ripple: let's test it!

[bitaccumulation]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I would like to test out Ripple.   I just purchased some ripple so I can get started.  I would like to do a transaction (maybe buy some BTC with USD).  Is that possible?  If so how do I go about it? It doesn't look intuitive or maybe I'm missing something.

My Ripple address: rNU4JR8bF4P3LTNHshD8UV6dkkUcvJqxUr

[1715211798]

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[jtimon]

I haven't read this whole thread, but I would like to test out Ripple.   I just purchased some ripple so I can get started.  I would like to do a transaction (maybe buy some BTC with USD).  Is that possible?  If so how do I go about it? It doesn't look intuitive or maybe I'm missing something.

My Ripple address: rNU4JR8bF4P3LTNHshD8UV6dkkUcvJqxUr

The only currency that has no issuer within Ripple is xrp, that's what you're missing.
When you're on the trade page, you need to select an issuer for each currency. For example bitstamp issues BTC and USD.
You could trade bitstampUSD for bitstampBTC or weexBTC, for example.
Here's a list of gateways:

https://ripple.com/wiki/Gateway_List

These are like "official" issuers, but anyone can issue its own IOUs that are tradeable within the system too.
To hold IOUs from a gateway, you must trust its account first.

[bccdn]

OK,
so can someone explain to me how I can get CAD funds (from a Canadian bank) into my bitstamp account using ripple? I guess the easiest/fastest/cheapest way? I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole thing. Any help would be great.
thanks

[JoelKatz]

OK,
so can someone explain to me how I can get CAD funds (from a Canadian bank) into my bitstamp account using ripple? I guess the easiest/fastest/cheapest way? I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole thing. Any help would be great.
thanks

I believe the only ways to get CAD into Ripple currently are through WeExchange or Ripple Union. I'm pretty sure Bitstamp doesn't support CAD to or from Ripple yet either, so even if you had CAD in Ripple, I don't believe you could deposit it into your Bitstamp account.

[dchapes]

OK, so can someone explain to me how I can get CAD funds (from a Canadian bank) into my bitstamp account using ripple? I guess the easiest/fastest/cheapest way?

Paraphrasing an old joke: easy, fast, cheap; pick two.

Bitstamp doesn't support CAD at all and if your goal is to get funds into your Bitstamp account you don't need Ripple to do it (unless you're trying to leverage your Ripple credit lines).

Assuming what you really want is to get CAD into Ripple then as Joel says there are two gateways that support CAD directly. But you may not want/need to do that at all depending on what you want to do.

WeExchange supports CAD and does bank transfers, but you should check out the Ripple Live Graph for the WeExchange CAD first (set the currency to Other then type CAD and explore the reach by clicking the nodes with thin circles around them), only two people hold any at all totalling only ~$170 and only four others trust WeExchange-CAD for anything over 1 CAD (thus the people that you could currently pay with WeExchange CAD is limited) (compare that with the $74816 of Bitstamp-USD that people currently hold in Ripple). There also isn't much/any trading of WeExchange-CAD for other currencies (even on WeEx itself!) so you're kinda stuck with it. This may improve when Ripple gets out of beta.

RippleUnion supports CAD but only (as far as I know, check the website as they keep adding things) supports adding funds to Ripple from the old/classic Ripplepay system. However, RippleUnion has some interesting options for getting money out of Ripple. Also note that (at least for now) RippleUnion charges no transit fess. WeExchange charges 0.5% everytime their funds change hands and Bitstamp charges 0.2% (similar to how the exchanges charge (larger) fees for every trade).

As Joel says Bitstamp doesn't support CAD, but if you can send them USD or bitcoin there is a market within Ripple to exchange that for RippleUnion-CAD. See the Ripple client's order book for CAD/USD (or USD/CAD if you prefer) with the issuers set to RippleUnion-CAD and Bitstamp-USD (click "change issuer" and paste the Ripple addresses or add them to your contact list to use the names).


Do you really need/want to put your CAD bank funds into Ripple at this time? (Bitcoin is different since you can trivially get it in and out of Ripple via both WeEx and Bitstamp). What would you do right now with CAD in Ripple? Since Ripple is only in Beta there are currently no merchants (other than RippleUnion's proxy) that accept Ripple payments. If you want to use it to send funds to friends then you can arrange trust/credit lines between your friends to do so without any bank transfers at all (except possibly to settle debts later if the need arises). If you want to be able send funds to strangers on the internet (e.g. to buy/sell something ala bitcoin-otc) then you may still be able to do so just by getting a trust/credit line to someone that has a credit path to a gateway. If you want to be a merchent and sell things then of course you instead need to look at how the gateways can send you bitcoin or bank funds.

