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**Disclaimer: This is NOT financial advice! This theorizing is NOT to be taken seriously and is only for fun! DYOR! Fun fact: XRP/XLM have been labelled, by large financial entities, 'Stablecoins'. D. Schwartz has talked about: XRP VS Stablecoins, and why it's a better 'currency', being geo-politically neutral, currency/asset agnostic, public and deflationary VS pegged-inflationary FIAT. FSB (Financial Stability Board): to "Foster the soundness of Global Stablecoin (GSC) Arrangements" and "Regulation, Supervision and Oversight of“Global Stablecoin” Arrangements" Global Stablecoin main features VS stablecoin: Potential to reach/use across multiple jurisdictions. used as a means of "making payments". Increasingly used as a store of value by "the public/households" (possibly meaning an unpegged, deflationary stablecoin.). Potential to achieve substantial volume. is interoperable and interlinking between systems & harmonised by ISO20022. Additionally, the IOSCO (international securities commission) hypothesized on a possible GSC, one which is: "A global currency". Has "financial infrastructure which is used for domestic & cross-border payments". "Uses a reserve fund & intermediaries to seek a stable price vis a vis a basket of low-volatile currencies or commodities". To make this more interesting, it goes on to mention how this GSC: "Could interact with securities regulators, acting as a debt instrument". That it's "decentralised nature could pose challenges with stabilization." And "appropriate regulation, supervision and regulatory oversight to prevent gaps and avoid arbitrage" before such an "arrangement" would go "live". These documents emphasize this is a "joint private and public sector vision". The FSB (Financial Stability Board), orchestrated by the BIS, coordinates this "oversight" and "implementation" w/the CPC, CPMI (BIS)+ relevant SSBs. Fun Fact 2: The FSB has only 3 US members - 1 of whom is G. Gensler... Another is Lael Brainard (current Vice Chair to the Fed, has referred to a new global neutral settlement bridge asset as central to the new financial system). Globally, there are members from entities like: IMF, WB, ECB, EC, Basel, IOSCO, CGFS+ more from Central Banks. My own speculation: What is described as a "global stablecoin' not only sounds like it has potential to be a global reserve currency, but quite literally sounds like: XRP or even XLM. It's almost, objectively, a 1:1 description. It also aligns with points made time-time-again about XRP needing a higher, more stable or set price, and aligns with the many intelligent people in this community who are saying XRP may be backed by commodities to achieve prices (as they say: "via a intermediaries and baskets of low-volatile assets) which help it be more effective without moving the market too much (a volatility issue frequently brought up by D. Schwartz). It aligns with it possibly becoming a store of value, as a higher but less volatile price would probably still increase in value over time. It also just so happens that many of these entities are frequently meeting with Ripple, whether it be face-to-face or at important events. It just so happens that the only country in the world taking issue with XRP is the one whose global reserve currency is threatened by a neutral alternative. Or, they're "addressing regulatory gaps"... My question to people here is: If not XRP/XLM, what ticks all these boxes? Libra? JPMcoin? These won't be held by public households as "a store of value", and trust is a whole other story. ETH? BTC? These aren't efficient or effective institutional payment networks. To me: It sounds like these are XRP, XLM, possibly XDC, maybe even pegged stablecoins like USDC, USDT, or retail CBDCs, but they'll all be bound to the disadvantages of traditional pegged, biased, inflationary fiat. You do the math.. Appreciate any comments.

https://www.stellar.org/blog/sdfs-next-steps/ Holy cow.

Nice article showing the present state of the Ripple (XRP) competition. Source: https://ethereumworldnews.com/why-ripple-xrp-is-much-far-ahead-of-other-projects-than-what-we-realize/

Just learned about Stellar and earned $XLM in return! Use my invite to join Coinbase and earn up to $50 of $XLM.; https://coinbase.com/earn/xlm/invite/mj754htk Just get the XLM and convert to Zerps 😁👍

