Topic: Ripple vs Bitcoin - page 6. (Read 13394 times)
How will Ripple Labs comply with government sanctions?
so far, NO ONE can explain even one benefit of Ripple. is this a joke?
I asked you a question so I could address your concerns - the fact that you're ignoring me and just postulating the lack of benefits of Ripple suggests you have an agenda.
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Merchant adoption of ripple is an irrelevant point IMHO. If a merchant were to accept XRP for G&S, MAYBE, it would be relevant. But Ripple does not aim for merchants to accept it, as these merchants are not interested in running a hawala network, Ripple needs to get the banks to do it so they can get rid
of visa and MasterCard. Ripple aims to be paypal, you can't say that paypal competes with dollar vs yuan adoption...
Merchant adoption of ripple is an irrelevant point IMHO. If a merchant were to accept XRP for G&S, MAYBE, it would be relevant. But Ripple does not aim for merchants to accept it, as these merchants are not interested in running a hawala network, Ripple needs to get the banks to do it so they can get rid
of visa and MasterCard. Ripple aims to be paypal, you can't say that paypal competes with dollar vs yuan adoption...
Merchants are interested in
* Making a profit
* Being a respectable member of whatever community they live in, if only for signalling purposes
If Ripple leads either to new customers or existing customers to spend more money, merchants will, sooner or later, figure it out and adapt.
Likewise if it becomes a cultural norm to accept Ripple for its social effects, that might lead to it too (though as someone who's put a lot of work into making Ripple work in my community, it's more likely that the former would apply before the latter)
Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?
Some reasons I can think of (I do not work for or am affiliated with Ripple Labs by the way, so these are just what I think their reasons are):BTC are very slow (orders of magnitude slower) to confirm compared to Ripple's ledgers.
Jed said from the beginning he doesn't like the idea of burning electricity to secure the network.
Ripple validators would need to track the ledger _and_ the Bitcoin block chain.
Bitcoin scales poorly, if transactions on Ripple were done on Bitcoin, transaction volume would go through the roof (reminds me that I have to collect stats about transaction volume), already now Ripple likely has a higher transaction volume than Bitcoin, which is currently hard capped at less than 10 TX/s (imagine being able to only do 10 trades globally per second!)
Bitcoin transactions are crazy expensive (https://gist.github.com/gavinandresen/5044482 estimates one typical transaction to cost about 0.8 mBTC).
Marketing reasons probably too, also even though it is improving, BTC don't have the best rep out there. It would be kinda hard to get banks to buy BTC first to transact something on Ripple, a fact that Mastercoin, Counterparty et.al. are going to find out soon enough.
Of course also the possibility to make/earn money from the system while being able to go fully open source with it asap (they do not earn money by providing the infrastructure or software, they earn money by people using their product and they hope for the network effect to kick in so there is no fork emerging that is more popular than their network)
They messed up a few things too by the way, calling XRP "ripples" is what bugs me most. Instead of calling the smallest unit (1 µXRP) "drop", they should have jsut called the whole currency "droplets", "waves" or something else. Especially their first target market (this forum) did simply treat it as another altcoin and by having the same name, it messed up a lot imho. (It's like a large bitcoin exchange calling itself "Bitcoin" - just see the confusion with The Block Chain and blockchain.info already)
...A financially strong person don't need to borrow money, nor lending money, so the concept of IOU only attract those financially weak person...
That is way too simplified of an account of human behaviour and nature. "Financially strong" people are part of communities, have families and friends, invest in long term projects, engage in international and soon interstellar trade involving risky ventures. "Financially weak" people get stuck in unemployment, dead end jobs, and so on. Each individual has a different risk tolerance, different incentives affecting them, and often enough different terminal goals. Sure you can use ripple to allocate IOUs, but it can also be used to deal with tips, investment projects, insurance, and a bunch of other stuff we don't really have terms for. With the possible exception of some extremely paranoid libertarian millionaires, no man is an island and no one doesn't rely on their community or state for something or other. "Financial weakness" framed so is pretty much universal -- and so the point is to be stronger by working together on a higher order level.
Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?
1) They can make Millions/Billions of $$$ by creating XRP
2) Some XRP gets destroyed with every transaction.
Why did Ripple Labs choose to create XRP rather than use Bitcoin to secure their transactions?
You can download the client repository and execute it locally, another option might be to have a signed browser extension, similar to the blockchain.info wallet. Node-webkit seems reasonable actually, in case you want a more static/local experience without a browser.
I don't really see the benefit of having a strictly local client though, there is nearly no computation done besides signing of transactions locally and browsers are easily fast enough to handle that.
It gives better security, because you know you aren't running hijacked Javascript. Assuming you didn't download hijacked Javascript to begin with...
You can use any browser that can run Javascript and run the client there.
Rippled is not necessary to use Ripple, you can operate even a full gateway just fine without it (I'd still recommend setting one up in-house so you are safe from people DOSing RippleLabs' servers). Most "clients" with installers or at least native code that I've seen were trading bots or other specialized stuff, not general wallet applications.
Maybe a package that can be installed but just contains a browser engine and the JavaScript client might be nice to have(?) for people who "need" to install something locally? I don't really see the benefit of having a strictly local client though, there is nearly no computation done besides signing of transactions locally and browsers are easily fast enough to handle that.
Edit: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit looks promising if you want to "install" Ripple-Client locally.
Rippled is not necessary to use Ripple, you can operate even a full gateway just fine without it (I'd still recommend setting one up in-house so you are safe from people DOSing RippleLabs' servers). Most "clients" with installers or at least native code that I've seen were trading bots or other specialized stuff, not general wallet applications.
Maybe a package that can be installed but just contains a browser engine and the JavaScript client might be nice to have(?) for people who "need" to install something locally? I don't really see the benefit of having a strictly local client though, there is nearly no computation done besides signing of transactions locally and browsers are easily fast enough to handle that.
Edit: https://github.com/rogerwang/node-webkit looks promising if you want to "install" Ripple-Client locally.
The program is already installed on your computer.
It's called a browser. Really, the ripple client is just a javascript program runnable in javascript enabled browsers.
The grunt work is performed by rippled nodes, of course. This is very similar to thin bitcoin clients which don't actually maintain the blockchain but only show balances and let you create and sign transactions. That's exactly what the ripple client does.
Taking part in the ripple network as a full node is a bit harder than being a bitcoin node, right. But many people don't do that with bitcoin, either.
Onkel Paul
It's called a browser. Really, the ripple client is just a javascript program runnable in javascript enabled browsers.
The grunt work is performed by rippled nodes, of course. This is very similar to thin bitcoin clients which don't actually maintain the blockchain but only show balances and let you create and sign transactions. That's exactly what the ripple client does.
Taking part in the ripple network as a full node is a bit harder than being a bitcoin node, right. But many people don't do that with bitcoin, either.
Onkel Paul
With Bitcoin Core installed I can send BTC to anyone with Bitcoin Core installed. Is there a similar client I could install on my computer that would allow me to send XRP to someone with similar client software installed? I'd prefer a simple installer program instead of compiling code and setting up my own server.
Right now as a system, bitcoin is better because it is accepted by more merchants and has been around longer and despite its flaws is trusted better.
Right now Ripple and Bitcoin are complementary and synergistic. Ripple could gain users by offering a distributed Bitcoin exchange, and this in turn would help Bitcoin adoption. In the longer term, XRP could become a rival to BTC, but at the same time greater adoption could help the Bitcoin ecosystem finance rival Bitcoin-based distributed exchanges.
Right now as a system, bitcoin is better because it is accepted by more merchants and has been around longer and despite its flaws is trusted better.
