Ripple monetary system

[Lex]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ripple_monetary_system

Ripple is an open-source software project for developing a peer-to-peer distributed social network service with a monetary honor system based on trust that already exists between people in real-world social networks.

National monetary systems rely on trust in large financial institutions as banks. Ripple cuts the banks right out of the picture by allowing anyone to act as a bank and grant credit within the Ripple system to anyone they know. The system keeps track of the source of all IOUs (I owe you's), so that debts that are not repaid are automatically borne by the issuer.

Each participant indicates which other participants he or she trusts, by offering to accept their IOUs up to a certain amount, like a line of credit. To make a payment to someone who trusts you, you simply adjust your IOU balance with them to indicate that that you owe them the amount of the payment. So the whole system acts as a distributed mutual bank.

To pay someone who doesn't trust you, the Ripple system finds a chain of credit connections between you and the payment recipient. Then you pay the first person in the chain, who pays the second person, and so on until the recipient gets paid.

Every Ripple node is like a LETS system, in that it operates as a payment intermediary, vouching for payments between its neighbouring nodes, just like a LETS system operates as a payment intermediary between its members. Ripple allows all these separate currency issuers to connect to a larger payment network without interfering with the operation of their individual currencies. Ripple makes no assumptions about how a currency is issued, except that balances be electronically stored by the issuer.

Website: http://ripple.sourceforge.net/

[KBCraig]

Vedddy interestinkk.

Kevin

[Russell Kanning]

The idea that intrigues me is that if you needed funding for something you could combine all the small amounts that various people trust you with, instead of asking a bank for the whole amount.
Even poor guys like me could have a list of people that I would all loan $100 to. If they get an idea for a project they could look in the system to see how much they have available.
I also like the idea that when you have extra cash around, you can make it available to people you trust. This would happen without having that strange conversation ....."I have a few $1000, do you have any businesses that you would like to open?" It would just be sitting there waiting to be accessed.

An automated tuath sort of thing. Or those of us in say the FFTuath could just be part of this system.

[Russell Kanning]

We could also use this system to have debts that are denominated in gold or Rocketman's beer.
Some of us could also make a little money, by our willingness to exchange silver for $s say or guys will pop up that are credit card processors or connected with banks. You just choose who you trust to work with.
This seems like a good way to bust down the walls of mistrust that the gov erects to keep us looking to them for security.

[Russell Kanning]

How is Ripple different from a LETS system?
http://ripple.sourceforge.net/faq.html#lets

[KBCraig]

Even poor guys like me could have a list of people that I would all loan $100 to. If they get an idea for a project they could look in the system to see how much they have available.

The problem is, you might loan $100 to that person, thinking he'd owe $100 to you. But if he'd build up lots of "trust", he might owe that $100 to hundreds of people.

That's why having six credit cards with zero balance and $10,000+ limits is A Very Bad Thing in a lender's eye.

Kevin

[Pat McCotter]

Take a look at microcredit. Ignore the (ack, spit) 'UN ?ear of Microcredit 2005' and the way the (ack, spit) World Bank wants to get into this. The Grameen Bank (Wikipedia) in Bangladesh is a good starting point. Think voluntary and Tuath when you see social and collective.

[Russell Kanning]

The problem is, you might loan $100 to that person, thinking he'd owe $100 to you. But if he'd build up lots of "trust", he might owe that $100 to hundreds of people.

Sure, but that would be the same without a system like this.

[Lloyd Danforth]

I didn't know they still bottled 'Ripple'

[Russell Kanning]

Website: http://ripple.sourceforge.net/

Looks like noone is working on the code for this idea. Maybe we could just start an unautomated version of this amoungs ourselves. It could be part of the FF Tuath. There would be no systemic risk involved. You would only lend money to people you had specified and could only borrow from those that had volunteered to help you at to the limit they choose.
I would like to set up this network and then over time we could work on automating it across the internet. For right now it would just be phone calls and emails between friends. We could also have centralized databases that are run by me and/or others which could speed up the process, but you would not be forced to use my system. It is all voluntary.

[Lex]

I've been thinking of incorporating some Tuath functionality and now that I've learned about this definitely the Ripple system in my job market application.

