Ripples and BTC

[bitcoinik]

I'm curious to understand the reasoning behind making XRP a fixed money supply. From my own understanding, it seems that monetary policy needs to be somewhat elastic in order to keep inflation in check. From what I have read, Ripples are limited to a supply of 100 billion. Right now that seems like a huge number, but as we've seen with Bitcoin there is a lot of room for digital currency to grow. Where did the 100 billion number come from?

[dja]

Ripples are too centralized to allow for the popularity and growth that bitcoin has seen so far.

Perhaps, but being bit more centralized has some advantages also. Ie it doesnt require mining which of course wastes a lot of resources. And perhaps large masses find it easier to understand.

[tortoise]

Signed up for a Ripple account. I'm very supportive of something like it finding success among a wide user base. International transfers need to be cheaper.

[ynos11]

Ripples are too centralized to allow for the popularity and growth that bitcoin has seen so far.

Perhaps, but being bit more centralized has some advantages also. Ie it doesnt require mining which of course wastes a lot of resources. And perhaps large masses find it easier to understand.

I found the Bitcoin concept way easier to understand:P The "trust" part is gonna be pretty confusing, why not just let people rank the "nodes" like they do on EBay instead.

[endoplasm]

ripples do not have enough people backing it up.  They are the law to an extent and if they can give out free ripples then the concept of what is a publicly controlled amount of coins is now void. 

[JoelKatz]

I'm curious to understand the reasoning behind making XRP a fixed money supply. From my own understanding, it seems that monetary policy needs to be somewhat elastic in order to keep inflation in check. From what I have read, Ripples are limited to a supply of 100 billion. Right now that seems like a huge number, but as we've seen with Bitcoin there is a lot of room for digital currency to grow. Where did the 100 billion number come from?

It actually came mostly from technical requirements of the software design. We wanted to use 64-bit integers for XRP balances and we wanted XRP to be divided into at least millionths. There are various reasons to limit the range to less such as being able to sum XRP balances inside a 64-bit integer without having to check for overflow. We also wanted a round number that was easy to remember. Otherwise, the larger the better made sense so that you could have as many units of currency as possible to reduce the chances that a change would be needed to increase divisibility.

[Anonymouss]

Thanks for explanation guys, going to check it out now.

[blazespinnaker]

Hard to imagine XPR will be anything more than a novelty.  The secret to BitCoin are two fold, there is no central control and there aren't so many outstanding.

[bopbeep]

ugh i hate the 300 xrp requirement thing

[mmeijeri]

Hard to imagine XPR will be anything more than a novelty.  The secret to BitCoin are two fold, there is no central control and there aren't so many outstanding.

Once the source code is released and new servers start popping up all over the place Ripple will be as distributed as Bitcoin. And since it is quicker and can be used to make convenient fiat payments it could see much faster adoption. If it is true that OpenCoin intends to stabilise the value of the XRP, this too will help its adoption.

As far the number of coins, XRP too has a fixed, finite supply, just like BTC. And, again as with BTC, not all of them are in circulation. BTC issues them as a reward for mining, XRP is premined and given away to new users.

[dadrizforshizz]

XRP is premined and given away to new users.

Which in the future, if ripple catches on will make them very valuable.

[SmithR]

The idea of Ripple seems indeed very nice !

[LuxBitcoin]

Yes indeed
Get some free here to start : http://www.reddit.com/r/ripplers/comments/1cc9d0/im_giving_away_300_xrp_to_50_people/

[erk]

I don't understand Ripples, if they have already been created then how are the transactions processed if there is no block mining to attach them to?

[wofugang]

I would like to buy 10000 XRP for 0.1 BTC!
I need it for testing and app development!
Anybody willing to trade?

Just send the 10000 XRP to the following address:
rBhS13DTq3SdA7kqoVKJPa1iYXez1rtTie

Don't forget to tell me your bitcoin address!
I will send you the 0.1 BTC as soon as possible!

Thanks in advance!

[JoelKatz]

I don't understand Ripples, if they have already been created then how are the transactions processed if there is no block mining to attach them to?

Ripple uses consensus to prevent double spends and validate transactions rather than proof of work.

"Think of a room full of people who all agree with each other. To enter the room, you must agree with them. To disagree with them, you must leave the room. They all sit in this room maintaining continuous agreement on everything. Each of them who is honest puts their first priority on enforcing the rules of the room, their second priority on maintaining agreement with everyone who is also willing to follow the rules, and their third priority on accepting legitimate transactions provided they don't violate the first two rules. The rules of the room make it infeasible to agree to a transaction once a conflicting transaction has been agreed to -- such an agreement cannot be formed and be valid according to the rules."