Ripple Coins

[DebitMe]

Ok, so I got my 50K coins from the giveaway, now what?  I thought they had a community that I could lend to and be paid back (idk if with interest or not, can someone shed light on this?) and earn security points or whatever so that people knew I wasnt a scammer, but from looking at the website, it doesnt seem like there is any place to do this.  So what can be done with them?

[PsychoticBoy]

send them to: r4Mp1mNYDjBczLUwT2BkeEuo4movngKgbZ

[Spekulatius]

I think it will take a couple of years till a valid network is established and enough "gateways" exist for it to work decently, if at all. There are still some question marks that have to be resolved.

[DebitMe]

Alright, well anyone can feel free to send me ripples I guess - rJRjWpPuNgUMANtPuxYC968MJGmTzHBubZ

[FlipPro]

I'll buy them off you. Paying BTCBTCBTCBTC ....

PM ME.

[SgtSpike]

Can someone point me to said giveaway?

[MaxSan]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145506.20

[SgtSpike]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=145506.20

Thanks.  Should have done some looking before asking, that was a bit obvious. 

[DebitMe]

haha, whats the going rate for a ripple to bitcoin?

[JoelKatz]

Ok, so I got my 50K coins from the giveaway, now what?  I thought they had a community that I could lend to and be paid back (idk if with interest or not, can someone shed light on this?) and earn security points or whatever so that people knew I wasnt a scammer, but from looking at the website, it doesnt seem like there is any place to do this.  So what can be done with them?

The point of the giveaways is to allow you to create an account, fund transactions, and test the system to see how it works. Real world applications are still pretty limited but, hopefully, growing rapidly.

We're promoting Ripple as a payment system like PayPal or mailing someone a check. Using it for community/personal credit is possible, but not likely to be significantly useful in the real world for awhile.

While we are working on eliminating a few of the step, the basic way you use it now is like this:

1) You create a Ripple account.

2) You open an account at a gateway (currently WeExchange or BitStamp).

3) You configure your Ripple account to trust the gateway to hold some amount of money for you in some denomination.

3) You deposit funds of some sort with the gateway. They could mean you send them Bitcoins, dollars, or any other currency.

4) You "withdraw" the funds from your gateway account to your Ripple account. You now hold "IOUs" from the gateway in the Ripple system. This works much like a bank balance -- if you have $50 in the bank, that means the bank owes you $50.

5) You can now send and receive money by exchanging your IOUs on the Ripple system with anyone who is willing to take them. You can exchange currencies, switch to IOUs from a different gateway (if that's what you need to pay someone, for example).

6) When someone pays you $50, they do it by making your gateway owe you $50 more. When you pay someone $50, you basically make your gateway owe you $50 less and their gateway owe them $50 more. If you trade USD for Bitcoins, you wind up with your gateway owing you Bitcoins on the Ripple network.

7) If at some point you want to get some of these currencies out of Ripple, you command your Ripple account to withdraw them into your gateway account.

8 ) You can withdraw funds from your gateway account using any withdrawal method the gateway supports. For Bitcoins, for example, they'll transfer them to any Bitcoin address you specify.

This is exactly how exchanges work now. You deposit USD at an exchange and have USD in your exchange account. For the exchange itself, you and someone else swap exchange IOUs so that the exchange now owes you Bitcoins instead of USD. You then withdraw the Bitcoins from the exchange account. Same thing, though there are a few extra steps right now.

The basic idea is that because some people have withdraw on demand agreements with a gateway, they'll value those IOUs at very close to face value. That will make everyone value those IOUs at close to face value.

[SgtSpike]

How does XRP play a role in what you just talked about?  All I see is dollars.

[DebitMe]

I understand the theory behind it, working as an exchange, like another alt coin type of thing.

But I was under the assumption, and correct me if I am wrong, but it was heavily influenced by debt.  AKA lending to others based on them paying back in the past.  SO if they are a trustworthy indivdual, thenI would lend them some money and they would pay back with interest.  Isn't there a system on Ripple that will identify which individuals to lend to?