Utoken is a open source mobile wallet, supported by Ultiledger team and ripplefox team. We will do our best to make more and more people know and use blockchain in both China and other countries. Leave your ethereum address in this issue (ULT is currently a ERC20 token). We will send you some ULT (0 ~ 1000). https://github.com/ultiledger/utoken/issues/21 We will close this issue and stop the giveaway when neccessary.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2018/09/09/enterprise-blockchain-struggles-to-carve-out-a-niche/#116ff9d1600a Interesting take on the state of blockchain. For once a Forbes contributor that isn't a Bitcoin maximalist, and is actually forecasting its doom for the very reason (decentralization) people like Laura Shin are saying it will succeed over XRP. He's pretty hard on XRP though. Although not directly mentioning it, he talks about the speculative nature of most tokens (XRP included) will prevent them from ever having any value - early investors selling and depressing the price of most tokens will prohibit adoption & use. He only mentions Ripple, and spends much more time talking about IBM/Stellar and the introduction of 'StableCoin' on the Stellar blockchain. Overall it's more thoughtful than the usual pieces put out by Forbes, but there's one point he's trying to make that leaves me scratching my head: HUH??? What about ILP? I would love to hear in greater detail as to how he arrived at this conclusion. Yes, there is a lot of hype in this space, but to me, preventing value from copying itself the way information does on the internet is a pretty big problem. And when it is solved, that disruption may not be felt as much in the "West", but there are billions of people whose lives will be changed (hopefully) in a good way. I guess time will tell...

Looks as if the competition (Stellar) is taking it up a notch with their IBM partnership via IBM World-Wire. What do you guys think??

https://cryptoslate.com/coinbase-exploring-the-addition-of-cardano-basic-attention-token-stellar-lumens-zcash-and-0x/

Greetings! Just a quick note for those that are following @TiffanyHayden's Stellarfork project; a new forum has been created if you'd like to participate. I've visited and joined up; I plan on supporting the project. If you'd like to keep up to date, learn more about the Flint Water Crisis, contribute to the project, or just receive some FORK tokens, feel free to visit: http://stellarfork.proboards.com/

If coinbase are looking for a safer bet, is Stellar a safer bet than ripple? Ripple invest their xrp in hedge funds and other investments that are vulnerable to an economic collapse of the us stock market, bonds etc. whats your thoughts? If they have xrp invested in the stock market and the stock market crashes, they will loose a lot of money right? Watch the video all the way through to understand what im saying!

https://keybase.io/blog/keybase-stellar Interesting (and probably unexpected for most people) development for both Keybase and Stellar. For those that just want a tl;dr using the article's text:

Good afternoon, I consult you, the idea that I have is: A security and private validation mechanism. Using the free code of ripple and xrp, from there create a new cryptocurrency. 1st it's possible ? 2nd. what is the beginning? Where do you start? 3rd Is there a basic guide or tutorial to follow? And if it is very complicated or not possible, how do I implement a test scenario to use ripple? Thank you very much and greetings

Buenas tardes, les consulto, la idea que tengo es: Un mecanismo de seguridad y validación privado. Utilizando el codigo libre de ripple y xrp, a partir de ahí crear una nueva criptomoneda. 1ro. es posible ? 2do. cual es el comienzo ? por donde se empieza ? 3ro. existe una guia básica o tutorial para seguir ? Y de ser muy complicado o no ser posible, como implemento un escenario de pruebas para utilizar ripple ? Muchas gracias y Saludos

I posted this on Reddit as rebuttal to when someone was going at me for defending XRP on r/Cryptocurrency. I thought I might actually explain to him why Stellar was inferior technically instead of just a subjective judgement. The only exception where Stellar>Ripple is for P2P usage, but that's it..and only for right now. I know a lot of people have been discussing Stellar vs Ripple over here, so I figured I might open up some technical discussion on the topic. If you have anything to add, please feel free. I've been taking a deep dive on the mathematical aspect of tokens. CAP theorem, game theory, Sybil attacks, timestamp manipulation, scalability etc. I don't believe all that stuff should be reserved for the programmers to know, so I'll probably keep adding to this thread so we can have some insights into the DNA of all the different tokens out there. Original Thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/7x750o/without_stellar_banks_wouldnt_think_about_ripple/du6ucbk/?context=3&st=jdm2435h&sh=c53e680a P.S I've been taking arms against the FUD on Ripple XRP over in r/cryptocurrency. You know what? The tides are turning and the guys who call XRP "shitcoin" are not getting 50 upvotes anymore; now they're getting downvoted. I've managed to open some minds as well; and had people admit that they were mistaken in their negative views of XRP. Thanks for all the Likes & Thanks! It's nice to have made my online home here with you guys. XRPChat is truly one of the best online communities out there . It's my pleasure to put all this together for you guys. =====Edits===== Fixed.

