Bitcoin Forum

It used to be:

Bitcoin
Ripple
Litecoin
Peercoin

Now Litecoin has taken the second spot again in market cap.

Are sites like coinmarketcap.com calculating differently? Or has Ripple volume decreased and value been cut back?

Explanations? I'm just curious, it doesn't matter too me as I'm not an investor.

Ripple is just a pump-and-dump altcoin. It will die out quietly sometime soon. Litecoin is also an altcoin, but it is the most trusted altcoin. You can't even compare Ripple with Litecoin.

Ripple does seem to be loosing the battle but it most definitely isn't "just a pump-and-dump altcoin." It's part of the Ripple network that is trying to become "Bitcoin 2.0" where you can have any currency and pay in any currency and trade in any currency in a somewhat decentralized manor.

I'm not real educated on this, but as I understand it's not completely decentralized and so the community hasn't really adopted it. But the ideas behind it are really cool whether it's THE solution or not.

Do you even know anything about ripple?

Ripple is not just another altcoin. It actually serves a purpose. It is also the further thing  from a pump and dump.

Educate yourself before posting something like this.

they changed their default marketcap calculation to "market cap by available supply" recently.

Well, Ripple has nothing to do on the cryptocurrency market cap because it is not a cryptocurrency at all !

Ripple is an IOU centralised system that work exactly like a private bank except that the total of units is fixed.

The Ripple network based on ledgers can be so easily corrupted that no one should put any money in it.

Well, feel free to "corrupt" a ledger in Ripple, if it is sooo easy! ::)

Give me some money and I do it.

Comparing Ripple and altcoins is an insult to altcoins. At least altcoins transfer some kind of value, while Ripple can only transfer debt.

Exactly this. Ripple isn't a cryptocurrency, it's centralized...and controlled by people..Which makes it worth nothing since those people can become corrupt.

I have $10 US on the Ripple network. I just had to try it when I heard about it. It was a bit of a pain to get it up and running. And then for two days it looked like it wasn't working at all (no transactions indicated) and finally my money showed up.

You can try to steal that if you want though it won't be there much longer as I'll probably be converting it to bitcoin in the next few days and sending it to Coinbase.

It seems like the marketcap site is not counting the whole 99 billion XRP just the remaining 20 some odd the company has left.  Ripple is shit but I wouodnt really call it an altcoin.  Volume of trading is so low though the market cap means little

ripple = electronic fiat = centralized = rubbish

If you want proof of stake (premined) use NXT

Ripple is like E-gold without gold how useless!!!!!!!!!!

Ripple is in no way decentralized, has nothing to do with the cryptography we use with these coins.
It can be compared to one of those shitcoins in the altcoins section.

Ripple is rubbish?  I have no reason to suspect otherwise.

I've asked several times on this forum for folks to explain
its value or why I should care about it, or why I'd want
to use it, and I've never heard any convincing arguments
or merits.

OK... Mr. Sultan. I am quite satisfied with my education level. And I have been studying all the shitcoins for more than 2 years now. I know what purpose Ripple serves.  Anyway... someone has already posted a reply for you...


Satisfied?  ;D

I wonder how even Ripple could of been second after bitcoin and litecoin 3rd? Litecoin is much better then ripple in all ways. So how could it even happen.. But past is past, Litecoin is in his place now.

Maybe people are realizing Open Transactions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teNzIFu5L70) which fundamentally more open and transparent than Ripple is a better way forward.

Because the XRP was not mined, just "made", so therefore it would have a larger market cap.

The best thing that happened to Ripple, was speculators and single-currency thinkers, not rushing to Ripple to "pump" the internal currency, XRP.  It's not a speculative currency.  I know that's hard for many of you to understand.  After all, that's all blockchain coins are good for...speculation.  Not knocking it, just saying, I get the limited thinking.

Ripple is the value web.  It doesn't take an ideological position as to which currencies the world will use and try to jam those down everyones throats.  Just as the web doesn't attempt to dictate what type of information is available.  Instead, it offers the ability to remove centralized exchanges and central clearing houses, allowing the use of IOU's, you already possess (In those exchanges, bank accounts, Paypal, etc.) and gives you freedom to exchange them for other things of value.  As apposed to having your IOU's trapped in those central entities.  Think Gox.  Total loss for people with IOU's there.  With Ripple, those same IOU's Gox is sitting on, could have been exchanged for other things of value, even after they halted withdrawals.  Even right now.  They're your IOU's after all.  Shouldn't you have control over them?  

Truth is, most of you should avoid Ripple at this point because the raw protocol is really beyond the comprehension of most novice crypto users.  Developers will love it.  No question about it, but where single currencies are very simple and easy to digest, Ripple is a true monetary system and monetary systems are very complex by nature.  Trying to fit Ripple into a "coin" box, will always leave you frustrated, confused and of course, blaming the protocol because it's something you don't understand.  Typical way of saving face, I suppose.

Nevertheless, hang in there.  Whether you get Ripple or not, it's going to change the way the world transacts and that is a good thing for Bitcoin and all things of value.  So don't make Ripple the scapegoat or competition to your little currencies.  Nope, your currencies are individually responsible for their own success or failure.  Ripple is just here to see that there's a way they can reach everybody, where the live, and with what they use locally as currency, without all the middlemen.  

Welcome to the world of distributed exchange.  The future is so bright.  8)

because, naturally, people don't admire pre-mined coins, and they shouldn't. crap coins should go away.

+1 good post.  Personally I haven't used Ripple but the economics view behind it are correct

Ripple is no different than government issued fiat.

What you're talking about is money.  Something that everyone agrees to use to eliminate the double coincidence of wants when trading.  Ripple fans never seem to be able to explain to my satisfaction why I'd trade one money, bitcoin, for another money, ripple, just so I can trade that for whatever I really want, recreating the double-concidence-of-wants problem it's supposed to avoid..  Why not just trade bitcoin for what I want? What does adding ripple in the middle of things add to the process?