Personally I think the easiest way to get started and get some "value"/funds into Ripple right now is either with bitcoin (by far the easiest at the moment) or to have a friend/aquaintence that has a credit path to the gateway(s) you're interested in extend you credit. If they won't trust you with credit you could always pay them (in person with cash, with Paypal, whatever) and in return they'd send you matching funds in Ripple (just make sure you're aware of what you can and can't do with the resulting IOU; either make sure you get an IOU from a gateway you trust or that you trust the person and they have a path to a gateway you want to use or the people you want to pay). From a quick scan of your forum profile it looks like you're comfortable doing some otc style trades so you could always ask to trade for any of RippleUnion-CAD, Bitstamp-USD, Bitstamp-BTC, or XRP (you'd agree to send them some kind of payment outside of Ripple and they'd send the agreed amount by paying you from within Ripple).

[r.willis]

How ripple is better than colored coins?

[JoelKatz]

How ripple is better than colored coins?

Ripple is primarily being promoted as a payment system for fiat currencies. As a payment system to handle fiat currencies, Ripple is superior to colored coins primarily because it can handle cross-currency transactions through distributed exchanges. But really, the systems are so different in terms of what they do and how they do it that I don't think it makes much sense to compare them.

[r.willis]

Distributed exchanges can be built on top of colored coins too.
Gateways take money and issue colored coins denominated in fiat currency. People do trading via atomic coin swapping (maybe with help of specialized matching servers).

[JoelKatz]

Distributed exchanges can be built on top of colored coins too.
Gateways take money and issue colored coins denominated in fiat currency. People do trading via atomic coin swapping (maybe with help of specialized matching servers).

Sure, with enough thrust you can make a pig fly. But the end result is almost always a lot better if you start out designing something to fly from the beginning.

Say an exchange has to go through three paths each with two hops. Are you suggesting you can form a transaction and get six nodes to sign it in time for the transaction to still be relevant? Or are you suggesting that we freeze all the exchanges to give you enough time to accumulate the necessary signatures? Or do you implement the transaction in phases so that if a later one fails you wind up with an asset you didn't want and have made a partial payment?

Yes, you can make it work. Can you make it work well? Maybe, but it's a heck of a challenge. Will it ever work as well as something designed to do it from the ground up? Not likely, since you start out with strikes against you.

[r.willis]

Bitcoin has proven track record. Does ripple?
Is there whitepaper about mechanisms ripple use?
Is it opensource?
How emission is managed?
How it's protected from double-spends?

[JoelKatz]

Bitcoin has proven track record. Does ripple?

Not yet.

Is there whitepaper about mechanisms ripple use?

There a wiki and I'm happy to answer any questions. https://ripple.com/wiki

Is it opensource?

The client is. The server will be as soon as it's stable enough.

We are already signing every ledger and publishing every transaction. Every transaction is signed by the account holder. Every change in the ledger (the set of all account states) is justified by a transaction. If we were to cheat in any way, this would be trivially provable. There would be one ledger with the previous data and one with the cheating data, and we would have signed both of them, and there would be no valid transaction justifying the change.

Again, we sign every new ledger, about every 20 seconds. Each ledger also includes hashes of previous ledgers. So say we modified a ledger so that some balances were changed. There would be the ledger before we changed it, signed by us. And there would be the ledger after we changed it, signed by us. And in the ledger would be the tree of transactions. If there was a valid transaction that explained the change, it would be legitimate. If not, that would be trivially demonstrable. We simply *can't* cheat and get away with it.

http://pastebin.com/R7i9DYZj
This is an example of a published transaction, included in a signed ledger. It is signed by the account that generated it. And it includes metadata that shows every node in the ledger it changed and precisely how it changed it. No changes to balances, offers, or the like are ever made without this type of justification. And if such a change ever was made, it could easily be shown beyond doubt.

We designed the system so that people would have good reasons to trust it without needing a central authority to trust.

How emission is managed?

I don't know what you mean.

How it's protected from double-spends?

By consensus. Here's the simplest explanation:

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.

