The difference between Ripple and Bitcoin

[Tradefast]

Ripple is a payment Network, But Bitcoin is a currency. Ripple is older than Bitcoin. it was originally just a payment network and distributed exchange. Bitcoin Launched 3 January 2009 and Ripple Protocol originally launched in 2004. Currency launched in February 2013. Ripple is a way to exchange anything of value. but bitcoin not a payment protocol and can’t exchange anything of value.

[ning]

Ripple basically means everyone can issue her/his own altcoin.

[justusranvier]

Bitcoin is an asset ledger.

Ripple is a liability accounting system.

[OnkelPaul]

This is basically correct, but it should be noted that there is an "old Ripple" which existed before Bitcoin, and the "new Ripple" which came after bitcoin.
The "rippling" approach behind old and new Ripple is very similar, but I think the implementation is considerably different. In particular, the new Ripple is trying to be decentralized and uses a consensus algorithm for the ledger (I think the old Ripple used a centralized ledger) so that it does not depend on trust in a single organization.

Onkel Paul

The possibility of issuing one's own "altcoin" (which isn't really a coin) in ripple is undeniably there, users need to be aware that just because someone offers them some shiny IOUs they should most likely not accept them unless they trust the issuer to actually redeem real coins/dollars/goods for the IOUs.

[hypostatization]

Bitcoin is an asset ledger.

Ripple is a liability accounting system.

Bitcoin is a closed asset ledger and payment network, supporting Bitcoin.

Ripple is an open asset ledger, payment network, distributed exchange, and liability accounting system---that supports XRP as well as any other currency issued on the network. It is designed to support transactions that cross between currencies. Ripple also prominently supports Bitcoin.

XRP, like Bitcoins, have no counterparty risk. They can be used in absence of trust relationship. IOU, meanwhile, may be issued by anyone and are are worth their exchange value. IOU are secured by trust relationships. Security boundaries form an IOU trust network. They are user-controlled and known as 'trust lines'.

External currencies are the focus of Ripple, in the form of IOU. Above and beyond being an asset ledger, it is a cross currency payment and exchange protocol and network. Using the built-in exchanges and trust pathways, Ripple is able to support near real-time cross currency payments. Users have no need to directly trust each other, in most common use cases. Everything occurs at the best available exchange rate. XRP exists ubiquitously, in part, to simplify pathfinding between currencies for conversion.

Ripple is also designed for external usage. Via the Federation Protocol transactions can silently pass through Ripple---as part of a background payment process. A simple use case would be setting up a payment service that accepts DOGE from the DOGE network and then pays with Bitcoin at any Bitcoin address. Ripple can send Bitcoin out from its own network via the Bitcoin Bridge. Neither buyer nor seller need to concern themselves with the inner workings of Ripple. Ripple is designed so that users can stick with the currencies they are comfortable with, from within those networks---with Ripple merely acting as a bridge between them. No absolute need for end-users to hold IOUs exists. No need for end-users to even hold a Ripple wallet exists.

Use your favorite alt at Overstock.com? Ripple enables exactly those types of cross-currency transactions.

Ripple, as it grows, has potential to become a viable means for Bitcoin to be used to make purchases from any merchant---whether they accept USD, EUR, CNY, JPY, or any other currency.

An attack campaign has given the community an inaccurate and distorted view of Ripple. A shift in perception is beginning, as new users become attracted to cryptocurrencies, and veterans wake up to having been hoodwinked by the likes of Tradefortress and crew.

Ripple for Bitcoiners

[~Coinseeker~]

^This

[davidpbrown]

An attack campaign has given the community an inaccurate and distorted view of Ripple. A shift in perception is beginning, as new users become attracted to cryptocurrencies..

Blaming other people, is a lazy interpretation of a failure to communicate whatever Ripple's real value is.

I'm quite neutral but Ripple seems like a damp squid coupled with a bad launch of XRP that's near infinite in number and the few that have found value then suggest a market cap of $ 1,451,152,125 <- really?.. I don't see it and I'm trying to see it, what does that suggest for how poor their product and/or ability to communicate that. Perhaps I am missing real useability development and it'll suddenly be in our faces as the obvious contender but perhaps it just needs a relaunch.

