Bitcoin Forum

Enjoy  8)

"Solving Bitcoin's Centralization: NXT vs Clam"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMZqnbtzXOI


Summary: Bitcoin failed to remain decentralised due to it's proof of work design. Proof of stake is biggest innovation in crypto since invention of bitcoin. NXT and Clams are great POS coins but for very different reasons with very different risks. Now that altcoins are at an all time low these are great buys in my opinion.

Proof of stake creates more problems than it solves. I'm quoting from another post of mine, but here are several attacks which are not present in POW:


ref: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1316024.msg13489124#msg13489124

What we see in practice is that the dominant exchange for NXT (bter before, now poloniex) only have around 5% of the coins in their custody. They need 10 times more to do a 51% attack which is very unlikely to happen.

With Clam it is indeed the case that one successful business does have more than 51% of the coins in custody so it is more centralized than bitcoin. However it has the right design so that over time, if the coins is successful in gaining adoption, more and more people will validate transactions and it will become more decentralised, in contrast to bitcoin that over time becomes more and more centralized.


Also note that eventhough Clam is currently in constant 51% attack vulnerability the likelihood of a 51% attack is much lower than bitcoin as the custodian would harm himself the most of all by destroying this coin where his whole business depends on. Bitcoin however, due to it's high market cap and visibility, has many enemies that could easily invest 100 million in mining equipment or threaten a few mining operators to do a successful 51% attack.




True, as I also explain in my video, once you succeed in a 51% attack with a POS coin and own 51% of the coins, you are unbeatable and can attack the coin continuously without anyone able to stop you. This however I don't see as a big problem. It's inherent to high security, that once it does break, you're fucked. The problem is that bitcoin has way too low security. You only need, not min 51%, but max 5% of the coins in bitcoin (and liquidate them for mining equipment)  to do a successful 51% attack.



I can't follow your reasoning here but I do know that to short you need the coins as well. Who is going to lend you 5%, let alone 20% of the coins? Extremely unlikely.



Nice theory but in practice NXT, the first 100% proof of stake coin is rolling for 2 years now and a 51% attack has not even come close to success. In the meantime many other Proof of Work coins have been attacked successfully and even bitcoin is in dire straits.

Not so - an exchange does not depend on one coin to run it's business; they typically have 10s of coins open for trading. In addition, as I mention below, the shorting attack can make this cost free.



In bitcoin you need a continuous investment of 25 BTC per block in order to attack the chain. That's $1,605,600 per day at current prices. And as I've already explained, the shorting attack in POS makes attacking a POS chain cost free.


Yet entirely possible.


The absence of a thing does not prove anything. Theory matters. A lot.

Talk is cheap.

Who will attack NXT? Please use these exploits to attack. Attacker gets to win money.


Win money attack NXT with actions not words.

If so, then what's your opinion on PPC?  And will it traction in the future? 

Peercoin, although the first coin with proof of stake, looks very much like a copycoin when you download the client, which put me off to further investigate.


There are many POS coins. What I like to see is unique utility.

I really need nxt if I want to buy or launch an asset on it's decentralised exchange.

I really need clams to gamble on just-dice.


For what do I really need ppc that I cannot do with bitcoin?

The issue of Proof-of-Stake is not 51% attack, but 51% control. In practise it means that is a quite centralised system. Even if 51% of the stakeholders have the interest of the system in mind, they can dictate the direction. Nxt original code and ideas are great. It is however not a very open system - the code is tightly controlled. A more distributed system could also ensure that the project follows some guidance by users and features and services they might want. Its very hard to find the balance between a coherent vision and input of many people (design by committee problem). The last 12 months have been pretty quiet. It would be good to see more R&D in this direction and more new systems.

No, you only need 51% of the coins that are actively staking, not 51% of the total supply. This is why exchange hacks have been a huge deal with PoS coins even when they don't approach 50% of the total supply.

In the case of Nxt (and most coins today that aren't really used much) the bulk of the supply is likely held relatively few people, each having large amounts, which motivates staking (and also makes them feel personally invested in the coin for a significant portion of their net worth, which means they will actively defend against attacks, while someone with pocket change would not particularly give a shit). If I own 300 EUR worth of coin out of a supply worth billions or even trillions of EUR, I'm just not ever going to bother staking it.

Some coins try to get around this with delegated staking but the problem there is further centralization to one or a few stake pools.

CLAM does at least have an incentive to actively stake since it uses proof-of-working-stake (no coin-age component). Still many small holders of CLAM don't bother to stake in practice.


