BankXRP said something interesting on twitter a few days ago. Don't get me wrong, he says interesting things on a daily basis, but this inspired me to write this blog. He said, and this is not a direct quote, the XRPcommunity consists of people from all walks of life. Indeed, not all of us share the skills of David Schwartz and Wietse Wind, or the debating abilities of Dr. T, Matt Hamilton, and Kieran Kelly. We cannot all write as Hoder7777 or Tiffany Hayden, but we can all participate, and we do all have our stories. My story is going to have a happy ending, and I would like to share it as it unfolds.

A random day in 2017, a random YouTube channel with a random CEO talking about his random company. Of course, there was nothing random about all of this, and it took me all but 10 minutes to realize. I'm sure you guessed that the CEO in question was Brad Garlinghouse and the company he discussed was Ripple.

At that time, I only knew one cryptocurrency, bitcoin. I had bought some in 2013 and sold them the same year. Funnily, it's not something I dwell on too much. Yes, those coins are worth millions today, but who could've known? There was no way, no scenario, in which I would have held on to those coins for so long. Why not? Believe, faith, the vision you can take your pick. I didn't believe in the idea of replacing banks and many other things for which the bitcoin maximalist stands. Most of them got filthy rich, but I was right.

When I heard Brad Garlinghouse explaining what Ripple was doing, I was sold pretty quickly. With Bitcoin, you had to believe that the banks and governments would roll over and die. Something that was never going to happen, and that's why I wasn't a believer. Ripple, however, offered to solve problems that we all have encountered and they were working with financial institutions and governments. Now, this was something I could get behind.

I bought my first batch of XRP and felt pretty good about it. This would have been the end of my first blog article, were it not for the Fudsters. When someone tells us something negative about our favorite token, there are a few reactions we can have and losing our faith is one of them. Especially, when there are things about the project that you don't understand 100%. I can honestly say that without the XRP community, I would have bailed on this project months ago.

This brings me back to what BankXRP was saying. We all have a role to play in this community. Don't underestimate the impact of following YouTubers such as Jungle Inc, Crypto Nomad or Alex Cobb, who younger members might be able to relate to more easily because he's a teenager himself. On Twitter, there are so many excellent community members who you can follow and support by liking their tweets. I would not have been able to dismiss the FUD without them.

A lesson I learned was that many Fudsters are actually not talking to us, but rather to their own followers. They would love nothing more than being hit with profanities from the XRPcommunity. So I 'like' tweets in which they are crushed with facts. Even if I don't understand 100% what is being said, I do know when someone is dodging a question or ignoring an answer. No one is talking me into selling my XRP.

I realize that I have mentioned some names of bloggers, YouTubers, and Twitter users and know that there are many more that could be added that are just as awesome.

Proud to be part of the XRPmovement; I hope you are too.