The main thing ripple attempts to accomplish is to create a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala) system, where brokers trade IOUs and then at some point settle up after cancelling out IOUs, so they don't need to actually send money back and forth all the time.  This is done because it's difficult to transmit traditional money over a long distance or across international borders.  However, crypto-currencies don't have this problem.  Why do I need a broker to send my money half way across the world when I can just send money half way across the world by clicking my mouse button?

That's exactly what he's talking and why Ripple is intriguing.  Currently to send money across distances you need a clearing house.  You are correct that Hawala does this without a clearing house & Ripple is a digital version of Hawala.

The reason why you want this is because people use different local currencies.  If my Chinese supplier only accept RMB as payment and if I want to use BTC how can the transfer take place?  Either there is a clearing house that takes my BTC and gives him RMB or something like Ripple.

+1 I had a whole post typed out but I honestly couldn't say it much better than that.  I will add, if your making a BTC -> BTC payment, you don't need Ripple.  Just send wallet to wallet.  What reality is showing though, is most merchants don't accept BTC, they accept USD and they require a middleman or central clearing house, to facilitate that transaction.  In this case, BitPay and Coinbase.

But why use an IOU/promise-to-pay (XRP) when I can use an asset/commodity (BTC)?

XRP is not an IOU.  It's a deflationary, math-based currency, just like Bitcoin.  It prevents ledger spam and acts as a bridge between two currencies.  Say BTC -> XRP -> YEN.  And you don't have to necessarily use it, if there's a cheaper path.  

An IOU is just a balance that you have with a 3rd party.  If you go to your Bitstamp or Cryptsy account, it will display how much BTC, USD, etc you have with them, right?  That's your balance and that balance is an IOU.  They  "owe" you, X amount.  It's just an IOU that is trapped in a central entity.  (Well, of course Bitstamp is the largest Ripple gateway, so you can have access to your Bitstamp IOU's within Ripple.)

So again, with Ripple, instead of your IOU's being trapped and controlled by a central entity, you can move them freely into other things of value or even pay someone with them.  Which just means, you're transferring that balance, to someone else.  In Ripple, an IOU is not a means by which you can buy something now, and pay later.  It's a representation of actual assets you own.  When you exchange those IOU's, the asset balance is transferred to the new owner.  The IOU simply determines who now owns that balance.

That's a laugh. XRP is NOTHING like Bitcoin. Bitcoin is completely transparent and provable with math. ALL Bitcoin transactions from day 1 are available for viewing and auditing by anyone. That's not true for Ripple.

I understand certain people on this forum want to pump Ripple, but please stop trying to hang on Bitcoin's coattails to do it.

No need to pump XRP because it's not supposed to be a speculative instrument.  You just use it to transfer money

Both can be stored without counter-party risk and both prevent double spending, by design.  That is cryptocurrency....period. Distribution methods may differ, but that's irrelevant to me, especially with XRP's intended purpose, and that's not as a speculative commodity.  A currency is not defined by it's value but rather by its usefulness.  So from that perspective, you're right.  XRP is not Bitcoin...and fortunately so.  That allows XRP to remain useful in its purposes of spam prevention and bridge currency, and not just a means for a few people, to "get rich quick".

As has been said repeatedly, if you don't like any particular currency, don't use it.  Ripple is currency agnostic.  Use what you want, other people will use what they want.  Freedom baby!

So you're telling me that it actually is an IOU?

No, not at all.  XRP can be stored without counter-party risk and doesn't require trust to send.  Thus, no IOU ever need be created for it.  It already exists within the Ripple network as an asset.  IOU's are representations of balances you hold, with 3rd parties.  Exchanges, banks, paypal, etc.

ripple is not a coin and shouldn't be on that list , the second most valuable coin is Litecoin.

Wow.  So, not only is ripple rubbish, but it actually may be counterproductive to bitcoin adoption in that it acts as a bandaid to the fiat system.

Let me try again:


Sounds like it involves IOUs to me.  

1.  Because they aren't doing jack shit.

2.  Because they aren't doing jack shit in the way of marketing, publicity, news articles, etc.

-B-

Ripple does involve IOU's and that's a good thing.  XRP, however, is not an IOU.  It's an asset that exist within the network and stored without counter-party risk.


Ripple is doing plenty, Ripple isn't however, a consumer product so you're not going to get consumer focused marketing.  

Why do you like ripple?

Lots of reasons.  Here's a few:

1.  It's currency agnostic
2.  It eliminates central clearing houses and centralized exchanges
3.  It federates payment networks (SMTP for money)

Overall, I just think Ripple makes sense and allows access to monetary freedom, for more people, while still allowing them to use their existing things of value.  Remittences for example, is a big reason I like Ripple.  I'm also a big merchant guy so, understanding merchants would prefer to make one integration and allow their customers to pay in any currency, while still receiving just USD, is huge.  That replaces the need for merchant accounts for credit cards, then a separate integration for each cryptocurrency you want to accept.  It's just common sense innovation, IMO.

all centralized money must and will die.

http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/Amazing+gif+3+4_e3ca8d_4301370.gif

Thanks for the explanation but at best it sounds like "monetary freedom" inside the prison of debt based fiat currencies... Thanks but no thanks, I'd rather skip it and go directly to bitcoin.

There seems to be confusion with mixing XRP ("ripples"), a centrally issued cryptocurrency and "Ripple", a decentralized market place and value net...

While you need about 0.001 BTC worth of XRP at current prices to use Ripple, you don't need any more than that. After that, Ripple can be used similar to Coinbase or BitPay for example, meaning you pay somewhere with BTC and the merchant receives USD.

I get it that people are not a fan of XRP (I don't like them either, they are more of a necessary evil than anything else and I wouldn't recommend to speculate upon them unless you really want to), Ripple's value is not in XRP though.

To answer the initial question: Actually you could ch3eck that yourself, all trades since January 1st 2013 are public data... it looks like an early spaculator is slowly offloading XRP at the moment and constantly selling for USD and BTC (https://ripple.com/graph/#rwDewhHaNdq5xA3Ku54VP8ze4UL6wvYCy9), he seems to be running out soon though.

