Quote from: glitch003 on April 18, 2013, 05:38:19 PM

Miners EARN their coins by doing work for the network. There is no "handing out" like there is with Ripple. You should probably learn how the Bitcoin network works before you go spouting off BS like this.

I understand Bitcoin just fine, thank you very much. Yes, miners work for their bitcoins, just as the founders of Ripple are having to work hard and having to get investors involved to get their currency established. Of course, the early miners didn't have to work very hard, as it was really easy to mine. Nevertheless either choice is perfectly fine, and perfectly ethical, and time will tell which of the two will be more successful. It is perfectly possible that both will succeed. And even if XRP doesn't succeed as a currency, the distributed exchange mechanism provided by Ripple will be of great benefit to Bitcoin.