The basic idea is to embed searchable hashes in the blockchain that can't be censored.
What do you mean by searchable hash? Then use these to fetch that actual data from a DHT network.
Huh? Isn't the existing DHT a search mechanism rather than a retrieval mechanism? This takes *a lot* of pressure of the blockchain from people who want to throw lots of data at it, and allows you to potentially use this scheme to allow gigabytes of data to be retrieved.
Compared to what? Embedding everything in the blockchain? That's clearly infeasible. It's basically proof of sacrifice.
In what way? A detailed explanation of what you're proposing would be helpful... |
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banks are banned.
You cant deposit to BtcChina & OkCoin through banks now.
Those two statements are not synonymous. I don't think we know for a fact that banks have been banned, since we haven't seen any official statement to that effect. I do think we have to count with that possibility, both right now and in the future. |
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Can we remove the [FUD] marker from the thread title? And be a little bit less eager next time to scream FUD!!! before we have solid information?
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I don't think that would help much. From what I know the block chain isn't limited at all, and I think it would download at at leats 5 mb/s. Most torrent files will never get a speed above 5mb/s, and the max I have seen is 2.2mb/s. I think that it would just make things slower and more complicated.
I'm not familiar with the details, but see this thread: [ANN] Bitcoin blockchain data torrent |
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Do you have a link to the discussion itself? The link you gave points to an article about it, but not to the actual discussion. |
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I like to dream that the various P2P networks will start sharing protocol layers. Micropayments for seeding would be an example, others have imagined similar things for routing between meshnets. All could use a common basic overlay layer that robustly exchanges addresses of nodes and broadcasts low latency messages.
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Maybe better integration with BitTorrent would be useful for initial downloads of the blockchain too.
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Just sounds like the same announcement from before - and as I checked RMB withdrawals (at least) are still working fine from btcchina (and apparently from okcoin also).
So how do RMB withdrawals work? What effect do China's capital controls have on westerners trying to arbitrage between btcchina and Bitstamp? |
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Algorithms are written by people. So they can be made to do thing you don't want.
Not if it's part of a protocol. GMaxwell was making suggestions describing how people can share their intentions, without losing their privacy.
Sure, I'm not saying his suggestion wouldn't be superior, just that this might be a quick initial fix. If there aren't other problems with it that is. There very well might be. |
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Who does the rejecting, and why should they be trusted?
If it's an algorithmic decision, it doesn't matter, does it? But it was just something that popped into my mind, it's not a well thought out proposal. |
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Couldn't you just eject all but one of the partial transactions that use the same addresses from the current CoinJoin operation, maybe based on the lowest value of some appropriate hash?
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It is a separate setting. It's a per-account setting.
Does that mean it only applies to IOU types where the restriction to to verified accounts has been enabled or can all IOUs apply this? I've been looking around on the wiki, but details on this and things like auto bridging are sketchy. I've been toying with the idea of trying to start a gateway that offers EUR IOUs since no one else seems to be doing that in a way that inspires my confidence. |
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Yeah, that's the main thing I do care about.
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. :-) I think I'll buy a small amount of XRP in case it takes off spectacularly, maybe 100 euros or so. So far as I can tell this "robust exchange system" is nothing more than theoretical, though.
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 said above that I'll jump through hoops to get myself going with Ripple in a heartbeat if someone can show how it can get me a better exchange rate than Coinbase for USD/BTC, with equivalent ease and trustworthiness. I'd probably even be willing to drop the "equivalent ease" part so long as I can access the USD within a few days and the trustworthiness is there (there needs to be a US company that I can sue if my money gets stolen, basically).
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. But it's unlikely such a scenario would last very long, because I and a whole bunch of others would arbitrage the hell out of such a scenario.
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. Certainly Bitcoin can help Ripple, but not only do I not see the benefit of that, I can see some potential pitfalls. Ripple has the potential to become the nice government-sanctioned system which governments can point people at as they regulate the life out of Bitcoin. And for those of us who care about having a decentralized currency, which is we should not forget the primary purpose for which Bitcoin was created, that would be a tragedy.
