Ripple: A Distributed Exchange for Bitcoin

[gollum]

Why is Ripple even discussed here? It is not open source and it is not distributed.
The technology may be distributed, but its owned by one company.

Ripple is more like Western Union than Bitcoin - only difference is its cheaper and faster.

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[Sukrim]

MtGox is discussed here too and it's far less open, not claiming to release any source code and far less distributed than Ripple.

I still am unsure how long it would take for an actual trade to take place in Ripple - from what I understand every ~10 seconds there is a new consensus between servers that trust each other. This is great for transfers but still far too slow for exchanges. Also if I have to exchange several IOUs over time to finally pay something (e.g. I pay BTC to MtGox to get Gox-BTC, then I buy something where only Amazon-EUR are accepted: My Gox-BTC are then automatically exchanged into Bitstamp-USD and then to Amazon-EUR --> more than 1 "hop", so I have to wait half a minute or more).

As servers are important for consensus - what are incentives for me to operate my own server, how do I get other servers to trust mine and vice versa and what are approximate requirements (storage, CPU, memory, bandwidth) for servers now and in the future?

[superdork]

Why use XRP at all and have to have IOUs?   Why not use bitcoin?

You can use Bitcoins with Ripple. You can do it right now with a few extra steps, but we're working on seamless gateways. Every merchant who takes Ripple is one more merchant you can pay with Bitcoins. And Ripple will provide a distributed, open market to buy and sell Bitcoins.

Would you be so kind as to explain these steps in a manner that would be sufficient for someone new to Ripple?

If possible, please post in thread and also PM me so I don't miss this info by accident.

Thanks

SD

[mmeijeri]

Ripple is more like Western Union than Bitcoin - only difference is its cheaper and faster.

Not the only difference. Crucially, it also supports BTC and offers a distributed exchange. This will make it much easier for merchants to support BTC and for consumers to get their hands on BTC. Even in countries where the government makes BTC illegal.

[Coincrazy]

Why use XRP at all and have to have IOUs?   Why not use bitcoin?

You can use Bitcoins with Ripple. You can do it right now with a few extra steps, but we're working on seamless gateways. Every merchant who takes Ripple is one more merchant you can pay with Bitcoins. And Ripple will provide a distributed, open market to buy and sell Bitcoins.

Would you be so kind as to explain these steps in a manner that would be sufficient for someone new to Ripple?

If possible, please post in thread and also PM me so I don't miss this info by accident.

Thanks

SD

Me too

I am really interested in buying selling bitcoins thru Ripple IF that is practical

[JoelKatz]

You can use Bitcoins with Ripple. You can do it right now with a few extra steps, but we're working on seamless gateways. Every merchant who takes Ripple is one more merchant you can pay with Bitcoins. And Ripple will provide a distributed, open market to buy and sell Bitcoins.

Would you be so kind as to explain these steps in a manner that would be sufficient for someone new to Ripple?

Currently, your choice of gateways are WeExchange or Bitstamp. Start out by adding three contacts to your wallet:

1) Bitstamp, rvYAfWj5gh67oV6fW32ZzP3Aw4Eubs59B
2) WeExchange BTC, rpvfJ4mR6QQAeogpXEKnuyGBx8mYCSnYZi

WeExchange uses different issuers for different currencies, Bitstamp uses the same issuer for all currencies. Open an account at either Bitstamp or WeExchange (or both). Log into your Ripple account and under Advanced/Trust, create a pathway to the gateway you've chosen for the currency you've chosen. Set the limit to an amount at least a bit greater than the maximum amount of currency you plan to hold. (Note that if you create pathways to both, you may find that other users transactions push your balance between gateways.)

To get Bitcoins into your Ripple account: Log into your account at the exchange and select Deposit and then Bitcoin. You will get a deposit address. Transfer your Bitcoins to that address. Once those Bitcoins arrive in your gateway account, select Withdraw and then Ripple. Enter your Ripple address and the amount you want to transfer.

