Topic: ripple: let's test it! - page 11. (Read 43853 times)

Bitcoin has proven track record. Does ripple?
Is there whitepaper about mechanisms ripple use?
Is it opensource?
How emission is managed?
How it's protected from double-spends?

Sure, with enough thrust you can make a pig fly. But the end result is almost always a lot better if you start out designing something to fly from the beginning.

Say an exchange has to go through three paths each with two hops. Are you suggesting you can form a transaction and get six nodes to sign it in time for the transaction to still be relevant? Or are you suggesting that we freeze all the exchanges to give you enough time to accumulate the necessary signatures? Or do you implement the transaction in phases so that if a later one fails you wind up with an asset you didn't want and have made a partial payment?

Yes, you can make it work. Can you make it work well? Maybe, but it's a heck of a challenge. Will it ever work as well as something designed to do it from the ground up? Not likely, since you start out with strikes against you.

Distributed exchanges can be built on top of colored coins too.
Gateways take money and issue colored coins denominated in fiat currency. People do trading via atomic coin swapping (maybe with help of specialized matching servers).

Ripple is primarily being promoted as a payment system for fiat currencies. As a payment system to handle fiat currencies, Ripple is superior to colored coins primarily because it can handle cross-currency transactions through distributed exchanges. But really, the systems are so different in terms of what they do and how they do it that I don't think it makes much sense to compare them.

How ripple is better than colored coins?

Paraphrasing an old joke: easy, fast, cheap; pick two.

Bitstamp doesn't support CAD at all and if your goal is to get funds into your Bitstamp account you don't need Ripple to do it (unless you're trying to leverage your Ripple credit lines).

Assuming what you really want is to get CAD into Ripple then as Joel says there are two gateways that support CAD directly. But you may not want/need to do that at all depending on what you want to do.

WeExchange supports CAD and does bank transfers, but you should check out the Ripple Live Graph for the WeExchange CAD first (set the currency to Other then type CAD and explore the reach by clicking the nodes with thin circles around them), only two people hold any at all totalling only ~$170 and only four others trust WeExchange-CAD for anything over 1 CAD (thus the people that you could currently pay with WeExchange CAD is limited) (compare that with the $74816 of Bitstamp-USD that people currently hold in Ripple). There also isn't much/any trading of WeExchange-CAD for other currencies (even on WeEx itself!) so you're kinda stuck with it. This may improve when Ripple gets out of beta.

RippleUnion supports CAD but only (as far as I know, check the website as they keep adding things) supports adding funds to Ripple from the old/classic Ripplepay system. However, RippleUnion has some interesting options for getting money out of Ripple. Also note that (at least for now) RippleUnion charges no transit fess. WeExchange charges 0.5% everytime their funds change hands and Bitstamp charges 0.2% (similar to how the exchanges charge (larger) fees for every trade).

As Joel says Bitstamp doesn't support CAD, but if you can send them USD or bitcoin there is a market within Ripple to exchange that for RippleUnion-CAD. See the Ripple client's order book for CAD/USD (or USD/CAD if you prefer) with the issuers set to RippleUnion-CAD and Bitstamp-USD (click "change issuer" and paste the Ripple addresses or add them to your contact list to use the names).


Do you really need/want to put your CAD bank funds into Ripple at this time? (Bitcoin is different since you can trivially get it in and out of Ripple via both WeEx and Bitstamp). What would you do right now with CAD in Ripple? Since Ripple is only in Beta there are currently no merchants (other than RippleUnion's proxy) that accept Ripple payments. If you want to use it to send funds to friends then you can arrange trust/credit lines between your friends to do so without any bank transfers at all (except possibly to settle debts later if the need arises). If you want to be able send funds to strangers on the internet (e.g. to buy/sell something ala bitcoin-otc) then you may still be able to do so just by getting a trust/credit line to someone that has a credit path to a gateway. If you want to be a merchent and sell things then of course you instead need to look at how the gateways can send you bitcoin or bank funds.

Personally I think the easiest way to get started and get some "value"/funds into Ripple right now is either with bitcoin (by far the easiest at the moment) or to have a friend/aquaintence that has a credit path to the gateway(s) you're interested in extend you credit. If they won't trust you with credit you could always pay them (in person with cash, with Paypal, whatever) and in return they'd send you matching funds in Ripple (just make sure you're aware of what you can and can't do with the resulting IOU; either make sure you get an IOU from a gateway you trust or that you trust the person and they have a path to a gateway you want to use or the people you want to pay). From a quick scan of your forum profile it looks like you're comfortable doing some otc style trades so you could always ask to trade for any of RippleUnion-CAD, Bitstamp-USD, Bitstamp-BTC, or XRP (you'd agree to send them some kind of payment outside of Ripple and they'd send the agreed amount by paying you from within Ripple).

I believe the only ways to get CAD into Ripple currently are through WeExchange or Ripple Union. I'm pretty sure Bitstamp doesn't support CAD to or from Ripple yet either, so even if you had CAD in Ripple, I don't believe you could deposit it into your Bitstamp account.

