Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Will Ripple Eclipse Bitcoin?

Posted by timothy on from the ask-the-magic-8-ball dept.

First time accepted submitter groggy.android writes This year's biggest news about Bitcoin may well turn out not to be the repeat of its surge in value last year against the dollar and other state currencies but its impending eclipse by another independent but corporate-backed digital currency. Popularly known as Ripple, XRP shot up in value last year along with other cryptocurrencies that took advantage of the hype around Bitcoin. However, among the top cryptocurrencies listed in Coinmarketcap.com, a site that monitors trading across different cryptocurrency exchanges, Ripple is the only one that not only regained its value after the collapse in the price of Bitcoin but has more than doubled from its peak last year. In September it displaced Litecoin to become the second most valuable cryptocurrency. Even more surpising, a Ripple fork, Stellar, is one of the two other cryptocurrencies in the Coinmarketcap top ten that have risen sharply in value during the last few weeks.

What makes Ripple different from Bitcoin? Strictly speaking, Ripple isn't the name of the digital currency but of the decentralized payment network and protocol created and maintained by the eponymous Ripple Labs. Users of the Ripple system are able to transact in both cryptocurrency and regular fiat currency like the dollar without passing through a central exchange. XRP is the name of the native unit of exchange used in the Ripple network to facilitate conversion between different currency types.

3 of 144 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Why virtual currencies are ineffective by itzly · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sometimes early investors/pioneers make a lot of profit. That's not the same as a pyramid scheme.

  2. Re:Why virtual currencies are ineffective by angel'o'sphere · · Score: 3, Informative

    Regardless of your beliefes: they are not.
    They don't strive on 'catching more people' and no one forces the later comming poeple to make payments to the older ones.
    It has absolutely nothing to do with a pyramid scheme.

    --
    Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
  3. Re:not decentralized! by witherstaff · · Score: 3, Informative
    I assume the submitter was trying to bump the price. The technical crowd here probably won't be rushing to buy some Ripple. Ripple was entirely pre-mined with almost all of the coins still held by the developers. The pump and dump process with alt coin can be very amusing to watch yet almost all other alt-coins involve only coins actually mined and not held by one entity. While I'm a believer in crypto currencies I am not convinced Ripple is worth having any of.

    From the wiki page : The founders of Ripple Labs created 100 billion XRP at Ripple's inception. No more can be created according to the rules of the Ripple protocol. Of the 100 billion created, 20 billion XRP were retained by the creators, seeders, venture capital companies and other founders. The remaining 80 billion were given to Ripple Labs. Ripple Labs intends to distribute and sell 55 of that 80 billion XRP to users and strategic partners. Ripple Labs also had a giveaway of under 200 million XRP (0.002% of all XRP) via World Community Grid that was later discontinued.[28] Ripple Labs will retain the remaining 25 billion