In just  two days we will be ending the year and the Ripple is far from being the No. 1 cryptocurrency. However I can say that 2018 is a breakout year for Ripple. The number of partnership with financial institutions are just staggering. You can liken Ripple as the Microsoft of Cryptocurrency. I think the winning formula for Ripple is the teams pragmatic approach in dealing with fiat. They position themselves as a better alternative to the archaic, inefficient and expensive financial system which is wrought with intermediaries. The operative word there is as an alternative not a replacement. I believe Ripple was able to get these partnerships due to this approach which is in contrast to bitcoin which is often portrayed as a replacement of the traditional financial ecosystem fully discentralized, pear-to-peer and trustless.

Honestly I don't see XRP usurping the no. 1 spot anytime soon. The only concrete advantage of Ripple over Bitcoin is the speed and cost of transactions are being processed. I personally have used the two cryptocurrencies and no matter what other people say in terms of transaction speed and cost Ripple wins hands down. Of course Bitcoin developers are working hard to develop scaling solutions to address these issues but I think they are still far off Lightning network is still under development and Bitcoin Liquid is still on its infancy stage.

No one can really know the future but it is my guess that it will be very hard for ripple to get the top spot if it will just be relying on is primary use case as a medium of exchange. There are even more cryptocurrencies out with a multitude of use case which can get head-to-head with XRP in terms of transaction speed and cost of transaction. But we all know that the  best technology always wins. The one that does though is something that everyone wants to have or use. Bitcoin by far is still the most popular, valuable and recognizable asset in the whole of crypto space. Ripple will have a hard time to get that honor but it is not completely impossible.