How could this complement bitcoin? Well, bitcoin could be used in the exchange as well as USD, Yen, or whatever currency. You could use bitcoin to buy ripplecoins or vice versa. Or you could use USD to buy bitcoins.
If someone here could explain how Ripple intends to have minerless instant confirmations it would be great. Maybe Bitcoin can use this concept in the future.
From Ryan Fugger, the founder of Ripple:
Quote
I'm happy to announce that there is finally a team seriously building
a distributed Ripple network at Ripple.com. The team is led by
founder Jed McCaleb, who also founded the MtGox Bitcoin exchange and
created eDonkey2000, and CEO Chris Larsen, founder of Prosper.com.
I've been talking to Jed, Chris and other members of their team over
the past few months, and while their plan is very ambitious, I believe
if anyone can develop the Ripple concept on a global scale, they can.
Their system is based on a Bitcoin-style blockchain, much as we have
discussed here over the last few years as an interesting possibility,
but with a novel miner-less consensus mechanism that allows
transactions to be confirmed nearly instantaneously.
After discussions with Jed's team, and some long-standing members of
the Ripple community, I've agreed that Jed's project should use the
name Ripple and be considered our primary implementation. It was hard
for me to let others step in to this role, but from the beginning I
always intended for someone else to implement the concept, and I'm
lucky to have finally found a group that is more than worthy of taking
the project to the next level.
Please check out http://ripple.com, sign up for the beta if you're
interested, and watch for the launch coming soon...
Ryan
a distributed Ripple network at Ripple.com. The team is led by
founder Jed McCaleb, who also founded the MtGox Bitcoin exchange and
created eDonkey2000, and CEO Chris Larsen, founder of Prosper.com.
I've been talking to Jed, Chris and other members of their team over
the past few months, and while their plan is very ambitious, I believe
if anyone can develop the Ripple concept on a global scale, they can.
Their system is based on a Bitcoin-style blockchain, much as we have
discussed here over the last few years as an interesting possibility,
but with a novel miner-less consensus mechanism that allows
transactions to be confirmed nearly instantaneously.
After discussions with Jed's team, and some long-standing members of
the Ripple community, I've agreed that Jed's project should use the
name Ripple and be considered our primary implementation. It was hard
for me to let others step in to this role, but from the beginning I
always intended for someone else to implement the concept, and I'm
lucky to have finally found a group that is more than worthy of taking
the project to the next level.
Please check out http://ripple.com, sign up for the beta if you're
interested, and watch for the launch coming soon...
Ryan