interesting quote:
"Ripple allows anyone to make currency trades directly without requiring brokers or centralized Forex markets. Any Ripple user — a professional currency trader, someone looking to diversify their currency holdings, or a traveler preparing for a vacation abroad — can submit a currency trade order to the Ripple network. The Ripple protocol automatically searches the network, finds the best available matching order, and completes the trade. No brokers or central exchanges are required. There are no broker fees or trade delays. Ripple allows real-time, direct, P2P currency exchanges on a global network."
https://ripple.com/reports-of-price-manipulation-in-the-forex-market-and-how-ripple-offers-a-new-model-for-trading/
As i understand, the value of xrp lies in its role of zero fee medium of exchange between currencies, its forex without central server, more liquidity, more value for the bridge currency.

Yeah I'm undecided. I grew up in South Africa. It has one of the highest murder rates in the world and over 80% go unsolved. I won't go into the gruesome detail of how those statistics play out when they affect some of your closest family and friends as well as many other life changing crimes such as gang rape etc.

So I actually prefer myself as well as my friends and loved ones living in the UK that has some kind of law enforcement even though it's possible I could be unfairly on the receiving end of it. Of course the system is flawed & does degenerate into an abuse of power. There is also one law for some and another for others.

Also you'll find if you ever have the unfortunate experience of living in a lawless world that basic human psychology seems to result in street/mob justice with little due process and the punishment of death for crimes as trivial as being accused of stealing a mobile phone.
Decent documentary on community justice - http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MKVBrR5YMJ0
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tyBzwEIj5QM

If there are blockchain solutions to some of these issues I welcome them.

i love free world theory, im idealist inside of me, and
 i grew up in pretty dangerous environment too, so forced to be realistic and pragmatic,
human beings are not equal, there are workaholics and lazybones, insolent and polite, smart and stupid, only time will tell what happen next with "freed" folks outside of US and Eu

Quote from: Crossover on November 20, 2014, 07:17:10 pm

Quote from: Stan on November 20, 2014, 02:02:17 pm

We have not done that. 
BitShares is not a currency, it is a company. 
Its products (BitUSD, BitCNY, BitGLD, etc.) are currencies.

could you explain please , why this "currencies" so special to use over BTC?

First generation crypto currencies are subject to large fluctuations in price that makes them less suitable for use as a store of value.  BitShares BTS it also subject to such fluctuations.  So we don't use it as a currency.  We use it as collateral to back a stable currency pegged to other assets like USD, CNY, EUR, gold and silver.

This next-generation currency, produced as a derivative of the underlying asset, is much more stable and therefore suitable for use as a currency.

In the process we improved everything else about bitcoin.  Confirmed transactions are possible in ten seconds vs. the hour it can take to get a fully confirmed Bitcoin transaction.

In addition, the BitShares currencies (BitUSD, et. al.) pay a yield - similar to variable interest to all who hold them.

BitShares completely revolutionizes the crypto currency industry.

This is not just an incremental improvement or a better meme.
It is the same scale of performance improvement as between a horse and an automobile.

EDIT:  In terms of speed, it is more like the leap from a horse to a jet aircraft. 

Thank you, let me explain how i see this now,
lets suppose im the investor of oil rig, i bought oil rig for 500 USD of my own and 500 i pulled from investors, the rig valued by the revenue flow over period of oil extraction devided to time discount,
 market value due higher inflation expectations rised to 2000 USD, my 1/2 share of company now valued at 1000 USD,
i decided to make Oilrig shares as digital money among rig personnel, but because of unstable price nature of shares i have to use reverse engineering derivative, digital tokens of common currencies, usd, gld.
When market value of rig rised to 3000 USD, investors created digital assets for the total amount of 2000 usd + 1 oz gold,
1 month later alien race bring new source of energy tech, oil prices fell down significantly more then 50%, market value of oilrig tumble to 1000 and still going down.
Share owners cant redeem their tokens, because value of deriv.assets 3000 > 1000, they are in trap, what to do in such scenario?

We have not done that. 
BitShares is not a currency, it is a company. 
Its products (BitUSD, BitCNY, BitGLD, etc.) are currencies.

could you explain please , why this "currencies" so special to use over BTC?

anybody can explain why PTS still displayed on coinmarket?
Average people see it fall and they dont have time to follow news about merging and reasons of PTS fall to zero,
so they normally react to leave BTS too

BTS need to partner with some P2P network like this blogging
http://twister.net.co/
https://joindiaspora.com/

It is not a derivative of a derivative. BTS is its own value store and bitUSD is a first-level derivative.

, omg
i know, that you guys in i3, bytemaster, Stan, are much smarter then many people, but its awkward moment
 i always thought that store of value could be kept in gold or debt (fiat system), but you going to build store of value on the basis of virtual exchange..