Basically what I envisioned is the gateway being.  I could specify to only loan to people with say 50 "points" (theoretical points based on whether they have paid back in the past, that kind of thing) then the system would look for someone like that who needed a loan for the amount I was willing to give, say 5 Btc.  So the loan would be made and then the person would pay back with interest at a later time.  I make money and they got their loan for whatever they wanted.

Am I making sense/am on the right track?  or is it basicallt a universal exchange for all types of currencies?

Thanks for the help with understanding the underlying element btw.

[JoelKatz]

How does XRP play a role in what you just talked about?  All I see is dollars.

You need XRP to create an account (200 XRP per account), to hold in reserve against credit lines and offers (50 per open credit line or offer), and to fund transactions (10 millionths of an XRP per transaction). It's used to prevent spam transactions and ledger bloat.

[lassdas]

What I'm wondering is, how is it peer-to-peer, if the only way to access my wallet is the ripple.com website?
Isn't PayPal peer-to-peer then too?

[JoelKatz]

What I'm wondering is, how is it peer-to-peer, if the only way to access my wallet is the ripple.com website?
Isn't PayPal peer-to-peer then too?

The website just sends the client software to your machine which then runs on your machine. Your client gets your wallet from a file on your machine, a blob vault, or wherever you're storing it. So what you're doing when you go to the client page is running the client on your machine. The client can connect to any server. (See the 'Options' screen.) We also plan an installable client so you don't have to download it.

Once the server is available publicly, you'll be able to run the server to add capacity to the peer-to-peer network, participate in the consensus process, and allow clients to connect to your server. The system is massively peer-to-peer among the servers and the servers serve the clients.

[auzaar]

ripple me or in short ripme @
 rh1AYPJ5LQsnPAtFqtReoeCo7Q9gchFugu

[001sonkit]

pop a few here
r2hqqo78t9yvSgJJH2g2uaBxgQDUK8Xnp

[adamstgBit]

ok lets say i get 30$PPUSD into the my ripple account

and i want to exchange that 30$PPUSD for 1BTC

does ripple allow me to do this? would it be like placing an order on an exchange?

[moocowpong1]

ok lets say i get 30$PPUSD into the my ripple account

and i want to exchange that 30$PPUSD for 1BTC

does ripple allow me to do this? would it be like placing an order on an exchange?

Yep, one of the things in the Ripple ledger is an order book between any pair of currencies. There isn't much volume right now, but it's there.

Edit: Note that WeExchange BTC IOU's are a different currency from Bitstamp BTC IOU's are different from moocowpong1 BTC IOU's. There can be a different exchange rate for each if people value them differently.

[JoelKatz]

Note that WeExchange BTC IOU's are a different currency from Bitstamp BTC IOU's are different from moocowpong1 BTC IOU's. There can be a different exchange rate for each if people value them differently.

There is an important difference between IOUs denominated in the same currency and IOUs denominated in different currencies. Changing currencies always requires going through an order book and taking from one or more offers. Changing the issuer of an IOU without changing the currency doesn't require an offer and can instead just ripple through someone who holds the IOU you want and wants the IOU you hold.

Say you have WeExchange/BTC and need to pay someone Bitstamp/BTC. You can ripple through anyone who holds Bitstamp/BTC, has extended credit to WeExchange/BTC, and does not hold WeExchange/BTC that equals or exceeds their credit. You would have to pay two transfer fees, which right now is something like .7% in total. (I hope competition will eventually bring this down.)

If you weren't in a hurry though, you could just drop your credit limit to the exchange whose IOUs you don't want to hold and raise the limit to the exchange whose IOUs you do want to hold. Once the next upgrade to Ripple pathfinding gets pushed out, people who need to go the other direction will prefer you to ripple through, and so (hopefully) the exchange will happen gradually for you (thanks to people who need to go the other way) at no cost to you because they pay the fees.