Ripple: the world's first distributed global currency exchange

OpenCoin startup , founded by E-Loan creator Chris Larsen and Jed McCaleb, who created the eDonkey file-sharing network and the largest Bitcoin Mt. Gox , around which there has been so much noise in recent days, received investments from eminent venture firms to develop Ripple , the world's first distributed global currency exchange. Ripple also includes the concept of ripples (XRP) - a new electronic currency. The system will contain a fixed number of ripples units. More specifically, 100 billion.

According to the creators, their exchange will allow payments in any currency, including Bitcoin, and has a minimum transaction fee ($ 0.00001), introduced only to avoid DDoS attacks. As the technology description page says :

While Ripple does not charge any fees for profit, each transaction requires a small amount of ripple (equal to 1/1000 of a cent) for security.
This fractional amount is required by the network to prevent anyone from sending millions of transactions in order to boot the system. No one collects this amount. It is simply destroyed within the network. The effect is the same as if it was immediately redistributed between the holders of Ripple accounts.

In addition to the lack of commission, the exchange has a number of advantages, such as almost instant transactions (their verification takes only a few seconds) and fully open source code of all system components.

In my personal opinion, the OpenCoin project has every chance of success and I will follow its development with great attention. Its creators seem just as enthusiastic:

We believe that Ripple will be able to change the idea of ​​what the world thinks and how it uses currency, providing universal access to a trusted, transparent and easy-to-understand financial instrument. We are pleased to welcome visionary investors and use their funds to expand our team and accelerate the launch of Ripple.