It may be that Nxt is in fact 100% secure because >50% of the stake has always been held by a few people such as Marc De Mesel who will defend it against attacks. That doesn't make it decentralized nor does it make the method secure just because Nxt in particular might be.

In NXT you don't need to stake with active connection or online machine. You can lease your account to other address, maybe to some developers or whoever. At the same time you can spend your NXT when and wherever you like.

Just imagine how will that help CLAM. I know you are running CLAM pool but I don't trust you. In NXT you don't need that trust. My NXT is still mine.

See above, search for delegated staking.

Concentrating stake like that does not make it more secure. It just creates a central point of control or potential compromise (custodial risk with respect to staking as described by monsterer is the same here, in fact worse because people are more likely to concentrate stake with centralized entities if their coins can't also be stolen).

Smooth - good points. The fee problem hasn't been solved by any system AFAICS. Transaction validation should be fairly compensated and to such a degree that it is roughly profitable (enough incentives so that supply can serve demand).

In terms of fairness and distribution. Imagine a coin called AliceBobCoin. Alice holds 51% of all coins and Bob holds 49% of all coins. Is it decentralised? Imagine a PoS coin called EveryoneCoin with 1 billion users where everyone has the same share 10^-9. Interestingly fairness is probably not even the best factor. It would be desirable for the system to compensate productive behaviour. Instead of everyone getting money for free or by lottery, its better to agree on some other method which rewards behaviour. In just the same way a company wants shareholders to be productive members and aligning with the interest of the corporation.

I guess you have to ask yourself, "How much does decentralization matter if the currency holders are the ones that secure the network?"

Certainly not. It is entirely controlled by Alice. Alice might as well (and it would be vastly more efficient to) just keep the coin balances on MySQL.

But fairness is not required. A million holders where one person holds 1000 times more than each other person is still pretty decentralized.

(I assume we are talking about PoS here and ignoring other issues with PoS.)

It certainly does. The point of cryptocurrency is not Moon. The point is to have a system of enforced rules where all participants are protected not only from outside attackers but from each other.

PoS(hit) can never be secure, because if it has a functioning markets (which it must in order to be widely adopted and liquid), then one can borrow stake, attack the coin (which requires much less than 51% to for example delay transactions by some N blocks where N is a function of percentage of coin supply held (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13488432#msg13488432)), and then pay back the borrowed coin with cheaply bought coin as the price collapses due to attacks. You could simultaneously short it (i.e. which you did when you borrowed the coins, but sell some for fiat before you attack) for profits. Alternatively borrow fiat (or other cryptocoin), buy stake and short to profit and pay back loan. Also PoS can't distribute new coins, thus eventually the coin supply shrinks asymptotically to 0.

With PoW, your borrowed mining hashrate would eventually reach end of contract and the coin would repair itself. And you'd need much closer to 51% to do damage. You would hope to be able to purchase the coin at cheap prices, wait for it to rise back up and then sell it for fiat to pay back your loan. Much less plausible.

However if you are up against the corrupt State that charges cost of PoW mining to the collective (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1319681.msg13599150#msg13599150), then we're screwed with profitable PoW also, except I have the idea to use the unprofitable PoW of every person's computer in the world (with latency preventing them from farming out to ASIC), which seems might be even too much of an expense for China to hide the subsidization of.

You are wrong here. There are PoS variants that distribute new coins. You guys all too often stereotype all PoS coins while forgetting there are many different variants with different pros and cons. Any argument against a PoS implementation should at least mention what version of PoS you are referencing.

PoW has many pros and cons that PoS coins don't have, and visa versa. I don't understand why everyone feels the need to push one or the other as superior, when they both have useful features that the other doesn't.

I find it amusing when people try to force their vision as to what cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology should be onto others.

To whom?

No variants can. And the last time you debated me, I defeated you on every single point. Are we going to have to do it again?

I thought you wrote last time that you were going to be busy with your university semester beginning. I am ~51 (50.7), you are in your early 20s I presume. I have been a software developer since before you were born.

I'm not forcing, I'm stating my opinion. But if you want to just trade speculative assets and accomplish nothing else then it becomes a zero sum game. Might as well play poker or something.

See Bitshares, genius.

You are "stating your opinion" as if it's the only reasonable one and all others are wrong. It's called an opinion for a reason. You continue to do it in this post...

Only my last sentence was opinion.

That is your opinion about your opinion not being an opinion.

Okay great. By that standard every statement by anyone is opinion, so obviously the distinction you are trying to make is pointless.

Again the point is that with PoS, there is no FAIR or EQUITABLE way to distribute new coins that doesn't mimic the proportionality of the existing stakes, thus this is the same as the divisibility that is already built into the existing coins. No new distribution was achieved, just offsetting inflation.

