Some good links to understand Ripple:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(payment_protocol)http://ripplescam.org/Why Ripple is against everything BitcoinI don't really like it but I invested in it for now. I think it could easily be replaced by coins that build that function into their protocol. Also, this is a really good point:
Suggestion: show Ripple's market cap as the value per XRP multiplied by the total XRP released into circulation.
Bitcoin for example is shown as a current market cap calculated from the 12,180,975 BTC currently in circulation, giving us:
$9,287,262,579 = $762.44 * 12,180,975
However, if one were to follow the logic applied to XRP then the BTC market cap should be shown as the total number of BTC that will ever be in circulation, giving us:
$16,011,240,000 = $762.44 * 21,000,000
And for Litecoin:
$2,013,480,000 = $23.97 * 84,000,000
Therefore at some of its previous prices LTC's market cap would have exceeded Ripple's: the current chart's method of calculation does not account for this.
Although Ripple is centralised so its XRP are not mined but released by a central authority I think this process is functionally similar to that of mining other decentralised cryptographic currencies. Therefore in my opinion Ripple's market cap on the chart should account for the XRP that have been released to be consistent with all the other currencies on the chart.