Topic: Ripple: A Distributed Exchange for Bitcoin - page 14. (Read 66657 times)

Like I said, fee or no fee the gateway can always change the terms of the settlement agreement (although they might be breaking the law). So preventing the transaction fee from increasing at the protocol level is not particularly constraining.

To be clear, what I'm saying is that even if Ripple prevents transfer fees from rising, you could still get an email from your gateway that says "Our new policy on redemption of IOUs is to pay 95% of the face value of the IOUs." In the worst case scenario (i.e. default) this redemption amount would be 0%. The point is that putting protocol restrictions on transfer fees doesn't completely solve the "problem."

What was the case against not letting them alter it at all once set?  As in, if they want to start issuing new debts with a new fee they can create a new address.  My issue is that the cost of transferring the debt would be a key ingredient in how I value it.  One of the better things I'm seeing in Ripple is that it would give debt issuers less control over the transference of their debt, and less ability to suddenly make arbitrary rules or fees about how that happens.  Fees would be set up front.  They can charge a fee, perhaps they can even decrease it, but I don't see why you would allow them increase it.  Particularly as you (being Ripple) ultimately want people to keep their IOUs in the system rather than cash them out. 

Makes sense. A gateway can always impose a fee at the time of settlement anyway (or just default). This is no different than a gateway raising the transfer fee arbitrarily (or to exhorbitant values).

Yes. But if the price of XRP drops, they'll lose the present value of their holdings. They have the same opportunity everyone else has -- they hold a position today that has some value. They can sell it for its present value, or they can hold it in the hope that its value will increase but at the risk that its value will decrease. Anyone can buy XRP at its present value and have this exact same future opportunity/risk.

We originally had planned a way to lock the transfer fee for a particular amount of time and require you to announce a higher transfer fee in the ledger. The whole scheme got unreasonably complex, and we ditched it. We hope gateways will contractually obligate themselves not to raise the transfer fee without sufficient advanced warning. No transfer fee applies when a balance is returned to its issuers and issuers must accept their own balances at face value. So you can't really raise your own transfer fee as a way to make your debts worthless. (You'll just make them less desirable, likely causing people to stop letting you hold their money.)

JK can chime in if any of this is wrong, but ...

Yes, mostly OpenCoin and its founders.

Yes.

No, only which ripple addresses it's currently held by.  OpenCoin started with 80%, 50% for "giving away", 30% for supporting itself.  The founders held on to 20% personally.   I don't know how much OC has actually gifted as of yet, perhaps JK can tell us. 

Haven't actually studied the proposal but this would almost certainly not be within OpenCoin's power after the network gets fully decentralized. i.e. it would require a code change that supported the new coins being adopted by all the servers, and logically they would refuse to do so.

JK,

Is the Transfer Fee stored in an address's root node alterable or will it be permanent once set?

This is directed to Joel Katz:

Joel, since the majority of XRP has not been distributed, doesn't that mean a very small number of people or entities have most of the XRP? Thus, if a sufficient market demand is generated and XRP reaches USD parity and provided there is sufficient liquidity, doesn't that mean that Open Coin Inc, is "fantabulously" wealthy?  Is there a public list of who owns and how much XRP?

Also, a different question:  How do we know more XRP won't be created--faith?

Here is the "official" decentralized market thread:


https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=172705.0;all

Bitfloor is a such a piece of shit

You'll need bitfloor to support ripple.

But if bitfloor had withdraw codes (dont think they do), a gateway could stand in the middle and issue bitfloor IOUs for codes, and vice versa. These would then be fungible with other exchange IOUs (as long as there was a path).

Is there a way to transfer fiat between exchanges? I have money in bitfloor at the moment which I wish to move to another exchange

Currently, your choice of gateways are WeExchange or Bitstamp. Start out by adding three contacts to your wallet:

1) Bitstamp, rvYAfWj5gh67oV6fW32ZzP3Aw4Eubs59B
2) WeExchange BTC, rpvfJ4mR6QQAeogpXEKnuyGBx8mYCSnYZi

WeExchange uses different issuers for different currencies, Bitstamp uses the same issuer for all currencies. Open an account at either Bitstamp or WeExchange (or both). Log into your Ripple account and under Advanced/Trust, create a pathway to the gateway you've chosen for the currency you've chosen. Set the limit to an amount at least a bit greater than the maximum amount of currency you plan to hold. (Note that if you create pathways to both, you may find that other users transactions push your balance between gateways.)

To get Bitcoins into your Ripple account: Log into your account at the exchange and select Deposit and then Bitcoin. You will get a deposit address. Transfer your Bitcoins to that address. Once those Bitcoins arrive in your gateway account, select Withdraw and then Ripple. Enter your Ripple address and the amount you want to transfer.