To get Bitcoins out of your Ripple account: Log into your account at the exchange and select Withdraw and then Ripple. You will get a ripple account and a destination tag to paste into your client. Use the Ripple client to Send to that address (do not forget the tag). You now have Bitcoins in your gateway account and can send them to a Bitcoin address with the gateway's Withdraw/Bitcoin feature.

We're working to make it more seamless, including inbound and outbound Bitcoin gateways that don't require you to explicitly create an account.

[essem]

Is there a way to transfer fiat between exchanges? I have money in bitfloor at the moment which I wish to move to another exchange

[TTBit]

Is there a way to transfer fiat between exchanges? I have money in bitfloor at the moment which I wish to move to another exchange

You'll need bitfloor to support ripple.

But if bitfloor had withdraw codes (dont think they do), a gateway could stand in the middle and issue bitfloor IOUs for codes, and vice versa. These would then be fungible with other exchange IOUs (as long as there was a path).

[essem]

Bitfloor is a such a piece of shit

[mobile4ever]

Here is the "official" decentralized market thread:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172705.0;all

[QuantumQrack]

This is directed to Joel Katz:

Joel, since the majority of XRP has not been distributed, doesn't that mean a very small number of people or entities have most of the XRP? Thus, if a sufficient market demand is generated and XRP reaches USD parity and provided there is sufficient liquidity, doesn't that mean that Open Coin Inc, is "fantabulously" wealthy?  Is there a public list of who owns and how much XRP?

Also, a different question:  How do we know more XRP won't be created--faith?

[Calavera]

JK,

Is the Transfer Fee stored in an address's root node alterable or will it be permanent once set?

[Calavera]

JK can chime in if any of this is wrong, but ...

doesn't that mean a very small number of people or entities have most of the XRP?

Yes, mostly OpenCoin and its founders.

Thus, if a sufficient market demand is generated and XRP reaches USD parity and provided there is sufficient liquidity, doesn't that mean that Open Coin Inc, is "fantabulously" wealthy? 

Yes.

Is there a public list of who owns and how much XRP?

No, only which ripple addresses it's currently held by.  OpenCoin started with 80%, 50% for "giving away", 30% for supporting itself.  The founders held on to 20% personally.   I don't know how much OC has actually gifted as of yet, perhaps JK can tell us. 

Also, a different question:  How do we know more XRP won't be created--faith?

Haven't actually studied the proposal but this would almost certainly not be within OpenCoin's power after the network gets fully decentralized. i.e. it would require a code change that supported the new coins being adopted by all the servers, and logically they would refuse to do so.

[JoelKatz]

Joel, since the majority of XRP has not been distributed, doesn't that mean a very small number of people or entities have most of the XRP? Thus, if a sufficient market demand is generated and XRP reaches USD parity and provided there is sufficient liquidity, doesn't that mean that Open Coin Inc, is "fantabulously" wealthy?

Yes. But if the price of XRP drops, they'll lose the present value of their holdings. They have the same opportunity everyone else has -- they hold a position today that has some value. They can sell it for its present value, or they can hold it in the hope that its value will increase but at the risk that its value will decrease. Anyone can buy XRP at its present value and have this exact same future opportunity/risk.

Is there a public list of who owns and how much XRP?

No, and I don't think anybody knows.

Also, a different question:  How do we know more XRP won't be created--faith?

Right now, OpenCoin could create more XRP by modifying the software. However, that would be disastrous to our business, possibly subject us to lawsuits, and so on. So we're not going to. It would be insane. In the future, the network will be decentralized and it will take a consensus of validators to do that. If, in the far future, the majority of Ripple validators want more XRP to be created, nothing could stop them from doing so. That would probably cause a network fork, so it's almost inconceivable. It would be similar to Bitcoin miners getting together and trying to force a change to keep the block reward at 25 bitcoins forever. It could happen, there would be revolts, there would be hard forks, but if enough people wanted it, it could possibly happen.

Is the Transfer Fee stored in an address's root node alterable or will it be permanent once set?