If you have any other gimick in mind, please cite it specifically, so I can identify the flaw for you. You have been hoodwinked.

I am sorry if you don't like facts. And sorry for you if you believe anything junior Dan and papa Stan Larimer say without fact checking it with someone who really understands the technology and is a straight shooter.

Why do you get disgusted with us, when we are willing to entertain any technical facts you can bring to bear in this thread. We are not censoring you. But we do expect you to bring details, so we can refute those details.

We are interested in open disclosure. And we are happy if you can prove us wrong, as we will have learned something new. You can't expect to state something we know is impossible, and then we will just accept it without any details from your side. Enumerate how you think the feature you claim can be done, and then we will explain why you are a n00b.

Remember I defended your right to have your reputation heal over time and not be faulted for one incident for the rest of your existence here on this forum. I have not been against you in any way. You are all heated and puffed up because you made an investment in Bitshares and thought you discovered the holy grail of crypto. And now I am giving you bad news.

The amount of say you get in the company is compared to the amount of stake that you own. Corporations have been thriving on such practices for years now. Executives get nice stock options and benefits and the larger shareholders have more say, yet all stakeholders profit (if it is a well ran business of course.) If that is known before someone invests in a company/cryptocurrency that whoever has more stake will get more say in the company, then it is ridiculous to call it not fair.

You are also assuming that everyone votes in their best interest only and not the company's best interest, which is not always the case. If you go have a look at what each paid witness is doing for Bitshares then it becomes clear it is not the case.

No, I am annoyed because you guys have no life and have now sucked me into another full night of debating. I could spend all night refuting some of the points you two have made ITT. You guys portray everything you say as fact when a lot of it is at least partially based on opinion.

I understand the frustration of losing so much time defending points. I suffer the same frustration and sometimes lash out because of it. You have real school work to do, and I should instead be coding than commenting here. Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about this. Each of us makes a decision to post or not post.

Smooth and I (and some others) are deep into this shit already and hard to get us to do something else. You should not let your school work suffer for this. We experts are not going to totally screw up crypto land. I am for one a counter balancing force to pretty much everything else out there. Have some faith, relax, and pick your priority points to make once in a while, to help advance crypto while not letting your education suffer since that is so important for your future.

I understand you feel we are giving a one-sided view of Bitshares, but I have explained my side of that in the Decentralization thread and also in a short exchange with Stan Larimer. Daniel is always pitching some new gimick which doesn't make any sense to me at all. I think his market clearing ideas are nonsense. I think his latest blog post about making a PoS that does work is also complete nonsense. I have already explained some of my reasons but tersely in some cases. I don't have the time to detail all my thinking on that to the point where I can convince every diehard Bitshares fan to understand my logic entirely. I don't expect anything worthy to come from Daniel, because he always has some gimick that is the antithesis of decentralization and/or which doesn't scale in the real world.


The world is not going to adopt a coin that is a corporation. Period.

Same for that shit OBITS.

I never said the point of crypto was only to make money.  I think for a lot of the original believers in crypto that was more of a secondary consequence.  I understand your point of participants not being protected from each other, but there are very few people who would act to their own detriment.  I think it is much better to have the currency holders secure the network than miners in the PoW sense because the motives of the miners and the holders do not always coincide.

The point you are missing is that it isn't necessarily to their determent. You're only considering "crash the world" type attacks. If Bitcoin miners 51% attack to prevent increasing the blocksize and drive up fees while maintaining their competitive advantage, they help themselves at the expense of people who want to transact with lower fees. That's just one example that comes to mind, and maybe not the best example regarding PoS but the underlying issues are the same.

Crypto without decentralization is just inefficient fiat (aside from the zero sum trading game aspect).

You mean either:

• Larger stakeholders get more (either because they can outvote the smaller ones, or because the smaller ones are somehow convinced the coin will gain more value if they give away their coins).
• Corporations are created, new shares are created, production in this economy makes these shares more valuable, minority shareholders agree to give more shares to those who run or work for the company.

I assume you mean #2, since #1 is idiotic.

But by definition the shares have to be non-fungible with shares of other corporations. So unless you make Bitshares one corporation for every productive venture, then the new shares can't be Bitshares.

So there is the flaw. You can't have one corporation that produces everything for the world. It lacks degrees-of-freedom. It is same as tying yourself to your sister and trying to each go about your daily life tied together.

Dumb shit like this is why I do not respect the Larimer incest.

