Know Your Gateway

[DevNullProd]

I'm pleased to announce a new gateway research section which has been added to Wipple XRP Intelligence. We've amassed a knowledge-base of information pertaining to gateways listed on the XRP ledger, both active and defunct. Now you can lookup information such as known contact details, outstanding obligations, and overview for all XRP gateways in one convenient place!

Edited June 27, 2018 by riptidel

[Malloy]

@riptidel nice job!

[DevNullProd]

Thanks @Malloy, took some time to compile the list but it should be complete (as of today, I'm assuming more gateways will be added in the future at which point we'll strive to keep it updated). If there are any mistakes on info that needs update just let us know and we'll incorporate

[EasterBunny]

what about snapswap

[DevNullProd]

@EasterBunny good observation. I just inspected the gateway metadata as returned by data.ripple.com and it seem SnapSwap is dual listed as "BTC 2 Ripple". The same issuing address (rMwjYedjc7qqtKYVLiAccJSmCwih4LnE2q) is associated with multiple names. Because BTC 2 Ripple appears first in the gateway list, this is the default name that Wipple picked up. 

This is confirmed by looking at the issuing account where we see both the "SnapSwap" name and "btc2ripple.com" domain. Our investigation into BTC 2 Ripple also revealed this fact. To clear things up, we will add an 'alternate names' field to our local data store and populate / use that when reporting. Be sure to check back for that feature.

[DevNullProd]

Incidently the previous ^ also brings up a related question, which is of curiosity to us (perhaps someone here knows). Inspecting the account balances and obligations owed to the various XRP accounts, we find there are _alot_ of issuers (thousands) which do not appear on the official gateways list. Here are a few randomly selected for example

r356Njw9iEtmDEb8fuZajYNk6JZwv2gqb9

rhoDneHNVkNhCYcXE1bZ7e2ie3mMxTuwTd

rs1qJSePBZqsrkVPQkPNRAuFCrKmiNgfXx

 

Now obviously any account can extend a trust line to any other, and perhaps these are development / testing accounts, but the fact that there are so many does lead one to question if there is any sort of rhyme or reason to all these issuers. Perhaps the more pertinent question is how Ripple generates the list of "official" gateways as presented via the data.ripple.com API? Is it a manual vetting process? Or is there some registration process / criteria / etc? (and why hasn't it been updated in a long time? the majority of the gateways on the list are now defunct!)

[EasterBunny]

Token issuers likely come in several forms:

1. Gateways that issue tokens and back them with some form of deposit (public)
2. ICO issuances for a project or business, like ALV (public)
3. Private parties that issue IOU's as a means of record keeping (private)
4. People experimenting with the features of the ledger, or 'just because' (private)

If there is a lot of volume between a public token and a private token, the private token might represent something of value. It could also be an attempt to generate activity with the intent of exchanging a value-less token with something that has value. (I can recall a specific example of this, but can't seem to find it)

I would look at the frequency of token issuance. If it's a one time issuance of 100,000,000 XXX token, then it's probably #4(or #2 if you can verify the issuer).

If there are multiple issuances and redemptions of a token then it's more likely to be #3.

I would also look to see if the tokens are generally used as 'payments' or offered publicly as 'exchanges'