Quote from: Labcoin_PR on September 27, 2013, 08:08:56 AM

but you need to trust people to send anything but xrps in ripple

Right. To move an asset electronically that isn't an inherently electronic asset, you need to trust someone or something to hold that asset. This is why if you want to move dollars into or out of Bitcoins, you have to trust an exchange to hold the dollars for you. The main advantages of Ripple are that you can transfer balances without having to go to or through the issuer and everyone has access to the order books between assets with no forex middlemen. This allows people to hold the assets they choose while still being able to make payments across currencies and across issuers -- so you don't have to trust the same entities as the you want to do business with.