
Ripple fully funded every live DonorsChoose classroom project yesterday - gmichnikov
https://www.donorschoose.org/blog/best-school-day-2018/
======
throw9991999
$29M worth of XRP going to a good cause. Great, cash out and make good use of
it.

The cynic in me sees this as a cheap PR move (an SVP of marketing promoting it
doesn't help). Associating your token with a good cause gives it credibility
in the eyes of the public which in turn leads to an increase in the XRP price
in USD. Here's what I understand about ripple:

\- 100 billion XRP was created at inception with 20 billion going to the
creators and 80 billion going to Ripple labs.

\- It's supposed to be a payment layer between financial institutions and XRP
is the underlying token.

\- Distribution of XRP is arbitrary. Ripple labs can allocate it to whoever
they see fit.

Donating $29M worth of XRP costs them nothing since Ripple labs holds 80
billion XRP. Only 40 billion XRP is currently in circulation though and XRP's
price is currently $0.5. I don't know, I find Ripple quite ridiculous. But the
silver lining is donations such as these.

~~~
agorabinary
The only reason Ripple is worth anything is because of PR to convince the
world that a wholly premined coin that isn't even necessary to use the Ripple
network holds any value at all. So... a $29 million PR move to boost a $22
billion PR move?

~~~
Zarath
Well so if the coin is totally useless, then at least funding charities with
it is about as good as it gets right?

~~~
rlabrecque
I mean it makes me feel less bad about my $5k loss on xrp.

------
Waterluvian
When I think about large-scale donations I think about Melinda and Bill Gates.
They don't just donate large sums of money, they donate their time and talent
and take their efforts very seriously. They work hard to see every penny well-
spent in an effective manner.

That being said, I would love to witness a super-rich person throw a one-time
insanely large lump sum of money at some problem. Like, "Here's 50 billion
dollars. Free mammograms to anyone on the planet until the money runs out." It
would be nice to see a global respite from some sort of issue.

~~~
nataz
FYI - My wife had her project funded this year by ripple, but last year her
projects were funded by Melinda and Bill Gates. In both cases her projects
were less than 10k, but make a huge difference to the kids in her classroom.

~~~
jsjohnst
On the one hand, I’m very proud of how much it can help with such a small
donation. On the other hand, I’m depressed it has to come from donations.
Seriously, what is wrong with adults these days kicking the door closed behind
us?

~~~
komali2
Propaganda mostly from the Republican party has convinced a great deal of
people that Education is a waste of money. This is obviously stupid and false.

Apologies for getting political, but I come from a family of teachers in two
red states (actually three now, thanks Wisconsin, you do love to hate
yourself), and we're out of fucks to give.

EDIT: I know we don't like to get political here, but the question was "Why is
America bad at education compared to other countries." First of all, it is
bad, and it spends more than other countries, somehow. Makes sense when half
the country has put their feet down stubbornly into the stand and said "pull
yourself up by your bootstraps!" Or some nonsense.

Here's a great analysis of the Republican platform vis a vis education:
[https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-
education/2016/07...](https://www.politico.com/tipsheets/morning-
education/2016/07/what-the-republican-platform-says-about-education-215401)

Inevitable disclaimer: obviously not all republicans are opposed to effective,
common sense education, and obviously not all democrats support it. But uh...
compare the platforms.

~~~
dmix
> Propaganda mostly from the Republican party has convinced a great deal of
> people that Education is a waste of money.

That's a misrepresentation. Plenty of them some care very much about fixing
education and funding it. Just the kind the find most effective:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Zh96wc01k](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Zh96wc01k)

The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as
being 'anti-education', depsite intentions and data supporting their efforts,
largely by the heavily entrenched people and organizations who have most to
gain from keeping the same status-quo systems. Ie, the massive top-heavy
administration that controls pubic education, unions, pension funds, etc. They
have plenty of political pull.

Ultimately that is very much equally propaganda, is it not?

The right also tends support more state financing and control of education,
and funding towards education has increased dramatic in states for decades.
The only thing that has stagnated (but hardly declined) is federal spending:

[https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending](https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_spending)

And percentage of GDP spending for education has hardly dipped under
republicans either:

[https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_chart_20.html](https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/education_chart_20.html)

Words are always valued over actions and the ideology of a few extremists
always seem to always take precedence over data and tangible outcomes. Which
is why I hate debating this subject.

~~~
Angostura
> The difference, as the video mentions, is that they always gets attacked as
> being 'anti-education'

That would be partly because it is true [http://www.people-
press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisi...](http://www.people-
press.org/2017/07/10/sharp-partisan-divisions-in-views-of-national-
institutions/) ('Republicans increasingly say colleges have negative impact on
U.S.')

