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Good morning all! Have you recently heard about Ripple? Are you deciding if you should invest some of your hard-earned money in XRP? Or have you been around for many years, holding and enjoying the recent price rises? Whoever you are and where ever you're from, it is important to keep up-to-date and know exactly what you're investing in so you can make sound decisions, and not be swept away in the feverish torrents of hype that do so often engulf the crypto space. So I will be posting a few videos and links here from around this wonderful forum, Youtube, and various other places around the interweb so good folk like to can refresh your knowledge on all things Ripple. At the end, there will be an exam, and if you fail that exam @karlos will ban you from the internet, there may even be a few fun little quiz questions you can ask your soon-to-be-estranged friends around the dinner table at Christmas, or yourself at 4 o'clock in the morning as you sit rocking in front of your screen watching charts. Because who ever said crypto wasn't a healthy social experience!? So without further ado, pull up your socks, pour an alcopop and put down your fidget spinner, because I have just the video for you -- "Ripple Tech Talk: Understanding Consensus (Mar 2015)" by in-house genius @JoelKatz (Length: ~60 mins; Difficulty: 3/5; Importance: High)

The community could in a way vote on amendments without maintaining a validator themselves, this would allow the community's voice to be heard in the xrp ledger. An entity (me in this case) would be running a validator, the community could vote on amendments by sending transactions to a specific wallet that the validator maintainer owns with memos attached to them (e.g: YES/NO), the validator maintainer would run a server that would scan the wallet's ingoing transactions and scan their memos to tally up the votes. Every funded wallet on the xrp ledger can submit a vote, only once. This is a great idea in theory but the validator maintainer could manipulate the consensus vote, which creates a false narrative in the xrp ledger, the validator maintainer must be trusted by the community to not corrupt the community's decision. Also thank you @nikb for suggesting me to sign up here .

Blog URL: https://xrpcommunity.blog/xrp-news-update-5-19-2019/ The XRP news cycle is accelerating! I break down all the news affecting XRP in my latest blog: 𝐑𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Ripple advertises a new open position titled 'Xpring Community Advocate'; David Schwartz presents at Consensus; Brad Garlinghouse talks to dozens of central bankers; Finablr announces a new Ripple-based payment service with Siam Commercial Bank; 𝐊𝐚𝐯𝐚 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Kava publishes an idea for an XRP-backed USD stablecoin called USDX. 𝐗𝐑𝐏 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: RabbitKickClub publishes a guide for those that want to run an XRP validator; Uphold announces a complete elimination of all withdrawal fees for XRP holders; David Schwartz comments about Cobalt; BlueHelix exchange adds an XRP-USDT pairing; and Bitkeep exchange adds both an XRP-USDT and an XRP-BTC pairing; I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thanks for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Reddit r/CoilCommunityalternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

Blog URL: https://xrpcommunity.blog/introduction-to-xrp-2019-edition/ Just published the updated, 2019 version of an "Introduction to XRP" on the XRP Community Blog! I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thank you for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Reddit r/CoilCommunity Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

Blog URL: https://coil.com/p/Hodor/XRP-The-Pressure-Cooker/_l2JcM7nC XRP is a pressure cooker of pent-up demand from its utility-driven value! Find out more & learn about the latest XRP news in my latest blog: 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Liechtenstein passes its "Motion on the Blockchain Act" 𝐑𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: Ripple is attending five conferences in May, including ones with the World Bank and the OECD; FXC Intelligence rates Ripple ahead of both SWIFT and JPM Coin; and Ripple embarks on a global advertising campaign. 𝐗𝐑𝐏 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: @CinnappleFun adds to its website; NOW Payments supports XRP; and CoolWallet, a hardware wallet provider, now supports XRP. I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thanks for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Reddit r/CoilCommunity Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

Hey guys, I'm an Ethereum developer and I'm new here so if this question should be posted somewhere else I apogize in advance. So I studied the first ripple whitepaper(not the one published in 2018), "The Ripple Protocol Consensus Algorithm", and wanted to ask some questions(any help would be greatly appreciated): 1) firstly, what is the difference between a node and a server in Ripple? According to the whitepaper "any entinty running the Ripple Server Software is a server". I get this. We have stock servers and validator-servers? Is it the same if I call a server, a node. Intuitively I feel like running a stock-server in Ripple is kind of the same as running a GETH node in eth, right? This may sound simple but I want to know what is what. 2) is there an option for end users to run a UNL? Is the validator-server a UNL? If yes, I can answer the first part(yes). Since you can decide to run a validator server you can run a UNL. 3) the basic idea is that we split the network into subnetworks - UNLs and we verify these UNLs so in the end we combine these and verify the whole system. This is great but isn't it less secure than having a ethereum-like system where every node validates every transaction? 4) what is the latency requirment to participate in the voting process. Apart from the 2 second window for the candidate set submission. I mean is there any other requirement? 5) finally i felt strange with the fact that there is a flag/kick system for nodes in the network combined with the fact that the code isn't open source. Thank you in advance if you took the time to read my questions

