
Ripple Slides After Coinbase Says Not Adding New Crypto Coins - mcone
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-04/ripple-slides-after-coinbase-says-not-adding-new-crypto-coins
======
drdrey
The crazy part is how much XRP is concentrated in the company and its
founders:

> XRP, being issued by a company, is less decentralized than many other
> cryptocurrencies. For instance, Ripple itself holds 61.3 billion XRP,
> including 55 billion that it keeps in escrow. Only 38.7 billion XRP tokens
> have been distributed.

> Cofounder and former CEO Chris Larsen, who stepped down in November 2016 and
> now serves as executive chairman of Ripple, has 5.19 billion XRP in his
> personal holdings and a 17% stake in the company, according to sources at
> Ripple. That gives him a net worth of $37.3 billion, using Monday’s exchange
> rate.

~~~
elmar
The crazy part is that Ripple is really a total nonsense cryptocurrency it's
centralized it as counterparty risk and if any time in the future Banks decide
to use it, they will use the tech, not the coin, it's pure madness a lot of
people will lose their investment, Ripple it's the "Pet.com" of the
cryptocurrency bubble.

And btw the founder that as 17% stake is really a con artist.

~~~
EGreg
I am always wondering about people saying this.

XRP is counterparty-free

I have studied their consensus protocol and it is indeed decentralized.

We are planning to use some of the ideas from it in our network.

As for founders having 20% of a startup company, that's common. Look at Mark
Zuckerberg for instance. Why does that make them con artists?

Bitcoin whales and Satoshi control 40% of bitcoins while over 99% of the MONEY
contributed its market cap came from regular buyerd who came just recently.

~~~
elmar
>XRP is counterparty-free

You have 100 USD and 100 XRP in your ripple wallet and the gateway you
deposited USD to fund your wallet closes shop, you are now left with the bag
in the hand and you must trade 'em for another gateway's IOUs, or try to find
someone to buy them from you.

~~~
EGreg
Same with BTC

~~~
elmar
well, I see you don't understand how Bitcoin works.

------
tgarma1234
The idea that Coinbase would do anything at all to increase the number of
people trying to use their system to buy or sell anything is laughable. I have
been locked out of my coinbase account pending id verification, which I have
submitted numerous times incidentally, since December 12 without even a peep
of support follow up from Coinbase.

So, for me, seeing stories like this are basically just rage inducing.
Coinbase should not offer anything new until they can invest in support
infrastructure to close out all of the tickets that have been submitted by a
great many people who have been essentially ripped off.

I have given up on the idea that I will ever hear back from Coinbase support
at this point. I put money into the system in good faith expecting that,
because they were US based, there would be some customer support. I see now it
is a swindle. You can play this same trick with just about any valued product:
take thousands of orders, collect everyone's money, and then just tell
everyone that you are so swamped that technically it will be a very very long
time before anyone can get refunds or deliveries.

Oldest trick in the book.

And stories like this where the mainstream Silicon Valley hype machine
continues to play along with this ludicrous narrative are absurd and
upsetting.

The fact is: Coinbase cannot support transactions or customer issues in a
timely way and is making no effort to resolve any of the issues in a timely
way after having taken everyone's money.

------
pat2man
This article lacks any context whatsoever. XRP is still up from yesterday. Up
100% since last week. Also Coinbase has not said that it will not add XRP,
just that they haven't made any decisions yet.

~~~
anonova
Given XRP goes against their current "Digital Asset Framework" for adding new
tokens/coins, I don't see it being added anytime soon without revision:
[https://www.gdax.com/static/digital-asset-
framework-2017-11....](https://www.gdax.com/static/digital-asset-
framework-2017-11.pdf)

~~~
iMuzz
What about Ripple goes against their current Framework?

Don't know much about Ripple...

~~~
anonova
To name a few:

* "1.1.4 Decentralization"

Ripple controls what nodes are used on their network (validators). Can you run
a validator? Sure, but note that Ripple, and thus the network, aren't going to
use it anyway [validator]:

> At present, Ripple (the company) cannot recommend any validators aside from
> the 5 core validators run by Ripple

As I mentioned in another comment tree, this is a distributed network, not a
decentralized one.

[validator]: [https://ripple.com/build/rippled-
setup/](https://ripple.com/build/rippled-setup/)

[registry]: [https://ripple.com/dev-blog/validator-
registry/](https://ripple.com/dev-blog/validator-registry/)

* "6.1.2 Token Utility"

XRP current has no useful use cases. Institutions experimenting with Ripple
are not using the public network but their own private RippleNet, which does
not use XRP tokens [ripplenet].

[ripplenet]:
[https://ripple.com/files/ripplenet_brochure.pdf](https://ripple.com/files/ripplenet_brochure.pdf)

* "6.2.3 Team Ownership: The team stake retained by the team is a minority scale."

Currently, 38 of the 100 billion total XRP is in circulation [marketcap]. The
developers were "gifted" 80% of all XRP upon its creation [distribution].
Ripple and its owners still hold the majority of all XRP.

[marketcap]:
[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/)

[distribution]:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20150806120942/https://www.rippl...](https://web.archive.org/web/20150806120942/https://www.ripplelabs.com/xrp-
distribution/)

~~~
rmwaite
Token Utility: It's really, really fast and the transaction fees are really,
really low.

------
shepardrtc
Coinbase is covering their ass because of the Bitcoin Cash fiasco. They're
basically saying, "We're not adding anything until we add something. And when
we do, it will be officially announced."

i.e. they're not just going to suddenly add it and then tell everyone like
with BCH.

