Re: Ripple

RE: Ripple Labs isn't playing a hoarding game but

I don't have any opinion on that at this point, but some people think it
is: http://ripplescam.org/  (Sorry if posting that link seems aggressive.
That's not my intent. It's out there and shows up in searches, so I'm just
being forthcoming.)

RE: "The value of 1 XRP matters to currency traders, Ripple Labs, and
anyone else holding XRP as an asset. "

That seems entirely unnecessary to me, and a "bug" in the current business
architecture of Ripple. Why permit the holding of XRPs at all? In the grand
scheme of things, what's the value added from their persistence? I still
advocate for 1 XRP = 1 banana, compared with the XRP's current design. (To
see where I'm actually coming from, see:
http://www.bengrahaminvesting.ca/Outreach/2009_Symposium.htm and
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/commodities-as-a-global-currency/article1346127/
...although even more I prefer an "Earth Reserve" base, which I and some
colleagues are working on.)  Meanwhile the private consortium aspect of The
Fed is hardly something to be replicated -- the more successful Ripple
becomes, the more suspicion and "divergent" interests it will attract. It
fear it would become the monetary instantiation of The Peter Principle.

In any case, the value of a BTC or an XRP is nothing more than brand
loyalty, what the accountants call the value of "goodwill", since any
number of parallel currencies just like them can be created.

Joseph Potvin


On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 1:56 PM, Evan Schwartz <evan@ripple.com> wrote:

