> What I've never understood about XRP and Ripple is that originally XRP was meant to only be used for paying for transactions and the ledger was meant to track IOUs between people denominated in some other "real" currency. They had videos floating around explaining the concept. In fact, they were handing out XRP for free to bootstrap the network of users [0] (that post says 1000 XRP, originally it was 30,000 XRP when the post was first created).

So the thing is, isn't this kind of system (very similar to a concept I can only remember as Hawala[0]) explicitly illegal?

> Hawala or hewala (Arabic: حِوالة‎ ḥawāla, meaning transfer or sometimes trust), also known as havaleh in Persian,[1] and xawala or xawilaad[2] in Somali, is a popular and informal value transfer system based not on the movement of cash, or on telegraph or computer network wire transfers between banks, but instead on the performance and honour of a huge network of money brokers (known as hawaladars). While hawaladars are spread throughout the world, they are primarily located in the Middle East, North Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Indian subcontinent, operating outside of, or parallel to, traditional banking, financial channels, and remittance systems. Hawala follows Islamic traditions but its use is not limited to Muslims.[3]

> Some government officials[which?] assert that hawala can be used to facilitate money laundering, avoid taxation, and move wealth anonymously.[citation needed] As a result, it is illegal in some U.S. states, India, Pakistan,[14] and some other countries.[citation needed]

The whole IOU system doesn't need crypto to work -- but you just can't set up the kind of clearing house/federation that you'd need in the US because it's illegal, I thought.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala