Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why? People pay tax on every sale in the US, lightning or not.
The nodes violate money transmittal laws
Oh wow, I think you're right.
Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
141–150 of 189 posts
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#142What I've never understood about XRP and Ripple is that originally XRP was meant to only be used for paying for transactions and the ledger was meant to track IOUs between people denominated in some other "real" currency. They had videos floating around explaining the concept. In fact, they were handing out XRP for free to bootstrap the network of users [0] (that post says 1000 XRP, originally it was 30,000 XRP when…
There are all pyramid schemes. All the alt-coins exist only because BTC got too expensive and they wanted in. A lot of people are going to be left holding the bag.
>All the alt-coins exist only because BTC got too expensive and they wanted in
Ethereum was explicitly created because Bitcoin doesn't support decentralized applications or really anything beyond sending tokens between humans. Vitalik tried to work on the Bitcoin codebase but was shunned and was forced to start a new project.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Raiden is doing that for the ethereum network, if you count the fact that each node can be a mediator for multi-hop transfers. https://raiden.network
Raiden has fallen short on delivering a workable system and has had funding issues... most people people in the ethereum space are now banking on rollups filling these use cases (a competing approach for low-cost transactions) Though certainly I'd be pleasantly surprised if Raiden still pulls through on their plans at some point.
Raiden has many issues, but funding is not one of them. Part of the hiring pitch from Brainbot was that the ICO got them funds to finance their operation for a decade at least.
Speaking as someone who worked on Raiden's core team last year and spent a reasonable part of this year working on a project received a grant from the Raiden Trust [0], the last release is workable, but still requires a lot of elbow grease and knowledge of the protocol to get it running. End users will certainly have a better shot when the light client gets parity to the reference implementation and gets a mainnet release.
In any case, I just wanted to point out that Raiden is a project that is related to what OP asked about and that is still alive and kicking.
[0]: https://hub20.io, a self-hosted payment gateway that integrates with Raiden and abstracts all its complexity from the users and node operators to enable fast and near-instant transactions.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#144What are the implications here for the Stellar project and Stellar Lumens? They seem like an awfully similar use case.
I think they are on a better position since they are a non-profit and they don't have token sales afaik. But I can't really tell since I'm not familiar with american laws.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#145What I've never understood about XRP and Ripple is that originally XRP was meant to only be used for paying for transactions and the ledger was meant to track IOUs between people denominated in some other "real" currency. They had videos floating around explaining the concept. In fact, they were handing out XRP for free to bootstrap the network of users [0] (that post says 1000 XRP, originally it was 30,000 XRP when…
Why not use something like Splitwise for tracking IOUs? What use is a blockchain/cryptocurrency for this?
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't want to get into an argument about crypto currencies, but the value proposition of BTC is different. What is not replaceable by a simple DB is it decentralization and resilience to attack, its resistance to seizure and its incorruptibility in terms of maximum supply (the digital gold / store of value narrative).
It's worth highlighting that there are distributed databases that meet all those criteria except "incorruptibility in terms of maximum supply". You're right to point out that there are a few very specific use cases that a distributed blockchain with multiple independently-owned verification nodes will satisfy and other more performant databases will not. Whether that makes them "valuable" like gold is left as an exer…
Distributed is not the same as decentralized.
A decentralized system is a distributed system that still works _when nodes are owned by multiple different (even competing/malicious) parties_.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember their original pitch sounding like it made a lot of sense. Fast, cheap, verifiable trading layer for IOUs that can then be settled externally. A lot like how many stock exchanges work. Ended up selling any XRP I had two years ago when things went nuts. Now it looks like people are re-building that whole concept elsewhere and Ripple is becoming irrelevant.
I could be wrong, but I always understood the primary purpose of XRP as a mechanism to increase liquidity. Since Ripple is all about cross-border payments, you're potentially dealing with hundreds of currencies. So if you were a bank that needed to do global business, you'd be required to hold a subset of each traded currency in nostro/ vostro accounts. XRP was then meant to be the "standardized" currency that member…
I don't see how adding a currency makes this easier. Even if I don't want the currency you have, I want XRP less.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#148Make no mistake. They're going to make an example of Ripple. This is going to be horrible for them and a warning to anyone trying to run a similar Ponzi scheme. You can't centralise, hype and then cash out on vaporware without there being consequences. XRP held zero value at the time the founder cashed out and they've been trying to make their consulting business work ever since. Dare I say XRP goes to zero. Watch th…
Bitcoin core's lightning should be the next on the chopping block of SEC.
The lightning network is a decentralized protocol for transferring BTC, it's not even remotely comparable.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#149There is immense value in disrupting and supplanting the global monetary hegemony. Credit card Payment processing amounts to a 3% tax on a majority of transactions. These companies also are increasingly imposing moral judgements on who should be allowed to transact. With little recourse available to the affected. (The blacklisting of Patreon alternative New project 2, and pornhub) are examples of this. Liberating pay…
> Credit card Payment processing amounts to a 3% tax on a majority of transactions
Only in America. Most other countries have this under control.
> In general, crypto technology is valuable for it's ability to replace capricious monopolies with distributed implementations built on federated protocols run like a constitutional democracy.
No, in general crypto technology is valuable because it can avoid laws created by constitutional democracies. Its a back door for money launderers and illegal payments.
> We can of course expect established monopolies and governments to retaliate in every way possible in an attempt to maintain power.
Exactly we voted for this government to enforce some rules, if cryptos are a way to avoid the rules, it will be made illegal.
Re: Cryptocurrency company Ripple says SEC lawsuit is imminent
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember their original pitch sounding like it made a lot of sense. Fast, cheap, verifiable trading layer for IOUs that can then be settled externally. A lot like how many stock exchanges work. Ended up selling any XRP I had two years ago when things went nuts. Now it looks like people are re-building that whole concept elsewhere and Ripple is becoming irrelevant.
I could be wrong, but I always understood the primary purpose of XRP as a mechanism to increase liquidity. Since Ripple is all about cross-border payments, you're potentially dealing with hundreds of currencies. So if you were a bank that needed to do global business, you'd be required to hold a subset of each traded currency in nostro/ vostro accounts. XRP was then meant to be the "standardized" currency that member…
Currency roughly speaking doesn't move across borders, correspondent banks in each country have a ledger, you send money by decrementing the ledger on the send side and incrementing it on the receiver side. Someone else does the opposite. The exchange rate is set such that the ledger balance tends around 0.
No new currency needed.