Blog URL: https://xrpcommunity.blog/crypto-superbowl-consensus-versus-proof-of-work/ It's a Superbowl-themed blog! Read about the match-up between Bitcoin and XRP, along with all the news impacting XRP. 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐫𝐲𝐩𝐭𝐨 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: The unexpected death of QuadrigaCX's founder results in exchange liquidity problems; The UK's FCA issues enforcement guidelines; and the Bank for International Settlements issues a paper detailing profound security risks with proof-of-work networks, specifically analyzing Bitcoin. 𝐑𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: The CEO of SWIFT and Ripple debate onstage at the Paris Fintech Forum; SWIFT announces a new proof-of-concept allowing R3 to initiate SWIFT GPI transactions; Ripple hires a new General Counsel; Saudi British Bank (SABB) is discovered to be a RippleNet member; a new Ripple Drop episode is released by Ripple; and the Xpring Initiative publicizes a new development position for Interledger 𝐗𝐑𝐏 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬: New XRP code amendments are announced; Three exchanges add XRP trading; Coingate, a crypto payment processor, adds XRP as a checkout option; CredEarn indicates that their largest asset class for deposits is XRP; A new swag shop offers a new physical XRP coin for collectors; and a new video game plans to use the XRP Ledger for their online economy. I hope you enjoy the read: Please feel free to share my blog with a friend or share it on any other platform - and thanks for doing so! My blog announcement links on other platforms: Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

If Ripple only assures a consensus if less than 20% of the node are byzantine then why is it the consensus algorithm preferred by Ripple than PBFT or PoW which looks like more reliable consensus algorithm

We've recently published two new articles to the XRP Ledger Dev Portal, both discussing the subject of Consensus: Introduction to Consensus is just that—a beginner level summary of Consensus in the XRP Ledger. Hopefully this can help new people pick up enough to get up and running with the XRP Ledger without getting as deep into the weeds as the older, more detailed consensus article. Consensus Protections Against Attacks and Failure Modes is a new FAQ-like article that discusses some of the various threats to the XRP Ledger and how it's set up to handle them. There's also a new blog post @JoelKatz shared on the Ripple Insights Blog: The Inherently Decentralized Nature of XRP Ledger. This one talks about the future of XRP decentralization and why the lack of mining is good for the network. (Forewarning: I think this article can be a little confusing when it switches between talking about the total number of validators and the trusted validators that most of the network pays attention to.) If you find these articles helpful or interesting, we'd be happy to hear it! And if you're befuddled or want to know more, please ask away. More importantly, I hope that building a better understanding of the XRP Ledger and its greater ecosystem can help you make more informed choices in the future, especially if you choose to contribute to the Internet of Value!