We originally had planned a way to lock the transfer fee for a particular amount of time and require you to announce a higher transfer fee in the ledger. The whole scheme got unreasonably complex, and we ditched it. We hope gateways will contractually obligate themselves not to raise the transfer fee without sufficient advanced warning. No transfer fee applies when a balance is returned to its issuers and issuers must accept their own balances at face value. So you can't really raise your own transfer fee as a way to make your debts worthless. (You'll just make them less desirable, likely causing people to stop letting you hold their money.)

[misterbigg]

We originally had planned a way to lock the transfer fee for a particular amount of time and require you to announce a higher transfer fee in the ledger. The whole scheme got unreasonably complex, and we ditched it.

Makes sense. A gateway can always impose a fee at the time of settlement anyway (or just default). This is no different than a gateway raising the transfer fee arbitrarily (or to exhorbitant values).

[Calavera]

Is the Transfer Fee stored in an address's root node alterable or will it be permanent once set?

We originally had planned a way to lock the transfer fee for a particular amount of time and require you to announce a higher transfer fee in the ledger. The whole scheme got unreasonably complex, and we ditched it. We hope gateways will contractually obligate themselves not to raise the transfer fee without sufficient advanced warning. No transfer fee applies when a balance is returned to its issuers and issuers must accept their own balances at face value. So you can't really raise your own transfer fee as a way to make your debts worthless. (You'll just make them less desirable, likely causing people to stop letting you hold their money.)

What was the case against not letting them alter it at all once set?  As in, if they want to start issuing new debts with a new fee they can create a new address.  My issue is that the cost of transferring the debt would be a key ingredient in how I value it.  One of the better things I'm seeing in Ripple is that it would give debt issuers less control over the transference of their debt, and less ability to suddenly make arbitrary rules or fees about how that happens.  Fees would be set up front.  They can charge a fee, perhaps they can even decrease it, but I don't see why you would allow them increase it.  Particularly as you (being Ripple) ultimately want people to keep their IOUs in the system rather than cash them out. 

[misterbigg]

What was the case against not letting them alter it at all once set?  As in, if they want to start issuing new debts with a new fee they can create a new address.  My issue is that the cost of transferring the debt would be a key ingredient in how I value it.  One of the better things I'm seeing in Ripple is that it would give debt issuers less control over the transference of their debt, and less ability to suddenly make arbitrary rules or fees about how that happens.  Fees would be set up front.  They can charge a fee, perhaps they can even decrease it, but I don't see why you would allow them increase it.  Particularly as you (being Ripple) ultimately want people to keep their IOUs in the system rather than cash them out. 

Like I said, fee or no fee the gateway can always change the terms of the settlement agreement (although they might be breaking the law). So preventing the transaction fee from increasing at the protocol level is not particularly constraining.

To be clear, what I'm saying is that even if Ripple prevents transfer fees from rising, you could still get an email from your gateway that says "Our new policy on redemption of IOUs is to pay 95% of the face value of the IOUs." In the worst case scenario (i.e. default) this redemption amount would be 0%. The point is that putting protocol restrictions on transfer fees doesn't completely solve the "problem."

[JoelKatz]

What was the case against not letting them alter it at all once set?  As in, if they want to start issuing new debts with a new fee they can create a new address.  My issue is that the cost of transferring the debt would be a key ingredient in how I value it.  One of the better things I'm seeing in Ripple is that it would give debt issuers less control over the transference of their debt, and less ability to suddenly make arbitrary rules or fees about how that happens.  Fees would be set up front.  They can charge a fee, perhaps they can even decrease it, but I don't see why you would allow them increase it.  Particularly as you (being Ripple) ultimately want people to keep their IOUs in the system rather than cash them out.

I'm not opposed to a feature that would let issuers choose to eliminate their ability to raise the transfer fee still allowing them to lower it. In fact, I'll add it to the proposed features list now.

https://ripple.com/wiki/Proposed_features

[muyuu]

How were XRP originally created and distributed?

[JoelKatz]

How were XRP originally created and distributed?

The genesis ledger contains 100 billion XRPs in a known account. See here for the distribution:
https://ripple.com/wiki/Introduction_to_Ripple_for_Bitcoiners#Distribution