http://ripplescam.org/

[Stampbit]

any good vc will require a guaranteed exit to recover their investment.

No, that would be an idiot who would miss out on every opportunity that wasn't safe. Nobody had any idea how Facebook would make any money. Nobody had any idea how Twitter would make any money. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that you've never talked to an actual VC person. If you have, they were crappy. We're talking about the people who are looking for the next PayPal because they *built* PayPal.

how can opencoin guarantee roi to their investors AFTER the source is released (and potentially forked into something incompatible w/ XRP).
if they can lay out a business model that allows for sufficient profit as well as an open sourced server, i'd LOVE to hear about it.

We're swinging for the fences. A long shot. A possible home run but also possibly a strike out. We're trying to change the world. Really.

I know you'll find this hard to believe, but I met with a lot of our investors. They're genuinely motivated at least as much by the prospect of disruption for good as they are by the prospect of making money.

Claiming that a venture capitalist is throwing millions at you for the good of the earth isnt the best way to build credibility.

The facts we know so far are:

1. You are funded by an industry that expects massive returns to make up for its massive losses.
1. You and your partners have in your possession already the vast majority of XRP's that will ever be created.
2. There will be a price to XRP's.

Therefore you are building a system that places you in a central banking position, which will allow you to:
1. Control the flow of XRP's in order to control and regulate the price.
2. ....
3. Profit!



If your organization truly were altruistic, you would first release your source code before releasing one XRP into the wild, and then allow the network to distribute XRP's in the same way BTC does, that is for itself. From the slick marketing campaign and the level of astroturfing going on in these forums its evident that your millions of VC dollars are being put to good use setting yourselves up as the new federal reserve.

If Ripple becomes popular, the price of XRP is fairly stable, and there's little perceived risk of a sudden change in price, people will probably use XRP as a currency.

Exactly.

[JoelKatz]

Claiming that a venture capitalist is throwing millions at you for the good of the earth isnt the best way to build credibility.

Grossly misstating someone's position isn't the best way to build your own credibility.

If your organization truly were altruistic, you would first release your source code before releasing one XRP into the wild, and then allow the network to distribute XRP's in the same way BTC does, that is for itself. From the slick marketing campaign and the level of astroturfing going on in these forums its evident that your millions of VC dollars are being put to good use setting yourselves up as the new federal reserve.

We're not altruistic and never said we were. We're just willing to take a greater risk to achieve a greater result. Developing an open source, decentralized payment system is a greater risk than developing a centralized one, but the potential rewards are much greater as well. We're going after the bigger prize. I hope that if we do fail, it will be because someone else did what we did even better.

If Ripple becomes popular, the price of XRP is fairly stable, and there's little perceived risk of a sudden change in price, people will probably use XRP as a currency.

Exactly.

Surely you don't think a closed source, centralized network would accomplish that objective best? Do you think Bitcoins would be worth more today had Satoshi adopted that approach?

[Stampbit]

Surely you don't think a closed source, centralized network would accomplish that objective best?

Like ripple? Of course not.

[JoelKatz]

Surely you don't think a closed source, centralized network would accomplish that objective best?

Like ripple? Of course not.

I'm glad you recognize that opening the network is in our self-interest. Now the question is whether we're smart enough to do it.

[cdog]

Haha, and out come the legion of Ripple employees and shills. Obviously, a very aggressive gorilla marketing campaign was part of the launch plans for Ripple, with BitcoinTalk and specifically the Alt-Crypto board being major targets to sway public opinion and get people to swallow their shit.

Thats what Ripple and XRPs are. Shit, feces, human excrement - so worthless that not only do you not want it, you want to move away from it as quickly as possible to rid yourself of its malodorous stench.

OpenCoin is just another for profit company - no different than Exxon or Phillip Morris. As you can imagine, being an executive of Phillip Morris certainly has its benefits, but I think we can all agree that they are not doing a public service by selling their products. They are making a profit for themselves and their shareholders - that is their primary intent and purpose, and everything else is secondary to that.

Also, I wish people would stop referring to XRP as being "premined." That implies that at some point, you will be able to mine XRPs yourself, which is not the case. There is no mining of xrp whatsoever, so its not "100% premined," they simply issued or "printed" their own currency, PERIOD. In this respect, its the same as fiat currency but actually worse, for obvious reasons.