Essentially, to perform a transaction, you walk into the room and read out the transaction. Every honest person in the room agrees the transaction is valid. They then follow a set of deterministic rules to apply the transaction to the ledger (the state of every account), form the new ledger, and each person in the room signs the hash of the new ledger, which they now agree on. Anyone who tries a double spend will find their transaction won't fit in the ledger because a conflicting transaction already has.

If both transactions appear at about the same time, a deterministic rule decides which one wins.

A transaction is considered validated once it's included in a ledger that has been signed by the majority of people in the room.

[r.willis]

The client is. The server will be as soon as it's stable enough.

Do you know you are misleading people? Particularly when you use word "open" and Open Source Initiative logo describing your sistem? 

Again, we sign every new ledger, about every 20 seconds.

A new ledger is closed approximately every 5 seconds.

Which one is true?

We designed the system so that people would have good reasons to trust it without needing a central authority to trust.

In practice, most people will use the default UNL supplied by their client.

Seems a little conflicting to me.

I don't know what you mean.

I mean, how new coins of ripple currency are issued?

By consensus.

Do you have hard proof that 1000 nodes would converge to consensus in N iterations in presence of 10 malicious nodes? Do you believe they can execute this N iterations in 5 (20) seconds?
"Technical Description" of consensus on wiki doesn't seem very technical to me.
What about network split? Will it be permanent and not-repairable?

[JoelKatz]

The client is. The server will be as soon as it's stable enough.

Do you know you are misleading people? Particularly when you use word "open" and Open Source Initiative logo describing your sistem?

I don't think we are. We've been quite clear about what's open now and what are future plans are.

Again, we sign every new ledger, about every 20 seconds.

A new ledger is closed approximately every 5 seconds.

Which one is true?

It depends on conditions. Right now, they're averaging about every 20 seconds. It can drop to every 5 if there's continuous transactions. The "idle interval" can change based on network timing accuracy as well. See https://ripple.com/wiki/Continuous_Ledger_Close

We designed the system so that people would have good reasons to trust it without needing a central authority to trust.

In practice, most people will use the default UNL supplied by their client.

Seems a little conflicting to me.

There's no conflict. For example, Bitcoin doesn't require you to trust any central authority, but most people either use online wallets (where they trust the wallet operator) or download client software (where they trust the software provider). The important thing is that Bitcoin doesn't *require* them to trust people in this way. They just do so because it's convenient -- making a considered judgment to balance risk and convenience.

I don't know what you mean.

I mean, how new coins of ripple currency are issued?

All XRP were created when the genesis ledger was created. No further XRP can ever be created. Other currencies are created when a pathway is created with a non-zero limit and then funds are pushed along that patway.

By consensus.

Do you have hard proof that 1000 nodes would converge to consensus in N iterations in presence of 10 malicious nodes? Do you believe they can execute this N iterations in 5 (20) seconds?

We've simulated precisely that condition. How fast it converges under those conditions depends upon the latency between the nodes. Under most realistic conditions, it can converge within 4 seconds, even with 1,000 nodes. Large numbers of conflicting transaction can increase the time. 5 iterations won't typically take more than 6 seconds. The network will take as long as it takes to reach consensus. There is no particular required time. Nodes that are particularly slow will "bow out" to improve the network's performance. There's a safety to ensure we don't shrink to a small set of "super nodes".

"Technical Description" of consensus on wiki doesn't seem very technical to me.
What about network split? Will it be permanent and not-repairable?

A worst case failure will result in a persistent network split not unlike the hard fork Bitcoin had recently. One difference is that every Ripple node will immediately know that there's a hard split rather than requiring manual intervention to stop processing transactions as Bitcoin did.

The resolution would depend on the cause of the split. If both halves were equally good and the split occurred due to some freak occurrence, a decision of which fork to take would have to be made as it was for Bitcoin. If the cause was malicious, honest people should choose the non-malicious fork, even if it's in the minority somehow.

I'd say such a split is basically inconceivable, but I would have said the same thing for Bitcoin, and it happened. So, yes, it could happen.

[bccdn]

OK, so can someone explain to me how I can get CAD funds (from a Canadian bank) into my bitstamp account using ripple? I guess the easiest/fastest/cheapest way?

Paraphrasing an old joke: easy, fast, cheap; pick two.