To get Bitcoins out of your Ripple account: Log into your account at the exchange and select Withdraw and then Ripple. You will get a ripple account and a destination tag to paste into your client. Use the Ripple client to Send to that address (do not forget the tag). You now have Bitcoins in your gateway account and can send them to a Bitcoin address with the gateway's Withdraw/Bitcoin feature.

We're working to make it more seamless, including inbound and outbound Bitcoin gateways that don't require you to explicitly create an account.

Me too

I am really interested in buying selling bitcoins thru Ripple IF that is practical

Not the only difference. Crucially, it also supports BTC and offers a distributed exchange. This will make it much easier for merchants to support BTC and for consumers to get their hands on BTC. Even in countries where the government makes BTC illegal.

Would you be so kind as to explain these steps in a manner that would be sufficient for someone new to Ripple?

If possible, please post in thread and also PM me so I don't miss this info by accident.

Thanks

SD

MtGox is discussed here too and it's far less open, not claiming to release any source code and far less distributed than Ripple.

I still am unsure how long it would take for an actual trade to take place in Ripple - from what I understand every ~10 seconds there is a new consensus between servers that trust each other. This is great for transfers but still far too slow for exchanges. Also if I have to exchange several IOUs over time to finally pay something (e.g. I pay BTC to MtGox to get Gox-BTC, then I buy something where only Amazon-EUR are accepted: My Gox-BTC are then automatically exchanged into Bitstamp-USD and then to Amazon-EUR --> more than 1 "hop", so I have to wait half a minute or more).

As servers are important for consensus - what are incentives for me to operate my own server, how do I get other servers to trust mine and vice versa and what are approximate requirements (storage, CPU, memory, bandwidth) for servers now and in the future?

Why is Ripple even discussed here? It is not open source and it is not distributed.
The technology may be distributed, but its owned by one company.

Ripple is more like Western Union than Bitcoin - only difference is its cheaper and faster.

The client is written in JavaScript and works on any device with a browser and Internet...

hi

is there any windows client for ripple?

i would like to try

thanks

Are you asking for investment advice? OpenCoin employees will typically not offer speculation or forward looking statements regarding Ripple or it's built-in currency. Fortunately, I don't work for them so here goes!

Is it worthwhile to hold XRP (Ripple's built-in currency)? I think so. But it's a huge gamble. Who knows if someone is going to find a fatal flaw in the system? Bitcoin is much more established. It's had over 4 years of Russian teenagers beating on it trying to break into wallets via the block chain.

You ask about the "flood risk" of XRP, i.e. "so much ripple in the hands of so few." This is a risk, but only a short-term risk. OpenCoin and the founders disgorging themselves of their XRP can only happen once. Besides, it's not in their best interests to do so. There are other more serious risks. Such as, the software not working as advertised. Or the U.S. government seizing the domains of ALL gateways, preventing them from exchanging between IOUs and fiat. What if OpenCoin has to reset the ledger for some reason, before they release the software? That would suck (although rather unlikely).

The largest threat to crypto-currencies today is that the government will make it impossible to redeem your digital currency for electronic fiat. There are a variety of ways this could happen. Should this occur, the markets would become totally disordered. The only thing you could do with your currency at that point is to buy goods and services priced directly in Bitcoin or XRP. For Bitcoin, there is very little. For XRP practically nothing. Significant price depreciation would occur overnight as everyone panics to get rid of their crypto-cash. Presumably, the market response over time would be to offer more and more things priced in cryptocurrencies but that would take time. In the meanwhile, you're stuck.

Should the world forget XRPs as a store of value? I don't think so. Like any other asset, they have their own risk/return profile. A well diversified portfolio should certainly include at least a small amount of XRP. But it's a huge gamble, there's a significant chance of a total loss. People who sold the 40,000 or 50,000 XRP they got from signing up for the Ripple giveaway in this forum are, in my opinion, fools. They had the equivalent of a free lottery ticket and they exchanged it for a handful of dollars worth of Bitcoins. But to each their own, I suppose.

If you want to protect against hyperinflation there are several ways of doing it. The best protection is to employ all of these methods:

1. Create or buy a going concern (i.e. a business). A business which generates revenues is strong protection against the confiscation of wealth through inflation. Even better if the business is one which is necessary for living, like farming.

2. Own physical gold and silver. This hedges against Bitcoin and Ripple's biggest enemy, the electromagnetic pulse from a nuclear explosion which knocks out electricity and the Internet. Or more likely, the power will go out for economic reasons, which will leave you shit out of luck if you want to spend your crypto-currency.

3. Own Bitcoins. Obvious reasons here, but there are risks such as losing your wallet or as we have seen recently, disruption at the exchanges.

4. Own some XRP. Same reasons as Bitcoin. I wouldn't bet the farm though, Ripple isn't even out of beta yet!

Every individual has to decide for themselves how much fiat they want to hold versus how many other assets, and what the percentage of each asset is.

Disclosure: I own a business, precious metals, Bitcoins, and XRPs.