If you believe Bitcoin to be the world currency that everything is priced in, of course Ripple makes little sense then. If you believe people will rather have the freedom to choose what currency they receive and what currency they pay in (which can include bitcoins, but also Dollars, Euros or ounces of gold), Bitcoin can NOT offer that and you might want to give BitPay, Coinbase or the decentralized ones like Ripple or upcoming markets like Counterparty, Mastercoin, Colored Coins, NXT(?), OpenTransactions etc. a better look beyond what your initial reaction might be.

Exactly.  Ripple does involve IOUs which means there is counter-party risk.  If I hold a Ripple IOU for $100,000, then that $100,000 is at risk.

The statement that "xrp has no counter-party risk" is disingenuous.  No one really cares about xrp, they care about losing the value stored in the IOUs (which you admit do have counter-party risk).  

If digital hawala networks prove useful, we could have iRipple, youRipple, heRipples and sheRipples.  Xrps on any particular xrp ledger seem to me to be essentially valueless.  The point of these kinds of networks is a means of exchanging IOUs between trusted parties.  

I'm tempted to invest in Ripple for no other reason than the bitcoin community being so paranoid and butthurt about it.

Correct me if I'm wrong but that Ripple IOU exists only to do the exchange.  So why is there counter party risk?  Once the exchange is finished there is no risk. 

Lets say I wanted to send you $100,000.  That $100K leaves my bank account and goes into the Ripple gateway, then gets converted to XRP,  then goes into your account as $100K.  Where is the risk?

Whether we are talking about MtGox, Ripple, TradeFortress, Bitstamp, Coinbase or bitcoins in cold storage, this is how I see things:

1.  If I am the sole controller of the private key to 25 BTC, then there is no counter-party risk.

2.  If I am not the sole controller of the private key for "my" 25 BTC, then what I essentially "own" is some sort of IOU and there must be counter-party risk.  I believe it is wise to ensure that I can measure what that risk actually is should I choose to use the third-party service.  


 
In the IOU.


If you no longer hold the IOU and instead are the sole controller of the private key to 25 BTC there is no longer any counter-party risk.

I agree that Ripple has potential.

Fair enough:  they're not a consumer oriented technology.

However, I'm pretty sure they're not doing jack shit in the way of courting banks and other financial institutions either.

That's what I meant by not doing jack shit.

It seems as if they're sitting stagnant.  Someone has to go out there and sell the idea to financial institutions.

Is anyone doing that?

-B-

My opinion is because Ripple just makes no sense. Can anyone explain it to a 5th grader? Nope. I've tried to read about Ripple on several occasions and I end up totally confused. Bitcoin at least makes sense to me, but nobody can explain Ripple in terms that make sense.

The bolded part is where you're wrong.

Unlike Bitcoin (where you indeed have to exchange the 100k USD to BTC to transfer them), you can send them along just fine as USD held by this gateway, in case we both use it. There is no inherent need to exchange them for XRP.

Ripple Labs has several people working in business bevelopment positions, probably more than any other Bitcoin related company. I'm quite sure they are not publicly going to talk about their deals and negotiations with the public (or you...) before their partners are ready.

You want to trade something on a market. Since it is a big place, you take whatever you want to trade to a stand/warehouse at the gateways of that market place, deposit your goods there and get a receipt that is signed by the person you deposited with. You then proceed to trade these receipts for whatever you want to have and at the end of the day take you different receipts to a different stand/warehouse and get the thing back that you bought. To make sure receipts are not faked, they are signed by the warehouses and to make sure they don't fill the whole market place with paper, they are required to put an official stamp (XRP) on that too. Some people also like to collect/trade these stamps, they are useless and worthless outside of that marketplace though.

I could go on with that analogy, but is that around the level of your understanding?

@ BittBurger

I believe there are two questions:

Q1.  Are digital hawala networks useful?

Q2.  Are entries (xrp or the like) on a particular hawala ledger a valuable asset?


In my opinion, the answers are:

A1.  Perhaps for small networks of like-minded entities where sufficient trust can be established to surmount the counter-party risk associated with the IOUs.

A2.  No, they simply facilitate the exchange of IOUs.  

said the contrarian man with the upside-down avatar.

Go for it. 

That'll teach us a lesson we won't soon forget.

I haven't read the whole thread so I don't know if this has been covered, but the reported market cap for ripple was wrong.

They could claim to have issued (but not distributed) a googol ripples instead of 100 billion and the market cap would be off the charts.

Market cap only properly refers to shares that have been sold (or given away) by the issuer. Shares held by the issuer don't count.

Coinmarketcap seems to have stopped incorrectly using the 100 billion number in the calculation. I don't know if they are doing the calculation correctly now but it looks more plausible.

The problem is that there's a multi-trillion dollar market in "legacy fiat currencies" that we can't afford to ignore. There needs to be a bridge from where we are to where we want to be.

Right..  But that risk only lasts for the duration of the exchange.  No?

Agree.  So could I use ripple as a payment method instead of SEPA?  How easy would that be?

Haha Ripple, Ripple relates to cryptocurrencies like hemorrhoides relate to peoples butt  ;)

If you want a pre-mined PPS currency that needs no mining, use NXT, at least it does not belong to a single entity that can be killed with a simple subpoena

"We apologize, but the Ripple Client needs JavaScript and WebSockets in order to function.
Please refer to this page and download a browser that supports WebSockets. Thank you!
http://caniuse.com/websockets"

Even a monkey should recognize the difference, this webpage is all there is. OHNO where can I download the Ripple-QT client? HAHAHA!!

Yup, big screw up to use the same (or very similar) name for both, if the idea is to communicate the value proposition clearly.

I don't know if this was by design, to try to latch onto the hype associated with appreciating crypto currencies, or just a mistake.

@ twiifm

Risk lasts for as long as you are holding an IOU.  This applies to all third-party services.  For example, if you wanted to use MtGox to exchange bitcoins to euros when the BTC exchange rate was favourable to Bitstamp, you were at risk from the moment you deposited bitcoins at MtGox to the moment the euro wire hit your bank account.  

Some people made it, some people didn't.