And its not helped by the fact that much of the GOP is apparent anti-science,
and anti expertise [https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/american-trust-
scient...](https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/american-trust-scientists-
partisan-split-survey_us_590a49dfe4b0bb2d0874fdb6) ('A 54 percent majority of
Democrats, compared with just 13 percent of Republicans, say they have “a lot”
of trust that what scientists say is accurate and reliable.')

~~~
dmix
Got any more Huffington Post "web based surveys" to educate me on the merits
of conservative ideology? That was so enthralling...

I find it hilarious how often US Democrats want to use the lowest common
denominator, with their half-baked grasp of politics, economics, science,
history, etc, to define their party's credibility (and to be clear I'm far
from either American democrat or republican). As if the intelligence of the
entire voting base (or whom either group decided to convince to vote for them)
defines the merits of the ideology behind 0.0001% of the population who reside
in congress, senate, and the white house.

Personally I'd rather seek out the intellectuals from either side (for ex:
[1]), but also ideas from outside the two main left/right groups, and also
from historical ideologies... and then decide what is best for society from
that. And from there try to influence particular parties to adhere to the most
rational and ideal ideas.

If /r/politics is any indication, the more people you have the dumber the
conversations gets. It went from "somewhat annoying political tribalism" on
Reddit to completely unbearable inane echo-chamber debates as it scaled up to
millions of people. And these same people STILL think they are superior to
24/7 news media talking heads, which is the channel which most influences the
wider population.

Is this the means from which we should determine the merits of particular
political ideologies?

But by all means, let the opinions of the lowest common denominator, web
surveys, and shamelessly biased 'news' websites like Huffington Post be your
guiding voice on what's best. I'd personally rather not...

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-
Left...](https://www.amazon.com/Fools-Frauds-Firebrands-Thinkers-
Left/dp/1472935950/)

~~~
Angostura
Well that was a bit ranty and doesn’t really address the issue. If you don’t
like YouGov, would you prefer
[https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&co...](https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1251&context=carsey)

------
yellow_postit
This is great for many of the projects but there's a down side to donors
choose I wouldn't have realized before taking to some teachers. Anecdote
warning: family member works in a public school district where the principal
and committees won't even investigate funding requests till the teacher has
put something up on donorschoose.

~~~
Waterluvian
It really sucks that American public schools are so poorly funded. But maybe
the principal and committees are just "playing the game" appropriately from
their perspective. I doubt they have beanbag chairs full of cash that they're
hoarding.

I could see a scenario where, sure, the teacher's proposal is great. But what
makes their proposal any better than the thousand others that cannot be
funded?

~~~
Complexicate
They aren't poorly funded. I live in a suburban / rural area. The public
schools here get ~$15,700 per student. Good private schools here charge
~$10,000 per student, and yet offer much better education with 2/3 the
funding.

~~~
nostromo
Right. The US spends more per student than most similar countries.

[http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-
US.pd...](http://www.oecd.org/pisa/keyfindings/PISA-2012-results-US.pdf)

~~~
mschuster91
How much of that is being spent on things entirely irrelevant to education,
such as administration, "school sports" aka baseball/football stadiums and
other amenities?

~~~
nugi
As much as I hated my HS principal, you still need administration. Sports, are
underutilized and also needed by healthy humans. Sure, some schools
disproportionately spend on sports, but they are in the minority, and tend to
self fund. Why not kill art, music programs too? Just email assignments and
hope for the best...

------
swozey
That's killer, thanks Ripple! $29MM!

Page isn't loading but this is from the subject of the blog;

#BestSchoolDay 2018: Every Project Funded! MARCH 27, 2018 STEPHEN BURKENEWS

#BestSchoolDay is here! Last night, Ripple fully funded every single live
DonorsChoose.org classroom project. That’s over 35,000 projects in one
enormous $29 million dollar act of generosity. We literally don’t have words
to express our gratitude, so we had to invent some. We’re flabbermazed.
Astonified. It blew us away, knocked our socks off... WOW! Here’s a message
from Ripple and our founder, Charles, talking about why Ripple chose to
support our creative community of teachers with this [Read more...]

edit: Someone's going hard on downvoting every comment in here. Do you not
like teachers receiving money to help their students?

~~~
nisa
> Do you not like teachers receiving money to help their students?

It's a shame that you need charities for such things.

------
amingilani
Objectively, here's what this does:

1\. FUND MILLIONS OF STUDENTS (I don't think anyone can overstate how awesome
this is)

2\. Give Ripple Labs good press and put them on the front

3\. Increases the supply of XRP which:

    
    
      - Means more XRP in the market in the market for more users
    
      - Drops the value per XRP making transaction costs cheaper
    
    

All that aside, let's all give Ripple a virtual high five for funding
education. This is amazing!

