XRP "stamps" (lol!) are such a devious ploy. I cannot trust an organization that would pull such a slimy trick.

Anyone else bored of people being surprised by completely normal, expected behavior of an exponentially growing economy?

Predicted a week ago. It was obvious that altcoins were in a bubble. Litecoin isn't useless (it is a backup/testnet/hedge for Bitcoin), but there is no way that its dev team, network, track record, and ecosystem are anywhere near 10% the value of Bitcoin's (LTC market cap was 10% that of Bitcoin).

I'm guessing that the first place we will see full cycles happening en mass will be with porn sites accepting bitcoins and then turning around and paying for their webhosting with them, and maybe even their cam girls. Imagine how cheap it would be to recruit cam girls from countries that Paypal won't deal with.

(Everyone using Bitpay is just a temporary thing. Once Bitcoin is a bit more popular people will understand how to use it and will be more comfortable accepting it themselves.)

Also, SR already has this, with dealers accepting BTC and then using it to buy from wholesalers who are also on SR.

Short-term mildly bullish, medium-term moderately bullish, long-term very bullish. I expect continued fast exponential growth once this recent bubble is a few more days/weeks/months in the past.

Cryptocurrencies and related systems are the future and will precipitate a cascade of changes that will so drastically alter the face of the planet that no one can imagine what a decade from now will be like. It will almost certainly be a more free and vastly more prosperous world.

I like both the financial gains and the world-changing aspects about equally.

I know this is the Wall Observer thread so it comes with the territory, but many or most people here simply seem over-antsy. Few humans are psychologically equipped to follow day-to-day price changes without freaking out and losing money because of it. The tendency is to start reading into every little thing.

I don't think many people familiar with Austrian economics would be convinced that this is possible. It sounds like the central bankers' false belief that they can and should increase and decrease the money supply "as needed." Assuming this is a Hayek vs. Keynes type of issue, which it seems like it is, demonstrating why this can't work like you explained it would take us far afield. But the form of the debate would be familiar to people who are conversant in Austrian economics. Until we or some others have time to go through the whole argument piece by piece while also arguing for and against the possibility and utility of central economic planning, we'll have agree to disagree on this.

However, even before that, the assumption is wrong in the first place: the reason XRP must have substantial value is of course to pay the dev team. This is their actual plan. Everything about it is inconsistent. It takes but a few minutes' thought to see what they're actually trying to do: simply tack a superfluous, utility-reducing get-rich-quick scheme on to the original Ripple idea. Apparently paying off Ryan Fugger not to use the Ripple name anymore just takes the cake as far as co-opting is concerned. Final nail in the coffin if you ask me.

I should add that my opinion really isn't so final IF they actually release something that turns out to be very useful and decentralized. To be perfectly charitable to OC, I should say that I am simply extremely skeptical that they can do this, and the way they are conducting their PR is making it look very fishy to me (and, it seems to me, many or most of the more intelligent members of this forum). I do think, however, that they can convince the masses.

There is one paradox that no one has ever been able to resolve: in order for OCRipple to work, XRP must have both almost no value and also - at the same time - it must have considerable value (to be viable to pay dev team, etc.). I have asked about this many times and never heard a good answer. All signs point to the XRP aspect being tacked on after the fact just as a money maker for OpenCoin, the utility of the system always being second priority. It seems extremely clever in that OC must have known XRP would take on a market value yet they advertize it as essentially worthless so they can look blindsided by the speculative phenomenon. "Oops, we got rich before even releasing our product."

Everything about the entire OpenCoin project just reeks of style over substance and the most brazen sort of milking Fugger's original idea for a chance to be an early adopter in the cryptocurrency realm. "Open" has so far been a lie, even as the creators enrich themselves on no utility provided to the community at all yet, very unlike Bitcoin. And "Coin" is just PR to try to associate itself with proper (mined!) cryptocurrencies, especially of course Bitcoin. It'd be like if Coca Cola tried to make a cryptocurrency system.

Finally, it's not that I begrudge people trying to make a profit. This is capitalism after all. It's just that they have actually put making money first every single time they had an opportunity to do so, even when it has damaged the usability and credibility of the system, seemingly intent on papering over this with a glossy marketing campaign. Of course for all we know they might just never release their product and simply hype it with teasers as they gradually sell off their XRP and ride into the sunset fabulously wealthy.

Man, you tech guys are extremely patient. How on earth did this question about a basic economic misconception reach 3 pages?

OCripple is not Ripple.

 




You seem rather ignorant of both Bitcoin and economics.


This is the best arguments Ripple got for their lame-ass premine?

Really good point. "What you can afford to lose" is always changing, in some sense. Well in one sense if you keep the same lifestyle and aren't in debt, you could "afford to lose" your Bitcoin millions. But in another sense, if you had recently won the lottery and had $5 million of new money representing 95% of your wealth, would you really think it wise to put almost all of it into bitcoins to play the "binary bet"!?

The problem isn't newbies floundering around with their questions, it's newbies (and some non-newbs) who simply don't form their arguments but jump to conclusions without consideration. Or they engage in sophistry, grabbing at straws, etc. It is a matter of the caliber of the thinker and how much thought they are willing to put in, or if they just want to make some easy money.

The classic example is a newbie asserting a conclusion with no real argument and acting like they did present an argument.

This PLUS way less information available in Chinese, way fewer people to help you, etc. They are at a far less advanced stage ecosystem-wise, though they are getting the news hype a little so it's not exactly like a few years ago in the English-language space, but similar in that there are many hindrances to the casual entrant - even more than the already difficult process for an English speaker.

Oh yawn. Keynesianism never dies.

In for an inch, in for a mile. The future has no room for inefficient media of exchange and unreliable stores of value.

LOL, looks like they realized the error and did a straight find/replace "eric --> Erik". So that "American" has become "AmErikan" and so on.

I'm proud to be an AmErikan

Fastest ignore ever

Crumbcake, uniqueness of utility is compared to other coins, so for ECC it would be zero. The question is what does the new coin offer that Bitcoin doesn't. Litecoin has a little uniqueness since it uses scrypt and a tiny bit more uniqueness because of shorter confirmations and more coins. Namecoin might have quite a bit of uniqueness since it could work for anonymous domain registry, though I don't know if it works well in practice. The other altcoins seem to have either nothing very unique or their concept is unsound (centralized, not scarce, perishable, etc.).