Google funding Ripple

[lebing]

source:
http://gigaom.com/2013/05/14/google-ventures-invests-in-opencoin-the-firm-behind-bitcoin-exchange-ripple

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Google involvement in Ripple or digital currencies is an alarming signal to the future of Bitcoin. With its global dominance in internet businesses, Google and Ripple funded by it might drive Bitcoin out of business.

Ripple focuses on credit, bitcoin focuses of assets, they are not really competing. What is good for Ripple is good for Bitcoin because Ripple is complimentary to Bitcoin.

Are you a Ripple/OpenCoin shill or did you just swallow their deception? I have noticed that this is their tactic for silently getting Bitcoiners to switch and then growing like a parasite side by side with its host to suck it dry. They downplay the role of XRP (Ripples) as mere "tokens" and "not a currency" while it is the only asset in the Ripple system that is not subject to counterparty risk. Furthermore, OpenCoin holds 50% of Ripples hoping to make a profit off them (this is what they stated in public), partly to fund development. I presume the same goes for the VC investors in Ripple.

Any Ripple adoption will threaten Bitcoin because the Ripple currency is the only one without counterparty risk within the Ripple system. All other currencies have to be held with gateways. Furthermore, Ripples are required for opening accounts and performing transactions. In the longer term, there is absolutely no reason to prefer Bitcoins to Ripples if used within Ripple.

Ripples are not credit. They are an asset in its own right, with no counterparty risk and no inflation.

Eh, wrong. They can and will be created at the whim of the opencoin foundation. Simply that possibility is the reason why ripple will never, ever be close to as valuable as bitcoin is. It may gain in value somewhat for its token functionality within Ripple, but power to them. They need to monetize their efforts somehow.

[Peter Lambert]

Ripples are not credit. They are an asset in its own right, with no counterparty risk and no inflation.

Eh, wrong. They can and will be created at the whim of the opencoin foundation. Simply that possibility is the reason why ripple will never, ever be close to as valuable as bitcoin is. It may gain in value somewhat for its token functionality within Ripple, but power to them. They need to monetize their efforts somehow.

Even if there are no more Ripples ever created, they have value because they allow people to use the Ripple system. But it is apparently easy to lower the requirements within the system so you don't need as many ripples. So instead of buying 1000 ripples for a lifetime of running the system, now you only need to buy 100 for a lifetime of running the system. Thus by lowering the reserve requirements they free up a bunch of the ripples which people were holding, instantly increasing the supply of ripples available. It might not technically be inflation according to some definitions, but it ends up having the same effect.

So just another reason that Ripples (XRP) are not as good for storing wealth as bitcoins, but that does not limit the usefulness of the Ripple system as a payment network and exchange for USD, BTC, etc.

[DoomDumas]

It may not be necessarily a bad news, at the very least Ripple will kick Mt Gox out of business, this alone should be the greatest news to Bitcoin in a decade.

not even funny to joke about that

bitcoin is hugely dependent upon MtGox right now.

IMO, Bitcoin is not dependent upon MtGox at all.. MtGox cease operation overnight and Bitcoin will come back to normal within a week.. Even in better position !  MtGox was good, but now it's becoming a burden for Bitcoin !

[dego]

Ripple is great. I don't understand how you fear it. It's not a danger for BTC and it has mane kewl features...

[halfawake]

I'm not too worried by this.  I really liked the idea of Ripple - but then I tried it out and the interface is confusing as heck.  I kept trying because I was hoping to get money into bitstamp without paying the wire transfer fee (I live in the United States).  Ultimately, I discovered that the only US gateway Ripple has fees that are almost 1% and the cummulative fees with that + bitstamp fees equal about 1.5% total.  I ended up going with Coinbase after all that hassle.  It's a little more expensive than MtGox, but Coinbase's interface is great and it's probably the easiest way to buy bitcoins.  Not the quickest, but likely the easiest, at least for people who live in the United States.

Besides, I consider this overall a good thing.  I haven't done any research to this effect, but if Google Ventures is investing in Ripple, I wouldn't be surprised if they also invest in Bitcoin companies.

[tjsherlock]

Erik Voorhees made an excellent post on OC Ripple here. That and his followups are very interesting. I basically agree entirely with his position. Not a scam, not too greedy, but too greedy to succeed long-term. Just a glorified pre-mined altcoin.

I have been following Ripple at a distance for the last several years since it was created by Ryan Fugger.  So first I want to thank you Zangelbert for qualifying the altcoin here as OC Ripple, because that's what it is.  It is definitely a fork of Ripple original.  Ripple was conceived and developed before 2009.  It just never got any commercial traction until OpenCoin came along.

I don't really see Ripple as being a competitor to Bitcoin, but rather as a complementary currency.  But I'm really talking about Ripple (or Ripple Original) not OC Ripple.  I'm not sure what to make of OC Ripple. it seems to be a hybrid with two masters.  Ripple Original is not really a currency but rather a payment system or means of exchange without being a store of value and without being a means of price discovery.  XRP on the other hand was introduced to simply be a unit of account without being a store of value and without being a means of exchange.
If XRP is still representing only a unit of account in OC Ripple, then it makeS sense that it would be destroyed at some point.  The XRP should get created when a currency enters the system and should be destroyed when the currency leaves the system.  It does not depend on a blockchain.  Not sure about the general ledger, however; I've forgotten.