~~~
joshschreuder
Will that really make a difference? Some amount of people is still going to
know about the announcement in advance. The only difference is that Coinbase
might actually have the resources to scale the release this time if they track
how big of a deal their announcement is.

------
selectout
The key here is that they linked to their requirements for adding Cryptos,
which strongly suggest that XRP will not be added for not being decentralized.
This doesn't directly say it has to be fully decentralized though, so it's a
bit of interpretation.

------
gkoberger
There's two ways to read what Coinbase said:

1/ "We have no plans to add Ripple"

2/ "Maybe we'll add it, but we haven't _officially_ decided yet, so don't
blame what the market does on us"

------
colinhmit
Ripple is a great litmus test for people who are FOMO buying.

In this market, when the median top 200 coin under $0.1 went 100x [1], there
are easier and "safer"[2] ways to generate returns.

It doesn't even do its job the best. Stellar Lumens (xlm) is a fork and
doesn't have the centralized aspect or the 60% supply overhang. Raiblocks
(XRB) will eat its lunch in terms of tx speed/fees if the tech doesn't blow up
first.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7o4nkm/last_week_w...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/7o4nkm/last_week_was_the_week_of_the_dumb_money_i_did_an/)

[2] "safer" in quotation marks because its all a game of when the music stops.

~~~
perseusprime11
What about TRX (Tron)? It is based on an actual use case around digital
content.

------
ahofer
After waiting for over a month now on my Coinbase purchase being stuck in
Pending status, with absolutely no response from their Support, I'm getting
tired of seeing Coinbase being seen as a leader in the Cryptoverse.

~~~
fetus8
I had to get my bank involved with a purchasing issue from Coinbase. They
declared the charges as fraudulent since I couldn't get a response from anyone
at Coinbase. This was back in early 2016 before the recent crypto madness
too...

~~~
ahofer
I'm pretty close to doing the same thing, but I hestitate because basically
that will just mean Coinbase got an interest free loan from me, and the LTC
are worth over twice as much now.

------
DickingAround
Why exactly did Ripple start going up in the first place?

~~~
EGreg
Bitcoin stopped going up so people started looking where to park their value.
Ripple was next, followed by Lumens. And followed by smaller cap ICOs like
TXR.

I would say that the best strategy is lookfor smaller market cap ICOs run by a
team that is WELL CONNECTED. The better connected the tram the more chance the
coin will explode several times as articles come out about new initiatives.

~~~
beefield
> I would say that the best strategy is

Apologies, can't help myself being a cynical bastard.

I would say that the best strategy in long term is to invest in assets that
actually produce cash flow to the investors.

~~~
wmf
Unfortunately for grownups, making 100X in one year and then retiring probably
does beat value investing over the long term.

~~~
Axsuul
And just what are the chances of you making 100X? I think people underestimate
being able to time the market. This is a small sample size but all my friends
who have attempted to day-trade the cryptomarket have not beaten my gains of
just hodling.

------
andreygrehov
Why is this on the front page at all? Coinbase has made zero claims about
Ripple. The price cannot go up all the time, so a tiny correction is not only
normal, but expected.

------
beausy
Meanwhile Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong said there are many more that will be
added to the platform in 2018, not even a month ago.
[https://youtu.be/lKviUIeGlgw?t=1m11s](https://youtu.be/lKviUIeGlgw?t=1m11s)

------
Zarath
Nobody actually thought they would actually add Ripple. And Ripple dipped with
the rest of the altcoin market and has recovered along with it. Once again,
bloomberg publishing clickbait in regards to crypto.

------
0x4f3759df
Here is the crazy ripple chart

[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/#charts](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/#charts)

~~~
jgh
Isn't Ripple supposed to be for moving money around instead of wire transfers?
How is this volatility remotely good for that use-case?

~~~
csomar
It does. The ripple currency is just for paying the fees.

~~~
jgh
oh i see, i assumed they were doing a local -> xrp -> local conversion

------
perseusprime11
Ripple seems like a pump and dump scheme to me that will hurt people in 3-6
months. I am actually more excited about Tron/Trx.

------
jonjonBoy
I'll join sausage eating contest on japanese live national tv if XRP is not
sliding from #2 in 6 months.

------
drinchev
Coinbase shouldn't dictate the market. It is the other way around. And sooner
or later I hope they will be forced to add it.

Having an argument "Our mission is to create an open financial system for the
world" and accepting >only< decentralised cryptos sounds like an oxymoron to
me.

~~~
nefitty
In the same way that I'm not forced to invest in XRP or support Ripple,
Coinbase has the right to support whatever projects it wants to support.
Ripple's project is dangerous to the fundamental mission initiated by Satoshi
Nakamoto. They didn't need to elbow into this space and poison the well if all
they wanted to do was compete with SWIFT.

~~~
beebmam
Why is ripple dangerous to the fundamental mission of Satoshi Nakamoto, and
why should we care if it does undermine it (which I disagree with)?

------
jerkstate
fake news?

~~~
simlevesque
Pretty much. There was no slide at all. The chart is fake. You can say fake
news, I say market manipulation.

------
tehlike
"as of this statement" is a big corporate speech.

------
omegbule
I did not have relations with that token

------
solotronics
is ripple even a blockchain? I thought it was controlled entirely by a private
entity? edit: it looks to be a 100% premined cryptocurrency with a blockchain

