10 ms·

Introducing Stellar: a decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money

100 points by polymathist 12y ago

lbotos 12y ago
My account password recovery "token" was sent via email. I thought that was a no-no wrt security. Edit: This was the text below the token: Keep this code SAFE. Anyone with this code and your username can gain access to your account. If you lose both your password and your recovery code, you will lose access to your funds so be safe!
- opendais 12y ago
  Ya, that was a bad idea on their part.
polymathist 12y ago
See the announcement from Stripe: https://stripe.com/blog/stellar https://stripe.com/blog/stellar and the HN thread for the Stripe announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114901. Stripe invested in Stellar and the CEO of Stripe is on their board.
polymathist 12y ago
It seems that this is the "secret bitcoin project" that Jed McCaleb (formerly of Ripple) has been working on. Very interesting.
- danneu 12y ago
  It's his next pump and dump. https://xrptalk.org/topic/2629-selling-my-xrp/ https://xrptalk.org/topic/2629-selling-my-xrp/
  - dublinben 12y ago
    Wow. If he was able to cash out even half of that amount, he walked away with tens of millions of dollars.
  - hackerweb 12y ago
    Long pump, though. The founders can't sell for 5 years. https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/#Stellar_distribution https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/#Stellar_distribution
forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
Disappointed that I have to sign in with facebook to receive stellars.
- joyce 12y ago
  I am one of the folks working at Stellar. Yes, FB isn't a login method that will work for everyone. But today is our first day saying hello to the world; we do plan on adding more methods soon. Thanks.
  - forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
    That's great to hear. Thanks!
  - ryan-c 12y ago
    A few suggestions (which would probably need to be limited to over X age): * Google accounts * Github accounts * Twitter accounts * bitcoin-otc accounts (probably with a minimum reputation) * GPG keys with some minimum threshold of age and "signedness" * S/MIME certificates from issuers that verify government ID. I'm guessing the difficulty with supporting multiple methods is a desire to limit this to 5k/person. I'm not sure there's a good solution to this, though I will say that you may have just added some additional incentive to steal Facebook credentials.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  Totally agree - absolutely no interest in getting a facebook account. Leaves me out of this, I guess.
ISL 12y ago
The sign-in process creates an unfunded wallet. Facebook login is required to receive 5k free Stellars (5k is 5 x 10^-8 of the available supply). Cool idea. The idea of a distributed exchange is interesting.
tzaman 12y ago
Interesting project, I only wish I'd understand the mechanics behind it (apart from what the site tells me). Hopefully there will be layman's video explanation about it. On another notice, this is one of the situations where it makes a lot of sense to register a simple username just in case, so I don't regret it later where the only available are longer ones :)
jontro 12y ago
Where do they explain the concept of what a stellar is used for? I assume you would convert other currencies to stellars but I cannot find that detailed
gabemart 12y ago
>Your Facebook account is too new to qualify. Stay tuned for new ways to grab stellars. I've had my facebook account for something like 8 years. Oh well.
napoleond 12y ago
This is extremely cool; I started putting together some of the same pieces after Stripe's blog post last week (https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective) and figured it was only a matter of time before something was launched. I'm glad it's open source and not for profit. I do have a few concerns, though. Some of them require a bit more digestion so I won't comment on those here, but one that I'm sure about: WTF is the reference client written in browser JS?? It doesn't make any sense, for all the same reasons as the last time someone dragged out that dead horse.
- mappum 12y ago
  Calling yourself not-for-profit doesn't make it true. I'm not so sure why they needed $3M for something that only needs to pay for a few developers, and why they need to be in control of the issuing of the currency (unlike Bitcoin).
  - napoleond 12y ago
    Right, and that's where (most of) the rest of my concerns lie. It's not completely clear to me why they needed to implement a new currency and why it's being distributed the way it is. It's possible there's a good reason though; I just haven't had time to think about it enough yet.
    - mappum 12y ago
      The reason is strictly for fundraising. They have Naval Ravikant as an advisor and he is a proponent of using that model to fund a project. It's a viable model, but I don't think you can call yourself a nonprofit and use it.
    - joyce 12y ago
      I work at Stellar. re: the distribution method: mining obviously has many benefits, but it's still limited to people who are highly technical and/or who have money to spend. That eliminates most people in the world. We wanted to provide much broader access to digital currency to normal folks, and so stellars will be given away for free at the click of a button. Hope that helps clarify.
AlyssaRowan 12y ago
>Facebook Ha ha ha. No. The rest of it looks interesting, however.
- joyce 12y ago
  Hi from Stellar. I know FB isn't the ideal login method. But our goals were to provide easy access to people and to have a method to detect spam accounts. Today is our first day out. We will be releasing other ways to claim soon so I hope you check back. Thanks.
  - hyh1048576 12y ago
    You are leaving the Chinese users behind. They contribute to 50% of Ripple's traffic.
    - gdb 12y ago
      We definitely want to expand beyond Facebook for distribution as quickly we can. We'd love to hear — do you have any suggestions for the best way of doing distribution within China?
      - hyh1048576 12y ago
        Well if you (via Stripe) cooperate with Alipay do a giveaway via them.
gaelow 12y ago
"A decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money": How is this news, exactly?
- gaelow 12y ago
  Or, just rephrasing: Decentralized as in bitcoin, where proofs of work confirm transactions? That is not news, since 6 years ago. Decentralized as in any other electronic transfer system, where you trust a few nodes to confirm the transaction? "Each node in the network communicates with a set of other nodes that it believes will not collude (such as nodes run by universities, governments, and companies)" That is not news, it's from decades ago. (Some people even tried to put a patent on it, like 15 years ago: http://www.google.com/patents/US6173272 http://www.google.com/patents/US6173272)
mastermojo 12y ago
can anyone briefly explain the difference between this and something like ripple?

