Ripple vs Bitcoin

[mmeijeri]

Right now as a system, bitcoin is better because it is accepted by more merchants and has been around longer and despite its flaws is trusted better.

Right now Ripple and Bitcoin are complementary and synergistic. Ripple could gain users by offering a distributed Bitcoin exchange, and this in turn would help Bitcoin adoption. In the longer term, XRP could become a rival to BTC, but at the same time greater adoption could help the Bitcoin ecosystem finance rival Bitcoin-based distributed exchanges.

[EuSouBitcoin]

With Bitcoin Core installed I can send BTC to anyone with Bitcoin Core installed. Is there a similar client I could install on my computer that would allow me to send XRP to someone with similar client software installed? I'd prefer a simple installer program instead of compiling code and setting up my own server.

[OnkelPaul]

The program is already installed on your computer.

It's called a browser. Really, the ripple client is just a javascript program runnable in javascript enabled browsers.

The grunt work is performed by rippled nodes, of course. This is very similar to thin bitcoin clients which don't actually maintain the blockchain but only show balances and let you create and sign transactions. That's exactly what the ripple client does.

Taking part in the ripple network as a full node is a bit harder than being a bitcoin node, right. But many people don't do that with bitcoin, either.

Onkel Paul

[Sukrim]

You can use any browser that can run Javascript and run the client there.

Rippled is not necessary to use Ripple, you can operate even a full gateway just fine without it (I'd still recommend setting one up in-house so you are safe from people DOSing RippleLabs' servers). Most "clients" with installers or at least native code that I've seen were trading bots or other specialized stuff, not general wallet applications.

Maybe a package that can be installed but just contains a browser engine and the JavaScript client might be nice to have(?) for people who "need" to install something locally? I don't really see the benefit of having a strictly local client though, there is nearly no computation done besides signing of transactions locally and browsers are easily fast enough to handle that.

Edit: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit looks promising if you want to "install" Ripple-Client locally.

[mmeijeri]

I don't really see the benefit of having a strictly local client though, there is nearly no computation done besides signing of transactions locally and browsers are easily fast enough to handle that.

It gives better security, because you know you aren't running hijacked Javascript. Assuming you didn't download hijacked Javascript to begin with...

[Sukrim]

You can download the client repository and execute it locally, another option might be to have a signed browser extension, similar to the blockchain.info wallet. Node-webkit seems reasonable actually, in case you want a more static/local experience without a browser.

[cbeast]

Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?

[Bit_Happy]

Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?

1) They can make Millions/Billions of $$$ by creating XRP
2) Some XRP gets destroyed with every transaction.

[themusicgod1]

...A financially strong person don't need to borrow money, nor lending money, so the concept of IOU only attract those financially weak person...

That is way too simplified of an account of human behaviour and nature.  "Financially strong" people are part of communities, have families and friends, invest in long term projects, engage in international and soon interstellar trade involving risky ventures.  "Financially weak" people get stuck in unemployment, dead end jobs, and so on.  Each individual has a different risk tolerance, different incentives affecting them, and often enough different terminal goals.  Sure you can use ripple to allocate IOUs, but it can also be used to deal with tips, investment projects, insurance, and a bunch of other stuff we don't really have terms for.  With the possible exception of some extremely paranoid libertarian millionaires, no man is an island and no one doesn't rely on their community or state for something or other.  "Financial weakness" framed so is pretty much universal -- and so the point is to be stronger by working together on a higher order level.

[Sukrim]

Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?

Some reasons I can think of (I do not work for or am affiliated with Ripple Labs by the way, so these are just what I think their reasons are):

BTC are very slow (orders of magnitude slower) to confirm compared to Ripple's ledgers.
Jed said from the beginning he doesn't like the idea of burning electricity to secure the network.
Ripple validators would need to track the ledger _and_ the Bitcoin block chain.
Bitcoin scales poorly, if transactions on Ripple were done on Bitcoin, transaction volume would go through the roof (reminds me that I have to collect stats about transaction volume), already now Ripple likely has a higher transaction volume than Bitcoin, which is currently hard capped at less than 10 TX/s (imagine being able to only do 10 trades globally per second!)
Bitcoin transactions are crazy expensive (https://gist.github.com/gavinandresen/5044482 estimates one typical transaction to cost about 0.8 mBTC).
Marketing reasons probably too, also even though it is improving, BTC don't have the best rep out there. It would be kinda hard to get banks to buy BTC first to transact something on Ripple, a fact that Mastercoin, Counterparty et.al. are going to find out soon enough.
Of course also the possibility to make/earn money from the system while being able to go fully open source with it asap (they do not earn money by providing the infrastructure or software, they earn money by people using their product and they hope for the network effect to kick in so there is no fork emerging that is more popular than their network)

They messed up a few things too by the way, calling XRP "ripples" is what bugs me most. Instead of calling the smallest unit (1 µXRP) "drop", they should have jsut called the whole currency "droplets", "waves" or something else. Especially their first target market (this forum) did simply treat it as another altcoin and by having the same name, it messed up a lot imho. (It's like a large bitcoin exchange calling itself "Bitcoin" - just see the confusion with The Block Chain and blockchain.info already)

[themusicgod1]

...
Merchant adoption of ripple is an irrelevant point IMHO. If a merchant were to accept XRP for G&S, MAYBE, it would be relevant. But Ripple does not aim for merchants to accept it, as these merchants are not interested in running a hawala network, Ripple needs to get the banks to do it so they can get rid
of visa and MasterCard. Ripple aims to be paypal, you can't say that paypal competes with dollar vs yuan adoption...

