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I was able to successfully sign up and get 5,000 STR, so that worked for me at least. But then I started looking a little deeper into the blog post. > Developm

by jxf 12y ago

I was able to successfully sign up and get 5,000 STR, so that worked for me at least. But then I started looking a little deeper into the blog post. > Development is led by Jed McCaleb and Dr. David Mazieres in collaboration with a small team of others. (The technology is based on the open-source Ripple project, originally created by Jed a few years ago.) So, is Stellar fundamentally the same thing as and/or a fork of Ripple? They've hired the same guy who started Ripple (Jed McCaleb), and as I recall there were a lot of concerns around that, as noted in a WSJ article [0] and other places. Jed is also on the Stellar board, too, one of only three members -- and so wields a considerable amount of influence. If so, then doesn't it have all the same problems and concerns as Ripple? Centralized authority holding a large chunk of initial funds, questionable governance decisions, etc., just to name a few of the political problems, not just the technical ones. I'd love to see the "IP layer for currency" described by Stripe succeed, but I'm not sure that this implementation of it represents a good idea. And I'm also concerned about whether Jed, the cofounder of both MtGox and Ripple, has the best interests of Stellar at heart. [0] http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/22/ripple-alternative-digital-currency-plunges-as-mccaleb-liquidates/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/22/ripple-alternative...