> Q1: What is it about the A's role, and about the B's role that positions
>> all the A's as currency price makers, and all the B's as currency price
>> takers?
>
>
> Only that the A's have put out offers on the books. Anyone can create an
> offer and it'll be treated equally to anyone else's. In practice we expect
> that certain users will use the system primarily for currency trading so
> you'll see a lot more offers put out by those but as far as the system is
> concerned all accounts have the same potential functionality.
>
>
> Q2: In this model, what are the criteria and information sources that A1,
>> A2 and A3 are assumed to use when offering their preferred amounts of EUR
>> to buy those USD? Anything and everything available to them, correct?
>>
> Yes. They have access to the same network data about existing offers as
> everyone else.
>
>
>
> Q: Can a machine register to and participate in Ripple? Or do all Ripple
>> members need to be flesh&blood people. Is it possible for a machine to join
>> Ripple as if it were a flesh&blood person, and if it did, would the Ripple
>> system or team know or care?  Today, what's the proportion of machine
>> accounts to flesh&blood accounts amongst Ripple subscribers?
>
>
> People can definitely create bots that trade on Ripple. I'm not sure it
> would be possible in any system to stop this from happening and I'm also
> not entirely sure that we'd want to. Modern currency trading seems to be
> more of a machine's game but what we're hoping for is that any human or
> machine traders on the network will facilitate very cheap exchanges between
> currencies, which will let basic users do cross-currency payments at a
> fraction of the cost and time it takes now.
>
>
> Okay, and this order book is determined by all the offers from A1, A2 and
>> A3, however that plays out. Correct?
>>
> Yes.
>
>
> Q: How does an EUR→XRP rate and an XRP→USD rate play into all of this?
>> Here's what I presume, correct me if I'm wrong...
>>
>> RE:  Transactions can and often do take multiple paths to get the best
>> rate
>>
>> A path is a series of trades underway at a given time, correct, such as
>> USD→CAD with CAD→EUR to get a USD→EUR trade.  And where a suitable path
>> can't be found, the Ripple algorithm will insert XRP. Correct? XRP always
>> fills in gaps.
>>
> In order to do a USD -> EUR trade the system will look at direct USD ->
> EUR paths, USD -> XRP -> EUR paths, and I believe some more indirect ones
> as well. XRP is meant to fill in those gaps so that you don't actually need
> people trading on all of the possible pairs of currencies.
>
>
>
> Q:  Does the value of 1 XRP matter?  As mere gap-filler, I don't think
>> so.  XRP is just grease. Am I wrong?  In what context does the value of 1
>> XRP really matter?
>
>
> The value of 1 XRP matters to currency traders, Ripple Labs, and anyone
> else holding XRP as an asset. For anyone using the system to make a payment
> the value of XRP won't really matter because their money isn't "in" XRP for
> any real period of time like it would be with Bitcoin if someone made a
> payment USD -> BTC -> EUR outside of the Ripple network. Payments are
> either executed in atomic time or they'll fail if the rates have changed
> dramatically between the time when a price was quoted and when the user
> decided to execute it.
>
>
> Q: Why not set the purchasing power of 1 XRP to the tangible market price
>> of 1 banana?
>>
>> The 100 billion XRP's would thus be valued at about a dozen container
>> ships of bananas
>> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-29/maersk-s-8-4-billion-bananas-add-to-ship-profits-freight.html
>> I jest, of course. But my fundamental point here is that if XRP were tied
>> to something tangible, RippleLabs would be trusted not to be playing some
>> sort of massive hoarding game. XRP would be understood to be just grease.
>> ...or bananas.
>>
> Ripple Labs isn't playing a hoarding game but we are hoping that the price
> of XRP, and thus the 25 billion XRP that the company is using to sustain
> itself, appreciates in value. I think most of the people in the company
> would agree with Jeffrey Cliff's earlier comment. We only make money if the
> network we've built and are continuing to improve provides a useful service
> for people.
>
>
> Is this "end user" a price taker?  I'm always interested in the price
>> makers.
>>
> When I say end user I'm generally talking about price takers / people
> trying to make payments
>
>
> More questions?
>
>
> On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 3:30 AM, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>
>> Hello Evan, Thanks for this!
>>
>> RE: If you want to see all of the outstanding offers for any currency
>> pair you can do that directly in the client.
>>
>> So, I see in my UML mind a stickman, whose role is labelled: [Fill in
>> blank, referred to here as A]. There's another one: [Fill in blank,
>> referred to here as B].  Let's say A1, A2 and A3 each want some USD, and
>> each is offering their preferred amounts of EUR to buy those USD.  Let's
>> say B wants some EUR, and so...
>>
>> RE: the path finding engine will search direct and indirect paths for the
>> rate that is best for the initiator.
>>
>> So the path finding engine discovers that A2 is offering B the best
>> rate.
>>
>> Q1: What is it about the A's role, and about the B's role that positions
>> all the A's as currency price makers, and all the B's as currency price
>> takers?
>>
>> Q2: In this model, what are the criteria and information sources that A1,
>> A2 and A3 are assumed to use when offering their preferred amounts of EUR
>> to buy those USD? Anything and everything available to them, correct?
>>
>> Now, the following observation is not meant in any way to challenge
>> Ripple. It's only meant to acknowledge the environment within which Ripple
>> and all the A's and all the B's have to live, for the time being. This is
>> the $5.3 trillion / day forex ecosystem dominated by top predators:
>>
>>
>> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-04/swiss-regulator-probes-alleged-foreign-exchange-manipulation.html
>>
>> http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2013/11/15/foreign-exchange-trading-investigation/3573499/
>>
>> http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/30/barclays-cooperating-investigation-manipulation-currency-markets
>> "Treasury's War" by Juan Zarate
>>
>> http://www.publicaffairsbooks.com/publicaffairsbooks-cgi-bin/display?book=9781610391153
>> "Currency Wars" by James Rickards
>>
>> http://www.us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9781591844495,00.html
>>
>> In this ecosystem, then, I'm wondering from where it is assumed that A1,
>> A2 and A3 get their information to offer their preferred amounts of EUR to
