Quote from: davidpbrown on March 11, 2014, 04:20:15 PM

Blaming other people, is a lazy interpretation of a failure to communicate whatever Ripple's real value is.

I see value in community members informing the broader Bitcoin community of organized attempts to mislead it, whether it be the history of Ripple detractors or MtGox.

I am not defending the communication quality of Ripple Labs. For the most part, it is the Ripple community that is educating new users and attempting outreach. Ripple Labs is not pursuing mass adoption, and have lagged in effectively communicating the strengths of Ripple. They are focused on protocol integrity, attracting developers, and supporting early adopters. Marketing is not a focus. I wish Ripple Labs did more, and recent hires suggest they will be putting greater focus on outreach.

Here is a great interview with Ripple CEO Chris Larsen. Ripple Labs is transparent about Ripple, their strategy, and vision. Individuals may disagree, after understanding Ripple, but most are misled into following a link to the attack site of Tradefortress and proceed to shut down. A great irony is that Ripple has potential to help Bitcoin reach even further.

Quote from: davidpbrown on March 11, 2014, 04:20:15 PM

I'm quite neutral but Ripple seems like a damp squid coupled with a bad launch of XRP that's near infinite in number

99,999,999,999 XRP existed at launch. Reserve requirements, ledger costs, and anti-spam utilization make it an integral component of the network. XRP is not the core utility of Ripple. A lot of cryptocurrency community members miss that. External currencies are the focus of the protocol.

58,987,150,405 DOGE currently exist. Relative to Bitcoin, each seems a large number, but an effective amount of currency has yet to be established. Bitcoin is the standard that alternatives are compared against, and we have yet to see what an effective number.

Quote from: davidpbrown on March 11, 2014, 04:20:15 PM

and the few that have found value then suggest a market cap of $ 1,451,152,125 <- really?..

It depends on how you calculate the value of the market cap. I do not consider it especially relevant. Ripple is weak in liquidity and adoption; my emphasis is the underlying untapped utility of the system. I am not trying to sell people on investing in XRP. It is simply a useful system, with ability to benefit external currencies and other cryptos.

Quote from: davidpbrown on March 11, 2014, 04:20:15 PM

I don't see it and I'm trying to see it, what does that suggest for how poor their product and/or ability to communicate that. Perhaps I am missing real useability development and it'll suddenly be in our faces as the obvious contender but perhaps it just needs a relaunch.

I agree, in general, about the weak launch. Again, I consider market liquidity, services, and developer adoption more significant than XRP value. Basically, Ripple Labs emerged from stealth mode too early---and exposed Ripple to an attack campaign that they were not ready to handle. Ripple Labs is starting to gear up to improve communication, but it will take time.