[innoprenuer]

"Even Facebook has reportedly started looking into creating a token. Should the world’s biggest social network ever make that move, bitcoin’s days as the leading crypto-currency would almost certainly be numbered" > this is a paradox, blockchain technology's best use case is decentralization of data (and power from companies like facebook). And if Facebook issues crypto coin and it starts dominating the market (not necessarily) then we are back at square one.

[seanp2k2]

>decentralization of data

IMO, having many cryptocurrencies above an arbitrarily-large threshold of USD equivalency (let's say $1b, which according to https://coinmarketcap.com/ right now gives us 40) dilutes the overall chance of cryptocurrencies ever becoming viable for commerce, instead positioning them more similarly to stocks or other speculative investments.

To meet my definition of "succeed" as currencies ("when in actual use or circulation as a medium of exchange"), we would likely need just a few, or likely, one, that works e.g. at brick-and-mortar places. Overstock, Newegg, Steam, etc give good credibility to this idea, but look at which cryptocurrencies they accept (and how the price in those is tied to the real-time market rate).

Also regarding decentralization, and again because these cryptocurrencies largely have value right now only because of their order books on a handful of exchanges, are we actually in a better place? If the feds in the US decided that they wanted to regulate / shut down the big exchanges for whatever reason (e.g. billionaire gets burned and cries to his politician buddies to "fix" it), sure the coins don't go away, but as long as you can't realistically spend them on basic needs like food and shelter, are they actually decentralized? To me, cryptocurrencies are the similar to Chuck E. Cheese tokens that vary thousands of percent in value per year; they have some cash equivalency if you're able to convert them, but alone, they have no real utility.

[deadlycrayon]

I agree with you, but that's idealistic. See: Ripple (https://ripple.com/)

[Klathmon]

For all the talk of Ripple being centralized, they aren't by design, and they have a plan in place to reduce and eventually eliminate that centralization (to a point).

They decided that it would be a good idea to start centralized, then over time wane themselves out of the "validation" of transactions until it's in the hands of a diverse group of validator nodes where no one person has the ability to change things.

[jonnydubowsky]

How about the part where the founders hold enough tokens that they could crash the price or manipulate the market at will. I understand that they have loose structures in place to keep them honest, but they could absolutely still act badly. We trust that they won't.

[Klathmon]

There are 2 things here, There is the cut that the founders hold, and there is the portion under the control of Ripple labs.

Ripple labs has a very strict way of handling the XRP they hold. It's not just "lose structures" in place, they are using the Ripple blockchain to escrow 55 billion of the XRP and release it on a set schedule of (I believe) 1 billion per month, and any that is left over at the end of the month is re-escrowed. So they can't just "flood the market" at any time, there is a set limit to how much they can even sell without hardforking the blockchain in their favor.

The founders have free reign on their 20 billion XRP, but I don't see why they would ever use it to crash the price.

[XR0CSWV3h3kZWg]

> The founders have free reign on their 20 billion XRP, but I don't see why they would ever use it to crash the price.

Profit motive?

[chillacy]

Why kill the goose that lays the egg? I mean, if XRP is on its way out then sure, they'll add fuel to the fire, but crashing the price is counterproductive. If they really wanted to cash out and they were smart, they would drip it over time so as not to eat up the market orders on the buy side.