It is cool, but the irony is, the IOU stuff will soon be mimicked by Bitcoin with 'colored coins', and Ripple will lose the last major feature it had over Bitcoin. And at that point - who wants a pre-mined backdoored e-currency which can't be made anonymous or used places like Silk Road?
Legitimate businesses. We had a great conversation the other day at this Virtual Currency Talk: http://cr.perkinscoie.com/rff/ff00120bf2ac2fdfe524c63378439a... about the reputational risk of Bitcoin. There is a need to legimatize Bitcoin with governments or use a virtual currency that is able to establish legitimacy, so that large businesses which only have a marginal gain from incorporating Bitcoin will actually have an incentive to do so.
Furthermore, there was a very strong consensus among all parties, most especially by Patrick Murck (President, Bitcoin Foundation) that Bitcoin is not an anonymous or "private" currency, and that many people who believe it can be made anonymous are most likely in store for a rude awakening when government scrutiny and regulation catches up with the pace of the technology.
> There is a need to legimatize Bitcoin with governments or use a virtual currency that is able to establish legitimacy, so that large businesses which only have a marginal gain from incorporating Bitcoin will actually have an incentive to do so.
The reputational issue is solved by widespread real-world use, which is not something Ripple can boast either. These 'large businesses' have no reason to use Ripple even if it's clean due to backdooring, if no one else is using it.
> Furthermore, there was a very strong consensus among all parties, most especially by Patrick Murck (President, Bitcoin Foundation) that Bitcoin is not an anonymous or "private" currency
I would be fascinated to hear if this means that Murck and the Foundation plan to sabotage the adoption of any Zerocoin-like extension...?
