The Ripple Project

Ripple is a project to build a new kind of monetary system based on the trust present in our ordinary social and business relationships.

You can start using Ripple by signing up for free at Villages, or checking out other implementations.

More videos.

Concept

Money as we know it is made from promises, specifically bank promises, in the form of bank account balances. Ripple's goal is to make your promises as useful for paying people as bank promises are.

To start with, let's look at what happens if you tried to use your own promise as money. Suppose you went to the store and tried to pay with an IOU. This might work, except for two things:

The store owner may not know you are trustworthy. Even if the owner trusts you, many others don't, so she can't use your IOU to buy things.

Ripple solves the first problem by finding one or more people who can exchange your IOU for one issued by someone the store owner trusts. For example, if the store owner trusts your friend Alice, and Alice trusts you, you can give your IOU to Alice, and Alice can give her IOU to the owner. This can all happen instantly over the internet.

The cool thing now is that the store owner can actually use Alice's IOU to buy things, because Ripple can convert it into IOUs that are useful for paying other people. That solves the second problem.

All Ripple needs to work is for people in your community to sign up for the Villages system and let the system know who they trust and how much they trust them to be able to repay. You can also sign up and use other Ripple sites.

More Ripple examples.

Project Information

Ripple is an open community project founded in 2004 by Ryan Fugger. Everyone is welcome to participate in discussions and development activities.

Get Involved! - how you can participate in the Ripple project.

FAQ - frequently asked questions about the Ripple concept and project.

Concept - papers and other explorations of the Ripple concept.

Implementations - various versions of the Ripple concept put into code.

Ripple Project group - come join the discussion!

For any other information, inquiries, or if you wish to add something or make changes to this wiki, mail info@ripple-project.org.

Thanks!