Why has Ripple decreased so much in Market cap? Used to be second to Bitcoin

[twiifm]

I would say most people don't understand how banking works in general.

True, though they understand it well enough to use it, which is most certainly not true for ripple.

What they know is they don't like ATM fees or foreign transaction fees, etc.  I see Ripple having more potential as an institutional tool rather than a consumer facing product.

Alright then, since I'm not a bank or in the business of providing banking services, why do I ever (in fact frequently) hear about ripple. Again the targeting of the message and the message itself seems misdirected and confused.

I guess its discussed here because the XRP is a crypto currency and Ripple Labs is trying to promote their business.   Ripple makes a lot of sense if you understand balance sheet operations & double entry book keeping.  Its how money travels For example:  Me --> Chase --> Citibank --> You.   As I understand it, this gets replaced by :  Me --> Ripple Network -->  You

When the money travels from one node to another it is noted as an asset on one balance sheet & a liability on the other's balance sheet.  

The confusion is that the XRP & BTC are both defined as "crypto currencies" but they are marketed/ promoted from different views.  XRP acts a token to make the Ripple transfer possible.  In this sense it behaves like a currency should.  Think of a casino in an agnostic location where people from all countries come to play.  XRP is similar to a poker chip.  It only exist to allow different currencies to play.  The plastic token itself has no value but it might have numbed printed on it like 5, 10, 100

In contrast bit coin is promoted as thrice; commodity/money/currency.   To make matters more confusing, most people don't understand the difference between gold (commodity), gold coins or convertible notes (money), USD (currency denomination).  Bitcoin tries to be commodity/money/currency in one entity.  If you follow this "Metallism" view.  Miners should mine "bits".  The currency that is called "BTC" are backed by "bits".  And its "money" value should be priced on the supply/demand of these "bits" (as opposed to being priced in USD).  

Imagine traveling back in time.  Each nation's banks hold reserves of specie (gold or silver).  The banks print notes that are convertible to specie.  The notes are denominated in local currencies like Dollar, Francs, Pounds, Deustch Marks,etc..  No matter what number is printed on the coin or note, the money derives its value from the commodity that backs it.  Currency is the representation of that money.  The reason this existed is enable foreign trade.  Gold is gold.  I can accept your currency because I can covert it to gold and my currency is also backed by gold.  The market agrees that gold is top of the money hierarchy in value so there is always a demand for gold.  Even within the US during the Free Banking era, each bank printed its own convertible notes back by reserves in specie.

Schumpeter categorize 2 philosophical traditions of money:  Chartalism & Metallism.  Crypto (especially Bitcoin) be would philosophically in-line with the Metallism tradition.  Like Metallism, Bitcoin promoters believes that (1) state issued fiat money has no intrinsic value, (2) state created money devalues money through inflation, (3) money should be priced by laissez-faire markets as opposed to a central authority

However, there is a BIG contradiction here.   Metallism would not define crypto (especially Bitcoin) as money because it not convertible to something of intrinsic value.  Metallism would define Bitcoin as "fiat" in the sense that it came to existence out of nothing.  The only difference is that instead of being created by the state authority, it was created by an unknown person/ group calling itself Satoshi Nakamoto.  But technically each BTC is created from "mining".  So technically its intrinsic value is derived from "mining", not a quantified physical asset like an ounce of gold.  In other words, BTC's intrinsic value is digital alchemy- zeros & ones.  In essence the same way that Central Banks create money - by keystroke.  

Ripple seems to recognize this contradictory quality of crypto as a commodity/money/currency.  I believe that's why it's "pre-mined".  It seems to me Ripple sees the potential in crypto not as a competing currency to existing fiats.  Rather, Ripple is exploring the use of crypto as protocol to transfer fiat.  Regardless of denomination; Dollar, Euro, RMB, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, etc..  Ripple doesn't have a philosophical view of money just a banking view of money.  Ripple is a privately owned company so that makes XRPs similar to a private bank issued currency.  Except Ripple is nothing like a bank so XRPs are to be treated as tokens.  You are not supposed to hoard XRPs and store your money in it.  If big banks use Ripples system to transfer money then the XRP would be invisible to the end user.