Right, but isn't it the currency holders' right to set monetary policy (aka chain rules).  Your argument that miners shouldn't dictate policy is understandable because the miners' influence isn't proportional to their currency holdings, but in a system where currency holdings equal chain influence what does it matter?  If the majority of currency holders want to dictate policy, imo that is their right.  The reason in my mind that DPoS is flawed is because it breaks the linkage of coin ownership and chain ownership via a fraudulent voting mechanism.

I don't know who gets to define what is "right", and I think I don't care.

If someone has disproportionate and effectively absolute power, it will likely be used. Since you can't limit concentration of coins you have to limit power. PoS is even worse than PoW in this regard. PoW is a physical quantity and you can't cram all the miners into a single point. Even "Chinese Miners" are not a single entity and compete in some ways even as they may cooperate in others (and there are significant miners elsewhere with distinct interests too). You could put 99% of the stake on a small part of a single chip (way smaller than a USB stick).

It just doesn't work. That's why minority shareholders in public corporations have certain legal rights and not just the right to be screwed by larger shareholders with their own agenda. Otherwise public corporations go away and you end up with no real decentralization of ownership and private equity (arguably happening anyway).

The point is that PoS can't be secure (see my post upthread on that) and politically it can't honor the wishes of the common stakeholders (thus arguing they should set policy is entirely vacuous), just the same as how democracy is a total sham.

Some Iron Laws of Political Economics (http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=984)

People are hoodwinked by PoS for the same reason they are hookwinked by democracy. Both of which are complete lies.

Here is what will happen to both every time...


Representative government has always and will always resolve in megadeath and catastrophic failure.

It has nothing to do with "right or wrong".  It has to do with the prerogative of the majority coin holders.  It's very true that stake can be centralized much further than hashpower.   All someone has to do to get more influence is purchase more stake.  I'm not sure about the argument of "Chinese Miners" competing... Is there any business in China that isn't controlled by the govt?  Is there anyone in China who has money that the govt doesn't want to have money?

Regarding the fact of minority stakeholders being taken advantage of by larger shareholders, I can only imagine a situation where the larger holders would destroy smaller holders currency.  This of course would destroy the currency and its value and would not be in their interest to do so.

I will take market capitalization of Apple for $200 Alex.

No that is not what democracy does. Democracy doesn't honor the perogative of anyone other than those who can steal from the collective by amassing the most power and lying to the collective by promising everything and delivering nothing (while socializing losses). Get an education. Read my prior post.

Why the fuck would we even be working on crypto currency if governance worked. Crypto currency would be entirely unnecessary if democracy actually worked.

I understand your shorting attack vector for PoS.  I just think it is unlikely.

I'm not arguing that PoS honors the wishes of the tiny stakeholders.  PoS honors the wishes of the dominate stakeholders.  They set policy.

I don't think it is really that simple. Obviously when the Chinese government imprisons or disappears someone or confiscates his or her assets, the previous day that person had money (and/or their freedom/life). The next day they don't.

Moreover the "Chinese Government" is not a unitary entity either.


I gave you an example straight from Bitcoin. Setting transaction fees. That obviously accrues to the advantage of some parties an disadvantage of others. It probably doesn't crash the world and destroy the currency value, but it means if you can't protect your interests in the game, your best choice is to leave the game. Thus the ownership contracts until you have private equity that isn't at risk of being disadvantaged by anyone.

It won't work as money, which by its nature becomes universal. It might works as some sort of narrow platform that delivers utility to customers, or possibly a cooperative that delivers utility to its owners, but the ownership will be narrow. That is inevitable.

(And I'd add that since I have serious doubts are there being a useful application for blockchains other than money, it may not work for anything, but that's another question really.)

And what is the game theory of that then. There is an Iron Law of Political Economics which insures the dominate stakeholders will steal everything from the collective. And they are doing it right now to all you in Bitshares. Mark my word. I will be laughing at you later. There has NEVER be an exception throughout all human history for governance.

Probably better to just ignore TPTB than laugh. They've been warned. What else can we do?

It's also not really fair to single out Bitshares, the other systems are no different.

You don't defeat someone by talking wtf just discuss your shit and that's all

So you are arguing for global corporate-fascism? Have you youth been totally indoctrinated?

I don't think democracy works, but I do think representative government works.


Remember, I hate Bitshares, but I like NXT.

You missed the point. I don't have to defeat anything. The dominant stakeholders are stealing everything from you as we speak. Enjoy the ride.

And that includes Dash's masternode scheme and all of the PoS systems.

However, at this time PoW is also the same. The Chinese (professional miners) are stealing everything from Bitcoin investors (but not from Bitcoin users yet, while block rewards are still high!)