The Executive Traveller Act -1 The B-School “So tell me something about yourself.” - asked the lady from the interview panel. The interview panel which was at IIM Bangalore for campus recruitment was from Citi Morgan (CiMo). It had four members; three gentlemen probably in their mid 40s and the lady probably in her late 30s. In front of them was the B-school topper - Anil. “Hello, I am Anil Bose. I was born and brought up in Kolkata, the eastern part of the country. My father worked in the Indian Airforce and my mother is a homemaker. From an early age I was influenced by my uncle who is a successful businessman. Throughout my childhood I saw him create a very robust business around textiles. He taught me how in business, relationships are important; how simple accounting practices everyday can lead to very healthy record of the business; how technology is a great enabler and technological disruptions are opportunities. I wanted to try my best at business so I joined the MBA course here, did my best at academics and finally I am in front of the top recruiters at IIMB.” I probably should have said something about my hobbies and made my first dialogue a little light-hearted, Anil thought to himself, but I always get carried when I mention my childhood. Anil started to feel a little nervous overthinking but the panel was rather impressed not only by his academic record but also by his upbringing. One of the gentleman quickly followed up with another question: “You mentioned something about technology being a great enabler and disruptions are good opportunities, can you elaborate a bit more on that?” “So basically we have seen the impact of Internet on information sharing in the past century and how it democratized information. This century we are currently seeing the democratization of presence. In 2133 ‘Recharge Labs’ came up with their first high density energy storage cells, which was based on the application of groundbreaking work of our atomic scientists. Followed by ‘Swoosh’ in 2136 finally coming up with their consumer version the ‘U Travel Pod’. Swoosh had been previously working with defense organizations of many countries selling their military travel pods which are capable of traveling at Mach 30 but they needed high energy density hydrogen fuel cells. After announcing their partnership with Recharge Labs they got in the retail sector of travel. Their consumer pods are fast, secure, reliable and cheap for individual travel. Starting next year from 2137, we will be seeing Swoosh and their competitors disrupting the logistics and presence industry. In addition to that we already have great virtual presence devices and AR- VR technologies are there to solve cases where physical presence is not really required.” As Anil finished off his answer his initial nervousness vanished. He was able to engage the recruiters in tech focused business applications which was the hype during that time and the panel was impressed further as he was able to capture a decade long development closely and describe it in a fluid fashion. “We actually travelled by a U Travel Pod today” said the lady “from New York to Bangalore in less than 30 minutes and we are using them in our business for other purposes as well.” Rest of the interview went fairly easy after that point. After an hour long process Anil came out of the interview room. He was satisfied and was confident of making it through. The next day Anil received an email from the recruitment coordinator: Congratulations Anil!! You have been selected for the role of ‘Executive-Corporate Accounts’ at Citi Morgan. We wish you the very best for your new future ahead. Attached: Letter of recruitment Anil was very happy and satisfied. He dialed his home and conveyed the news. His parents were proud of his son’s achievements. Soon Anil’s friends came into his room to congratulate him. All his batchmates got recruitment letters too within the week, employed at various companies. Anil’s best friend at the campus - Asheesh was however looking to start his own company. Asheesh never gave any interviews at IIM B. He had a background in computer science and he was busy coding when others were giving interviews. When his batchmates had recruitment letters in hand, Asheesh had an uncertain plan and a few lines of code for his startup. On the last day at IIMB everyone was partying following their slogan ‘Work Hard Party Harder’. Anil and Asheeh both sat down for a beer. Anil: “I was actually very happy after I got my recruitment but there was an uneasy feeling about this whole thing. I am a little sad that these will be my last few days here. Look bro! I don’t know much coding but I know how much dedication it takes to start something new. So I admire what your doing. You have chosen a tough road, never ever no matter whoever says don’t you give up on your dreams.” “Thanks for the support, I was also a little sad coming to the party but you have raised my spirits. Few years from now you will definitely hear about my startup.” Said Asheesh with a reaffirming smile on his face." Act -2 The Corporate Beginnings The first day at CiMo Anil wanted to arrive early and meet a few colleagues. On the first day there was a convention for new joinees which was at CiMo’s office at Mumbai. He met with others who came in from different parts of the world, other prestigious B-Schools, most of them were offered with the same role. There were almost 30-40 young individuals gathered there. At 0930 sharp, a group of officials entered the convention hall and occupied the podium. After a minute when everybody got settled an old gentleman started speaking: “Hello and welcome to Citi Morgan, you have chosen or been chosen to start your career here, the finest financial institution in the world. I am Dr. Breen Morgan Head of Accounts and Business Development, joining with me today are Mr. White, Mr. Hardy, Mr. Anderson & Ms. Paul who all are handling different corporate accounts and will be your boss and mentor for the next year or two. Also joining with me here Ms. Chatterjee, Head HR of Asia and Dr. Schulle Chief R&D Officer.” Breen points out to the respective person in the group as he was introducing them and everyone introduces to the new joinees with a hand wave or a polite bow. The podium region was digitally enhanced for speech with automatic speakers. Ms. Chatterjee: “You have been assigned your mentors keeping learning and development in mind. Today they will show what your daily work will be like, the do's, the don'ts and various other tidbits that they have learnt in their career. Now everyone please collect your starter kits kept in the front row desk.” The new joinees came towards the front desk and collected their starter kits which was a small briefcase. It is a well built briefcase, there are grooves at the bottom which should fit into something. I suppose everyone has identical cases but there are some contents inside, are those personalized or random? Thought Anil as he collected a briefcase and was moving towards his seat, his smartwatch indicated the briefcase weighed 4.2 Kg. In 10 minutes everyone got settled. Hardy: “Everyone please focus on your briefcases. I will go through the contents and the feature rich briefcase which Dr. Schulle and his team have designed in collaboration with ‘Swoosh’. Dr. Schulle calls this small briefcase a technological marvel ‘The Block’. So first and foremost the Block is equipped with the state of the art biometric engines which you can see on its handle. Around the Block you will find is a seal whose primary job is to protect the Block from environmental damage. In addition to that it is also tamper proof and in the event someone or something manages to damage the exterior or the seal itself, the seal releases a chemical which encases the contents inside with the ‘loop polymer’. I am sure most of you know about loop polymer which binds any material with itself and produces a tough condensate on hardening. The hardened condensate can only be dissolved by a very few manufacturers in the world. So we will know if someone is trying to mess with the contents of the Block with unauthorized access.” Suddenly Dr. Schulle started to speak “In fact it was loop polymer which made the manufacturing of U Travel Pod on a massive scale possible combining it with the hardest carbides, it makes travel safe and possible at such blistering speeds. And don’t worry loop polymer is harmless to humans when it is hardened. The hardening process is a fast chemical process which takes about 4 seconds.” Hardy: “Thank you for making it clear Dr. Schulle. Yes indeed there is nothing to worry for regular use, we have been using the Block for the past two years with no reports of injury due to the seal and it has successfully stopped tampering in 6 out of 6 cases past couple of years. So moving on, your biometric credentials are already in our database so you will be able to open the Block, please go ahead and open it.” Anil put the briefcase on the table in front of him and put his palm on the handle and instantly the handle turned to bright green, the briefcase lid also opened up slightly as if the system was pressurized a bit. As he opened the lid he found a letter inside, a tablet and the base had various small cabinets and small screens beside them. The lid had a place where the tablet was docked into, in front of it a translucent cover. Hardy: “So you will notice everyone received a tablet and a letter inside. The tablet is docked on the briefcase lid. As you will notice it has a translucent cover in front of it. Mistake it not for any ordinary cover, it is our layer printer. Any document you want a printed form just dock the tablet and give a