Interledger - a W3C payment protocol proposal

[minimalB]

What are your thoughts guys? I haven't decided yet...

http://interledger.org/

What about Bitcoin, Ripple and other so-called protocols for money? In reality, these are all just networks themselves.

We need a neutral protocol, like HTTP or SMTP, for payments on the Web that enables senders and receivers to each use different providers. It should not require a central operator, nor a globally accepted currency or blockchain. Anyone should be able to use the protocol without connecting to any core or official network.

[1715162003]

1715162003

[coinpr0n]

I'm seeing a lot of Ripple-hating around this, but I think (1) it's interesting and (2) open standards are a good thing. If I'm visualizing it correctly, it's a way to communicate separate ledgers and networks. That's pretty cool.

[minimalB]

Probably I'm missing something, but Bitcoin seems to me pretty open already. And with a little help from OpenTransactions, SideChains and LN on top of it i guess we could achieve very similar (if not identical) results.

I'm not able to see benefits in yet another open protocol proposal that needs to be peer reviewed, tested, bootstrapped and adopted from scratch.

[Stefan Thomas]

Interledger came out of our work on Codius - basically we wanted a way that you could pay smart contract hosts. But we thought that different hosts would want to accept different currencies, so we didn't just want to integrate with one cryptocurrency or another. We wanted a solution where the host (i.e. merchant) could accept whatever they wanted and the user could pay with whatever they wanted.

Interledger is a protocol that does that. The merchant and the user have to agree on a cryptographic primitive (e.g. SHA256) and their ledgers have to support escrow based on that primitive (Bitcoin does) and then they can transact safely via connectors that anyone can run and that are completely untrusted.

[unent]

Wasn't Codius abandoned this last summer? What use to Ripple is a neutral protocol for payments on the Web if its smart contract system has been abandoned?

A neutral protocol for payments might work, but the W3C moves incredibly slowly when it makes or updates a standard. The crypto ecosystem evolves too quickly to wait for the W3C. A month in crypto is like a year in real time.

[Stefan Thomas]

Wasn't Codius abandoned this last summer? What use to Ripple is a neutral protocol for payments on the Web if its smart contract system has been abandoned?

Creating a world where there are free and open payments is our mission statement. It's the reason we do anything. - It was also the reason I got into Bitcoin in the first place.

A neutral protocol for payments might work, but the W3C moves incredibly slowly when it makes or updates a standard. The crypto ecosystem evolves too quickly to wait for the W3C. A month in crypto is like a year in real time.

Yeah, that's why we got the process started early. But I agree that adoption has to happen in parallel.

[asad777]

isn't using specfic protocol makes spying on users a lot easier ?
also any one could block bitcoin throw this protocol

[minimalB]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ntj5l/why_w3cs_payment_system_proposal_interledger_wont/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3nqrlj/interledger_a_proposal_by_w3c_for_a_payment/

http://webonanza.com/2015/10/07/why-w3cs-payment-system-proposal-interledger-wont-work/

https://xkcd.com/927/

Reading all the comments and suggestions... pretty much the mantra is "we don't need this, Bitcoin is good enough and evolving..."

[coinpr0n]

CoinDesk has a write-up on Interledger now: http://www.coindesk.com/ripple-interledger-connect-bank-blockchain/

[dothebeats]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3ntj5l/why_w3cs_payment_system_proposal_interledger_wont/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/3nqrlj/interledger_a_proposal_by_w3c_for_a_payment/

http://webonanza.com/2015/10/07/why-w3cs-payment-system-proposal-interledger-wont-work/

https://xkcd.com/927/

Reading all the comments and suggestions... pretty much the mantra is "we don't need this, Bitcoin is good enough and evolving..."

Seems like most people in the community want to remain faithful with bitcoins and don't want it to get interconnection between other ledgers.

Just an off-topic thought, upon reading W3C, I remembered Warcraft III. Thought this was something related to gaming. :3

[tokeweed]

I'm seeing a lot of Ripple-hating around this, but I think (1) it's interesting and (2) open standards are a good thing. If I'm visualizing it correctly, it's a way to communicate separate ledgers and networks. That's pretty cool.

I concur.  It's good that they are developing this.  If not, some else will.  <-- Not a good or bad thing.  It will still happen one way or another.