Bitcoin Forum

Just write what you think !

No. It's not open, not decentralized.

Nobody needs a Paypal 2.0.

Bitcoin is superior in all aspects.

it's not open yet. It is decentralized....and wtf it's totally different than paypal...

I think you'll change your mind in few month...

It had generated a lot of news earlier on, but now everything seems to die off.

BitShares will completely displace Ripple for handling fiat.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RLcjSXWuU9vBJzzqLEXVACSCdn8zXKTTJRN_LfoCjNY

Most likely this ^^.

well.. the website is down... sure it will replace ripple...

I think you are underestimating ripple and that you'll change your mind in few month. Ripple is only in beta and great news will come in few months for sure.

I think Ripple will do well. If not Ripple itself, then I think the next-gen solutions based off of the Ripple concepts will do extremely well.

The ease with which currencies are exchanged, and the way transactions flow seamlessly/instantly is astounding and I think institutions will embrace the idea of using Ripple or Ripple-like systems for their financial dealings in the future especially between them and other institutions.

The whole 'Bitcoin bridge' thing is really cool. Even just as a bitcoin wallet with a built in BTC <-> fiat automated converter, it could be useful.

That being said, I don't know much about how Ripple works yet, so I can't say with any degree of certainty either way.

What is this?? I've read through the document but it's a bit complicated... Could this be a replacement for Bitcoin? How can this trade physical assets... doesn't someone somewhere have to be holding those assets? Couldn't they then produce more certificates then they actually have? I guess that question is the same for Ripple, I just really don't understand how these kinds of systems can work.

BitUSD is a collateralized  derivative backed by a crypto-currency.  Market forces bidding / shorting BitUSD relative to BitShares will force the price of BitUSD to track the value of USD as the only profitable way to invest in BitUSD.  The BitShares system is unique in that there are no certificates or IOUs and thus no bearer instruments nor potential for default.

Ripple is either centralized through regulated gateways or subject to default of your friends and family.  Also, while you may trust your friend to pay you back eventually, those credit lines are not always liquid!   I can just imagine needing $20 USD and asking my friend who owes me $20 on the Ripple network to 'pay up now' and him telling me to wait until payday.    

I love ripple for able to move usd within the system.

Is the reason someone like ripple stands a chance. The biggest problem with bitcoin etc is it's so fucking complicated. consumers don't want to know the full technology/ethos/history/tech behind a currency they just want to use it.

For the average person it's next to impossible to buy bitcoin. I could buy heroin more easily and have to give less personal info and for a supposed anonymous currency that's not great.

Any attempts like ripple to make things easier are welcome although I'm sure they are just hijacking bitcoin as it's most popular and intend to leave it in their wake.

You are not moving USD with ripple, you are moving promises to pay USD.    If you use it in a decentralized manner you must publish your friends network and trust relationships... far more valuable information than facebook collects.

Of course your wallet ID appears private, but as soon as your or anyone you deal with registers with a single regulated gateway all privacy is gone and network analysis will do the rest.

Having used Ripple, it is very complex. 

Understanding BitShares white paper is like understanding the Ripple design documents and is very complex.  Using BitShares will be easier than using Ripple.

Ok but what I am trying to understand is for example, BitGold. The document says that someone may find someone on Craigslist who wishes to buy 1 BitGold for an oz of gold. That's fine and dandy but... Who created that initial BitGold?? Is it backed by some gold somewhere? How do we do whoever made it didn't make two for every oz of gold he has?

BitGold is the long-side of a short position entered on the blockchain network.  To create it someone had to own enough BitShares to buy 1 oz of gold and then short sell into the market a BitGold to receive BitShares in return.  This creates 2x the value of Gold priced in BitShares held as collateral.   

Because the BitGold vs BitShare market is executed on the blockchain, the miners can do a margin call if the price of BitGold rises and causes the collateral to only equal 1.5x the value of Gold.  The miners would the repurchase BitGold on the market to cover the position and return the BitShares back to the individual who went short.

