Why Ripple™ is against everything Bitcoin

[mmeijeri]

the fact that OpenCoin is holding back so many XRP's (fact) represents a conflict of interest.

Bitcoin has the same issue (or non-issue depending on your point of view). More than half of the BTC that will ever exist is in the hands of much less than half of the population. And of that half the lion's share is in the hands of early adopters. And of that amount most is in Satoshi's hands.

[1713273872]

1713273872

[mmeijeri]

200 is the minimum fee to have a open account.

It's 75 now, I think.

[HurtK]

who is this TradeFortress clown?

[Piper67]

the fact that OpenCoin is holding back so many XRP's (fact) represents a conflict of interest.

Bitcoin has the same issue (or non-issue depending on your point of view). More than half of the BTC that will ever exist is in the hands of much less than half of the population. And of that half the lion's share is in the hands of early adopters. And of that amount most is in Satoshi's hands.

Again, this is not a good comparison. It is true that most bit coins are in the hands of early adopters, but they have nowhere near the same power to affect the value of each Bitcoin as OpenCoin has with Ripple. The can try to use their wealth to impact market forces, but they are in in full control of a protocol that, as of this moment, is closed and centralized.

[mmeijeri]

Again, this is not a good comparison. It is true that most bit coins are in the hands of early adopters, but they have nowhere near the same power to affect the value of each Bitcoin as OpenCoin has with Ripple. The can try to use their wealth to impact market forces, but they are in in full control of a protocol that, as of this moment, is closed and centralized.

Sure, I was talking about after the code has been released. Ripple won't be more than a promise until then. But Satoshi could dump his BTC at any time. Are you worried about that?

[Coinseeker]

<snip>

Perfect. Couldn't have said it any better.

Amen!  

"What separates intelligent people from primates like TradeFortress..."

Did he just say primates?  No...he...didn't!  Oh...yes...he...did.  

Glad you have all that BTC and XRP.  You now owe me a new blu-tooth keyboard as I just spit my juice all over it.  

[Piper67]

Again, this is not a good comparison. It is true that most bit coins are in the hands of early adopters, but they have nowhere near the same power to affect the value of each Bitcoin as OpenCoin has with Ripple. The can try to use their wealth to impact market forces, but they are in in full control of a protocol that, as of this moment, is closed and centralized.

Sure, I was talking about after the code has been released. Ripple won't be more than a promise until then. But Satoshi could dump his BTC at any time. Are you worried about that?

In the long run, no. Bitcoin is still a really good idea, and if satoshi dumped a couple million BTC, the market would absorb them. Sure, the price would drop, but given time, it would also recover because there is value in the very idea of Bitcoin.

Let's wait till OpenCoin opens Ripple and see if it truly becomes decentralized, then there might be ways in which it could complement Bitcoin. Right now, it doesn't.

[mmeijeri]

In the long run, no. Bitcoin is still a really good idea, and if satoshi dumped a couple million BTC, the market would absorb them. Sure, the price would drop, but given time, it would also recover because there is value in the very idea of Bitcoin.

The same would be true once Ripple was open-sourced.

Let's wait till OpenCoin opens Ripple and see if it truly becomes decentralized, then there might be ways in which it could complement Bitcoin. Right now, it doesn't.

Is Mt Gox helpful to Bitcoin? Is it open source? Is it distributed?

[Coinseeker]

Let's wait till OpenCoin opens Ripple and see if it truly becomes decentralized, then there might be ways in which it could complement Bitcoin.

^^^This.

[misterbigg]

Not quite mutually exclusive, I'm afraid. It all depends on the endgame. If you believe the Ripple developers, then yes, they would be mutually exclusive. But as long as you can trade XRP for BTC, then it's also possible (with varying degrees of likelihood) to make money by defrauding the public with XRP.

Somewhat valid point, but the mitigating factor is the amount of resources that have gone into Ripple. They've developed the consensus protocol, the server and client software, and have I think 20 or more full time employees. They've also secured venture capital funding. It's hard to imagine that their intention at the outset was to defraud the public. A lot of the ideas behind Ripple are simply brilliant. If it's a scam then its practically indistinguishable from the real thing!

[Piper67]

In the long run, no. Bitcoin is still a really good idea, and if satoshi dumped a couple million BTC, the market would absorb them. Sure, the price would drop, but given time, it would also recover because there is value in the very idea of Bitcoin.

The same would be true once Ripple was open-sourced.

Let's wait till OpenCoin opens Ripple and see if it truly becomes decentralized, then there might be ways in which it could complement Bitcoin. Right now, it doesn't.

Is Mt Gox helpful to Bitcoin? Is it open source? Is it distributed?

No, it isn't open source. Helpful is questionable. Distributed, not exactly, but if the question is "are the BTC exchanges as a whole distributed?" The answer is not as much as we'd like, but a hell of a lot more than Ripple. And in the several years I've been involved with Bitcoin (and using it all the time), I've never once used MtGox.

[Littleshop]

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.

I thought you needed 200 xrp to send?  That is currently more then $2 plus any exchange fees.

200 is the minimum fee to have a open account.

Ok. I see the minimum has also just been lowered to 50?

[anti-scam]

Pre-mining is okay because we need to save the environment.

We'll give all of our XRP away.

We'll release the source code eventually.

Trust us. Do not bother thinking about it.

[paraipan]

...

"What separates intelligent people from primates like TradeFortress..."

...

[mmeijeri]

The answer is not as much as we'd like, but a hell of a lot more than Ripple.