Ripple has been designed with a lot more reflection on what bitcoin could have been. It is not perfect and right now isn't all that userful, but it is a far more robust and clean platform. Ripple is trying to get big business and major banks behind it. If it does this, it will very quickly over take bitcoin because at that point it will do everything bitcoin does and more and will people will be able to use bitcoin within the Ripple system. This is all IF IF IF Ripple can get its support of major institutions and banks. It seems to me that they have something to gain, once many other banks are on board, but nobody wants to be first to something like this. It is only valuable with many players. It is a good ole catch 22. It will only work if it has people and then it will be valuable, but nobody wants to be apart of it if it has no value and no outside support.
There will be other competitors too, as others have mentioned NXT or Etherium, both of which have their pluses and minuses. Maybe Bitshares or CounterParty. One thing is clear to me, in the coming years Bitcoin will be a gold standard for the 2.0s platforms. Sooner or later a 2.0 will be way more powerful though. Too many things to know for sure. A major mover with the right backing can still win this.
Ripple has been designed with a lot more reflection on what bitcoin could have been. It is not perfect and right now isn't all that userful, but it is a far more robust and clean platform. Ripple is trying to get big business and major banks behind it. If it does this, it will very quickly over take bitcoin because at that point it will do everything bitcoin does and more and will people will be able to use bitcoin within the Ripple system. This is all IF IF IF Ripple can get its support of major institutions and banks. It seems to me that they have something to gain, once many other banks are on board, but nobody wants to be first to something like this. It is only valuable with many players. It is a good ole catch 22. It will only work if it has people and then it will be valuable, but nobody wants to be apart of it if it has no value and no outside support.
There will be other competitors too, as others have mentioned NXT or Etherium, both of which have their pluses and minuses. Maybe Bitshares or CounterParty. One thing is clear to me, in the coming years Bitcoin will be a gold standard for the 2.0s platforms. Sooner or later a 2.0 will be way more powerful though. Too many things to know for sure. A major mover with the right backing can still win this.
Yes, this has been addressed, new trust lines are created with the "No Rippling" flag enabled by default in the official client
Speaking of which, do you know why the meaning of the no rippling flag was changed? Previously it meant "don't ripple out through this line", but now it means "don't ripple out through this line from another line with the flag set or vice versa".
Maybe ask this at the Ripple forums, I guess there might have been some way to loophole the system in some edge cases otherwise. I didn't really think or research a lot about this functionality though, sorry.
Yes, this has been addressed, new trust lines are created with the "No Rippling" flag enabled by default in the official client
Speaking of which, do you know why the meaning of the no rippling flag was changed? Previously it meant "don't ripple out through this line", but now it means "don't ripple out through this line from another line with the flag set or vice versa".
Call it "escrowed funds" then?
"Bank note" or "balance" might also be correct terms, in the end it is not strictly defined by the network though what your RippleState entries (the internal name for trust lines) reflect - they can be debt, money, time, goods...
All Bitcoin exchanges (even localbitcoins with their escrow system) use strictly IOUs, not "real" Bitcoins by the way.
"Bank note" or "balance" might also be correct terms, in the end it is not strictly defined by the network though what your RippleState entries (the internal name for trust lines) reflect - they can be debt, money, time, goods...
All Bitcoin exchanges (even localbitcoins with their escrow system) use strictly IOUs, not "real" Bitcoins by the way.
It's been a long time since I've even looked at Ripple so forgive me if things have changed but one of the big issues to me is that all of the IOUs are treated similarly. TradeFortress proved this a while back, has this been addressed? Essentially people lost their Bitstamp IOUs for the bogus TF IOUs. So long as you trust both parties, the IOUs are interchangeable. It just seems like another way for people to get scammed.
If a completely anonymous stranger wanted to borrow 1 BTC from you, would you trust him?
Nope. But if a completely anonymous stranger wanted to give me 1 BTC, I'd gladly let him. That's the problem to me, TF was giving away IOUs, which shouldn't be able to come back and hurt the holder of said IOU. But they were hurt due to the interchangeability between IOUs.
If someone gives you an IOU and fails to pay, that's the counterparty risk. But to intermingle IOUs between multiple issuers makes everything opaque and near impossible to assess risk.
