Bitcoin Forum

Ripple is simply amazing!!

If you don’t know, Ripple is actually 3 different things…

1. It is an internet protocol (like FTP, HTTP, etc.) designed for the sole purpose to federate existing financial systems the same way SMTP brought all the different email companies under one umbrella.

2. It is a market place that allows for the exchange and sale of fiat and crypto currencies. 

3. It is a currency created, not to hold value, but to lubricate the system. By charging .00001 XRP per transaction …. on a scale that proportionally increases to the volume of transactions the sender creates…..it prevents spam and defends against denial of service attacks.


Comparing fiat and crypto currencies to one another is similar to comparing different kinds of cars with different features. Dollars, Bitcoin, euros, litecoin, sterling….they all have something that make them stand out.

Ripple is VERY different. Ripple is the market place to buy and sell those cars and… more importantly .. the road on which they can faster than ever before!!!

I LOVE Bitcoin...that's why I'm using Ripple....I want to see Bitcoin succeed!!!!


(If you MUST have a conceptual comparison, try this: email meets bitcoin meets western union meets the forex)

I setup a ripple account a few weeks ago, since it seems reasonable.  I work next to a wells fargo, so it was pretty easy to get usd into their system.

I like bitcoins better.
If only I had went to their conference where they gave 50k FREE ripples...  That time it was only $500 USD lol...

Totally agree ripple is awesome, The concept does take a bit of getting used to especially if you're new to CC.

I definitely believe it has a lot of potential, There is a lot of misunderstanding of Ripple atm and a lot of detractors who do believe the currency XRP is too centralised for their liking. I personally find the open sourced Ripple protocol and the decentralised echange a lot more interesting and if operated correctly is a game changer for Bitcoin and International finance.

I do believe it's a bit scattered at the moment with a lot users utilising it differently, somewhere users could communicate and form partnerships on or off Ripple would be great.

Isnt ripple centralized which just ruins the main point of bitcoin?

Actually, Ripple is not centralized. Far from it. It is a distributed data base on servers around the world that instantly registers transactions via consensus.

Check out the introductory videos on the YouTube links that I've posted. If you want more detailed information, do a quick search for the Ripple Wiki page.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16ZatXbmLg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxA3Gt7y3c

Good stuff!!! :-D

Ripple is dead and has never lived. Just look at what TF could do with it. It's unreliable and not trustworthy.

I found a website called the Ripple Federation. I think it might be what your looking for.

http://ripplefederation.org

Lots of good stuff there :-)

Jeeze, dude...Ripple just went Open Source a little over a month ago....and has since gotten millions in venture capital backing from Google Venture, Andreessen Horowitz, et al. Ripple is adding hundreds of new accounts a day, have more than doubled the number of gateways, and volume has been steadily rising in every currency.

Perhaps you prefer being slave to bank fees and slow transaction times....I don't.

I prefer security and if slow transactions (10 minutes ain't slow) and fee's (which is only 13 euro cents at the current market price) are required for that, I will take it with both hands. TradeFortress scammed a shitload of people with fake Ripple shit. Have fun with your insecure network.

In POS ... point of sale... transactions ten minutes is a LIFETIME. Trying to do a 10 minute transaction at McDonalds or the supermarket is insane....the sliding credit card copier would be faster!! Bitcoin can only be mainstreamed if it has an expeditious delivery system like Ripple.

Exercising due diligence before depositing your money anywhere is common sense. You know, checking who they bank with, what licenses they have, etc. You don't just send money to the first business that contacts you from Nigeria with promises of wealth....that'd be retarded.

Federating all the existing financial systems under 1 umbrella is where we have to go next. Thus far, Ripple is the first, best and only solution.

I had 40K ripple. I tried to move it to my WeExchange account. It "got lost", and was never seen again, despite transaction confirmations and info.

You can always accept 0 confirmation transaction. Anyway, Bitcoin hasn't been created for small transaction, but that doesn't mean that it can't be used for it. You just have to wait a bit. Also, the dev's could make changes to the protocol to improve it.

You can't exploit the Bitcoin protocol like you can with Ripple. Normal people don't want to check stuff, it's way to complicated for them. They trust big networks (like TradeFortress had) and lose their money, because the stuff they got was worthless. (Thanks Aahzman, for proving my point).

A normal person can barely grasp Bitcoin and Ripple is even harder then that.

The only people talking about Ripple are people from ripplecorp public relations and legal obfuscation offshore holding incorporated, and those who's support was bought with a few million of the 100% premined ponzi coins. Yes, I said it, this really is a cryptocurrency Ponzi. They are not above slandering Bitcoin in front of congress worse than FinCEN themselves did for their own benefit.

Obviously, I'm a noob on this forum. I'm not trying an ad hominem attack, but....why do they have SCAMMER written under your username?

I'm with ya'!! Normal people don't wanna check stuff. With brick and mortar banks and physical stock certificates, it was much easier. Unfortunately, in a blossoming new sector like this, you can't accept just anyone as being a Ripple gateway.

I've heard many comparisons of Bitcoin to gold....and that's exactly how I view it. I LIKE the fact that it takes 10 minutes. It gives Bitcoin gravitas.

I hope Ripple Labs uses the moola that they just got in a vetted competition for venture capital to narrow the learning curve of Ripple for people....because, you're right, it is a bit daunting. Hell, it took me a over a week and a group of 4 friends to conceptualize it.

The easiest way to understand the Ripple system is to think of it as a checking account. You deposit money in a bank (Gateway)...they give you a bunch of IOUs (checks). You can have a check made out in advance for a friend at $10 (create a 'trustline' of $10)....and he can pass it along to whoever he wants (Fill in the Pay To The Order Of). When it gets back to the bank (Gateway) it is redeemed for currency. ....

Unlike banks though, it can be done instantly, to anyone, anywhere, at anytime, in any currency without those DAMN fees that the bank keeps charging me!! XRP is merely the container/envelope/postage stamp for that service. It's function is to prevent morons from overwhelming the system with b.s. transactions. XRP is not an investment. It's a tool.

THAT is cool! :-)

As for me, ripple is the most interesting CC at the moment. They pay XRP for good things like BOINC contribution at worldcommunitygrid.org (not just for wasting electric energy), so I will support them as long as I can.

Currency shouldn't have any purpose except to be currency. Bitcoin is the best because it spend more electricity purposelessly :)
   

Very good explanation :) It definitely does take time for people to fully conceptualise it, I think ripple labs are on the right track
with their  Ripple Primer (https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf) white paper but a variety of resources is required as people
have differing learning techniques.

I like the idea in ripple but how do you use it exactly with bitcoin? Do you have some real life examples where you have used it and it was easier to use than via 'normal' banks?

What did tf do exactly with ripple? Also ya ripple is a mixture of paypal and bitcoin. If this were math, this would be the equation: 0 (paypal) * 10 (bitcoin) = 0 (ripple)! :D

Well…I’m an American, but I work in Saudi Arabia.

I can now send money home to my family in Kentucky as quickly as I can reach in my wallet and hand cash to the guy next to me.

So, a specific example: My friend wanted to get into Ripple. He opened an account. I had a Bitcoin in Ripple that I deposited at Bitstamp several weeks ago. (Bitstamp is Ripple gateway that I have vetted thoroughly) I sent the BTC to my friend (instantly). He wanted it quickly because he thinks that XRP are cheap and will go up in value. I don’t disagree, but Ripple is a payment system first and foremost….and a currency exchange secondly. It’s not really an investment vehicle like stock, CDs, Bitcoin, gold, etc.

So, anyhow, I sent him the coin instantly. In terms of him paying me?…well, he’s using the traditional bank to bank transfer. We’re in the middle of day 2 now. It should take him 3 ‘business days’….which is a polite way of saying ‘a long-ass time’ given weekends and holidays that get in the way (both here in Saudi and in America).

Cheers!

I'm sorry, I've read your post several times and it simply doesn't make any sense to me. Why are you multiplying 0 times 10 exactly? What does the 0 represent? Why are you multiplying...in lieu of squaring, subtracting, dividing, etc.? Are you talking about XRP or the Ripple system? Again....perhaps I'm a bit daft, but I'm not getting the meaning of your post at all.

0 is what its ranked. IMO paypal sucks. 10 = bitcoin = AWESOME. I multiplied so I can get 0 which is what I think that ripple is. Its a mix between paypal and BTC and thats just not right.

I don't know the whole story, nor did I care, so I might be wrong. But as far as I know he had to pay people BTC and convicend them to accept Ripple's IUO (or whatever it's called). Those IUO's were worthless, so a shitload of people lost a shitload of money.
It was either that or that he tricked the system to gave him 100000+ BTC. Can't remember correctly.

