Why? Has the algorithm to mine changed in BTC or are they broken?

If they still mine at ~300 MH/s, you can still over time generate some BTC with them in a pool...

VirVox, though they only trade SLL for BTC afaik.

You can look through Ripple's wiki (https://ripple.com/wiki/Main_Page) and yes, it does work.

Anyways, the main analogue that I usually use for Bitcoin is gold (something that has very little value in itself but that is useful for store of wealth because it is perceived by others the same).
For Ripple I usually use the banking network (= you have an account at your home bank and can receive ACHs from any other bank in the world that in the end gets added to your balance on your account. This balance is money that is DEBT from your bank towards you, also called "IOUs" ("I owe you"s)).

In Ripple you would have an account at a gateway, which is a money processor that can pay you money that you receive in your Ripple account and take money and credit it to your ripple account. Whenever someone on Ripple sends you money, in the end it will be converted to a balance of IOUs that you accept (typically the ones from your gateway, as you know these can be redeemed).

Trust lines in Ripple are used to tell the network which IOUs you accept and to which amount. This is not really modelled in the example, but you could for example think of a scenario where you might open a second bank account, once you have one filled with 100k USD, to always be FDIC insured - so your implicit limit towards one bank would be 100k USD. Ripple makes these limits explicit.

The biggest problem for OpenCoin as operators of this network is now, how to earn money from this without limiting users what they can do with it. In the bank network, banks simply charge fees in their own IOUs (e.g. you have to pay 10 cents per ACH) and pay the international networks (e.g. SWIFT or SEPA) some basic fee. This would mean that OpenCoin would need to charge each gateway all around the world some money that in the end needs to somehow end up on THEIR bank account (probably in USD) as they want to eat too.

The road that they took (and which is criticised a lot here) is that they introduced an "intermediate" currency - XRP. These are (like Bitcoins) completely arbitrary and worthless, but adhering to certain rules and also useful - so they might have some value. Contrary to BTC, which were designed to be given away as randomly as possible to anyone in the world, XRP were given to OpenCoin and are to be sold or given away from a centralized source. This way, they don't have to care about if someone issues IOUs in some currency that they don't even want (e.g. EUR), because if OpenCoin just took a flat 0.01% fee for example, they would end up with all kinds of different balances, like you having hundreds of tiny bank accounts at hundreds of different banks all with a handful of USD, EUR, GBP, CNY, BTC and whatnot in them.

All in all Ripple is a decentralized exchange, their business model is making money from selling their internal funny money and their product is rippled (the currently not publicly available server software used to verify transactions) and clients and libraries interfacing with rippled (these are open source and available on github).

If you have more concrete questions, please feel free to ask, maybe in a seperate thread, as this one is more about Ripple being used more and more in China.

So once the code is open sourced, you'll admit that Ripple is as open as Bitcoin? After all, anyone then could run their own validator if they are so inclined (though that is not too useful in some cases)...

I'm wondering where you get these statements like "Nodes only run closed source code owned by OpenCoin, Inc and operate with the express limited permission of the owner." from... please quote the section from the LICENSE file that says so as you apparently have different information than I have.

I just hope people around here are open enough to accept or at least re-evaluate Ripple once it is opened up (whenever that is) to the public. There are just a lot of misconceptions about them.

Also a huge amount and volume of Bitcoin transactions takes place in centralized, truly closed-source (and they are NEVER even claiming to open up!) and profit oriented IOU issuer's proprietary accounting tools. I find it kinda strange that OpenCoin generates so much mistrust, while others (who pull off even weirder stuff --> Mastercoin) seem to be more welcomed. It looks like "Ripplers" then seem to be of the impression that "Bitcoiners" are afraid because obviously Ripple is the better system and could potentially drive Bitcoin out of the market. On the other side there is usually a lot of mistrust since Ripple does not only claim to be a working distributed exchange (which it is!) but also that there is a currency implemented that is used to fund a company instead of just taking a fixed cut (something that is not really possible for distributed exchanges...) from trades.

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues - 407 open issues... is this now better or worse?

I am not aware of a lot of people losing access to their funds - one case would be https://github.com/ripple/ripple-client/issues/629 for example where someone created a NEW wallet with the same seed (Username + Password), overwriting an existing one that wasn't backed up as well.