I am thrilled that http://ripplescam.org/ exists and does the public a real service by revealing the true nature of this company. I wouldnt be surprised if the site was DDOS'd soon and I will personally donate 1 BTC to help maintain it, and I hope others do too. However, there isnt a donation address yet on there even though its mentioned, and I hope that it is added ASAP.

Also, Im adding http://ripplescam.org/ to my signature and I hope that people on here wake up and smell the coffee and do the same.

They are using aggressive tactics to try to swindle us, so we need to be hyper-aggressive in our response as a community. They cant pay off all of BitcoinTalk.org

Finally, and most importantly, I am 100% sure that Satoshi Nakamoto himself would be ashamed of Ripple and totally against it. I hope he sees http://ripplescam.org/ and donates 100BTC or whatever it takes to completely and fully bring Ripple to its knees.

I will keep bumping this thread periodically until Ripple is dead and and buried.

[xan_The_Dragon]

I found this linked in someones signature, its brings up some valid points, but maybe the pre-mine is necessary for a concept like ripple. I sure hope it isnt a scam, that would irreparably hurt the image of decentralized exchanges.


http://ripplescam.org/

its not decentralized

[JoelKatz]

its not decentralized

It's design is decentralized. It doesn't require any central authorities of any kind. The currently operating network is centralized, but it will be a decentralized exchange system.

[drawingthesun]

They are using aggressive tactics to try to swindle us, so we need to be hyper-aggressive in our response as a community. They cant pay off all of BitcoinTalk.org

Good luck fighting them, the most devote people are ones holding onto small stashes of XRP (under 50,000) and they are the ones swallowing everything up. They are all over the forum and just wanna believe so bad, they beg for a few thousand XRP further reinforcing the "scarcity" of the mighty ripple. And now JoelKatz has admitted that XRP is meant to have value, but that's ok because he's sitting on 4 million dollars worth, of course he believes in the cause!

They even have the cheek to say Satoshi pre-mined his Bitcoin, when he put a lot of effort into making sure this wasn't the case.

Why all these people here are sucking up to a greedy for profit company I don't know. Andreessen Horowitz is making a mockery of you!

its not decentralized

It's design is decentralized. It doesn't require any central authorities of any kind. The currently operating network is centralized, but it will be a decentralized exchange system.

I wonder whats so hard about letting people become nodes and making the entire network decentralized? And the exchange system is not decentralized because it still requires you. JoelKatz, if the ripple team shut off the server running the ripple network would that exchange still work? Nope!

To have a decentralized network you need all its components to be decentralized, your smart and know this, stop lying to everyone. If one part of a "decentralized" network is centralized like your command over all ripple servers, then its not really decentralized is it?

[bitchess]

I agree with some of the below, I would not say that Opencoin, Exxon, or Philip Morris do not provide value however.  

OpenCoin should only be applauded for attempting to provide value by being a Paypal for bitcoins.  

However this positive effort is completely outweighed by its hugely negative attempt to establish Ripple as another virtual currency.  Ripple is not a scam it's just an attempt to take the Bitcoin idea, copy it, and make money off of it before Bitcoin completely cements itself with common people (ie non early adopters.)  If the Ripple currency becomes successful (I hope not), it would destroy and replace Bitcoin.  At that point we'd all be on Ripple, a currency that is controlled by a corporation.

I'll also add that it's apparent to me that the attempt to copy/replace Bitcoin is intentional as part of the OpenCoin business strategy.  They will never openly state it because it will scare aware users of Bitcoin that they are marketing to.

If OpenCoin wants to succeed, they simply need to remove Ripple currency from the operating model of their payment system.  Then they could gain a customer in me.

Haha, and out come the legion of Ripple employees and shills. Obviously, a very aggressive gorilla marketing campaign was part of the launch plans for Ripple, with BitcoinTalk and specifically the Alt-Crypto board being major targets to sway public opinion and get people to swallow their shit.

Thats what Ripple and XRPs are. Shit, feces, human excrement - so worthless that not only do you not want it, you want to move away from it as quickly as possible to rid yourself of its malodorous stench.

