Search the Community

Please take this with a small pinch of salt. It's work in progress so I haven't thought it all the way through 100%. I'd like to call upon some old pals who are smarter than me: @KarmaCoverage @tulo @kanaas @protechtor @cmbartley @baggy23 @yxxyun @Mercury @mars75 @Graine @Global @jn_r @brianwalden @Parabellum etc, to help me thrash this out and debunk/critique as necessary. –––––––––––––––––––––––––––– x-Assets Synthetic, XRP-collateralized, price-pegged digital assets. Collateral could be 1.5:1, 2:1, 3:1 as necessary. Based on the XRP Ledger Stablecoin Proposal by David Schwartz: xUSD xEUR xXAU xXAG xBTC xLTC xMXN xQQQ xAPPL xTSLA xWTI (etc) Assets inside exchange orderbooks are always "synthetic" or IOUs of some sort because on-ledger exchanges (even XRPL's DEX) cannot handle such immense trading volumes. The exchanges hold "real" assets in the back end (either bought "on demand" or most likely in advance bought at bulk or at their own risk), so when you want to cash out you convert the (for example) BTC "IOU" to BTC. Instead of exchanges holding multiple real assets, what if some exchanges only held a quantity of XRP (over-collateralized, say 200%) that's required to buy back those assets upon cashing out? -- @KarmaCoverage rightly mentioned (below) that ILP ledgers can do this; @tulo made a great thread back in 2017 re: ILP & multihop -- The problem is that there are any given number of assets with particular quirks e.g. bitcoin and its slow transaction time. Or some niche digital gold ledger somewhere. So exchanges still have to buy/hold the actual asset "somewhere" to make the withdrawal. But stablecoins prove that synthetics can work. Just look at USDT (aka Tether). What it allows is for better rebalancing and liquidity between exchanges. Users can port USDT to any supporting exchange and hold. Tether acts as a treasury or rebalancing mechanism. But it's still slow and requires trusting the Tether treasurers! Let's assume exchanges support an x-Asset standard instead: xUSD, xMXN to start. Instead of e.g. using ODL for remittance (where we know Ripple have had rebalancing issues) the usual way – deposit to USD exchange (slow), swap to XRP (fee), withdrawal of XRP to MXN exchange (slow, possible fee) and another conversion from XRP to MXN (fee) then withdraw to MXN bank (slow, fee?) – this time a market maker (and/or collateral provider/issuer of some sort) holds only XRP and uses the XRPL's pegged stablecoin feature to create a synthetic 200% backed xUSD / xMXN on the XRP ledger. These synthetics move in 3 sec just like XRP, because they are XRP! But remember, these also behave like "real" USD or MXN for holders thanks to price oracles (perhaps supplied by Flare, Tezos, Chainlink?) so that they always guarantee the same market value upon redemption. That price volatility risk is managed profitably by the issuers (and market makers?). Since the exchanges support x-Assets directly, the market makers (MMs) can quote for a remittance flow from e.g. USD->MXN and since we know the XRP value of both USD and MXN, we can also calculate this in XRP. So all the MM is doing is moving XRP from the xUSD to the xMXN (or vice versa). Or, XRP is just rebalancing instantly from one "pot" to another, so to speak. Going from xUSD to xMXN is really just an XRP tradeoff in a collateral pool. Side note: this might be what parts of Bob Way's patents were alluding to (or not). I believe (but I'm not 100% sure) this gets rid of at least one of the two fees that's been a problem for ODL on traditional exchanges where you have to go e.g. from Kraken (USA, fees) to Bitso (MXN, fees) and cannot also guarantee their withdrawals will be timely. So instead, we're just moving XRP direct and only incurr the XRPL fee plus whatever the MM quotes. Now notice in the bottom graphics that I've put examples of various synthetics trading with one another without XRP, which is a weird notion. E.g. xXAG (silver) & xQQQ (NASDAQ). But remember, these are all just XRP anyway. But I think it's possible. They are really just "pots" being refilled like water flowing from one to another on-demand. The water is XRP. Just for fun really. Also notice one can get a total calculation of volume (in XRP, of course) for the entire orderbook slot. So rebalancing is in theory very easy to calculate here to top-up one-way flows. Remittance/ODL? The main point though, is how a remittance flow would work through this system vs ODL. How the rebalancing gets done. Because now it's just a matter of moving XRP from pot to pot. However, at some point the x-Asset has to hit a real bank account. Unless of course... banks are part of the "pool" in some way. But my brain can't play out all the pieces and I start getting a headache and thinking... maybe this is all total crap?! We know under David's proposal that x-Asset issuers will get rewarded for taking over other positions and providing excess collateral to guarantee redemptions and so on. So the game theory works for this part and provides a sort of long-fabled liquidity incentive (Miguel?!) in the meantime (possibly related to Bob Way's automated, scalable and non-partisan mechanism for allocating XRP on the DEX). Questions/problems Anyway my questions to you guys, are: 1/ How and by whom does this rebalancing take place when new money comes into exchanges e.g. speculators/traders/retail? Who accounts for the extra flows? 2/ What happens at the point of withdrawal to a real bank account? Is that actually faster than just having regular exchanges, or the same? 3/ What if the Banks themselves simply hold and rebalance x-Assets (xPool?) until they need to withdraw in bulk? 4/ What if consumer-end apps and pseudo-banks e.g. Uphold, Gatehub, Coinbase, even Paypal/Revolut, started accepting an x-Asset type standard? 5/ Could x-Asset rebalancing between exchanges/pools be achieved in an automated fashion by an XRPL native AI/monitoring system? 6/ Is this a useful implementation for Offer Auto-Bridging? @nikb 7/ Is this really a legit thought experiment?! Am I wrong or completely bonkers?! PLEASE DON'T ROAST ME ALIVE!!! . . –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– . . REFERENCE MATERIAL (reading to do if this is all new):