Here is my latest blog. I've noticed that many XRP enthusiasts/investors I encounter online lack a firm understanding of the actual purpose of XRP and my hope is that this post can help people have a better understanding of the big picture. This blog is what I wish someone had compiled for me when I began learning about Ripple & XRP. I know there are a number of XRP veterans around here, but new people are joining us every day. Additionally, I find it to be fact that no business on the planet is taking the same business approach that Ripple is so I cover that as well. Criticism is welcome as long as it's constructive. Praise is preferred Here is the original link to this blog post in case you prefer a more aesthetically pleasing format: https://moonlambo.wordpress.com/2018/02/09/whos-competing-with-ripple/ Who's Competing with Ripple? February 9, 2018 By: Matt (Moon Lambo) No company in the world is trying to do what Ripple is trying to do. That's not to say they don't have competitors --- of course they do. But their competitors are going down a markedly different path. What is Ripple trying to do that is so different than anyone else? Who are Ripple's competitors? Why are their payment and liquidity solutions inferior when compared to the future that the team at Ripple envisions? Why isn't anyone else attempting to do that? I'll unpack all of this in today's blog. Pain Points On a high level there are two primary pain points for financial institutions when it comes to cross-border money transactions: Payments & liquidity. It's important to distinguish between the two because the problems associated with each, and solutions to each, are dramatically different. Insofar as payments are concerned, Ripple has been able to modernize the system without the need to implement a digital asset (cryptocurrency) in the solution. Ripple's xCurrent platform is capable of processing payment transactions in a matter of seconds, rather than days, while lowering operational costs. This technology makes entire layers of human management obsolete, and eliminating this labor expense is one way that Ripple is able to save banks large sums of money. In fact, Ripple's xCurrent is capable of reducing international payment infrastructure costs by up to 33%. Critics like to point out that Ripple solved the payments problem without any need for XRP. This is true, but such a comment is a red flag that the critics in question don't understand the purpose of XRP. The truth is that XRP was never intended to solve a payments problem; it exists to solve a liquidity problem. Why is liquidity an issue? Enter nostro/vostro accounts. A nostro account essentially references "my money in your bank" while a vostro account means "your money in my bank." These accounts are what banks use today to source liquidity for cross-border payments, and at any given moment more than $27 trillion is parked in these accounts in the form of every fiat currency you can imagine. XRP was designed as the solution to this liquidity nightmare. This digital asset can be used as a replacement for all nostro/vostro accounts. To be clear, this means that one digital asset, XRP, eliminates the needs for banks to have multiple accounts in various fiat currencies all over the world. This is important for a few reasons: Sourcing liquidity the old fashioned way can add roughly an extra day to the transaction process and requires labor for processing which is expensive. XRP transactions take mere seconds and require almost no human interaction. If you're a bank with a nostro account in a foreign country, the capital you store in this pre-funded account is dormant. It sits idle just in case it is needed for money transfers. Leaving funds dormant is certainly not the best use of liquid money. It would be better purposed if it were invested or otherwise utilized. Highly inflationary foreign currencies are a problem. Consider that in December of 2015, one United States dollar was worth 10 Argentine pesos, and two years later it was worth 19 pesos. This real world example shows that if you're a bank with a nostro account storing the Argentine peso, your money has lost a substantial amount of value over time compared to more stable fiat currencies such as the U.S. dollar. Without question this is a rather unappealing proposition, yet a necessary evil in today's world. There is a better way to do this. An Audacious Plan Miguel Vias, Head of XRP Markets at Ripple, once stated that his employer's mission sounds "audacious." I must admit I fully agree with him. Ripple seeks to make the transfer of money as quick and seamless as it is to send an e-mail today, and they call that the "internet of value." I believe that the most bold part of their plan is what Ripple is doing to position XRP as the standard source for liquidity of all global money transfers. When I opened this blog by stating that no company in the world is trying to do what Ripple is trying to do, this is what I was talking about. No other business is positioning any digital asset as a global solution for today's liquidity woes. Can you imagine hatching such a plan? Acknowledging that it's "audacious" barely scratches the surface when you consider what is necessary for Ripple to achieve their goals. First, Ripple had to create xCurrent, a payment technology that is so vastly superior to the system and processes that are in place today that banks would have no reasonable recourse but to adopt the new technology. Next, Ripple has to be a cheerleader for the use case of XRP as a pool of on-tap liquidity for cross-border money transactions. Keep in mind that Ripple does not own the XRP ledger system because XRP is a decentralized digital asset, but still they're fostering an environment in which XRP markets grow and gain actual value. Rather than attempting to force banks to source XRP for liquidity, they seek to prove to banks and financial institutions that XRP is the only real solution for the global liquidity problem they face. In fact, a bank that utilizes both xCurrent and XRP can save upwards of 60% in costs. Trillions