Why Ripple™ is against everything Bitcoin

[mmeijeri]

Hear hear. Open Transactions rocks.

[1715533438]

1715533438

[Littleshop]

. Satoshi did not open source from the beginning.  

That's also a common myth. The first version of bitcoin (0.1) came with source (it was packaged in the same .zip as the windows .exe).

Yes, but Satoshi built the protocol before the (0.1) release, before he even released his white paper. The Ripple protocol is not complete and not ready for open source release in this environment - it is in closed beta. Satoshi held his own closed trials before releasing (0.1).  

Your kidding me.  You are thinking anyone is that dumb to buy that crap?  A developer used/tested his own software before releasing it so it is not open source?  The difference is quite clear.  Ripple is in public use right now and there is no source code or public nodes.  Ripple is currently closed source.

By your notion Windows is open source because Microsoft COULD release the code tomorrow.  

[oakpacific]

The only coins that Satoshi arguably premined are those from the genesis block, but they are forever unspendable. Afterwards he released the code, and spread the news to as many places as possible, with hundreds of people got in contact with Bitcoin, Hal Finney for one mined several thousand. The only reason that it's Satoshi who mined 1M bitcoins, not someone else is we are all suckers who couldn't see the value of this thing, had anyone of the early adopter kept their miners running all day for half a year they would have been ridiculously rich now. Even if Satoshi had spent millions of dollars to get a Bitcoin ad running on Times Square 24 hours a day I doubt there would have been more than a few miners during the whole period. And Satoshi actually needed to keep his miner running because he must be ready for any new joiner of the network, there must be at least two nodes or it's not a network.

Compare that to Opencoin, did they ever give any chance for anyone to get hold of that 20% of XRPs? The fact that some Ripplers mentioned these two in the same breath shows just how twisted their minds are.

[SamS]

With Ripple, as the server source code has not being released and it is still proprietary, OpenCoin Inc can change the rules and spend your money.

If they don't release the source code of Ripple server, there is no guarantee that the network runs the way they told you, it could just be another centralized e-cash, opencoin can withdraw at anytime and the network will stop to function.

If they do release the source code, then the Ripple framework would be infinitely replicable, anyone can just go and create their own Ripple network and release their own XRP, this could potentially mean that XRP has no value at all because it doesn't require a backup by computational power.

Interesting point regarding cloning the network -- and one which applies to Btc as well, yes?

[mobile4ever]

Ripple™ is a trademark of OpenCoin Inc, a private for-profit company. I am breaking their Terms of Service by using the trademark Ripple without permission. Sue me.

Satoshi Nakamoto:

The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust thats required to make it
work. The central bank must be trusted not to debase the currency, but the history of
fiat currencies is full of breaches of that trust. Banks must be trusted to hold our
money and transfer it electronically, but they lend it out in waves of credit bubbles
with barely a fraction in reserve. We have to trust them with our privacy, trust them
not to let identity thieves drain our accounts. Their massive overhead costs make
micropayments impossible.

With Bitcoin, you hold your own money. You control it.

With Ripple, you don't hold money. You hold debt, IOUs. You hold debt issued by a "gateway", a central authority.


With Bitcoin, miners are required to use their computational power to earn new Bitcoins and transaction fees.

With Ripple, OpenCoin Inc issued themselves 100 billion ripples. They promised to only keep half (50%) for themselves.


With Bitcoin, nobody can spend your money without your private keys.

With Ripple, as the server source code has not being released and it is still proprietary, OpenCoin Inc can change the rules and spend your money.


Bitcoin is v2.0 of money - where you control it in a democratic process via mining. Core network rules are embedded in open source code.

Ripple is v1.1 of money - building on top of existing central banks, and fiat money.

Learn more: http://ripplescam.org/

I was waiting for something like this. I always wondered why I never got any real answers to; "How many people control Ripple?". Bitcoin is decentralized and only decentralized markets should handle it. This form of "decentralized" thinking will keep bitcoin being "bitcoin".

[cypherdoc]

With Ripple, as the server source code has not being released and it is still proprietary, OpenCoin Inc can change the rules and spend your money.

If they don't release the source code of Ripple server, there is no guarantee that the network runs the way they told you, it could just be another centralized e-cash, opencoin can withdraw at anytime and the network will stop to function.