My point it that people need to evaluate these risks for themselves and use sensible techniques to mitigate them. E.g., you should have a way to assess the credit worthiness of the counter party and a plan to minimize the time you hold the IOU (as you implied).  In my opinion, the average human is extremely complacent and underestimates counter party risk as well as underestimates how long they will actually be holding the IOU.  (Or, even worse, doesn't even realize that what they are holding is actually an IOU--just look at how many people got stuck holding Gox IOUs despite ample warning signs).  

So Ripple's business plan is to build this bridge and help make itself obsolete. Why do I doubt that?

OK that is true, but with Ripple you are suspended like that forever, the third party IS Ripple

BTC only requires a third party for a transition to fiat and back

Open Transactions (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teNzIFu5L70) does the exact same thing, is open source and completely transparent. I wonder why I've never seen Ripple promoters speak favorably about that ...

When Apple builds a new iPhone, they make the old ones obsolete. Very few businesses expect to be able to continue with the same business model making the same products forever.

no one answered my use case question about replacing SEPA payments on a website with ripple.

@ leopard2

Bitcoin is a robust decentralized system for directly exchanging assets in an unforgeable global ledger.  I think the value in bitcoin is high. 

This may sound harsh, but in my opinion:

- Ripple is a system that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name. 

That being said, I can perhaps imagine several small digital hawala networks becoming useful if they are composed of like-minded entities where sufficient trust can be established to surmount the counter-party risk associated with the IOUs.

That analogy fails in so many ways.

Apple's business plan in creating the iphone was not and is not to "create a bridge." Show me a speech by Steve Jobs where he said that the reason to adopt the iPhone was as some sort of bridge.

Apple's business plan in creating each iPhone is to meet a current demand, a demand that they expect to be temporary. You can view each iPhone as a bridge that meets people's present needs and lays the groundwork for future products that meet their changing needs in the future.

I wouldn't take this analogy too far. But every business plan is a temporary thing. Ripple Labs doesn't expect to be doing the same thing forever and its current revenue model will almost certainly become obsolete at some point. That may mean Ripple Labs does something else. It may mean Ripple Labs develops the things that make it obsolete. You can only plan so far ahead.

If your point is that we're likely to explore other revenue models before our current one runs out, then I would absolutely agree with you.

This was essentially the original (pre crypto) ripple. You created IOUs exclusively with your actual trusted friends and they could get canceled in the course of trade, but not traded. That seemed to never really go anywhere. Then this crypto VC bubble happened and we got where we are.

You have basically the same problem Bitcoin has. If everybody used it, it would be great. But not enough people have an incentive to adopt it to reach a critical mass. One of the things the new Ripple does different is focus, at least initially, on gateways.

My point is that I'm skeptical of claims that you are creating a bridge to where "we" want to be, if that means a world that does not have trillions of dollars of legacy fiat currency markets that need to be "rippled." By and large the bitcoin community sees no need for a future where a company doing the sorts of things that Ripple does has a central role. That may simple be a lack of vision and the people running Ripple are just smarter than everyone else, or it may be a disagreement as to direction. I suspect the latter.

It is likely the two do not in fact have (even basically) the same problem(s), because bitcoin has gone much farther much faster than original ripple. Your explanation of what is going on is contradicted by the evidence.
 

That is very interesting and it does seem to explain what we are seeing.  I don't think a large global hawala network will work.      

Time to go for a walk and enjoy what's left of this sunny afternoon.

Speaking for myself personally, I agree with you. I do see Ripple as a bridge. It's possible that the future evolution of money will be rippling among friends, but it's also possible that the future of evolution of money will be a trustless crypto-currency. It's also possible the future will be something none of us can think of yet.

The business plan we made for Ripple was the best we could come up with given the information available to us at the time. If you can think of a way we could do things better, we're all ears. We definitely don't expect to be doing the same thing forever. If there's no place for us in the future, so be it. Either Ripple Labs will do something else or we'll cease to exist.

Personally, I'm largely indifferent to the form future money and payment systems take. I see advantages of each, and both will likely improve dramatically over the next few years. The market will ultimately decide. Ripple was designed to meet present needs and to move in the direction its designers believed would be beneficial.

Now we're getting somewhere. As with the iphone, meeting present needs is paramount. Steve Jobs never sold the iphone on the basis of the next iphone being better. It was always on the basis of what the (then) current iphone could do for its users.

If Ripple does useful things now, and most importantly you can communicate that in a way that is compelling and comprehensible to the audience, great. Right now you haven't even gotten past people being confused about what the term ripple even means.

This is not limited to this thread (or countless other essentially identical threads). Beyond this forum, I've talked to a lot of other people both online and offline who really have no understanding of what ripple does or how it benefits them at all.

I would say most people don't understand how banking works in general.  What they know is they don't like ATM fees or foreign transaction fees, etc.  I see Ripple having more potential as an institutional tool rather than a consumer facing product.  Consumers just want to make payments easier.  If Ripple can be adopted by big banks to make transactions easier for consumers then it'll succeed if not then it won't. 

True, though they understand it well enough to use it, which is most certainly not true for ripple.


Alright then, since I'm not a bank or in the business of providing banking services, why do I ever (in fact frequently) hear about ripple. Again the targeting of the message and the message itself seems misdirected and confused.

This is again, because the Ripple protocol is not a consumer facing product.  It's like saying when you walking in the bank, there's just a computer sitting there with all the access to facilitate payments, on their proprietary software.  How many customers would know how to do it?  How many would even bother to try?

Ripple will really start making sense for people as more products and services are built, integrating Ripple as their backend.  Many times, you may never know you're using a Ripple powered product.  Just as you have no idea what goes on behind the scenes at PayPal or the ACH and Swift systems, or yes, even SEPA.  Once you start having merchant tools for easy website integration, different payment networks integrating, the benefits will become crystal clear.  But development takes time and Ripple Labs is not in the business of developing the entire infrastructure around Ripple.

As for bank integration, RL's has made great strides, although as was said, these active discussions can't be made public and for obvious reasons.  But you can see the fruit of their labor in instances like this from David Andolfatto, Vice President at the St. Louis Fed.


