This was without any doubt, done to prop the market cap.
Read the disclaimer,
*Total include business development agreements that are still pending.
Convenient enough to issue a few billion ripple that is for bogus business agreements.
Reeks of desperation, fraud and incompetence.
Come on now, let's not go that far. How is that different from I3 buying BTSX with AGS donations? I think it makes perfect sense for I3 to do that, especially if they believe in their product and want to hire help using BitUSD.
But same could be said for Ripple, it's OK for them to incentivize developers/business partners. Let's not call it desperation, fraud and incompetence, just because it happens to mess up your coinmarketcap stats. Ripple has done some serious innovation in the space, even if it is not obvious to the naked eye.