If they do release the source code, then the Ripple framework would be infinitely replicable, anyone can just go and create their own Ripple network and release their own XRP, this could potentially mean that XRP has no value at all because it doesn't require a backup by computational power.

Interesting point regarding cloning the network -- and one which applies to Btc as well, yes?

Cloning makes no sense in either case.

Presumably the cloner is cloning to gain an advantage of some sort, usually financial.   Releasing a clone only replicates the same software with all its attendant rules. Thus no advantage is gained.  Just propagation of the existing concept even further via more publicity.

Any subtle change would be detected immediately by the open source community and sqashed. This is why governmentcoin or bankcoin will  never take off.

[mmeijeri]

I was waiting for something like this. I always wondered why I never got any real answers to; "How many people control Ripple?". Bitcoin is decentralized and only decentralized markets should handle it. This form of "decentralized" thinking will keep bitcoin being "bitcoin".

What do you mean "never get any real answers"? The obvious answer is that right now Ripple is controlled by OpenCoin and its affiliates. The protocol is distributed though and the software holds great promise if it is open sourced, as OpenCoin has announced it will be, and as appears to be greatly in their interest. If they are successful, it will be great for the ideals the Bitcoin community has been pursuing. Being skeptical is one thing, but many here appear to be out to stop it from being successful. That suggests they aren't doing it out of idealism, but out of selfishness, perhaps because they worry their stash of BTC will not make them rich after all. Actually, I think Ripple will be great for them because it will provide them with an excellent, and nearly impossible to suppress, exchange mechanism between BTC and fiat currencies.

[superduh]

I was waiting for something like this. I always wondered why I never got any real answers to; "How many people control Ripple?". Bitcoin is decentralized and only decentralized markets should handle it. This form of "decentralized" thinking will keep bitcoin being "bitcoin".

What do you mean "never get any real answers"? The obvious answer is that right now Ripple is controlled by OpenCoin and its affiliates. The protocol is distributed though and the software holds great promise if it is open sourced, as OpenCoin has announced it will be, and as appears to be greatly in their interest. If they are successful, it will be great for the ideals the Bitcoin community has been pursuing. Being skeptical is one thing, but many here appear to be out to stop it from being successful. That suggests they aren't doing it out of idealism, but out of selfishness, perhaps because they worry their stash of BTC will not make them rich after all. Actually, I think Ripple will be great for them because it will provide them with an excellent, and nearly impossible to suppress, exchange mechanism between BTC and fiat currencies.

with all other issues of Ripple aside. why are they holding 20% of all the XRP? that alone makes me weary of using them

[mmeijeri]

with all other issues of Ripple aside. why are they holding 20% of all the XRP? that alone makes me weary of using them

To make money obviously. If you think holding XRP yourself won't be profitable, then don't do it. You only need tiny amounts of it if all you want to do is to use Ripple as a far superior, distributed alternative to Mt Gox.

[Littleshop]

with all other issues of Ripple aside. why are they holding 20% of all the XRP? that alone makes me weary of using them

To make money obviously. If you think holding XRP yourself won't be profitable, then don't do it. You only need tiny amounts of it if all you want to do is to use Ripple as a far superior, distributed alternative to Mt Gox.

MT gox charges a 1 % fee.  Ripple is not going to be a successful exchange while XRP remains as expensive as it is now or unless it takes less ripples to perform an exchange then it does now.  Maybe I am wrong but it looks like it is much more expensive when you factor all fees to exchange on Ripple as it is on the popular bitcoin exchanges. 

[Gordonium]

Yep. I don't understant Ripple hype. Sounds very stupid idea to me.

Bitcoin all the way!

[mmeijeri]

MT gox charges a 1 % fee.  Ripple is not going to be a successful exchange while XRP remains as expensive as it is now or unless it takes less ripples to perform an exchange then it does now.  Maybe I am wrong but it looks like it is much more expensive when you factor all fees to exchange on Ripple as it is on the popular bitcoin exchanges. 

Huh? Ripple transaction fees are negligible.