print voice command and the translucent cover will start printing your documents. You may have to replace the paper canister once a month. Now everyone please go through your letter.” Anil started reading his letter, generic welcoming statements with mention of his mentor being Mr. Hardy. So the letter is indeed personalized, but I just picked it up randomly from the desk. But maybe this layer printer they are talking about must have printed it once I put my palm on the handle. It is tough to know for sure. Anil pondered to himself feeling a little surprised. It was lunch time soon. Breen pointed out to Hardy that they should break for lunch. Hardy: “Let’s take a break for lunch. Everyone assemble here back in an hour.” Food was already served in buffet style outside the hall. The food displayed was arranged in varying cuisines and everyone chose whatever they liked. Some even went and ordered some exquisite dishes. It was however no problem for the 3D food printer they had behind the curtains. Everything was served within 15 minutes. The dining place was soon filled with chatter. Everyone was excited seeing the new technologies and started discussing them at large over lunch. One hour passed quickly in a blink of an eye when it was accompanied with good food and interesting conversations. The new joinees filled the convention hall after an hour but the officials were however late this time. 30 minutes late. Anderson: “I would like to thank Mr. Hardy for conducting our first half of the session in an engaging fashion. I would now demonstrate the uses for the Block. The small cabinets you see in the base will be used for keeping valuables. It can range from currencies to gold or stocks to anything of value. In short the Block is your account you keep with your customers. You will start out with MSMEs and slowly move into larger accounts like what we keep at our branches or our other partner banks. Starting tomorrow you will be given an existing customer and your job will be to increase our customers by following any leads you find at meetings or conferences. Most of your time will be used to talk to our customers talking about our products and services and setting up meetings. The cabinets inside the Block will re-adjust the accounts you have if you made any transactions with our customers. The small screens alongside the cabinets will display your account balance with your customer. The cabinets are self arranging and will distribute themselves accordingly if your customers grow big or small. Now using this will be a learning in progress so I suggest you to read the user manual. I also suggest you to form small groups and approach your mentors to ask any questions you have.” Anil saw others forming groups of 3-4 and approaching their mentors. He however approached Hardy, his mentor alone. Anil: “Hello sir, I am Anil Bose, will be working with you from now on.” Hardy: “Ohh hello Anil. Welcome to my team. My team here handles China and Korea accounts. Let me see what will be your starting account.” Hardy pulls out his phone and checks some records. Hardy: “Hmm a challenging and growing account of TechPro. Do you have anything specific in your mind?” Anil wanted to ask about the process of transactions but since Hardy mentioned his first customer he thought it would be rude if he did not ask about TechPro. Anil: “Yeah! TechPro, I have heard of them doing good recently in China what will be the size of the accounts?” Hardy: “It would be around millions in USD unless you do very good.” Hardy did a questionable chuckle after he finished the sentence. A young lady approached Hardy and briskly asked. Young Lady: “Hello I am Clara Wright and will be joining your team. I had an important question; can you please describe the transaction procedure?” Hardy: “Hello Clara, so transactions basically would be done by your Blocks. You can even approach prospecting investors who would like to invest in markets and sell them any financial asset. This Block is designed to do every financial transaction possible.” Clara: “So I can take currencies or stock or other valuables like land deeds and the block will take them in these cabinets?” Hardy: “Yes, some assets will not be represented immediately but once all the important conversions are done and we check the issuer that the submitted deed is backed by redeemable assets then it will reflect in your cabinet screens. You will learn more as you progress.” Anil wanted to ask more but Hardy seemed hasty. Hardy: “I should get going, meet you tomorrow at the office.” Within fifteen minutes the seniors started to leave the hall one by one. Act -3 The Daily Routine The next day Anil arrived at the office, he was assigned a desk. His desk had a tabletop screen which was synced to his Block tablet. He received an email from Hardy. Please find attached all the necessary files related to TechPro. Come into my cabin once you are setup at your desk. Don’t forget to bring your Block. Anil took the Block and went to find Hardy’s cabin. The AI on his tablet gave him directions to Hardy’s cabin. Hardy: “Good morning Anil! Here let me sync our Block accounts of TechnPro.” The grooves which were present in the Block at the bottom matched with Hardy’s Block and Hardy gave a voice command to transfer current balance of TechPro to Anil’s Block. Hardy: “That is how a transaction is done. For those who do not have blocks you can put the assets directly in the cabinets the Block is intelligent enough to calibrate and find the value of the asset accordingly. You will use that when you open up your first partner account.” Anil: “All these technologies are fascinating but I don’t understand a simple logic, why don’t we use traditional asset transfer technologies like those championed by SWIFT?” Hardy: “Aha, that's a great question. Here let me answer that for you.” Hardy reached in his pocket and pulled out a card. Hardy gave the card to Anil. Hardy: “This will be your first travel pod.” The card read Citi Morgan Travel Pod issued in name of Anil Bose. Hardy: “You see, SWIFT takes at least 3 days to transfer assets around the world and reconcile them. We thought if you can be anywhere in the world in 30 minutes using the Travel Pod why use SWIFT? Plus the fact that the Block is so many times secure than their technology. There is a surprisingly high failure rate in SWIFT. And the fact that the account balance stays with our employees within the company removes most of the risks. Apart from Travel Pod capital costs, the unit travel cost comes out to be fairly cheap if we do it on scale. We did all of these calculations and found out that we can save at least 3% in our costs overall. And transaction costs are the biggest pain points nowadays for most organizations.” Anil: “Thank you for explaining that to me. I shall go and meet TechPro and find out ways to gather more customers.” Anil went to his desk shocked about the whole thing. First he wanted to see if Hardy was saying the truth. He calculated all the costs, a big firm and a MSME would incur from such transactions, cost of Travel Pods, the account risk factor, the failure rate, etc. He spent the next 3 hours cross checking all the possible scenarios of costs and the new business model adopted by CiMo. The AI in his tablet helped him in most of the calculations. The final result: cost savings of 2.78% and the Travel Pods capital cost can be recouped in 5 years according to some scenarios of scale of operations. Anil grabbed his Block and the Travel Pod keycard and planned his next meeting with TechPro while rushing towards the Pod launch pad. The launch pad was a busy hub with officials coming and going. There was a guiding robot which led him towards his travel pod. The Travel Pod was a two seater cabin with a dock for the users to keep their Blocks. The grooves at the bottom of the Block synced with the dock in the Travel Pod. The AI of the Pod helped him in choosing his destination. As the pod door closed Anil was a bit frightened as this was his first pod travel. But soon after the initial acceleration of the launch he didn’t even feel a thing. He wanted to have a look outside how supersonic travel might look like. Following his command the AI switched on some exterior cameras but the view was not so surprising as he saw only blur of clouds. Anil explored the UI a bit and saw vast databases accessible to him on TechPro and other competitors. He also saw a VR system in the pod which was capable of holding a VR presence meeting from the pod itself. He explored the files Hardy sent him via email and planned his meeting accordingly. Less than 15 minutes. From Mumbai office to TechnPro office in Shanghai. Wow that was fast, I should get used to this. Democratization of presence? This might be it. Anil was enthusiastic for his first client meeting. A year passed by, Anil’s customers grew and he filled almost half of his cabinets with clients in his Block. The other 40 colleagues who joined with Anil, not so much. It was incredibly hard to convert prospects into customers. The Travel Pod industry boomed as well. Following CiMo other companies also started doing the same for their transactions. Anil saw his colleagues getting frustrated by not being able to convert their prospects into clients and they were getting pressured by their bosses. There was immense competition in this space. CiMo covered 29% of all transactions around the globe and they themselves deployed more than 100 Corporate Accounts personnel in more than 1000 locations across the world the next year. Another year passed by and this time Anil’s Block was filled fully with client accounts. It was a CiMo custom that whoever filled the Block will be due