Thus the state of crypto is in crisis. So far it is a failure except some foundation work has been laid and some users have benefited from Bitcoin. Even PoS has funded some foundational work so from that standpoint I can't say it is a total failure.

Good point. The same could be said for corporations. There is no need to blockchain the corporation; the current model works just fine for what it does. You only need a new model if you want to do actually accomplish something different.

We are headed into the Knowledge Age where the individuals are their own bosses and so we need perhaps block chain contracts between individuals. No middleman as in the Theory of the Firm. In that theory, the corporation exists to handle risks and costs related to impedance mismatches when individuals interact, e.g. a key employee dies and no one else can work on the code he was doing. Or the inability to get focus and direction amongst a disparate group of individuals without the discipline of a manager.

We need to learn how to work together in open source, having contracts that reward all parties, yet also provide necessary redundancy, openness, etc.. For now that is a nebulous dream but I think we are working towards that. I hope.

You guys are ignoring that PoW has to be paid for by diluting shareholders. If you would like to argue that they can be upheld by transaction fees, that is yet to be determined and depends on many unknown factors. I have only seen one (or maybe a few) coin reduce or eliminate block rewards with expedited emission rates, and in turn people stopped mining it and it was attacked soon after.

You guys are ignoring the fact that a huge amount of energy needs to be consumed to secure PoW cryptocurrencies.

You guys are ignoring that PoW tends towards centralization too.

Most of what you're saying is true, but there is a reason why developers don't run companies, economists aren't in advisory positions in hedge funds, historians don't run the government, etc... There is much more to the puzzle than technical analysis. There is network effect, volume/liquidity, distribution methods, emission rates, inflation/deflation, number of coins, number of coins eventually, transactions per second, transaction fees, quality and dedication of developers, services... (mobile wallets, exchanges, block explorers,  hot wallets, payment processors), ease of use, utility of the cryptocurrency (how many places and things can you purchase with it).

By reading your postings, if I blindly believed the words you spit out, would lead me to believe that Bitcoin is a bad investment. However, after considering all of the factors I can be sure that is not the case. Bitcoin is hugely flawed, and it is (and will likely be for some time) the king of cryptocurrencies. Only geeks care about most of the issues you guys write off entire cryptocurrencies for. Speculators don't have time to research every caveat of decentralized technology.

I will be the first to tell you that if you want to to engage in short term speculation, none of these issues matter at all. All that matters is supply and demand over your holding period.

When I speak of crypto trading as being a zero sum game that is not a pejorative.

That is an ignorant statement. You must not have ever worked in the corporate world. I work at the largest transfer agent in the world, that has been legally restricted from expanding its footprint, and does business on 5 continents and grosses millions. This company could literally be cut out of the loop with blockchain technology. In the immediate future it is unlikely because the silent generation and baby boomers are horrible with technology, but I see it being a real possibility in the coming decades.

Proxy voting is another costly (but necessary) endeavour for corporations, one that could be done completely on blockchains for pennies on the dollar similar to transfer agent services. I'm sure you've also read in the news about the ways blockchain technology can greatly speed up the time it takes to settle trades and at the same time cut the costs. The costs of accounting... etc...

Give me network effect and market cap first, then I can hire all the developers I need to take out whatever geek coin you're working on.  :P

Aeon has literally no chance at success because it is not a complete package. Many coins are better than Bitcoin, yet most will go the same way of copy and paste / pump and dump coins.

I think smooth was referring to DACs (the term apparently invented by Daniel Larimer), or the concept that the corporation would be somehow decentralized and yet still be a corporation. If you have voting, directors, etc, then it will still behave as (by definition) a top-down corporation and thus is not decentralized. You can't replace corporate governance with a block chain and still have a corporation.

That, but anyway I think it is a myth that all those costs having to with stock transfers, accounting, voting, etc. will go away with blockchains. There are inefficient legacy systems for sure, but those legacy systems could be upgraded with or without blockchains (probably better without).

Most of the costs exist for legal (and often good economic) reasons and the legal framework will still exist and impose its overhead as long as the corporation has physical assets (or for that matter assets that exist as a legal fiction such as IP). Only in rare cases (money potentially being one of them or perhaps the only one) is it plausible to imagine that value exists without physical or legal assets.

Nevertheless the blockchain is a big fad now and many legacy systems may get upgraded with blockchains (though it probably won't be DAC blockchains, it will be chains run by banks, transfer agents, trust companies, etc.). Shrug.

I have not worked in the transfer agent business. I have worked in the corporate world, including finance. Although I probably shouldn't even respond to the ad hominem at all.