Google Ventures kicked in maybe $200K from all of the research I've done, which, while no means is chump change, is chump change for Google.

I wouldn't follow that as any source for a trustworthy platform.

And he can't pay 4100 btc to people who lost on inputs?

The thing about all of the coins, not just ripple is that the creators mine enough coins for thenselves. By enough, I mean a lot. How much is one ripple worth? Also now that its "open source" are you able to mine it?

He didn't get it out / didn't want to get it out, dunno anymore. Would have to read up about it.

So, since

0 = the number of facts you present about paypal

0 = the relevance of paypal to this topic thread

0 = the number of facts used to quality your position about BTC

0 = is the amount of logic behind your choice to multiply

Then….

0 = is the amount that I care.

If you cannot support your position with one shred of empirical evidence, then please don’t waste my time nor that of the reader’s of this forum with your inane babble.

Ripple or XRP? an XRP is worth approximately .04 cents. Ripple, the protocol and currency exchange, doesn't have a measurable 'value'. It is open source.

You cannot mine XRP. An XRP is required to conduct a transaction on the Ripple payment system/currency exchange. By charging a fraction of an XRP for each transaction it prevents denial of service attacks from spamming. That's why they made a ridiculous number of them .... 100 Billion. The greater the quantity of transactions in a short period of time, the increased cost to the sender. Thus, the system can't be crippled like other internet protocols HTTPS or FTP.

XRP are like ball bearing to the Ripple system. They are not the center of it. Dollars, Bitcoins, Euros, Litecoin, Yen, Sterling....those are the currencies.

My research from Venture Capital Post, CNN Money, et al sources indicates that the 3.5 million came from Core Innovations, Venture 51, Camp One Ventures and IDG Partners.

Additionally, an undisclosed amount of seed money came from Google Ventures, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, FF Angel, Vast Ventures, and The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund.

Yes, the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund also.

All of these organizations vetted and scrutinized Ripple to the nth degree before they just handed over their money. THAT makes it about the most trustworthy investment going in terms of potential for growth.

I recently realized that Bitcoin is actually quite similar to Ripple in the sense that in both cases there are 2 elements: a currency and a network/protocol.

In Ripple the currency is used as a kind of reserve currency to facilitate exchanges between two other currencies and as a way to avoid spam (because you have to send a small amount in XRP to send money). And in Bitcoin to be able to use the network/protocol function (even if the application or protocol you are using concerns 'non-bitcoin functions such as notary services or exchanges between different currencies or transferring ownership titles to stocks or other goods) you have to secure spots in the ledger, and these spots are bitcoins.

So both in Ripple and in Bitcoin the demand for their respective currencies springs in part from the fact that you need them in order to be able to use the network function. 

https://i.imgur.com/0Le1fSM.jpg

Anyone want these? They look like bitcoins don't they?
You want them? just post your ripple address and trust me for 4 'bitcoins' and I'll send them to you.

I tell you what, I'll write you a check for 'em. In fact, I'll write you a check for a million dollars apiece.

You will accept a check, right? Checks....also known as IOUs....have been a cornerstone of the finance industry for centuries. Surely you would take my million dollar check then, right?

If you can find someone stupid enough to accept 'bitcoin checks' issued by dancupid, then send them on to me when your done...I'll see what they'll take for a million dollar check....or some magic beans....

You obviously have to exercise due diligence whenever you deposit your money anywhere....an online broker, a bank, a gateway, a mutual fund, etc. A person's willingness to accept a bad check is not a condemnation of the system.

Apparently there is a bridge between them as well. Bitcoin can be sent directly to and from a Ripple account without the need of a gateway.

You are right that they both serve a functional value. With Bitcoin, it is the Bitcoin itself that has value. With Ripple, it is the system that has significance...specifically it's ability to deal with ANYTHING that has value.....frequent flier miles, dollars, dunkin' doughnut credits, Bitcoin, euros, etc.

Comparing Bitcoin and XRP is like comparing a bowling ball to the ball bearings in the auto-return at a bowling alley. One has value to the game, the other has value to the machinery that allows for the game to be played more efficiently.

Hasn't anyone figured out that this is just a PR thread for Ripple?  Seems they hired a very exuberant intern to post on forums.

Paypal. Many people have issue with them. It doesnt affect people in their daily life and isnt really that bad for sending moeny to relatives but when it comes down to preordering things, bitcoin, and chargeback, things go to hell.

I see ripple as a mix of paypal and btc

This is the bitcoin forums. Spend some time and you will see all the pros.

I guess you could add and then divide by two (get the average), but all in all ripple doesnt beat btc in any way.

exactly what i was thinking, ripple is certainly interesting and i will keep my eye on it but im not exactly rushing off to deposit my money.

Actually, I'm an English teacher in Saudi Arabia.

I remember the internet before http
I remember emails before smtp
I remember instant messaging before they could cross communicate.

I also remember Beta vs VHS. The superior platform lost...not due to performance, but due to misinformation and marketing.

I loathe paying fees to banks. I cringe every time I exchange currencies. I am frustrated by the days it takes to transfer money. I am very leery of fiat currencies.

I see that Ripple is a better 'mouse trap'...that's open source...and saves me and everyone else a buttload of money. I would hate to see it fail for a non-legit reason. I have...and will continue to...research the hell out of it. Thus far, I can't find any chinks in it's armor. If you can point to something specific, and provide verifiable evidence to support your position, for goodness sake LMK so that I can get out....

Whats funny is that Ripple inst (fully) open source. They are like twitter, claiming to be open source because a tiny part of their script is online.

Your right, Ripple is affraid their brand is not recognized enough to allow publish full open source, and they are right

Even twitter didnt release their code fully.

IIRC, he scammed a bunch of people in the marketplace.

Ripple is, I believe, a lot more in line with Central Banking ideology than other cryptocoins.  It is distributed but not decentralized.  But they claim the opposite.

Being Open Source has nothing to do with mining, but if you want to use your computer to crunch numbers and get XRP, you can do that.

Go to www.ComputingForGood.org and get started. One big difference is that when you trade computation for XRP, you aren't just generating heat like with Bitcoin mining. Instead, you are crunching results for scientific research (mostly AIDS and research).

And what part, exactly, is not open source?

Just visit the ripple code repository on github: https://github.com/ripple/

They have open sourced:

• The full server: rippled
• The web client
• Java, JavaScript, and Ruby libraries for the API
• The ripplecharts.com code
• The blobvault for the wallet
• The network graph site code
• and a bunch of other minor stuff

Anything else, like an android wallet or web shopping cart, either hasn't been written yet or is not yet at a point where it is being used either as open or closed source.

Go look. It is all right there at github.

I've read about this before, but just recently signed up for it.  My computer is by no means a mean machine  ;D, but every little bit helps right?

Its architecture is fully decentralised.

As soon as their website is down, Ripple will be down too. You won't be able to access the Bitcoins and Ripples that you have in your account. That should say enough, right? It's like a web wallet, but 10 times worse.

It wouldn't matter if Ripple Labs went down, you would simply have to talk to a different server, maybe your own. It would be like blockchain.info going down. Actually, even less than that since you would still have access to your funds.

Care to explain how one would still have access to the funds? As far as I know everything is controlled from their website.

No it isn't.
You normally use the web client that's served from their site, but you don't have to (it's just convenient).
You can download the client and run it from your local computer (if you have a small web server installed) or run it from another web server anywhere. Building the client is a bit complicated, it requires the "grunt" system and node.js, and you need a fairly recent version for that. Don't know exactly which platforms are supported, ubuntu 12.04 LTS (which I use here on this computer) isn't :-(
Second, you need to connect to a ripple server. The default configuration connects to the servers operated by Ripple Labs, but you can connect to any other server instead if you like. At the moment I don't know of other publicly accessible servers though, and I did not set up a server myself, so currently I'm using their servers.

Onkel Paul

That sounds like a shitload lot of work for a normal person. No way that they will understand how to do it without researching it for hours. Like I said before, Ripple is a lot harder to grasp and understand then Bitcoin and this proves it onces again.

This times 100

Wasn't Ripple seriously premined or something of that nature.  Not sure just what I remember from the little I know about it.  Not cool if so and not something I'd like to invest in if so.  Just my 2 cents on the matter as I don't really know for sure so don't quote me lol.

I have read that the developers of Ripple have a shitload of XPR since the beginning, so I guess it's premined.