No. Ripple is horribly flawed.

Only time will tell.

Disclaimer: I'm an OpenCoin employee (since July 9, 2013)

well, I had $2000 in my bistamp, I withdrew it as ripple usd and sent it to my friend's ripple wallet as rippleusd. He sent ripple usd  to his bitstamp account and can withdraw $2000 to his bank. I call it money moving. it doesn sound like promise to me

Ripple is a very well thought money exchange system. Of course, it has a future. How bright it will be, time will tell.
 

It is actually a promise. All money moving is about promises.

No future, because it's closed source and centralized...  I see it as kinda Liberty Reserve 2.0 !

Ripple is decentralized exchange, closed source though. MtGox is centralized and closed source but doing well by now.

you are a dummy ripple is obviously too complex to understand for you

Yeah, many bitcoin hoarders do not understand, how much more beneficial it is to trade bitcoins through ripple, instead of mtgox. This is due to lack of brains perhaps.

Meanwhile, the ripple system is complex to understand, but easy to use. It allows you to buy (or sell) bitcoins from any person in the world without direct connection to this person. You just pay your local currency to your local gateway, and the guy receives his local currency from his local gateway. The system automatically looks for best possible path and does all necessary exchanges. And it works surprisingly well.

Local gateway == centralization.  All local gateways must be regulated money transmitters and they then tie your wallet to your ID.   It is a common interface to many different 'centralized exchanges'.   Remove all regulated & public entities from the ripple system and how would it function?

No, it is not. Mtgox == centralization. Ripple gateway is just a peer which you trust.


Not sure about that. Where do you know this from?


Yes, same as centralized exchanges like mtgox.


To my knowledge, nothing similar to  ripple ever existed before. 


I don't understand what do you suggest to remove, but ripple functions very well as it is.

You don't understand ripple. Gateways are centralization. It is not like a node in bitcoin

It seems that you don't understand neither ripple nor bitcoin. Ripple gateway is a ripple node with a link to outer world.

you noticed that ripple is not bitcoin. this is great . However you still don't understand what ripple is. Too bad for your brain.

Anybody who wants can act as a gateway. You just have to convince other people to trust you. A 'Local gateway' is just whoever you have set up arrangements to allow trading of ripple credit for non-ripple credit.

If you act as a gate way and thus accept 'deposits' from people whom you convince to trust you, you acting as a bank and could be hit by a bus and default on everyone.     What is your availability for withdraw?  If you are on vacation can someone whom you owe money collect?   

Ripple Gateways *are* banks even if they are just a single individual.   Everyone operating as a gateway is either accepting deposits or extending credit and participating in an automated hawala system.   I guess technically hawala systems are legal to the extent that they remain informal and have no contractual obligations.   So who is going to trust a gateway with a large amount of money with no contractual obligations?    If there are contractual obligations, they are a bank and must be regulated. 

nope

Ripple is an intressting idea but for it to work well it needs a lot of users. I think bitcoin has a hard time getting users too but unlike ripple bitcoin brings a lot of innovation to the table.
Unlike Bitcoin though, Ripple intigrates neatly with the existing fiat system which could be a bonus for addoption short term but it also lacks the beauty and genius of the Bitcoin protocoll.
I feel like Bitcoin is this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_layer) and Ripple is this (https://github.com/videlalvaro/gifsockets).

Personally I'm not against it but I just fail to see a single (currently unsolved) problem that ripple solves.

In the end innovation and competition is always good and hence props to OpenCoin even if the (hopefully not proprietary) final implementation won't see traction.

I think Ripple is a great way to make non-Bitcoin legacy currencies almost as useful as bitcoins. It will have a future at least as long as legacies currencies are still something that most people have to deal with.

-it solve confirmation wait time
-you can easily send any currencies to anyone==>bitcoin can't do that
-it's also a potential free market place for anything ==> you need to really understand ripple to get that point

I agree that ripple is still in beta and complicated and taht 95% of people don't understand it yet.

Still don't get it.... Where do these BitGolds come from initially!?