So if someone came up to you and said "Yeah yo man, I'm scam tagged TradeFortrizzle. I just need yo to trust me for 1 BTC and I will give you 1 BTC for FREE dawggg. Yes FREE, don't miss this opportunity. Call 123I'MGOINGTOSCAMYOU for your FREE (no strings attached) BTC. Because I have loads of free BTC from inputs.io dawgg".
Would you not be suspicious?
Or do you not get Chinese gangsters who live in Sydney Australia offering to grow your penis by 14" with a new secret Chinese herb? Or the free $1,000,000 because you were the 10,000th visitor to a website?
Moral of the story
Welcome to the internet.
I see Ripple also tried their own quasi-mining attempt with the Computing for Good project. But like everything else they do, it fails before it even gets off the ground.
What are you talking about? It has been off the ground for months, it only got temporarily halted because a) the distribution was not fair b) IBM revamped the website which messed with RippleLab's code
We've got ourselves another Bitcoin retard!
Call it "escrowed funds" then?
"Bank note" or "balance" might also be correct terms, in the end it is not strictly defined by the network though what your RippleState entries (the internal name for trust lines) reflect - they can be debt, money, time, goods...
All Bitcoin exchanges (even localbitcoins with their escrow system) use strictly IOUs, not "real" Bitcoins by the way.
"Bank note" or "balance" might also be correct terms, in the end it is not strictly defined by the network though what your RippleState entries (the internal name for trust lines) reflect - they can be debt, money, time, goods...
All Bitcoin exchanges (even localbitcoins with their escrow system) use strictly IOUs, not "real" Bitcoins by the way.
It's been a long time since I've even looked at Ripple so forgive me if things have changed but one of the big issues to me is that all of the IOUs are treated similarly. TradeFortress proved this a while back, has this been addressed? Essentially people lost their Bitstamp IOUs for the bogus TF IOUs. So long as you trust both parties, the IOUs are interchangeable. It just seems like another way for people to get scammed.
If a completely anonymous stranger wanted to borrow 1 BTC from you, would you trust him?
With enough collateral, yes.
ps. Do you think your comment answered his point?
However, in this context we are not talking about collateral, therefore your comment is void. I am merely stating that you would only extend trust on Ripple to someone you would trust in real life (bank, family, friends etc).
You do realize that you are merely trading IOU's on centralized bitcoin exchanges right? Right!?
Call it "escrowed funds" then?
"Bank note" or "balance" might also be correct terms, in the end it is not strictly defined by the network though what your RippleState entries (the internal name for trust lines) reflect - they can be debt, money, time, goods...
All Bitcoin exchanges (even localbitcoins with their escrow system) use strictly IOUs, not "real" Bitcoins by the way.
"Bank note" or "balance" might also be correct terms, in the end it is not strictly defined by the network though what your RippleState entries (the internal name for trust lines) reflect - they can be debt, money, time, goods...
All Bitcoin exchanges (even localbitcoins with their escrow system) use strictly IOUs, not "real" Bitcoins by the way.
It's been a long time since I've even looked at Ripple so forgive me if things have changed but one of the big issues to me is that all of the IOUs are treated similarly. TradeFortress proved this a while back, has this been addressed? Essentially people lost their Bitstamp IOUs for the bogus TF IOUs. So long as you trust both parties, the IOUs are interchangeable. It just seems like another way for people to get scammed.
Yes, this has been addressed, new trust lines are created with the "No Rippling" flag enabled by default in the official client (the general default when using the API still is "rippling enabled", though it can be argued that someone who writes their own client might also be able to set flags as she pleases). It also is an option exposed in the UI, so it is easy to set/unset this flag on existing trust lines too.
The basic problem (trusting someone who is not trustworthy) though is something that can not be resolved in any system like Ripple or otherwise, see MtGox or inputs.io or pirateat40 or mybitcoins or ... - you will always have to trust someone holding your funds in escrow at least to a certain point and it is up to you to ask for things that would make it easier for you to trust someone (e.g. audits, open book accounting...).
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