for promotion. On his second anniversary he was called in by Hardy in his cabin. Hardy: “You know that it is a CiMo custom to promote someone who fills up thier Block. And you have proven yourself worthy of promotion through the hard work you have put in over the last two years. Next week you will be taking my position in the office, this cabin, this chair, this block. Congratulations !! Anil: “Thank you Sir! Would not have been possible without your guidance. But you mentioned about taking your cabin and all? Are you also getting promoted at CiMo?” Hardy: “Hahahaha, I am afraid not Anil. I am resigning from this job. I am exploring new opportunities. I am joining a startup next week. Hope we will be in touch.” Anil: “Sure Sir! We will be in touch. Good luck in your future endeavors.” Anil wanted to ask more from Hardy about the new startup but in reality he was tired. He was tired of all the travelling, tired of the non sedentary lifestyle, tired of the initial jolt of the Travel Pod. As he reached his desk he let out an exhilarating sigh, at least now he will have to travel less. The seniors only handled bigger accounts which required less frequent travel. He looked at his travel logs from his tabletop computer. A total of 6022 trips over the two years, the distance covered over 30 million kilometers. Act - 4 The New Promise Anil was now in a senior position, the role which Hardy played at CiMo. He handled Hardy’s Block which had accounts from other branches, correspondent banks and FIs across China and Korea. One day he started to analyse the data of the transactions. As expected he found out that Newnorth Korea had the lowest amount of transaction volume. However he had 3 clients there. Anil dialled Ms. Chatterjee who was head HR there asking for any guidance he should receive while visiting Newnorth Korea customers. Anil: “Hi Ms. Chatterjee, I was going to visit some of my clients in NK and was thinking if you have any guidance for me as the AI is coming up with very vague details.” Chatterjee: “Hi Anil, yes NK has been under military rule for a century now so commercial activities are almost zero there. The have a ‘Blade Runner-esque’ dystopian society ruled by dictators. However business seeking individuals like you would not face any troubles, just don’t do anything illegal under their law. The AI will guide you in NK laws.” Anil: “Thank you. I will look into the laws there and maybe visit one of my client there next week.” The next week Anil took his first flight to NK. He was a little nervous about the grim picture everyone painted about NK. He landed at Pyongyang; NK’s only Travel Pod location. And the grim warnings from everyone soon became reality. He was searched thoroughly by some Army personnel. Afterwards he was accompanied by 2 military men to the client’s HQ in a Jeep which itself took one hour. There was not much about the city only parks and big statues of previous and current leaders. Their financial hub was located 25 Km from the ‘airport’ a little busier than the average NK streets. There he met his NK client representative Eun Ae. The AI translated. Eun: “Welcome to NK, how was your travel?” Anil: “Thank You, my travel was pleasant.” Strange, he thought, after taking more than 6000 trips in the last two years no one ever asked this question. Eun: “So what brings you to NK? Are you looking for investments in NK?” Anil: “Yes actually some of my clients have requested to invest in your company. I wanted to look into your operations and see what might be our recommendation. What exactly does your company do?” Eun: “We manage the financial ledger database issued in the name of our supreme leader. We maintain the Kimcoin ledger.” Anil: “Kimcoin?” Eun: “Ahh, yes you must be new to the financial system here in NK. Our supreme leader issues currency and assets on our central database in NK which we all use to transact amongst ourselves on our devices. Are you not aware of the Bitcoiŋ revolution which took place in 2012?” Anil: “Yes I have read it in my financial history classes as a big financial boom and bust with financial disaster of 2018 but don’t remember much of it.” Eun: “You see it all started with Bitcoiŋ in 2009, it was a way to transfer money without involving a third party and it spread like wildfire. It was the system which solved the double-spend problem using cryptocurrency mining - proof of work. Based on proof of work there were attempts to replicate the Bitcoiŋ network but all of them were short lived. However mining was extremely inefficient, used a lot of power which was overlooked by many; blinded by the massive financial gains they made with Bitcoiŋ. Within 2012 some banks also started to use Bitcoiŋ for scaling their operations. But Bitcoiŋ was already in the wrong hands concentrated in one organisation in China and it was not sustainable to use Bitcoiŋ. After five years when the Bitcoiŋ hoarders and miners saw a chance, they executed something called a 51% attack on the Bitcoiŋ network and it was all downhill from there. Common people lost money which they thought as secure, pension funds, investment funds, half of the banks lost their transaction capability. The energy expenditure and profitability of energy and computer hardware companies was through the roof. Governments all around the world saw a complex problem, with rising threats of global warming and water levels rising, the problem of using Bitcoiŋ for illicit purposes, the financial disaster of 2018 with 51% attack, they had to put a ban on Bitcoiŋ. Even though it was a revolutionary tech, Bitcoiŋ lost its purpose slowly from P2P cash to Store of value to speculating and attackers exploited that non usefulness of the network.” Anil: “What! I never knew of such details!” Eun: “Yes, you should look into internet archives for details. Let me show you how Kimcoin works, it is a centralized version of what Bitcoiŋ was supposed to be.” Eun did 1 NK Won transaction, it took 30 seconds, small fees, had a message included with the transaction: Towards new learnings. Eun: “If you are interested we can chat in some forums about this tech.” Eun gave Anil a .onion address. After some more talk Anil prepared to leave NK. He was extremely shocked by knowing the full details of the financial disaster in 2018. He was amazed by Kimcoin. Even though the application of Kimcoin is questionable, the idea is exceptional. If somehow it can be done in a distributed fashion in the world and with some other procedure to solve the double spend it can be revolutionary & would definitely succeed. Thought Anil. Anil was visibly angry and frustrated with his whole experience, the two years of hard work he did could have been reproduced on a network of computers, if executed correctly. In his anger, he started to scratch the exterior of the Block with his fingernails. Hardy’s block was 4 years old and the protective layer came off in where he was scratching. Anil saw the letters ‘STR’ beneath the layer. He started to scratch around more, careful as to not to activate the loop polymer. After much scratching he saw the word ‘VOSTRO’ written clearly underneath the layer. He soon understood the original plan of CiMo. CiMo was burnt badly by the financial disaster of 2018 but could not pass the efficiency improvements they saw with Bitcoiŋ. So they waited and with sufficient R&D they produced a physical block as opposed to a digital block and the network was the chain of employees worldwide on pods. Anil never went to his office for the week. He explored at the .onion address which was given by Eun. After some reading and following links he arrived at a forum named XRPTalk. There he found a user named ‘sJoelKatzz’ who had this brilliant idea of solving the double spend problem with a consensus protocol he designed in a distributed fashion. He saw a user named ‘AshgoGreen’ who was discussing the protocol back and forth and adding some codes with discussion. He saw the profile picture of ‘AshgoGreen’ and saw a familiar face. Anil jogged his memory a bit and recognized it was Asheesh from IIMB. They took that photo on the first day of IIMB. He grew more and more interested and started learning new terms and concepts: Internet of Value, microtransactions, XRP Ledger, XRP consensus protocol & cobalt, codius & smart contracts, etc. To add to his surprise he saw a newbie profile in the forum named ‘Hardybois’ and recognized the pic to be his previous boss Hardy. He sent PMs to both Asheesh and Hardy. Anil wanted to join them into building, what they were calling the ‘Internet of Value’. With his experience, he thought, he would be a good addition to the team which they were building. The next day he wrote a resignation letter to the HR at CiMo: “I quit. I am going to build the Internet of Value.” END. Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Consensus is better than Proof of Work. When it comes to all categories of strengths for a decentralized cryptographic network, XRP is stronger than Bitcoin in every category: Double-spend prevention, security, censorship-resistance, dependability, scalability, and settlement speed. The fact that we're even still talking about Bitcoin in 2018 is a testament to how effective protectionist market interference can be; but XRP doesn't care - it is being adopted at scale by real businesses for real global commerce. There are a myriad of reasons for this, but in this blog, I focus in on one specific aspect of XRP: its transaction validation model and how it compares to Bitcoin. I hope you enjoy! Please leave any feedback below. Feel free to share my blog with a friend, or on any other platform! (and thanks for doing so!) Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

