Absolutely, but limited encrypted messaging attached to a transaction looks like a core feature of a payment system. Traditional payment systems also have this feature.

In addition, it would be useful to have an application that adds intrinsic value to Bitcoin, as discussed on this page on the bitcoin.it site. The specific application could be something like Bitmessage, but with its PoW scheme replaced by Bitcoin postage.

It would also be nice if the protocol could be layered somehow, with a base layer dealing with generalised notarisation services, and several specialised layers on top of that. Below the notarisation service you could have a generalised message sharing layer and below that a generalised P2P layer that deals with peer discovery and perhaps anonymity. It would also be good to share these layers with other P2P applications like Bittorrent, Tor etc. Sharing the more basic layers with other P2P protocols gives you critical mass, robustness, economies of scale and less duplication of effort.

I subscribe to the theory that there are only two likely long term outcomes: BTC becomes worthless or it becomes ridiculously valuable. Based on that I think buy and hold is a sensible strategy, provided you don't put too much money into it, and day trading isn't.

On the other hand, if everyone hoards their BTC, then it will never be used for real transactions and therefore won't become immensely valuable. If adoption grows, so will the exchange rate and at some point people will wisely start to cash out and adoption can increase even further. I think that if my small stash of BTC ever becomes worth $100k, I will sell 90% of it, if the remainder reaches $100k I will sell 90% of that and so on.

If the amount you've put into Bitcoin is more than you're comfortable holding for a decade or more, then you should sell off some of it until you are comfortable with it. You could time your sales, but I wouldn't buy anything, just try to offload your excess reserves near peaks in the exchange rate. Or even better, use the BTC to pay for goods and services, and maybe choose the timing for that wisely as well.

That may be true, but that doesn't mean they were responsible for the OP losing his money.

Not by the ECB, just by his government and its "bankster cronies". And even then his government is culpable only to the degree that it was negligent in the oversight duties that it took upon itself (wrongly in my opinion).

The fees are really tiny if you don't use gateways. And those gateways aren't even owned by OpenCoin, though the early ones may be paying OpenCoin fees themselves. Once the code is open sourced anyone can start a gateway, subject to local regulations.

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.

That is another possibility, but Ripple allows you to do this with people you know and trust, and it is accessible 24/7.

Actually, one of the great things about Ripple is that you do not have to deal with banks ever, if you don't want to. All transactions can be settled in cash with people you know personally.

Fine with me, I was just explaining my own choice.

I found it educational, and I was impressed by the extremely rapid, courteous and helpful response to a bug report I filed. It turned out I simply didn't understand the system well enough and that the alleged bug was not in fact a bug. I agree the system cannot be trusted until after they've open sourced the code, but I have high hopes for Ripple. If nothing else, it would be great for Bitcoin.

Then don't use the beta. It's too late for that anyway, as you cannot currently create an account. I'm glad I created one in time, I had to jump through some hoops to do so.

Perhaps that is a good idea for other reasons as well, but content-related problems would be solved by only embedding a hash, not the whole message.

I think it's a double-edged sword. On the one hand competition is good, on the other hand you also need critical mass. The ability to make payments in IOUs using Ripple looks like a killer feature that may allow XRP to establish critical mass very quickly.

Agreed wholeheartedly, what Bitcoin needs now is stability, not a higher exchange rate.


That need not be the only effect. It could also make transition from BTC to XRP less painful, which could decrease enthusiasm for a Bitcoin-based rival to Ripple. The end result could then be a single, more stable currency, namely XRP.

Maybe it would help acceptance by those holding BTC, plus it could help you supplant BTC if that's what you wanted. In general, I think that offering an upgrade path from other currencies could be a good business move for new cryptocurrencies, at least in some circumstances. But I'm not advocating this, just wondering if you had considered it.

@JoelKatz:

Have you guys considered a proof-of-burn transition from BTC to XRP?

It's not just the miners who bear the costs, it's everyone who stores the whole blockchain. It might even include people who don't store the whole chain if the messages are difficult to prune by those who don't care about them.

The nice thing is that no one would be forced to switch, you could continue to use the old blockchain as long as it had sufficient non-evil hashing power behind it. Any number of potential replacements would then enter free competition with each other and with the original BTC. It's possible more than one would survive.

And to get this back to Ripple, I believe Ripple will happily find paths that convert currencies along the way, which should help lower barriers to entry for new currencies.

I think Ripple.com will be exactly what's needed. If you have a mobile phone with Internet access, you are good to go. You can trade between BTC and fiat currency through your trust graph if necessary, so even if shops don't accept BTC or if the tax man won't, you can still convert to fiat whenever necessary. And since the government of Zimbabwe cannot shut down gateways beyond its borders, you could easily use fiat IOUs issued by reputable international gateways.

I was thinking just of the use of Coin-burning as a tool for transition between cryptocurrencies, not necessarily to using proof of burn in that new currency after the transition. The existing Bitcoin blockchain can be used as algorithmic proof that someone gave up their BTC, and the new blockchain can then credit the same amount to the corresponding new address. In that way the value of the old BTC wouldn't drop as it is replaced by the new BTC.