What is the difference between gateway and an exchange?

[PurpleCow]

Hi,

I trade XRP on bitstamp and recently signed up with Gatehub.

can someone help me understand or point me to any existing discussions or articles that will articulate the difference between XRP gateway and a XRP exchange?

Also when I see on gatehub the USD / XRP is 3.5 - what doe sit mean really?

On BitStamp XRP / USD is $0.28x now.

How should I be reading & understanding this?

Thanks much

[UrzasLegacy]

7 minutes ago, PurpleCow said:

can someone help me understand or point me to any existing discussions or articles that will articulate the difference between XRP gateway and a XRP exchange?

A gateway is necessarily attached to the XRPLedger. It is a way to move funds into and out of the Ripple system.

An exchange is not necessarily attached to the XRPLedger. It's just a platform to trade assets.

Sometimes, an entity does both. There might be a gateway side for getting funds into and out of XRPL and an off-network side for trading.

10 minutes ago, PurpleCow said:

Also when I see on gatehub the USD / XRP is 3.5 - what doe sit mean really?

On BitStamp XRP / USD is $0.28x now.

How should I be reading & understanding this?

The easiest way to think of it is to treat the "/" as the word "for."

Gatehub USD/XRP 3.5: You can trade 1 USD for 3.5 XRP

Bitstamp XRP/USD .28: You can trade 1 XRP FOR .28 USD

[PurpleCow]

Thanks a lot UrzasLegacy.

If I may ask a follow up question - what is the difference between BitStamp & GateHub?

GateHub is both - gateway and exchange?

BitStamp is only a exchange? If so, does bitstamp connect to any XRP gateway (which one)?

[UrzasLegacy]

@PurpleCow

Those are both examples of gateways. They have exchange services on their sites, and I believe their exchange sides directly use XRPL which makes them different from exchanges that take place off network. (I could be wrong on Bitstamp, someone else will have to provide more details here.)

Bitstamp has been around a bit longer, used to be Bitcoin only.

Bitstamp offers more trading pairs.

Gatehub offers a wallet service as well.

Edited June 4, 2017 by UrzasLegacy

[PurpleCow]

Thanks @UrzasLegacy

Is there any kind of list which are only XRP exchanges, only XRP gateways and enities that are both a XRP gateway+exchange?

[UrzasLegacy]

1 minute ago, PurpleCow said:

Is there any kind of list which are only XRP exchanges, only XRP gateways and enities that are both a XRP gateway+exchange?

Hmm, I don't know of a list that separates them in that way. But at the top of this forum, there's a gold "Links & Resources" button that lists a ton of gateways/exchanges.