The next community call will be on September 18th at 9am PDT / 12 midday EDT / 4pm UTC via Zoom .
Please post topics you’d like to discuss here and some background context for the rest of the community (preferably not a few hours before the call so everyone has a chance to do some background reading).
Some Agenda Topics…
Id like to discuss the seemingly walled garden that has been created by Strata supporting Coil + XRPTipBot. Strata is managing the infrastructure but as far as I can tell you cant reach those connectors to make a payment to $coil | $twitter .xrptipbot.xxxx
Would love to be proven wrong and thatg Im just ignorant. 
Security Feature:
Moneyd could instead of pasting the ‘secret’ into a json file Moneyd could use an encryption algorithm to place a hash there instead. Upon running the daemon it prompts for a password which decrypts the has to be used.
Could be an optional parameter with the command : moneyd xxx:configure --advanced
Downside for this is if you create a service for moneyd then when the box boots it will fail if you use a hash. Not sure how to get around that part right now.
Hi @snub-fighter,
Thanks for bringing this up as it is something that I believe could be better communicated to the surrounding ecosystem. You are correct in the sense that Strata is just an infrastructure provider for these companies. Given that we do not run our own connectors, the peering is up to those we are providing our services. As Coil is growing and developing further partnerships they have made the decision to only peer with financial institutions like Stronghold and Gatehub.
I’m happy to discuss this further on next week’s call and answer any further questions the community may have.
Thank you so much for responding. There are a number of questions I have and I dont want to overload you here or on the call so Ill try to keep it precise.
This appears to be a huge surprise to a number of people on the gitter chat that seems to be inactive now as most have moved over to interledger.slack.com (which I would love to get an invite code for)
So its my understanding that the Connectors you are managing are actually Coil and xrpTipBot Connectors however Strata itself doesnt run any Connectors. Correct?
If I wanted to run my own connector or atleast become a child of a parent I would need to get permission from say xrpTipBot? (I did send you a Twitter DM regarding this)
Does anyone have an invite link to the interledger chat room https://interledger.slack.com/
Thanks Austin!
I want to add my $.02-- I shelved my project when this happened. I know at least 3 other devs that did too. From my perspective, we need somebody to host payment pointers/provide on/off ramps for the public network similar to what xrptipbot does on strata infra. My preferred solution is for xrptipbot to support payment pointers on phobosnode (maybe in conjunction with strata infra).
It’s not fair for me to expect xrptipbot to move over to support me, but i also don’t have time to dedicate towards building and hosting my own infra for others to use. The unfortunate result is that users of the public ILP (which includes most new ILP devs) won’t be able to send funds to anyone who isn’t hosting their own payment pointer, and community projects will likely continue to be impeded/shelved.
What everyone has done to develop on ILP (Coil, xrptipbot, Strata, etc.) has been amazing. Really great job overall. It does need to be open to help further adopt this in a streamlined way. I started looking into this because I was building a web app that would make payments over ILP and at the moment I am currently stuck regarding that specific feature. I spent a good amount of time thinking the issue was me and my deployment and not the network.
I am happy to look into what it requires to provide an on/off ramp to open up devs to reach xrptipbot. I have seriously been contemplating this the past few days as it was a big surprise.
I can also look into adding this functionality to the Solstice offerings if there is a desire by the community.
Digifin is watching and waiting on the outcome of the developments within ILP to implement what ever is required to provide what was originally envisioned. An open network of operators with a common goal of providing entry and exit points within the network and beyond.
There are changes that are happening within the ILP community that seem to point towards many different outcomes.
Will continue to run and operate our 2 connectors as long as there is a need and use for them.
There are many users/devs that seem to have hit a brick wall when it comes to ILP, It does seem that there is a closed shop approach at the moment, which is a bit of a shame. Multi-end games, but thats not a problem if the end game is the same. Expansion of the the network and growth is our aim is it not??
I have limited technical ability, admittedly. But would like to continue and add to the further expansion of Interledger.
