Re: [Ledger] Bootstrapping Interledger

This is great and I'm excited to see Interledger get off the ground.
Congrats to Adrian and all of the ILP developers involved!

Perhaps this is better as a separate thread, but what sort of regulations
should those who run virtual ledgers be thinking about? At the moment,
we're talking about small p2p networks. But if I want to run a Bitcoin
exchange or Ripple gateway in the United States, there are a number of
KYC/AML regulations, possibly bitlicenses, and other things I have to worry
about (including banking, which is not trivial for those doing business in
the cryptocurrency ecosystem). What of this applies to running a virtual
ledger in a p2p network?

As an individual without many resources, how do I deal with the potential
legal and financial pitfalls of running a virtual ledger? Just want to get
the conversation started.

Best,

Tom



On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 10:47 AM, Daniel Bateman <7daniel77@gmail.com> wrote:

> Excellent, thank you Adrian.
>
> And thank you Ryan for your original vision for Ripple.
>
> Perhaps what is needed now is a step-by-step guide? "How to run an
> Interledger connector"
>
> Daniel
> On Nov 8, 2016 11:32 AM, "Ryan Fugger" <arv@ryanfugger.com> wrote:
>
>> This is great Adrian.  My plan was always to evolve Ripplepay.com into a
>> decentralized system like this.  If you or anyone is interested in
>> upgrading or otherwise using that creeky old system to help support
>> bootstrapping Interledger, I'd be happy to help out however I can.
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 8, 2016 at 12:56 AM, Adrian Hope-Bailie <
>> adrian@hopebailie.com> wrote:
>>
>>> When the Internet was first emerging and large university and research
>>> networks were coming together on the back of the Internet Protocol the
>>> challenge for everyday users was how they could access this new network of
>>> networks without special permission or equipment.
>>>
>>> We face a similar challenge with ILP in that very few of the ledgers
>>> accessible to us support the one function that is critical to universal ILP
>>> payments; real-time conditional transfers. (I wrote a bit about conditional
>>> transfer here: https://medium.com/@ahopebaili
>>> e/the-power-of-conditional-payments-2d1ea531250a)
>>>
>>> So, just like the pioneers of the Internet we're improvising!
>>>
>>> "Dial-up" interledger enables us to bootstrap the Interledger using
>>> "virtual" ledgers between connectors that have established a bounded
>>> trusted relationship.
>>>
>>> In other words, if I run a small connector and I trust my friend Stefan
>>> who also runs a connector then we can transact without needing an
>>> ILP-enabled ledger between us.
>>>
>>> We establish a credit limit that we are both comfortable with and agree
>>> on a way to settle our positions as required (via Bitcoin, bank transfer or
>>> even cash).
>>>
>>> Consider what will happen if we build a community of people who are all
>>> establishing similar peering relationships and then introduce ILP-enabled
>>> ledgers to bridge any gaps between connectors that don't know one another.
>>> Very soon we'll have an entirely new payments network where payments flow
>>> like information does on the Internet today.
>>>
>>> We're calling this project the Interledger Bootstrap Project and I've
>>> started capturing some thoughts on the project wiki:
>>> https://github.com/interledgerjs/ilp-kit/wiki
>>>
>>> In short:
>>> 1. Get the ilp-kit code and run a node
>>> 2. Find other nodes to peer with
>>> 3. Do ILP-enabled transactions
>>> 4. Win!
>>>
>>> The ilp-kit is still pre-release and likely to have some bugs and change
>>> a lot so if you're keen to be an early adopter and help test and contribute
>>> back to that project please do so. If you'd rather wait until the code
>>> stabilizes a bit then keep watching the list and we'll let you know when
>>> the first Beta is available.
>>>
>>> Please feel free to make contributions to the wiki. It would be great if
>>> this was a community effort!
>>>
>>> Adrian
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Ledger mailing list
>>> Ledger@ietf.org
>>> https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ledger
>>>
>>>
>>