You can't get rid of OpenCoin and have a functioning Ripple, even the wiki admits that: If everyone chooses a completely disparate sets of validators the network will be unlikely to reach consensus that a particular version of the ledger is the one true and accurate ledger. What happens if everyone chooses a completely different set of rules for what constitutes a valid Bitcoin block? Yes, people have to agree to work together for any system to function. But no central authority is needed to make this happen. The rules for what constitutes a valid Bitcoin block today are de facto decided by Gavin. But he's not a central authority because nobody has to listen to him. People do because they know that cooperation is needed for the system to work and he is doing a good job. He can't sustain his position unless he is responsive to the community. If he were to make some absurd decision, few would listen to him and that would be the end. Yes, lots of people update their code to whatever release he publishes but only because they trust him and can withdraw that trust at any time. Any number of organizations can publish lists of validators that they recommend. These lists can be algorithmically combined. If someone publishes a list that is nonsensical, you can just stop following them. We are not talking about different rules, we are talking about different entities with the same rules. How do you propose on solving the centralization situtation with the Ripple light client? |
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Just don't bet on betcoin  |
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Looks cool, I'll reply with my feedback!
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Do you have a portfolio that proves you're "advanced"?
He's seeking a developer. |
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Thanks for the clarification my question would then be what if a government wanted to control the network to shut it down couldn't they go in with guns drawn and confiscate the equipment plug it in and then create so much havoc that it collapsed the network?
I know this is getting to the point of off topic on my own thread, but I guess the larger point to me is that all transactions require some level of trust.
Even transfers for gold or cash
They require different kinds of trust. Trusting cryptography versus trusting entities is like trusting physics to trusting deities. And you're detailing a 51% attack - it's possible, but that's about a hostile government takeover instead of trusting entities or centralization vs decentralization. |
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That is exactly my point if KNC or some other asic manufacture where to decide that it would be advantageous to control the network could they not plug in their tera-hash units and have 51 percent of the network and do as they pleased?
51 percent of the network doesn't allow you to "do as you please". That is a misnomer. With 51% of the network they could attack Bitcoin one of two ways a) reverse tx they CREATED (double spend) b) prevent tx from being confirmed (denial attack) both of which would likely do significant damage to the value of Bitcoin and thus the value of their multimillion dollar enterprise which builds .... chips that are designed solely for high speed mining. On the other hand the network model (either directly by mining or indirectly by hardware sales) gives them the ability to make significant profits at less risk by just "doing the right thing". Think about this: Why would KNC miner want to double spend or destroy the Bitcoin network when they are earning a steady stream of BTC through coinbase and transaction fees? |
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Correct me if I am wrong this stuff is admittedly over my head. I really dont care about the details of why it works just that it works. I leave it up to tech nerds to figure out the detials
But dont I have to trust miners?
And with asics coming out that are tera-hash units I dont care what anyone says having that much computing power does re-centralize a decentralized network anyone can see that cpu mining would be less centralized then asic mining and from my view point it makes it much more probable that the network could be taken over and parts of the blockchain rewritten?
So my question is dont I have to trust third party institutions like KNC to not pervert the network?
No. You are not trusting miners, you are trusting the proof of work and that no hostile party will control more than 51% of the hash power. Anyone can mine. I'm sitting by my two Avalon ASICs as we speak . You don't need to be trusted to mine, because nodes trust your cryptography and proof of work - not trust based on who you are. This is trust on a completely different level - it is like trusting your code is free of bugs, instead of trusting Bitstamp won't defraud you. |
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People have been posting the last couple days about Betcoin and their scummy, fraudulent behavior. Reference: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=297110.0https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=297078.0And now we have this gem: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1489274This is just getting ridiculous... Come on Betcoin, only two days after we reveal that you ripped our verbatim Terms and Conditions from SatoshiDICE (not to mention stole all the other copy as well) and are proven to be faking bets on your own site and likely DDoSing your competitors, you pay for a press release titled, "Shift to Ethical Bitcoin Gaming - BetCoin ™ Leads the Charge Towards Responsible Gambling Adoption by Bitcoin Casinos" The best part... A recent phone conversation with Emily Flitter of Reuters confirmed that BetCoin ™ Dice and BetCoin ™ Circle are both working very hard to ensure full compliance to their terms and conditions, and the relevant legal regulations, and to guide their customers in the direction of responsible gaming, as BetCoin ™ aims to help educate its players as well as entertain them. A senior spokesman responded to Emily's concerns, "Some other bitcoin gambling sites unfortunately do not have terms and conditions Betcoin copy and pasted SatoshiDICE's T&C's as their own, and then puts out that press release?  Betcoin's T&C's: http://imgur.com/32cMiHl (see the exact same at SatoshiDice, plus most of the site copy) BetCoin ™ is further securing their place at the top of the bitcoin online casino market, all the while continuing to promote responsible gaming and bitcoin education in general. This is amazing  The funny thing is they don't even own the trademark Betcoin and I think the actual owner are taking legal actions. |
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Done. Your address will only show up if you don't have a callback set to prevent issues with users sending to a BTC address when they want to send to a merchant.
