I have a sneaking suspicion that this topic will cause some flaming, but I'm just curious what people think. If, and that's a big if, the code is released and 1) it is opensource, and 2) it is truly distributed, then I'm wondering what the potential is here. Probably pretty major.
Although I will say this much - good luck trying to explain the "trust" concepts to the ordinary user. Its difficult enough trying to explain Bitcoin to people.
It does trade exactly like BTC... through the Ripple client.
It's as if the Bitcoin Client had a built-in exchange...
But people were just too lazy to find it.
You go to "Advanced", then "Trade", select "XRP/BTC" or "XRP/USD"...
Then set Bitstamp as issuer (plus you need Bitstamp account and Bitstamp Trust Line)...
And trade away.
But the above is waaaay too complicated for the average Bitcoin Hipster...
And you can forget about Grandma... which is the real market = Western Union.
OpenCoin completely overestimated the intelligence of your average crypto user...
And made Ripple too complicated at the Client level.