Ripple competition

[MAbtc]

So far, the only example of usefulness of Ripple in this thread is to support arbitrage across exchanges, but only if those exchanges accept Ripple.  I understand that would be extremely useful for traders who regularly trade in multiple currencies.

But why should the average Bitcoin user, who only has one type of fiat, bitcoins, and does some light trading on one exchange (coinbase/bitstampl/btcchina) even care about Ripple? Should they be lobbying their fiat banking institution to get connected to the Ripple network so that they can trade easier at international exchanges?

When people I know need to take payment, they want dollars (or local currency), not bitcoin. If Ripple can facilitate that cheaply, instantly and securely, I'm all for that. The usefulness of Ripple doesn't have much to do with bitcoin.

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[mmeijeri]

So far, the only example of usefulness of Ripple in this thread is to support arbitrage across exchanges, but only if those exchanges accept Ripple.  I understand that would be extremely useful for traders who regularly trade in multiple currencies.

Ripple itself is a distributed P2P exchange. It doesn't have a lot of liquidity yet, but it is a bona fide distributed exchange. That addresses one of the greatest weaknesses of the bitcoin ecosystem. But it *helps* Bitcoin in that respect, because it allows you to trade between bitcoin and any other currency.

But why should the average Bitcoin user, who only has one type of fiat, bitcoins, and does some light trading on one exchange (coinbase/bitstampl/btcchina) even care about Ripple? Should they be lobbying their fiat banking institution to get connected to the Ripple network so that they can trade easier at international exchanges?

It's a matter of robustness of the ecosystem and resilience against repression.

[NUFCrichard]

It's pretty confusing though.  I can't do anything on my account because I don't have any credit. I can't buy any credit either... Someone needs to trust me before I can do anything... Seems limited to me.

[mmeijeri]

No one needs to trust you, but you could decide to trust a gateway. Do bear in mind that this really means trust, it means you are willing to make payments on behalf on others in exchange for IOUs issued by that gateway. Don't establish a trust line that is higher than you trust them to repay you or than you're willing to lose. You'll likely want to trust them for a lot less than your bank.

[anu]

Ripple is centralized, which will allow the government to control it. In that, Ripple has a good argument why it may be received more warmly by authorities. But it removes most of the advantages that Bitcoin offers over traditional currency.

The implementation you are talking about is centralized. I am doing a completely decentralized version with payments with only localized information about users and thus, a high level of anonymity:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=295930.0
Also no gateways and pre-mined currency

In fact we should stop calling the principle of trust chains Ripple, because Ripple is just Hawala by another name and Hawala is at least 1000 years older. The only real difference to Hawala is that Ripple uses computers.

[mmeijeri]

The implementation you are talking about is centralized.

No it isn't. It's a peer to peer network, both the client and server are open source, anyone can run a validator, anyone can choose the set of validators they want to synchronise with and anyone can act as a gateway, either professionally or informally between trusted associates.

[crazy_rabbit]

The implementation you are talking about is centralized.

No it isn't. It's a peer to peer network, both the client and server are open source, anyone can run a validator, anyone can choose the set of validators they want to synchronise with and anyone can act as a gateway, either professionally or informally between trusted associates.

more like a potential scammer to scammer network no? You trust me to trust them and together we will rip everyone else off.

[mmeijeri]

more like a potential scammer to scammer network no? You trust me to trust them and together we will rip everyone else off.

You can only rip off people that have granted you a trust line. Trust equals revolving credit and credit entails credit risk. It's no different than with parking money at a bank or exchange. If the counterparty steals your money, or has his server hacked, you're out of luck. This is the same thing as with TF and inputs.io.

With traditional exchanges you open an account and incur risk whenever you deposit money with that exchange. In Ripple, generating an account doesn't create risk, just as it doesn't with Bitcoin, because there isn't a counterparty, there's the distributed ledger instead. The thing that creates risk is establishing a trust line, which is very similar to opening an account at the counterparty's private little bank.

[seleme]

The implementation you are talking about is centralized.

No it isn't. It's a peer to peer network, both the client and server are open source, anyone can run a validator, anyone can choose the set of validators they want to synchronise with and anyone can act as a gateway, either professionally or informally between trusted associates.

more like a potential scammer to scammer network no? You trust me to trust them and together we will rip everyone else off.

And difference between trusting BTX exchanges is?

[Xer0]

is there any chinese Bitcoin exchange which supports ripple?

[seleme]

There are Chinese gateways, not sure if they are classic BTC exchanges too.

[octaft]

I was interested in obtaining some XRP, but apparently that is incredibly difficult. Every site I tried either wasn't currently processing anything or gave me an error even though I filled out everything correctly. Can anyone direct me to a site that actually works for buying them, because I really don't feel like begging people on ripple forums for 100XRP. Thanks in advance.