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> Increases the supply of XRP which

Wait, it does? I thought one of the unique aspects of ripple was that all of
the coins were pre-mined so the supply is finite. Right?

~~~
celticninja
They were pre-mined but the supply is infinite, as I understand there is
nothing preventing them from creating more at any point.

~~~
shepardrtc
The supply isn't infinite, and they won't create more.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Is the reason they won't create more technical or philosophical? I don't know
enough about Ripple.

~~~
lojack
Its both. They won't create more for philosophical reasons because the value
would plummet. They won't create more for technical reasons because it needs
an 80% majority of nodes to approve a change for it to occur.

Some people will tell you they control the validating nodes, but thats only
really a half truth. Ripple controls 3 out of 50+ nodes, and also controls the
default list of approved validator nodes. There's no reason why you can't
deviate from the default list of validators, but its hard to say if anyone
actually does in practice.

------
ChristianGeek
DonorsChoose.org is a fantastic site and project. As someone who has four
teachers in the family, I know firsthand how challenging teaching is on
multiple levels, and financial is definitely one of them. I’m happy to support
the site as best I can and even happier to hear about this!

------
downandout
This is great, but since this move added no new _traders_ to the market and
instead added a bunch of people that will dump their XRP instantly, doesn’t
this hurt current holders? I wonder how much this had to do with the 5% price
drop today [1]. It seems like what they really did was take traders’ $29
million and donate it, except they had no choice in the matter. Not that this
is a bad way to spend one’s money, but I’m sure at least some holders would
have liked a choice in the matter.

Also, for the teachers, what happens if the price falls before they can dump
and their projects have a shortfall?

[1]
[https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/ripple/)

~~~
jbg_
Wait... people who bought into a currency that is majority-owned by one entity
would like some say in how that entity spends it?

~~~
dorgo
How that compares to fiat money where the central bank can print more money as
it wishes?

~~~
stephen_g
Real currencies generally exist with a Government that requires taxes are paid
in that currency. So there's always a baseline demand. Almost nobody in
politically stable countries could _completely_ stop using their currencies
tomorrow if they didn't like how the Government sector (Government + central
bank) spent money (without moving to another country).

Also, it's different because since currencies have goods and services that you
can buy with them, monetary expansion isn't actually inflationary to the price
level unless it pushes aggregate demand (spending) above the supply of goods
and services available in that currency. Whereas all this Ripple likely is
going to straight to be sold off so the recipients can actually buy things...

------
1024core
When you're printing your own money, it's easy ;-)

Not to take anything away from Ripple: good for them!

------
letters90
Beside how great of an effort this is, the main recipients seem to come from
the US. Is the US really that poor of a country to need donations for basic
school supplies?

------
mrleiter
Many people in this thread criticize this as a bad PR move and Ripple in
general.

Still, the utilitarian view on this is only good - it helps a good cause and
is better than nothing. donorschoose only gains from this and every pledge
that stands behind donorschoose.

People are always quick to scrutinize everything, but what do you do to help
the underprivileged?

------
robert_foss
Should schools really have to be donation funded?

------
nodesocket
Am I just being cynical but blindly funding every classroom project without
oversight and due diligence may actually be a net-negative in the long term.
Universally giving money does not solve problems. It takes the right causes
and right people behind the causes to really improve things.

For perspective, Warren Buffett has donated $46 billion and Bill Gates has
donated $18 billion to charities since 2000.

------
mathattack
Fascinating. This seems like a great way to get more currency in circulation
without pissing off the miners or current owners. If they just gave it away,
they would have inflation. But the PR from this will generate enough demand
that it shouldn’t hurt the value. In addition every dollar they give will
likely circulate rather than be hoarded. And the teachers benefit. Brilliant!

------
chris_wot
That's amazing! Kudos to Ripple!

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joelrunyon
Wonder if they would have gotten more press if they did a rolling donation
schedule (1/week, etc).

Either way - good to see good projects get funding.

~~~
oh_sigh
That would take 6 centuries to fund the same amount of projects.

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jzamora
That's amazing!

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anf
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_(company)#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_\(company\)#Funding)

Are they profitable? How can this kind of thing be justified to shareholders?

~~~
trophycase
Their currency is worth billions

~~~
anf
Billions of USD in digital coins they themselves created, right? So this $29M
came from the shareholders, or from the coin-holders?

~~~
Zarath
It comes from whoever will buy the coins, presumably.

~~~
anf
So the same people who could potentially be victims of fraud will now be
recovering their investment from school children. Keeping it classy, crypto.

------
neelkadia
Dirty and Cheap PR move!

------
throwmeItsok
I am really happy for these schools, but what if someone is just trying to
'converting a lot of ripple into cash' look like effect from 'charity
donation' event?

So that prices don't fall overall while this happens and some people cash out
of it.

