Odiseo

I do agree with both of you, @XRP-JAG and @enrique11 , that competition is good for the ecosystem and good to drive innovation, my point is related to what approach is the best one for the cross border use case, I know XRP is more than that, but I'm only focusing on that use case, and to be fair we can agree that a success on cross border would have a big impact on the success of XRP as a whole. The cake may be big, but is not going to be divided in equal parts, that's is usually how business works, by intuition I would say that probably 80% one payer and the rest will fight for 20%. We can see now that both Ripple and IBM pursue the same use case and same customers (mainly banks), IBM is going for the approach that Ripple had tried in 2015-16, which I think is a more efficient and straightforward solution, Ripple is focused on the XRapid-Exchanges strategy for different historical reasons. I would like to see a logical analysis on why we think one approach is better than the other today, but we need to assume that regulation will be clarified soon (needed in both cases), and Banks will be more confident on dealing directly with crypto assets. My first thoughts is that if regulation is positive, the approach Ripple tried 4 years ago and IBM is pushing now, is more efficient, if that is the case, and IBM has also the advantage of having account managers dealing already with 100's of banks, what is the Ripple's edge?, Ripple has 300 employees, IBM has probably 100's of account managers which could be quickly trained to start selling to their already customers a new product. I think it's a fair question, no FUD intended.

We are all XRP supporters on this thread, and I feel that we are a little bias when looking at these news. I would like to see a more in depth analysis, because I think it could have an impact on Ripple's strategy. @BobWay, please maybe you could give your insight. We know that Ripple had pivoted from using gateways in XRPL to provide fiat liquidity (call it IOUs or Stable coins). They have said a few times that they did it because the time was not right, we are talking about 2015, and FIs didn't want to touch crypto assets. We are in 2019, and we expect a more clear regulation, and more acceptance by FIs, even banks, to touch crypto assets, even Brad has mentioned it. If that is the case, could it be that Ripple had bad timing in 2015, and they may also have bad timing in 2019? IBM may be aware of what is coming, and that the timing is right to use the actual ledger, with stable coins, stable coins on the Stellar or XRP Ledgers are just IOUs, which can use the DEX built in, and avoid the need to use external exchanges, also they can use the native asset to settle, or any other asset if accepted as an IOU. Is IBM the ones with the correct timing in 2019 ? and Ripple too busy with their Xrapid-exchanges strategy, that they could be caught again with wrong timing? If FIs get more confident using directly crypto, why would the fo for a proposal where they have to use at least 2 third party exchanges to do a transaction, when they can do it using fiat tokenised by parties they trust and a digital asset for the cross border part?

Thats true, we don’t have all the details on how IBM proposal works, but by the video, they seem to have split the messaging from the settlement, as Ripple has done, that was for me one of the big advantages od Ripples proposal to create a network. I think IBM could have a good selling point to banks and push later the use of a digital asset, the one they would benefit from more. I hope I’m wrong

I personally think that we may be underestimating these news. I don't want to sound very pessimistic, as I'm long on XRP, but IBM is copying totally the vision of Ripple, including the use of a digital asset, That vision has been focused by Ripple on gaining relationships with banks, with relatively good success for a start up. But lets be realistic, IBM has already relationships with 99% of the mayor banks, that will give them a big advantage.

But if you look at that paper, it describes only the current system, not Cobalt, even though it mentions Cobalt as a preferred algorithm to create more flexibility, maybe in the future. But Cobalt is really described in another paper by Ethan. The original white paper, I think from 2012, had some inaccuracies, mainly with the % overlap needed on the UNLs, it was too optimistic, the new updated white paper by Ethan is more accurate describing the current consensus algorithm. The proposed Cobalt would mean a come back to more flexibility on the overlap % of the UNLs to secure the network.

To clarify, this is inaccurate, The original white paper has been replaced by an updated white paper based on the current consensus method, not based on Cobalt. About Cobalt, Ethan has only published a research paper for peer review.

Hi Bob, I believe that Ripple is way ahead on the international transfers use case, but I think mainly regulation has slowed them down. If regulation keeps stoping Ripple's tech from been used by banks, that could give enough time for competitors to catch up. Do you think that discussing one of their possible strategies, even though it is in an open patent, could give competitors like IBM or Facebook an extra advantage?

Identity - how future distributed Identity projects (like Global ID, Good ID....) could impact blockchain use cases, specially the ones based in the XRP ecosystem.

Hi, I'm not Odiseo (Odysseus), but as the greek character I like Journeys. I don't think I would buy a yacht , but if I use one of your ideas, you'd be invited to the Journey.

Thank you Bob, I hadn't seen them before, and it brings light over the current FUD agains XRP and Ripple, may people stopped reading about new ideas because of their fixed mind, and many are still not reading what is clear on the wall.

It's very refreshing to see this level of disclosure in crypto, to me you seem like someone who's put a lot of effort and time on a field, a field you still love and want to keep contributing to. We should be thankful for that. I'm sorry about your heath problems, but glad to hear that you are fighting it and getting better. Please don't seat for too long periods in front of the computer for us

Hi Bob, It seems improvable that Ripple has deployed any way to give away some of their xrp, otherwise we would probably know about it. Ripple is very open about their distribution models. We only see free methods through charitable initiatives and through Xpring (which may be free or not depending on the project). The other ways they sell is through programatic sales (probably an algorithmic design based on current volume trades), and OTC to new FI partners (based on legal contracts). Is the system you've analysed related to the creation of new utility as you do the distribution? similar to what they do with Xpring, or is it a mathematical model which could be implemented through the programatic sales they do currently? I personally think that the distribution of XRP is one of the most difficult tasks the creators had to face. You said that Ripple finishing with a big quantity by chance is a good thing, I do agree, as they are doing a good job with their resources, but I also think that at the current stage, where we have mature products and the markets seems ready to accept this technology, the % Ripple owns seems too high for the tech to be fully accepted as a WW ecosystem, even if it is in escrow. Since the beginning of 2017, when XRP moved to the centre stage in the crypto ecosystem, a very small part of their holdings have moved to the open market, I personally think they should find more ways to accelerate that distribution, of course creating value for themselves as any company would do, but also for the ecosystem as a whole.

Thank you for the answer. Thank you Sukrim for link to the short video, towards the end David says what he is being saying for long time, that he would like to see the DEX used more, but it doesn't give any details.

Hi @BobWay, Thank you, this thread is one of the best I've read here, together with some from David and Nik's I hope these posts will be the start of a future book, my suggestion for the title "From Bob to Alice" Maybe you could give more details about Ripple's pivot from the XRPL Gateway approach to the Xrapid one, was it a sudden decision? who? when? Why? About why, you've mentioned privacy, scalability and compliance as the main reasons. Based on that, do you think, once we get more clear regulations and Xrapid starts to grow, we could see a return to the previous model?, could both models develop together? In a recent video from Ripple, David mentioned that they will focus on reviving the use of the DEX, it could be a sign of a more direct use of XRPL by institutions, or maybe something they will pursue through Xpring All the best,

I think it's a different case, it would be similar to someone creating a new token inside the ETH platform to compete with the ETH token to pay to compute the contracts. Why would you make a copy of XRP, inside the XRP Ledger, to do the same thing XRP is supposed to do. The only answer would be to finance yourself. I personally don't think it's wrong to ding a source of revenue, but I think it is, as a minimum, inefficient; they are trying to duplicate the XRP ecosystem (liquidity, acceptance, brand.....) on the same network, just a clone, they cannot add anything to what XRP can do, they can only build layers on top, which could use XRP indistinguishably. I just think their work would add more value if it was using XRP, and they could find other ways of financing.