My PoW design doesn't have that flaw. I am not assuming, but you are (as you didn't know what I have designed).


Not in my PoW design.


Not in my PoW design.


Yup. And that is why I have a chance to kick ass on everyone here. Because my breadth is very polymathy (much more than the Larimer clan). But one dev does not a global coin make.


Perhaps you need to read my posts more carefully:

It is decentralized enough to where the government can't easily or cheaply shut it down. In turn it can offer services that are highly regulated much more efficiently and cheaply than legacy corporations. DACs can reduce hosting costs by utilizing nodes of the network and users, and costs of employment by utilizing smart contracts.

Sure, it is "controlled" by large stakeholders and management which is elected by such, but that's just how corporations work. To say there is no benefit to "decentralizing" or using blockchain technology for corporations is silly.

There is only one coin with network effect and market cap that eclipses all the others into insignificance. It is USD.

No you can't. I can easily defeat you all by myself. Because it takes vision and the coders you hire will expect the vision to come from you, but you don't have the depth and breadth to lead them. And partially because you need to understand both technology deeply and also economics and also practical business. I have done all those. Very few people can claim the skills I have. I have marketed software to what would be 10 million netizens in todays internet population size.

You see smooth has worked in corporate world where he was a contractor. So he is expert at some aspects such as for example server work. But he isn't expert at marketing nor GUIs directly to end users. I bring a skill set that is very unique. Many people don't realize that. I have been very ill and this has really limited what I could accomplish.


Ditto Bitshares, Dash, Ethereum, OBITS, etc.

There is nothing in Altcoin space that has any chance right now.

But who are we to tell them that? They might have something up their sleeve or who knows maybe their technology gets adopted for another purpose and smooth gets awarded a lucrative contract.

We are laying down experimental foundations at this time.

That is why I think we devs need to be more friendly with each other. And the speculators need to stop creating these wars and pitting us devs against each other in time wasting political discord. If speculators would stop putting 5% of their networth into altcoins, this place might be a lot more cooperative instead of combative.

I would love to see more reason and less emotion. When inexperienced speculators have significant vestment riding on an altcoin, they become irrational and combative (or let's say rational trying to pump and defend but irrational overall since that was a stupid move to become a bagholder).

Investing say 0.5% of your networth in altcoin will keep your reason intact. You can be on the lookout for better investments and obtain more if there is actual user adoption and not just a bunch of plans.

"Not in my PoW design"... you mean your vaporware? Give me a break... you just reminded me that I've solved all the issues with PoS in my yet to be published or developed alt coin. Therefore, all of you arguments are invalid....

My design is largely described publicly.

Maybe you should write some cliff notes... there's no way I have time to read all of your posts.

You drink your own Koolaid. Enjoy the delusions of being a Dunning-Kruger 20-something. Someday you will respect smooth and myself and understand that age brings wisdom from experience (that being said, I suspect smooth is significantly younger than I am but I might be wrong about that).

Purposefully obfuscated from competitors. Cliff notes (white paper) come when something is shipping.

But young know-it-alls spout off at the mouth before doing their homework. And they blame their overloaded schedule on someone else, as if it is my job to do your research for you (my schedule is overloaded also).

It sounds like you've already failed. The proclamation "I can easily defeat you all by myself" eludes to the fact that you will not allow members of the cryptocurrency community to get involved (whether it be mining or whatever) with your cryptocurrency. That doesn't sound like a cryptocurrency at all and is by far more centralized than you are claiming Bitshares to be. Unless you are giving any free people the ability to participate willingly, then I guess your statement would just be wrong.

How can you be certain that you will "defeat us all" if we have a fair chance to participate ourselves?


You will find out soon enough that making a successful cryptocurrency is hard work. You are certain that you will crush the peasants, but it may not be you that's doing the crushing and you may come to find out that you were just a peasant all along. It is why I don't own more than 6% of my crypto portfolio in any one certain alt coin.


You fuel the fire with every post and this statement is hypocritical. What sane developers that are already involved with the cryptocurrency world would ever work with you? You've said derogatory things about them and all of their projects which they've worked hard on for years. You fuel the combativeness by proclaiming that you are never wrong, you are the best, you've been doing this since we were born, that coin is going to die, the developers of this coin are scammers, that coin doesn't solve any problems, I've already beaten you, etc.... you just said in the same post that you want to defeat us all...

As do you.  8)

I can see my obfuscation strategy is working well.

Perhaps you would contemplate that I not as clueless as you think I am.

Of course everyone here will be involved (if my plans succeed), but not the way it has been done up to now. I certainly won't be selling them any ICO nor providing them a way to obtain coins from mining.