100 points by polymathist 12y ago

My account password recovery "token" was sent via email. I thought that was a no-no wrt security. Edit: This was the text below the token: Keep this code SAFE. Anyone with this code and your username can gain access to your account. If you lose both your password and your recovery code, you will lose access to your funds so be safe!

opendais 12y ago
Ya, that was a bad idea on their part.

polymathist 12y ago

See the announcement from Stripe: https://stripe.com/blog/stellar https://stripe.com/blog/stellar and the HN thread for the Stripe announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114901 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8114901. Stripe invested in Stellar and the CEO of Stripe is on their board.

polymathist 12y ago

It seems that this is the "secret bitcoin project" that Jed McCaleb (formerly of Ripple) has been working on. Very interesting.

danneu 12y ago
It's his next pump and dump. https://xrptalk.org/topic/2629-selling-my-xrp/ https://xrptalk.org/topic/2629-selling-my-xrp/
- dublinben 12y ago
  Wow. If he was able to cash out even half of that amount, he walked away with tens of millions of dollars.
- hackerweb 12y ago
  Long pump, though. The founders can't sell for 5 years. https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/#Stellar_distribution https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/#Stellar_distribution

forgotpasswd3x 12y ago

Disappointed that I have to sign in with facebook to receive stellars.

joyce 12y ago
I am one of the folks working at Stellar. Yes, FB isn't a login method that will work for everyone. But today is our first day saying hello to the world; we do plan on adding more methods soon. Thanks.
- forgotpasswd3x 12y ago
  That's great to hear. Thanks!
- ryan-c 12y ago
  A few suggestions (which would probably need to be limited to over X age): * Google accounts * Github accounts * Twitter accounts * bitcoin-otc accounts (probably with a minimum reputation) * GPG keys with some minimum threshold of age and "signedness" * S/MIME certificates from issuers that verify government ID. I'm guessing the difficulty with supporting multiple methods is a desire to limit this to 5k/person. I'm not sure there's a good solution to this, though I will say that you may have just added some additional incentive to steal Facebook credentials.
ghshephard 12y ago
Totally agree - absolutely no interest in getting a facebook account. Leaves me out of this, I guess.

