Topic: Why Ripple is Superior to Bitcoin... - page 7. (Read 5733 times)

Replace Ripple with USD and Opencoin with FED.

For me Ripple is a step back to Bankocraty, we'll see the progress ONLY when the sources become public. That's what my 1st reply was about.

Interesting and an insightful post, thank you.

Convenient payment systems already exist. There is no need for one more. Ripple has neither ideological purity nor practical innovation. It is doomed to failure. From the perspective of the average user, it is not much different than Dwolla. From the perspective of the cryptocurrency purist, it is a centralized scam. Ripple sucks.

I thought OP raised some good points.  In addition, as a non-mined system, OpenCoin costs much less to run.  Bitcoin costs $150,000 in electricity per day just to keep it secure.  Less cost for OpenCoin means more profits.

Also, I read that Satoshi could profit enormously from Bitcoin as well.  His share of Bitcoins has been estimated at 1 million coins.  That's not chicken feed.

Finally, by putting a business-like appearance and accountability on their currency, OpenCoin can easily score a better reputation than Bitcoin with the general public, which is not interested in experimental currencies or in buying drugs on Silk Road etc.

You didn't insult me.  You just demonstrated that you either can't read or that even after you do read, you can't understand what I wrote.

Open-source, closed-source.  Who cares?  If someone makes a duplicate of Ripple that starts as open-source, it will still be the fact that it's a PAYMENT SYSTEM FIRST that makes it successful.  That's the point of my post and that's what makes Ripple superior.  But hey, keep knee-jerking with your answers, that always works when some disruptive tech is about to disrupt the thing you're married to.

Sorry if I insulted u. Sometimes it's not very pleasant to face the truth.

Another "brilliant" reply that doesn't address anything I've written about in my original post.  Good job genius.

I bet you put a lot of thought into that reply.  

How much owners will make is irrelevant to the reality of the situation.   In order for Bitcoin to move into the mainstream it would have to replace current money somehow.  I don't see any foreseeable way for that to happen.  If you do, why don't you let us all in on it?

On the other hand, Ripple has a very smooth way to transition people from their current currencies into using xrp.  

That's a fact, irrelevant of your opinion on whether it's OK if the owner's of Opencoin make tons of money or not.

Bitcoiners are so stuck in the "mining" solution put forth by Satoshi that they can't wrap their head around any other possibility.  Why is that?

Opencoin says Ripple is open-source, but there are no sources in public. They should replace all "open" with "close", until that Ripple is scam.

Most of the transactions we currently do in the financial realm of our lives rely on trust based systems.

Bitcoin, brilliant in design, sidesteps the need for most of this trust.

Bitcoin is a sort of digital gold with a built in transaction system.  Awesome and very useful.

Bitcoin's base value comes from fanboys, folks willing to take a stand for their monetary ideology, but most importantly its usefulness in transactions that can't be done online for legal reasons or when a person would prefer not to reveal their identity.  Due to this base value, it has attracted speculators who have driven up its price way beyond its value based on its base uses.

That said, in every day transactions, is it useful or practical for people to exchange their dollars (or other currency), pay 4% to move it to Bitinstant so they can get it into MTGOX, so that they can buy some Bitcoin (another 1/2 % fee), so that they can buy a pizza at their corner store?    I'm going to go out on a limb and say "no."

This is the MAIN problem with Bitcoin.  It is not useful as a transaction system to purchase every day items and does not fit well into the current system.   Would you exchange your dollars for euros to buy a pizza in the USA?   Then why would you do that with Bitcoin?  You wouldn't unless you already had a bunch of Bitcoin or you were living your ideology.

Ripple on the other hand, is first and foremost a PAYMENT AND TRANSACTION SYSTEM.   It can handle trust based transactions that people currently use and will therefore be readily accepted into everyday use (unlike Bitcoin).

So where does XRP and ripples (the currency in Ripple) fit in this equation?

I'm guessing but...

Opencoin, Inc., is smart in that they have printed up the currency in their instance of the pre-open source server almost like a stock issue. They have a certain number of shares that they are banking will increase in value, since xrp is the Bitcoin/gold in the Ripple system. They can hand out these "shares" like an IPO without the usual regulatory rigmorole and without having banks in between each transaction. Ingenious in my opinion. However, as mainly a transaction system, the value of the xrp will only increase and be worth something if Opencoin Inc. gains an early mover advantage in the market with their version of Ripple.

Anyone can make a Facebook clone even though Facebook isn't open source. The software isn't what makes Facebook worth something. It's the network of people and the infrastructure possible because of it. I think Opencoin is attempting to reach the critical mass needed to make sure that their instance of the server is looked at more favorably because of the network adoption vs. a clone.

If they succeed then their xrp will be worth quite a bit, in my opinion. If they don't they can still make money consulting with people running or implementing the software. The former would be preferable I would think.

So Ripple is taking the exact opposite approach of Bitcoin to gain adoption of xrp.   Bitcoin people have to convince others to use Bitcoin in situations where they would normally use their regular currency.   Ripple will merely need to get people to use their payment network for currencies they are already used to (by partnering with banks and other financial services) and xrp will become valuable as a result of that (it being the only trust-free currency in Ripple).