Can a system like Ripple exist without a currency like ripples? As they are not used to pay the peers in the system, and their supply / fee ratio is so large they do not appear to be stopping the system from being spammed, could the system work without them? What is stopping the Ripple system from abandoning ripples, asides them being mandated by the protocol?
asked Feb 13, 2013 at 20:03
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How it this question different from that one? bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/7641/what-use-are-ripples– o0'.Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 22:00
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I've answered that other question and I think that the answer covers this one too. What do you think @ThePiachu?– D.H.Commented Feb 13, 2013 at 22:01
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2@Lohoris The difference is like asking what do blocks do in Bitcoin, and asking whether a system like Bitcoin could exist without blocks. One defines the purpose of an object, while the other is discussing a new concept. I know they are kind of similar, but I am hoping for different focus on answers.– ThePiachuCommented Feb 13, 2013 at 22:07
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1@D.H. While it does cover what ripples are used for in the system, I was hoping for a potential debunk here of why Ripple without ripples could not work, or some analysis of why it could work.– ThePiachuCommented Feb 13, 2013 at 22:08
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1 Answer
Not with its consensus mechanism: you need the scarce ripples to prevent abuses to the network precisely from spam and DoS.
But there is the older two phase commit design to implement the ripple concept as a decentralized protocol (that wasn't implemented) and didn't need ripples or any kind of "HostCoin":
http://archive.ripple-project.org/Protocol/Protocol
It has some advantages and disadvantages over the current implementation:
+Better privacy
+Even faster transactions??
-All intermediaries in a Ripple transaction must be online
-Lack of thin clients, people that can't be always online are expected to use a server as a service
Privacy is not a priority for the current implementation right now, but there's plans to improve it through obfuscation.
The ledger could even act as the "register" for "hidden transactions" more similar in properties to the ones of the old 2pc protocol. So it may be more convenient to extend or modify the current protocol than to implement the old one.
