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Say I already lent EUR 100.00 to a friend, in cash, quite informally. Can I use Ripple to keep track of it? If so, how?
I guess I need to get him sign up at ripple.com (or get another Ripple client).
Then I grant him > EUR 100.00 trust.
Then he can just "send me" EUR 100.00.
Is that all? Or is there anything more to it? Does my friend need trust from anybody else in Ripple in order to be able to do that?
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Yes, Ripple is created precisely for such purposes. Both you and your friends need some small balance in ripple first to "activate" your accounts. After that, you need to grant your friend trust for at least the amount he will owe you, and then he needs to send you money. After that, you will see a net positive amount on your account, and they will see a net negative amount.
If you don't trust your friend with the money but you are connected through a web of trust, there is still a possibility of them sending you money. The transaction will appear from them, but your balance will show some other friend owes you money, and in part your borrower will owe them money.
2I would love to do it, problem is I still don't trust Ripple enough. Has anyone used it for real world purposes / nontrivial amounts yet? – ripper234 – 2013-02-26T12:36:55.940
1@ripper234 Well, you don't need to trust ripple too much if you only trust people you trust (it's confusing to talk about it, ain't it?), and just use it as some ledger of how much someone owes you and so forth. If you don't try turning it into a web of trust where your IOUs can shift easily, then you should be fine. – ThePiachu – 2013-02-26T15:00:26.727
1@ripper234: People are using it for real world purposes, but not in non-trivial amounts yet. You could use it for non-trivial amounts now so long as you double-check transactions and are prepared to switch to a backup system should something go wrong with Ripple. – David Schwartz – 2013-02-26T15:24:18.127
1ThePiachu and @DavidSchwartz, I don't want to enter my debts into both Ripple and a backup system, my txs are too complex as it is. So ... I'll wait for it to graduate out of alpha/beta. – ripper234 – 2013-02-26T16:31:20.793
Does "and then he needs to send you money" means sending some "virtual" money in Ripple? And what does happen then? After that, he still owes me the real EUR100, right? And if I use my new Ripple balance of EUR100 to pay soemone else (Charles), he'll owe the real EUR100 to Charles then, will he? – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev – 2014-05-23T15:29:06.473
And a 2nd question: what if I grant the friend trust for EUR100 (which I have lent him), but after that he doesn't "send me this money". Will something go wrong? (In your answer, he does send me the money, after I grant him the trust. So, what if not?) – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev – 2014-05-23T15:30:51.957
1@imz--IvanZakharyaschev If he doesn't send you the virtual money in Ripple, then you can't track the debt this way through Ripple. If he does send you the IOUs, you can transfer the debt to other people. As long as your friend agrees that the debt is transferable, he should uphold the debt to anyone who has the IOUs. This is essentially how new money is created. – ThePiachu – 2014-05-23T17:07:13.017
@ThePiachu Thank you for your answer! Essentially, the debt can be transeferred directly only to those who trust him, too, as far as I can understand. (Otherwise, if they don't trust him, why would they accept this debt as a payment?..) But indirectly by following a chain of trust such a payment can succeed even if the destination doesn't trust him, but trusts someone who trusts him, and so on, OK... – imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev – 2014-05-23T17:13:37.457
@imz--IvanZakharyaschev Yes, you can only receive the debt if you trust that person. The payment can also ripple through the system if someone is trading that debt for some other currency or if they enable rippling (which is essentially similar to trading for another currency). But otherwise yeah, your friend's debt becomes money - http://www.moneyasdebt.net/ .
– ThePiachu – 2014-05-24T06:17:22.450@ThePiachu Thanks! (Funny: the site you linked to--although in English--features a typical Moscow underground carriage on the picture. The real interiors of the carriages: https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/81-717/714#.D0.92.D0.BD.D1.83.D1.82.D1.80.D0.B5.D0.BD.D0.BD.D1.8F.D1.8F_.D0.BF.D0.BB.D0.B0.D0.BD.D0.B8.D1.80.D0.BE.D0.B2.D0.BA.D0.B0)
– imz -- Ivan Zakharyaschev – 2014-05-24T06:25:58.887