<blockquote>
  <p>Did I get this right, that it is possible to exchange a currency within the ripple network? Or is it that you have to convert your currency before you deposit into your wallet? In my example convert USD to EUR then deposit into wallet1 and send EUR to wallet2.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>Yes, you got it right. Ripple contains order books for any pair of assets.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>Is there a way I can see the exchange rates the ripple network can offer my for any currency pair? e.g USD / EUR.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>The best way is to attempt the conversion in the client. If you try to view the exchange rates, you will see only a small subset of the available liquidity.</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>I want to know if there is a way to get the exchange rate at which my USD will be converted to EUR, before I send the USD / EUR to wallet2. Or, do I have to send my money haphazardly?</p>
</blockquote>

<p>You can estimate the exchange rate by viewing order books in the client or on Ripple charts. But there are a number of reasons why the rate you actually get may not be the rate you see. For example, the best rate may be by exchanging USD for XRP and then buying the EUR with the XRP. The conversion function uses pathfinding.</p>

<p>Also, note that there's really no such thing as USD or EUR on the Ripple network. There are assets denominated in USD or EUR, and there may be more than one of each. The actual exchange rate you get may depend on the precise asset combination you are trying to exchange, not just which currencies it's denominated in.</p>

<p>You would expect an asset issued by a major exchange to be available for very close to face value and you might expect to get near face value for it. But there can be small variations. Providing assets widely valued near face value is essentially the purpose of a gateway.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-01T07:53:55.983Z
Thank you for your quick answer David. So to sum it up, you're saying that it isnt really possible to see the ex-rate of e.g. USD/EUR because Ripple doesn't  nessesarily the direct path USD->EUR but could also take USD-XRP-EUR or others ? So I could try it with my client and see the aproximated prices. But if I want an exact exchange rate I need to convert my currency before I deposit into my wallet. Did I get that right ? Sorry my english isnt the best.
user3187049
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-01T08:25:53.853Z
@user3187049 Yes. You can look at the direct offers between the exact two assets, but Ripple's convert capability can use much more than that. [Look here](http://www.ripplecharts.com/#/markets)
David Schwartz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-01T16:12:28.900Z
The link you gave me is for the exchange rates of some gateways right? Me thought now is: even if Ripple exchanges one pair of currency on the best possible path for the client there has to be kind of an order book for all pairs of assets e.g usd eur or at least eur/xrp and usd/xrp. So everytime ripple tries to exchange usd into eur a demand for eur is created. Now I asked myself if I can see these order books to satisfy this demand for eur with the eur I have in my wallet and get the usd that were bid therefore.
user3187049
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-01T16:12:56.560Z
I want to use this to do some arbitrage between the internal exchange and an external exchange. 
But I'm not sure if this is possible without converting my pair for the first time in the Gateway instead of converting it within ripple.
user3187049
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-01T16:22:32.160Z
@user3187049 You can see the order books in the client.
David Schwartz
CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-12-01T05:52:49.700Z
2014-12-01T05:52:49.700Z
David Schwartz
<p>I'm not hundred percent sure I got the whole principle of Ripple right. But as far as I could understand it is possible to deposit a currency into my ripple account/wallet via a gateway (e.g. USD via snapswap.com) and then send that currency to another wallet/ripple account and get it exchanged automatically.</p>

<p>For example I want to deposit 1 USD via snapswap.com into wallet1 and then send 1 USD worth of EUR to wallet2. This way, the owner of wallet2 receives my payment in EUR. </p>

<p>My first question would be:</p>

<ol>
<li>Did I get this right, that it is possible to exchange a currency within the ripple network? Or is it that you have to convert your currency before you deposit into your wallet? In my example convert USD to EUR then deposit into wallet1 and send EUR to wallet2.</li>
<li>Is there a way I can see the exchange rates the ripple network can offer my for any currency pair? e.g USD / EUR.</li>
<li>I want to know if there is a way to get the exchange rate at which my USD will be converted to EUR, before I send the USD / EUR to wallet2. Or, do I have to send my money haphazardly?</li>
</ol>

<ripple><exchange-rate><ripple-gateways>
Get available exchange rates of Ripple's built-in exchange
user3187049
# Get available exchange rates of Ripple's built-in exchange

(Asked by: username_0 on 2014-11-30)

I'm not hundred percent sure I got the whole principle of Ripple right. But as far as I could understand it is possible to deposit a currency into my ripple account/wallet via a gateway (e.g. USD via snapswap.com) and then send that currency to another wallet/ripple account and get it exchanged automatically.

For example I want to deposit 1 USD via snapswap.com into wallet1 and then send 1 USD worth of EUR to wallet2. This way, the owner of wallet2 receives my payment in EUR.

My first question would be:

1. Did I get this right, that it is possible to exchange a currency within the ripple network? Or is it that you have to convert your currency before you deposit into your wallet? In my example convert USD to EUR then deposit into wallet1 and send EUR to wallet2.
2. Is there a way I can see the exchange rates the ripple network can offer my for any currency pair? e.g USD / EUR.
3. I want to know if there is a way to get the exchange rate at which my USD will be converted to EUR, before I send the USD / EUR to wallet2. Or, do I have to send my money haphazardly?

**Tags:** ripple, exchange-rate, ripple-gateways


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2014-12-01. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

> Did I get this right, that it is possible to exchange a currency within the ripple network? Or is it that you have to convert your currency before you deposit into your wallet? In my example convert USD to EUR then deposit into wallet1 and send EUR to wallet2.

Yes, you got it right. Ripple contains order books for any pair of assets.

> Is there a way I can see the exchange rates the ripple network can offer my for any currency pair? e.g USD / EUR.

The best way is to attempt the conversion in the client. If you try to view the exchange rates, you will see only a small subset of the available liquidity.

> I want to know if there is a way to get the exchange rate at which my USD will be converted to EUR, before I send the USD / EUR to wallet2. Or, do I have to send my money haphazardly?

You can estimate the exchange rate by viewing order books in the client or on Ripple charts. But there are a number of reasons why the rate you actually get may not be the rate you see. For example, the best rate may be by exchanging USD for XRP and then buying the EUR with the XRP. The conversion function uses pathfinding.

Also, note that there's really no such thing as USD or EUR on the Ripple network. There are assets denominated in USD or EUR, and there may be more than one of each. The actual exchange rate you get may depend on the precise asset combination you are trying to exchange, not just which currencies it's denominated in.

You would expect an asset issued by a major exchange to be available for very close to face value and you might expect to get near face value for it. But there can be small variations. Providing assets widely valued near face value is essentially the purpose of a gateway.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: Thank you for your quick answer username_1. So to sum it up, you're saying that it isnt really possible to see the ex-rate of e.g. USD/EUR because Ripple doesn't  nessesarily the direct path USD->EUR but could also take USD-XRP-EUR or others ? So I could try it with my client and see the aproximated prices. But if I want an exact exchange rate I need to convert my currency before I deposit into my wallet. Did I get that right ? Sorry my english isnt the best.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 Yes. You can look at the direct offers between the exact two assets, but Ripple's convert capability can use much more than that. [Look here](http://www.ripplecharts.com/#/markets)  
> **username_0**: The link you gave me is for the exchange rates of some gateways right? Me thought now is: even if Ripple exchanges one pair of currency on the best possible path for the client there has to be kind of an order book for all pairs of assets e.g usd eur or at least eur/xrp and usd/xrp. So everytime ripple tries to exchange usd into eur a demand for eur is created. Now I asked myself if I can see these order books to satisfy this demand for eur with the eur I have in my wallet and get the usd that were bid therefore.  
> **username_0**: I want to use this to do some arbitrage between the internal exchange and an external exchange.  But I'm not sure if this is possible without converting my pair for the first time in the Gateway instead of converting it within ripple.  
> **username_1**: @username_0 You can see the order books in the client.  

---