If your money disappeared, please post your Ripple address, then I can check what was going on. Otherwise I call this just FUD, similar to the stuff that DeathAndTaxes tries to pull off here, stating things like "rippled is only distributed as binary" which are simply wrong.

Well, the code is here: https://github.com/ripple/rippled - you can't access it though if you don't have the necessary credentials (that do NOT include being an OpenCoin employee...).

I know for a fact that rippled does NOT run only on OpenCoin owned hardware. I could easily prove that by for example posting a recent commit hash or a hash of a binary created from source. I definitely wouldn't recommend anyone though to "leak" the source code though, as it still needs polishing and some refactoring (although it seems to continue on a steady pace).

How many people external to PayPal have full access to PayPal's server code?

Rippled sources are not THAT hard to come by, have you actually asked for early access with a good reason? Also I am not aware of any NDAs etc. that are being signed when gaining access to rippled sources, maybe someone else can help you there...
Guess what, people would release the code for the latest version they had access to then. OpenCoin provides source code, no pre-compiled binaries. Build instructions are here: https://ripple.com/wiki/Rippled_build_instructions
This is simply wrong, rippled is released as source code only. Dozens, if not hundreds of people external to OpenCoin have access to this source code, in various legislations. Good luck in hunting them down or even finding out who uploaded an archive of a .git folder on a filedump website.
I agree that it would still be risky to develop this code any further, but at least it would still run and could be used for re-implementations.I'm still working on my market analysis code but I'm not too sure if even now IOUs have to have the strongest paths + liquidity towards XRP. I would suspect liquidity towards USD.Bitstamp and BTC.Bitstamp is at least as important as towards XRP at the moment, if not the most important factor for an IOU. Gateways don't have to (after some initial difficulties maybe) deal with other gateways at all, as liquidity problems can be detected and filled easily by bots for example. I agree with the "XRP is more for the risk loving people who like to trade and code bots while IOUs are useful for the 'users'" though.

DividendRippler offers easily redeemable BTC, NMC, TRC (whatever they are?) and LTC IOUs, their website makes it quite easy to automate things. After you set up your redemption addresses there, all you need to do is to send money to their address and specify which currency should be paid out and which of your IOUs or XRP should be used as input.

PPC seem to be rare enough that nobody set up a gateway (yet), so your best shot might be getting BTC (or something else with high liquidity towards PPC) and trading these.

Whenever someone puts in a borrow request for e.g. 365 days, they are either laughably small or (if they are high, like in the recent interest spike) get repaid  and replaced by cheaper rates after a few hours.

I decided to stick to VIR, as anything that is lent out (even and especially on request(!)) with manual rates tends to suck and gets closed pretty fast and is hard to re-lend out due to changing rates.

Nein, das ist nicht einfach so und deine Aussage ist falsch. Es steht nirgendwo geschrieben, dass man 6 Blöcke warten muss (z.B. sendet SatoshiDice ja quasi sofort den Gewinn zurück) - das einzige derzeit gültige harte Limit sind 100 Blöcke für komplett neu geminte Bitcoins.

6 Blöcke sind deswegen als Standardeinstellung in Bitcoin-QT gewählt, weil nach 6 Blöcken die Wahscheinlichkeit für einen zufälligen Softfork auf unter 0,01% gesunken ist (siehe auch das Paper von Satoshi, Seiten 6-8).

Das Netzwerk ist bei höherer Difficulty zwar sicherer (man müsste also mehr Ressourcen einsetzen, um es anzugreifen), allerdings ist es damit vermutlich auch wertvoller geworden. Eine Bank z.B. lagert ein paar Millionen in Bar in ihrem Tresor - der ist schwerer zu öffnen, aber es lohnt sich auch mehr, als daheim das Sparschwein der 5-jährigen Tochter zu knacken. Daher kann man davon ausgehen, dass ein Angreifer auch in einem schwierigeren Bitcoinszenario immer noch die gleiche Attacke machen will, dabei aber mehr Kosten hat, aber auch mehr Nutzen daraus ziehen wird. Daher sollte man immer noch gleich viele Bestätigungen (wie viele das auch immer sind, das kann man sich selbst aussuchen/festlegen) warten. Generell floss aber in einen 6-mal schwereren Block im Schnitt so viel Arbeit wie in 6 leichte Blöcke, das ist richtig.