"Premined" does not make much sense in the context of Ripple, as there is no mining at all.
Yes, all the XRP in existance have been generated at the start. Ripple Labs have been very open about the way this works: They distribute reasonable amounts through giveaways so early adopters can experiment with the system. In the long run, they don't want the price of XRP to rise much (unlike BTC) but to stay low enough that transactions (which need XRP) are both really cheap and still not free to discourage transaction spamming.
They also made clear that they retained or gave to their developers most of the XRP to be sold, thereby generating revenue.

All of this has been asked and answered a number of times already. It would be really great if people read up on available information instead of spreading misinformation.

Onkel Paul

Ripple is a bogus, central banker-initiated, attempt at usurping the truly decentralized nature of bitcoin and similar cryptos.

Ripple is not decentralized, it is distributed, big difference.  There's nothing peer-to-peer about ripple.  It relies on 'trusted gateways'.

Just check out www.ripplescam.com

From their site:
"Ripple™: It’s highly misleading and not what you think it is. Ripple is a centralized payment system that allows the transfer of artificially printed tokens that claims to be money, like “USD” or “BTC”. OpenCoin Inc goes to great lengths to camouflage the fact that they have total control over the Ripple network, and calls themselves a distributed payment network."

The true power in Bitcoin and the like is:

1)  The inflation rate is known and can't be manipulated.
2)  The total number of bitcoins that can ever be created is known.

Central bankers don't like that...so the created Ripple, for which the number of coins can be increased at their whim.  Also, the upper number could be increased at their whim.  Just because they tell us there is an upper limit means nothing, since Ripple is not based on mining.  They can overnight say, actually, we just created another billion coins.  Just like central banks, which are printing $85 Billion per month and in the coming months they plan to increase this even further.  This type of inflation is not practically possible with Bitcoin and other cryptos, unless it is done at the outset.

Correction:

www.ripplescam.org

I don't like ripple at all.. they have been increasing the price in purpose since the very beginnings.. and I keep asking myself.. what do they have? nothing have been tested yet, so I wouldn't invest in it..

Then please explain the PeerFinder code within the rippled source tree: https://github.com/ripple/rippled/tree/9e519af887b0854ef167a45e52f4b50000cdf85c/src/ripple/peerfinder

There is a very nice Readme right at that link that explains the P2P design. Remember BearShare, one of the Gnutella clients? The person responsible for that is crafting the Ripple P2P design. He knows the topic area from hard won real world experience.

Gateways, on the other hand, are a convenience for moving the currency of your choice into and out of the Ripple system. Bitcoin relies on trusted exchanges for people to do the same, but they are more limited. "Oh," you say, "it is possible to use Bitcoin without ever using an exchange!" Well, it is similarly possible to use Ripple without using a gateway, but both systems are much more useful if you do. The choice in both is left to the user. There is no compulsion.

Actually it's very, very far from a centralized banking ideology.

Here's an overview of Ripple ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxA3Gt7y3c

Here is an explanation of Ripple in 60 seconds ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyIEMyMfqs

Here is a video to help you understand how a Gateway works ...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16ZatXbmLg

Here is a video to help you understand how the consensus ledger works ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0

Perhaps this video will help you understand how the client works ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06H86TNeJMw



If that doesn't provide you with enough, you may download Rippled from Github and add your own server to the network.

Additionally, you can go to https://ripple.com/wiki/ to get more accurate information that you can possibly read.

If you notice the dates, it was long before Ripple went open source. The author understandably didn't update his blog after the fact. Nor has he allowed 1 comment to be posted since.

I have personally refuted every single one of the inaccuracies , however for some strange reason my post has been 'PENDING APPROVAL' for weeks.

If the originator had one shred of dignity he would update his site, allow comments to refute him, etc.

But I still have these 4 'bitcoins' in my ripple account - they look the same as normal bitcoins, ripple tells me I have 4 bitcoins, but I know I have no bitcoins in my Ripple account.
I cannot now use Ripple, since I cannot tell which bitcoins are real and which are not.
It doesn't work, becasue it lets you store fake bitcoins and you have no way of telling which are real and which are not.
I do not trust it. So I will not use it.

Ripple is a payment system, a currency exchange and a currency (XRP) needed to lubricate the two previously mentioned functions. As an XRP is just over .03 cents (US), I am confused by your comment about them 'raising the price'. I have been testing it for weeks now. I have been using it successfully to send money all over the world, instantly in several different currencies. Ripple is still in Beta, but perhaps you are looking at the wrong site....

I think mastercoin is quite a bit better than ripple and it's gotten a lot more funding from what I've heard.

How did you get 4 BTC that you know you don't have? It sounds like you created another account, extended trust to that account, and then sent 4 Bitcoin from one to the other. What you did was 'write a check' off of one wallet and put in another. Can you please post the trust lines that are currently in that wallet?

As I tried to get at earlier, I can write a check for a million dollars issued by the Bank of PirateButtercup. But why in the world would anyone take it?

You're not storing 'fake' Bitcoin. You're storing outlandish checks that you have written to yourself (or have accepted from a friend). Try to redeem your check at a gateway and you'll get nowhere.

Until you understand what you're doing, it is HIGHLY recommended that you do not extend trust lines (accept checks) from anyplace other than the bank (Gateway) where you deposited your money.

I am not well read on Mastercoin. However, it is clear that they are limited to crytpo-currencies. They do not have any systems to interact with dollars, yen, euros, sterling, etc.....let alone other value containers like frequent flier miles, starbucks credits, what-have-you.

It's inability to bridge the gap between fiat and crypto currencies as well as other units of value makes it a less viable option to Ripple, as it can handle ALL of the coins, all of the fiat and anything else you can dream up. (One guy for example started a currency backed by 1,000s of silver dimes he has....called DYM if you're interested)

In terms of funding, the seed money provided by Google Ventures, Andreesen Horowitz, et al has not been disclosed. The Angel funding simply isn't known. The Venture funding (the last round in November) was only $3.5. There are several articles online regarding the different types of funding as they progress if you want more information.

You shouldn't be able to send them to people that don't trust TradeFortress.

These are tradefortressIOUbitcoins - I bought them in this auction thread (to prove a point) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207054.0;all

Anyone can send a million spam emails telling people if they trust me for $100 I will send them 100 ripple dollars. People will just think 'ok - it can't do any harm'
There is no trust involved - no one cares if they think they have $100 in their ripple account.
And once they have their $100 they have no way of getting rid of that fake money and their ripple account no longer works.  
Fake money will sit in people accounts and they won't know what is real and what isn't.
People will build lines of fake trust, becasue that's how the internet is.

The primary reason it is so much harder to grasp is because it is WAY more than a crypto-currency. In fact, XRP...the currency in Ripple...is far from significant. Dollars, Euros, Bitcoin, Yen, Litecoin, etc. are what's important.

Perhaps these videos will help you:

Here's an overview of Ripple ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxA3Gt7y3c

Here is an explanation of Ripple in 60 seconds ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyIEMyMfqs

Here is a video to help you understand how a Gateway works ...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16ZatXbmLg

Here is a video to help you understand how the consensus ledger works ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0

Perhaps this video will help you understand how the client works ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06H86TNeJMw

So, what's your role with Ripple? Obviously not just a patron.

Interesting point. I know I have no need to trust anyone but the bank (gateway) where I deposited my money. If someone wants a loan, I'm just gonna send it to them....not open a trust line. According to the Ripple wiki they will have three levels of Gateways....

Now...in terms of the 'Ripple Dollars' you mentioned, not all dollars have the same value. (You can read about the 'free banking era' in the U.S. if you want a real extreme case of this.) The value of dollars from different gateways have different values. This is the same as how a Canadian quarter loses value the further you walk into the U.S. with it.....or how a dollar in the airport doesn't have the same value as a dollar at Walmart.

Before it comes out of Beta, Ripple has posted on the wiki page that there will be a 3 tiered system of Gateways. Personally, I'll only trust those who have been vetted, maintain a super high reserve ratio and have been approved by the International Ripple Business Association (IRBA).

That is no different than me saying that'll only open a checking account with a bank that is FDIC insured, and duly licensed and registered.

I'm sorry to say, but I won't extend credit (trust) to the First National Gateway Bank of Dancupid....and I would hope you don't extend credit (trust) to the First National Gateway Bank of PirateButtercup ;-)

I won't be extending any trust to the Ripple concept - so I won't be using it.

Well....I've been donating a lot of processor time to World Community Grid to crunch data to cure cancer, aids, etc. They of course giveaway XRP for this.

I really relish the idea of a virtual Switzerland, where I can put money that I with minimal government intrusion. I wire money around the globe frequently and hate waiting days or weeks for it to get there (depending on holidays/weekends). I travel internationally and .... if you've ever been to a currency exchange ... get sick every time I pay money to use a different money.

