Bitcoin Forum

FACTOM INTRO: https://youtu.be/6NF7ZqaQHqs


This is why Factoids will have tons of value in the years to come...when the protocol has the target 32 federated servers, there will be major incentives to run a Factom server. Once the protocol is being run on the 32 federated servers (along with an additional 32 audit servers), then about 73,000 factoids will be created per year and paid to those servers. Forever.

On the other side, users that want to use the protocol must have a public/private key pair that control Entry Credits. Assuming you have such a key set, you can sign messages to create chains and entries as long as those keys (what we call an Entry Credit Address) have the balance to pay for those transactions.

So how do you "charge" an Entry Credit Address? By converting factoids into Entry Credits. This removes Factoids from the supply. Entry Credits are not transferable, and do not pay federated servers. In some sense they are pre paid rights to use the protocol.

The Federated Servers set the exchange rate of Factoids to Entry Credits. They do so to maintain a constant real world cost for Entry Credits, around 1/10 of a cent today. Someone that wants to use the Factom protocol never has to touch a tradable token. They can provide an Entry Credit address to a third party that converts Factoids to Entry Credits to charge their Entry Credit Address.

Also, the only way the Federated Servers can increase their compensation is to boost the value of their token. The only way they can do that is increase demand for the token. And the easiest way to do that is to promote the use of the protocol, which reduces the token supply.

The Factoid token was never intended to be used in commerce. The idea is to create incentives for the Federated Servers, and to do so from within the protocol. Using Bitcoin would require someone to hold an account and make payments to the servers. And while a structure of bonds and multisignature addresses might be able to do this, it would also increase the load on the Bitcoin blockchain transactions as the protocol grew. From the beginning Factom wanted only a fixed load on the Bitcoin blockchain. Under the current design, that is less than 13 MB per year.

Right now FCT has 0% inflation. This coin will be a powerhouse soon... It will get the attention it deserves when the time is right. Milestone 2 is currently in the works. Milestone 2 will have a couple of major components. First will be the deployment of a Entry Credit store, where users can buy Entry Credits (basically access to the protocol) without touching any sort of tradable token. FACTOM EC Store will be brilliant to drive mainstream adoption. Institutions will not have to deal with crypto to start using FACTOM. This will accelerate adoption IMO. The entry credit store will be BURNING FACTOIDS in the background and the end user will have no idea. They will just be buying their entry credits. Factom is 0% inflationary until M3. So once M2 comes out it should theoretically drive the demand of FACTOIDS up because more Entry Credits will be used.... The second will be the release of the consensus algorithm during M2, the software supporting distributed processing of the Factom protocol.  The price should start to reflect this on the way up to M3. The price will reflect how much the NETWORK is being USED.  The major difference between Ethereum and Factom is that Factom records data only. Ethereum is for general compute. But the advantage of data is that the user knows the data length ahead of time. Computation needs are not obvious. So gas needs to implement refunds, entry credits do not. So the conversion of tradable factoids to entry credits can be isolated and independent of the use of entry credits.

"The token exists to provide incentives to run the servers for the protocol. They get a fixed number of tokens forever, but tokens are effectively burned by use of Factom. So the incentive is to promote the use of the protocol. All applications running on Factom support the value of the token. There is no mechanism to "siphon off as much money" from the protocol. We plan to run a server, so the token price has importance to us. The way to support the value of the token though is not through pumping the token. It is through building applications that use Factom. Factom uses anchors (hashes embedded into blockchains) to allow cryptographic proofs of data in Factom from those blockchains. Furthermore, the administrative overhead (factoids, entry credit accounting) is segregated from the data in Factom. So those data proofs strip off all that;the proofs are just your data. We will be supporting Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other chains. This allows a Bitcoin based application to access proofs to the same data as an Ethereum application. Ethereum can certainly notarize data, but it is optimized for compute, and doesn't interface with other chains. One can write smart contracts on Factom, but factom is optimized for data; Factom has no native scripting language." - Paul Snow

“Factoids are demanded and removed from circulation when users buy Entry Credits (EC) to use Factom. The Factoid/EC exchange rate is set by the Federated servers. The goal is to have a stable price for EC. This will allow Factom users to ignore the Factoid price if it goes up or down, just like how Gmail users can ignore the Google share price”. – Brian Deery, Factom Chief Scientist.

Value is function, it's subjective, individual and dependent on situations

If we think about value, it's about psychology. And if one keeps on questioning, there is most likely no objectivity to find. The reason is, that it first needs a basic lack of something that needs to be solved - out of an individual perspective. If there is a basic lack we try to find solutions and we already see this solutions as value. One functional solution is build on another which can give the impression of objectivity. But that is in fact an illusion. We see money as value? It has function. It can have psychological value, ppl feel more safe with money than without it, but just because it's a potential solution to solve a lack of "something".