If you've read "Richest Man in Babilon" you know that your money are workers and you have to put them to work to return an investment. So, it only seems logical that you would take your money to a job market where you could get them hired. Hence nhjobmarket could be a clearing house for loans.

Anyways, if anyone is interested I'd like some help. I can do the coding pretty easily it's always the design processes that significantly slows me down but if I have someone to help me out with figuring out how this stuff should work I can usually get a lot of stuff done.

[AlanM]

Website: http://ripple.sourceforge.net/

Looks like noone is working on the code for this idea. Maybe we could just start an unautomated version of this amoungs ourselves. It could be part of the FF Tuath. There would be no systemic risk involved. You would only lend money to people you had specified and could only borrow from those that had volunteered to help you at to the limit they choose.
I would like to set up this network and then over time we could work on automating it across the internet. For right now it would just be phone calls and emails between friends. We could also have centralized databases that are run by me and/or others which could speed up the process, but you would not be forced to use my system. It is all voluntary.

I like this idea a lot. Definitely a Tuath type thing. 

[Russell Kanning]

I've been thinking of incorporating some Tuath functionality and now that I've learned about this definitely the Ripple system in my job market application.

You want to put it all together? hmmm
I can't code at all. I can only help with ideas and feedback. Not many people have wanted to help with the job seekers. It seems the relationships are far more important than any structure we put in place for jobs, loans .....
We could start making this happen in person and by phone and email between friends. By the time we get something going, we could have a online system of some sort working.
I really like the potential to speed up and extend the relationships we have going in NH already. We buy and sell and pass silver amoungst ourselves, leaving the government out of our voluntary relationships. The system will not grow to huge proportions instantly, because we cannot extend past the people we actually trust. But maybe we can help facilitate these transactions and build a simple system accessible anywhere.

[AlanM]

I've been thinking of incorporating some Tuath functionality and now that I've learned about this definitely the Ripple system in my job market application.

You want to put it all together? hmmm
I can't code at all. I can only help with ideas and feedback. Not many people have wanted to help with the job seekers. It seems the relationships are far more important than any structure we put in place for jobs, loans .....
We could start making this happen in person and by phone and email between friends. By the time we get something going, we could have a online system of some sort working.
I really like the potential to speed up and extend the relationships we have going in NH already. We buy and sell and pass silver amoungst ourselves, leaving the government out of our voluntary relationships. The system will not grow to huge proportions instantly, because we cannot extend past the people we actually trust. But maybe we can help facilitate these transactions and build a simple system accessible anywhere.

I agree. Start simple. Just need a central database where we can state our willingness to loan X amount, and who we are willing to loan to.

[Lex]

I've been thinking of incorporating some Tuath functionality and now that I've learned about this definitely the Ripple system in my job market application.

You want to put it all together? hmmm
I can't code at all. I can only help with ideas and feedback. Not many people have wanted to help with the job seekers. It seems the relationships are far more important than any structure we put in place for jobs, loans .....
We could start making this happen in person and by phone and email between friends. By the time we get something going, we could have a online system of some sort working.
I really like the potential to speed up and extend the relationships we have going in NH already. We buy and sell and pass silver amoungst ourselves, leaving the government out of our voluntary relationships. The system will not grow to huge proportions instantly, because we cannot extend past the people we actually trust. But maybe we can help facilitate these transactions and build a simple system accessible anywhere.

I agree. Start simple. Just need a central database where we can state our willingness to loan X amount, and who we are willing to loan to.

Next step would be to figure out access. Who can see what and under what conditions?

Are we just going to literally list every person and how much they are willing to loan publicly or are you required to register, etc? These seem like very minor details but they can make or break a system where users are very privacy conscious. Would this only be open to Tuath members? If it is then one thing i can do is add an admin user who is also managing the Tuath. When a user registers an email is sent to this admin who can then go into the system and say, yes this person is a Tuath member or no. This way the list of Tuath members is kept private but still allows Tuath members to "authenticate".

Anyways, just ideas. There are a lot of details that have to be worked out most of which deal with security and privacy because it's not hard to throw together a program that inserts records into the database and then displays them on the screen, the hard part is always security.