Quote from: JoelKatz on May 16, 2013, 10:15:01 AM

Quote from: SGExodus on May 16, 2013, 10:10:21 AM

But since you are at it, can you elaborate on how the XRPs are generated? and What measures are in place to stop the company from printing more in the future?

The genesis ledger puts a configurable number of XRPs in a well-known account. This is the only way XRPs can be "generated".

Right now, the only thing stopping OpenCoin from printing more XRP is the fact that we have not created any method to do so, have promised not to create any method of doing so, and doing so would open us up to dozens of lawsuits. The only way to do so would be to get the majority of validators to agree to the change, and even then it's possible (in fact, I hope this would happen) a stubborn minority could split the ledger and ultimately win. So once the network is distributed, this is as difficult as raising the Bitcoin block reward.

Joel, I've read that OpenCoin plans to hold about 25% of the XRPs in existence, as an appreciating asset. I have two questions about this:
- If XRPs are just stamps/tokens to throttle spammers, not the transaction payload; and you expect the current supply of XRPs to last everyone on Planet Earth for their lifetime of transactions, why would you expect XRP's to appreciate in value at all?
- What's the revenue (not asset) model for OpenCoin to make money? It doesn't seem like there's anything intrinsic to the Ripple network that allows you to grab, for example, a transaction fee. Are you planning to be one of the gateways, among other peer gateways?