I have a few XRP, but...honestly....I don't feel that it will ever exceed .10 cents.....maybe a dollar if it goes CRAZY.

It's the ease of the system that I love, the fact that it's open source. I also LOVE Bitcoin, I love it's anti-establishment nature. But I'm afraid it may be too anti-establishment (as demonstrated by China's/France's announcements).

I see the Ripple system as an excellent way to bridge the existing systems fiat with the future of cryptos, without which I'm afraid governments are gonna come out swinging ... as cryptos completely undermine the nation state.

Oh...and I abhor misinformation.

Hey all, super newbie here...

I'm not using Ripple yet and I'm not sure I plan to after reading what people here have to say about it. Yet I'm genuinely curious about it and I've got a question...

Can Ripple be used to buy LTC from BTC without having XRP involved in the process? Or is the "small fee" always paid in XRP?

Also, if I don't really "trust" Ripple to put all my eggs into and have no faith whatsoever in XRP, can I still use Ripple to, say:

- transfer a tiny amount of BTC from Bitstamp to Ripple
- exchange the tiny amount of BTC into another crypto currency at Ripple
- transfer the new cryptocurrency to my wallet(s)

How long would that take?

Basically I take it that my question comes down to: even if I don't trust Ripple much, can it still be useful to convert and move small amounts to/from different crypto currencies? (hence never being exposed too much to Ripple being a scam or getting owned by the feds / DoJ or hacked or anything else that could happen to the centralized dot com server).

I know someone who's wife left them because she met an old fling on Facebook....he won't use FB now.

I know someone who actually fell for that Nigerian email scam years ago....and they never use email now.

I know someone who owned a Mac in that late 80's that broke ...  he won't buy another Apple product.

I understand you've got some of TradeFortress's BTC...that sucks....and I understand why you won't be using Ripple now.



BTW...I recently learned of DATA (Digital Asset Transfer Authority) that is being set up to self-regulate the virtual money industry before governments start sledgehammering regulations. Bitcoin, Ripple and Ven seem to be the 3 represented bodies. It'll be interesting to see what they do to stop people like TradeFortress, or the robberies of earlier BTC sites.

Wish you luck, man....

One XRP costs about .03 cents. There are 1,000,000 'drops' in a ripple. The system charges 10 drops.... or .000001 cents to send currency (other than XRP) from one account to another. This is required to prevent spam and denial of service attacks on the system.

I believe 20 XRP are required for an active account, but there are free XRPs everywhere.

Yes, you can buy and sell LTC/BTC in the Ripple system.
Yes you can transfer a tiny amount of BTC from Bitstamp into Ripple.
Yes you can exchange that tiny amount of BTC for any fiat or crypto currency available. (It's still in Beta, mind you.)
Yes you can transfer that new crypto currency (i.e. Litecoin) back out of Ripple. (you may wanna consider using JustCoin)
You will never need more than .50 cents worth of XRP in your entire life as it will cover 20,000,000 transactions.

Everything that you do within the Ripple system is instant.

Ripple is not on a centralized server. The consensus ledger is kept on numerous servers around the world. In fact, I'm in the process of setting up RippleD server right now. It is Open Source. (https://ripple.com/wiki/)

If you find a money swapping pair that is not available in the system....(for example Litecoin for Yen) ... then there is an opportunity for you to set yourself up as a market maker by offering that pair....

Good luck!! :-)

I won't be using it because I have 4 bitcoins in my ripple account that aren't real. If I add more bitcoins then I won't know which bitcoins are real and which aren't - it doesn't work, so I can't and wont use it.
I'm unwilling to risk my money

If it were bank initiated, it certainly wouldn't be open source. Actually it was initiated by the founder of Coin Base, et al and received significant seed money from the Bitcoin Opportunity Fund. If it were a scam, it would have came up during the vetting process of any of it's several rounds of raising capital.

It is no way similar to any of the cryptos. It is a system of transferring and exchanging value. XRP are not designed to be a container of value. They simply lubricate the system by preventing spam and denial of service attacks.

Here are some videos to help you around the learning curve and correct misconceptions:

Here's an overview of Ripple ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zxA3Gt7y3c

Here is an explanation of Ripple in 60 seconds ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwyIEMyMfqs

Here is a video to help you understand how a Gateway works ...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M16ZatXbmLg

Here is a video to help you understand how the consensus ledger works ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pj1QVb1vlC0

Perhaps this video will help you understand how the client works ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06H86TNeJMw

Cheers!

This is just like having an account at a bitcoin exchange, or a bank, with the difference that with Ripple it is a neutral and algorithmic P2P network that is keeping the books, not the bank or exchange itself. Don't extend trust to anyone you wouldn't open an online account with.

Oh...I understand now...sorry. Actually whenever you attempt to trade currency it will ask you which BTC you wanna use....BTC-Bitstamp, BTC-JustCoin, etc. or which dollars you wanna use USD-Bitstamp, USD-JustCoin, etc.

/Users/Harpool/Desktop/Screen Shot 2013-12-13 at 11.04.18 PM.jpg


(I hope that screenshot shows up....again...kinda new at this forum)

Now...in terms of how to get rid of the bogus BTC completely...I dunno. I'll have to explore that myself.  (Historically, it may be kinda neat that you have them.) I set up 5 or 6 accounts and started moving stuff all around, adjust trust lines, etc....just playing. When I'm finished I'm just gonna move my stuff out and let those accounts go unused.

In the end, I'm thinking it may be best to have one "In" account...one "Out" account... and one that never trusts anyone (including Gateways)....but I dunno yet...

Is it possible to buy bitcoins via ripple directly from your bank, instead of going through localbitcoins (dangerous) or coinbase (takes too long)

I mean, how quick is it to set up a ripple account, and fund it from your bank, then buy BTC from somewhere?  Where would you buy it from?

If you notice the author of that site has not allowed publication of ANY comments since Ripple went Open Source. His information is misleading at times and he is misinformed at others. He will not allow authorization of any post that conflicts with his initial opinion.

Check out some of the videos that I've posted in others comments.

Also, check out some of these sites that I copied from the Ripple Federation:

Official site - ripple.com
Official forum - ripple.com/forum
Ripple Wiki - ripple.com/wiki
Ripple Blog - ripple.com/blog
A list of Ripple Gateways - ripple.com/gateways
Ripple network graph - ripple.com/graph
Server uptime - status.ripple.com
Instructional Articles and White Papers

Ripple, or Bills of Exchange 2.0 by J.P. Koning (copy)
OpenGateway by Bob Way (pdf)
Bitcoin: A P2P Electronic Cash System by S.Nakamoto (pdf)
How to Set Up a Trust Line for SnapSwap in your Ripple Wallet (copy)
Ripple Security: pass-phrase and secret key by Dave Chapeskie
Ripple Wallet Review by Donald McIntyre (copy)
SmartPhone Penetration Argentina and Brazil
More Community Pages

International Ripple Business Association - XRPga.org
Information on the latest giveaways - RippleGiveaway.com
A good alternative Ripple forum - XRPtalk.org
Chinese Ripple website with several services - ripplecn.org
The 'All things Ripple/XRP' page on bitcointalk.org
Chinese Ripple forum - ripplechina.net
Reddit discussions - reddit.com/r/Ripple+Ripplers

ORGANIZATIONS
 
Ripple Labs - Creators of the Ripple Protocol, a peer-to-peer payment network. Visit Ripple.com for more information.
International Ripple Business Association - The IRBA provides unified procedures to establish trustworthy and secure services for Ripple customers. (discussion)
Ripple Federation - Nonprofit working to inform and empower users of Ripple. (discussion)


GATEWAYS AND EXCHANGES
 
Kraken - A new standard for secure, feature-rich digital asset trading. (discussion)
Wisepass - Gateway offering trading in many different currencies. (discussion)
Dividend Rippler - Anonymous gateway dealing in Bitcoin and Litecoin (discussion)
SnapSwap - Gateway serving U.S. customers. (discussion)
Bitstamp - Established Bitcoin exchange now supporting trading of many currencies in Ripple. (discussion)
RippleCN - Chinese gateway offering a range of products and services. (discussion)
RippleChina - Chinese gateway offering a range of products and services.
XRPChina - Chinese gateway with a specialty of quotes and markets.
The Rock Trading - Gateway based in Italy dealing with EUR, USD, and various virtual currencies. (discussion)
WeExchange - Australian gateway dealing with Bitcoin, USD, AUD, and CAD. (discussion)
Ripple Israel / Bitcoin Israel - Oldest Bitcoin exchange in Israel still in full operation, now offering Ripple services. (discussion)
Justcoin - Gateway and Bitcoin exchange based in Norway.