As long as Ripple is closed source, it should be compared to Mt Gox, not the totality of all exchanges. Once it is open-sourced, it should be compared to the totality. For the former, it is no worse than Mt Gox, and for the latter it's substantially better. In other words, it holds great promise.

And what about Open Transactions? It doesn't have its own cryptocurrency, but allows you trade in all kinds of currencies, just like Ripple. And unlike Ripple it has already been open-sourced.

[misterbigg]

200 is the minimum fee to have a open account.

It's 75 now, I think.

Let me clear up some misconceptions. Every object in the ledger database adds to a "reserve" requirement. This is necessary, or else the ledger could be attacked with spam (for example, by writing a script that creates an infinite number of accounts). The reserve requirement for an account is currently 50 XRP (it used to be 200 but OpenCoin lowered it because XRPs went up so much in value). This means that you cannot perform transactions or receive payments until you have received at least 50 XRP in your account.

The reserves in an account can only be spent on transaction fees (currently, the transaction fee is ten millionths of an XRP but it can be changed if all the servers agree). This means that if your account has only 40 XRP you cannot get the 40 XRP "out" of the account. It can only be used to pay for fees. Each object that you create increases the reserve requirement by 25 XRP (it used to be 100). Objects include trust lines and book offers.

Because XRPs are "sequestered" in an account's reserves, it is possible for OpenCoin to give away 50 billion XRPs to new account holders, but without making the value of XRPs fall by too much. The recipients of these XRP giveaways cannot sell the XRP reserves. I believe that the current giveaway is down to 3,000 XRP (down from 50,000). This means that at most 2,950 can be spent. I expect that the size of the giveaway will steadily decrease over time. Developers might get larger dollops though, who knows.

It seems OpenCoin wants to make it free or cheap for people in the early stage to open Ripple accounts, to spur adoption. To this end the appear to be giving away XRP both to let people open accounts and also so that a market forms.

[cypherdoc]

Again, this is not a good comparison. It is true that most bit coins are in the hands of early adopters, but they have nowhere near the same power to affect the value of each Bitcoin as OpenCoin has with Ripple. The can try to use their wealth to impact market forces, but they are in in full control of a protocol that, as of this moment, is closed and centralized.

Sure, I was talking about after the code has been released. Ripple won't be more than a promise until then. But Satoshi could dump his BTC at any time. Are you worried about that?

no one knows how many BTC Satoshi has.  you are making a huge assumption.

not only that, Bitcoin is based on proof of work.  those early adopters had to mine coins at their own time, expense and risk and had no idea they would rise from a price of essentially zero.  others had to buy coins that could have stayed near zero as well.

OpenCoin has done nothing to earn the coins they're holding back except write code for a concept that may or may not work. Satoshi did the same but did not self issue.

MBigg makes some good points but i still think OpenCoin represents a centralized point of pressure that could be exploited.

[Piper67]

Not quite mutually exclusive, I'm afraid. It all depends on the endgame. If you believe the Ripple developers, then yes, they would be mutually exclusive. But as long as you can trade XRP for BTC, then it's also possible (with varying degrees of likelihood) to make money by defrauding the public with XRP.

Somewhat valid point, but the mitigating factor is the amount of resources that have gone into Ripple. They've developed the consensus protocol, the server and client software, and have I think 20 or more full time employees. They've also secured venture capital funding. It's hard to imagine that their intention at the outset was to defraud the public. A lot of the ideas behind Ripple are simply brilliant. If it's a scam then its practically indistinguishable from the real thing!

True. As I said, varying degrees of likelihood. In principle I would tend to agree with you that it wouldn't appear to be a scam. But don't forget that the XRP and BTC markets aren't static! What may appear to be low payout for the effort today may change very quickly if the BTC exchange rate were to suddenly grow at the same rate as it did between December and April.

Mostly, however, I'm willing to give Ripple the benefit of the doubt because of JoelKatz's involvement. As I said, over the years I've come to respect his ideas as expressed on this forum.

So, still a Ripple agnostic. But keeping an interested eye on it nonetheless.

[misterbigg]

what about Open Transactions? It doesn't have its own cryptocurrency, but allows you trade in all kinds of currencies, just like Ripple. And unlike Ripple it has already been open-sourced.

The problem with Open Transactions is that it doesn't satisfy immediate consumer demands. It's a great system (although a little bit complicated) but it seems to be a solution waiting for a problem.

Bitcoin solved a problem that has plagued mankind since the inception of money.

Ripple continues in that tradition by solving new problems that Bitcoin cannot solve (confirmation time, working with IOUs, distributed order books, etc...)

For a system to become popular like Bitcoin, it has to serve current demand. Both Bitcoin and Ripple do this, but Open Transactions does not (although it hopes to someday).

[cypherdoc]

Not quite mutually exclusive, I'm afraid. It all depends on the endgame. If you believe the Ripple developers, then yes, they would be mutually exclusive. But as long as you can trade XRP for BTC, then it's also possible (with varying degrees of likelihood) to make money by defrauding the public with XRP.

Somewhat valid point, but the mitigating factor is the amount of resources that have gone into Ripple. They've developed the consensus protocol, the server and client software, and have I think 20 or more full time employees. They've also secured venture capital funding. It's hard to imagine that their intention at the outset was to defraud the public. A lot of the ideas behind Ripple are simply brilliant. If it's a scam then its practically indistinguishable from the real thing!

weren't you very much against Ripple at the beginning.  IIRC, you wrote pages and pages of arguments against it.

what was the key factor in you switching?