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Looking for a summary of the SWELL Conference + the latest news about XRP? I've got you covered! SWELL was a tour-d-force for Ripple; you won't want to miss my TL:DR breakdowns of each session in this blog. I provided my own personal take on each of the sessions, including the "800 Pound Gorilla" panel discussion at the end. This latest blog also covers the latest news in crypto, and Ripple & XRP as well, including what to expect from the Malta conference, and news that SmartStream piloted Ripple tech. Coinswitch adds a custom crypto switch page for XRP fans, and Bitrue announces their new mobile application. I hope you enjoy the read & please leave any feedback below. Also, feel free to share my blog with anybody you'd like - and also feel free to re-post on any other social media platform you wish - 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

For anyone new to crypto who may be lurking, I want to advise you to not buy crypto on eBay. I came across this ad today. There were many other listings like it. When I was just getting into crypto, I’m ashamed to say I was un-savvy enough to buy BTC, ETH, and XRP on eBay. The listings were legit but the prices were astronomical. That’s on me for not researching more. This listing, and the others like it, may be outright theft. It advertises a mining contract- for XRP. Most of us know this does not compute. When I pointed this out, the seller said something in broken English to the effect of “Well but I would mine BTC, trade it for XRP, and give it to you.” I find this very hard to believe. At best, I would pay $32 to get 25 XRP. In addition, this guy is probably breaking the law. There are tons of people out there trying to part you from your hard-earned money. And once the transaction is complete, there is no way to reverse it (that I know of). Reimbursement from your credit card or bank? Ehhh...from my experience in banking- maybe. This is crypto 101 to most of us, but going through the listings, I can see that people are keeping them on their watch list and then buying them. Buy through a reputable exchange. Be careful out there. I’d also like to hear anyone else’s experience buying or selling crypto on eBay. Or maybe there is something I’m missing here that makes this listing perfectly acceptable. I don’t see how but welcome any input.

We have just pushed out a Chrome Extension to order from online stores with your XRP and other currencies through Bookcoin. Check it out here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bookcoin/nejjpjaklmmipkajpjeecfbedkkjfbdj. Let us know your thoughts!

My husband started a OpenCoin account in 2013. The requirement for account was 50 xrp. He bought xrp starter pack from Bitmit. Later added xrp from EBay and Redditt users. Plus atleast1500xrp from sweepstakes. He believed in xrp and help to promote it until he became very ill from a rare form of Multiple Sclerosis, etc. He remained in contact with Ripple during this time (Ripple confirmed fund in emails), and who was completely aware of his issues. When he was able he merged account to Gatehub. When he logged on (still his original account) no xrp. When he contacted Ripple, he was told there was never and funds deposited or withdrawn. When he provided them with evidence of deposits and emails from Ripple going back to 2013, they just stopped communicating with him.

I'm sure this is old news for many of the members here but it might be useful for newer members or lurkers. I have seen thousands of XRP cold wallets sucessfully sold on eBay, some empty and some pre-loaded with XRP. Despite claims in the listings that "all security keys are destroyed after production", the fatal security flaw with every last one of them is that you are trusting that no one in the entire manufacturing process took a photo of or wrote down the secret key. There is a period of time before the scratch-off material is applied, when the secret key is visible to anyone in the manufacturing facility. Some wallets even have the secret key uncovered on the finished product. People may be used to scratch-off cards like gift cards or lottery tickets being secure but they are produced under high-security. These wallets come with no such assurance. These products are potentially a time-bomb in that the stolen key may not be used for a long time, lulling the new owner into thinking it is secure. They have no recourse if down the road their wallet is emptied. Those potential victims may even wrongly blame Ripple the company, causing public relations problems.

I understand micropayments now. At least, I thnkI understand. What is a Micropayment? The term "micropayments" is usually the term traditionally given to monetization of very samll transactions - under $12 - for content provided over the internet. One example is Blendle, a media startup that lets you pay a few cents for the privilege of reading their news articles online (source: https://www.wired.com/2016/03/pay-25-cents-read-article-blendle-certainly-thinks/ ) So Who Processes These Things Now? PayPal Micropayments is a platform that's been around for a few years, and it builds off of the usage by Ebay vendors for small transactions. The fee structure is built on the concept of giving a vendor the ability to pay the processing fee based MORE on a percentage of the sale price rather than the flat processing fee. Instead of the usual 3.4% + 20 cents, you’ll pay 5% + 5 cents. Basically a higher percentage but lower fixed cost. (source: https://www.thebalance.com/increase-profits-with-paypal-micropayments-1140571 ) XRP Advantage Now compare that to the processing fee of processing a micropayment through the RCL using XRP payment channels. The current fee is listed as 10 drops, or .00001 XRP. If we use a value of 30 cents as an example, that's a transaction cost of $.000003. Now, that's the network fee for using XRP transactions. Any actual service provider of an online wallet may also layer other charges to cover costs associated with processing transactions and providing other services such as returns, insurance, and other items, but you can see clearly that PayPal is about to face some competition in this market. Speed Another issue that micropayments platforms have typically had is the ability to scale for increased usage. Did I mention that XRP Payment channels were fast? The XRP Ledger using payment channels can scale to handle over 50,000 transactions per second. (source: https://ripple.com/files/xrp_overview.pdf ) The first FI to integrate using XRP Payment Channels is going to have a substantial advantage when it comes to mircopayments. Or maybe PayPal might see the light and choose to contact Ripple?