And in a german article it was stated that XRP would be more like a Spam-protection which shouldn't even be necessary in a closed system like Ripple. I don't have deep knowledge about it, but I've read some discussions and that many XRP-Investors are very disappointed.
And after learning more about Lykke I'm glad to see that this won't be like Ripple and that the value of LKK is deeply connected to the value of the company since it's about shares.
Actually Ripple CEO has recently remarked the importance of XRP in Ripple and I'm sure it will be implemented by most institutions since it saves a lot of money for them and it's deeply tied to how it's supposed to work. Now being a digital asset it will have value, market makers will do they thing (they are already doing that, Ripple has increased in price a lot in recent weeks).
Also, a tiny amount of XRP is burnt after each transaction so it's deflationary. I think unless Ripple completely abandons the idea of XRP (they are the major holders so it's naive to think that) they price will continue to rise on adoption news and deals just as any other project.
I have to admit that my knowledge about Ripple is limited. But I wouldn't count much on the fee and I don't believe in the "bridge-currency", because in most cases that won't be needed. It's possible to trade anything against anything and I doubt that a bank will buy into XRP, which is unstable, to use that as bridge. And even if that should happen in some scenarios I don't see any indicator to evaluate XRP or how it's connected to the value of the company. Of course, it's possible that I'm wrong here, but until now I consider xrp-as-fee as the only safe thing to say.
And if I understand their system correctly, it's not even close to a blockchain but relies on too much trust into people.
I agree that Lykke offers similar benefits but with the addition of making LKK coins. Either way, if you think about it, 10k LKK coins would be 100 shares in a company that it's on its beginnings. Without proper earnings yet it's hard to give a valuation on what would be the proper value for a single share, we know there are more than 100m shares basically and more than 1 LKK billion coins.
Lykke already has a working project and it's cheap enough to invest in my opinion, it's much less risky than other ICOs. However, I don't see x4-5 ICO prices any time soon since there's zero buzz about it and one can say the current price is fair if you put it all together without doing any predictions on potential. Many thinking this is just another ICO with some russian guys in a garage playing crypto with nothing to show for may think it's overvalued, 1000-2000k sats would be more adequate and I could agree with that if this was the case.
But I think we can all agree Lykke is already way ahead...
That they can issue new coins was my major concern. But if we compare it again with Ripple: Ripple won't create more XRP but the company holds the majority of the total supply while I don't see much connection of XRP value to the value of the company. Both companies can inflate the market, but Lykke as company would lose in value if they would do that careless.
Under the line trust is always the major point in all of those projects and that's also true for pure Cryptocurrencies without premine and without ICO because there is no lack of dirty tricks to make a quick buck on the back of Investors.
And regarding trust I had the advantage that Richard Olsen personally explained me a lot about it all. He didn't do that with the intention to convince me to invest, more because in one way he liked my (critical) feedback, but also recognized that I had some misconceptions. And I can understand that others may not have the trust like I have now, but my recommendation is: Those who think about the question if they want to invest in this project, should also focus on exactly that while doing research. There are a lot of informations about Richard Olsen and also others of his team.
Good to begin with is this:
The Future Of Currency
Lykke Wallet is the new project from Oanda. Built using Blockchain technology, it could revolutionise currency and how we pay for things, Richard Olsen, CEO and Founder, Lykke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmZBtKL7ZcMTo get an impression about his vision, this speech is great:
The power of the small world phenomenon | Richard Olsen | TEDxZurich
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKzjwV_N68IIn the description of the video are already a lot of good infos about him.
Overall there is no lack of information about him and his team and what they're trying to build here. And I believe it's really important to get an impression about them and what they want, to come to a decision if to invest or not.
*************
But: Besides the question if somebody wants to invest in this or not, there is simply another major point: It's for users and it already is usable. I really believe, that this will have impact. Because if I don't think about LKK but if I would like to see this project grow the answer is a big yes. I'm paranoid. I hate it to have much value on exchanges and that's why I always deposit and withdraw and so on. Additionally there are a lot of projects without good wallets yet and it's a never ending story of importing private keys (cold storage) to get something on an exchange and so on. Somehow I like it because there is a good learning curve by doing all that, but what I know: There is still no solution for the average user in place and that is true for 99% of all what's out there. And this project is different and will most likely give access to a lot of different assets, from Crypto, colored coins to Fiat (FX).
And one thing I always focus on are reasons why something won't be used. I call that barriers and there are a lot of possible barriers (lack of trust - psychological, lack of abilities - fundamental, lack of accuracy - fundamental ...etc.). And until now I don't see any barriers in this project. It's just hard to get attention and to get traction but with such a base it's just a matter of time.