Someone here mentioned that OC Ripple represented debt.  Essentially that it is true.  The most fundamental definition of currency is debt.  When you give me a valuable or provide me with a service I am in your debt.  If I do not have a valuable or service that you want I give a promissory note or an IOU.  In the US that IOU comes in the form of FRN, in Europe as Euros, in Japan as Yen, in Ithaca, NY as Ithaca HOURS, etc.  You accept this IOU because you know you can pass it on to someone else who provides you with a valuable or service.

One of the driving forces behind Ripple Original is Trust.  A payment travels through the Ripple system over a route of least resistance as determined by Trust.  Ripple was meant be to decentralized (similar to the direction that Chris Odom wants to take Open-Transactions minus the trust).  Each node doubles as a server with the ability to create currency as well as act a as a pass-through for payments from trusted nodes.  Each node has the option of charging a toll before allowing a payment to flow through from Bob to Sally. OC Ripple convolutes all of this while still ideally intending to create a decentralized system based on Trust.

It's nice to know that Erik Voorhees is quite the evangelist for Bitcoin ( I see a lot value in the cryptocurrency and hold some myself), I'm disappointed however that he is so down on Ripple, but not surprised as it is really OC Ripple.

[pheaonix]

Erik Voorhees made an excellent post on OC Ripple here. That and his followups are very interesting. I basically agree entirely with his position. Not a scam, not too greedy, but too greedy to succeed long-term. Just a glorified pre-mined altcoin.

I have been following Ripple at a distance for the last several years since it was created by Ryan Fugger.  So first I want to thank you Zangelbert for qualifying the altcoin here as OC Ripple, because that's what it is.  It is definitely a fork of Ripple original.  Ripple was conceived and developed before 2009.  It just never got any commercial traction until OpenCoin came along.

I don't really see Ripple as being a competitor to Bitcoin, but rather as a complementary currency.  But I'm really talking about Ripple (or Ripple Original) not OC Ripple.  I'm not sure what to make of OC Ripple. it seems to be a hybrid with two masters.  Ripple Original is not really a currency but rather a payment system or means of exchange without being a store of value and without being a means of price discovery.  XRP on the other hand was introduced to simply be a unit of account without being a store of value and without being a means of exchange.
If XRP is still representing only a unit of account in OC Ripple, then it makeS sense that it would be destroyed at some point.  The XRP should get created when a currency enters the system and should be destroyed when the currency leaves the system.  It does not depend on a blockchain.  Not sure about the general ledger, however; I've forgotten.

Someone here mentioned that OC Ripple represented debt.  Essentially that it is true.  The most fundamental definition of currency is debt.  When you give me a valuable or provide me with a service I am in your debt.  If I do not have a valuable or service that you want I give a promissory note or an IOU.  In the US that IOU comes in the form of FRN, in Europe as Euros, in Japan as Yen, in Ithaca, NY as Ithaca HOURS, etc.  You accept this IOU because you know you can pass it on to someone else who provides you with a valuable or service.

One of the driving forces behind Ripple Original is Trust.  A payment travels through the Ripple system over a route of least resistance as determined by Trust.  Ripple was meant be to decentralized (similar to the direction that Chris Odom wants to take Open-Transactions minus the trust).  Each node doubles as a server with the ability to create currency as well as act a as a pass-through for payments from trusted nodes.  Each node has the option of charging a toll before allowing a payment to flow through from Bob to Sally. OC Ripple convolutes all of this while still ideally intending to create a decentralized system based on Trust.

It's nice to know that Erik Voorhees is quite the evangelist for Bitcoin ( I see a lot value in the cryptocurrency and hold some myself), I'm disappointed however that he is so down on Ripple, but not surprised as it is really OC Ripple.

ripple is a scam, you thread necromancer and shill.

[zeroday]

It's ridiculous to see totally "pre-mined" XRP market capitalization on coinmarketcap.com on the second place after Bitcoin.
If they sell 1 XRP for $ 0.015, it doesn't mean their 99,999,996,426 XRP worth 1.5 billion dollars.

This deludes non-informed people who may start seeing it as investment.

[vleroybrown]

It's ridiculous to see totally "pre-mined" XRP market capitalization on coinmarketcap.com on the second place after Bitcoin.
If they sell 1 XRP for $ 0.015, it doesn't mean their 99,999,996,426 XRP worth 1.5 billion dollars.

This deludes non-informed people who may start seeing it as investment.

Informational moments. .  Non of the p2p currencies should be looked any more as investments than time or connections are.  Shit

[seleme]

It's ridiculous to see totally "pre-mined" XRP market capitalization on coinmarketcap.com on the second place after Bitcoin.
If they sell 1 XRP for $ 0.015, it doesn't mean their 99,999,996,426 XRP worth 1.5 billion dollars.

This deludes non-informed people who may start seeing it as investment.

Same for Bitcoins, if one goes for 629.9$, 12 millions of them won't.