Bitstamp doesn't support CAD at all and if your goal is to get funds into your Bitstamp account you don't need Ripple to do it (unless you're trying to leverage your Ripple credit lines).

Assuming what you really want is to get CAD into Ripple then as Joel says there are two gateways that support CAD directly. But you may not want/need to do that at all depending on what you want to do.

WeExchange supports CAD and does bank transfers, but you should check out the Ripple Live Graph for the WeExchange CAD first (set the currency to Other then type CAD and explore the reach by clicking the nodes with thin circles around them), only two people hold any at all totalling only ~$170 and only four others trust WeExchange-CAD for anything over 1 CAD (thus the people that you could currently pay with WeExchange CAD is limited) (compare that with the $74816 of Bitstamp-USD that people currently hold in Ripple). There also isn't much/any trading of WeExchange-CAD for other currencies (even on WeEx itself!) so you're kinda stuck with it. This may improve when Ripple gets out of beta.

RippleUnion supports CAD but only (as far as I know, check the website as they keep adding things) supports adding funds to Ripple from the old/classic Ripplepay system. However, RippleUnion has some interesting options for getting money out of Ripple. Also note that (at least for now) RippleUnion charges no transit fess. WeExchange charges 0.5% everytime their funds change hands and Bitstamp charges 0.2% (similar to how the exchanges charge (larger) fees for every trade).

As Joel says Bitstamp doesn't support CAD, but if you can send them USD or bitcoin there is a market within Ripple to exchange that for RippleUnion-CAD. See the Ripple client's order book for CAD/USD (or USD/CAD if you prefer) with the issuers set to RippleUnion-CAD and Bitstamp-USD (click "change issuer" and paste the Ripple addresses or add them to your contact list to use the names).


Do you really need/want to put your CAD bank funds into Ripple at this time? (Bitcoin is different since you can trivially get it in and out of Ripple via both WeEx and Bitstamp). What would you do right now with CAD in Ripple? Since Ripple is only in Beta there are currently no merchants (other than RippleUnion's proxy) that accept Ripple payments. If you want to use it to send funds to friends then you can arrange trust/credit lines between your friends to do so without any bank transfers at all (except possibly to settle debts later if the need arises). If you want to be able send funds to strangers on the internet (e.g. to buy/sell something ala bitcoin-otc) then you may still be able to do so just by getting a trust/credit line to someone that has a credit path to a gateway. If you want to be a merchent and sell things then of course you instead need to look at how the gateways can send you bitcoin or bank funds.

Personally I think the easiest way to get started and get some "value"/funds into Ripple right now is either with bitcoin (by far the easiest at the moment) or to have a friend/aquaintence that has a credit path to the gateway(s) you're interested in extend you credit. If they won't trust you with credit you could always pay them (in person with cash, with Paypal, whatever) and in return they'd send you matching funds in Ripple (just make sure you're aware of what you can and can't do with the resulting IOU; either make sure you get an IOU from a gateway you trust or that you trust the person and they have a path to a gateway you want to use or the people you want to pay). From a quick scan of your forum profile it looks like you're comfortable doing some otc style trades so you could always ask to trade for any of RippleUnion-CAD, Bitstamp-USD, Bitstamp-BTC, or XRP (you'd agree to send them some kind of payment outside of Ripple and they'd send the agreed amount by paying you from within Ripple).

Thanks for all the info. ya my main goal is to get USD funds into bitstamp so I can buy BTC there. I know I can send an international wire transfer from my bank account but there are it looks like two fees, (my banks, plus 15 from bitstamp), So with the CAD funds, I know I have to do some exchanges, thats fine. I thought maybe I could transfer CAD to weexchange, then in ripple CAD to USD into bitstamp. I know the CAD-BTC market is not very big.
Thanks again for your help

[r.willis]

I don't think we are. We've been quite clear about what's open now and what are future plans are.

Please quote you being clear on ripple's website.

There's no conflict. For example, Bitcoin doesn't require you to trust any central authority, but most people either use online wallets (where they trust the wallet operator) or download client software (where they trust the software provider). The important thing is that Bitcoin doesn't *require* them to trust people in this way. They just do so because it's convenient -- making a considered judgment to balance risk and convenience.

Bitcoin is open-source and anyone can audit algorithms and the code. Trusted nodes list can't be audited in the same way as it's more opinion-based.

All XRP were created when the genesis ledger was created. No further XRP can ever be created. Other currencies are created when a pathway is created with a non-zero limit and then funds are pushed along that patway.

