Why Ripple is Superior to Bitcoin...

[bitaccumulation]

Most of the transactions we currently do in the financial realm of our lives rely on trust based systems.

Bitcoin, brilliant in design, sidesteps the need for most of this trust.

Bitcoin is a sort of digital gold with a built in transaction system.  Awesome and very useful.

Bitcoin's base value comes from fanboys, folks willing to take a stand for their monetary ideology, but most importantly its usefulness in transactions that can't be done online for legal reasons or when a person would prefer not to reveal their identity.  Due to this base value, it has attracted speculators who have driven up its price way beyond its value based on its base uses.

That said, in every day transactions, is it useful or practical for people to exchange their dollars (or other currency), pay 4% to move it to Bitinstant so they can get it into MTGOX, so that they can buy some Bitcoin (another 1/2 % fee), so that they can buy a pizza at their corner store?    I'm going to go out on a limb and say "no."

This is the MAIN problem with Bitcoin.  It is not useful as a transaction system to purchase every day items and does not fit well into the current system.   Would you exchange your dollars for euros to buy a pizza in the USA?   Then why would you do that with Bitcoin?  You wouldn't unless you already had a bunch of Bitcoin or you were living your ideology.

Ripple on the other hand, is first and foremost a PAYMENT AND TRANSACTION SYSTEM.   It can handle trust based transactions that people currently use and will therefore be readily accepted into everyday use (unlike Bitcoin).

So where does XRP and ripples (the currency in Ripple) fit in this equation?

I'm guessing but...

Opencoin, Inc., is smart in that they have printed up the currency in their instance of the pre-open source server almost like a stock issue. They have a certain number of shares that they are banking will increase in value, since xrp is the Bitcoin/gold in the Ripple system. They can hand out these "shares" like an IPO without the usual regulatory rigmorole and without having banks in between each transaction. Ingenious in my opinion. However, as mainly a transaction system, the value of the xrp will only increase and be worth something if Opencoin Inc. gains an early mover advantage in the market with their version of Ripple.

Anyone can make a Facebook clone even though Facebook isn't open source. The software isn't what makes Facebook worth something. It's the network of people and the infrastructure possible because of it. I think Opencoin is attempting to reach the critical mass needed to make sure that their instance of the server is looked at more favorably because of the network adoption vs. a clone.

If they succeed then their xrp will be worth quite a bit, in my opinion. If they don't they can still make money consulting with people running or implementing the software. The former would be preferable I would think.

So Ripple is taking the exact opposite approach of Bitcoin to gain adoption of xrp.   Bitcoin people have to convince others to use Bitcoin in situations where they would normally use their regular currency.   Ripple will merely need to get people to use their payment network for currencies they are already used to (by partnering with banks and other financial services) and xrp will become valuable as a result of that (it being the only trust-free currency in Ripple).

[Come-from-Beyond]

Opencoin says Ripple is open-source, but there are no sources in public. They should replace all "open" with "close", until that Ripple is scam.

[bitaccumulation]

ripple is superior to bitcoin because their owners will profit 1000 USD millions more than satoshi.

I bet you put a lot of thought into that reply.  

How much owners will make is irrelevant to the reality of the situation.   In order for Bitcoin to move into the mainstream it would have to replace current money somehow.  I don't see any foreseeable way for that to happen.  If you do, why don't you let us all in on it?

On the other hand, Ripple has a very smooth way to transition people from their current currencies into using xrp.  

That's a fact, irrelevant of your opinion on whether it's OK if the owner's of Opencoin make tons of money or not.

Bitcoiners are so stuck in the "mining" solution put forth by Satoshi that they can't wrap their head around any other possibility.  Why is that?

[bitaccumulation]

Opencoin says Ripple is open-source, but there are no sources in public. They should replace all "open" with "close", until that Ripple is scam.

Another "brilliant" reply that doesn't address anything I've written about in my original post.  Good job genius.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Opencoin says Ripple is open-source, but there are no sources in public. They should replace all "open" with "close", until that Ripple is scam.

Another "brilliant" reply that doesn't address anything I've written about in my original post.  Good job genius.

Sorry if I insulted u. Sometimes it's not very pleasant to face the truth.

[bitaccumulation]

Opencoin says Ripple is open-source, but there are no sources in public. They should replace all "open" with "close", until that Ripple is scam.

Another "brilliant" reply that doesn't address anything I've written about in my original post.  Good job genius.

Sorry if I insulted u. Sometimes it's not very pleasant to face the truth.

You didn't insult me.  You just demonstrated that you either can't read or that even after you do read, you can't understand what I wrote.

Open-source, closed-source.  Who cares?  If someone makes a duplicate of Ripple that starts as open-source, it will still be the fact that it's a PAYMENT SYSTEM FIRST that makes it successful.  That's the point of my post and that's what makes Ripple superior.  But hey, keep knee-jerking with your answers, that always works when some disruptive tech is about to disrupt the thing you're married to.

[LaggedOnUser]

I thought OP raised some good points.  In addition, as a non-mined system, OpenCoin costs much less to run.  Bitcoin costs $150,000 in electricity per day just to keep it secure.  Less cost for OpenCoin means more profits.