Market capitalization should be called marketing capitalization as that's all it is.

[~Coinseeker~]

It's ridiculous to see totally "pre-mined" XRP market capitalization on coinmarketcap.com on the second place after Bitcoin.
If they sell 1 XRP for $ 0.015, it doesn't mean their 99,999,996,426 XRP worth 1.5 billion dollars.

This deludes non-informed people who may start seeing it as investment.

Let's hope people don't.  XRP wasn't created to be a speculative currency and for good reason.  Bitcoin's type of volatility makes it unusable as a transactional currency and this is why you need centralized clearing houses like Coinbase and BitPay to manage that risk. What good is a decentralized currency, if you have to run through centralized entities to use it?     Suppose we'll need a few more Gox collapses before people "get it".   

[sgbett]

It's ridiculous to see totally "pre-mined" XRP market capitalization on coinmarketcap.com on the second place after Bitcoin.
If they sell 1 XRP for $ 0.015, it doesn't mean their 99,999,996,426 XRP worth 1.5 billion dollars.

This deludes non-informed people who may start seeing it as investment.

Same for Bitcoins, if one goes for 629.9$, 12 millions of them won't.

Market capitalization should be called marketing capitalization as that's all it is.

I think there is a subtle but relevant difference in the market cap of XRP and market cap in the traditional sense.

Traditionally market cap is a measure applied to stocks. It's accepted that $last_price * $float is an abstract value because of course, the act of selling would change last_price therefore... stuff.

On the whole though, where stocks are concerned the $last_price was arrived at as a result of every share having been traded on the open market (yes there are caveats, but the principle is that price discovery was largely down to market action on the majority float).

The same factors apply to all stocks so the fact that market cap has no real literal meaning is not relevant, market cap as a relative measure is relevant, because (on the whole) its measured the same for all companies.

XRP on the other hand is very different, the significant majority of them have never been traded on the open market. Price discovery has only ever taken place on the volume that has been 'traded'. 30 day volume is around 75m, which is 0.075% of 'total' XRP. I don't know what the total volume ever traded might be (I guess this would be akin to "Ripple Days Destroyed"?) but i think its fair to say that given the monthly volume, it's probably a very small percentage - 12 * 0.075 would give us 1%. Given that this is very unlikely to represent unique xrps traded, I think its a generous figure.

That volume would be more akin to a typical stock's float. That means the market cap is probably more like $15m relatively speaking.

Not quite the behemoth it likes to think it is.

[zeroday]

It's true, but the numbers on coinmarketcap.com really confuse people.
I've been asked by newbies many times if it's good thing to invest in XRP. They were attracted with its second position after BTC in so called "market cap". It's really a trap. They really believe that XRP is better and more stable than LTC because it has higher market cap

[HairyMaclairy]

Please don't dredge up ancient ripple threads.  Thanks

[Bitcoin_is_here_to_stay]

Please don't dredge up ancient ripple threads.  Thanks

First of all - why not? Clearly, there are people interested in discussing ripple.

Second of all, of you - you just bumped it;)

[Bit_Happy]

source:
http://gigaom.com/2013/05/14/google-ventures-invests-in-opencoin-the-firm-behind-bitcoin-exchange-ripple

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Google involvement in Ripple or digital currencies is an alarming signal to the future of Bitcoin. With its global dominance in internet businesses, Google and Ripple funded by it might drive Bitcoin out of business.

If Bitcoin gets easier to use, then Ripple will struggle since their system of credit is waaaayyyyyyy to confusing for mainstream people.

[Bit_Happy]

They plan to distribute 50%. If the market would accept them holding 50% I don't know. Satoshi holds nearly 10% currently, so I guess it will come down to personal preference.

Either way. Within the Ripple ecosystem, Ripples are inherently superior to Bitcoins BY DESIGN. That's my point.

I'm not sure how it could be designed so that Ripples weren't superior to bitcoin unless we had a methodology for moving coins across chains, which would be doable, but would require fundamental protocol changes for every coin that wanted to be supported.

Why are ripples superior to bitcoins? Like bitcoins, ripples have no underlying value. Unlike bitcoins, nobody is claiming that ripples have value.

Put two and two together... As value is determined by markets anyways, it simply makes sense that the market will reject that ripples have any value.

Nobody is saying that XRP has any value? So all the people buying XRP for BTC and all those XRP charts are just jokes? Opencoin will do everything they can for XRP to rise in value. That is their business plan. But i also think that it has very big flaws. I read somewhere that you pay with XRP when doing transactions on the Ripple network and that those XRP get destroyed. That means that for every year there will be less of them. If Opencoin holds 50%, how much will they hold after a few years?

The tiny transaction fee is destroyed, but there will be no shortage of xrp for a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyy long time.

[Bit_Happy]

source:
http://gigaom.com/2013/05/14/google-ventures-invests-in-opencoin-the-firm-behind-bitcoin-exchange-ripple

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but Google involvement in Ripple or digital currencies is an alarming signal to the future of Bitcoin. With its global dominance in internet businesses, Google and Ripple funded by it might drive Bitcoin out of business.

Ripple is NO threat to BTC any time soon...related info here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=506433.0