>> buy USD? Let's structure this directly:  Let's say that A1 and A2 are
>> machines running unique forex algorithms, and leave A3 as a flesh&blood
>> person. So A3 is somebody who "watches the forex market" and reckons that
>> some amount of EURs for USD is a good bet this afternoon.
>>
>> Q: Can a machine register to and participate in Ripple? Or do all Ripple
>> members need to be flesh&blood people. Is it possible for a machine to join
>> Ripple as if it were a flesh&blood person, and if it did, would the Ripple
>> system or team know or care?  Today, what's the proportion of machine
>> accounts to flesh&blood accounts amongst Ripple subscribers?
>>
>> Let's focus on A1 and A2 machines. What are the most important data feeds
>> that each machine's algorithm might be coded to draw upon in order to
>> generate their EUR-for-USD offers at any given moment?  Let's say A1 is
>> designed to statistically interpret the WM-Reuters spot rate
>> http://www.wmcompany.com/pdfs/026808.pdf and is able to project it
>> correctly by a few hours 60 per cent of the time. And lets say A2 is
>> designed as "a news-trading algorithm. The computer will not be interested
>> at all in long-term value considerations. It will look at semantic
>> relations in news announcements"
>>
>> http://www.lgt-cm.com/shared/.content/publikationen/$verwaltung_publikationen/sciene/The-self-organization-of-markets-LGT-working-paper-v2-1_en.pdf
>>
>> RE: "Regarding the order book and exchange rates, the order book is
>> public and is one of the pieces of information the system uses consensus to
>> determine."
>>
>> Okay, and this order book is determined by all the offers from A1, A2 and
>> A3, however that plays out. Correct?
>>
>> Q: How does an EUR→XRP rate and an XRP→USD rate play into all of this?
>> Here's what I presume, correct me if I'm wrong...
>>
>> RE:  Transactions can and often do take multiple paths to get the best
>> rate
>>
>> A path is a series of trades underway at a given time, correct, such as
>> USD→CAD with CAD→EUR to get a USD→EUR trade.  And where a suitable path
>> can't be found, the Ripple algorithm will insert XRP. Correct? XRP always
>> fills in gaps.
>>
>> Q:  Does the value of 1 XRP matter?  As mere gap-filler, I don't think
>> so.  XRP is just grease. Am I wrong?  In what context does the value of 1
>> XRP really matter?
>>
>> The system is not designed for XRP hoarding, like BTC hoarding is done
>> and even encouraged. It seems to me that XRP does what economists do: "Lets
>> assume that this in-between trade did exist to complete the path."  Then
>> act as if it does. I don't mean to criticize -- it's a clever thing to do.
>> But some have expressed concern that Ripple Labs is hoarding all the XRP,
>> and that they will increase in value. So how about this:
>>
>> Q: Why not set the purchasing power of 1 XRP to the tangible market price
>> of 1 banana?
>>
>> The 100 billion XRP's would thus be valued at about a dozen container
>> ships of bananas
>> http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-29/maersk-s-8-4-billion-bananas-add-to-ship-profits-freight.html
>> I jest, of course. But my fundamental point here is that if XRP were tied
>> to something tangible, RippleLabs would be trusted not to be playing some
>> sort of massive hoarding game. XRP would be understood to be just grease.
>> ...or bananas.
>>
>> RE:  all the end user really needs to know about is the amount it'll cost
>> them in the currencies they have to send some amount in another currency to
>> someone else
>>
>> Is this "end user" a price taker?  I'm always interested in the price
>> makers.
>> Joseph Potvin
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 10:36 PM, Evan Schwartz <evan@ripple.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> I am one of the engineers at Ripple Labs. I've been with the company for
>>> 3 months so I can speak to a fair number of these points but for the nitty
>>> gritty details of how consensus works I'll bring our chief cryptographer
>>> David Schwartz into the conversation.
>>>
>>> Regarding the order book and exchange rates, the order book is public
>>> and is one of the pieces of information the system uses consensus to
>>> determine. If you want to see all of the outstanding offers for any
>>> currency pair you can do that directly in the client.
>>>
>>> When someone wants to make a trade or do a cross currency payment the
>>> path finding engine will search direct and indirect paths for the rate that
>>> is best for the initiator. If you want to see visuals of these paths
>>> happening you can go to ripple.com/graph and click on a transaction
>>> entry to see a visualization of the paths. Transactions can and often do
>>> take multiple paths to get the best rate but all the end user really needs
>>> to know about is the amount it'll cost them in the currencies they have to
>>> send some amount in another currency to someone else. If you take a look at
>>> the Send tab in the client and have a couple of different currencies in
>>> your wallet you can see this functionality in action.
>>>
>>> Happy to try to answer any more questions you all have, I think there's
>>> a lot of opportunity for collaboration between Ripple and this group.
>>>
>>> Evan
>>> On Nov 17, 2013 3:25 PM, "Joseph Potvin" <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> RE: it has an order book and the market determines the price
>>>>
>>>> How exactly?  And is the order book and associated process documented
>>>> somewhere? I'd love to see the UML sequence or activity diagram, for
>>>> example, but text will do.
>>>>
>>>> Is the general user experience that of a price-maker or price-taker? A
>>>> currency "price maker" is asked to bid. A currency "price taker" is shown a
>>>> rate as a fait-accompli.  And does the user make or take the intermediate
>>>> XRP rate, or the destination currency rate?  (i.e. If Fred pays CAD to a
>>>> vendor who wants to receive USD, he'd want to make or take the CAD-USD
>>>> rate. The CAD-XRP then the XRP-USD rates would be invisible and of no
>>>> concern to him.)
>>>>
>>>> Joseph
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 5:26 PM, Melvin Carvalho <
>>>> melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On 17 November 2013 23:24, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Melvin, Can you point to the specific documentation about how Ripple
>>>>>> determines XRP inter-currency spot exchange rates with all the central bank
>>>>>> currencies,and for BTC? And is there a documented policy for choosing the
>>>>>> official source of exchange rate data for any other present or future alt
>>>>>> crypto currency out there would be added to the Ripple portfolio of
>>>>>> currencies?
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> AFIAK it doesnt use a spot rate, it has an order book and the market
