So, Ripple has blown up. I very carefully didn't invest in any back when it was 17 cents because I noticed
A) it's not a crowd thing - it's the tokens of a single company
B) there's a set number of tokens
C) it's delineated in Yen, basically - there's 38.7 Billion ripple out there, and that's what it's gonna be. By comparison, the asymptote Bitcoin is supposed to approach is 21 million bitcoins.
However, the market is now insane and nobody has gotten as far as looking at (A), (B) or (C) and as such, Ripple is trading at something ridiculous like $2.60 each (at this moment). And shit - there aren't actually 38.7 billion XRP, there's 100 billion XRP and Ripple owns 61.3 billion of them. Which if they ever cashed out would be worth a shit-ton of money. Or would it crash the whole network?
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According to the St. Louis Fed, the "informal economy" accounts for 13% of the GDP of developed nations and 36% of developing nations.
According to the CIA, the "Gross World Product" is $107 trillion. The World Bank puts it at 78 trillion. If 3/4ths of that is the developed world, that's 58 trillion, or a 6 trillion dollar black market. If 1/4 of that is the developing world, that's 20 trillion, or another 6 trillion dollar black market. 78 trillion plus 12 trillion is 90 trillion, not 107 trillion, but hey we're talking about trillions which is nuts enough (6 trillion dollars is more than 18 F-35s!) but let's call it 12 trillion dollars to have a number.
Presume the sole purpose of Bitcoin is to transact off the record. It is solely a marker for black market transactions. If 10% of all black market transactions were to transact in BTC, and all 21 million BTC were used to do that transacting, then 1 BTC has a nominal value of $28,000. If 100% of all black market transactions, 1 BTC has a nominal value of $285,000. At a circulating supply of 17 million BTC, worth $15,000 each, bitcoin only has the capacity to cover 2% of the black market.
I have no idea what I'm talking about. But then, that puts me in good company when discussing crypto. Somebody shoot me down - because I think I just argued myself into believing that the "top" in crypto has a ways to go.