[justusranvier]

I'm quite neutral but Ripple seems like a damp squid coupled with a bad launch of XRP that's near infinite in number and the few that have found value then suggest a market cap of $ 1,451,152,125 <- really?.. I don't see it and I'm trying to see it, what does that suggest for how poor their product and/or ability to communicate that. Perhaps I am missing real useability development and it'll suddenly be in our faces as the obvious contender but perhaps it just needs a relaunch.

The problem is they can't be honest about what Ripple is and still get as much buzz as they currently enjoy.

Right now they, and all the other projects which advertise user-created currencies (Mastercoin, Ethereum, Open-Transactions), are benefiting from this reaction: "Create my own currency? I'm gonna be rich!"

This is deeply irresponsible.

What they should call them is "user-created loans". This is far more accurate, but if they started using that terminology then all of a sudden everyone would remember that loans eventually need to be repaid and that doesn't look nearly as attractive. It's not that liability accounting isn't useful - it is - but it's not sexy and isn't going to make anyone insanely wealthy.

Bitcoin showed us that currencies do not need to be somebody's liability. Currency has been that for so long that it's no surprise that most people don't see the difference, but now that such a demonstration has been made it's dishonest to use the same word to describe tokens which describe liabilities and tokens which are assets.

Anything with counterparty risk attached to it is not a currency. Call it something else: debt, liabilities, loans, IOUs - just don't call it a currency.

[acoindr]

The problem with Ripple as I've said before is there could be 100 Trillion ripples with the creators having 99%.

The creators can gradually cash out their Ripple wealth drastically devaluing the ripples normal users have. That's in stark contrast to Bitcoin which is why users are so passionate about it. Bitcoin users know there will never be any inflation the market hasn't already priced in. Every single Bitcoin in existence can be verified.

Ripple is more akin to non-transparent central bank fiat. I'm wondering why there even needs to be ripple currency. That's not how Ripple started out. Ripple started as a simple ledger to track IOUs between parties. After Bitcoin/cryptocurrency entered the scene, suddenly ripple then added a currency too, but which can't be verified unlike cryptocurrencies.

The excuse given for requiring ripples is to "prevent network spam" but that's BS. As is pointed out, ripple doesn't use a block chain or  mining, so data storage pressures don't exist.

A Ripple-like system can be implemented as Ripple was first intended, which would be better. That's simply to have a distributed consensus ledger about who owes whom what. These are only IOUs in the first place, so there is no underlying currency in addition needed.

[corebob]

I can't see that ripple even count.
Its pre mined and it is not decentralized.
In other worlds, it was too late to get it right from the get go.

Because of this, ripple along with other inflationary coins compete with the dollar, not with bitcoin

[hypostatization]

Blaming other people, is a lazy interpretation of a failure to communicate whatever Ripple's real value is.

I see value in community members informing the broader Bitcoin community of organized attempts to mislead it, whether it be the history of Ripple detractors or MtGox.

I am not defending the communication quality of Ripple Labs. For the most part, it is the Ripple community that is educating new users and attempting outreach. Ripple Labs is not pursuing mass adoption, and have lagged in effectively communicating the strengths of Ripple. They are focused on protocol integrity, attracting developers, and supporting early adopters. Marketing is not a focus. I wish Ripple Labs did more, and recent hires suggest they will be putting greater focus on outreach.

Here is a great interview with Ripple CEO Chris Larsen. Ripple Labs is transparent about Ripple, their strategy, and vision. Individuals may disagree, after understanding Ripple, but most are misled into following a link to the attack site of Tradefortress and proceed to shut down. A great irony is that Ripple has potential to help Bitcoin reach even further.

I'm quite neutral but Ripple seems like a damp squid coupled with a bad launch of XRP that's near infinite in number

99,999,999,999 XRP existed at launch. Reserve requirements, ledger costs, and anti-spam utilization make it an integral component of the network. XRP is not the core utility of Ripple. A lot of cryptocurrency community members miss that. External currencies are the focus of the protocol.

58,987,150,405 DOGE currently exist. Relative to Bitcoin, each seems a large number, but an effective amount of currency has yet to be established. Bitcoin is the standard that alternatives are compared against, and we have yet to see what an effective number.

and the few that have found value then suggest a market cap of $ 1,451,152,125 <- really?..