OpenCoin is just another for profit company - no different than Exxon or Phillip Morris. As you can imagine, being an executive of Phillip Morris certainly has its benefits, but I think we can all agree that they are not doing a public service by selling their products. They are making a profit for themselves and their shareholders - that is their primary intent and purpose, and everything else is secondary to that.

Also, I wish people would stop referring to XRP as being "premined." That implies that at some point, you will be able to mine XRPs yourself, which is not the case. There is no mining of xrp whatsoever, so its not "100% premined," they simply issued or "printed" their own currency, PERIOD. In this respect, its the same as fiat currency but actually worse, for obvious reasons.

I am thrilled that http://ripplescam.org/ exists and does the public a real service by revealing the true nature of this company. I wouldnt be surprised if the site was DDOS'd soon and I will personally donate 1 BTC to help maintain it, and I hope others do too. However, there isnt a donation address yet on there even though its mentioned, and I hope that it is added ASAP.

Also, Im adding http://ripplescam.org/ to my signature and I hope that people on here wake up and smell the coffee and do the same.

They are using aggressive tactics to try to swindle us, so we need to be hyper-aggressive in our response as a community. They cant pay off all of BitcoinTalk.org

Finally, and most importantly, I am 100% sure that Satoshi Nakamoto himself would be ashamed of Ripple and totally against it. I hope he sees http://ripplescam.org/ and donates 100BTC or whatever it takes to completely and fully bring Ripple to its knees.

I will keep bumping this thread periodically until Ripple is dead and and buried.

[JoelKatz]

I wonder whats so hard about letting people become nodes and making the entire network decentralized?

By intentional design, it is very difficult to change the rules by which transactions are executed. Obviously, you want people to be able to rely on the system behaving the same tomorrow as it has today. As soon as the network is decentralized, any new feature or fix that changes transaction processing would require an overwhelming majority to support it. Various people will have to upgrade their servers, the community will have to agree not to veto the feature. Unless there's a consensus that it's an emergency, the servers will wait until they see a stable majority for a period of time to prevent a change from being rushed through. Right now, that would slow development down significantly. But we're getting very close to being ready to flip that switch.

https://ripple.com/wiki/Change_Process

And the exchange system is not decentralized because it still requires you. JoelKatz, if the ripple team shut off the server running the ripple network would that exchange still work? Nope!

Absolutely. The running network is not decentralized today. But the design is and doesn't require any central authorities.

To have a decentralized network you need all its components to be decentralized, your smart and know this, stop lying to everyone.

That's simply not true. You couldn't have a decentalized exchange by decentralizing Mt Gox, for example. It's not *designed* to be decentralized. It's design requires a central authority.

If one part of a "decentralized" network is centralized like your command over all ripple servers, then its not really decentralized is it?

Of course not. But because we designed it so no authorities are required, it will be decentralized once that switch is flipped. Then there's no going back.

[JoelKatz]

However this positive effort is completely outweighed by its hugely attempt to establish Ripple as another virtual currency.  Ripple is not a scam it's just an attempt to take the Bitcoin idea, copy it, and make money off of it before Bitcoin completely cements itself with common people (ie non early adopters.)  If the Ripple currency becomes successful (I hope not), it would destroy and replace Bitcoin.  At that point we'd all be on Ripple, a currency that is controlled by a corporation.

This is an incredibly unlikely scenario. It is almost impossible to imagine Ripple's success as being anything but good for Bitcoin.

For the foreseeable future, Bitcoin will be one of the core currencies traded and moved on the Ripple network. Ripple will give Bitcoins faster transactions that don't clutter the blockchain. Ripple will make fiat currencies hard enough that they can be reliably traded for Bitcoins and Ripple will provide a distributed exchange that will make it easier for people to buy and sell Bitcoins. And every merchant that takes Ripple will be one more place you can spend your Bitcoins.

It will be a long time, if ever, before Bitcoin and Ripple compete with each other in any meaningful sense.

In any event, XRP will only compete with Bitcoin as a currency if it is as good as or superior to Bitcoin as a currency. Do you really want to argue that if that happens, nevertheless it's still somehow bad for Ripple to do that?

By the way, is your nickname supposed to be "bitch-ess" or "bit-chess"? It makes a difference.

[bitchess]

I wonder whats so hard about letting people become nodes and making the entire network decentralized?