Lastly, there are still people in this thread who just don't under IOU's as it relates to Ripple.  There's a disconnect here between:

1.  IOU's as a means of credit.  Meaning, you can buy now and pay later.  (False)
2.  IOU's as a representation of an actual asset balance.  (true)

The latter is what you can utilize in Ripple.  If you can't differentiate between the two, Ripple will never make sense to you.  Furthermore, the counter-party risk is not in the IOU.  The counter-party risk, is in the 3rd party who holds your assets.  The IOU is just a liquid representation of that balance.  Like when you go to the casino, your cash is exchanged for poker chips.  The poker chip is an IOU backed by your cash.  You can turn it in at anytime and get your cash or you can give it away or lose it to another player and they now have ownership over that cash, because they hold the chip. (IOU)

Same thing, you're just exchanging balances at 3rd parties.  What's really going to be cool and when the power of Ripple is really going to become apparent, is when the federation of payment networks takes flight.  Assume Paypal, Bank of America, HSBC, Bitsamp, and BTC-e were all gateways.  Since you're able to exchange balances, your going to be able to do all kinds of things.

From your BoA account, you could directly pay any merchant that accepts Paypal.  Direct balance exchange via IOU's, without central clearing in the middle.  
Or, you could send direct from your Paypal account to BTC-e, without wiring money or having to buy BTC, pay the fee, then transfer the coins, wait an hour.  You know the deal.  ;D  

You just exchange your Paypal balance for a BTC-e balance a viola, you have USD or BTC or NMC on BTC-e.  And someone who had a balance on BTC-e, now has USD in Paypal.  Confirmed and irreversible in seconds.  

The possibilities are limitless.  Now, we can move our balances around, like we do email.  We can send email to any @email address, thanks to SMTP.  Thanks to Ripple, we'll do the same with value because right now, a Paypal user can only send to a Paypal user.  A bank of america user can only send to a BoA user, etc.  It's like pre-SMTP email.  When you really sit back and think about it, it's totally mind blowing that we're still stuck in these closed systems.  
 

NO news from the OC.  So the holder sold xrp.
Opencoin should do more work to let people use ripple.

So we have to wait for those services to be built. Got it.

Maybe this is a pivot, and maybe it is a good one, but that has not always been how it was presented. For a while they were going out of their way to try to get people to sign up for ripple wallets, and in fact I have one. I found it very confusing and when I went back a few months later, it didn't even work with my browser any more. I didn't care enough to try to fix it. Maybe, with this pivot, they don't care if I care.

I guess its discussed here because the XRP is a crypto currency and Ripple Labs is trying to promote their business.   Ripple makes a lot of sense if you understand balance sheet operations & double entry book keeping.  Its how money travels For example:  Me --> Chase --> Citibank --> You.   As I understand it, this gets replaced by :  Me --> Ripple Network -->  You

When the money travels from one node to another it is noted as an asset on one balance sheet & a liability on the other's balance sheet.  

The confusion is that the XRP & BTC are both defined as "crypto currencies" but they are marketed/ promoted from different views.  XRP acts a token to make the Ripple transfer possible.  In this sense it behaves like a currency should.  Think of a casino in an agnostic location where people from all countries come to play.  XRP is similar to a poker chip.  It only exist to allow different currencies to play.  The plastic token itself has no value but it might have numbed printed on it like 5, 10, 100

In contrast bit coin is promoted as thrice; commodity/money/currency.   To make matters more confusing, most people don't understand the difference between gold (commodity), gold coins or convertible notes (money), USD (currency denomination).  Bitcoin tries to be commodity/money/currency in one entity.  If you follow this "Metallism" view.  Miners should mine "bits".  The currency that is called "BTC" are backed by "bits".  And its "money" value should be priced on the supply/demand of these "bits" (as opposed to being priced in USD).  

Imagine traveling back in time.  Each nation's banks hold reserves of specie (gold or silver).  The banks print notes that are convertible to specie.  The notes are denominated in local currencies like Dollar, Francs, Pounds, Deustch Marks,etc..  No matter what number is printed on the coin or note, the money derives its value from the commodity that backs it.  Currency is the representation of that money.  The reason this existed is enable foreign trade.  Gold is gold.  I can accept your currency because I can covert it to gold and my currency is also backed by gold.  The market agrees that gold is top of the money hierarchy in value so there is always a demand for gold.  Even within the US during the Free Banking era, each bank printed its own convertible notes back by reserves in specie.

Schumpeter categorize 2 philosophical traditions of money:  Chartalism & Metallism.  Crypto (especially Bitcoin) be would philosophically in-line with the Metallism tradition.  Like Metallism, Bitcoin promoters believes that (1) state issued fiat money has no intrinsic value, (2) state created money devalues money through inflation, (3) money should be priced by laissez-faire markets as opposed to a central authority

However, there is a BIG contradiction here.   Metallism would not define crypto (especially Bitcoin) as money because it not convertible to something of intrinsic value.  Metallism would define Bitcoin as "fiat" in the sense that it came to existence out of nothing.  The only difference is that instead of being created by the state authority, it was created by an unknown person/ group calling itself Satoshi Nakamoto.  But technically each BTC is created from "mining".  So technically its intrinsic value is derived from "mining", not a quantified physical asset like an ounce of gold.  In other words, BTC's intrinsic value is digital alchemy- zeros & ones.  In essence the same way that Central Banks create money - by keystroke.  

Ripple seems to recognize this contradictory quality of crypto as a commodity/money/currency.  I believe that's why it's "pre-mined".  It seems to me Ripple sees the potential in crypto not as a competing currency to existing fiats.  Rather, Ripple is exploring the use of crypto as protocol to transfer fiat.  Regardless of denomination; Dollar, Euro, RMB, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, etc..  Ripple doesn't have a philosophical view of money just a banking view of money.  Ripple is a privately owned company so that makes XRPs similar to a private bank issued currency.  Except Ripple is nothing like a bank so XRPs are to be treated as tokens.  You are not supposed to hoard XRPs and store your money in it.  If big banks use Ripples system to transfer money then the XRP would be invisible to the end user.