OK,
so can someone explain to me how I can get CAD funds (from a Canadian bank) into my bitstamp account using ripple? I guess the easiest/fastest/cheapest way? I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole thing. Any help would be great.
thanks

The only currency that has no issuer within Ripple is xrp, that's what you're missing.
When you're on the trade page, you need to select an issuer for each currency. For example bitstamp issues BTC and USD.
You could trade bitstampUSD for bitstampBTC or weexBTC, for example.
Here's a list of gateways:

https://ripple.com/wiki/Gateway_List

These are like "official" issuers, but anyone can issue its own IOUs that are tradeable within the system too.
To hold IOUs from a gateway, you must trust its account first.

I haven't read this whole thread, but I would like to test out Ripple.   I just purchased some ripple so I can get started.  I would like to do a transaction (maybe buy some BTC with USD).  Is that possible?  If so how do I go about it? It doesn't look intuitive or maybe I'm missing something.

My Ripple address: rNU4JR8bF4P3LTNHshD8UV6dkkUcvJqxUr

Couple of newbie questions:

I opened a ripple wallet but everytime I try to open it again receive 'Wallet not found (Username / Password is wrong)' error. If I then go for the use key option it works, with the same username/password that didn't work previously I get in. This happens every time. Am I missing something? (this in firefox)

Will email confirmations for the ripple forum come when new site is launched? Thanks

So if i would offer such service at the moment i would have to advertise it like they need a rippleaccount and one of the exchanges i gave trust to. Ill have to list all these exchanges because i cant trust that they have a friend that have an account there.

Edit: Looks like i misread the paypal involvement of bitpay. Then ripple probably wont be of much use to me. I guess very few of my customers could use it.

In principle, they can have any redemption agreements with their customers that they want. But if they insist on terms like "we can refuse to redeem anytime we want for any reason" (and they actually start exercising that right capriciously) they'll start to reduce their own value drastically. Nobody's going to want to deposit $100 and get a balance that's worth significantly less than that. Nobody's going to want to accept a balance at a gateway in good faith reliance on their redemption agreement and have to worry about the gateway refusing to redeem that balance. Gateways will have to work out their policies and we hope competition and ingenuity will produce a wonderful result.

They would need an account on an exhcange, or have enough credit with a friend or friend-of-a-friend who has an account on the exchange.

Ripple does provide a bitcoin-like way to transfer USD, EUR and other currencies, but at the moment they would need both a Ripple account and an exchange account to get started with paying, so it doesn't really make things simpler for them, or you.

As more gateways and web stores using Ripple come into being, this should become easier for both end users and merchants, since integrated solutions would be offered, like web stores that both sell products, sell IOUs, offer a Ripple client, and takes care of transaction costs behind the scenes by quoting them in USD or including them in the shipping and handling fee, and automatically aquiring the needed XRPs on the user's behalf.

No, they wouldn't need to use btc. For Weexchange, they could use AUD or USD, for Bitstamp I think they could use USD or EUR.

That means they have to create accounts with bitfountain or weexchange. I doubt they will be happy doing this because it would be the same like creating an account for liberty reserve. They would have to load up money to the site after registering too. So i dont see much advantage. I believe very few people will have an account there anyway. And when they have they would be able to pay with bitcoins too.
So paypal, alertpay or moneybookers dont have a ripple account right?

Thanks for the link. The tl;dr is that they can't easily do what I asked about - they could limit who holds their IOUs, but it seems the only way to prevent people from rippling their IOUs for ToS-breaking transactions is to watch how their IOUs move through the network and ban any users who facilitate those transactions after the fact. (A bit like how Dwolla is closing down accounts which are used for BTC transactions.)

See: https://ripple.com/wiki/Authorized_accounts

If I understand correctly, each gateway would be free to set terms of service, just like PayPal sets terms of service, limiting who they'd do business with. But thanks to people who transfer IOUs from one service to another, a customer who only has a trust relationship to "PayCheck IOUs" could pay a business who only trusts "CheckPal IOUs" either by a settlement agreement between PaYCheck and CheckPal, or by third company or individual offering a sort of exchange/arbitrage between them (rippling through).

This makes it a pretty powerful idea, but it might raise some challenges in addition to the problem of rippling defaults, namely to do with regulatory compliance. Let's say CheckPal has a stricter ToS than PayCheck but CheckPay has more businesses using them - how would CheckPay stop their IOUs from being part of transactions that are illegal or decided to be against he ethics of its owners?

If you only trust the gateways (currently Bitstamp or weexchange) then there should be no way for them to scam you. To get money into the ripple system they would open an account at either of those two gateways, deposit the money, then send it to you in Ripple. You could then withdraw the money through the gateway and send it wherever you want.

The power of Ripple comes in if they have already set up a trust network. Then if anybody who trusts them holds GatewayIOUs then they can send the money to you without having to deal with the gateway directly: the Buyer initiates the transaction, their truster gets BuyerIOUs and you end up with GatewayIOUs. Then you can, as above, withdraw the money using the Gateway.