https://cointelegraph.com/news/japans-largest-bank-and-cloud-delivery-giant-akamai-announce-blockchain-payment-network “The Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG) has partnered with major U.S.-based cloud delivery platform Akamai Technologies to release a global payment network based on blockchain.” -> SBI Partner “Akamai, a Massachusetts-based firm, was able to test the blockchain platform “under realistic business conditions,” showing a capability for processing a million transactions per second and a capacity for finalizing transactions in under two seconds, according to MUFG’s official press release.” -> Paychan & xRapid? “Tokyo-based MUFG’s and Akamai’s payment network, which will go live starting in the 2018 fiscal year, will include an interface that functions as a communication network, and will allow Internet of Things (IoT) payment methods like pay-per-use and micropayments.“ -> Micropayments has obviously been mentioned by Ripple a lot, and IoT recently also a few times https://www.mufg.jp/english/vcms_lf/news/pressrelease-20180521-002-e.pdf “2. About the Technology Blockchain’s transaction speed and processing capacity are determined by the speed of consensus decision-making between the nodes that make up the blockchain. The two important factors behind this are the speed of the network between the nodes, and the time required for new blocks within a node to be created and validated. The new service enables higher transaction speed and processing capacity by adopting the following system structure: (1) Achieving high-speed communication between nodes by positioning all nodes responsible for consensus decision-making on the Akamai Intelligent Platform (2) Developing a unique design permitting high-speed and high-capacity creation and verification of new blocks within nodes.” -> Ripple products or something build on top of it?