I know that. Did you ignore what I wrote upthread, "But one dev does not a global coin make.".

My point above is that you can't create any great innovation for a crypto coin, because you lack the technological and economics depth and breadth. You couldn't lead the devs. Whereas I can. I am saying I can beat what ever you could do even with a lot of money, all by myself. But I am not saying I can create a successful coin all by myself. I might (just maybe but not good odds) be able to launch something by myself, if I cut some corners along the way. But I will surely need help asap if it is growing usership.


The peasants are whom I intend to help, not crush. You are the one who started off this discussion by being so boastful about how you (without the technological depth) can go beat smooth, myself and other devs just because you will have enough money to fund your effort. That is ludicrous. Any experienced software developer knows you can't lead if you don't understand the technology. And if you hire a CTO, the problem is you can't communicate effectively to the CTO and too much will be lost in the translation. This is known as the Mythical Man Month.


I try to state only facts. Any developer who hates facts is not a developer I would want to work with. If another developer stated some facts about my work, then I would endeavor to fix the problems and respect that developer for his effort and expertise.

So thus only the best developers will work with me. And the other ones who have problems with objectivity will not work with me.

But any way, I don't think it works that way at all. If someone creates something that is a revolution, then everyone has an incentive. If not revolutionary, then it is a big yawn any way.

So now we are back in the sandbox like 5 years olds. I meant that you drink the KoolAid about decentralizing a corporation. Daniel Larimer has pulled the wool over your eyes with his unrealistic nonsense.

I am very critical of my own designs and I am always trying to think about in what way they are unrealistic. This is one reason it has taken me so long to finalize a design. And it is a reason I could still decide to quit. Also I am developer for decades with loads of experience and I am basing my analysis on deep experience, knowledge, research and debate with very smart people such as smooth et al. Whereas, you close your ears and declare, "I am a young idiot and you devs are the same as me".

Good luck with that.

Exactly. And the usership of Bitshares is of those who aren't investors? 3 people (Manny, Moe, and Curly)?


Otherwise we have the zero sum game of mining each other.

Given enough money, it would be a walk in the park. I could hire 10 people smarted than you and I would be set to go. There is a reason there is not only a CTO, but a CEO, CFO, board of directors, etc....

Furthermore, you are about to get a lesson in network effect. Many coins have been released that are technically superior to Bitcoin have failed. You think you are a genius marketer, and have the emission/distribution all figure out, and people are going to be lining up to build services for your superior "master race" cryptocurrency (etc.) We are all idiots that have not done as much research as you, and even if we did we couldn't understand it, right? I hate to inform you that is all subjective, has not happened yet, and is extremely optimistic- even if it eventually does it likely will not be nearly as successful as you imagined.

Realize I could say the same, and I have more skills and experience than you do in technology, marketing, and hands on business experience. For example, I negotiated a $205,000 non-exclusive license sale of my CoolPage software in 2001 with Homepage.com. Inflation-adjust that.

Any way this discussion has devolved into a shouting match with a juvenile (who has some religious devolution to his cargo cult leader Dan) that is tailing off to be completely devoid of any further informational value, so I will ignore you from now on. Thanks.

You do realize Bitshares is a small part of my portfolio, around 6%, right? BTC has a huge network effect compared to all alternative cryptocurrencies and is why I am ~50% in Bitcoin. You guys telling me that you will break Bitcoin's network effect because USD has the ultimate network effect is blasphemous. Something can be very successful even though it is not adopted by everyone. We live in a large world with a large population. Yet, Bitcoin's network effect compared to all alt cryptocurrencies combined dwarfs them.

It doesn't work that way. It takes much more than one developer or an idea (or, in your case... ramblings on an internet forum...) to start a revolution. There are many revolutionary technologies that exist, yet most of them will die and not ever be very widely used. Either because better technology comes along and you don't evolve (Kodac), better politics (hddvd vs bluray), or better marketing (Apple.) You claim to have A figured out, I have an inkling that you really suck at politics, and the jury is out as to how well your marketing scheme will work.

Ahem what is the distinction between the two? Afaics, there is none. Martin Armstrong seems to be under some delusion that if people could vote directly on each issue of governance (i.e. each law, etc) then we would avoid the evils of the representative government we have now. Yet of course it is impossible to have a direct democracy function on anything larger than a tribe (and even for a nuclear family unit it rarely works!). And you seem to be unde some delusion that the representative government we have in the USA is functioning well. Or you have sold yourself down the river of tears that there is some rainbow of a perfect fix. Sigh. Never has been in the history of man and never will be. The Iron Law of Political Economics is immutable and insoluble. Please refute if you can (but you can't).