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Having multiple validators does make it more decentralized compared to one, but it is hardly decentralized when you compare it to something else At one point bitcoin was 5 nerds building a network no network starts off decentralized That's true, but how is Ripple going to be decentralized? Take the barrier of entry. The Bitcoin network has a very low barrier to entry, being that if you run Bitcoin-Qt, the recommended client of that time, you are now part of the network. The current recommended client on Bitcoin.org, MultiBit still makes you part of the network. With Ripple, the recommended client, ripple.com/client does not make you part of the network, and does not allow you to choose your own validators. Ripple inherently favors centralization. Next, assuming you've built Rippled and you've configured it to become a validator. At this point in time, you have no actual power over the ripple consensus system. Users must add your node to their UNL. However, if they do not have OpenCoin nodes in their UNL and you do not too, then you will end up with a fragmented network. This is purely academic as the majority of Ripple users are using the web client, which does not give them the ability to choose their own validators. At the heart of Ripple, it is about having trusted third parties validate transactions and prevent double spends. JoelKatz is arguing that Ripple is decentralized because there will not be a central entity that will have administrative control over the Ripple network, however the Ripple structure inherently favors more centralization, especially with the light client situation. I also believe that a trust free solution is inherently more decentralized than a solution that requires trust, even if granting trust is decentralized (which isn't with Ripple at it's current stage). I'd like to the abstract of the Bitcoin paper, note the last line: Abstract.
A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online
payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a
financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main
benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. A false comparison would be saying that Bitcoin requires trusting numerous third parties. Bitcoin does not require trusting third parities - it requires trusting cryptography (namely, SHA256 hash collisions) and cryptography exclusively. Ripple does use cryptography (like your bank uses cryptography to secure your online banking), however it still requires you to trust third parties. With commerce, you have to trust the seller that they won't defraud you, but we're talking about third parties. It is possible to have a somewhat decentralized system that is not trust free, but that's not the case with Ripple's defaults. OpenPGP's web of trust does not have defaults, and all OpenPGP-compliant implementations include a way for you to add your own vetted certificates. |
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I'm making a genuine attempt to discuss issues with you honestly. If you aren't going to do the same, I'll stop wasting my time. The issue was administrative control. You raised a legitimate point and I rebutted it. You are welcome to defend your claim or acknowledge that it's incorrect. Then you are welcome to move onto something else. But you are *not* welcome to change the subject when your claims are refuted and ignore the fact that they were refuted.
I agree. You're claiming that Ripple is decentralized because no single entity has administrative control. That is true, however I disagree on that no single entity having total control makes it decentralized: Decentralization is not a boolean. When you have "11 out of 20 entities" must agree (or 1 out of 1 entities like now), is that really decentralized when you compare it to Bitcoin's "6600 out of 13200 entities" must agree? Having multiple validators does make it more decentralized compared to one, but it is hardly decentralized when you compare it to something else. |
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Tell me how I can print 100 billion XRPs. Tell me how I can choose the Bitcoin genesis block, mining algorithm, or reward schedule. These systems are built under some entity's control and then that entity releases it into the wild such that it can never be imprisoned again. The Bitcoin genesis block was intentionally unspendable - it is not added to the list of outputs, and Bitcoin clients will reject any transactions that tries so. Please make your genesis XRPs unspendable, or stop comparing apples to oranges. Your ending sentence is irrelevant as I have never challenged that aspect. |
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Whether a system is decentralized or not is a question of how its administrative functions work. By "administrative functions", I mean things that most people cannot do but that some entities have a special power to do. If it's "decentralized" then no single entity or small group of people can unilaterally seize administrative power. Bitcoin is decentralized in this way because it basically has no administrative functions other than changing the rules, and no single entity can change the rules. The community has to agree to change the rules for that to happen. Ripple was designed to be decentralized in this sense, but isn't quite yet because a single entity controls all the validators most people trust. We absolutely agree that we don't want things to stay that way. Once we get distributed validators, then it will be essentially impossible to provide any kind of administrative control without getting a large number of entities to agree. Decentralization is not a boolean. When you have "11 out of 20 entities" must agree (or 1 out of 1 entities like now), is that really decentralized when you compare it to Bitcoin's "6601 out of 13200 entities" must agree? For distributed validators, people must be able to choose their own validators. Do you agree? Will the Ripple web client provide an interface to choose validators? |
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Ripple isn't and can't be decentralized, it's distributed. For Ripple to work, the majority of the users must have somewhat similar validators in their UNLs.