joyce 12y ago
Great question - here are the two key items: - Stellar is a nonprofit. No one owns it. The board and advisors represent a diverse group of people in tech, finance, nonprofit and academia to encourage cross-pollination of ideas. The board is also required to expand to 5 members by year-end. - Almost all the stellars will be given away for free (95%) because the goal is to educate and provide access to digital currency/financial services. This is really good for cryptocurrency as a whole because it provides access to a huge segment of the world that would not have access to digital currency otherwise. This should all help the effort be open and transparent.
- spacefight 12y ago
  And Stripe got their USD 3M loan repaid in 2% of the pre-mined stellars, valuating the whole pre-mined lot at USD 150M. How did they arrive at this number?
  - yxhuvud 12y ago
    Not necessarily. They may have figured that if stellar go stellar, then the service provided would be worth a lot to them.
- dmix 12y ago
  So this is pseudo-decentralized in the same way CA certificates or domain names are? I thought we were trying to move away from that model after Bitcoin made it possible to.
  - wyager 12y ago
    > I thought we were trying to move away from that model after Bitcoin made it possible to. "We" doesn't include people trying to make money off shitty pump-and-dump altcoins, unfortunately.
    - dmix 12y ago
      The only thing preventing Stellar from being an immediate pump-and-dump scheme is a 5 year mandate clause: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8116051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8116051 Ripple's XRP value plummeted after one of the founders of Ripple, and now founder of Steller, sold off his holdings within 2 weeks. I hope someone can explain to me how this is better than a decentralized variant?
- techtivist 12y ago
  I keep hearing the argument about being a non-profit. It really means little in terms of accountability or credibility. Even in a for-profit public company shareholders have some amount of say on who gets elected to the board. But this board is entirely self-selected; which seems contrary to the inherently democratic if not flat idea behind crypto currencies. And we are talking about a full fledged monetary system here with legal repercussions in terms of international law. With Bitcoin, no one was technically "responsible" for what folks did with Bitcoin. Will the Stellar organization be responsible for oversight and arbitration for any legal or financial fraud? And will the board BE held accountable or responsible for any systemic issues rising from speculation or any other activity?
pc 12y ago
Patrick Collison here. I think that Stellar's governance is going to be one of its strong suits. (And something that we thought was lacking in other efforts.) Stellar is a nonprofit organization and will have public financials and governance documents. It will also hold just 5% of the stellars -- 95% is being given away as quickly as possible. The board is composed of Jed, Keith Rabois, and me. A number of other advisors (http://stellar.org/about http://stellar.org/about) are ensuring that everything is run well and fairly.
- lnanek2 12y ago
  The 5% number seems a little strange to me. The post also said there are 1% more Stellars every year. So that is the same as the ruling central organization giving itself infinite money. I guess the 5% is kind of vanity metric to make people feel safe without much meaning.
  - pc 12y ago
    The inflation doesn't go to the foundation. The mechanism is described at https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/ https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/. (Search for "inflation".)
- jxf 12y ago
  Thanks for responding, Patrick. I appreciate you engaging in discussion on this matter. I'm not sure that this actually answers my questions, though. You seem to have more or less restated what I said without specifically addressing anything. For instance, I said, "Jed is also on the Stellar board, too, one of only three members -- and so wields a considerable amount of influence." Then you said that "the board is composed of Jed, Keith Rabois, and me". I'm not sure how that allays any concerns that Jed, who was specifically criticized in a number of Ripple-related efforts, is now on a similar organization. All it does is restate what I earlier said -- that Jed is on a small board, and apparently has an equal vote, and apparently wields a lot of influence. In any case, I'm more interested in hearing about how Stellar is or isn't like Ripple. Is it essentially the same technology with a different governance structure on top of it? If not, in what way(s) is it different?
mrb 12y ago
"If so, then doesn't it have all the same problems and concerns as Ripple?" Correct. Like Ripple, Stellar requires special (and dangerous) trust in certain nodes. For example, gateways (https://www.stellar.org/blog/introducing-stellar/#gateways https://www.stellar.org/blog/introducing-stellar/#gateways) have to be trusted by the Stellar network as they send messages like "a user deposited 100 USD via a bank wire transfer, so please accept this digital representation of 100 USD, trust me". This trust is dangerous as people running an (initially) honest gateway may start acting maliciously and lie about how much USD or EUR or other currency exist on the network. By the time the malice is detected, maybe the network could trace all USD or EUR that was issued by the gateway, and revoke it, suddenly pissing off a lot of users who owns this currency as it would disappear from their wallet. Users would then loose trust in Stellar, and the network would collapse... Stripe would presumably be the first gateway trusted by the Stellar network. Okay, so what if Stripe decided they could not trust other gateways and wanted to remain the only gateway? Well Stripe would be the only way to inject USD or EUR or other currencies in the network, effectively making Stellar a fully centralized digital currency, with the entire Stellar network being dependent on Stripe not being hacked, not being abused by a malicious employee, not shutting down, etc. This is the complete opposite design principle of Bitcoin which requires absolutely no trust in any specific authority.
- gdb 12y ago
  Gateways actually don't have to be trusted by the network. Think of them as similar to stores issuing credit: the gateway just says "the user has a credit for 100 USD, redeemable at my store". That credit is tradable, but only to other users who trust credit from that gateway. This means there needs to emerge a good system for users to decide which gateways to trust, but a malicious gateway can only directly harm the users who have decided to trust it. The beauty of this model is anyone can become a gateway at any time. See for example the gist linked at the end of the Stellar blog post: https://gist.github.com/thejollyrogers/b114b5a98fa11a5a4ad0 https://gist.github.com/thejollyrogers/b114b5a98fa11a5a4ad0 — becoming a gateway is just two API calls.
  - eordano 12y ago
    I smell compatibility hell. "Hey, take my credit from X gateway" "Sorry, I don't trust X"
fiatjaf 12y ago
Well, I don't know who is Jed or Jeb, but the original Ripple was started by Ryan Fugger[1]. The original Ripple was a much more loose unfinished idea for a much more reliable solid decentralized means-of-trade. It wasn't even a currency, only a protocol, a scheme, a nice good thing[2]. Then this bad Ripple came and got the name from him and he accepted their proposal, maybe because he thought his project was dead, but in the minds of the people who thought about it it will never die! [1]: https://classic.ripplepay.com/ https://classic.ripplepay.com/ [2]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rippleusers https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rippleusers
- rfugger 12y ago
  Thanks for the mention. I was happy for the new Ripple project because it is a good implementation of my original vision for an open, decentralized payment network. Now there's a fork called Stellar, which uses the same software, and so is also a good implementation of the original vision. The difference between Ripple and Stellar at this point is down to distribution strategy for the underlying cryptocurrency of their platforms, which, from my perspective, is just an implementation detail. I'm just happy to see smart, motivated people working on this. For anyone who's interested in the earlier stuff: http://archive.ripple-project.org/ http://archive.ripple-project.org/
karl_gluck 12y ago
For what it's worth, I signed up and connected Facebook and got 0 STR. Something broke, but now they have all my FB data so that's fun. It's funny to me that even though I doubt Stellar will be more than a flash in the pan (due to the reasons you mention and what they imply) I'm still willing to give up privacy for the shot that 5000 STR might buy me a sandwich one day.
- andrewstellar 12y ago
  Hi karl, Andrew from Stellar here. We're aware of the problem that's causing some users not to receive their 5000 Stellar reward. We're working on a fix - you'll have your Stellars in your wallet soon :)
  - GVRV 12y ago
    It's also surprising that just because I have just a handful of friends on facebook, no profile picture and don't post anything on facebook, I'm marked as a spam account. Are you just interested in big social graphs?
grubles 12y ago
Jed was a part of Ripple, which premined 50% of XRP and held said XRP for themselves while giving away the other 50%. Over time people realized Ripple and OpenCoin, Inc. are not exactly FOSS. Eventually, XRP slowly faded into scamcoin status. Finally, Jed decided to jump ship and dumped his billions (with a B) of XRP for millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Step 4 (after Step 2: ??? and Step 3: Profit!) apparently is to fork Ripple software into an entirely rebranded version of Ripple called Stellar.
anup69 12y ago
How to get bonus. I am in waiting list now? username : meanup33

