Very poor article for a couple reasons:

1.) XRP and Ripple are separate. XRP can stand alone.
2.) 55 Billion was locked up into escrow and CANNOT be touched. 1 billion will be sold each month, and what isn't sold will be put at the back of the line.
3.) This decentralization non-sense needs to end or needs to be all inclusive. BTC and ETH are not as decentralized as people think. The top 4 BTC Miners and Top 3 Ethereum miners control over 50% of the hash rate.