Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[cypherdoc]

Let's make it even simpler.   How many of you have ever felt betrayed by a brother,  sister,  or even parent?

Ripple doesn't make anyone more or less trustworthy. One of its primary functions is to level the playing field currently dominated by banks.

What Ripple does in terms of evaluating trust is offer a transparent record that  is resistant to manipulation. It creates an environment where there is a strong incentive to be responsible.

Avoid knee-jerk reactions that attack, ask questions to learn

Well, just one simple question, how do I figure out my level of trust of Carol if, let's say, my level of trust of Bob is 50, and Bob's level of trust of Carol is 50, yet I don't know anything about Carol at all? If I can only issue and receive IOUs from people I personally know, then perhaps I don't need Ripple IOUs at all, as we can already do things with pen and paper, and they are actually more versatile in this aspect.

Bob can exhange the Carol IOUs to Bob IOUs (Ripple should do this automagically). That's how carol can give you money without you needing to trust her directly. The resulting effect will be that Bob owns some Carol IOUs and you own some Bob IOUs. Noone trust constraint were violated and all is fine.

Above is how it could work in a "personal banking" environment. Currently ripple devs seem keen to point out that it would make more sense if everyone just trusted bitstamp and/or weexchange.

What do you mean by "automagically"? In what way is it automatic/automagic? Do I need to get Bob's explicit, informed approval when I lend money to Carol?  And what would happen if Carol defaults? Thanks.

By "automagically" I mean that ripple searches for "trust paths" to make Carols payment happen. In this case the path involves Bob.

I'm no expert on ripple, but the way I understand it explicit approval from Bob is not needed. He implicitly agrees to this by trusting Carol. In case of a Carol default, you still own Bobs IOUs, he has to deal with the Carol default, because he owns her debt.

Can you get more than one intermediary in the path? And can you not later invalidate a payment which you implicitly approved? If that's the case I strongly suspect the robustness of such a system, e.g., if someone happens to be the junction point of a lot of trust paths, and suddenly accumulating a large amount of IOUs without his knowledge(it could happen if the nodes next to you happen to be a little bit better connected than average, and so are their extended ones, and so forth), his default could cause huge problems. Of course allow the setting of a threshold debt value could be very helpful, but a robust network should in the first place be designed to avoid single points of failure/negligence.

Besides, I don't think such IOUs are as versatile as their real world counterpart, with which you can specify under what conditions/when the debt is to be repaid, and under what conditions the repayment could be delayed, which are all legally enforceable.

this is exactly why i see Ripple as a derivatives market analog.

[cypherdoc]

"Trust" will only work until it doesn't for Ripple.  The counterparty risk will be extraordinary.  Look at MyBitcoin and Bitcoinica as examples.

[cypherdoc]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +484%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +490% advantage Bitcoin and growing

[mccorvic]

"Trust" will only work until it doesn't for Ripple.  The counterparty risk will be extraordinary.  Look at MyBitcoin and Bitcoinica as examples.

I'm with you here Cypherdoc.  I really can't figure out why anyone with any experience with bitcoins thinks that "trust" is worth anything

Also, I love this thread.

[cypherdoc]

"Trust" will only work until it doesn't for Ripple.  The counterparty risk will be extraordinary.  Look at MyBitcoin and Bitcoinica as examples.

I'm with you here Cypherdoc.  I really can't figure out why anyone with any experience with bitcoins thinks that "trust" is worth anything

Also, I love this thread.

as i mentioned earlier, i don't think Jed believes in Bitcoin otherwise why would he have sold mtgox.  this whole "trust" issue way of doing things has been pushed ever since day 1 of Bitcoin's history primarily on the IRC channels as ppl trade Bitcoin there all day long and have built up a reputation system.  i guess it must work reasonably well but there have also been alot of scams. 

its the 180 opposite concept to Bitcoin.  but look how well Bitcoin is doing.  i don't think ppl "want" to depend on a system of trust.

[Melbustus]

"Trust" will only work until it doesn't for Ripple.  The counterparty risk will be extraordinary.  Look at MyBitcoin and Bitcoinica as examples.