[Marbit]

I was interested in obtaining some XRP, but apparently that is incredibly difficult. Every site I tried either wasn't currently processing anything or gave me an error even though I filled out everything correctly. Can anyone direct me to a site that actually works for buying them, because I really don't feel like begging people on ripple forums for 100XRP. Thanks in advance.

bitstamp. i think you can still just go to buy / sell > buy ripples and fund a wallet that way.

[worldinacoin]

Ripple seems to be so slow in launching, I really wonder if it can be a threat to Bitcoin at all

[oakpacific]

Ripple is not a competitor, it competes on the same ground as Paypal or OKPAY, and this post should be moved elsewhere.

[octaft]

I was interested in obtaining some XRP, but apparently that is incredibly difficult. Every site I tried either wasn't currently processing anything or gave me an error even though I filled out everything correctly. Can anyone direct me to a site that actually works for buying them, because I really don't feel like begging people on ripple forums for 100XRP. Thanks in advance.

bitstamp. i think you can still just go to buy / sell > buy ripples and fund a wallet that way.

It says they have no ripples available.

[antimattercrusader]

XRP is 100% "pre-mined" and controlled by a couple of big businesses, so, anyone who invest there - are just participating in another yet Ponzi scheme.
No surprise financial industry and government welcome it. They love such a tricky schemes to ripple-off people.

I do not think Ripple is a Ponzi scheme. People who don't understand say the same thing about bitcoin. In fact if one more person calls Bitcoin a ponzi scheme I think I might smash their face in with the dictionary so they can review the definition of ponzi scheme via the imprint on their face... but anywaaayyyy - I am not be a big ripple fan (I should say XRP fan) but I don't see it as competition for bitcoin. I see more of a compliment to bitcoin, another ally in the war against (traditional) banks and needless merchant fees. Some interesting payment systems would theoretically be designed on top of ripple, which would operate much more efficiently than what we have now, especially internationally. Paying $40 for a wire transfer needs to be a thing of the past. Now.

I can transfer a whole god damn 1080p movie (20,000,000 kb) to someone on the other side of the globe in no time for nearly no cost. Mind telling exactly why it costs $40 and takes 3-5 days to send any amount of money (an instruction to modify a SINGLE NUMBER somewhere.... mere bytes)? It's bullshit with current technology - time to move on, and hopefully bitcoin and ripple can make that happen.

Edit:
In other words, I see ripple as a tool to support the movement of existing (Current and future) currencies, fiat, crypto, whatever. Ideally, I'd love to see everyone using bitcoin. But if that wet dream doesn't happen, I can settle with paying fiat for things using a ripple based network as long as the 2.75% for nothing bank fees do not apply.

[JoelKatz]

The implementation you are talking about is centralized.

No it isn't. It's a peer to peer network, both the client and server are open source, anyone can run a validator, anyone can choose the set of validators they want to synchronise with and anyone can act as a gateway, either professionally or informally between trusted associates.

more like a potential scammer to scammer network no? You trust me to trust them and together we will rip everyone else off.

And difference between trusting BTX exchanges is?

The main difference is that people who have trusted different exchanges can still make payments to each other.

A secondary difference is that the exchanges can't as easily target a single customer. If an exchange decides it won't let you specifically withdraw for some reason, you are pretty much stuck. If a Ripple gateway does the same thing, you can just trade your assets at that exchange for assets issued by a gateway that will let you withdraw. You can move funds into or out of a gateway without needing that gateway to perform each operation or subjecting it to arbitrary and unpredictable rules.

If you hold Bitstamp assets on Ripple and decide that for some reason you don't want to hold them anymore, you can sell them for XRP immediately without having to ask Bitstamp to perform the transfer.

[seleme]

The main thing is if I trust Bitstamp to do my BTC business on it, I trust them to do my Ripple stuff. I don't care about philosophizing with tech terms and such bullshit who trust who, bla-bla-bla...

Bitcoin enthusiasts should be last in line to preach about security, trust and similar stuff with robberies and hacks happening daily in their industry.

[Coinseeker]

The main thing is if I trust Bitstamp to do my BTC business on it, I trust them to do my Ripple stuff. I don't care about philosophizing with tech terms and such bullshit who trust who, bla-bla-bla...

Bitcoin enthusiasts should be last in line to preach about security, trust and similar stuff with robberies and hacks happening daily in their industry.

I think that's pretty much going to be the view of Ripple as more infrastructure comes online.  Most people will never even know they are using Ripple and won't care that it is powered by Ripple.  Just like people use websites and don't know and don't care they are powered by Wordpress.  Or as has been repeated constantly, email and SMTP.  People don't care how it works, just that it does.  That's the beautiful thing about Ripple, it's a true protocol that can operate completely transparently. People know the weaknesses of Bitcoin and it scares them because just as Erik V. said, "the only thing that can kill Bitcoin, is a superior currency" and they worry that Ripple will provide that.  So fear, causes them to miss that which is amazing about Ripple as a payment network and distributed exchange and more importantly the benefits it provides to Bitcoin, by making up for many of it's weaknesses.