of dollars are transferred around the world on a daily basis. That means that if XRP does one day replace nostro/vostro accounts, it's market cap will need to be in the trillions. Ripple has not blatantly stated that they have a goal of XRP one day reaching a market cap in the trillions, but it seems obvious to me that is what they're aiming for. That is what makes Ripple's plan seem audacious, but it's also the reason that it is truly visionary. A Perfect Storm How could it ever be possible for Ripple to clean up the train wreck that is the global money transfer system? It's thanks to a blend of fortuitous timing and incredible technology. XRP was created in 2012; just three years after blockchain technology was introduced to the world via Bitcoin. Since it's inception, the value of Bitcoin has soared because enough people have decided that it does in fact have value. It can be argued that on the day that Bitcoin inventor Satoshi Nakamoto launched his invention, Bitcoin had no value. It wasn't until the world began to adopt the platform and individuals converted their fiat currencies into Bitcoin that it really had any value. Similarly, XRP had no real value on the day that it was launched, yet today it enjoys a market cap of roughly $37 billion because people & businesses have come together and decided that is what it's currently worth. The idea of creating the digital asset XRP, which initially had no value, and then convincing people to give it value by investing money in it to solve a liquidity problem, is incredible. The fact that Ripple is making this idea a reality is even more incredible. Ripple came along with the right solutions at the right time, and they started marching down this path before most people had ever heard of Bitcoin or blockchain technology. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before. While Ripple's plan may sound pretty wild to most, I believe they have a real shot at making their vision a reality. Deeply Misguided Competitors Let's take a moment to consider the entities that are competing with Ripple. Examining all competitors would be outside the scope of this blog, but suffice it to say most are banks and financial institutions. Their technology solutions (I use the term "solutions" loosely) have two primary components. They utilize blockchain or familial technology for payments, and bank coins for liquidity. Component 1: For comparison's sake you can think of their blockchain or familial technology for payments as being equivalent in concept to Ripple's xCurrent. That's an oversimplification, but it works for explanatory purposes. Component 2: The aforementioned bank coin. The term "bank coin" can be broadly used to define a digital asset created and used by a bank, or alliance of banks, which is intended to solve the same liquidity problem XRP was designed to solve. Bank coins all employ the same general strategy, have the same market barriers, and the same tremendous shortcomings. During the summer of 2016, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Santander and BNY Mellon announced their own bank coin. They call it the "utility settlement coin" which is a digital asset intended to solve the liquidity problem that XRP also seeks to solve. Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse promptly wrote an article citing the development of this bank coin as "deeply misguided." He was quick to point out a glaringly obvious problem is that a bank coin can only efficiently settle between the banks that issued it. A quote from Brad Garlinghouse's article referencing two possible outcomes: Given that Brad's second scenario is already happening with the advent of Citibank's Citicoin and Goldman Sachs' SETLcoin, it's easy to see how pursuing the bank coin approach will only serve to further fragment an already fractured banking system. Banks with competing bank coins would need to make new markets in order to conduct business with one another. Does that sounds like a global solution to you? I don't think so either. No level of bank coin interoperability could ever work as seamlessly as a globally adopted XRP. As I previously mentioned, XRP is only used as a source of liquidity, not as a source meant for payments. This means that banks have a few choices when it comes to adopting blockchain, or familial technology, and digital assets: Utilize Ripple's xCurrent for payments & XRP for liquidity. Create their own blockchain or familial technology for payments and use XRP for liquidity. Create their own blockchain or familial technology for payments and create their own centralized digital asset for liquidity. A primary reason that XRP is attractive as a liquidity solution is that people and businesses have invested in it, and as such it has actual value. Any bank coin, upon inception, has no value. Bank coins are controlled by the banks that own them; they are not traded on open cryptocurrency exchanges. So, how can a bank coin with no actual value be used to solve a liquidity problem? The unfortunate answer is that it must be backed by multiple fiat currencies in order to have value. Mr. Garlinghouse points out the problem with this in referencing the utility settlement coin, which is a prime example: Which brings me to my next point. Decentralization is Key Bank coins are centralized systems which means that the owner of each individual system will ultimately enjoy the most benefits. The owners of each bank coin will fight against each other to be the dominant competitor in the marketplace. As written in a Recent "Ripple Insights" article by Richard Crook, decentralized systems offer these desirable attributes: Beyond these facts, I believe it's likely that XRP will ultimately be adopted on a global scale because it levels the playing field. Consider the fact that smaller banks have it rough when conducting cross-border money transactions for their customers. Small banks don't have the large capital reserves that bigger banks do, and as a result they can't afford to pre-fund nostro accounts all over the world. Instead they pay bigger banks outrageous fees