This is what I gather from reading their website.  But yes its confusing because they have Ripple wallets that you need to deposit BTC to use so it seems like its a bit coin competitor

The more I learn the more confident I become that the TL/DR of what you are saying is that:

- Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name.  

Is this an accurate summary in your opinion?

@ Peter R

That's what I got from reading their website.  I'm not trying to pump Ripple or anything like that.  I find their proposal intriguing so I want to understand it myself.

1)  I think that is partially correct.  They say the Ripple network is designed to exchange money.  All money as essentially IOUs but it misleading to say like that.  In their primer they say there is same counter party risk at the "gateway".  So depends if your "gateway" is Citibank or Mt Gox.  You should decide based on reputation I suppose.  But they do claim that there is no counter party risk when using XRP as a "bridge currency".  If you use Ripple to transfer USD-->XRP-->EU, there is no counter party risk

2)  XRP is a currency to be used as bridge if the network can't find a market maker to facilitate the exchange.  There is a current exchange rate 1 XRP = 0.0063 USD.  But they say their priority is adoption rather than investment.  I would treat it as valueless token.

i suggest everyone unfamiliar to ripple read the primer:  https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf (https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf)

as it should be in my eyes. how can xrp fulfill its function if it is being hoarded?  xrp should be used mostly by market makers to provide liquidity in the network, so that it would be easier for ripple to path find the cheapest rates when converting and sending currencies.

BTC transfer time = 60 minutes
LTC transfer time = 15 minutes

XRP transfer time = instant


Have fun with your archaic technologies! Even though 3/4 of these Ripple hate accounts are just TradeFortress sock puppets.

yeah, the quick transfer time is what makes people use ripple even more imo.  and the network provides out of the box solutions for the issues and problems facing bitcoin.  link to the video of chris larsen talking about these solutions can be seen here:  https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6304&hilit=body+language&sid=87cd50721d7b3186a0d143d81357076a#p44419

just give it a chance guys.

NWO, is this an accurate summary in your opinion?

- Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name. 

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

and

"xrp as a valueless token."

is as it should be in my eyes. how can xrp fulfill its function if it is being hoarded?  xrp should be used mostly by market makers to provide liquidity in the network, so that it would be easier for ripple to path find the cheapest rates when converting and sending currencies.

but the reality of it is there will always be speculators.

No it can't be valueless otherwise it can't serve its function as either antispam or as an intermediate currency. There has to be value for trading it or burning it to mean anything. Forgive me if I'm getting the function wrong, but really a valueless token can't serve any purpose.

peter, sorry for wording it out wrong. what i meant with valueless is xrp is not made to be an instrument for speculation and its primary function is not as a store of value. 

also watch the video in this link:  https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6304&hilit=body+language&sid=87cd50721d7b3186a0d143d81357076a#p44419

ripple provides elegant, out of the box solutions for the issues and problems facing bitcoin.

Use XNF (NoFiatCoin) through the ripple network. Its backed by gold. For Real. My investment doubled in weeks

Correct.  It can't be entirely valueless otherwise it can't facilitate the exchange of IOUs.  Tokeweed misquoted me.  The original quote was "ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name" which I believe is accurate as a ripple is a different animal than a satoshi on bitcoin's unforgeable blockchain and the name confuses people with Ripple IOUs on its hawala network.  A ripple is probably not an ideal store of value.  

just found the youtube video about how ripple finds solutions to the issues facing bitcoin:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRgfC61Gc3E

enjoy. :)

I think probably neither.  How can I evaluate the counter-party risk in either case?  Also, I'm still not convinced that the IOU credit risk is just a function of the gateway's credit worthiness.  Don't gateways swap IOUs?  Isn't that the whole point?  So wouldn't I need to also trust MtGox's or RBS's assessment of their counter-party's credit worthiness?  And what about the counter-parties of the counter-parties, ad infinitum.  This is what I mean when I say "Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk."

It seems to me that this is actually a lot worse than our current highly-leveraged and debt-based fiat system.

With bitcoin it is simple: Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allows users to store, transport and exchange funds with other users across the world, without the assistance of a third party or the permission of an authority.  There is no counter-party risk.

Its great if both people want to exchange BTC wallet-to-wallet.  But suppose you want to send BTC-->EU?  Don't you think that Ripple meets your need?

Like I said one post above, how can I evaluate the counter-party risk?  Also, I'm still not convinced that the IOU credit risk is just a function of the gateway's credit worthiness.  Don't gateways swap IOUs?  Isn't that the whole point?  So wouldn't I need to also trust MtGox's or RBS's assessment of their counter-party's credit worthiness?  And what about the counter-parties of the counter-parties, ad infinitum.  This is what I mean when I say "Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk."

And from the perspective of a speculator or cryptocurrency investor, why do I care about ripples since "ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name."  They are probably not an ideal store of value.

The first part is slightly wrong (the "obfuscates" part), Ripple even makes it much easier to assess counterparty risk, you have to enter your counterparty that holds your assets for any trade (except for XRP, where the network itself is the counterparty, like BTC on Bitcoin). "Rippling" (the automatic 1:1 trading of 2 currencies in the same denomination e.g. BTC/Bitstamp and BTC/TradeFortress) is disabled by default in the client now for quite some time.

I would have phrased the second part differently because the same "essentially valueless" applies to BTC too, since they are not backed by anything and thus only have utility, not value. "Misleading name" is a bit weird, because I'm not sure where a name should "lead" to instead, I agree though that something like "Droplets" or something else would have made it easier to understand that XRP != Ripple. Other systems like Mastercoin for example though don't even seem to care about clearing this confusion...

It seems to me this Tl;dr is slightly cynical/negative and I would recommend to think about how a similar Tl;dr would apply to Bitcoin... and this is coming from someone who (based on your time of signing up here) very likely holds more BTC than you do.

No, gateways do not swap anything. This is the job for market makers (seriously, read the whitepaper that tokeweed linked!) and while gateways can make their own markets, it is by far not a requirement for them to do so and it is also (as anything in Ripple) easy to see they do and to what extent.