Lets grow the network not fragment it…
Just an honest opinion from someone that has been observing the current situation and not participating. Been busy elsewhere unfortunately, not trying to be controversial.
Hi, I’m Stefan from Coil. 
People on the network will be happy to peer with you if you’re a company, your business model complies with any applicable rules and regulations including any applicable licensing requirements, and you’re likely to do enough volume that the due diligence process is worth it. For example, Cinnamon recently joined the network.
You don’t need any preexisting relationships to do this but you should have some credible story why peering with you is worth the time investment (like some venture funding, or a significant user base, etc.)
Obviously, we want retail users/developers to be able to access the live network directly, not just companies. But that requires somebody with the right licensing and KYC/AML capabilities to provide ILP uplinks for retail users/developers. We’ve been doing what we can to facilitate that happening and what I can say is that it is being worked on and it may happen sooner than you think. Obviously, that’ll be a huge milestone!
If you’re reading this and you’re working for a licensed institution with the capability to offer this kind of service, go for it! We think there is a big opportunity for the first company to successfully pull this off!
Hi Stefan, I see licensing mentioned twice. I am located in Canada and would love to cloud automate pairs of peering connectors for retail folks and developers. I can even integrate the KYC / AML checks.
What is however the nature of the “right licensing”. Is this simply legal money transmitter status?
This is most likely a money transmitter license and would require a per state license for every state you operate in.
50 states + territories + D.C. = 55 licenses.
Sounds like a gateway through Canada is a reasonable idea, we only need to state the classification of a regular business in that activity. ONE license.
The rules here are pretty simple, we are looking at about $500 to launch the legal entity and simply declare ourselves as a MSB (Money Services Business) , The reporting rules here are pretty easy. The main part is reporting above $10K transaction sizes which is easy to automate.
I would be willing to operate and chair this in a joint venture if someone has some deeper pockets. The yearly costs would be a minimum $2500 for the corporate year end tax filing.
Seems like a pretty low cost to bridge to live net and grow the eco-system. cough ** sponsorship ** cough. 
What is however the nature of the “right licensing”. Is this simply legal money transmitter status?
I’m not a lawyer and the laws vary by country, so I don’t think I can help too much with that. But one point I would make is that there isn’t just one answer for anyone using Interledger. It depends on how you’re using Interledger. For instance, if you’re only sending, you’re probably not any kind of money transmitter because you’re only moving your own money, not the money of any third parties. If you are a merchant that is only receiving, you’re also usually not considered a money transmitter, at least under current regulations. If you are earning money on Interledger and paying out a revenue share, like a content platform, I would also think that you’re not a money transmitter - just a business with affiliates. But in the US for instance you’d have to file W-9s for any US-based affiliates. If you’re a hub, i.e. you’re forwarding arbitrary ILP packets on behalf of third parties, it’s likely different again.
Again, this isn’t any kind of legal advice, I’m just giving examples to illustrate the point that it matters more what you’re doing with Interledger than the fact that you’re using Interledger vs some other payment technology. I would guess that regulators would look at a merchant on Interledger the same way as they would look at a merchant accepting credit cards, a payment provider that helps merchants receive Interledger payments would likely be treated similarly to a credit card merchant acquirer, etc.
From a due diligence perspective, a company would likely want to make sure they know who you are, i.e. they’d want to see business registration documents. Then they’d want to understand what business you’re in, i.e. are you a merchant, a wallet, etc. Based on the business, they’d want to do some diligence on whether you’re appropriately licensed and whether you have appropriate risk checks in place. Ultimately, everyone is responsible for their own business and their decision about who they peer with.
If we have time I’d like to talk about this idea I have been working on with @matdehaast and @don
There is a lot to discuss so might be better to leave for the next call when we can also give some demos.
If the group is willing to go down this path, we could help as well. We have many of the compliance and reporting already in place.
The next call is on Wednesday 2nd October.
Please post agenda items here