Tako

As for the misterious 200M, isn’t it possible that Ripple simply bought back this amount from Jed? This way Jed could sell 200M at once (good for him) without affecting the market (good for Ripple). Win-win. There must be a point when Ripple thinks that the prices are low enough to spend some money on decreasing the obvious risk of having a renegade holding too much xrps...

My understanding is that liquidity providers who lend XRP, or the owner of the XRP (e.g. banks, if they hold XRP for transactions) will be the ones who gain/lose on the slippage. If the sum of the transaction cost is positive, they just take it as profit. (In this case FX related cost of the transaction will be almost zero to the originator.) Otherwise, slippage will be part of transaction cost to the originator. However, do not forget, that originator will have choices, so if the loss due to slippage seems to be greater than the cost of the next cheapest transaction type (e.g. via nostro/vostro) than the user will most probably chose the cheaper option, so the transaction does not use XRP, therefore there is no loss for the XRP holder. (The potential loss on slippage is somewhat limited by the system.) The sum of these losses and gains, in addition to the appreciation or depreciation of XRP will be the cost of holding XRP, which is hoped to be positive at the end.

Where there is smoke, there is fire. True, from a distance vapor generated by a fog machine can be mistaken as smoke. As all of us are distant observers, it is easy to fall for this trick. Healthy scepticism helps in not shouting fire every time, before a closer look of the source is possible, but total resistance of accepting the general wisdom (smoke=fire) can result in burn damage.

OK, so the latest info is that he is bullish. Thanks God, that we got confirmation from him! The suspense was killing me.

Apparently, a few days ago he thought that the bear market is still to come with lower prices. He must have re-evaluated his previous thoughts. Then, re-evaluated again, and deleted his tweet. Very consistent.

I think we need to understand that Ripple’s XRP stack is a double edged sword. On the one hand, Ripple can use it to inject XRP to exchanges, so FIAT/XRP pairs, hence liquidity is increasing, which is an absolute must for increasing the chance of xRapid use. Whether these XRP „sales” to the exchanges are free of charge, below or above market price (or not even sales, but some sort of lending agreement) is irrelevant to the XRP market price, as the exhanges’ XRP stack do not represent a selling pressure on the market. By pre-funding exchanges this way, Ripple simply makes sure that XRP is available at the market so market participants (including investors or speculators) can buy them. (XRP just sits on the exchanges’ accounts until someone wants to buy them.) In other words, exchanges are the gateways of fresh money influx and the more gates Ripple opens, the better chance there is that fresh money will find its way to XRP. Also, I am sure their large stack helped Ripple to draw in big investors in the beginning, and is now allowing them to fund several projects that are propelling other XRP use cases, which ultimately broadens adoption and increases price. These are all good things and positively affecting XRP price (in the long run). Large stack also makes it possible for Ripple to dream up a scheme where they are the lender of last resort in the long run… (this point also have a negative and positive side..) On the other hand, large XRP stack in Ripple’s hand is also a risk factor in the eyes of the market participants. Currently, we are ensured by the escrow that Ripple will not damp their stack on the market. (If it wasn’t obvious from the beginning, that they will not cut the tree under themselves…) You can argue, that 1B XRP/month released from escrow, and sold to FI’s will have/have a price dampening effect, but I only see this an issue if Ripple sells their stack to e.g. banks, who will at one point have to sell their XRP on exchanges by the use of xRapid. This case „fresh” XRP would appear on the market on the SELL side of the books, so this would create selling pressure, and may negatively effect the price. We can easily assume that the xRapid users' (who also decided to hold XRP) intention is not to crush the market, we can also assume that they will do this cautiously. On the same edge of the sword the large stack means that Ripple has monopoly over the market. Theoretically, they can manipulate the price of XRP to their liking even with the 1B XRP/month. Also, let's not forget that Ripple is a private company, and although, now it seems that they are benevolent actors who found a win-win situation where profit taking is possible with the betterment of the society (i.e. creating IoV), their policy can change e.g. if the leadership/owner structure changes. This is a risk and will continue to be a risk as long as Ripple have their huge stack. How much this affects the price, I am not sure, but I think this negatively effects the adoption of XRP as standard, as it all comes down to trust. (as in trust in Ripple by market participants) The large stack may also be a problem point in the eye of SEC when deciding whether XRP is a security or not. (I do not have evidence, this is just an assumption..) It seems that the debate is because people tend to look at only one of the „edges” of this sword, while ignoring the other. From what I see (based on the publicly available info) Ripple is masterfully wielding this sword, and so far nothing suggests that they will cut themselves with the "poisoned" side, moreover, they may be able to use the pointy end to stab their adversaries in the fight for dominating the sector. However, we cannot dismiss the possibility of self harm (small cuts and bruises) during the battle 100%. And if you do not believe me, I attached a pic as an unquestionable proof of the above.