They must be somewhat similar, that's true. But Bitcoin only works if everyone has the same blockchain and the same rules to decide what constitutes a valid block, but since nobody gets to unilaterally decide what the blockchain is or force a blockchain that violates the rules on others, it's still decentralized. It is absolutely true that for X to use the system to pay Y, X and Y must be on the same ledger. But no entity gets to decide what the ledger is and the ledger can only transition based on defined rules that nobody can unilaterally change. Are you seriously saying that when OpenCoin unilaterally changed account reserve requirements, which is akin to Federal Reserve tampering with interest rates? {
"Account" : "rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrhoLvTp",
"Fee" : "0",
"Sequence" : 0,
"SigningPubKey" : "",
"TransactionType" : "SetFee",
"hash" : "C6A40F56127436DCD830B1B35FF939FD05B5747D30D6542572B7A835239817AF",
"ledger_index" : 562177,
} Decentralized  - OpenCoin unilaterally changed account reserve requirements. Bitcoin will work if I have completely different nodes with someone else as long as we're on the same blockchain. It's not the same with Ripple. Whether a system is decentralized or not is a question of how its administrative functions work. By "administrative functions", I mean things that most people cannot do but that some entities have a special power to do. If it's "decentralized" then no single entity or small group of people can unilaterally seize administrative power. Bitcoin is decentralized in this way because it basically has no administrative functions other than changing the rules, and no single entity can change the rules. The community has to agree to change the rules for that to happen. Ripple was designed to be decentralized in this sense, but isn't quite yet because a single entity controls all the validators most people trust. We absolutely agree that we don't want things to stay that way. Once we get distributed validators, then it will be essentially impossible to provide any kind of administrative control without getting a large number of entities to agree. Tell me how I can print 100 billion XRPs. |
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validators in their UNLs? In layman's terms?
Validators verify transactions are valid and resolve double spends. They're like miners in Bitcoin, however instead of mining being "I say X and here's my proof of work to back it up", it is "I say X and I'm OpenCoin". UNLs stand for Unique Node List. Only nodes can have a UNL. They're the list of validators you trust to not defraud or conspire against you. If you use ripple.com/client, you're not a node, you're just a light client. Couldnt i just become a verifyer and and say I am opencoin? and if enough people did that wouldn't it become decentralized? Wouldnt it go from people saying I am opencoin to we are opencoin? You can run your own validator, but do you have the private key corresponding to ripple.com/validators.txt? If your validator doesn't include OpenCoin nodes in it's UNL, you will end up with a fork / different ledger. If your validator does include OpenCoin nodes in it's UNL, you're simply an extension of OpenCoin's nodes. In either case, good luck getting people to add your node when the default validators are opencoin and 99+% of Ripple users use ripple.com/client and is unable to choose their own validators. |
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validators in their UNLs? In layman's terms?
Validators verify transactions are valid and resolve double spends. They're like miners in Bitcoin, however instead of mining being "I say X and here's my proof of work to back it up, send my coinbase (block reward) to [address]", it is "I say X and I'm OpenCoin, and I already mined all the XRPs.". UNLs stand for Unique Node List. Only nodes can have a UNL. They're the list of validators you trust to not defraud or conspire against you. If you use ripple.com/client, you're not a node, you're just a light client. |
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We had to design the system so that people could trust it even after it was decentralized. We have no secrets. The source code is available. If we got anything wrong, we'll do our best to fix it.
Ripple isn't and can't be decentralized, it's distributed. For Ripple to work, the majority of the users must have somewhat similar validators in their UNLs. https://ripple.com/validators.txtn9KPnVLn7ewVzHvn218DcEYsnWLzKerTDwhpofhk4Ym1RUq4TeGw RIP1
n9LFzWuhKNvXStHAuemfRKFVECLApowncMAM5chSCL9R5ECHGN4V RIP2
n94rSdgTyBNGvYg8pZXGuNt59Y5bGAZGxbxyvjDaqD9ceRAgD85P RIP3
n9LeQeDcLDMZKjx1TZtrXoLBLo5q1bR1sUQrWG7tEADFU6R27UBp RIP4
n9KF6RpvktjNs2MDBkmxpJbup4BKrKeMKDXPhaXkq7cKTwLmWkFr RIP5
You can't get rid of OpenCoin and have a functioning Ripple, even the wiki admits that: If everyone chooses a completely disparate sets of validators the network will be unlikely to reach consensus that a particular version of the ledger is the one true and accurate ledger. |
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How do I withdraw Euros?
To withdraw bitcoins, visit the page "withdraw euros" under " account". Enter the amount you want to withdraw to your personal bank account. This is the bank account that you used to fund your account and specified during account registration. Should be Euros |
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You are aware that (I) this is an anecdote (ii) Bitcoin's history was exceptional and (iii) Occam's razor points to a different conclusion? |
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