dream doesn't happen, I can settle with paying fiat for things using a ripple based network as long as the 2.75% for nothing bank fees do not apply.