In my opinion, Ripple shall have bright future in 2018. There are many banks all over the world which are using the Ripple protocol now in order to transfer money. This is done in order to ensure that they are able to provide international transfers to their customers almost instantaneously. Moreover, since the fees are on the lower side, you can be sure that the customers would be able to benefit as well. Also, the reduced time ensures that banks are able to use the networks and IT infrastructure more efficiently. This is one of reasons why Ripple is more and more popular.