Außerdem gibt es ja eben vom Netz bedingt zufällige "Attacken", wenn z.B. zugleich oder quasi zugleich 2 Blöcke gefunden werden. Welcher der gültige von den beiden ist, entscheidet sich dann, auf welchem dieser beiden Blöcke der nächste aufbaut, werden diese wieder zufällig zugleich gefunden, dann der nächste usw. Daher sollte man immer zumindest ein paar Blöcke abwarten - eben um (siehe Satoshis Whitepaper) sicher sein zu können, dass man nicht "am falschen Ast" sitzt.

This topic is about Ripple getting traction in China by the way, and the CNY markets in Ripple look quite good too.

Everything in the Bitcoin ecosystem is debt from dodgy issuers too and the only asset is BTC - with the exception that this debt isn't even liquid (see the BTCUSD IOU price at MtGox at the moment for example).

Trading XRP has huge risks involved (even more than trading BTC and these can be already quite volatile), I doubt that there will be big liquidity providers using XRP trades in the longer run. This is paired with an entity that is known to be willing to sell its stash (unlike Satoshi who is controlling a large part of all available BTC but has disappeared). If you want to play the big investor and market maker, you should definitely stay within BTC territory and not mess with XRP.

The nice thing is that BTC are easily redeemable (as transactions there are quite final), so interfacing with Ripple is quite easy for Bitcoiners. I don't really get why people try so hard to merge these communities, Ripple's success definitely won't come by embracing a large part of the Bitcoin ecosystem which is struggling on its own. It is however quite amusing to which lengths some "hardcore Bitcoiners" go to make sure they definitely despise Ripple - and then again trade happily on MtGox, deposit their coins at Bitfunder or just-dice or inputs.io and mourn that there is no distributed exchange or no real way to quickly and cheaply transfer money between exchanges for arbitrage.

Already the classification as "alternate cryptocurrency" is wrong for this thread, as it is about CNY IOUs on the three main chinese gateways - it should be either in Off-Topic or (if they also issue BTC IOUs) maybe trading discussion or so.

Interest is paid at midnight GMT (+ a few minutes, usually 5-10). Depending on your time zone, "yesterday" could still be "today".

...email angeben, Adresse angeben, Namen angeben... nein danke - aber danke für den Hinweis, vielleicht gibt's dann noch bessere Angebote.

Kann ich das als Gebot für 46€ von dir werten?

bigger than mtgox or pirateat40? I doubt that...

Anyways, I find some arguments here strange considering that a huge percentage of bitcoin usage is IOU transactions on closed source platforms (the daily volumes of trades on exchanges are definitely the largest part of that, plus things like inputs.io).
Ripple server code has DoS problems still and mining pools in bitcoin have been DDoSed for less. With that general negativity around I can understand why they want to get up to speed before going public.

Also I'm not too sure what people think open sourcing right away would really change except for people investing in xrp (something I wouldn't recommend). Ripple is based on having many non colluding validators. To trust that these dont collude, one probably needs more information than a lot of people here would be willing to give - and even then running a validator has to be done for free.
You think bitcoin uses a lot of resources? Rippled can easily top that...

Still I'm all for having an open rippled, though I guess then the criticism still won't stop because people here seem to generally not be aware that without using IOUs, one cannot trade - especially bitcoins.

Ich denke, ich lasse das einfach in einer Art umgekehrten Auktion/"Bieterkrieg" laufen:

Ich biete zum Start 50€ in BTC am Sonntag, wenn es mehr als 1 Anbieter gibt, sollte derjenige einfach weniger bieten (z.B. "Ich würde den Key statt um 50€ auch um 49€ verkaufen."). Niedrigstes Gebot am Sonntag (8.9.2013) Vormittag (ich sag mal ~11:00 GMT+2) bekommt den Zuschlag.

Als Wechselkurs würde ich 24h weighted average in EUR von http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currencies/ ansetzen und ich würde gerne den Key zuerst haben, bevor ich BTC sende.
Angebote bitte in zumindest 1€ Schritten nach unten und in Euro angeben.

