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> much more usable and useful alt-coins I agree. I researched Ripple a lot and am sold on it, since it's not just a crytocurrency (XRP Ticker) but is also a pr

> much more usable and useful alt-coins I agree. I researched Ripple a lot and am sold on it, since it's not just a crytocurrency (XRP Ticker) but is also a protocol that Gates Foundation, AMEX and other banks are using to perform cross-border payments almost instantly and with a lot lower fees and overheads. Are any of the others you mentioned, ex : stellar, dash, monero etc similar to Ripple? If not, what are their use cases? Any links you can point me to would be helpful thank you. (I know I can google this, but google is full of SEO-ed promotional and pump-and-dump posts, so can't really rely on that info).

trophycase 9y ago
Stellar is very similar to Ripple
makomk 9y ago
Ripple relies on a set of hardcoded trusted nodes to validate all the transactions. This makes it very interesting to banks, since they can just set up their own set of nodes and use the Ripple protocol for transaction settlement between them. It's less appealing to people who're attracted to cryptocurrency as an alternative to trusting banks.
gomox 9y ago
Ripple is a pre mined token that has central control. It's not really comparable to Bitcoin.
- tehlike 9y ago
  I mean... Satoshi had a stash too. That said, i like monero extra because of that too.
macawfish 9y ago
Stellar is the most similar to Ripple (I think they had code in common at some point). Dash and Monero are a little older, and I don't think they solve the scalability issue in any special way, but are definitely less popular and therefore more usable. I recommend reading forum posts about these different currencies to get an idea of what people think are the most competitive features/pitfalls. You could google something like "most scalable alt-coins" and then read stuff from reddit and bitcointalk.org. When a few of them have gotten your attention, do a "x vs. y vs. z" search and read more forums. You kinda have to feel it out!
- njarboe 9y ago
  Here is how I would suggest "feeling it out", if you are more technically inclined. Once you think you might want to buy some of a coin buy doing the above, first read a coin's whitepaper to give you a good idea of how it works and if it is just a scam. Then google around for other technical blog posts explaining how that other person, who hopefully has been using it, thinks how it works. Finally set up a node on your home machine (for bitcoin you need to download a ~165 GB blockchain, which is huge, but others are in the few GB to 100 MB range) so you can work with it directly. Then make some small transactions so you know how to do it before you make any large ones. If transacting goes easy with small fees and there are lots of sites using the coin, maybe it has a future.

trophycase 9y ago

Stellar is very similar to Ripple

makomk 9y ago

Ripple relies on a set of hardcoded trusted nodes to validate all the transactions. This makes it very interesting to banks, since they can just set up their own set of nodes and use the Ripple protocol for transaction settlement between them. It's less appealing to people who're attracted to cryptocurrency as an alternative to trusting banks.

gomox 9y ago

Ripple is a pre mined token that has central control. It's not really comparable to Bitcoin.

tehlike 9y ago
I mean... Satoshi had a stash too. That said, i like monero extra because of that too.

macawfish 9y ago

Stellar is the most similar to Ripple (I think they had code in common at some point). Dash and Monero are a little older, and I don't think they solve the scalability issue in any special way, but are definitely less popular and therefore more usable. I recommend reading forum posts about these different currencies to get an idea of what people think are the most competitive features/pitfalls. You could google something like "most scalable alt-coins" and then read stuff from reddit and bitcointalk.org. When a few of them have gotten your attention, do a "x vs. y vs. z" search and read more forums. You kinda have to feel it out!

njarboe 9y ago
Here is how I would suggest "feeling it out", if you are more technically inclined. Once you think you might want to buy some of a coin buy doing the above, first read a coin's whitepaper to give you a good idea of how it works and if it is just a scam. Then google around for other technical blog posts explaining how that other person, who hopefully has been using it, thinks how it works. Finally set up a node on your home machine (for bitcoin you need to download a ~165 GB blockchain, which is huge, but others are in the few GB to 100 MB range) so you can work with it directly. Then make some small transactions so you know how to do it before you make any large ones. If transacting goes easy with small fees and there are lots of sites using the coin, maybe it has a future.