This is where you fall back to fundamentals.

Ripple is a private company that's been around since 2004, longer than Bitcoin. Ripple uses different tech for different things X-Current is Ripple’s existing enterprise software solution for banks and other financial institutions. It can be used to send and receive cross-border payments. All cryptocurrencies can do this. However, Ripple has additional features designed for enterprise use, including end-to-end tracking and bidirectional messaging using it's Interledger Protocol. Interledger Protocol makes it possible for payments to instantly be sent across the network. It’s a key scaling solution for Ripple using trust lines. X-Rapid hasn’t been added to the Ripple network at this time. However, it’s currently in development. X-Rapid provides a low-cost liquidity solution for emerging markets with the goal of using XRP to lower liquidity costs of payments in emerging markets. Also there is X-Via for international or global payments. I have done a lot of research on Ripple, read articles written by dev team and there is nothing underhanded about what they are doing, which is laying the ground work for XRP. The dev team is very open about what they are doing and how they plan to implement XRP. XRP is the most unique and most misunderstood crypto, with that being said it also is the most stable and the most likely to be around long after most if not all the others die off.