to tap into their liquidity, and these fees are then passed along to the customers of the smaller banks. Doesn't that sound a bit upside down to you? The smaller banks are literally giving their money to larger competitors. XRP is decentralized so everyone's interests are in play. No one owns the ledger. First Mover's Advantage It's no stretch to say that Ripple is light-years ahead of competitors. Ripple is the only company in the world with production ready enterprise solutions for banks, while competitors are still designing or trialing their products. While some banks will continue to fight for their own personal dominance by developing bank coins, not all will resist the future. Consider that Yoshitaka Kitao, CEO of SBI Holdings, has publicly stated that he strongly believes XRP will become the global standard in digital currencies. In May of 2016 SBI Holdings launched SBI Ripple Asia, a consortium over over 60 banks which includes the top bank in Japan. They began using Ripple technology for both domestic and cross-border payments. Mr. Kitao stated recently that they are increasingly interested in using XRP for payments. The Bank of England is currently a customer of Ripple. Royal Bank of Scotland embraces decentralized ledger systems and supports what Ripple is doing. On February 7th this year Brad Garlinghouse publicly stated that a yet announced central bank is also working with Ripple. Compare the first mover's advantage XRP has and the fact that it's a truly global solution against bank coins coming late to the party and being closed systems. There is no comparison. Crypto Competition There is one other company competing in the cryptocurrency realm, and I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them. I'm speaking of the non-profit entity Stellar Development Foundation which created a copycat cryptocurrency called XLM. Their cryptocurrency is a fork of the XRP ledger, and as such it shares a lot of code and attributes. Is Stellar and XLM a threat to Ripple and XRP? At present, not really. Stellar has a vastly different business plan than Ripple and is seeking out a different customer. Ripple is positioning XRP as a global solution for liquidity while the mission of Stellar is to utilize XLM in countries such as Nigeria where the average citizen doesn't have a bank account. Even if the technology is similar they aren't a great threat to each other right now. Once XRP becomes the standard source for global liquidity there is no reason that XLM ever could, or would, take that position away from XRP. Unique Approach Why is no other business trying to position a decentralized digital asset as a global liquidity solution? All of the banks that are developing their own blockchain technology to improve payments and liquidity are doing so out of self interest. And that's fine; banks are businesses and should do what they believe is in their best interest. They don't feel incentivized to create a global payment system. Instead they believe that a closed system they control would be most profitable. Of course, if XRP becomes extremely dominate, banks in closed systems will be less desirable by customers that do cross-border money transactions. This could negatively impact their market share. For now though, banks will fight within the marketplace to retain as much power as they can. Conceptually, what Ripple is doing to position XRP is such a radical concept that it's not hard for me to accept that no one else is taking the same approach. It would be an impossible task to successfully launch a new decentralized digital asset in competition with XRP at this stage in the game. Ripple has been at this for 6 years, and if XRP really does become the standard I wouldn't be surprised to see it stay that way for decades or longer. Only new technology that is equally disruptive as blockchain would ever have a chance at changing the industry to this degree. Technology like that only comes along every once in a great while. There are currently over 100 banks using xCurrent, so it's safe to say that Ripple is succeeding at implementing their plan. Ripple's software that utilizes XRP is called xRapid and was launched in late summer of 2017. Given the newness of the technology and the fact that sales pipelines take time to develop, only several xRapid customers have been announced by Ripple to date. I think that you should expect a lot more to come in 2018 and beyond. Remember that every Ripple customer that uses xCurrent is a potential xRapid customer. The bottom line is that if you're not competing against XRP with a globally oriented, decentralized digital asset, then you're not really competing. DISCLAIMER: I am not a financial adviser. None of what has been written here should be considered financial advice; it is not. Do your own research before investing in any digital asset, and understand that investing in any cryptocurrency is inherently risky. If you do, you need to be prepared to lose your entire investment. Associated Links: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/case-against-bankcoin-brad-garlinghouse/ https://www.coindesk.com/hsbc-barclays-join-utility-settlement-coin-as-bank-blockchain-test-enters-final-phase/ http://news.abs-cbn.com/business/01/22/18/visa-unionbank-launch-blockchain-payment-system https://investor.visa.com/news/news-details/2016/Visa-Introduces-International-B2B-Payment-Solution-Built-on-Chains-Blockchain-Technology/default.aspx https://ripple.com/files/xrp_cost_model_paper.pdf https://ripple.com/insights/blockchain-connect-fireside-chat-ripple-ceo-speaks-about-ripple-solutions-for-global-payments/ https://www.ft.com/content/1a962c16-6952-11e6-ae5b-a7cc5dd5a28c?lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_pulse_read%3BRjXuqMSpQaG4pAciw%2BC7kA%3D%3D https://ripple.com/insights/the-case-for-more-decentralization/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1376&v=kyWZzgZN3wo http://money.cnn.com/2017/12/29/investing/argentina-peso/index.html https://ripple.com/insights/sbi-holdings-views-on-blockchain-and-xrp-an-interview-with-yoshitaka-kitao/

