Yeah, that's the main thing I do care about.
Well, in that case the thing is not to buy more than the minimum amount of XRP you need to use the exchange functionality. I've only bought a tiny bit myself, and got some in a handout. I've also earned a grand total of 29 XRP through
computingforgood.org. :-) I think I'll buy a small amount of XRP in case it takes off spectacularly, maybe 100 euros or so.
So far as I can tell this "robust exchange system" is nothing more than theoretical, though.
It's operational right now. Most of the liquidity is in the order books against XRP, which is not surprising since XRP was designed to be a bridge currency. The software does synthesise virtual order books, but the standard client doesn't display these synthesised books, just the underlying ones. This means that the effective depth in Bitstamp USD / Bitstamp BTC is much better than appears on your screen. If there's a setting I could tweak somewhere I'd love to hear about it. If you use the Convert menu option, it does use the synthesised order book, although you can only use it for market orders, not limit orders.
I said above that I'll jump through hoops to get myself going with Ripple in a heartbeat if someone can show how it can get me a better exchange rate than Coinbase for USD/BTC, with equivalent ease and trustworthiness. I'd probably even be willing to drop the "equivalent ease" part so long as I can access the USD within a few days and the trustworthiness is there (there needs to be a US company that I can sue if my money gets stolen, basically).
I don't how good Coinbase is, as I'm not in the US. I've bought most of my BTC through bitonic.nl. It's a very quick and reliable system, but it's also expensive. I did buy some through Ripple, but I was dissatisfied with Bitstamp. The two main reasons I'm reluctant to use Bitstamp for more than very small amounts is that the process is slow compared to Bitonic and that my experience with them and the fact that they are located in Slovenia mean that I'm not confident they'll be able to store my money / BTC safely. I'd love to use a gateway that is directly connected to the Dutch banking system, especially iDeal. It would also have to be based in a larger eurozone country with a more solid banking system than Slovenia. The Netherlands would be ideal for me, but Germany or Austria would be fine too.
But it's unlikely such a scenario would last very long, because I and a whole bunch of others would arbitrage the hell out of such a scenario.
That's what I'm hoping for. Ripple would be ideal for arbitrage and would allow us to get rid of the idiotic spreads between exchanges. The main thing we need for that is more and more trustworthy gateways. The software is already there.
Certainly Bitcoin can help Ripple, but not only do I not see the benefit of that, I can see some potential pitfalls. Ripple has the potential to become the nice government-sanctioned system which governments can point people at as they regulate the life out of Bitcoin. And for those of us who care about having a decentralized currency, which is we should not forget the primary purpose for which Bitcoin was created, that would be a tragedy.
XRP is just as deregulated, but more importantly, Bitcoin needs distributed exchanges to grow. And I think Ripple is just the thing that will prevent governments from shutting it down. It's basically digital Hawala, and governments around the world have been unable to eradicate Hawala.
