Wasn't it just handed out? Minted all in one go? Sounds exactly like "funny money" to me. Let's do something similar and make ourselves rich, like the guy who owns ripple.
I don't think it is as good as true decentralized and verified money as BTC/BCH, but as a means to transfer money it has potential. In the end services like shapeshift might kill this.
I don't understand your last point. I mean, it's certainly not worthless as it can be traded for POW energy backed cryptocurrencies but I don't see the attraction personally.
https://shapeshift.io was mentioned due to expecting a future where realtime conversion of any type of crypto*currency will be available, making a less appeal (my opinion) for Stellar?
