[yebyen]

I cry hype. You can buy ripple on bitstamp, but not sell. What's the point of that? I received 2000XRP from an early adopter but have no idea how to cash them out or what a "trusted gateway" is.

Can anyone explain how you are supposed to use this?

(edit: started reading this https://ripple.com/working-with-ripple/)

From what I'm reading, the prices are incredibly misleading. People are buying ripples at the high price quoted in the article, but outstanding bid orders are generally 10x lower.

I get that it's a barter/IOU system, but I don't know how you justify that people can start with any amount of ripples they want just because they were there first. Where are they traded? How can I get rid of mine? Am I looking at it backwards?

[yebyen]

I found this thread: http://www.thebitcointrader.com/2013/05/ripple-is-now-tsunam...

Going to try what was suggested, but it looks like 'surely OP will deliver' to me.

[yebyen]

I bought USD$2 with some of my ripples. I was indeed looking at it backwards. Lower prices are better, if you have a lot of ripples, because it's the price of USD/XRP. (Not the price of XRP/USD).

But now I have $2USD in my Ripple account, and it's just like the imaginary numbers in my bank ledger, without any insurance or other representation. And no obvious way to get it out. [Edit: I figured it out.]