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I need to choose a Ripple Gateway trustworthy enough to hold $10's of USD for me while I test out Ripple. I have no experience with any existing BTC exchanges/counter parties.

So my open question is? Who do you trust? Tell me your GOOD experiences? No flame wars please.

There is a list of gateways on the Ripple Wiki Gateway List (https://ripple.com/wiki/Gateway_List). The only USD ones during the beta are Bitstamp (https://bitstamp.net) and WeExchange (https://weexchange.co). Of those I'd recommend Bitstamp mostly because the Ripple markets for them are more active (deeper, better prices, more volume) and the transfer fees are smaller (.2% vs .5%). If you're depositing USD to a gateway via bank transfer you could use whichever one has lower bank fees and inside Ripple exchange USD-WeExchange <-> USD-Bitstamp for .7% (the sum of the transfer fees) provided there is sufficient liquidity (many hundred dollars worth last I looked).

If you aren't set on using USD you could consider Ripple Union (http://rippleunion.com) for CAD, they charge no transfer fee. CAD-RippleUnion can be exchanged for USD-Bitstamp within Ripple at close to the bank's exchange rates for small amounts.

Thanks for the great info!

Anyone else have any experiences?

Bitstamp uses a Slovenian bank, and the Slovenian banking system may be the next eurozone domino to fall. Not a problem if you are only risking small amounts, but good to keep in mind.

Thank you! I did not know that.

Anyone know what bank WeExchange uses?

According to their website their account is listed as "WeExchange Australia PTY LTD" at ANZ Bank.

Thanks dchapes!

But it's Saturday and my bank is closed.
All I want is a few USD IOU in my account to test with $10.

I'm going to make this a quick personal project. I'm going to look someone up on https://localbitcoins.com and try to convince him to help me. That means I can add DividendRippler.com to my list of possibilities.

Anyone have experiences with DividendRippler.com

Bitstamp is very good and Ripple is fast and I will admit I like it.

HOWEVER I have been around in Ripple a while and traded a few BTC into Ripple and back.  Suddenly, you cannot get BTC out of Ripple and back into Bitstamp - so it is not a gateway for BTC /Ripple, right now it is only a trap door.

Admittedly Bitstamp are saying they are 'looking into this problem' or 'fixing it soon '  But when 'soon' actually IS, is anyone's guess.

Internal trading inside Ripple to get Ripple into USD or vice versa is not really practical, the only exchange trading there is inside is in BTC/XRP, but if the largest gateway is not letting you get BTC out, it is a little concerning.

http://ripplescam.org/

I will trust you for $10 USD if you like, for 1 year. You can use the currency freely and it's bitstamp backed so you can withdraw / exchange it etc. This is the point of ripple.

I've had good experiences with both WeExchange (for smaller amounts under $200), and Bitstamp for larger amounts (Up to $40k).

Regarding Bitstamp being a trapdoor, they run their own instance of rippled server, and being a rapidly growing business, the people who operate the rippled server are out of the office quite a lot, the thing works like clockwork, but if it goes down and nobody is there, then you need to wait until somebody is able to restart the ripple server, and let it catch up with the ever growing rippled. It's effectively the same as an exchanges bitcoind server going offline then needing to catch back up. On the other side, for putting funds in to ripple from bitstamp, they use a hotwallet which gets reloaded with about $50,000 USD and 500 BTC at a time, when it's empty, it needs reloaded with more funds. It would be very irresponsible for them to put more money in there, or have it auto filling, so it takes a staff member to reload it. This is about the only factor which can affect deposit/withdraw times. All it takes is some patience, and a support ticket when needed.

PM me your ripple address and I'll send you some USD and some XRP if you need it.

Thank you for the offer webr3. Actually chapes on the Ripple forums trusted me with some Canadian Dollars to help me though my learning process. I've got a pretty good handle on Ripple now. I invite you to look me up on the Ripple forums. I'm about to launch a project you might be interested in. (Busy typing about it now.)