Bitcoin Forum

The moderators have said that purely promotional posts are not allowed here. Given that policy, let's have a substantive discussion on ways in which Dash solves many of the problems with Bitcoin.

To wit:

1) Bitcoin's transactions take approximately one hour to fully confirm, or about ten minutes to get one confirm.
2) Bitcoin's transactions are completely traceable and the protocol has no built-in anonymity.
3) Bitcoin's governance system needs improvement.
4) Bitcoin's development funding is based on altruism from the community.

How does Dash solve these problems?

Also, Dash Evolution is currently under development, and is supposed to offer built-in anonymity without ahead-of-time mixing as well as a protocol that is immune to 51% attack. Does anybody have thoughts on how this will be accomplished?

Promotional... what?? Does that cover... yeah, lets not get into that. Might edit this with more later but just to touch on the governance part, the worlds first DAO!! Yeah!.. oh, that's promotion.

So, its literally ground breaking, incentivised full nodes that amongst other things get to propose and fund projects directly from the system, be that PR, development, whatever, the masternode operators vote on what funding they do and don't agree with and the system governs its self. No big rows like the block size debate, the system decides how it's going to evolve :)

Ok, I seem to have got to the top of the page somehow so might as well say something useful while I'm up here. Check the vids under "about", he knows what he's talking about, I don't:

https://www.dashpay.io/

So, the budget allocation. It's only been running since V12 and it's a really really big game changer, seriously, this will become something so central to our way of doing things that we'll wonder how we managed without it. I'm not just talking about Dash btw, even NASDAQ is playing around with some pale imitation for its shareholders voting but in years to come this will empower each and every individual and you heard it here first! (iirc I heard Andreas Antonopoulos talking about it last year sometime). And Bitcoin should get some. It'll be a long and arduous road in getting it established and heading the right way as there's nothing like it to work from and there's bound to be a few wrong turns but hey, we can vote it back around again.

That gets to the issue of who gets to vote. Only those rich and privileged few who can run masternodes, mwahahah!! But we wants more nodes! We wants more network! Pure speculation on my part but Evan has brought up reducing the number of coins needed to run a masternode already and I'd expect it to be in reach of absolutely everyone at some stage, cold storage becomes an interest bearing savings account. That's available to more or less everyone now but that involves third party services pooling funds and when it comes to trusting coins to third party services... that's a problem and I've little doubt it'll be fixed.

That would fix Bitcoins falling node count and bring a host of other benefits in the bargain and all it needs is a little of the block rewards diverted from miners to full nodes, its currently 45% with Dash but with bitcoins higher dollar prices one or two percent would cover the costs of running a full Bitcoin node on a VPS and make a little extra besides.

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Incentivising the full nodes and turning them into interest bearing savings is exactly how banks got money out from under the mattress and into their vaults. That would've been fine, take it in, use it wisely but then things got a little creative... but that's another story. Bitcoin doesn't, it sits around anywhere gathering dust or out of sight and some of that creativity can find its way into the system there too. Exchanges collapsing, heists, trading IOUs, lots of things that aren't clear and infallible, there or gone, secure or insecure, they're serious vulnerabilities and can be prevented by incentrivised nodes.

Bitcoin interacts with the legacy system and alts interact with Bitcoin, services like shapeshift bridge the gap. Sorry to disappoint but the legacy system has a tight grip on bitcoin and it doesn't like things that evolve, its a big bloated thing and has a hard time keeping up. That opens up something the legacy system has kept closed shut before though, the doorway to their infrastructure and so to anything that can interact with their system, all the ways we use digital money today.

What Bitcoin doesn't do well is cash, that needs third party services and getting them all to agree on how they're going to do that will be one hell of a challenge and that's where Dash comes in. There will be all kinds of things built on top of Bitcoins security and they'll all be useful in their different ways but it will take time for them to merge or grow into common global systems.

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Initial distribution. Yeah, that instawhatever, how does that solve Bitcoins problems? Short answer, it doesn't and if anything it tries to follow Bitcoins initial distribution because Bitcoin did an incredibly good job of it. I only got here mid 2012 but at that time this place was mostly geeks, people that saw the failings of our legacy monetary system and people who cared about financial independence and privacy. Those where the early adopters and a simple name was enough to attract a similar demographic, Darkcoin appealed to the same kind of people and, probably more importantly, it appealed little to those with a "greed is good" mentality because its hard to market a name like that to the masses.

Those initial few hours are also similar to the very early phase of Bitcoin distribution and if anything Bitcoin was distributed to an even smaller number than the trolls wildest imaginings of Dashes beginnings because Dash was released in view of a much wider audience. The detractors figures on who holds how many coins based on the initial few hours after launch can be taken with a pinch of salt, miners jump on every coins launch because the low initial difficulty makes it highly profitable and if anyone wanted a majority stake it would be far easier to stand back and wait for them to sell at low initial prices than to attempt to monopolise mining.

