Interesting comments on Ripple and XRP. Ripple was the very first digital currency I ever heard about or got involved in, back in 2006 I think. The idea of secure payment system between two untrusting parties really enchanted me.
I wish I'd stayed more alert about what was going on in the digital/crypto-currency world - but I got busy with a new job and stuff and then Bitcoin - whoa, where did that come from? Anyway, the same arguments that banks could use Ripple but not XRP applies to virtually any other blockchain. If they love Ethereum they could just use their own copy and launch it internally.

Knowing banks every single bank will want to control its own technology launching their own chain - perhaps create a consortium to manage moving funds between them on yet another blockchain, but it seems highly likely they would not bother with public blockchains and any kind of risk. Besides, what they want is fiat currency locked tokens, not free floating assets like ETH and assets on top of that. So I don't really pay much attention to stuff about banks getting into ETH or whatever - for all we know they are doing it to pump up the market and make some profit on private ETH holdings :-)

I do hold a big pile of XRP but I got it for free - it would sad to see it worth $0 but I have decided to sell a bunch when it gets to a certain price and may keep a token amount "just in case". However like you I don't really see any big chance of it becoming a real thing - for years it's been this massively valued coin on Coinmarketcap that no one really knows anything about.

Personally, I'm much more interested in coins with tangible uses - actual day to day utility for real people (like Steem) and network growth potential. And I can't wait for decentralized exchanges to become a thing so it becomes really easy for Joe the Punter to buy into them, or cash out of them. Compared to "investing" in alt-coins a few years back it's amazing to have so many coins out there but very few have a real story behind them, or future ahead of them beyond hope and a big fat ICO.