As Blockchain Week in NYC ends, you'll want to read my wrap of events affecting XRP and Ripple. This blog includes a fascinating "buzz" info-graphic about what people were talking about the most in the first two days in NYC. In addition, I analyze comments from two different Federal Reserve leaders that gave speeches this week and commented about cryptocurrency. Also included is information about Ripple's latest business deals and developments, including MUFG, Xpring, and Coil. I hope you enjoy the read - please leave any feedback below. Please feel free to share my blog - with a friend or on any other platform - and thank you for doing so! Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Reddit r/alternativecoin Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

XRP and Ripple are leading the pack in the third week of April. What's going on with Ripple and XRP? New exchange(s), increasing volume, a market rally, and a $25 million dollar investment. Ripple joins Hyperledger, and keynotes at several conferences: The company also hired a Head of Community! @peebo38 Rounding it out, the community gets a new tip bot, but this time on Telegram, and a new coin promotion just started at XRPChat. I cover all of this in today's blog. Hope you enjoy & please leave any feedback below. Feel free to share my blog with a friend or family member, or on any other platform - and thank you for doing so! Twitter Reddit r/Ripple Reddit r/CryptoCurrency Reddit r/CryptoMarkets Reddit r/xrp Reddit r/RippleTalk Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

Hi Can someone explain exactly the "Two Generals Problem" and how it was solved, its implication for the Ripple consensus and also then explain Proof of Work, so that XRPs superiority becomes clear? Thanks

I have a cluster setup between a public facing stock server and a validating server on a private network. When starting rippled I see this on the validator: LedgerConsensus:NFO Entering consensus process, watching, synced=no 2017-Dec-30 22:45:54 LedgerConsensus:NFO Consensus mode change before=observing, after=observing 2017-Dec-30 22:45:54 NetworkOPs:DBG Initiating consensus engine 2017-Dec-30 22:45:56 Server:NFO Opened 'port_rpc_admin_local' (ip=127.0.0.1:5005, admin IPs:127.0.0.1, http) 2017-Dec-30 22:45:56 Server:NFO Opened 'port_peer' (ip=0.0.0.0:51235, peer) 2017-Dec-30 22:45:56 Server:NFO Opened 'port_ws_admin_local' (ip=127.0.0.1:6006, admin IPs:127.0.0.1, ws) 2017-Dec-30 22:45:58 LedgerConsensus:WRN View of consensus changed during open status=open, mode=observing Is there a configuration that would cause "observing mode". I have tried recreating my validator token without success. Traffic is flowing well between the servers across 51235. Thanks RJ

Does anyone have video of Miguel speaking at Consensus? I have searched all over and only have found one clip about a minute long. Would also love to see the interview in which Michael Arrington discusses his XRP hedge fund. Am I s*** out of luck?

In this blog entry, I take a deep dive into why and how XRP is so much faster than its competitors & describe the Ripple Protocol! I did a little digging into how consensus is SO much faster than any of the competitors and blogged a bit about it in this entry. Hope you enjoy; please leave any feedback below & as always, please feel free to share on any other media! My blog announcements in other places: Twitter Reddit Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP speculation thread

I've read that the rules of the protocol determine if a transaction is valid, but I can't find an actual list of those rules. Is it buried in the code or is there a separate document somewhere?

Bitcion Mining hurts the environment! I discuss this in my latest blog entry and talk about how to support the environment... buy investing in XRP. I genuinely hope you enjoy the read! I think Ripple should really hammer this environmental point even more than they already do. Let me know what you think, positive or negative, below, and as always, feel free to share my blog on other media! My blog announcements on other media: Twitter Reddit Bitcointalk - alt coin sub forum Bitcointalk - XRP Speculation Thread

It's like an itch in the back of their minds, a growing anxiety that no amount of alcohol can eliminate. The new consensus among whale crypto traders is that XRP is taking over. So how do they react? They're raking in quick profits from the ICOs *if they're lucky*, and perhaps putting their money into ETH and BTC to take advantage of the temporary run-ups. But they know better. The logical part of their mind is screaming at them to wake up and smell the coffee, and investigate just how much adoption Ripple is making with the banks. Sometimes they pop into our forum and ask that very question, hoping that somebody, anybody, can provide them inside information about when to make their big switch from their risky portfolio back to the safe bet... to the one that they know will inevitably take over crypto. Adoption of XRP It's happening now - here are the raw numbers: 15 of the top 50 banks worldwide are working with Ripple 9 different countries with banks are implementing Ripple... in production 87% of all FX pairs are now potentially covered by XRP (source: https://www.ripple.com/) In addition to the above current statistics, Ryan Zagone was just recently quoted as saying that 16 more countries will be using the RCL. (source: _https://youtu.be/PzScsRNsoT0 at 39:15) We know unequivocally that Ripple Desires a High XRP Price. They try to understate it, but a high XRP price benefits the company in a myriad of ways, including low cost of FX transfers, and the increased value of their treasury's main digital asset. (sources: _https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/5565-joelkatz-a-question-if-you-have-time/#comment-52750 and _https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/5280-valuation-models-xrp-the-digital-currency-vs-ripple-the-company/?do=findComment&comment=50484) Lessons of History Old, legacy technology such as Bitcoin doesn't have much of a bright future if history is any guide. And we know from many social scientists that history should be our guide; it's lessons repeat if they are not recognized, and bitcoin is on its way to becoming an academic case study in that concept. For now, look to Kodak, AOL, or the Yahoo search engine. These companies once had enormous market share and valuation, but mainly due to superior technological rivals and options, they no longer exist - at least in their previous form. They might have redefined themselves and found a niche market, but their heydays are long gone. Now it is digital cameras mounted directly on smart phones, direct ISP providers, or Google. So How Fast Will XRP Take Over? What makes Ripple's case so unique is that the difference in options is so stark. Never has history offered an opportunity so well-defined for potential investors. We are still early in the adoption life cycle. Because of our early position in the innovation life cycle, the chance to own significant chunks of Ripple's digital asset at very low prices are lying here for us to take... even before the advent of the most popular XRP wallets hit the "streets" soon. BitGo Wallet (source: _https://twitter.com/lopp/status/864560414293721089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.xrpchat.com%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcore%26module%3Dsystem%26controller%3Dembed%26url%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Flopp%2Fstatus%2F864560414293721089) JoelKatz Wallet? (source: https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/5067-david-schwartz-joelkatz-working-with-third-party-on-high-quality-wallet-and-other-xrp-related-projects/ ) Coinket Distributed Trading Wallet (source: http://www.livebitcoinnews.com/new-peer-peer-xrp-marketplace-will-launch-two-weeks/ ) We're still "early" in the market, but beware how fast the markets can shift.. you've seen XRP price rise more than 40% in one day ... less than one week ago. When the industry turns it's attention to XRP, there will be no turning back, and the opportunities to buy XRP at current prices will be part of... history! DISCLAIMERS THIS IS NOT INVESTING ADVICE PLEASE DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH BEFORE INVESTING I DO NOT HAVE ANY INSIDE INFORMATION PLEASE DO NOT TRADE CRYPTO WITH LEVERAGE