This is what I gather from reading their website.  But yes its confusing because they have Ripple wallets that you need to deposit BTC to use so it seems like its a bit coin competitor

[Peter R]

I would say most people don't understand how banking works in general.

True, though they understand it well enough to use it, which is most certainly not true for ripple.

What they know is they don't like ATM fees or foreign transaction fees, etc.  I see Ripple having more potential as an institutional tool rather than a consumer facing product.

Alright then, since I'm not a bank or in the business of providing banking services, why do I ever (in fact frequently) hear about ripple. Again the targeting of the message and the message itself seems misdirected and confused.

I guess its discussed here because the XRP is a crypto currency and Ripple Labs is trying to promote their business.   Ripple makes a lot of sense if you understand balance sheet operations & double entry book keeping.  Its how money travels For example:  Me --> Chase --> Citibank --> You.   As I understand it, this gets replaced by :  Me --> Ripple Network -->  You

When the money travels from one node to another it is noted as an asset on one balance sheet & a liability on the other's balance sheet.  

The confusion is that the XRP & BTC are both defined as "crypto currencies" but they are marketed/ promoted from different views.  XRP acts a token to make the Ripple transfer possible.  In this sense it behaves like a currency should.  Think of a casino in an agnostic location where people from all countries come to play.  XRP is similar to a poker chip.  It only exist to allow different currencies to play.  The token itself is useless but it might have numbed printed on it like 5, 10, 100

In contrast bit coin is promoted as thrice; commodity/money/currency.   To make matters more confusing, most people don't understand the difference between gold (commodity), gold coins/ convertible notes (money), USD (currency denomination).  Bitcoin tries to be commodity/money/currency in one entity.  If you follow this "Metallism" view.  Miners should mine "bits".  The currency that is called "BTC" are backed by "bits".  And its "money" value should be priced on the supply/demand of these "bits" (as opposed to being priced in USD).  

Imagine traveling back in time.  Each nation's banks hold reserves of specie (gold or silver).  The banks print notes that are convertible to specie.  The notes are denominated in local currencies like Dollar, Francs, Pounds, Deustch Marks,etc..  No matter what number is printed on the coin or note, the money derives its value from the commodity that backs it.  Currency is the representation of that money.  The reason this existed is enable foreign trade.  Gold is gold.  I can accept your currency because I can covert it to gold and my currency is also backed by gold.  The market agrees that gold is top of the money hierarchy in value so there is always a demand for gold.  Even within the US during the Free Banking era, each bank printed its own convertible notes back by reserves in specie.

Schumpeter categorize 2 philosophical traditions of money:  Chartalism & Metallism.  Crypto (especially Bitcoin) be would philosophically in-line with the Metallism tradition.  Like Metallism, Bitcoin promoters believes that (1) state issued fiat money has no intrinsic value, (2) state created money devalues money through inflation, (3) money should be priced by laissez-faire markets as opposed to a central authority

However, there is a BIG contradiction here.   Metallism would not define crypto (especially Bitcoin) as money because it not convertible to something of intrinsic value.  Metallism would define Bitcoin as "fiat" in the sense that it came to existence out of nothing.  The only difference is that instead of being created by the state authority, it was created by an unknown person/ group calling itself Satoshi Nakamoto.  But technically each BTC is created from "mining".  So technically its intrinsic value is derived from "mining", not a quantified physical asset like an ounce of gold.  In other words, BTC's intrinsic value is digital alchemy- zeros & ones.  In essence the same way that Central Banks create money - by keystroke.  

Ripple seems to recognize this contradictory quality of crypto as a commodity/money/currency.  I believe that's why it's "pre-mined".  It seems to me Ripple sees the potential in crypto not as a competing currency to existing fiats.  Rather, Ripple is exploring the use of crypto as protocol to transfer fiat.  Regardless of denomination; Dollar, Euro, RMB, Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, etc..  Ripple doesn't have a philosophical view of money just a banking view of money.  Ripple is a privately owned company so that makes XRPs similar to a private bank issued currency.  Except Ripple is nothing like a bank so XRPs are to be treated as tokens.  You are not supposed to hoard XRPs and store your money in it.  If big banks use Ripples system to transfer money then the XRP would be invisible to the end user.