Merchants are interested in
* Making a profit
* Being a respectable member of whatever community they live in, if only for signalling purposes

If Ripple leads either to new customers or existing customers to spend more money, merchants will, sooner or later, figure it out and adapt.

Likewise if it becomes a cultural norm to accept Ripple for its social effects, that might lead to it too (though as someone who's put a lot of work into making Ripple work in my community, it's more likely that the former would apply before the latter)

[themusicgod1]

so far, NO ONE can explain even one benefit of Ripple.  is this a joke?

I asked you a question so I could address your concerns - the fact that you're ignoring me and just postulating the lack of benefits of Ripple suggests you have an agenda.

[cbeast]

How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?

[themusicgod1]

I see Ripple also tried their own quasi-mining attempt with the Computing for Good project.  But like everything else they do, it fails before it even gets off the ground.

While CFG was not a very good final outcome for sure, and you are absolutely correct to point it out as something that didn't go well...

1) They did produce valid results -- computing cycles were, in fact used for good.  This isn't a 'failure' just not as much as a success as we both might like.
2) It's unclear who 'they' is.  If 'they' means *the entire ripple network* then you're completely off your rocker.  A great deal of successful transactions have occurred, although nothing close to the amount that the bitcoin network has allowed, but still a huge amount of benefits of trade.  I have personally done quite well, and have accomplished projects I would have thought impossible without it.  

Good outcomes have come out of ripple -- we just need more of them.

[themusicgod1]

Right now as a system, bitcoin is better because it is accepted by more merchants and has been around longer and despite its flaws is trusted better.

Ripple has been designed with a lot more reflection on what bitcoin could have been.  It is not perfect and right now isn't all that userful, but it is a far more robust and clean platform.  Ripple is trying to get big business and major banks behind it.  If it does this, it will very quickly over take bitcoin because at that point it will do everything bitcoin does and more and will people will be able to use bitcoin within the Ripple system.  This is all IF IF IF Ripple can get its support of major institutions and banks.  It seems to me that they have something to gain, once many other banks are on board, but nobody wants to be first to something like this.  It is only valuable with many players.  It is a good ole catch 22.  It will only work if it has people and then it will be valuable, but nobody wants to be apart of it if it has no value and no outside support.  

There will be other competitors too, as others have mentioned NXT or Etherium, both of which have their pluses and minuses.  Maybe Bitshares or CounterParty.  One thing is clear to me, in the coming years Bitcoin will be a gold standard for the 2.0s platforms.  Sooner or later a 2.0 will be way more powerful though.  Too many things to know for sure.  A major mover with the right backing can still win this.  

1) Ripple predates bitcoin
2) *Ripple Labs* is trying to get the big business and banks behind it -- bu tremember Ripple Labs is approximately 0% of the network.  Some of the rest of the network have given up on it.  Some of the rest of the network is working to get big business and banks behind it.  Some of the network is trying to make things work in house, between friends or in other situations that have nothing to do with big business.   And guess what?  The latter two categories outweigh ripple labs' efforts by several orders of magnitude.   Like Bitcoin, Ripple is not a business.  It's a collection of communities and businesses.  It's basically a very small economy.  That's like saying "Guatemala is trying to get big business and banks to invest"....sure it's probably true, that the government of Guatamala does these things but this ignores the vast majority of effort and projects undergone in that economy.  "A major mover with the right backing" cannot outmove a billion chinese people realizing that Ripple is useful to them in organizing their lives without government.  That's where we're trying to go.

3) Stop calling them 2.0 platforms.  Bitcoin 1.0 isn't released, and there will, someday be a Bitcoin 2.0, and these platforms are not that.  This is abuse of version numbers for political reasons.
 

[themusicgod1]

Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?

1) They can make Millions/Billions of $$$ by creating XRP
2) Some XRP gets destroyed with every transaction.

3) They can make XRP worthless and distribute it to every human being on earth once the short term gains from XRP have been realized to them.  You can't do that with bitcoin.

[Sukrim]

How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?

Similar to "sanctioning" the Bitcoin foundation there is not a lot to "sanction" at Ripple Labs to begin with... the network can and will go on, no matter what RL does.

I guess they would just follow whatever sanction hits them, though I don't see it having any effect on Ripple itself.

[themusicgod1]

How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?

How do any core bitcoin developers left in the US intend to comply with government sanctions?

[cbeast]

How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?

Similar to "sanctioning" the Bitcoin foundation there is not a lot to "sanction" at Ripple Labs to begin with... the network can and will go on, no matter what RL does.

I guess they would just follow whatever sanction hits them, though I don't see it having any effect on Ripple itself.

So if Ripple Labs is shut down, the network will go on just fine and all transactions will be accounted for in the ledger?

How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?

How do any core bitcoin developers left in the US intend to comply with government sanctions?

It doesn't matter where Bitcoin core developers are if they stay anonymous.

[Sukrim]

How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?

Similar to "sanctioning" the Bitcoin foundation there is not a lot to "sanction" at Ripple Labs to begin with... the network can and will go on, no matter what RL does.

I guess they would just follow whatever sanction hits them, though I don't see it having any effect on Ripple itself.

So if Ripple Labs is shut down, the network will go on just fine and all transactions will be accounted for in the ledger?

Yes, anyone can run rippled and be a validator. There might be some stirup because currently a lot of people by default have their validators in their config files and probably didn't change that, but that's all. It's like freenet going down back in the day when Bitcoin was bootstrapped via IRC - you'd have to add IPs manally to connect to the swarm again, then it works again. All mining pools in the US going down at once would probably cause a longer outage on Bitcoin than RL disappearing from Ripple.