Or perhaps you merely accept that representative governance fails, but it is the least worst (or the only option)?

If we are just here to put some shiny new block chain ribbon on existing corruption of representative (or any other form of) democracy, then I will quit. I don't see the point. If there are efficiencies that can be gained in spite of not dealing with the fundamental issue of trustless governance, then maybe I can be convinced. But the original ideal of Satoshi's white paper was trustless governance (consensus) of the block chain.

Yup. I will never play in that arena. It is an intentional effort to destroy politics. I detest politics with a venom. Every one of my successes was achieved without any politics whatsoever.

I believe in and want to promote meritocracy.

So all of you who are picking coins based on who is best at manipulating the others politically, I aim to destroy you. And if there is a way, I will. If there is no way, I will quit.

I may manipulate marketing wise, but not designed to siphon funds in a zero sum game. Rather to expand the pie for everyone.

That was not smooth's point at all. His point was that no coin is yet significant relative to USD. He didn't say that Bitcoin has 0 network effect.

But personally I am delighted to hear you are 50% in Bitcoin. Hopefully you will eat some humble pie soon if my prediction of < $150 comes true. I hope you have all your life savings in crypto as well. You are young and lesson is more valuable than not losing everything. I've lost everything more than once in my life. It was a good lesson.

What is the point of selecting a coin based on which one has the best politics?

Even if you had every single speculator from the Bitcoin universe investing in your coin, it would all be useless if you didn't have the design and marketing to gain adoption.

Bitcoin was marketed by the global elite in their MSM and they are mining you the speculators taking all your money with their zero cost mining in China.

Crypto is one big corruption to take all your money. You fools. I am trying to create a fundamental innovation and a real revolution. Just keep criticizing me and handing your money over to your slave masters.

What most intelligent people have decided is that it is much easier to play along and find a way to mine you, than to attack the much more difficult problem of a true revolution. I try against all odds and have never asked for a dime from the investing public, so therefor you don't like me because I don't want to steal your money.

Insanity.

So you question why everyone is combative and why we can't all get along, and then you transition to "I hope you lose all of of your money."  ::)

Just so you can sleep tonight.. I have some physical gold and silver, 10% of my crypto portfolio is in bitGOLD/bitSILVER, and a separate portfolio with stocks/bonds and a 401k. I am well diversified.. even in my crypto portfolio owning at most 6% of any certain alt coin and ~50% in Bitcoin.

The best design and marketing would be useless without speculators, because otherwise it will never garner the attention of most of the world's population. You include marketing, but you can't fund a sufficient marketing campaign without speculators or doing an ICO. Proper marketing is expensive.


Your cryptocurrency will be no different if it gains enough steam. The rich (or big brother) will always find a way to control and profit off of everything that is profitable. There is nothing you can do to stop them from doing so.

Also, politics are necessary if a cryptocurrency has enough success. Bitcoin is finding this out now. Countries are cracking down and/or banning Bitcoin. Other alternative cryptocurrencies are finding politics to be an issue for different (non-governmental reasons.) Some have formed groups and banded together... Blocknet, Supernet, etc... You need to be politically correct or no one will help you with your vision. If you slam everyone's investments and tell them you wish they'll go broke... don't expect much help. I would like to extend this point to social skills, networking, etc... all things you are not very good at. Many things give cryptocurrencies value, and no you are not a jack of all trades.

You are apparently highly confused. I never wrote I was excluding speculators, which is in fact impossible in any coin market. You have a quite annoying bratty abrasive method for asking questions by rather asserting that you know everything.


Bittorrent is decentralized. Bitcoin isn't. Go get an education first, then we can talk.

You can't decentralize everything. It will at the very least require on/off ramps for its beginning years (possibly for its entire existence), payment processors, exchanges, etc..

There will likely always be centralized components... even if you could decentralize one or a few of them.

Anyways.. have fun pretending you're always right to the other sheep around here. I'm out for the night.

I didn't pretend. I am frank about the challenges and I didn't ask for anyone to buy an ICO and try to fool them with a lot of bullshit like Bitshares and others do.

Rather you should just admit then that you are just here to mine the speculators and that all your idealistic bullshit (DACs, etc) is just a mirage to get other speculators to wet their pants and give up their money.

Well, I think direct democracy is an abject failure and I think representative government is the best of the worst.  I think the representative government could be greatly improved upon with strict term limits.  I'm curious as to your opinion of what is the best form of government.

If you are not holding US stocks and USD in reasonably significant amounts, then you are not diversified for what is coming this year.