Also, I read that Satoshi could profit enormously from Bitcoin as well.  His share of Bitcoins has been estimated at 1 million coins.  That's not chicken feed.

Finally, by putting a business-like appearance and accountability on their currency, OpenCoin can easily score a better reputation than Bitcoin with the general public, which is not interested in experimental currencies or in buying drugs on Silk Road etc.

[anti-scam]

Convenient payment systems already exist. There is no need for one more. Ripple has neither ideological purity nor practical innovation. It is doomed to failure. From the perspective of the average user, it is not much different than Dwolla. From the perspective of the cryptocurrency purist, it is a centralized scam. Ripple sucks.

[BitzMD]

Interesting and an insightful post, thank you.

[Come-from-Beyond]

I thought OP raised some good points.

Replace Ripple with USD and Opencoin with FED.

For me Ripple is a step back to Bankocraty, we'll see the progress ONLY when the sources become public. That's what my 1st reply was about.

[bitaccumulation]

Also, I read that Satoshi could profit enormously from Bitcoin as well.  His share of Bitcoins has been estimated at 1 million coins.  That's not chicken feed.

And if it's true that Jed McCaleb is Satoshi, then he's about to bump that chicken feed up quite substantially.  

[bitaccumulation]

If their page gets down all the ripple system is dead. simple as that. Also since its limited to 100 billions, the number of accounts is limited too because they need a "reserve", and it will not get mass adoption.
And nobody knows if they can make another ton of 100 billion xrps if they want since its closed-source...

Not one of you has addressed how Bitcoin is going to become a payment system.   Ripple DOES address this FIRST.  xrp will only take off in value once the payment system takes off.

You CAN'T USE BITCOIN until you exchange your regular money to get it.  Why would someone do that to buy a pizza?

Answer this question and let me know how Bitcoin plans on addressing these problems.

Ripple on the other hand DOES address these issues.  

If Bitcoin has something that will address these issues in the near future, I'd be happy to reverse my opinion.  I don't see any answers other than people don't like that Ripple is closed source, they don't like that a company pre-mined 100,000,000,000 of that system's currency, or that they are worried their might not be enough currency to create an account for everyone in the world.  

Are you guys for real?

I'm all about solutions.  Tell me how Bitcoin fixes (or plans to fix) the issues I illustrated in my OP.

[LTCesk]

 "they are already used to (by partnering with banks and other financial services)"
now I am pretty new to all of this and dont really know what I am talking about. But isnt one of the major things that is great about bitcoin the fact that banks dont have anything to do with it?


here is a link about how the major banks are screwing over the regular joe on a daily basis. Kinda scary.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/everything-is-rigged-the-biggest-financial-scandal-yet-20130425?src=longreads

Its pretty long but well worth the read imo

[Caesar V]

[Lohoris]

Open-source, closed-source.  Who cares?

This automatically disqualifies anything you might have written about that.

You fail to understand why it is vital for an distributed currency to be opensource, and you also fail to understand that if a company states something, he'd better not be lying.

[LTCesk]

Was that for me ceasar?

[mc_lovin]

I thought OP raised some good points.

Replace Ripple with USD and Opencoin with FED.

For me Ripple is a step back to Bankocraty, we'll see the progress ONLY when the sources become public. That's what my 1st reply was about.

+1

[melvster]

Opencoin says Ripple is open-source, but there are no sources in public. They should replace all "open" with "close", until that Ripple is scam.

The client is open source ... the server is in beta

Ripple and bitcoin solve different problems, ripple is clearing.  Bitcoin is the reserve currency of the internet.

Both are needed.

The jury is out on opencoin's implementation.  

But it's probably the best implementation to date.

[bitaccumulation]

"they are already used to (by partnering with banks and other financial services)"
now I am pretty new to all of this and dont really know what I am talking about. But isnt one of the major things that is great about bitcoin the fact that banks dont have anything to do with it?

That is one of the great things about Bitcoin.  You can be your own bank.  This is useful in the same way it would be useful to have a vault under your house to store gold and a Star Trek transporter to send that gold to whomever you wanted to instantly.   Very useful.

However, as an everyday way of making payments to other people, not very useful (unless you already have tons of them and your friends and vendors have tons of them).   In order to buy a pizza with Bitcoin, I need to find a merchant that accepts Bitcion, and then I need to find a way to get my money to an exchange (at a fee), then buy Bitcoin on that exchange (at a fee).    That's a lot of work and expense to buy a pizza.   Now I might be ideologically inclined to go through that work, but most people won't be.  Most people are going to whip out their debit card and make a payment to the pizza guy with their fiat currency.   That simple.

Whatever the legal tender of the land is, is what people will use, unless their is a reason not to (ie - transactions that are illegal with the legal tender, etc.).  The only way to get a new currency to move with existing currencies is to make the addition of those currencies TRANSPARENT to the majority of the people involved (not the hard-core people like Bitcoiners).   This is what it will take for mass adoption.   To avoid this issue is folly.

[paraipan]

I thought OP raised some good points.

Replace Ripple with USD and Opencoin with FED.

For me Ripple is a step back to Bankocraty, we'll see the progress ONLY when the sources become public. That's what my 1st reply was about.

+1

+2