The more I learn the more confident I become that the TL/DR of what you are saying is that:

- Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name.  

Is this an accurate summary in your opinion?

[twiifm]

@ Peter R

That's what I got from reading their website.  I'm not trying to pump Ripple or anything like that.  I find their proposal intriguing so I want to understand it myself.

1)  I think that is partially correct.  They say the Ripple network is designed to exchange money.  All money as essentially IOUs but it misleading to say like that.  In their primer they say there is same counter party risk at the "gateway".  So depends if your "gateway" is Citibank or Mt Gox.  You should decide based on reputation I suppose.  But they do claim that there is no counter party risk when using XRP as a "bridge currency".  If you use Ripple to transfer USD-->XRP-->EU, there is no counter party risk

2)  XRP is a currency to be used as bridge if the network can't find a market maker to facilitate the exchange.  There is a current exchange rate 1 XRP = 0.0063 USD.  But they say their priority is adoption rather than investment.  I would treat it as valueless token.

[tokeweed]

i suggest everyone unfamiliar to ripple read the primer:  https://ripple.com/ripple_primer.pdf

[tokeweed]

I would treat it as valueless token.

as it should be in my eyes. how can xrp fulfill its function if it is being hoarded?  xrp should be used mostly by market makers to provide liquidity in the network, so that it would be easier for ripple to path find the cheapest rates when converting and sending currencies.

[NWO]

BTC transfer time = 60 minutes
LTC transfer time = 15 minutes

XRP transfer time = instant


Have fun with your archaic technologies! Even though 3/4 of these Ripple hate accounts are just TradeFortress sock puppets.

[tokeweed]

yeah, the quick transfer time is what makes people use ripple even more imo.  and the network provides out of the box solutions for the issues and problems facing bitcoin.  link to the video of chris larsen talking about these solutions can be seen here:  https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6304&hilit=body+language&sid=87cd50721d7b3186a0d143d81357076a#p44419

just give it a chance guys.

[Peter R]

...

NWO, is this an accurate summary in your opinion?

- Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name. 

[tokeweed]

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

and

"xrp as a valueless token."

is as it should be in my eyes. how can xrp fulfill its function if it is being hoarded?  xrp should be used mostly by market makers to provide liquidity in the network, so that it would be easier for ripple to path find the cheapest rates when converting and sending currencies.

but the reality of it is there will always be speculators.

[smooth]

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

and

"xrp as a valueless token."

is as it should be in my eyes. how can xrp fulfill its function if it is being hoarded?  xrp should be used mostly by market makers to provide liquidity in the network, so that it would be easier for ripple to path find the cheapest rates when converting and sending currencies.

but the reality of it is there will always be speculators.

No it can't be valueless otherwise it can't serve its function as either antispam or as an intermediate currency. There has to be value for trading it or burning it to mean anything. Forgive me if I'm getting the function wrong, but really a valueless token can't serve any purpose.

[tokeweed]

peter, sorry for wording it out wrong. what i meant with valueless is xrp is not made to be an instrument for speculation and its primary function is not as a store of value. 

also watch the video in this link:  https://ripple.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6304&hilit=body+language&sid=87cd50721d7b3186a0d143d81357076a#p44419

ripple provides elegant, out of the box solutions for the issues and problems facing bitcoin.

[kyma]

ripple = electronic fiat = centralized = rubbish

If you want proof of stake (premined) use NXT

Ripple is like E-gold without gold how useless!!!!!!!!!!

Use XNF (NoFiatCoin) through the ripple network. Its backed by gold. For Real. My investment doubled in weeks

[Peter R]

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

and

"xrp as a valueless token."

is as it should be in my eyes. how can xrp fulfill its function if it is being hoarded?  xrp should be used mostly by market makers to provide liquidity in the network, so that it would be easier for ripple to path find the cheapest rates when converting and sending currencies.

but the reality of it is there will always be speculators.