 

I read yesterday of a place that you could buy XRP with a credit card. I have not vetted them myself, so I'm not recommending them. I like buying my Bitcoin through Coinbase because I've got my account verified and they let me buy them instantly. One of the Chinese gateways lets you use Paypal, but I don't know Chinese, don't trust Google translate enough with my money and have a sneaky suspicion that Paypal China is different than Paypal US.

If you're American, you can wire money to SnapSwap.us and (because they don't have a wallet service) they will pump it directly into your Ripple account. But, again, I have not personally vetted them....and it takes that same ridiculous 3 days to wire money .... which is completely alleviated once your in the Ripple system. They do meet the seal of approval of the International Ripple Business Association.

Bitstamp is great. And, if you're not American, I've been having a good experience with TheRockTrading (in Malta). I'm not finished doing my background check on them yet though....

Yes...a check is an IOU. It is an IOU issued by my bank (it's got their name on it, not Uncle Sam's) that I can give to anyone. Some places don't accept those IOUs even though they are made in dollars. It is a receipt showing that my bank owes whoever I gave it to that much in USD.

Even the dollar is an IOU. Historically it's been an IOU for silver (silver certificates) or gold (until we came off the gold standard). That's the issue with fiat currency, you know...now it's an IOU for absolutely nothing. People shifted the trust that the government would give them silver/gold into just trust of the government. The government has been taking advantage of that trust by printing money like there's no tomorrow. That is another reason I really love Bitcoin...cause they ain't making any new ones. 

There are numerous articles online regarding the history of currency and checking. Perhaps you may wanna get a bit more historical perspective on this.

Comparing Bitcoin and Ripple is comparing cars to a highway. I know both of them VERY well...that's why I started the entire post. Please look at some of the videos that I've posted and read a bit. Your comments seem to me to demonstrate that your knowledge of Ripple is about on par with your knowledge of fiat. 

Because I'm setup, I've been helping my friends buy BTC and XRP within minutes. If you've got a friend who's already built the infrastructure for immediate transactions, I'd recommend you go to him and try a few small amounts until you've got your feet wet.

If you don't have a friend (already set up) then my experience is that it's just gonna take you time until you get everything verified and rolling (minimum of 3 days). It's the damn banks and their pokey systems that are proving to be the barrier to entry into Ripple, Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc.

I still have graphite in my left hand from when I stabbed myself with a pencil in first grade. However, I still use both pencils and my left hand as I find them both to be extremely useful.

Solution #1: If you want to see how much of each type of BTC you hold, go to the Trust tab in your Ripple client. It will not only show you the trust lines that you have open for each issuer and currency, but it will also show you how much of each type of currency you hold from them. While you have the Trust tab open, set TradeFortress's trust setting to 0.

Solution #2: If you really want to liquidate your stock of 4 TradeFortress BTC, I have just placed an offer on the order book giving 0.001 XRP per TradeFortress BTC. Go to the Trade tab, select the BTC/XRP dropdown and enter TradeFortress's address (rH3bZsvVUhzugvcYuJVoSYCEMHkfK6wHNv) as the BTC issuer. Then cross the trade. If you only hold TradeFortress BTC, you can skip the Trade tab entirely and just use the Convert tab.

This will allow you to clear out those worthless BTC and put this episode behind you. Then you can move on with your Ripple usage, knowing that you should only trust gateways worthy of your trust. Bitstamp is a good place to start.

A straight answer, you will not get.  It's obvious this person is a part of Ripple-affiliated organization but can't say so for whatever reason.  In fact, some quick Googling of usernames from this thread will show that some of the people in this thread have been propping up XRP for quite some time.

Well...it's not illegal for you to write a check for a million dollars if you don't have it in your account. It's illegal of you to intentionally use that check to defraud someone....and intentional fraud, be it with TradFortress-USD in the Ripple system or with defective whoopi-cushions is a crime. Additionally, as I'm sure you noticed, none of this industry has been regulated .... YET. Thanks to thefts from various online wallets, Silk Road, etc. the hammer may be falling soon....

My use of 'IOU' and 'checks' and 'credit' is merely meant to help people conceptualize what Trustlines. They developed this term, and others like it, to cut loose baggage concepts like interest rates, overdraft fees, etc.

Trustlines are technically not like checks no more than checks are IOUs. To my knowledge know one within Ripple nor any of it's Gateways would accept a check.

Geeze...I think I've answered this twice now, haven't I?

You must be one of those Birthers still who think Obama is from Kenya. I mean, seriously....you want a urine test or what?

My question is ... Why are do people intentionally slag off something they don't understand?

Or, why be willfully ignorant?

Study a concept THEN falsify it.

Support your arguments with evidence...statistics, quotes and examples..... not opinions, heresay or conjecture.....

....and now that I've written that, it's painfully evident to me that I teach English.....

I wouldn't call that a play on words. I would call it a tidy summation of the exact quote you just posted. I felt that you were intentionally ignoring the forest for the trees....that is an analogy, by the way (in the event you're a forest ranger), meaning that you were getting so obsessed with the specifics that you were missing the big picture....that is another analogy, by the way (in the event that you're a painter or photographer) meaning that you'd lost the plot ... which is indeed another analogy, in case you are a writer....etc.,

Perhaps in your excitement to read my response you overlooked the word 'conceptualize'. Perhaps I was wrong to think that you understood that I was speaking analogously.

To return to the topic, if you have a legitimate, reasoned and supportable objection to any of the facts that I have laid out about how important and valuable I deem Bitcoin or how it can be better mainstreamed through the use of the Ripple system....by all means, let me know...

OK...I have said about ALL that I can say on this. I have spent enough time. I'm gonna get back to trying to set up my own RippleD server.

I'm not gonna post anymore on this topic as there are other things that I need to learn about (Like this Digital Asset Transfer Authority that's been established!)

In addition to the numerous links I've posted, here is a great article I just found a few hours ago called

Ripple: Bitcoin in Business Attire

It says what I've been saying.....Ripple is a great middle ground between the crypto currencies and the fiat currencies.....plus a bunch more

http://web.appstorm.net/reviews/finances-reviews/ripple-bitcoin-in-business-atire/

Actually, you answered it once prior.  And it's extremely suspicious when someone is so GLOWINGLY enthusiastic about Ripple, a gateway/payment system that is not only confusing (on purpose) but quite obfuscated.  But yet, Ripple has been out for quite some time and pretty much no one else on this board is this enthusiastic about it, so this makes this look like some serious astroturfing job.  I have not, at all, tried in any way to falsify anything about Ripple, its network, or anything about it at all, I haven't tried to falsify anything.

But like I said, some quick Google-fu reveals interesting things.  Such as, this is the only place you've used the handle PirateButtercup to discuss Ripple.  In fact, it's only in the Newbies section of the forum as well and not in any other sub-forums.  So while you are obviously over-the-moon about Ripple and its concept, if you're talking about it elsewhere, you're using another handle to do so.  That in and of itself is revelatory.  And like I said, other people propping up Ripple are from other forums that are Ripple/XRP-centric, so this all comes across as a giant promotion (like I said originally).  This is why many people are so skeptical, it's not because of Ripple or any misunderstanding of it, it's because this looks like astroturfing.

I know that open source has nothing to do wit mining, I just forgot a ".". Do they have a GUI or is it just a pool sort of thing?

That would be an online wallet. As I said before, Ripple isnt fully open source.

You've said it before, and you're wrong. Ripple is now fully open source.

So you are saying that in a few minutes, I can clone Ripple (XRP + Site) EXACTLY how it is?

I haven't done it myself, but I understand it's a couple of hours work if you've never done it before. Probably minutes to an hour if you've done it before, and less if you have it scripted, but I don't think many people do. Note that I'm not saying that Ripple Labs doesn't have closed source code, but that's just like Bitstamp or Mt Gox or blockchain.info having closed source too. The essentials like client and server and lots of supporting stuff as well are open source.

Yes, but they still are running things that we dont know of, just like Twitter.

EDIT: Of course this is essential to the business because if they release the FULL source code and steps to reproduce it, people could start their own site and probably overtake Ripple. Unlike this bitcoin is fully open.

It's of course something you could do, however with native BTC underneath, you'd have quite long confirmation times (0 conf transactions likely will not cut it...).

Check out their Open Source release statement, the nearly only thing that they request is that you don't call your fork Ripple or use their logos, to avoid confusion - the code itself is MIT licensed, just like bitcoin-qt.

Their code is at github, have fun hacking away!