It depends on how you calculate the value of the market cap. I do not consider it especially relevant. Ripple is weak in liquidity and adoption; my emphasis is the underlying untapped utility of the system. I am not trying to sell people on investing in XRP. It is simply a useful system, with ability to benefit external currencies and other cryptos.

I don't see it and I'm trying to see it, what does that suggest for how poor their product and/or ability to communicate that. Perhaps I am missing real useability development and it'll suddenly be in our faces as the obvious contender but perhaps it just needs a relaunch.

I agree, in general, about the weak launch. Again, I consider market liquidity, services, and developer adoption more significant than XRP value. Basically, Ripple Labs emerged from stealth mode too early---and exposed Ripple to an attack campaign that they were not ready to handle. Ripple Labs is starting to gear up to improve communication, but it will take time.

[acoindr]

99,999,999,999 XRP existed at launch.

Prove it's only that.

58,987,150,405 DOGE currently exist.

That's provable.

[hypostatization]

99,999,999,999 XRP existed at launch.

Prove that.

58,987,150,405 DOGE currently exist.

That's provable.

Everything is in the ledger, just like the blockchain.

[~Coinseeker~]

I think a lot has do with people simply not understanding monetary systems, payment networks, distributed exchanges, currency exchange and pretty much everything hypostatization just laid out.  Most people's extent of knowledge on these subjects is limited to what they learned from Bitcoin and thus, they can't see anything but "coins" because everything else is beyond their current knowledge base. Understanding "coins" is simple enough for even children to understand.  

The simplest way to understand the benefits of Ripple to Bitcoin, is to just look at Gox.  If Gox had been plugged into Ripple, users would had flexibility over their Gox IOU's. While an exchange closing is never going to have positive results, those IOU's could have still been moved into other currencies, like Bitstamp.BTC or XRP and then moved into any other currency where liquidity exists. This is much like what Bitcoinbuilder did, except you don't need a central clearing house to move your IOU's.  Instead, Gox users have taken a total lost because they prefer centralized exchanges over distributed exchanges.  Why?  IDK...maybe a few more need to fail before people finally get it.

Now no ones perfect and RL's is no exception.  Things can always be improved upon and the necessity to effectively communicate Ripple's feature set and benefits, should remain an on going process. But keeping blinders on and refusing personal responsibility to understand the tech in the space, is also not an excuse for not educating ones self on the tech, that brings increased value and utility to Bitcoin and all crypto-currencies.  

Ripple can bring the entire digital currency space to worldwide ubiquity and that's just a fact.

[acoindr]

Everything is in the ledger, just like the blockchain.

I've already went through this with another Ripple supporter here:

I really like the idea of Ripple, but the current problem I have with it is there seems to be no way to verify how many ripples exist.

https://ripple.com/wiki/RPC_API#account_info
https://ripple.com/tools/info
You're free to verify this and more also by running your own node.

Yes, I've looked over some of Ripple's documentation. How does a node verify the amount of XRP in existence? From what I could see the basis is supposedly a "genesis ledger" as opposed to a genesis block, but there seems to be no way to access the genesis ledger.

There is also a bunched together amount released by RippleLabs (https://www.ripplelabs.com/xrp-distribution/) with no further/cryptographically verifiable proof behind that.

That's a numeric statement posted on a website. That doesn't cut it.

It looks like about in the right ballpark though, from looking at the distribution of XRP between wallets atm.

That doesn't cut it either. It needs to be mathematically verifiable.

The oldest available ledger is #32570 (with about 100 entries) so this is currently the genesis one, the older ones are presumably lost or at least not available until JoelKatz finally publishes the transactions that took place in these first 1 1/2 weeks so these ledgers can be restored back to 0. Since then there is a unbroken hashed chain of headers (also cryptographically linked to the transactions and account state at each point of time). Nodes verify this by getting the most recent finalized ledger and continuing from there. Since transactions in Ripple only operate on account balances, not on inputs like Bitcoin, and you can only branch at the top not "mine" on an earlier "block", there is no explicit need for keeping history, not even headers.

