Why use ripple and not just use the testnet? 

The advantageous of allowing testnet to be used as an alt-coin are That Non standard transactions can be tested in a pseudo live environment where because the coins have some nominal value people are incentivized to try and steal and come up with clever ways of gamin the system. This sort of knowledge would be invaluable if non standard transactions are ever going to become a reality on main net. 

It also allows developers a chance to develop in advance new technologies and services that currently won't run on bitcoin main net but might be enabled in the future at which point they can switch over to main net. Additionally without any development happening with non standard transactions as currently there is no economic incentive , there might be a strong argument to never bother enabling non standard transactions as the risk of doing so might not justify in many people's minds  the benefits as if no one develops anything in advance  most users might not find the theoretical possibilities worth the risk, thus permanently hobbling the full potential of satoshis idea. Rather if testnet were allowed to act as an alt coin something cool might be developed that the main net users might desire enough to overcome the inertia of the status quo. 

Additionally it should be considered that the time in the future when non standard transactions might be enabled  might be so far in the future when bitcoin has hit mass adoption and changing anything might require far more political negotiations between users and devs then currently. Meaning that perhaps much more proof of functionality and value as well as testing might e required. 

Dennison

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 15, 2013, at 1:18 PM, Melvin Carvalho <melvincarvalho@gmail.com> wrote:

On 19 May 2013 15:23, Adam Back <adam@cypherspace.org> wrote:

Is there a way to experiment with new features - eg committed coins - that
doesnt involve an altcoin in the conventional sense, and also doesnt impose
a big testing burden on bitcoin main which is a security and testing risk?

eg lets say some form of merged mine where an alt-coin lets call it
bitcoin-staging?  where the coins are the same coins as on bitcoin, the
mining power goes to bitcoin main, so some aspect of merged mining, but no
native mining.  and ability to use bitcoins by locking them on bitcoin to
move them to bitcoin-staging and vice versa (ie exchange them 1:1
cryptographically, no exchange).

Did anyone figure anything like that out?  Seems vaguely doable and
maybe productive.  The only people with coins at risk of defects in a new
feature, or insufficiently well tested novel feature are people with coins
on bitcoin-staging.

Yes I know about bitcoin-test this is not it.  I mean a real live system,
with live value, but that is intentionally wanting to avoid forking bitcoins
parameters, nor value, nor mindshare dillution.  In this way something
potentially interesting could move forward faster, and be les risky to the
main bitcoin network.  eg particularly defenses against

It might also be a more real world test test (after bitcoin-test) because
some parameters are different on test, and some issues may not manifest
without more real activity.

Then also bitcoin could cherry pick interesting patches and merge them after
extensive real-world validation with real-money at stake (by early
adopters).

Interesting idea.  I wonder if ripple could be used to set up a transfer system between the 'main' and 'staging' systems ...

 

Adam

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