by jxf 12y ago

joyce 12y ago

Great question - here are the two key items: - Stellar is a nonprofit. No one owns it. The board and advisors represent a diverse group of people in tech, finance, nonprofit and academia to encourage cross-pollination of ideas. The board is also required to expand to 5 members by year-end. - Almost all the stellars will be given away for free (95%) because the goal is to educate and provide access to digital currency/financial services. This is really good for cryptocurrency as a whole because it provides access to a huge segment of the world that would not have access to digital currency otherwise. This should all help the effort be open and transparent.

spacefight 12y ago
And Stripe got their USD 3M loan repaid in 2% of the pre-mined stellars, valuating the whole pre-mined lot at USD 150M. How did they arrive at this number?
- yxhuvud 12y ago
  Not necessarily. They may have figured that if stellar go stellar, then the service provided would be worth a lot to them.
dmix 12y ago
So this is pseudo-decentralized in the same way CA certificates or domain names are? I thought we were trying to move away from that model after Bitcoin made it possible to.
- wyager 12y ago
  > I thought we were trying to move away from that model after Bitcoin made it possible to. "We" doesn't include people trying to make money off shitty pump-and-dump altcoins, unfortunately.
  - dmix 12y ago
    The only thing preventing Stellar from being an immediate pump-and-dump scheme is a 5 year mandate clause: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8116051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8116051 Ripple's XRP value plummeted after one of the founders of Ripple, and now founder of Steller, sold off his holdings within 2 weeks. I hope someone can explain to me how this is better than a decentralized variant?
techtivist 12y ago
I keep hearing the argument about being a non-profit. It really means little in terms of accountability or credibility. Even in a for-profit public company shareholders have some amount of say on who gets elected to the board. But this board is entirely self-selected; which seems contrary to the inherently democratic if not flat idea behind crypto currencies. And we are talking about a full fledged monetary system here with legal repercussions in terms of international law. With Bitcoin, no one was technically "responsible" for what folks did with Bitcoin. Will the Stellar organization be responsible for oversight and arbitration for any legal or financial fraud? And will the board BE held accountable or responsible for any systemic issues rising from speculation or any other activity?

pc 12y ago

Patrick Collison here. I think that Stellar's governance is going to be one of its strong suits. (And something that we thought was lacking in other efforts.) Stellar is a nonprofit organization and will have public financials and governance documents. It will also hold just 5% of the stellars -- 95% is being given away as quickly as possible. The board is composed of Jed, Keith Rabois, and me. A number of other advisors (http://stellar.org/about http://stellar.org/about) are ensuring that everything is run well and fairly.

lnanek2 12y ago
The 5% number seems a little strange to me. The post also said there are 1% more Stellars every year. So that is the same as the ruling central organization giving itself infinite money. I guess the 5% is kind of vanity metric to make people feel safe without much meaning.
- pc 12y ago
  The inflation doesn't go to the foundation. The mechanism is described at https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/ https://www.stellar.org/about/mandate/. (Search for "inflation".)
jxf 12y ago
Thanks for responding, Patrick. I appreciate you engaging in discussion on this matter. I'm not sure that this actually answers my questions, though. You seem to have more or less restated what I said without specifically addressing anything. For instance, I said, "Jed is also on the Stellar board, too, one of only three members -- and so wields a considerable amount of influence." Then you said that "the board is composed of Jed, Keith Rabois, and me". I'm not sure how that allays any concerns that Jed, who was specifically criticized in a number of Ripple-related efforts, is now on a similar organization. All it does is restate what I earlier said -- that Jed is on a small board, and apparently has an equal vote, and apparently wields a lot of influence. In any case, I'm more interested in hearing about how Stellar is or isn't like Ripple. Is it essentially the same technology with a different governance structure on top of it? If not, in what way(s) is it different?

