To the date, I have never seen any alt surpassing the Bitcoin in terms of popularity, pricing, volume and increasing caps.

Altcoins are just profound ways to transfer huge sums of money without getting charged for it in terms of taxations unless and until you get them converted to fiat and withdraw in a bank.

The trade that is outplayed in OP, is just another example of using alts for money exchange to avoid any forthcoming actions against Ripple. Many things goes into it, but at the end lets say Bitcoin cant be beaten.