>>>>> determines the price.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tx,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Joseph Potvin
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 4:32 PM, Melvin Carvalho <
>>>>>> melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 17 November 2013 22:27, Fabio Barone <holon.earth@gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I should do this as a homework, I apologize,
>>>>>>>>  but I'm currently pretty busy.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Would someone be so kind and answering these questions about Ripple:
>>>>>>>>  - Is the code open source?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Yes
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> - Is the protocol they use openly documented,
>>>>>>>>   as openly as bitcoin is?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I can only answer this superficially as I've not written a web
>>>>>>> ripple implementation (yet)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> But it seems to be yes: https://ripple.com/wiki/
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You only ever know after you've drilled down into every last detail
>>>>>>> ... something I plan to do next year ...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> thanks
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> 2013/11/17 Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On 11/14/2013 04:30 PM, Andrew Miller wrote:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> 2. But this doesn't work for public/anonymous networks.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Why doesn't it work for public/anonymous networks? Link? This is
>>>>>>>>> Web of
>>>>>>>>> Trust stuff we're talking about, isn't it (chained trust metrics)?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  3. Ripple, on the other hand, takes yet another approach. There's
>>>>>>>>>> no
>>>>>>>>>> global administrator, but nor is there a well-understood public
>>>>>>>>>> competition. Instead, individual users are supposed to configure
>>>>>>>>>> their clients to identify particular servers they have determined
>>>>>>>>>> they trust.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Isn't this a good thing? If you allow anyone to pick who they
>>>>>>>>> trust, you
>>>>>>>>> force cooperation in the system, don't you? The idea being that
>>>>>>>>> for the
>>>>>>>>> system to be useful, people need to coordinate and thus won't pick
>>>>>>>>> participants with whom they entirely disagree with.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Here's where it gets really murky, and I can't figure out any set
>>>>>>>>>> of
>>>>>>>>>> assumptions that actually lead to robust functioning of the
>>>>>>>>>> network.
>>>>>>>>>> What if users entirely disagree with which servers they trust?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Why would someone deliberately do this? If you have to pick from 32
>>>>>>>>> servers, why would you pick from 32 servers that are in a
>>>>>>>>> completely
>>>>>>>>> different trust set? It would be incredibly difficult to do that
>>>>>>>>> in a
>>>>>>>>> dependency chain based system, wouldn't it?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Are they on two different networks or the same one?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> No idea.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  If an individual doesn't do their due diligence, and carelessly
>>>>>>>>>> approves bad servers, are they individually affected or does it
>>>>>>>>>> affect the overall network?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I'd expect that in the worst case, the overall network suffers.
>>>>>>>>> However,
>>>>>>>>> the likelihood of this is in the 51% attack against the Bitcoin
>>>>>>>>> network
>>>>>>>>> category, isn't it?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  I really wish more people were looking into this rather than
>>>>>>>>>> ignoring
>>>>>>>>>> it, because I suspect it's not sound (although I haven't come up
>>>>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>>>>> a super clear explanation why not), and if the underlying
>>>>>>>>>> assumptions
>>>>>>>>>> aren't sound then does it matter if the frontend UI is great?
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Well, yeah, if the algorithm is broken then no UI in the world is
>>>>>>>>> going
>>>>>>>>> to save it. However, I don't think you've explained quite why
>>>>>>>>> Ripple's
>>>>>>>>> consensus algorithm is broken. Why is allowing individuals to pick
>>>>>>>>> whom
>>>>>>>>> they trust a bad thing (when the number of servers is large
>>>>>>>>> enough)?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  Unfortunately the only set of assumptions I can think of that lead
>>>>>>>>>> to this actually working is where every one essentially picks the
>>>>>>>>>> same default list, and the servers on that list are actually
>>>>>>>>>> trustworthy.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I think the problem surfaces when a group of servers create a
>>>>>>>>> trust set
>>>>>>>>> that has no intersection with another set of servers. With that
>>>>>>>>> said,
>>>>>>>>> why would anyone do this? What's the attack?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>  This is the "centralized" option, where the default list
>>>>>>>>>> determines
>>>>>>>>>> who participates, and no user has any incentive to deviate from
>>>>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>>>>> default list, either by adding some newcomer they individually
>>>>>>>>>> trust
>>>>>>>>>> or by removing default servers they don't trust.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I thought that only a subset of the list needs to be trusted for
>>>>>>>>> Ripple
>>>>>>>>> to function, and all trust sets that all servers choose have to
>>>>>>>>> overlap
>>>>>>>>> by at least a small degree. Is that not true?
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -- manu
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> --
>>>>>>>>> Manu Sporny (skype: msporny, twitter: manusporny, G+: +Manu Sporny)
>>>>>>>>> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
>>>>>>>>> blog: Meritora - Web payments commercial launch
>>>>>>>>> http://blog.meritora.com/launch/
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> <http://goo.gl/Ssp56>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
>> <http://goo.gl/Ssp56>
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Evan Schwartz
> Developer + Technology Pioneer
> Ripple Labs Inc.
>
>
>


-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
http://www.projectmanagementhotel.com/projects/opman-portfolio
jpotvin@opman.ca
Mobile: 819-593-5983
LinkedIn (Google short URL): http://goo.gl/Ssp56