InstantX has proven to be so secure, Evan is going to make it so that all transactions are processed through IX using Quorums.  Since Quorums are chosen randomly with the mining hash, and only, 5 or 10 are needed, it seems, with over 3000 masternodes, we could have 300-600 quorums running at a time.  They don't take but, what? 300 milliseconds to process a transaction, ... anyway that's how Evan came up with the guesstimated .... oh heck, where is that chart?  I can't find the Bitcoin Wednesday thingy!  LOL.  Well, it was over 1700 transactions per second wasn't it?

Still, didn't Evan say the blockchain wouldn't bloat?  How can that be?  He did tell me when I asked the direct question, that you will be able to trace all transactions to the creation of each coin, so nothing will be hidden, just the users will remain obscured.  So did he say there would be no bloat or that bloat won't be a problem?  There is a big difference.  It's so easy to get misinformation on these forums!  But I don't want to bother Evan with another question :P

BTW, I hope you're going to moderate this thread so we can actually talk somewhere!

Also, you didn't include the "Distributed Application Programming Interface" DAPI on the list.  I think that one thing is important for making wallets on any system, and allowing people to make wallets with any features they want.  Hopefully we'll be able to simplify the wallet to make it easier to use.

I've read about the spork concept...it enables rapid development by allowing new changes in the code to be "turned off" if there is a failure, which means that hard forks are no longer necessary.

We should have a competition to see if we can figure out what Evolution is all about.  I'm frustrated that after waiting forever for Bitcoin Wednesday to publish a video, most of the plans are still

https://crankymanslawn.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/240_f_68272941_rxnsim3egcbifodhee0zurtw1d95ido0.jpg

URG! Hope we get all of it in January, not just part!  LOL

But I'm a team player and I agree with holding cards close to the vest as long as possible.

The thing is ^^^ I thought Dash had it all already.  And I can see IX being used for every transaction, that's cool.  DS, anonymity mixing, I can't see that being done for everyone all the time without bloating the chain.  But Evan says he solved that??? Wha???  But if Evan said he solved it... he solved it.

The quorums doing all the work, locking transaction, all IX, OK, I get that.

Sounds like just a natural progression to what's already there, just better.  Can the DAPI actually give us other functionality that I am not thinking of?  Maybe making Merchant services easier?  There is a lot of hoopla here, is it really new Evan Duffield magic or expansion on what we already have (good, but not magic)?  If it's just expanding the system, why the secrecy.

I'm thinking there is more to this...?

I agree...I understand the concept behind the confirmationless wallet. It's merely powered by InstantX (presumably).

Instant Darksend without bloat is the one I have a had time wrapping my head around. I can't wait to find out how he is going to do it.

I'm betting the network will be running at full capacity all the time regardless of transaction volume and that there will be no blockchain bloat! :P

It's just not logical Captain.

Maybe the bloat is differed somehow, or blockchain truncating is going on?

90 days  :(  :-\  :'(  ???


Yah, there might be flexibility somehow... maybe?  Right now, block size is defined (1mb) but what  if block size was variable.  It is the size needed period?  If we only have 150k of info to put in it, that's all that goes in.  If we have 5.65 mb, that's how big the block size is, no more, no less.  Can that be done?

With intelligence and foresight

Like the dual use of DASH, you can make your funds public or you can use DARKsend and not show anyone what you doing, but yet everything is still on the same blockchain.



And instamine is widely acknowledged, its here - https://dashdot.io/alpha/?page_id=118
No different from bitcoin being solomined for soo long and instamine. DASH has been distributed, you could have bought hundrerds of thousands for peanuts if you wanted.

Instant transctions and  annonimity I like the most!

That is an excellent article--thanks for the link!

To sum it up, the only criticism trolls are able to level against Dash is that the coin supply was unevenly distributed early on, due to a bug that's present in Litecoin's code. Evan created Dash (at the time, called Xcoin) as a weekend hobby initially, and he did so by forking the Litecoin code.

The so-called "instamine" coins have been sold many times since they were first mined, mostly during the big rise during May 2014.

Which part is B.S.?

Does Dash not offer instant transactions? Is Dash not anonymous (prove it by tracing a transaction back to it's source, if you can)? Does Dash not have decentralized governance? Does Dash not have a budget system to pay for ecosystem development. Has Dash Evolution not been announced as forthcoming?

Spit it out, I wanna know what it was?  LOL

I have another question:

2 of my holy grails for Masternodes are an open marketplace hosted by MNs and a decentralized exchange.  The fiat to coin exchange could be done via the open marketplace, so they could be one and the same, but if we could host a full exchange with all the graphs and services other exchanges offer (except shorting, etc...  None of the gambling sh*t) then I think we'd have a hit.

Would you support these things?  Do you think Masternodes could host such things and stay within the law?  What if the data were not readable from the outside, so no MN would know what data they're storing?  I see this as not being dark market stuff, we could even ban dark market stuff via a report button, but a main stream marketplace that grandma has no trouble using (even easier to use than ebay because we wouldn't have all those crazy fees to choose from)

And do you support the possibility of paying someone to do this work via the blockchain?  If the fees involved were paid to mining rewards just like any other fee, it would help expand mining hash rate as well as MN numbers while creating a real economy for Dash to thrive in.

