Interesting point. Escrow would help with the case of ordering a product, but in general you do need trust, that's true. And lending is an important economic function, and that involves a great amount of trust as well as due diligence to make sure that trust is warranted, collateral etc. But that said, cryptocurrencies eliminate some counterparty risk, which is a good thing, and an advantage over systems that require more trust.

It's a great system for using fiat money and for transitioning to crypto. But a crypto currency that doesn't need trust is even better. And of course, Ripple will help us get there.

That will only be an option as long as the source is closed. As long as that is the case, buying XRP will be a considerably riskier investment than afterwards. Let the buyer beware.


Yes, and the same could happen to Bitcoin too, if everybody were to hoard it. It's not in our interest to do so, just as it isn't in OpenCoin's interest to do so.

Holding back tends to increase value, not to decrease it.


Yes, obviously they will sell them off, and everybody knows it. This will be discounted in the price the market is willing to pay for them.

I sympathise with your conciliatory sentiments, but what is it about Bitcoin that strikes you as nobler than Ripple?

I did listen, so in other words, you have no arguments, just empty assertion. I suppose that's fine too.

They made all those XRP themselves. I say it's fair they get to do with them as they please. Of course, only time will tell how much people will be willing to pay for them. Which is fair enough too.


Who gets to decide what's fair? Was it fair that mining was really, really easy in the beginning?


I've also heard people complain that Bitcoin enthusiasts are hoarding their coins. The common thread I see is that people are bitching that unlike earlier adopters, they personally won't get a chance to get filthy rich by doing nothing or very little.

They have to come from somewhere. Let's start with 100M XRP in account #0. Exactly how are the XRP to be divided among the inhabitants of planet Earth?

Trust is only necessary for dealing with other currencies than XRP (or with stocks, commodities etc), which has no counterparty risk inside the Ripple system. I think the great thing about Ripple is that it is a potentially decentralised bridge between fiat and crypto, which is exactly what we need to make the transition from fiat to crypto and to facilitate competition between crypto currencies.

That may well be true. But purely from a functional point of view, wouldn't Open Transactions make for a great complement to Bitcoin, just like Ripple, just not in exactly the same way? I'd love to see a combination of all three, and then integration with Tor, I2), Bitmessage etc.

And how exactly would that work? How would they "buy" XRP? Where would the money go? And don't forget they did all the work and made all XRP that exists. They should be free to do with it as they please. You aren't entitled to any of it.

It also remains to be seen if adoption can grow to something like that of the euro while so many people hope to hoard their BTC. Every person wil start to cash out at some price level, and conversely, if they don't adoption will stagnate.

Doesn't it have a large overlap with Ripple? It would allow the distributed exchange between fiat and crypto currencies. And it adds untraceable digital cash.

Yeah nothing except write code, develop the concept, invest in a support / marketing infrastructure etc etc. Trivial really.

What have the Romans ever done for us

As long as Ripple is closed source, it should be compared to Mt Gox, not the totality of all exchanges. Once it is open-sourced, it should be compared to the totality. For the former, it is no worse than Mt Gox, and for the latter it's substantially better. In other words, it holds great promise.

And what about Open Transactions? It doesn't have its own cryptocurrency, but allows you trade in all kinds of currencies, just like Ripple. And unlike Ripple it has already been open-sourced.

The same would be true once Ripple was open-sourced.


Is Mt Gox helpful to Bitcoin? Is it open source? Is it distributed?

Sure, I was talking about after the code has been released. Ripple won't be more than a promise until then. But Satoshi could dump his BTC at any time. Are you worried about that?

It's 75 now, I think.

Bitcoin has the same issue (or non-issue depending on your point of view). More than half of the BTC that will ever exist is in the hands of much less than half of the population. And of that half the lion's share is in the hands of early adopters. And of that amount most is in Satoshi's hands.

Don't be ridiculous, it's a crystal clear answer. Something like 30 people I'd guess, a hundred at most, and probably a lot less.


Of course it's not enough if it stays like that. What makes it promising is that it seems unlikely that it will stay that way because it would be against OpenCoin's best interests. And even if OpenCoin doesn't deliver, others could, based on the same principles. Or using Open Transactions. The two aren't even mutually exclusive.


Don't patronise me, I know how Bitcoin works.