Since transactions in Ripple only operate on account balances, not on inputs like Bitcoin, and you can only branch at the top not "mine" on an earlier "block", there is no explicit need for keeping history, not even headers.

There is no explicit need for keeping history... So there is no need for keeping a ledger, in other words.

[hypostatization]

I can't see that ripple even count.
Its pre mined and it is not decentralized.
In other worlds, it was too late to get it right from the get go.

Because of this, ripple along with other inflationary coins compete with the dollar, not with bitcoin

Ripple is not mined. XRP vs. Bitcoin is where a lot of people get lost. I am not selling XRP as an investment; instead, I am trying to clear up misconceptions about the protocol and network. It has massive potential to benefit all cryptos. Its emphasis is on transacting external currencies. Ripple Labs is explicit about their intentions; they are using XRP to attract partners (for increased liquidity), funding operations, and supporting humanitarian projects. Check out the interview linked above.

Creating services for the Ripple network, that can profit from any currency, is the best option for making money through Ripple.

XRP can be earned in exchange for contributing to the World Community Grid, but this most likely only attractive to existing contributors or those with access to free computing power. I can buy XRP directly at a lower cost than spinning up VMs to mine with.

[acoindr]

Ripple is not mined. XRP vs. Bitcoin is where a lot of people get lost. I am not selling XRP as an investment; instead, I am trying to clear up misconceptions about the protocol and network. It has massive potential to benefit all cryptos. Its emphasis is on transacting external currencies. Ripple Labs is explicit about their intentions; they are using XRP to attract partners (for increased liquidity), funding operations, and supporting humanitarian projects. Check out the interview linked above.

Creating services for the Ripple network, that can profit from any currency, is the best option for making money through Ripple.

XRP can be earned in exchange for contributing to the World Community Grid, but this most likely only attractive to existing contributors or those with access to free computing power. I can buy XRP directly at a lower cost than spinning up VMs to mine with.

TBH it looks to me the reason XRP exists is to exploit the attention and value given to cryptocurrency, coupled with promises of exchange of external currencies.

The first question I have is why is an XRP currency unit needed in order to keep the ledger of IOUs? That's not how Ripple started...

Second, if you say XRP currency was created to raise money I don't have a problem with that, but it should then be done as an alt-coin, the cryptographic model people are familiar with and respect because they know there are no shenanigans for the market. Everything is independently verifiable.

[hypostatization]

Everything is in the ledger, just like the blockchain.

I've already went through this with another Ripple supporter here:

Integrity of the total XRP count is equivalent to the integrity of the ledger, like the blockchain. Validation is performed by few parties today, and that is legit ongoing grounds for criticism. As the network grows, that will become less of a concern. Harming the integrity of the ledger is not in the interest of current Validators or Ripple Labs, as it damages the network. You can learn more about the Validator consensus process here.

[acoindr]

... Validation is performed by few parties today, and that is legit ongoing grounds for criticism. As the network grows, that will become less of a concern. ...

You mean because there will be so many suckers at that point the vested interests in Ripple can cash out quite easily?

I agree there would be less concern, for the creators...

[~Coinseeker~]

The first question I have is why is an XRP currency unit needed in order to keep the ledger of IOUs? That's not how Ripple started...

It's used to prevent spam in the ledger and provide ease of currency exchange.  For example:  BTC -> XRP -> Yen  or USD -> XRP -> Frequent Flyer miles  Whatever!  Anything of value.

Second, if you say XRP currency was created to raise money I don't have a problem with that, but it should then be done as an alt-coin, the cryptographic model people are familiar with and respect because they know there are no shenanigans for the market. Everything is independently verifiable.

XRP is a math-based currency just like any other.  Why would it need to be a copy of the Bitcoin source to be legit?  Here's a tip to understanding Ripple...FUCK XRP!!  Once you understand that, the world of possibilities that exist with Ripple open up and you see, as was mentioned, that "copycats" have done little more than repackage Ripple features and look to sell IPO's based on the negative sentiment of the community. The difference is....Ripple works.  XRP was not created to be a speculative commodity so when people stop looking at Ripple based on BS market caps and start looking at the utility it can provide, the whole space will benefit.