Lol, another one ;) Fungibility by default and for free but there are times when you want a record of transactions, fine but that's a service and there are fees attached, the longer you want to keep a record the more it costs. In other words the opposite of Bitcoin where fungibility comes at a price but a permanent and irrefutable record is free.

i think there should be more teaser about evolution...

but from what i've heard, i think  Dash will be a hybrid storj-eth-btc style coin.

Cointelegraph has a new article with a little more information on Evolution's decentralized API (DAPI):

http://cointelegraph.com/news/115510/worlds-first-dapi-decentralized-application-programming-interface

If they are reporting correctly, and I assume they are, then DAPI will be the first part of Evolution to be released. It will allow outside programs to interact with the blockchain as if they were a full node, without requiring them to have a full copy of the blockchain in order to do so.

P.S. I'm not sure from this if the DAPI would allow interactions with the blockchain (i.e. both read and write) or if it would be able to solely request information. I'm assuming it will have some level of input/write access, since Evan said on dashtalk that DAPI will ultimately allow such things as built-in 2FA for your wallet.

Hummm, interesting idea!

Yes, absolutely.

The "staying within the law" part is a moving target though. "They" can create retroactive laws that suit any purpose, as toknormal's link from the troll-swarm thread chillingly illustrates:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11964655/Police-to-be-granted-powers-to-view-your-internet-history.html

Among other things, this is a race against time, before witch-burning comes into fashion again.

My instinct is to decouple from fiat completely, but that is of course easier said than done.

I don't know storj, but I think it was decided a while back that Dash would stick to being money.  On the other hand, with the DAVC and ability to propose projects, the MN network and community can vote to add other services (and I hope they do!)  Then it might indeed look like Etherium?  :)

I don't know where the 10 gb blockchain comes from, we're not even at 2 GB!  Maybe they're talking about the future, but it gives the wrong idea!

RE: DAPI and write access:  The Electrum wallet already use deterministic seeds?  Does that require write access to the blockchain?  If so, we may already have that?

Does that mean I'm not the only one getting spooked by my government and the banking system?  My mother makes me feel like such a freak for thinking the economy is going to collapse.  Which is funny because since the dawn of time, the economy collapsed like clockwork.

i think its impossible for Dash stay as being money, it has too many feature already.
plus if  DAPI   was implemented, Dash can offer service to real world commerce, industry etc.

I am very spooked by your government and banking system.   ;)

I'm in Canada, where the voters just threw out our version of Cromwell/Cheney after (amazingly) tolerating it for years. However, the mechanisms put in place by one bunch of rascals tend to be used by the next "good guy" bunch of rascals - the ratchet mechanism tends to go in one direction only.

It's hard to take an objective stance on this stuff, especially for the young for whom everything is "normal" because of their time horizon. I'm 72 fwiw, and from my perspective the present situation is terrifyingly abnormal. I try not to succumb to the "ain't it awful" impulses that come with age and I find tinfoil-hat paranoia as ludicrous as the next person does.

Like you though, I am aware of the cyclical nature of this stuff - especially the history of fiat collapses. It's worth reflecting on Bill Bonner's line though "just because something is inevitable doesn't mean it is imminent". Stay nimble!

Edit. Update: if you are wondering why I blurted out my age on a public forum, here's the main reason (on topic, I promise). Yesterday I went back to Cryptsy to see whether it had survived the bank run caused by the recent smear story. Everything seemed to work fine. I transferred some crypto coins in, converted to DASH, and went to the Withdraw window where I discovered that they had implemented Draconian new invasive questions. The pretexts were the T-word and P-word as always, but the actual rules bordered on farce. From memory - you can now withdraw only $25 daily or $100 monthly in crypto (not fiat) without giving them your life history. Thus blackmailed, I told them all the stuff they have no business knowing, and I assume they will blab it to The Authorities on demand in order to stay in business. I'm not even in that country - sheesh! Anyway, my age is no longer my own business so I might as well flaunt it. The matrix is real, boys and girls. DASH might be the answer - I hope so.

           

Wow, thank God I got out of there. When they redid their fee structure to a flat 0.5% withdrawal fee, I was afraid more bad things were coming. The allegations of federal investigations sealed it for me (although I'm still skeptical that that was anything more than a smear piece, but why take chances).

I entered crypto when all the Mt Gox was really flaring up.  I've kept my exposure to exchanges to a minimum, except at one point where I had ~ $70 worth of coins on an exchange for a while.  I was trusting Bitfinex.  Man I miss them.  I hope they'll open trade with Dash again some time soon, but our volume is so small, I can understand their decision.

I don't understand Bitfinex. Once you've done all the work to integrate a new currency, all there is to do is sit back and collect the profits, yes? I mean they already did all the work, there can't be too much involved in simply maintaining a trading pair?