In the beginning there was the BitShare and the BitShare was good and had value as a crypto-currency.

Assume that 1 oz of Gold is currently equal to 100 BitShares in the real-life market.

Sam thinks the value of BitShares will go up relative to gold, so he wants to short Gold.
Alex thinks BitShares are in a bubble, and wants to go long Gold.

Neither Sam nor Alex actually own any gold, they are merely speculating on the price movement.

Both Sam & Alex start out with 100 BitShares that they mined (or acquired by other means).

Sam and Alex make a bet and collateralize their bet with their BitShares...  Sam 'sells' one BitGold to Alex on the block-chain exchange where Sam and Alex represent the highest bid / lowest ask pair and the price for BitGold was 100 BitShares.    For Sam to sell something (BitGold) that is worth 100 BitShares he must have 100 BitShares and for Alex to buy something worth 100 BitShares he must also have it.   Therefore no value is created nor destroyed only exchanged.

Now when this exchange was executed the 100 BitShares from both parties are tied up as collateral (200 BitShares total) and Sam cannot spend this collateral unless he returns 1 BitGold to the ether from which it came which means he must buy it back at the future market price.   The network will also monitor the price on the internal exchange and if the value of BitGold ever gets to 150 BitShares the network will automatically liquidate the position on the internal market and give Sam back 50 BitShares. 

At the end of the day there is no BitGold but value has been reallocated between Sam and Alex proportional to the change in price of Gold relative to BitShares.

I have a question about the operation of Ripple for the purpose of cross-chain-trading.

Suppose I have BTC in my wallet and want to send it to someone 'conditionally' on them sending me Bitstamp.BTC  without having to trust any other party other than BitStamp once the transaction is complete.

I don't want to go first because I don't trust them.  They don't want to go first because they don't trust me. 

So I want to implement atomic cross-chain trading with Ripple.    Is this possible and what would be involved?

As much as i hate it personally, and "people behind it" and the premining idea in general, I think it will survive. I would love to see that exchanges like bitstamp do not accept xrp, but that's me. Even these numerous altcoins have future.

Is the rippleUSD on Bitcoin Charts the ripple system?

http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html

173 BTC traded in the last 30 days is not very much...

Use ripplecharts.com

although XRP value is pretty much sinking to the ground atm.

You get bitstamp.BTC from bitstamp. You can send them to any bitcoun address from you ripple wallet.

P.S. It is much better to ask ripple related questions on ripple forum.

far too early to say it is not even open beta yet

But of course they hired you...because they are smart enough to know talent.  Congrats bro and I mean that!  It's continued good decisions like this that amplify my belief in OpenCoin.

On topic...In my view, one of the biggest hangups for many bitcoiners, is they are unable to view Ripple from any view point other than BTC vs XRP.  Ripple is so much bigger than one currency.  Sure it contains a built in currency to prevent spam and sure, that currency may or may not be valuable one day.  But unlike BTC, XRP does not have to be valuable for the Ripple network to be successful.  In fact, it doesn't matter at all, what the value of XRP is, as it relates to the Ripple network.  

Ripple is a payment network, a protocol that will transform payment rails forever.  It will fundamentally change the way we transact with currencies and each other.  In addition, it will provide the legitimacy and mass adoption, single crypto-currencies will likely never achieve on their own.  

Me being able to pay a vendor or business in crypto and them receive funds in any fiat currency they choose, is simply amazing.  And all in seconds.  Not minutes or hours.  Now average Joe user, doesn't ever need to actually learn or even deal in crypto, but crypto users benefit from the ability to transact with any business connected to the network, regardless of that business' stand on crypto.  

It continues to be my view that naysayer Bitcoiners are going to look at their BTC wallets soon and thank Ripple.   ;)

Disclaimer:  Ripple is AWESOME!

Ripple makes that possible if it gets accepted ubiquitously. In my opinion, the big financial-service brands ought to feel about ripple the way the record labels felt about Napster.

I love Ripple.