By intentional design, it is very difficult to change the rules by which transactions are executed. Obviously, you want people to be able to rely on the system behaving the same tomorrow as it has today. As soon as the network is decentralized, any new feature or fix that changes transaction processing would require an overwhelming majority to support it. Various people will have to upgrade their servers, the community will have to agree not to veto the feature. Unless there's a consensus that it's an emergency, the servers will wait until they see a stable majority for a period of time to prevent a change from being rushed through. Right now, that would slow development down significantly. But we're getting very close to being ready to flip that switch.

https://ripple.com/wiki/Change_Process

And the exchange system is not decentralized because it still requires you. JoelKatz, if the ripple team shut off the server running the ripple network would that exchange still work? Nope!

Absolutely. The running network is not decentralized today. But the design is and doesn't require any central authorities.

To have a decentralized network you need all its components to be decentralized, your smart and know this, stop lying to everyone.

That's simply not true. You couldn't have a decentalized exchange by decentralizing Mt Gox, for example. It's not *designed* to be decentralized. It's design requires a central authority.

If one part of a "decentralized" network is centralized like your command over all ripple servers, then its not really decentralized is it?

Of course not. But because we designed it so no authorities are required, it will be decentralized once that switch is flipped. Then there's no going back.

Why is there so much talk about flipping a switch, if you flip it on and decentralize, what stops you from flipping it off later?  Can you please elaborate?  Thx

[JoelKatz]

Why is there so much talk about flipping a switch, if you flip it on and decentralize, what stops you from flipping it off later?  Can you please elaborate?  Thx

Nothing would happen if we flipped it off. We'd just be in the minority and ignored. Once you let the cat out of the bag, you can't stuff it back in. It's just like when Satoshi decentralized Bitcoin by making it all public. He couldn't change his mind at that point. If he realized that 21 million was the wrong number of Bitcoins, he was stuck with it.

The whole point of decentralizing something is that no one entity can impose its will on it. When you give up the power to do evil, you give up the power to do good as well.

[qxzn]

For the foreseeable future, Bitcoin will be one of the core currencies traded and moved on the Ripple network. Ripple will give Bitcoins faster transactions that don't clutter the blockchain.

Is this actually true though? Every time I press a ripple guy on this, they end up talking about IOUs. If I actually want to send bitcoins to someone, instead of IOUs for bitcoins, ripple doesn't help me, does it?

Ripple will make fiat currencies hard enough that they can be reliably traded for Bitcoins and Ripple will provide a distributed exchange that will make it easier for people to buy and sell Bitcoins.

I can see a distributed order book happening, but won't there still be a need for mtgoxes of the world to clear the dollar side of the transactions?

And every merchant that takes Ripple will be one more place you can spend your Bitcoins.

Merchants are going to start accepting IOUs for bitcoins instead of real bitcoins?

[bitchess]

However this positive effort is completely outweighed by its hugely attempt to establish Ripple as another virtual currency.  Ripple is not a scam it's just an attempt to take the Bitcoin idea, copy it, and make money off of it before Bitcoin completely cements itself with common people (ie non early adopters.)  If the Ripple currency becomes successful (I hope not), it would destroy and replace Bitcoin.  At that point we'd all be on Ripple, a currency that is controlled by a corporation.

This is an incredibly unlikely scenario. It is almost impossible to imagine Ripple's success as being anything but good for Bitcoin.

For the foreseeable future, Bitcoin will be one of the core currencies traded and moved on the Ripple network. Ripple will give Bitcoins faster transactions that don't clutter the blockchain. Ripple will make fiat currencies hard enough that they can be reliably traded for Bitcoins and Ripple will provide a distributed exchange that will make it easier for people to buy and sell Bitcoins. And every merchant that takes Ripple will be one more place you can spend your Bitcoins.

It will be a long time, if ever, before Bitcoin and Ripple compete with each other in any meaningful sense.

In any event, XRP will only compete with Bitcoin as a currency if it is as good as or superior to Bitcoin as a currency. Do you really want to argue that if that happens, nevertheless it's still somehow bad for Ripple to do that?

By the way, is your nickname supposed to be "bitch-ess" or "bit-chess"? It makes a difference.