[superduh]

MT gox charges a 1 % fee.  Ripple is not going to be a successful exchange while XRP remains as expensive as it is now or unless it takes less ripples to perform an exchange then it does now.  Maybe I am wrong but it looks like it is much more expensive when you factor all fees to exchange on Ripple as it is on the popular bitcoin exchanges. 

Huh? Ripple transaction fees are negligible.

if fees are negligible then how would the gateways make any money?

[cypherdoc]

with all other issues of Ripple aside. why are they holding 20% of all the XRP? that alone makes me weary of using them

To make money obviously. If you think holding XRP yourself won't be profitable, then don't do it. You only need tiny amounts of it if all you want to do is to use Ripple as a far superior, distributed alternative to Mt Gox.

surely you must see that by them wanting to make money and being a centralized point of control and distribution/issuance of XRP, and currently a closed source of code, that there may end up being a conflict of interest?

[mmeijeri]

if fees are negligible then how would the gateways make any money?

Those fees aren't paid in XRP but in the currency you are redeeming. Ripples are only used for transactions within the Ripple system itself and they are negligible. And they are destroyed, they don't go to OpenCoin.

[mmeijeri]

surely you must see that by them wanting to make money and being a centralized point of control and distribution/issuance of XRP, and currently a closed source of code, that there may end up being a conflict of interest?

Their interest is to maximise the value of XRP. And again, if you don't like XRP as a currency, don't use it as such. You'll only need tiny amounts in order to be able to use it for other currencies. In my opinion the most likely application would be exchanging between BTC and fiat currencies and for that it would be far superior to Mt Gox.

[oakpacific]

With Ripple, as the server source code has not being released and it is still proprietary, OpenCoin Inc can change the rules and spend your money.

If they don't release the source code of Ripple server, there is no guarantee that the network runs the way they told you, it could just be another centralized e-cash, opencoin can withdraw at anytime and the network will stop to function.

If they do release the source code, then the Ripple framework would be infinitely replicable, anyone can just go and create their own Ripple network and release their own XRP, this could potentially mean that XRP has no value at all because it doesn't require a backup by computational power.

Interesting point regarding cloning the network -- and one which applies to Btc as well, yes?

Hardly the same, a bitcoin is, after all, a proof to the investors/users of your commitment and effort made to secure the network, when people buy bitcoins, a large part of the money goes to reward the miners, so people have at least an incentive to buy bitcoins even if they don't want to speculate at all-they know the more they pay, the more reliable and usable a payment network will be available to them, and the more reliable the network, the more people want to use them.(theoretically of course) Overtime an earlier network could establish a huge advantage over the later ones. So a real cloned network would have to replicate all the infrastructures in place, or get Bitcoiners, whose interests are strongly vested in the network to switch, such an endeavour would be extremely costful and make no sense economically.


A Ripple network, on the other hand, takes very little to rebuild from scratch, a validator costs nearly nothing to someone like a botnet operator, and they have incentive to stay honest and gain trust because their own XRP-clone currency could thus gain value and make money for them.

The XRP creators choose to issue their money in the "printing press" mode, there is no reason why others can't follow suit.

[cypherdoc]

surely you must see that by them wanting to make money and being a centralized point of control and distribution/issuance of XRP, and currently a closed source of code, that there may end up being a conflict of interest?

Their interest is to maximise the value of XRP. And again, if you don't like XRP as a currency, don't use it as such. You'll only need tiny amounts in order to be able to use it for other currencies. In my opinion the most likely application would be exchanging between BTC and fiat currencies and for that it would be far superior to Mt Gox.

ok suppose a scenario where they hide a flaw in the network in the interest of pumping the value of their freely self-issued XRP?  how does that work out?

[mmeijeri]

ok suppose a scenario where they hide a flaw in the network in the interest of pumping the value of their freely self-issued XRP?  how does that work out?

How would such a flaw work? How could they "pump" the value of their own XRP and not everybody else's? And if there's a flaw that undermines trust in Ripple, how could it not also undermine trust in XRP?

[misterbigg]

I was offered $550 to say that "Ripple is a Scam."

I received an interesting message in my bitcointalk.org inbox today. It said that a user going by the name of 'TradeFortress' was paying forum members 5 BTC to edit their posts in this thread to say that, "Ripple is a scam."

Full article at link provided.