I'm with you here Cypherdoc.  I really can't figure out why anyone with any experience with bitcoins thinks that "trust" is worth anything

Also, I love this thread.

as i mentioned earlier, i don't think Jed believes in Bitcoin otherwise why would he have sold mtgox.  this whole "trust" issue way of doing things has been pushed ever since day 1 of Bitcoin's history primarily on the IRC channels as ppl trade Bitcoin there all day long and have built up a reputation system.  i guess it must work reasonably well but there have also been alot of scams. 

its the 180 opposite concept to Bitcoin.  but look how well Bitcoin is doing.  i don't think ppl "want" to depend on a system of trust.

I actually think there's room for both, for different purposes, but to your point about trust/reputation, I just had lunch with a few guys today who were talking about the scams on IRC... Gotta be careful!

[cypherdoc]

The Daaash for Digital Caaash!!!

[cypherdoc]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +509%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +515% advantage Bitcoin and growing

[cypherdoc]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +515%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +521% advantage Bitcoin and growing

[paraipan]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +515%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +521% advantage Bitcoin and growing

Where the heck is silverbox when you need him?

[cypherdoc]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +515%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +521% advantage Bitcoin and growing

Where the heck is silverbox when you need him?

him and all his gold/silver bug supporters who've been trolling me since the first Gold Thread from Aug 2011.

[smoothie]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +515%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +521% advantage Bitcoin and growing

Where the heck is silverbox when you need him?

him and all his gold/silver bug supporters who've been trolling me since the first Gold Thread from Aug 2011.

I couldn't make out the context of your sentence. Perhaps rephrasing? I certainly couldn't understand it really. I guess in the context of answering the question in RED.

[tvbcof]

him and all his gold/silver bug supporters who've been trolling me since the first Gold Thread from Aug 2011.

What am I?  Chopped liver? 

Seriously, I am going to get real about converting about $10k of BTC into cash, gold (1oz rounds) , or junk silver if/when we get into the $50-$60 range.  Anyone who thinks they are going to want to put their money where their mouth is is welcome to PM me to start working out the arrangements.  I'm in the Pacific NW and will want to do such a the transaction face-to-face in a secure environment.  Also I'll probably want to work out an 'earnest money' type escrow to cover expenses if there are any that impact me.

If someone is thinking about this and they are pretty clean legally, it probably makes more sense to buy through one of the specialists right now and take the hit on the various fees.  But I'm just planting a bug in the ear at this point and things could more pretty quickly.  We've seen Bitcoin rise and fall by a significant percentage of it's market cap pretty quickly in the past and I expect it will continue into the future.

[cypherdoc]

him and all his gold/silver bug supporters who've been trolling me since the first Gold Thread from Aug 2011.

What am I?  Chopped liver? 

lol!

no, you were one of the "good" trolls. 

[cypherdoc]

Gold down.  Bitcoin Up.

[cypherdoc]

the silverbox update (comparison from the beginning of this thread, March 13th, 2012, gold=1690, Bitcoin=5.4):

Bitcoin:  +525%

Gold:  -6%

silverbox in big trouble.  plumbing new lows

GPL:  -36% silverbox long

Diff:  +531% advantage Bitcoin and growing

[miscreanity]

Fun times! If the paper price in gold is pushed below $1550 on a closing basis, we'll have a separation from physical.

Bitcoin still seems to be acting like the canary. Or maybe more like a peregrine falcon.

[molecular]

Fun times! If the paper price in gold is pushed below $1550 on a closing basis, we'll have a separation from physical.

What are you basing this on? Isn't a separation from physical a continuous thing? Like premiums gradually increasing?

[mccorvic]

Seriously, I am going to get real about converting about $10k of BTC into cash, gold (1oz rounds) , or junk silver if/when we get into the $50-$60 range. 

I too prefer to trade out my assets that are increasing in value and will continue to do so for assets that are rapidly decreasing in value.

Wait, no I don't. That'd be stupid.

[miscreanity]

Fun times! If the paper price in gold is pushed below $1550 on a closing basis, we'll have a separation from physical.

What are you basing this on? Isn't a separation from physical a continuous thing? Like premiums gradually increasing?

The link between paper & physical has been tenuous for a while, but with non-stop demand the connection is only hanging on by a thread. Approach to separation is a gradually increasing process; it's the final, complete dissociation that's abrupt. Think of holding a magnifying glass over a leaf on a sunny day - the leaf slowly heats up until ignition finally occurs.