Bitcoin Ethereum, Ripple & Steller Lumens are all......... Hi, Please let me know your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree? Am i right or wrong? I would really like to know what you think

Whats your thoughts? How many of you already knew this? It has amazed me!

According to Bleeping Computer's calculations, as of writing, the attacker collected 669,920 Lumens, which is about $400,192 at the current XML/USD exchange rate. https://m.slashdot.org/story/336101 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/hackers-hijack-dns-server-of-blackwallet-to-steal-400-000/

It's just so funny to me that ADA and XLM are tagging along for the ride with XRP when the use case isn't really even there for either of them yet. Yes ADA has potential and I did catch a few dollars on the run up to .72. Nope, no XLM for me, just out of principle. After looking at the cold hard facts, neither of the those techs has the team or foundation XRP has much less the working business model and both of them are, as far as I know, still in experimental / development stages. There's going to come a point in the next few weeks where folks trying to play the diversification game in hopes of catching several huge winners will realize (just as I did) that this game is over and Ripple has won. It will happen suddenly and XRP will be out of reach for many, better to be all in when it happens. That's my rant... have a nice evening :-)

https://hackernoon.com/why-stellar-could-be-the-next-big-ico-platform-f48fc3cb9a6c I just came across this website about Stellar as a possible new ico platform. Does anyone here now if Stellar has any additional functionality over XRP on this subject?

Old partners in motion ... https://www.google.com.hk/amp/www.newsbtc.com/2017/11/10/ryan-fugger-clout/amp/

(message on poloniex)

Which validator is faster, Ripple or Stellar? This is the only thing I've found. https://galactictalk.org/d/279-effectively-run-your-stellar-validator-node-performance-tips https://xrpcharts.ripple.com/#/validators

With an IBM partnership with Stellar, where does that leave Ripple? https://www.quora.com/With-an-IBM-partnership-with-Stellar-where-does-that-leave-Ripple Why did Jed McCaleb leave Ripple to start Stellar? https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Jed-McCaleb-leave-Ripple-to-start-Stellar