No it can't be valueless otherwise it can't serve its function as either antispam or as an intermediate currency. There has to be value for trading it or burning it to mean anything. Forgive me if I'm getting the function wrong, but really a valueless token can't serve any purpose.

Correct.  It can't be entirely valueless otherwise it can't facilitate the exchange of IOUs.  Tokeweed misquoted me.  The original quote was "ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name" which I believe is accurate as a ripple is a different animal than a satoshi on bitcoin's unforgeable blockchain and the name confuses people with Ripple IOUs on its hawala network.  A ripple is probably not an ideal store of value.  

[tokeweed]

just found the youtube video about how ripple finds solutions to the issues facing bitcoin:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRgfC61Gc3E

enjoy.

[Peter R]

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

I think probably neither.  How can I evaluate the counter-party risk in either case?  Also, I'm still not convinced that the IOU credit risk is just a function of the gateway's credit worthiness.  Don't gateways swap IOUs?  Isn't that the whole point?  So wouldn't I need to also trust MtGox's or RBS's assessment of their counter-party's credit worthiness?  And what about the counter-parties of the counter-parties, ad infinitum.  This is what I mean when I say "Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk."

It seems to me that this is actually a lot worse than our current highly-leveraged and debt-based fiat system.

With bitcoin it is simple: Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allows users to store, transport and exchange funds with other users across the world, without the assistance of a third party or the permission of an authority.  There is no counter-party risk.

[twiifm]

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

With bitcoin it is simple: Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allows users to store, transport and exchange funds with other users across the world, without the assistance of a third party or the permission of an authority.  There is no counter-party risk.

Its great if both people want to exchange BTC wallet-to-wallet.  But suppose you want to send BTC-->EU?  Don't you think that Ripple meets your need?

[Peter R]

peter,

ripple uses gateway iou's, yes. an iou is only as good as the gateway. so let's say the royal bank of scotland and mt.gox become gateways, which of the two would you rather use?

With bitcoin it is simple: Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer electronic cash system that allows users to store, transport and exchange funds with other users across the world, without the assistance of a third party or the permission of an authority.  There is no counter-party risk.

Its great if both people want to exchange BTC wallet-to-wallet.  But suppose you want to send BTC-->EU?  Don't you think that Ripple meets your need?

Like I said one post above, how can I evaluate the counter-party risk?  Also, I'm still not convinced that the IOU credit risk is just a function of the gateway's credit worthiness.  Don't gateways swap IOUs?  Isn't that the whole point?  So wouldn't I need to also trust MtGox's or RBS's assessment of their counter-party's credit worthiness?  And what about the counter-parties of the counter-parties, ad infinitum.  This is what I mean when I say "Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk."

And from the perspective of a speculator or cryptocurrency investor, why do I care about ripples since "ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name."  They are probably not an ideal store of value.

[Sukrim]

- Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name. 

The first part is slightly wrong (the "obfuscates" part), Ripple even makes it much easier to assess counterparty risk, you have to enter your counterparty that holds your assets for any trade (except for XRP, where the network itself is the counterparty, like BTC on Bitcoin). "Rippling" (the automatic 1:1 trading of 2 currencies in the same denomination e.g. BTC/Bitstamp and BTC/TradeFortress) is disabled by default in the client now for quite some time.

I would have phrased the second part differently because the same "essentially valueless" applies to BTC too, since they are not backed by anything and thus only have utility, not value. "Misleading name" is a bit weird, because I'm not sure where a name should "lead" to instead, I agree though that something like "Droplets" or something else would have made it easier to understand that XRP != Ripple. Other systems like Mastercoin for example though don't even seem to care about clearing this confusion...

It seems to me this Tl;dr is slightly cynical/negative and I would recommend to think about how a similar Tl;dr would apply to Bitcoin... and this is coming from someone who (based on your time of signing up here) very likely holds more BTC than you do.