Hi fellow members, Have been posting about Lendit for a while on the TinFoil Hatclub, but might be interesting to make a tread here as TFHC is gone. So Chris Larsen is speaking at Lendit tomorrow http://www.lendit.com/usa/2018/speakers/chris-larsen. There are two reasons for me this is very interesting: The conspiracy route: Bearableguy posted a lot of stuff and one of them was the changing of his profile picture on twitter. With the wink, he changed his finger from 4th teeth to the 9th. There are a lot of explanations, but mine is he tried to add a second dimension to it, meaning 4 AND 9, which could mean 4-9. 9th of April. Secondly, there was the number 99. This number can also be interpreted in different ways, but the 99th day of the year is 9th of April The facts route: Chris Larsen doesn't speak that much in public and why would he show up at Lendit? The history of Chris Larsen could explain a bit, but in his current role at Ripple it is kind of vague. So CL started a company in 2006 Prosper. This was focussing on P2Plending. The company got into troubles with SEC regulation and closed down. http://www.marketwired.com/press-release/prospercom-continues-rapid-growth-strengthens-leadership-1632478.htm So we have CL who is an expert in P2P lending, a startup from him that didn't pass the regulations and failed in that way. Now we are 10 years later and CL is speaking about the "internet of value" at Lendit congress on behalf of Ripple. Then we have Xpool, a solution or trademark by Ripple (https://trademarks.justia.com/875/41/xpool-87541375.html). @KarmaCoveragealready wrote a very good items about what it could be (https://medium.com/@KarmaCoverage/what-could-xpool-be-an-attempted-guess-50165cb7e9cd). @Pointbreak , posted on August 2017 the first link with Xpool registration, which happened a same time as Swell (https://www.xrpchat.com/topic/8379-xpool-swell/). ( For me the most logical way would be a P2P (micro) lending place where XRP can create more liquidity. The orginal post from Ryan Fugger is from 2016, https://twitter.com/rfugger/status/796055502828412928) , clearly makes link to p2p payments or lending. If any of above is legit in some kind of way, Chris Larsen speaking at Lendit would make sense him dropping more information around Ripple pioneering in the P2P lending arena. I might be off but wouldn't be surprised if we hear something big tomorrow! Wandering what my fellow members here think about it?

Hello friends, I've been lurking XRPChat for nearly a year now - my first exposure to XRP was around April/May of last year, when the massive, spontaneous growth of the cryptosphere took place. I had known about Bitcoin since 2009, and until discovering the shear volume of alt-coins that have spawned in its wake, I thought it was all a gimmick, a ponzi scheme for the digital age meant to prey upon those interested in technology but with little understanding of it. But I was the one with little understanding. I was wrong, however I do not regret my myopia. I realize just how naive I was in regards to cryptography and peer-to-peer networks when I try to explain the real-world disruptive fundamentals of blockchain protocols, no matter how thoroughly (for a layman), to my peers. Their instinctive, knee-jerk FUD reminds me of myself not long ago. They can't muster the courage to trust a system engineered to operate without trust, and without that leap of faith, most of them never come to the realization that faith and trust in an immutable, distributed ledger is unnecessary and even nonsensical. I've finally created a profile here today because, as obsessive as I have been since discovering XRP, the xPool trademark is news to me, as I am sure it is for many others. I only found out about it yesterday after multiple questions regarding xPool were thrown at David in his AMA. This trademark and the air of mystery around it excites me. As far as I understand (and please correct me ASAP if I am wrong) the exchange restrictions placed on Ripple Labs by FinCEN in 2015 expire in May of this year. Now, I wasn't around back then, but I am sure plenty of you are familiar with Ripple Trade and the FinCEN suit. Long story short, Ripple was caught in what amounted to a 15 year old driving without a license and was subsequently barred from even asking permission to drive for three years. They were not supposed to operate their own exchange without proper licensing to do so. While looking at the trademark filed for xPool, I decided to check out their other TMs. I found that Ripple Trade is still an active TM, but even more curious is the "Notice of Suit" notification for that trademark, filed two days ago. See for yourselves: https://trademarks.justia.com/862/30/ripple-86230662.html I would not expect any activity regarding Ripple Trade, especially what I can only assume is a lawsuit 3 years after its closure. I don't know what to make of this, but I have a growing feeling that xPool is Ripple Trade 2.0, back with a vengeance. This is obviously not why I think xPool is a new in-house exchange; I thought that the moment I saw the word xPool; I've been looking forward to May 2018 since I found out about the FinCEN suit too. I'm at work so I can't go too deep right now, but I just wanted to get this out there to see what others think. May is coming sooner than we think. Ripple might blow the wires away. There is no greater liquidity pool than a proprietary exchange of the same name: xPool. I'll discuss more later when I'm on my own time. Time is money, friends!