Well stated.  I get your point.  It's a good strategy since your company gets a couple places for upside while piggybacking off BTC growth.  

My handle is actually supposed to be pronounced like bit-cheese.  Can you dig?

[JoelKatz]

Is this actually true though? Every time I press a ripple guy on this, they end up talking about IOUs. If I actually want to send bitcoins to someone, instead of IOUs for bitcoins, ripple doesn't help me, does it?

We're working on seamless inbound and outbound Bitcoin gateways (so you can just right to a Bitcoin address from the client and send to a Bitcoin address and it will appear in your Ripple wallet). It works just fine right now, you just have to return the IOUs to their issuer and redeem them. Bitstamp has made this totally painless (other than their hot wallet running dry a lot).

I can see a distributed order book happening, but won't there still be a need for mtgoxes of the world to clear the dollar side of the transactions?

Yes. But they'll do less and so they can charge less. No one entity will have the exclusive pathway to the distributed exchange, so competition should not only bring rates down but also keep policies sane. Don't like one gateway's policy? Exchange their IOUs for IOUs at another gateway to redeem.

And every merchant that takes Ripple will be one more place you can spend your Bitcoins.

Merchants are going to start accepting IOUs for bitcoins instead of real bitcoins?

Maybe, maybe not, but that's the beauty, they don't have to. What the merchant accepts and what you pay them with don't have to be related at all. Ripple is a financial matching engine. So long as you have something liquid and they accept something liquid, a cheap path should be possible.

[bitchess]

Why is there so much talk about flipping a switch, if you flip it on and decentralize, what stops you from flipping it off later?  Can you please elaborate?  Thx

Nothing would happen if we flipped it off. We'd just be in the minority and ignored. Once you let the cat out of the bag, you can't stuff it back in. It's just like when Satoshi decentralized Bitcoin by making it all public. He couldn't change his mind at that point. If he realized that 21 million was the wrong number of Bitcoins, he was stuck with it.

The whole point of decentralizing something is that no one entity can impose its will on it. When you give up the power to do evil, you give up the power to do good as well.

I guess the devil is in the details.  Will have to wait until it happens and the specifics of the code/protocol before it can be really judged.  The biggest gorilla in the room is the optics of having a for-profit entity pull it off.  Why else did Satoshi so ingeniously use a pseudonym and execute the deployment like an academic.

[mmeijeri]

In any event, XRP will only compete with Bitcoin as a currency if it is as good as or superior to Bitcoin as a currency. Do you really want to argue that if that happens, nevertheless it's still somehow bad for Ripple to do that?

I guess some people dislike Ripple because they worry it might rob them of their chance to strike it rich with their cheaply acquired or self-mined BTC. They feel like co-owners of Bitcoin, and they feel they can only be users of Ripple, not co-owners. It's an invalid argument, but I think that's what's behind it. I'm not talking about user "bitchess" here BTW.

[bitchess]

In any event, XRP will only compete with Bitcoin as a currency if it is as good as or superior to Bitcoin as a currency. Do you really want to argue that if that happens, nevertheless it's still somehow bad for Ripple to do that?

I guess some people dislike Ripple because they worry it might rob them of their chance to strike it rich with their cheaply acquired or self-mined BTC. They feel like co-owners of Bitcoin, and they feel they can only be users of Ripple, not co-owners. It's an invalid argument, but I think that's what's behind it. I'm not talking about user "bitchess" here BTW.

Agree.

To add, it's a competitive market and if Ripple turns out to be a better implementation and can gain more user traction, it will replace Bitcoin.  Then people like the Winklevosses will lose some money that they otherwise would have made.  Think about where Apple was a decade ago.

It's hard to judge whether or not ripple is designed with intent to be a Bitcoin killer without looking at the code/protocol specifics.  If I were OpenCoin, I would obviously design it with the potential to kill Bitcoin if possible.  Right now we are just going by the assurances of its employees that it's not or "unlikely" going to replace bitcoin even though there is potential.

[mmeijeri]

Agreed. On the flip side, if Ripple ever does look like overtaking Bitcoin, it will give those with large stashes of BTC an incentive to facilitate development of a rival system based purely on Bitcoin. Competition is good, it will drive prices down, drive innovation and keep everyone honest.