Thanks Sukrim.  You seem to be an honest person.  But quite frankly, people have been talking to me about Ripple since I learned about bitcoin in March 2013; I've read about it, researched it, thought about it, but I guess I still don't understand it.  After tonight I care even less.

It's funny.  There's been a few moments in my life when I've been completely mind-blown by pure brilliance.  The first was when I understood Fourier's theory that any function could be composed of an infinite series of sinusoids.  The second was when I learned how JC Maxwell took the equations for electricity and the equations for magnetism, and showed that they predicted that there should exist electromagnetic waves that propagate at a speed equal to the speed of light measured by Michelson and Morley--he inferred that light was in fact an electromagnetic wave!  

The third was when I read Satoshi's white paper.  

Bitcoin is brilliant because it is simple.  

^ amen.

it IS brilliant and no one in the ripple community is taking anything away from bitcoin.  without bitcoin, this whole movement wouldn't have taken place.

as for this:


i personally don't like the idea of hoarding xrp. they should be used rather than being held in order for it to fulfill its role in the network.  but i do encourage people to try ripple out. it is an awesome piece of technology.


being as smart as you are, i am pretty sure you will figure it all out sooner or later. i've seen people less smart do so. :)

Bitcoin is a paradigm shift but its distribution (marketing) scheme is very problematic.  I know you thought my post was TL;DR.  But I think the problem is you don't quite understand the economics of banking & money which I was trying to explain

De-centralized banking --> Not new
Metallism money theory --> Not new
Public Ledger --> New

Ripple is not paradigm shift like bitcoin but it takes the most innovative thing about bitcoin and applying that to the ACTUAL banking practices.

I can't think of a good metaphor.  But suppose when MP3s was invented some idealists had big ideas about revolutionizing the music industry.  But it wasn't until iTunes that MP3s became mainstream.  It didn't disrupt the status quo.  Sure it might have given a spotlight to some underground musicians that couldn't have happened befoe MP3s.  But probably the effect of MP3s was it increased the overall market size so you have more Katy Perrys & Justin Biebers as a result.

Crypto is exciting but most of the players are too focussed on bitcoin.  Ripple to me has the correct attitude to take crypto mainstream.  Only time will tell if they can do it or not.  They have the right attitude to attract incumbent institutions

You guys are smart.  I'm always humbled by the intelligence of the bitcoin community.

I haven't read the ripple white paper yet.  Maybe I will this weekend if I feel
compelled.

It sounds like there MIGHT be some value in the ripple network, although so far it sounds vague and theoretical.  

I still don't get how or why I would use this thing!

1. It's not a bitcoin-like cryptocurrency (obviously)

2. I can wire fiat money wherever I want to, from my local bank (or by phone) and they
will convert it to a foreign currency if I want.  Does ripple do this any better?
Is it even possible today?

3. I certainly don't need ripple for buying coins or taking coin payments online (coinbase or bitpay does that just fine)

4. The only other use case I can think of (for me) is taking online payments in some fashion (similar to SEPA), and I've been told that will be possible only in the future when more services are built.

OK, one more question for the ripplers out there:

Bitcoin is presently very useful to me as a store of value, exciting to me as a speculative investment, and each month bitcoin is becoming more and more useful to me as a medium of exchange.  Since you've claimed that ripples are neither designed to be saved as a store of value nor meant to be purchased as a speculative instrument, and since Ripple is presently not useful to me as a medium of exchange¹, how would you recommend that I use it today?

What are you actually trying to convince me of?  My view all along has been that:



¹Because (a) I don't know how to evaluate the counter-party risk of Ripple IOUs, (b) no one I want to exchange with uses Ripple, (c) I am more incentivized to promote bitcoin over Ripple to people who use neither.

peter, you can use bitcoin or any other currency whether fiat or crypto in ripple. forget xrp for a little bit, and think of the ripple network as a whole. the beauty of the network is if you decide to send btc, you can choose which currency the recipient would like to receive.  it's a sort of network value exchange on the internet.

i suggest reading the ripple primer here:  https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf

there are also a lot of other features built in the network like a trading exchange and lots more ideas in the pipe line like smart contracts.

why not give it a try. i'd be happy to activate your ripple wallet. just send me a pm. :)

also watch this video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRgfC61Gc3E

i can't find a reason why ripple has no place in the crypto-currency space as some people have expressed. the space has so much room for more improvement and ripple is providing a solution to some of the issues facing bitcoin.

is it?  i don't think so.  not with these investors behind it:

Just some of the VC's that are invested in Ripple.



Andreessen Horowitz

https://www.ripplelabs.com/wp-content/themes/chariot/_include/img/investors/a16z_2.png

Andreessen Horowitz is a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm with $2.7 billion under management. The firm invests in entrepreneurs building companies at every stage – from seed to growth.



The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund

https://www.ripplelabs.com/wp-content/themes/chariot/_include/img/investors/bitcoin.png

The Bitcoin Opportunity Fund is managed by Barry Silbert, the founder of SecondMarket and the Bitcoin Investment Trust. The fund invests in bitcoin and other math-based currency companies, including Gyft, Coinbase and Tradehill, among others.



Google Ventures

https://www.ripplelabs.com/wp-content/themes/chariot/_include/img/investors/google_ventures.png

Google Ventures is a radically different kind of venture-capital fund. The Google Ventures design, marketing, recruiting, and engineering teams work full-time with portfolio companies. Google Ventures also offers Startup Lab, a dedicated facility and educational program where companies can meet, learn, work, and share.

Google Ventures will invest over $1B in the next five years. Founded in 2009, the firm has invested in over 200 companies, including Uber, Nest, Kabam, HomeAway, Parse, ngmoco, and RetailMeNot. Google Ventures is headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., with offices in Seattle, New York, and Cambridge, Mass.



IDG Technology Venture Investment Fund

https://www.ripplelabs.com/wp-content/themes/chariot/_include/img/investors/idg.png

IDG Technology Venture Investment Fund is managed by IDG Capital Partners, which, as a leading China-related investment team, was among the first to introduce foreign venture capital investment into China in early 1990’s. Since then the funds under its management have invested in around 300 diverse and successful portfolios, such as Baidu, Sohu, Tencent, Soufun, Ctrip, Tudou, Qihu360, Home Inns, Hanting and Kanghui. Over 70 portfolios have successfully completed IPO or M&A.



