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January 06, 2014, 10:57:42 PM |
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What's the deal with Nxt and Ripple? I hear a lot of criticism on this forum (and elsewhere), most of which seems to be focused on the a few facts relevant one or both: (1) they are non-mineable, which effectively means the creators have control over 100% of them, and are parceling them out as they chose; (2) supposedly bad coding, for nxt. However, what is truly baffling to me is how little actual information there is on these coins. E.g. the nxt and ripple sections of reddit have about 12 posts ever, while lots of other altcoins have hundreds of posts. I realize this isn't an entirely good way to judge a coin, but the user interface on the nxt exchanges (dgex) is super-sketchy looking, and I'm also highly suspicious of the fact that it can only be traded on one exchange. Why isn't it traded on cryptsy or btc-e or any other exchange? It makes me suspicious that the creators are trying to manipulate the price -- or maybe even that they are going to dissapear one day with everyone money. On the other hand, Ripple seems like it was created by sophisticated, reliable business people, and I've read that it has gotten a pretty good amount of venture capital funding. Of course, none of that suggests that it is actually an improvement over bitcoin, or that anyone should invest in ripple, but it definitely seems very different than nxt.
The biggest issues I have with ripple right now are (1) it is maddeningly confusing in its terminology. What on earth were they thinking by having a "trust" concept? Honestly, I have spent an hour trying to understand exactly what the heck that means and I still don't fully understand it. (2) It is weirdly hard to actually get an account and fund it. There are a bunch of ripple gateways, but try to actually use one and you'll see what I mean. Snapswap lists one option as sending a wire transfer to their account...with a $15 fee. I don't think too many people are going to do that. There is also a requirement to activate your account before funding it...but you also need to have an account funded with at least 30 or so XRP in order to activate, so it is a bit of a catch 22. If the currency is going to really take off and increase in price, it will only be after they increase the ease of use. (Compare that with bitcoin, where there are more and more well-established companies popping up that make it extremely easy to buy bitcoin even if you aren't tech savvy, like coinbase and to a lesser extent mtgox).
I'd love to hear other people's serious views about ripple and nxt. E.g. even if you think these are basically a money-grab by their creators, do you think these are likely to increase in value over, say, the next 2 years?
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PS I don't really like the fact that the forums forces everyone to make some first useless posts in order to get the ability to be a full member, but I guess I can understand it as a safeguard against trolling and bots. However, the rules need to be more clear. What is frustrating is that there is no real guidance on how to become a full member other than posting something "substantive" like a few sentences. Isn't it possible to just allow people to authenticate using facebook or using their bitcoin wallets, or some other method like captcha solving required for posting if you're new member or something?
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