I have always thought ripple/xrp is quite shady. Here is an article in Forbes describing how ripple pumps and dumps. Article is 2 years old but still very good. Great flow diagram showing how the scam, uh hmm, I mean the business model, works.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2019/03/01/is-ripple-a-scam/?sh=35f5d99079a4

In short, the founders issued shares to themselves, created a corporate structure to give the appearance of de-centralization, hyped the coin to boost its price in various ways, and paid well known traditional companies to partner to with it in order to give an air of legitimacy to it's perceived business value. Nothing has come out of any of these 'partnerships'.