ISL 12y ago

The sign-in process creates an unfunded wallet. Facebook login is required to receive 5k free Stellars (5k is 5 x 10^-8 of the available supply). Cool idea. The idea of a distributed exchange is interesting.

tzaman 12y ago

Interesting project, I only wish I'd understand the mechanics behind it (apart from what the site tells me). Hopefully there will be layman's video explanation about it. On another notice, this is one of the situations where it makes a lot of sense to register a simple username just in case, so I don't regret it later where the only available are longer ones :)

jontro 12y ago

Where do they explain the concept of what a stellar is used for? I assume you would convert other currencies to stellars but I cannot find that detailed

gabemart 12y ago

>Your Facebook account is too new to qualify. Stay tuned for new ways to grab stellars. I've had my facebook account for something like 8 years. Oh well.

napoleond 12y ago

This is extremely cool; I started putting together some of the same pieces after Stripe's blog post last week (https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective https://stripe.com/blog/bitcoin-the-stripe-perspective) and figured it was only a matter of time before something was launched. I'm glad it's open source and not for profit. I do have a few concerns, though. Some of them require a bit more digestion so I won't comment on those here, but one that I'm sure about: WTF is the reference client written in browser JS?? It doesn't make any sense, for all the same reasons as the last time someone dragged out that dead horse.

mappum 12y ago
Calling yourself not-for-profit doesn't make it true. I'm not so sure why they needed $3M for something that only needs to pay for a few developers, and why they need to be in control of the issuing of the currency (unlike Bitcoin).
- napoleond 12y ago
  Right, and that's where (most of) the rest of my concerns lie. It's not completely clear to me why they needed to implement a new currency and why it's being distributed the way it is. It's possible there's a good reason though; I just haven't had time to think about it enough yet.
  - mappum 12y ago
    The reason is strictly for fundraising. They have Naval Ravikant as an advisor and he is a proponent of using that model to fund a project. It's a viable model, but I don't think you can call yourself a nonprofit and use it.
  - joyce 12y ago
    I work at Stellar. re: the distribution method: mining obviously has many benefits, but it's still limited to people who are highly technical and/or who have money to spend. That eliminates most people in the world. We wanted to provide much broader access to digital currency to normal folks, and so stellars will be given away for free at the click of a button. Hope that helps clarify.

AlyssaRowan 12y ago

>Facebook Ha ha ha. No. The rest of it looks interesting, however.

joyce 12y ago
Hi from Stellar. I know FB isn't the ideal login method. But our goals were to provide easy access to people and to have a method to detect spam accounts. Today is our first day out. We will be releasing other ways to claim soon so I hope you check back. Thanks.
- hyh1048576 12y ago
  You are leaving the Chinese users behind. They contribute to 50% of Ripple's traffic.
  - gdb 12y ago
    We definitely want to expand beyond Facebook for distribution as quickly we can. We'd love to hear — do you have any suggestions for the best way of doing distribution within China?
    - hyh1048576 12y ago
      Well if you (via Stripe) cooperate with Alipay do a giveaway via them.

gaelow 12y ago

"A decentralized protocol for sending and receiving money": How is this news, exactly?

gaelow 12y ago
Or, just rephrasing: Decentralized as in bitcoin, where proofs of work confirm transactions? That is not news, since 6 years ago. Decentralized as in any other electronic transfer system, where you trust a few nodes to confirm the transaction? "Each node in the network communicates with a set of other nodes that it believes will not collude (such as nodes run by universities, governments, and companies)" That is not news, it's from decades ago. (Some people even tried to put a patent on it, like 15 years ago: http://www.google.com/patents/US6173272 http://www.google.com/patents/US6173272)

mastermojo 12y ago

can anyone briefly explain the difference between this and something like ripple?