Computingforgood piggybacks on the World Community Grid, a bunch of projects that use BOINC to do distributed computing and verification of the results generated. BOINC itself does have GUIs for various operating systems and can also run from the command line.

Well, you can use the JavaScript client on Ripple.com, I consider that to be easier to get started than downloading a couple GB of blockchain data. If you want to run your own full node, you might have to do some more heavy lifting of course - if you are not able to compile it according to the instructions given though, you likely also are not really going to be able to administer the server it'll run on.

Ripple isn't a site, it's a network. The Ripple.com website is just a convenience, and just like blockchain.info, you don't need it to use Ripple. In addition, and unlike blockchain.info, your wallet isn't actually hosted there. People can already start their own sites if they want to.

So the full source code of ripple.com is available? If so, great! I will try to copy and rename it and host it myself.

I am talking about Ripple.com not XPM

Wallets aren't stored on gateways, only currencies (except XRP) are. It's the gateways that are federated, not the wallets themselves. Of course, gateways can offer wallet hosting services if they want to, but it isn't required for being (or using) a gateway.

Just for you (it was already posted in this thread):

To build your own working Ripple network, you need at least 1 rippled server, code at:
https://github.com/ripple/rippled

That's it already, but I guess you want some infrastructure with it?

Then you likely want to have a client instead of writing your own, you can use the one at:
https://github.com/ripple/ripple-client (written in JavaScript)
or you can write your own either using the API or one of these 2 libraries:
https://github.com/ripple/ripple-lib-java (Java)
https://github.com/ripple/ripple-lib (JavaScript)

If you want to store the encrypted blobs for your customers (so they can switch computers and still access their wallets in a secure way) you can set up this server too:
https://github.com/ripple/ripple-blobvault

Afterwards you might want to publish your trades to bitcoincharts.com? There's some code for that!
https://github.com/ripple/ripple-chart

Bitcoincharts is operated by MtGox and closed source though... you'd rather have your own charting website, fully Open source, right?
https://github.com/ripple/ripplecharts


Oh, by the way I operate my own rippled server already for quite some time now, after you know how to compile it (...it is a single command) and where to find the binary then it's smooth sailing from there.

Edit:
ripple.com as in the HTML code for the website?! Or do you actually mean ripple.com/client - the code for that is linked above.

So this is the code of Ripple.com:
https://github.com/ripple/ripple-client (https://github.com/ripple/ripple-client)

What would you accomplish with this? I don't think they make any money on Ripple.com, other than as a way of promoting the Ripple network, which they will hope will eventually lead to substantial appreciation of XRP. Running a gateway (which means holding fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies other than XRP for safekeeping) or acting as a market maker is how you make money with Ripple, and you don't need Ripple.com for it.

For fun. Also it would be if I could mess with it and port it to BTC. Then I have my own little online wallet running!

So you admit it's actually a very good system?

That's exactly what runs at https://ripple.com/client/ yes.

The server component it connects to (see https://ripple.com/client/#/options) is the server called "rippled" from https://github.com/ripple/rippled. If you want to modify it so it uses BTC instead of XRP as native asset (I'd recommend adding BTC as alternative instead of replacing XRP, but that's up to you) you need to work on that first, not the client which is more or less a dumb frontend for an untrusted API provider.

Just like with Bitcoin alt-coins just please think of an original name for your project and use that throughout your fork, similar to every coin that is not on the Satoshi block chain should not call itself "Bitcoin", any distributed marketplace that does not run on the OpenCoin/RippleLabs ledger chain should not call itself "Ripple".

It would be really cool to see some forks in the wild by the way, if you need any help I'd recommend jumping over to the ripple.com forums though, the churn rate in this forum section (+ the amount of "DOGECOIN IS TEH AWSUM! WOW ! SO COIN!" posts) is a littel bit too high for more technical discussions.

Yes, there is nothing wrong with Ripple.com. Its a fully featured system, but XPM itself is just another alt-coin.

You could do something similar with Bitcoin. It would be slower, but that needn't be a big problem.

If you want to understand Ripple, you have to make sure you understand the difference between the roles of validators, wallets and gateways.

Validators make decisions on which transactions make it into the ledger, much like Bitcoin miners, though there's no equivalent of a block reward. And like bitcoin miners, they don't get to decide the rules that determine which transactions are valid. Unlike bitcoin miners, they do have a vote on some things like fees and minimum reserve requirements.

Wallets are just like bitcoin wallets, they are just collections of private keys and maybe some extra information like labels for otherwise pseudonymous addresses of others. You can host them yourself, or use a hosted wallet service. You do not need to hold any IOUs issued by gateways to use a wallet, though that will limit you to using XRP and any fiat trade credit provided by your extended social network.

Gateways hold fiat currencies and issue and redeem IOUs for them. They need not hold wallets or run validators, though most gateways probably choose to do that as well. They do not keep the books, they merely allow fiat currencies to be traded on the Ripple ledger by honouring their IOUs. This is very similar to the idea of using coloured coins with Bitcoin. The blockchain can be trusted to keep accurate records, but you have to trust the issuers of coloured coins to redeem them for the real world assets they represent.

I'm willing to sell you small amounts of XRP at market rates for BTC if you need some to start (up to about 200, which is about 0.01 BTC currently), other than that you can buy them at Kraken, Bitstamp and some slightly more shady places. Also there are some people just giving them away if you promise to buy a few more and give these away to other newbies in return (I don't know how successful this stuff really is in the end, that's why I usually just sell them).

I don't like the currency much either, unlike bitcoins though XRP are just a small part of the system and can be mostly ignored if you don't explicitly want to use them to make markets.

200 ripple is 0.01? They give away thousands!

Nothing wrong with that, right? No one is forcing you to use it. If you have a financial interest in seeing BTC win, then that's just as legitimate and you are free to boycot it or to try to come up with a superior BTC-based solution. I'm agnostic about this, the more solutions the better, and market forces will sort out which ones will survive. I don't care which one wins, and it's even possible several ones wil coexist. In the short run I expect Ripple and Bitcoin to be enormously synergistic, and to me that's the most important thing, since that will make it likely P2P cryptocurrencies will take over the world. Which one ends up winning isn't that important.

Well, then go grab some of these "thousands"? Bitstamp even operates a bridge towards BTC, so you can cash them out immediately (well in 5 seconds on average...) to BTC if you like.

Are there really people that are surprised that a random unbacked commodity can have significant value quickly in this forum?! ::)

Currently ~250 are 0.01 BTC: http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/rippleXRP.html
They actually were worth a lot more in summer and tanked quite a bit after that.

Edit:
Yes, XPM is Primecoin, I guess nahtnam wanted to say XRP but had another currency code in his muscle memory... ;)

Edit2:
You seem to combine 2 things:
a) the Ripple wallet (which is a client written in JavaScript, similar to the one offered by blockchain.info)
b) actual assets that get deposited at gateways (USD, BTC, gold bars, silver dimes, hours of work...)

a) is the stuff you access when going on ripple.com/client
b) can be stored online (depends on the asset), or (more likely) offline.

The Ripple network itself is distributed, anyone can run a node. The gateways (meaning the entities that actually store someone's "stuff") are more along the definition of decentralized (which is NOT what's depicted on ripplescam.org by the way!), similar to the bitcoin network and it's exchanges as "hubs". This is on a different layer of the network though, not at the protocol, but more at the actual usage part.

I dont know. I meant Ripple protocol.

OK, I see what you mean. In the case BTC IOUs, yes they do hold your BTC for you, which means they do host a BTC wallet, or maybe outsource that to others. I thought you meant a Ripple wallet. You can store your Ripple wallet (which may or may not contain BTC-denominated IOUs) locally, you don't have to use a hosted service. Except for XRP, it means you're trusting the gateway to hold the fiat currencies and cryptocurrencies other than XRP for you. In the case of fiat currencies that could involve keeping physical money in physical vaults, but it more likely means keeping it in a bank account. For cryptocurrencies it means hosting wallets, though not necessarily a separate wallet for each customer.

No, I mean the wallet in the sense of what for example your bitcoin wallet is: A client that is able to sign transactions using one or several private keys that have access to funds.

I think you talked mainly about b) (the money that gets locked away in the vaults of a gateway) while mmeijeri talked about a) (the wallet software where you see all the balances you have with one or several gateways + your XRP balance).

If for whatever reason they don't want to use the Bitcoin block chain for that transaction, they need to use 1/100 000th of 1 XRP to pay for the transaction fees on Ripple. Otherwise people would simply spam the ledger for fun.

These fees cannot be taken out of IOUs, because these are by definition not even existing as assets on the network, they exist only at the gateways. The only native asset to Ripple are XRP.

