Yep, one of the things in the Ripple ledger is an order book between any pair of currencies. There isn't much volume right now, but it's there.

Edit: Note that WeExchange BTC IOU's are a different currency from Bitstamp BTC IOU's are different from moocowpong1 BTC IOU's. There can be a different exchange rate for each if people value them differently.

There is an important difference between IOUs denominated in the same currency and IOUs denominated in different currencies. Changing currencies always requires going through an order book and taking from one or more offers. Changing the issuer of an IOU without changing the currency doesn't require an offer and can instead just ripple through someone who holds the IOU you want and wants the IOU you hold.

Say you have WeExchange/BTC and need to pay someone Bitstamp/BTC. You can ripple through anyone who holds Bitstamp/BTC, has extended credit to WeExchange/BTC, and does not hold WeExchange/BTC that equals or exceeds their credit. You would have to pay two transfer fees, which right now is something like .7% in total. (I hope competition will eventually bring this down.)

If you weren't in a hurry though, you could just drop your credit limit to the exchange whose IOUs you don't want to hold and raise the limit to the exchange whose IOUs you do want to hold. Once the next upgrade to Ripple pathfinding gets pushed out, people who need to go the other direction will prefer you to ripple through, and so (hopefully) the exchange will happen gradually for you (thanks to people who need to go the other way) at no cost to you because they pay the fees.

Hmm I thought that was sarcasm when I saw the bit about miners driving up hash rates for no reason, but reading more I'm no longer sure if the post is sarcasm or serious.

-MarkM-

I could get on board with something tied to the number of transactions paying at least the minimum fee.

If the amount of fee paying transactions rises, the block size is increased on the next adjustment.  If the fee paying transactions drop, block size is reduced on the next adjustment.

Basically, we need a way to keep the segment allotted to free transactions to stay roughly the same size, but allow the size to grow and shrink with the paying transaction rate.  Free transactions could still take up extra space if there weren't paying transactions, but they wouldn't reserve the space past the adjustment.

Mr. Bitcoin!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WiXMcsfvXE

I disagree.  We'll get one more good downdraft this time after the brief bounce, then I'll make my bimonthly dollar cost average purchase.  Good timing bears .

Adam, you feeling better about your bet?

I don't have a clue what they have going on in their camp and maybe they are comfortable enough in their position that bringing fresh awesomeness to market isn't a priority anymore

I do agree with the sentiment of the forum at the time they announced it.
A place to convert BTC into prepaid mastercard $ would be a huge facilitator for this niche.
I hope that people realize, like I showed above, that bringing a product like that to our market should not be that difficult.
If you are able to put together the frontend and deal with the currency conversion, the card itself can be provided by a third party
(and I think that is the intimidating/confusing part to most of the people who could pull it off)

It really is that easy, here's a link: http://www.payoneer.com/PrepaidMC.aspx ... used em to get commissions from some of the sites I have been an affiliate for in the past
For Bitcoin I imagine you would just setup a frontend where people send you BTC. Once you get the coins then you credit their account $ @ gox rate minus fees. Can't be that hard.

As for the Captains of the Industry™ ... I said lazy, you said incompetent ... I would bet on "preoccupied with other projects"

I kind of enjoy perusing through the IP logs and speculating as to the actual IP/location of the owners of various addresses.  I vote keep it.

Bitfinex apparently has margin trading now.