Topic: Ripple questions (Read 993 times)

Interledger sounds similar to jl777's SuperNET which aims to do the same thing for crypto currencies

Whitepaper:
https://interledger.org/interledger.pdf

Discussion:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/interledger-a-w3c-payment-protocol-proposal-1202163

Basically the idea is to make payment networks interoperable. If it gets adopted it would considerably flatten the world of payments. Think of VISA's slogan "Everywhere you want to be". Their whole sales pitch (or rather the reason you're stuck with them) is that they have the biggest reach. By connecting networks together we even the playing field. It wouldn't matter if you're using PayPal, Bitcoin or FedoraCoin - they are all accepted everywhere.

If that all sounds too good to be true, consider that I'm writing this on my Webpass connection - an internet provider that I absolutely love. Yet Bitcointalk is hosted with a totally different Internet provider. Why doesn't it work like that for payments?

Was there no alternative? Did the Ripple network have to use a cryptocurrency of its own? Why not simply use Bitcoin for paying of fees? Integrating Bitcoin into Ripple, eh? Paying fees with Bitcoin, that is.

Also couldn't a Ripple System be made that doesn't use a blockchain?

Can somebody who knows Ripple explain how this actually works?  Links to thread discussions and whitepaper would be nice too.

Ripple Releases Interledger to Connect Banks and Blockchains

Ripple Labs shortened its name to Ripple this week, a move which according to company officials, signals its products are now "out of the lab" and ready for use.

Long one of the more well-funded startups in industry, Ripple was arguably the first to focus on use cases for distributed ledgers, introducing an alternative ledger that deviated from bitcoin's method for consensus and featured its own unique digital currency, XRP, as early as 2012.

Since then, Ripple has increasingly put forth in its public messaging that it is seeking to realize an "Internet of Value", a term that denotes a time when money could move as quickly as information does today. As a building block for this future, Ripple has introduced the Interledger protocol (ILP), which intends to act as an arbiter for all types of ledgers, both those that are distributed and traditional centralized alternatives.

Ripple CTO Stefan Thomas explained that ILP itself is not a ledger, as it does not seek consensus toward any state. Rather it provides a top-layer cryptographic escrow system that allows funds to move between ledgers with the help of intermediaries it calls "connectors".
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Further, ILP has no native token, so individual ledgers operating its protocol will still hold balances in their native units of account. Thomas contends such interoperability solves the issue of one specific payment network – be it Ripple or Visa – needing to reach global ubiquitousness.