Great detective work! Do we know the 47 countries that are using UPU Clearing solution?

One may say that people who developed some kind of emotional attachment to Ripple (or their investment in XRP) can be upset by a symbol that they do not feel fully representing their perceived idea/function/concept of XRP. (e.g. it is not powerful enough, it is a childish design, etc, etc) The big hoopla is therefore just an expression of these emotions. Others may argue that symbols have a very important role as an easily and "universally" recognizable, ultimately simplified carrier of complex ideas/ideologies and as such, their shape and form matters. People expressing their opinion here about how the current symbol sucks big time think that the officially accepted form is not worthy to convey the idea behind XRP.

Isn't that fantastic? You can write it to look like the one above, and it will still be accepted as official. So, is it a good design, or not? ?

The fact that the handwritten symbol/sign will slightly differ from the printed sign does not mean that the sign is a bad design. The bottom line is: Can you write it by hand easily? Yes, you can. Is the handwritten sign resemble enough to the printed version, so it is recognizable as the symbol so it can be differentiated from anything else? Yes, it does. Everything else is up to taste. PS: To be honest, I am not a big fan of this design, but honestly, as long as it serves its purpose and meets the above criteria, why should I care? It's just a symbol after all, noone will give a second thought about it in one year or so.

Well, I beg to differ. It IS the symbol with my handwriting. You cannot expect anyone to meticulously write two separate lines with a tiny little gap between them in real life. Therefore, the handwritten symbol will always differ from the printed one, especially when written in one fluid stroke.

Not too shabby...

With regards to the speed of implementation, I am not sure if I read it or heard it in an interview with a Ripple employee (might have been BG..) that what they do is that they talk with the CEOs. (i.e. they sell the idea of RippleNet to the top management) Obviously, implementation of a new technology at an FI can take time, but if the decision comes from the top it can definitely accelerate the process, as it means they put the necessary resources behind it right from the beginning and everyone in the organization will do their best in order for the project to succeed. (Compared to ideas coming from the bottom or middle level, when a project may have to be constantly "sold" to the top - and also to internal competitors - and can take too long (or in worse cases fail) simply because the top and/or middle management is not fully backing it.)

Considering that current methods of transfer (e.g. SWIFT) have fixed as well as proportional cost (if I know this correctly), I guess the % will depend on the value of the transfer. Lower value transfers may go through xRapid with higher % slippage, while higher value transfers may be rejected if the same % of slippage is expected.

I guess we all speculate that xRapid use will increase the demand of XRP, and with the increased demand price will also appreciate. This is why we are here and this is the reason we bought XRPs. The devil is in the details though. My argument is (and @corak 's argument seems to be the same) that xRapid's direct use (i.e. the international transfers via xRapid) will not increase the price by itself. To understand what can possibly happen to XRP's market price during the use of xRapid (in case of one imaginary transfer of 100USD for 100CHF if CHF=1USD) you can refer to below table. (copied here from my other post) These are the theoretical possibilities. However, if we agree that price is dictated by supply and demand, we can also agree, that when xRapid buys XRP for USD, XRP price increases, and when it sells XRP for CHF, XRP price decreases. (scenario 6) At least if the size of the transfer is big enough to move the price (let's say the transfer is for 1M USD, not just 100USD) and the order books on both sides have similar depths. However, if this happens, this (slippage) can increase the cost of transfer to a level, where traditional transfer method is more cost effective. Hence the need for liquidity. And this is where speculation comes into the picture. FIs, MMs, liquidity providers, institutional investors, banks, etc need to buy and hold XRP in the hope that it will be used (can be lent) in the future. The more customers are for xRapid, the less speculative holding XRP will become. But to start the system, some level of speculation will be needed from the FIs' side. They also need to be sure that the price will not be too volatile (moreover, that it will continually increase), so the holding cost will be not too expensive. As xRapid use in itself will not increase the price, other use cases needed to be provided for XRP, that move the imagination of both retail and institutional investors. Is it a coincidence, that Ripple, led by a guy who prides himself on not spreading the peanut butter too thinly is now announcing that they will start exploring other use cases as well for XRP besides international remittance? Is it because the initial/main use case for XRP is all set, everything is right on track, so now Ripple can allocate their resources to the exploration of other use cases? Maybe. However, maybe it is to provide price support for XRP (by speculation for other use cases), so it is safer for the FIs to enter the game and buy/hold/lend XRP.