Angebote werden NICHT per PN akzeptiert, nur was hier im Thread steht zählt! PNs zu dem Thema werden unbeantwortet gelöscht, macht euch gleich gar nicht die Mühe.

Sollte das DLC mit den Griechen dabei sein, bitte extra erwähnen, ansonsten erwarte ich mir eben die Vollversion, die man auf Steam derzeit kaufen kann. Ich brauche auch keine Tips zu Webseiten wie bitspend und co., die das für mich kaufen würden etc. - was ich erwarte, ist ein Geschäft hier im Forum. Ich erhalte dann einen Key per PN vom günstigsten Anbieter und überweise ein paar BTC sobald ich den meinem Account erfolgreich hinzugefügt habe.

Well, you would need to include order book depth - if I create 1 billion Sukrimdollars, then sell a single one for 10 USD, do I now hold 99 999 999 990 USD? Market caps are only useful in very liquid markets, BTCUSD is not very liquid at all.

Ist ja auch ok, mit 18 sollte man das Geld seiner Eltern (oder das gesparte Taschengeld) verschleudern um mit Freunden auf Interrail zu fahren und die Welt kennenzulernen und nicht über Kurscharts brüten um 0,05% mehr Gewinn aus seinem Portfolio zu schlagen!

Ich würde größere Vorteile von Bitcoin auch eher in schnellen Auslandsüberweisungen sehen, als darin jetzt rein in Bitcoins überleben zu können.

Es wäre doch vielleicht viel cooler, wenn man zeigt, wie jemand eine anonyme Kreditkarte um Bitcoins kauft und damit bei Amazon einkauft (nach dem Motto: "Ihr Onlineshop könnte schon von einem Bitcoiner besucht worden sein!") oder wie 2-3 Freunde, die Bitcoins cool finden, sich schnell mal bei jemandem 5€ borgen und sich dafür gleich direkt ein paar BTC mit dem Handy überweisen. Point of sales ist jetzt nicht gerade die Stärke von BTC derzeit meiner Meinung nach.

Eventuell soll das Ganze aber auch "gruseliger" dargestellt werden ("dark net" geht von sowas wie Wikileaks bis hin zu einigen SEHR "not safe for life" Geschichten auf The Hidden Wiki und co.), dann könnte man ja mal versuchen sich ein paar Gramm Gras oder so auf Silkroad zusenden zu lassen... dafür bräuchte man dann aber wohl keinen Nutzer vor der Kamera sondern eher einfach jemanden, der dem Reporter das erklärt.

Bitcoin kommt bei Leuten im Alter von kochmann799 (sorry, ich nehm dich nur als gelegen kommendes Beispiel!) und jünger vermutlich auch deswegen nicht so groß an, weil da auch nicht so viel Geldvolumen da ist. Bankgeschäfte und Geldtheorie haben mich vor 10 Jahren auch so in etwa so viel interessiert wie das Pensionssystem oder wie genau man jetzt eigentlich Steuern zahlt und was "Absetzen" eigentlich heißt...
Auch ist es wohl oft so, dass Jugendliche mMn tendenziell eher Geld ausgeben als erhalten (und wenn man Geld bekommt, dann eher nur in bar oder aus einigen wenigen Quellen, z.B. Taschengeld von den Eltern), daher ist es eher interessant, wo man sein Geld wieder los wird und nicht, wie man auch sicher und schnell Zahlungen empfängt.

For people who are not into doping: if I pay now for 10 races, will my rat run as soon as it could, even with health 1 or is there a way to make it wait to join the next race until it is 100%fit again?

There would still be an incentive to pay for steroids, to level up your rat faster to be more competitive.

Still with the 4 levels difference setting, everyone but the first 4 players will be at a disadvantage the whole time.

Edit:
I'd also like to see the list of the next racers, now its even impossible to guess from the rat overview who will still race.

Sobald dein Schlüssel allerdings irgendwie bekannt wird (z.B. ein Keylogger schreibt deine Passphrase mit und stieht den private key) kann man ALLE deine bisherigen Mails damit entschlüsseln.

I was in contact with him via PM a few weeks ago as well to no avail, will try IRC now...