It might be possible to build a connection to BTC (it would need to be direct by the way, so you'd need to run a trustworthy Bitcoin client and a rippled) and to have some kind of proof that you paid some amount of BTC instead of destroying XRP to ensure non-spammyness.

Ripple's real use case is by the way not 2 people anyways using BTC - the really nice thing is that you can use whatever currency you want (e.g. BTC) while your counter party can receive whatever they want (e.g. USD). Ripple is much closer to BitPay than to Bitcoin.

Edit:
Depends on the form of DoS, if they spam meaningless transactions they could keep it up a quite long time I guess, though it wouldn't be too hard to just ignore that or simply dealing with it. They can spam the AccountState (similar to Bitcoin's UTXO set) but thanks to funding limits (which would be simply manually increased by independent rippled validator operators) this has a finite size. If they DoS attacked all known rippled servers out there, they might drive them to connect through VPNs and TOR, just like with bitcoin.

If the US government seized all BTC from Mr. Silkroad and mounted a DOS attack on the Bitcoin network, how long could they keep it up? ;)

The proof for that destruction still somehow needs to reach Ripple but that's one possible way to do it, yes. It is actually quite hard to really "destroy" BTC in a sane way - spending as fee doesn't count, otherwise miners could spend their own coin as fees all day long. If you just send dust to the bitcoineater address, you'll spam the UTXO set with unprunable stuff.
Maybe by tracking coins you could do something like colored coins for every single satoshi, so over time people can spend them as fee and still redeem only the 2 100 000 000 000 000 units that exist in BTC land.

Any business that accepts BTC actually accepts Ripple already, since there is a bridge towards it, so using Ripple you can pay far more merchants than you might think. The nice thing is that you can do a "reverse BitPay" for example at the moment, by holding fiat and paying someone in BTC (maybe if you don't like the volatility or are bearish, yet still your favourite web shop only accepts BTC). Also you can hold e.g. LTC and stil pay anywhere BTC is accepted at current rates, even though something like "LitePay" doesn't (yet?) exist.

Depends of course on the exact attack - some transactions would easily be seen as fake, others might be more difficult.

Nope, you are assuming that the rules in Bitcoin-QT are actually enforced by some protocol - this is NOT the case. They are merely guidelines (that a lot of miners currently follow though).
Similar rules probably also could be laid out for Ripple if really needed, so far destroying XRP was enough though to keep spammers away.

If anyone REALLY wanted to harm Bitcoin and got their hands on a million or 100k of them, they should better simply buy mining equipment for that money, it is MUCH cheaper to attack using minig power than using transactions.

How is the quantity of Ripples in circulation determined?

You don't have to use XRP if you only want to use Ripple as a distributed BTC-fiat exchange, except for a very small minimum reserve requirement and tiny fees. And that's what got me interested in Ripple in the first place, a resilient distributed exchange for fiat and cryptocurrencies. That's what my signature refers to. Whether XRP succeeds as a currency or whether it is "fair" or not doesn't matter for that.

And as for fairness, I fail to see what is unfair about generating the XRP and the distributing them as they see fit. This is no different from store credit, gift vouchers etc.

It also holds (or controls) any IOUs you might own. The underlying asset is kept by the issuing gateway, or at least you hope that's true, and you have to trust them to redeem it for you, possibly for a fee. That's why IOUs are always linked to a specific issuer so you know who is responsible for it. It's just like a Bitcoin coloured coin, the Ripple network provides a reliable and impartial public record of who owns what, but you have to trust gateways to abide by their promises. If you are dealing with a legitimate gateway, then you could use the court system to try to recover your money if necessary. This is a complement to the trustless system used by Bitcoin and XRP, not a replacement for it.

Sure, this is the principle of migrating to a new currency through proof of burn. You could fork Ripple and issue the fork's internal currency by provably burning BTC at a fixed conversion rate, or following some predetermined time-varying schedule.

You could try to "mine" the XRP at https://www.computingforgood.org/ (https://www.computingforgood.org/), but it's slow going. You could also buy it from someone on the internet with BTC. You only need a couple of dollars worth to last you a lifetime.


Exactly, I agree.


Spending <$5 in order to be able to open a Ripple wallet doesn't strike me as excessive. I don't know what the current reserve is, I think it's 50 XRP, which I think is about $2.50.

I'm not sure that's true. A check is more like a signed instruction to a bank isn't it? It involves three parties: the payer, the payee and the bank. A Ripple IOU on the other hand is something that can be transferred directly and then redeemed at the issuing gateway, provided it is trustworthy. It involves only two parties: the issuer and the owner.


It's similar, but in the case of a check you have two risks: the payer might not have a sufficient balance and the bank itself might be insolvent. With Ripple IOUs you have only the latter risk.


Sure, but that's because Bitcoin is a trustless currency. If you are going to use Bitcoin payments, Ripple doesn't add much. It's when you want to move fiat that Ripple gives you something Bitcoin currently doesn't. I think one major application would be buying and selling Bitcoin with fiat currencies.

They're still giving away XRP, though the amounts per person are coming down. And I don't think asking people to contribute CPU cycles to cancer research is a bad way to get XRP into circulation.

It is, the issuer is a gateway.


It is, except that it's not the gateway keeping the books, but the impartial and reliable P2P network of Ripple validators.


The signing over happens inside the Ripple network, under the supervision of the validator nodes. The gateway only deals with issuing and redeeming IOUs.


You would connect to those for sure, because that's what allows you to serve as a gateway into the Ripple system, including its distributed order book for currency exchange.


Conversely, Bitcoin doesn't add anything above and beyond Ripple, except for greater current mindshare.


A distributed order book, plus the ability to pay in any currency with any currency. Say you want to buy BTC with EUR and the seller wants to sell BTC for USD, then the system automatically matches the orders if the price matches.


Also if you both trust the same gateway, or if there is another connecting path between the two of you in the Ripple trust graph.


The distributed order book is the biggie for me.

dancupid got scammed by TradeFortress. TradeFortress claims that he was just doing this as a social experiment to show that Ripple sucks, but in fact he was exploiting people who did not understand how the trust system works in Ripple.
dancupid could get rid of the fake bitcoins by sending them back to TradeFortress (they're worthless anyway). Yeah the UI does not make that easy because you can't simply send BTC issued by a specific party, I know. I think it should be possible by sending those 4 BTC to an address that only accepts TradeFortress BTC.

@dancupid: In case you care at all, I can help you get rid of the TradeFortress fake BTC - I'll send you a PM explaining how. If you don't care for Ripple anymore, just igore it.

Onkel Paul

edit: I just found that there's a trade offer on Ripple where you can sell TradeFortress BTC for 0.001 XRP each. So getting rid of them is possible. Whether you want that or not is your personal decision.

I'm not sure if it matters, but I think the Ripple ledger works slightly differently than the Bitcoin blockchain. While the Ripple ledger must somehow store the transactions, it adds up amounts into a single balance instead of keeping track of the fate of individual outputs. In other words, you don't have the situation as in Bitcoin where you have multiple inputs that are combined in a transaction and then split into multiple outputs. If I understand it correctly the collective effect of all transactions in a new ledger is reflected in the new balances stored in that ledger.

So if you start with $100 in Bitstamp IOUs and send $10 to me, then both our new balances aren't directly linked to a sender anymore, but they are still linked with a receiver and the issuing gateway. To do the same thing in Bitcoin you would have to combine all transaction outputs in your wallet into one new output.


Right now, I think the main attractions are for merchants who want to accept fiat payments from abroad without the risk of chargebacks, for remittance and for its distributed order book. The latter is what makes me enthusiastic about Ripple. Right now, the creaking system of exchanges is Bitcoin's Achilles heel. Ripple offers a robust distributed exchange and the gateways offer access to it. The only thing that's holding me back is a lack of confidence in Bitstamp and the fact that I have to make relatively slow SEPA payments instead of lightning fast local payments with iDeal.


I don't really care about that, but if others do that's fine by me. Do note that once ripples have been released into circulation Ripple Labs no longer has any control over them.


It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Right now, I think Ripple could offer great value to the Bitcoin ecosystem because of its robust exchange system while Bitcoin can provide Ripple with a customer base and demand for its services.

There are already people showing up to arbitrage on Ripple. There is at least one US based gateway (PeerCover) that even accepts credit card payments, so I don't really see difficulty there getting USD in and out. BTC anyways are easily accessible within Ripple, depending on market situations I'd recommend though not to buy in huge market orders - after all the BTC market is about 1% the volume of Bitstamp.

Once you have USD in Ripple, you can trade BTC and withdraw them to any BTC address (if Bitstamp's bridge doesn't stall again, sometimes it does, usually it doesn't) in about 10 seconds flat.