Like I said one post above, how can I evaluate the counter-party risk?  Also, I'm still not convinced that the IOU credit risk is just a function of the gateway's credit worthiness.  Don't gateways swap IOUs?  Isn't that the whole point?  So wouldn't I need to also trust MtGox's or RBS's assessment of their counter-party's credit worthiness?  And what about the counter-parties of the counter-parties, ad infinitum.  This is what I mean when I say "Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk."

No, gateways do not swap anything. This is the job for market makers (seriously, read the whitepaper that tokeweed linked!) and while gateways can make their own markets, it is by far not a requirement for them to do so and it is also (as anything in Ripple) easy to see they do and to what extent.

[Peter R]

- Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk,
- ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name.  

The first part is slightly wrong (the "obfuscates" part), Ripple even makes it much easier to assess counterparty risk, you have to enter your counterparty that holds your assets for any trade (except for XRP, where the network itself is the counterparty, like BTC on Bitcoin). "Rippling" (the automatic 1:1 trading of 2 currencies in the same denomination e.g. BTC/Bitstamp and BTC/TradeFortress) is disabled by default in the client now for quite some time.

I would have phrased the second part differently because the same "essentially valueless" applies to BTC too, since they are not backed by anything and thus only have utility, not value. "Misleading name" is a bit weird, because I'm not sure where a name should "lead" to instead, I agree though that something like "Droplets" or something else would have made it easier to understand that XRP != Ripple. Other systems like Mastercoin for example though don't even seem to care about clearing this confusion...

It seems to me this Tl;dr is slightly cynical/negative and I would recommend to think about how a similar Tl;dr would apply to Bitcoin... and this is coming from someone who (based on your time of signing up here) very likely holds more BTC than you do.

Like I said one post above, how can I evaluate the counter-party risk?  Also, I'm still not convinced that the IOU credit risk is just a function of the gateway's credit worthiness.  Don't gateways swap IOUs?  Isn't that the whole point?  So wouldn't I need to also trust MtGox's or RBS's assessment of their counter-party's credit worthiness?  And what about the counter-parties of the counter-parties, ad infinitum.  This is what I mean when I say "Ripple is a system for exchanging IOUs that obfuscates counter-party risk."

No, gateways do not swap anything. This is the job for market makers (seriously, read the whitepaper that tokeweed linked!) and while gateways can make their own markets, it is by far not a requirement for them to do so and it is also (as anything in Ripple) easy to see they do and to what extent.

Thanks Sukrim.  You seem to be an honest person.  But quite frankly, people have been talking to me about Ripple since I learned about bitcoin in March 2013; I've read about it, researched it, thought about it, but I guess I still don't understand it.  After tonight I care even less.

It's funny.  There's been a few moments in my life when I've been completely mind-blown by pure brilliance.  The first was when I understood Fourier's theory that any function could be composed of an infinite series of sinusoids.  The second was when I learned how JC Maxwell took the equations for electricity and the equations for magnetism, and showed that they predicted that there should exist electromagnetic waves that propagate at a speed equal to the speed of light measured by Michelson and Morley--he inferred that light was in fact an electromagnetic wave!  

The third was when I read Satoshi's white paper.  

Bitcoin is brilliant because it is simple.  

[tokeweed]

^ amen.

it IS brilliant and no one in the ripple community is taking anything away from bitcoin.  without bitcoin, this whole movement wouldn't have taken place.

as for this:

And from the perspective of a speculator or cryptocurrency investor, why do I care about ripples since "ripples are an essentially valueless token with a misleading name."  They are probably not an ideal store of value.

i personally don't like the idea of hoarding xrp. they should be used rather than being held in order for it to fulfill its role in the network.  but i do encourage people to try ripple out. it is an awesome piece of technology.

It's funny.  There's been a few moments in my life when I've been completely mind-blown by pure brilliance.  The first was when I understood Fourier's theory that any function could be composed of an infinite series of sinusoids.  The second was when I learned how JC Maxwell took the equations for electricity and the equations for magnetism, and showed that they predicted that there should exist electromagnetic waves that propagate at a speed equal to the speed of light measured by Michelson and Morley--he inferred that light was in fact an electromagnetic wave! 

being as smart as you are, i am pretty sure you will figure it all out sooner or later. i've seen people less smart do so.