And who's the owner of XRP in genesis ledger?

We've simulated precisely that condition. How fast it converges under those conditions depends upon the latency between the nodes. Under most realistic conditions, it can converge within 4 seconds, even with 1,000 nodes.

Did you miss "malicious nodes" part? And "hard proof" part? Simulation can be good if all nodes are honest, but fail in case of specific attack.

not unlike the hard fork Bitcoin had recently

This is quite different thing. bitcoin nodes did not agree on what's legitimate block. I'm talking about severing network connectivity for a while.

[JoelKatz]

This is quite different thing. bitcoin nodes did not agree on what's legitimate block. I'm talking about severing network connectivity for a while.

If network connectivity is severed, then the system can't be used reliably, obviously. This is much easier to detect with Ripple than it is with Bitcoin -- you never consider a transaction validated until you see sufficient validations for a ledger that contains it (or is chained from a prior ledger that does), which you can't if the network is severed. With Bitcoin, you'd have to notice that the block discovery rate seemed strangely low, which you can only infer statistically*. With Ripple, you'll notice the absence of validations from all nodes you're disconnected from immediately after the next ledger closes.

You are correct that we can only simulate robustness in the face of attack models that we can think of. Any system is potentially vulnerable to attack models that weren't imagined by its designers. This is another reason we want to get the system completely open and decentralized as quickly as possible. We don't want people to have any reason not to trust the system.

* Until and unless someone implements more clever solutions, I believe some people who accept zero or one confirmation Bitcoin transactions do implement such solutions now.

[weisoq]

Couple of newbie questions:

I opened a ripple wallet but everytime I try to open it again receive 'Wallet not found (Username / Password is wrong)' error. If I then go for the use key option it works, with the same username/password that didn't work previously I get in. This happens every time. Am I missing something? (this in firefox)

Will email confirmations for the ripple forum come when new site is launched? Thanks

Anyone? This is still happening every time, is it just me?

[Beepbop]

weisoq, maybe your browser deletes cookies after every visit? That might explain what happens. You have an option of storing the wallet in the browser and/or on Payward.

Some people are confused about exactly where their wallet resides, it seems. Personally, I keep it in my browser, and I've also backed it up as a file on my harddrive, and I've stored the secret key as well.
To lose your wallet even with your login information, you need to
- fail to use a blob store like Payward
- fail to back up the wallet file
- fail to take note of the secret rescue key
- lose your browser cookies

If all those things happen, you have lost your Ripple wallet. If you averted one of the above, you can get back into your wallet. Correct?

[weisoq]

beepbop, yep was indeed a stupid case of not understanding how/where it was stored vs the options I'd selected, so just a browser/addons clash issue. Cheers

[jago25_98]

Trust meeeeee, openleeee!
r82ovvXckDPTbJ7adQxqQ38dQ7MWXXW3F

For example, Bitcoin doesn't require you to trust any central authority, but most people either use online wallets (where they trust the wallet operator) or download client software (where they trust the software provider). The important thing is that Bitcoin doesn't *require* them to trust people in this way. They just do so because it's convenient

^ a good point. 2 wrongs don't make a right though. I use Gentoo to compile mine automatically from source, checking the signed distrib. I go a bit further than most... perhaps not far enough.

To the early people on this thread - I wouldn't trust another forum member with as much as 1BTC!

What I decided to do was credit myself with as many of the different currencies that are available and then extend a small amount of trust to some of the gateways. By doing this I am risking as much as ~$10USD but I hope this means that I have encouraged the network?

How can we engineer a situation where I can meet someone I wouldn't normally trust, yet through this I have some trust?

edit: Surely another key use for Ripple is in assisting people to become currency exchangers. Let's say I want to help people in the UK buy and sell BTC for bank transfers to my own account. I put up a thread offering and then people have to trust me with the amount they want. Then they credit me 1GBP and send me 1GBP. When I recieve it I have to manually convert to 0.001whateverBTC and then, rather than sending them Bitcoin to their address we send it through Ripple and they withdraw using Bitstamp. This doesn't seem so different than a OTC exchange at this stage?

Can Ripple help address the decentralised exchange problem by making it easier for people to exchange? Hopefully a few key trusted forum members could step up like the DYM example and assist in gateways for fiat?

edit2:

See if you can do this: