I have been following the Ripple market and frankly I didn't expect it to hit .01 for quite some time, but that is now history and I suspect that Opencoin will not flood the market with XRP because they are likely making some money selling them to Bitstamp who resells them for a profit. Just speculation.

One thing to keep in mind with the Ripple is how much is actually circulating and how much will be circulating and at what point in time will the remaining Ripple circulate. From what I have read, about 1.2B have been distributed and are in "circulation" right now. I use that term circulate loosely because almost all activity is trading. It's hard enough to spend Bitcoins let alone Ripple XRP that even the Bitcoin savy may not know about yet. 20B are unlikely to enter circulation for quite some time (the founders share). Another 30B might take even longer to enter circulation (Opencoin's funding per their stated business model). 50B is being given away, however we have no timeline on when they will be distributed nor precisely who will get how much. Developers will probably get the Lion's share for developing apps and such, but again that is speculation.

Bottom line: We have very few hard facts, but assuming Opencoin acts in a self interested manner (as for profit companies do) the supply will be introduced gradually so the value stays relatively stable and giveaway's will match the growth of the Ripple network.

Short of outlawing the use of bitcoin, the US Gov can do little to stop it. The attack on Mt Gox today didn't even disrupt the price that much. If the Feds were smart they would digitize the dollar and compete against BTC but that would be a losing battle because the superior currency doesn't have the Federal Reserve printing more and more of it. Mining doesn't come close to what the Fed does, and there is the privacy of BTC  The more they attack the bitcoin the more people realize the government is impotent to stop Bitcoin.

You learn something new everyday. Thanks for reply.

Look to what drives real value. Real value comes from Bitcoin use as a currency, so the more useable it is the more value it has. What do I mean by this? I'm talking about being able to use Bitcoin to buy stuff. Most of us aren't in the market for illegal drugs on Silk Road, we just want to use Bitcoin to buy a sandwich or a coffee or stuff on the web. It's just like the price of a stock, in the short run prices rise and fall on speculation but in the long run real value or profits and dividends drive the price to fair value.

There is nothing illegal about trading Bitcoins for cash, so long as you report any gains from your trade on your tax return. Just like there is nothing illegal about bartering, the IRS only requires you to report the gain from any trades. That's the way it is in the US anyway, I can't speak to other areas of the world.

As to whether you can get away without reporting or not, I would say that Bitcoin is almost completely off the IRS radar screen unless you are talking about some real money. And by real money I'm talking about Bitcoin millionaires and such.

Bart Chilton who is the commissioner of the CFTC (commodities futures trading commission) is talking about regulating bitcoin. I think he would only be able to regulate derivitave contracts trading though, so it might not be a real issue to those not trading in derivitaves. I don't really know what it would mean for the CFTC to regulate Bitcoin derivitives trading, but frankly I don.'t trust any regulators. In a legal sense it seems to me that and other cryto currencies are more properly thought about as commodities than currencies. This might end up being a distiinction without a difference though.

Personally I think he isn't going to regulate it right away because it would be pretty embarrassing for the CFTC to regulate something that is declared illegal for use as money if other government agencies go that route. Regulation brings legitimacy, so it's a double edged sword.

In reality bitcoin has the potential to compete with USD and that is something the Fed does not want. You can be sure that those in power will not give away any of their power without a fight. This is what concerns me about Bitcoin longer term. They can't make it go away, but they can pass laws making it virtually impossible to deal in Bitcoin. The value comes from it's acceptance as a currency, if it cannot legally be used as currency then owning Bitcoins becomes virtually meaningless.

Ripple is doing another giveaway to whoever signed up for their email updates or news on or before May 9th. If you can't wait use BitStamp for your first 300 at a cost of .02 per ripple and buy the rest using the ripple wallet because you will get a better deal that way. I got the giveaway email today, but it just says the gveaway is coming sometime in May. Whatever you think about Ripple, they are a legitimate company with some big time venture capital behind them. If the whole thing gets going without running afoul of regulators and bankers regulations it will be good for Bitcoin too.

Laughed so hard I almost cried. Love the picture, and it pretty much sums up what I think about a bitcoin starter kit.

I tried to arbitrage between BTC XRP and USD using the ripple wallet, but spreads were too wide and volume too low to make any profit. I was trying this at night, so maybe trading is more brisk during the day? I was looking at the price of BTC to XRP and noticed a sizable difference between that and XRP to USD. I could have made a couple of bucks if my USD transfer to BitStamp went through, but for some reason it didn't go through.
Here was my plan:
trade BTC for XRP
trade XRP for USD
trade USD back to BTC and come out ahead.

No, but I find it irritating because the newbie threads aren't really what interest me. Of course noobs can always read the other threads, we just cannot make any comments. Getting the 10 posts is easy, but it is taking some time to get up to 4 hours. I'll admit I tried leaving the browser open and hoping the clock wouldn't stop, but it does stop rather quickly. I suppose it does have a purpose though, sort of like the speed limit and I don't like that much either.

If you want to buy/sell BTC for ripples just open a ripple wallet and trade within the wallet. I tried this and it actually works pretty well, and you can get a much better deal if you are buying ripple than what Bitstamp is selling them for.

Just got my free ripples email, still waiting for the free ripples though. I hope they give out a heft amount, even though that will probably drive the price of ripple XRP down for a while.

I'm getting tired of being a noob also. I've had romantic encounters that took less time than graduating out of noobdom.

So how does one go about purifying water with a silver coin?

What exactly makes this BitBar better than BTC or Litecoin?

Is your mining cost effective or is the cost of electricity more than the value of the coins received? I could see doing it if I had a free source of electricity and a faster computer or GPU. The stuff I have right now is too old, and I just can't see abusing a new computer by mining all the time.

What makes any crypto currency worth anything? I think it's the fact that people accept it as currency. Bitcoin definitely has a networking effect working in it's favor at this point. I'm also cautiously optimistic about Ripple XRP. They say the coin is just a way of validating the system, but is it really just that? The government could outlaw rogue currencies or launch attacks on exchanges that trade them such as Mt. Gox, but if the currency was disguised as something else, then it could possibly withstand legal assaults. Controlling the currency and money supply is a major source of power in the U.S. and every other country. I don't see governments giving up that power without a fight. Right now it's not a problem because it's too small. The implications of Bitcoin going mainstream are enough to give bankers, tax collectors and the government nightmares.

I thought about mining until I did a little research into it. It's quickly getting out of reach for the average Joe. I heard that some Wall Street traders are going to start trading Bitcoins. That should drive the price higher, and then higher and then lower..... Sort of like the stock market during the 1920's and before. My fear is that Bitcoins are becoming too volatile to serve as a useful currency.

Sure it's not as cheap as buying directly from Bitcoin users who just received a gift of 20K XRP, but I can't see much of an alternative right now. Anyway, the time to buy is now whether you have to overpay a little or not. Maybe Mt. Gox is trading XRP now? I'm new to all this, so it's live and learn. Two weeks ago I had never heard about crypto currencies.

Sounds like a scam to me, you can't win if you don't play and playing costs money. No thanks, if I want to gamble I'll go to a casino.