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. |
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But a check can be written to "Cash". Then it's payable to the bearer. Would that be more equivalent to a bitcoin "IOU"? (Given that everything is electronic and signed digitally, I don't think it makes much difference. Whether the check is written to "Cash" or "the order of 31uEbMgunupShBVTewXjtqbBv5MndwfXhb" is just details.)
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. Yeah but what's the point? If you're already in the networks that the rest of the world actually uses, why bother joining some network that no one uses?
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. Oh I don't agree with that at all. Bitcoin is a decentralized currency. The creator(s) of bitcoin didn't give 80% of bitcoins to their for-profit company and the rest to themselves. The creator(s) probably have a lot of BTC, but if so all indications are that they got it the same way as anyone else.
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. That said, greater current mindshare also goes a long way  . 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. |
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How is the gateway not a party?
It is, the issuer is a gateway. In fact, how is the gateway not in fact a party which is completely equivalent to the bank?
It is, except that it's not the gateway keeping the books, but the impartial and reliable P2P network of Ripple validators. In Ripple, as I understand it, you deposit funds at the gateway and sign an instruction to the gateway saying to pay those funds to the order of the payee. The payee can then redeem those funds at the gateway, or can sign the instrument over to yet another party. Eventually one of the holders redeems the funds by presenting the instrument.
The signing over happens inside the Ripple network, under the supervision of the validator nodes. The gateway only deals with issuing and redeeming IOUs. And I'm not sure I see the incentive. To be a gateway, it seems you'd have to be regulated as either a bank or a non-bank financial institution (like Paypal). At that point, once you've gone through that trouble, you might as well just connect to ACH and SEPA and the other various clearing systems already in place.
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. Well there you go. Conversely, Bitcoin doesn't add anything above and beyond Ripple, except for greater current mindshare. What exactly does Ripple offer there?
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. Yeah, if someone who accepts ripple payments allows me to exchange USD for Bitcoin, and I trust them, then I can buy and sell bitcoin with USD through Ripple.
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. If someone who accepts ACH transfers allows me to exchange USD for Bitcoin, and I trust them, then I can buy and sell bitcoin with USD through ACH.
The latter already exists (Coinbase). I don't know about the former.
The distributed order book is the biggie for me. |
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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.
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So other people's checks. (They're more like checks than IOUs, aren't they?)
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. Just like checks.
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. My vision for what Bitcoin checks are going to be like is more like this. Instead of depositing her bitcoin at MtEyeou and giving them full access to it, Sonia creates a split-key so that any transaction has to be signed by Sonia and by MtEyeou, and Sonia puts her bitcoin behind that split-key.
MtEyeou plays the part of the issuing gateway. They promise to never sign a double-spend transaction without permission from all recipients. If you trust MtEyeou to abide by its promises, then you can accept a transaction signed by it immediately and you don't have to wait for a confirmation. If they collude with their customers to double-spend and thus scam you, you can use the court system. MtEyeou could also post a bond guaranteeing payment for a certain amount of damages in the event of a double-spend.
No need for Ripple or XRP or anything like it in that scenario.
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. |
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Well, the "very small" minimum reserve requirement says that I do have to use XRP.
That said, if Ripple can currently be used as a BTC-fiat exchange which gives me a better exchange rate than Coinbase with equal ease and assurance that I'm not being scammed, then I'm interested. That's worth a few bucks for the XRP, even if XRP goes to zero. But does Ripple offer this currently? If so, how would I go about doing it?
You could try to "mine" the XRP at 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. I don't think I said anything about fair.
There's nothing unfair about setting up your own currency.
There's nothing unfair about me avoiding it either.
Exactly, I agree. Come invest a "very small" amount in my new currency doesn't convince me. In fact, it causes "scam" alerts to go off.
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. |
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Nice! It would be great if you could also add a graph.
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So, instead of XRP we have XBB so as to not use a confusing name. One XBB is created by verifiably destroying 1 satoshi. This way the creation of XBB is decentralized.
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. |
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