When companies, financial institutions, and other organizations attempt to compare some of the new "networks" that have cropped up since the advent of bitcoin, invariably the concept of "closing time" or "block times" is discussed. Block Times and Confirmations The fastest known average block times for any of the new networks is approximately 17 seconds (source: https://etherscan.io/chart/blocktime ). This means that at a minimum, you must over a quarter minute for a block containing your transaction to be processed, but there is also a chance that you could wait much longer - standard deviation equaling the average - for the next block. The reason behind this is that even though Ethereum would like you to focus on "average" block times, there is enough randomness involved to make this unpredictable for a specific transaction. Most of you are familiar with the "3 and good" confirmation requirement for most software that interacts with the Bitcoin network. These are known as confirmations, which is simply the "number of blocks" before a program, organization, or person is absolutely sure that your confirmation is legitimate. For Bitcoin or Ethereum this equates to multiple blocks, so you have to multiply their already slow block times by the number of confirmations required for validation of the transaction. For ethereum, different sources have been quoted as needing 12 confirmations, which is basically a requirement to multiply the average block time (17 seconds) by 12, arriving at 204 seconds (3.4 minutes). Now, reading this sentence, a few minutes may seem like not a long time, but try setting a stop watch and try it for yourself. Try standing at a cash register and making small talk while you're waiting for your payment to clear. It's unacceptable. Compare that with Ripple and the RCL. The RCL closes it's ledger on average every 3.45 seconds (source: https://ripple.com/xrp/market-performance/ ), and XRP payments are settled in no longer than 4 seconds total. (source: https://ripple.com/xrp/ ) Just breathe once and it's done. Scale The next question has to do with how a network can scale to handle increasing loads of transactions. It can be measured in a few different ways, but a baseline estimate is usually the place to start, which is measured in TPS, or "Transactions Per Second." Bitcoin - 6 TPS ETH - 15 TPS XRP - 1000 TPS Of the three above, Bitcoin and ETH are capped at that speed currently. However, XRP can scale its channel processing to meet higher load and demand, matching the performance of the current VISA network. Ignore the noise, and invest in value. ----XRP ---

Proof of Work consensus algorithms require the usage of massive amounts of electricity, for CPUs to mine for bitcoins and other alt coins. For bitcoin, it's coal-fueled mining facilities in China have become a subject of much attention and debate, as the miner's interests are only about generating bitcoins as a mining reward. They do not focus on other metrics, such as uptime and network stability, as Ripple does. Here are some pictures of one such mining operation: In contrast, other types of consensus algorithms do not require this energy, because consensus can be achieved in other ways. When it comes to blockchains, the most common alternative is a hybrid of a consensus approach known as "Proof of Stake," where the consensus is achieved by nodes that have the most "stake" or amount of coins. (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake ) This approach is still considered a bit of a novelty, and requires a hybrid approach to start off the blockchain at its beginning stages - essentially hard-coding in a starting distribution of the stake to initiate the protocol. The other consensus algorithm is one that has been proven stable over many years of use; the XRP consensus, which uses a byzantine consensus algorithm. It's not considered a proof of work or a proof of state, but instead is centered around a "voting" mechanism among trusted nodes on a network. This means that no "mining" is necessary on the RCL, and it is by far the most energy-efficient method of achieving transaction confirmations, even more so than a hybrid Proof of Stake. The enery consumption of those networks (such as ETH or BTC) is no small matter. Bitcoin currently is estimated to generate 2,000,000 metric tons of CO2 every year. I have seen no such estimate yet of Ethereum, but because it's a POW blockchain, it will require or imply electrical consumption to fuel its consensus algorithm, and to keep it's network secure (source: reddit.com/r/ethereum/comments/3mchof/question_why_switch_to_pos/ ) The general public has shown a tendency to opt for "green energy" solutions in almost every industry where they know about the choice, or it's clearly labeled. In the case of crypto-currency, Ripple has chosen not to trumpet the "green-ness" of their solution, instead focusing on its incredible efficiency, but for me, it's good to know that the environment is benefiting from my choice of investment as well! Stay Green! Buy XRP!

http://www.coindesk.com/events/consensus-2017/live-stream/

Tweet and corresponding reddit post from Viad Zamfir on proof of work that I thought you all might enjoy. If bitcoin can't resolve its scaling issue, how will it ever resolve it's consensus problems. Both ETH and BTC have a long road ahead.