Bitcoin currently depends on exchanges, if you take these away, both Coinbase and BitPay (who process a LOT of transactions on the block chain) are out of business in one single swipe. Bitcoin can still continue to exist, but will have very limited usability without exchanges.

Ripple would take over in that regard, that you do not need to exchange anything as gateway yourself - you only offer to do AML/KYC and deal with deposits and withdrawals of whatever currency or asset you like, that's it. Every exchange to whichever obscure currency that actually happens is distributed inside the system and out of reach for any government interference.

Can I buy Ripple like I can buy Bitcoin?  If so, how?

Is there somewhere with a really good explanation of ripple, still not 100% clear on it. In particular, to me it seems like its not really a decentralized system?

Which parts of Ripple don't you understand? Just like with Bitcoin, some people don't get mining while others don't know how to operate their wallet software...

Why shouldn't it be decentralized? You sound a lot like someone reading ripplescam.org but not really understanding what's written there is a mixture of bullshit (a hint: BitTorrent is NOT distributed at all), statements out of context and misinformation, paired with a very carefully selected range of comments.

I liked the more casual "primer" white paper at https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf - if you have more concrete questions after that, please ask them, as you actually did not ask a real question so far...

No, Ripple is a decentralized exchange, bitcoin is a digital asset. If you want to buy a digital asset that is native to Ripple, you can buy some XRP (confusingly called "ripples"). You can do so on various sites which I haven't really used so I'm not going to list them here, sa it might sound like a recommendation.

I'm not going to write up "a really good explanation of ripple" on the spot.
The network of validators does not depend on a central server to operate, and thus it is decentralized. However, in the current phase the main validators are operated by ripple labs.
Yet since the various exchanges run their own nodes with validators, they could ensure continued existence of the ripple network and the transaction ledger (I don't know whether they have appropriate UNL settings yet to trust each other).
This is different from the bitcoin p2p approach that is based on lots of mostly anonymous nodes - ripple nodes are not anonymous. But the network is decentralized.

Onkel Paul

Which exchanges trade in XRP?

Here's a list (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Which exchanges trade in XRP?)

SCNR

Onkel Paul

Well, in that case the thing is not to buy more than the minimum amount of XRP you need to use the exchange functionality. I've only bought a tiny bit myself, and got some in a handout. I've also earned a grand total of 29 XRP through computingforgood.org (http://computingforgood.org). :-) I think I'll buy a small amount of XRP in case it takes off spectacularly, maybe 100 euros or so.


It's operational right now. Most of the liquidity is in the order books against XRP, which is not surprising since XRP was designed to be a bridge currency. The software does synthesise virtual order books, but the standard client doesn't display these synthesised books, just the underlying ones. This means that the effective depth in Bitstamp USD / Bitstamp BTC is much better than appears on your screen. If there's a setting I could tweak somewhere I'd love to hear about it. If you use the Convert menu option, it does use the synthesised order book, although you can only use it for market orders, not limit orders.


I don't how good Coinbase is, as I'm not in the US. I've bought most of my BTC through bitonic.nl. It's a very quick and reliable system, but it's also expensive. I did buy some through Ripple, but I was dissatisfied with Bitstamp. The two main reasons I'm reluctant to use Bitstamp for more than very small amounts is that the process is slow compared to Bitonic and that my experience with them and the fact that they are located in Slovenia mean that I'm not confident they'll be able to store my money / BTC safely. I'd love to use a gateway that is directly connected to the Dutch banking system, especially iDeal. It would also have to be based in a larger eurozone country with a more solid banking system than Slovenia. The Netherlands would be ideal for me, but Germany or Austria would be fine too.


That's what I'm hoping for. Ripple would be ideal for arbitrage and would allow us to get rid of the idiotic spreads between exchanges. The main thing we need for that is more and more trustworthy gateways. The software is already there.


XRP is just as deregulated, but more importantly, Bitcoin needs distributed exchanges to grow. And I think Ripple is just the thing that will prevent governments from shutting it down. It's basically digital Hawala, and governments around the world have been unable to eradicate Hawala.

RE: Ripple


 I received some ripple along with a lot of others here at bitcointalk.org back in February.

 Then I learned about Ripple and those behind it. (They got my attention).

 Then finally I kinda got exactly what Ripple is, and what Ripple isn't.


 But it's not easy to understand how and what to do to trade with Ripple.

 I would really like to trade coin and trade coin for fiat on Ripple, but it's far from easy to
understand how to do it.

 Just recently I again visited Ripple, and well again I couldn't figure out how to sell btc for usd
nor how to trade usd for btc. Not to mention trading various crypto types with Ripple.

 Ripple simply has to figure out how to make this much less daunting. If I have trouble figuring
it out how to even use it then most if not almost everyone else will too. That's a critical flaw.

 I am not really a smart person per say, but I am intelligent. And very knowledgeable about many
topics and subjects. I can fix and solve most puzzles and mysteries. What I am getting at here is
that I want something like Ripple. It's a great concept. And many here are absolutely not
understanding what Ripple is, and what it's not. And that's certainly because it's quite different
than anything else in the way it functions.


 Ripple needs to get easy. Far easier. I am holding out, and holding on to the Ripple I have in
the hopes they succeed where so far they haven't; getting it simple, easy, and getting the
critical mass of trading going so that suddenly we have a new type of digital paypal per say.

 If it was just easy enough to use I would help start getting that critical mass of trading going on it.

 I am crossing my fingers they can get it right. Already the online wallet is easy, and well
SnapSwap seems okay.

 But figuring out how to do the trades and this nonsense about having to trust others when
we can't trust anyone when it comes to money very much in the first place. Especially strangers
online of all folk.

 The best thing an old attorney of mine taught me was this:

 "you can trust people to a point. And that point is money".

 Or in other words one cannot trust people when it comes to money issues.
At least not some people. And thus why i had to retain that attorney in the first place.
(to get my money that they refused to hand over without a legal fight). But I did then get
my money, less the cost of the attorney. And why I don't trade here person to person because
I have no idea who can be trusted and who can't be trusted. Nor for HOW MUCH they can be
trusted. Many are honest. Many are not. Thus:

 "you can trust people to a point. And that point is money".


 
 I am crossing my fingers for Ripple!

 But it's got to be made dummy proof if it is to succeed in the marketplace. Otherwise it's going
nowhere fast. Most people are not smart. Maybe I am wrong but most wont be even able to
comprehend what Ripple is, and what it's not. Just like here in this thread some don't even grasp
what it is after it's clearly been laid out. I don't know why that is so, but it's obviously the case.

 At least that's what my senses tell me. And if it's not easy, simple, and foolproof, along with
safe then it's not going anywhere at all.

 The entire Ripple Project needs to solve these critical issues first, other wise...
...their beating on whats termed a 'dead horse'.



Best Regards to Ripple,



Caveat emptor - let the buyer beware!

Inside your wallet...on the left is a button that says 'convert'.

After you click on 'Convert', choose the quantity and currency you want to end up with (ie. .10 USD)
The web client will show you what currencies you have available and how much it will cost in order to get what you want.

It can't get much simpler.....

In fact, I've NEVER seen such a simpler way!!!

Generally you cannot send Ripples to gateways because gateways do not want to act like Ripple wallets, you need to send USD or Bitcoin equivalent from your Ripple account.  If you contact WeExchange with date and transaction info they should be able to send your Ripples right back. But for them to do this, you first need to open in your Ripple account a Trust line with them (ask them for their Ripple Trustline address or something named like that). The trust line must be equal to or more than 40K ripples so your Ripple account can accept funds from them. 

No, for XRP you don't need a trust line - they are the built-in currency, and you can send and receive them within Ripple to any account.
It's strange that weexchange didn't just send the XRP back when they got them - this would be appropriate behavior for a gateway when you send them something they cannot handle.

Onkel Paul

Weexchange still holds ~0.25 BTC from me hostage that they received in April or May last year. They seem to generally blame anyone else but themselves for not being able to operate a rippled in a stable way (and are reluctant to use other, public servers). I consider them as vastly incompetent at best, scammers at worst.

Our Bitcoin exchange in Indonesia also just open for XRP/BTC with 0% trading fee. Please give it a try

www.Bitcoin.co.id (http://www.Bitcoin.co.id)

Ripple is 100% premined, it's a simple answer.

How can I create RIPPLE ( XRP ) account and which exchanger do you suggest with highest volume?

You may check it in coimarketcap.com >> http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/#markets

We are from Bitcoin.co.id havent listed yet there because we just launch it today

So what do you think, is XRP good as a long term investment in 2015?