mrb 12y ago

"If so, then doesn't it have all the same problems and concerns as Ripple?" Correct. Like Ripple, Stellar requires special (and dangerous) trust in certain nodes. For example, gateways (https://www.stellar.org/blog/introducing-stellar/#gateways https://www.stellar.org/blog/introducing-stellar/#gateways) have to be trusted by the Stellar network as they send messages like "a user deposited 100 USD via a bank wire transfer, so please accept this digital representation of 100 USD, trust me". This trust is dangerous as people running an (initially) honest gateway may start acting maliciously and lie about how much USD or EUR or other currency exist on the network. By the time the malice is detected, maybe the network could trace all USD or EUR that was issued by the gateway, and revoke it, suddenly pissing off a lot of users who owns this currency as it would disappear from their wallet. Users would then loose trust in Stellar, and the network would collapse... Stripe would presumably be the first gateway trusted by the Stellar network. Okay, so what if Stripe decided they could not trust other gateways and wanted to remain the only gateway? Well Stripe would be the only way to inject USD or EUR or other currencies in the network, effectively making Stellar a fully centralized digital currency, with the entire Stellar network being dependent on Stripe not being hacked, not being abused by a malicious employee, not shutting down, etc. This is the complete opposite design principle of Bitcoin which requires absolutely no trust in any specific authority.

gdb 12y ago
Gateways actually don't have to be trusted by the network. Think of them as similar to stores issuing credit: the gateway just says "the user has a credit for 100 USD, redeemable at my store". That credit is tradable, but only to other users who trust credit from that gateway. This means there needs to emerge a good system for users to decide which gateways to trust, but a malicious gateway can only directly harm the users who have decided to trust it. The beauty of this model is anyone can become a gateway at any time. See for example the gist linked at the end of the Stellar blog post: https://gist.github.com/thejollyrogers/b114b5a98fa11a5a4ad0 https://gist.github.com/thejollyrogers/b114b5a98fa11a5a4ad0 — becoming a gateway is just two API calls.
- eordano 12y ago
  I smell compatibility hell. "Hey, take my credit from X gateway" "Sorry, I don't trust X"

fiatjaf 12y ago

Well, I don't know who is Jed or Jeb, but the original Ripple was started by Ryan Fugger[1]. The original Ripple was a much more loose unfinished idea for a much more reliable solid decentralized means-of-trade. It wasn't even a currency, only a protocol, a scheme, a nice good thing[2]. Then this bad Ripple came and got the name from him and he accepted their proposal, maybe because he thought his project was dead, but in the minds of the people who thought about it it will never die! [1]: https://classic.ripplepay.com/ https://classic.ripplepay.com/ [2]: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rippleusers https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/rippleusers

rfugger 12y ago
Thanks for the mention. I was happy for the new Ripple project because it is a good implementation of my original vision for an open, decentralized payment network. Now there's a fork called Stellar, which uses the same software, and so is also a good implementation of the original vision. The difference between Ripple and Stellar at this point is down to distribution strategy for the underlying cryptocurrency of their platforms, which, from my perspective, is just an implementation detail. I'm just happy to see smart, motivated people working on this. For anyone who's interested in the earlier stuff: http://archive.ripple-project.org/ http://archive.ripple-project.org/

karl_gluck 12y ago

For what it's worth, I signed up and connected Facebook and got 0 STR. Something broke, but now they have all my FB data so that's fun. It's funny to me that even though I doubt Stellar will be more than a flash in the pan (due to the reasons you mention and what they imply) I'm still willing to give up privacy for the shot that 5000 STR might buy me a sandwich one day.

andrewstellar 12y ago
Hi karl, Andrew from Stellar here. We're aware of the problem that's causing some users not to receive their 5000 Stellar reward. We're working on a fix - you'll have your Stellars in your wallet soon :)
- GVRV 12y ago
  It's also surprising that just because I have just a handful of friends on facebook, no profile picture and don't post anything on facebook, I'm marked as a spam account. Are you just interested in big social graphs?

grubles 12y ago

Jed was a part of Ripple, which premined 50% of XRP and held said XRP for themselves while giving away the other 50%. Over time people realized Ripple and OpenCoin, Inc. are not exactly FOSS. Eventually, XRP slowly faded into scamcoin status. Finally, Jed decided to jump ship and dumped his billions (with a B) of XRP for millions of dollars worth of Bitcoin. Step 4 (after Step 2: ??? and Step 3: Profit!) apparently is to fork Ripple software into an entirely rebranded version of Ripple called Stellar.

anup69 12y ago

How to get bonus. I am in waiting list now? username : meanup33