Lightspeed Venture Partners

https://www.ripplelabs.com/wp-content/themes/chariot/_include/img/investors/lightspeed.png

Lightspeed Venture Partners is a leading venture capital firm with over $2 billion of committed capital under management and investment professionals and advisors in Silicon Valley, India, Israel and China with Lightspeed China Partners. Over the past two decades, Lightspeed partners have backed more than 200 consumer, enterprise and cleantech companies, many of which have become leaders in their respective markets, including Blue Nile, Brocade, Ciena, DoubleClick, eHealth, Flixster, Fusion-io, Informatica, Kosmix, LivingSocial, Lucky Pai, Nicira, Playdom, Pliant Technology, Provigent, Riverbed Technology, Solazyme, TutorVista, Virsa Systems, Waveset, and XtremIO.



source:  https://www.ripplelabs.com/investors/

Ripple looks interesting :D

This is the boring and simple answer.

Ripple is what it is, maybe it will work though I don't really see how.

what they said about bitcoin in 2011 (warning:  they are completely hilarious!):

bjornb:  "They are trading at a ridiculous 70 cents USD which is hilarious for a currency that no one uses."

party:  "i wonder if these people all share the same mental illness, or if it's more of a general hodgepodge of stupid."

Gullanian:  "Yeah the problem with this currency is it's pretty much untested and extremely volatile, and a better one might come along, or a security flaw might be discovered which will render the currency worthless in seconds."

Scottyy:  "Who is funding bitcoin? You can not make money out of thin air. What does Paypal do with the bitcoins people exchange for cash?"

source:  http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30/business-finance-investing/bitcoins-digital-currency-1011408/ (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/30/business-finance-investing/bitcoins-digital-currency-1011408/)

What do you have to gain personally by promoting ripple?  If XRP is essentially a valueless token what incentive is there for others to buy it.  Essentially what I'm asking is how is Ripple going to make me money.

With Bitcoin and other crypto's it's simple.  I have incentive to promote to others because by doing so my investment can potentially increase in value as others adopt it.

What about Ripple?  Why even promote it?  What benefit does it bring to you personally?

^ that's the thing.  does it even have to have a monetary gain to help promote the ripple protocol on a community level?  or does it even mean that when i promote ripple, i am saying you should speculate in xrp?  no. i am simply saying for everyone to try it out and see for yourself if it is something that might be of use to you, whether you are a trader, a banker, developer, coder, merchant etc.. then if not, move on. simple.

but before pushing it aside, please read up on it first because most of the people that did push it aside are the ones who didn't spare a few minutes learning about it.

again, here's the ripple primer:  https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf (https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf)

Yes, it does have to have a monetary gain to help promote the ripple protocol on a community level.

We're all here for our own monetary benefit.  Anyone who claims anything otherwise is disingenuous.

Interesting but can it be actually used ?  Can I , in fact, send argentine pesos to my friend in Argentina even though I have dollars ?  If so, how?  What are the steps?

granting that there was a gateway in argentina accepting argentine pesos?  i couldn't see why not.

you see, that is why we are spreading the word about ripple everywhere so we make more and more people aware of it and use it and build stuff above and around it whether you are a trader, a banker, developer, coder, merchant etc..

right now, what ripple needs is gateways, lots of them to make it easier for people around the globe to transfer money into the ripple network.  so far we have a few.  you can read more about ripple gateways here:  https://xrptalk.org/topic/1770-guide-to-ripple-gateways-how-to-move-money-in-and-out-of-the-ripple-network/  and here:  https://ripple.com/ripple-gateways.pdf

so far the most liquid currencies in the network are btc, usd and cny.

for a complete newbie guide, like how to send money in ripple, there are video tutorials here:  https://xrptalk.org/topic/2204-video-tutorials-for-beginners/

enjoy. :)

Question:

Could ripple somehow be used as a workaround for the Chinese to acquire crypto's?

You may find it disingenuous, but not all of us are gambling junkies.  Some of us actually want to see the tech bring real world change to people around the globe.  The fact that we can type in a forum shows we already have more than most.  You have a right to be self-centered in your view of the tech but you know what they say when you assume.  


There is nothing preventing the Ripple protocol from doing what you suggest.  The tech works.  What lacks in these early stages, is liquidity and as Tokeweed mentioned, gateways.  Remittence is one of the key things Ripple is designed to do, so as the infrastructure, market makers, etc., come online, you're going to love Ripple.  

Steps are just like sending from a Bitcoin wallet, except you can choose to send pesos with USD.  Real simple.  You could actually view the lack of liquidity for your currency pairs as an opportunity to make a market.  Sounds like money to be made if there's true demand for USD ->Pesos.


All you need is a Chinese gateway or a way for them to get money to any gateway.  Then they can move into whatever currency there is liquidity for.

azeh check out these chinese gateways:

http://www.ripplecn.com/

http://www.ripplechina.net/

Ripple is 100% premined, but that's not the problem, the problem is that they openly say they'll keep 40% of the coins.
So basically they're accepting it's a Ponzi Scheme.

no. the creators of ripple made 100 billion xrp and gave 80 billion to ripple labs.

call it a ponzi scheme if you want, i think you have already set your mind hard to see it as such so i won't bother arguing like i did in the past.

but the protocol is better than most in the crypto-currency space. nothing can change that.

No one know the market actual Volume added everyday, so there maybe have a lot new dump everyday .

The term "ponzi scheme" get thrown around here far too easily. It does not mean what you probably think it means...

This not english. ???

At least the part about "no one know" is wrong, Ripple data is openly available and can be inspected by anyone. There's a nice (open source by the way) charting site at ripplecharts.com if you prefer not to stare at raw JSON data fresh from the API.

yeah, ripple is still young. but the volume is enough for one to trade and have fun with the network. :)

check this out:  http://www.ripplecharts.com/#/