What's the highest value humans can think of?

Most people see the own life as the highest value they can think of, but some people "sell it" to rescue the life of somebody they love if needed (basic lack). Some people even choose death as "function" to solve a lack - if there is deep suffering. Some people even give their life for an idealistic concept. But even the most talented manipulator can't brainwash anybody into a fanatic concept if there is no suffering (basic lack).

It becomes interesting when we think about the connection between "what do I see as value" and "what do others see as value".

Again one extreme example: Like already said, most people see most or at least high value in their own life. But: Suicide reason Nr. 1 is always psychological isolation (losing hope and perspective in a fundamental way is isolation). Depression as reason for suicide? It's an expression, not the real lack. Alcohol and Drugs as reason for suicide? Alcohol and Drugs had just function and lost that function, or are not available (what makes the basic suffering even more intense.). And than death can become to a "function" to solve suffering while the one and only solution in life would be to solve psychological isolation.

It may sound nearly religious or even esoteric, but that (the feeling of isolation) is the basic lack all humans want to solve and everything they believe to see value in, is first something like a very natural and deep instinct - like relations to others. That's one reason btw. why isolation is a very hard form of torture and every possible way of torturing involves at least aspects of isolation (losing hope and perspective is always an aspect).

Why I'm a little bit philosophical here is, because all values we know of are in fact concepts about functions to solve a basic lack. We build one potential solution on to another and that always has two sides: It can help to reduce the basic lack but it also creates new ones --> we need more functional solutions. And that is the basic reason for all technique we know of since the beginning of human history.

And the very important point if we think about value, is the topic "others" to solve "psychological isolation". Because what do we basically see as solutions? Psychologically it's about all forms of communication which is the requirement for all kinds of relationships. Technically we often call it connections but in fact communication and connection are synonym. And there is no functional solution for any problem without communicative/connective aspects. There isn't even a way for a solution without that.

That is also important because one individual not just sees value in something (a possible solution). Because the basic value already is about communication/connecting to others to solve a fundamental lack, we also need communication and reassurance if we are not alone with our view on potential value. That's a very interesting point and we can see that everywhere. No objectivity. The technical best solution has no chance to be seen as highest value if just one person knows about it but everybody else prefers something that is inferior. More precise: Just the fact that others see more value in something that is inferior makes it superior regarding value.

The basic principle is always:

1. There is a lack, a problem that needs to be solved.
2. There is a concept about a function as solution
3. If we have trust in that concept we try it
4. If it keeps promise we have a working function
5. We see value in a working function

6. That value increases if it's time-constant
7. That value increases the more other people believe in it

And also the points 2 and 3 already involve(d) "others" (knowledge is always a result of communication). We need communication to find a concept. We need communication to reassure us if others show at least trust, or even better, if they already can show "proof of concept" because they already tried it.

Gold

Even the value of gold is based on that principle. It's seen as a basic store of value. It can have technical function but that is not the reason for the value that is seen in gold. It's the potential to have "value-function" that gives value and that is a result that others see value in it. It becomes obvious if we subtract that aspect. Would gold have the value it has if others wouldn't see it as store of value? No. Would we see gold as store of value if it wouldn't have been seen that way since millennia? Most likely not. And it's value is always just a potential. I need to sell it to have money to sell that money to buy a solution for an existing problem.

Dollar or Euro? It has function and it only has function because there is an agreement to see function in it. People call it value but that value also lays in it's potential to solve lacks/problems.

Bitcoin

And it's very interesting to think about Bitcoin with that in mind. Why do we see value in Bitcoin? We need to know where are the problems it solves or at least could solve to answer that question. Bitcoin is seen as value because of the weaknesses of existing solutions. The financial system is slow and it's expensive, it's centralized and corrupt, it's economically flawed by design (which lead to so called "solutions" that makes it even more expensive, more centralized and more corrupt). With other words: There are again a lot of problems to solve. And Bitcoin is seen as a solution: decentralized, international, fast, secure (...). It's a very interesting mix of idealism and technology.

But is the Bitcoin-price where it is because people really use it as solution for existing problems? No. Even the majority of Bitcoiners use existing methods. Most people who buy Bitcoin want to make profit. That is the function the majority sees in it for now. Bitcoin-Investors bet on the possibility, that already existing problems of the established financial systems become more pressuring (high inflation for example or even a fundamental crash) which would lead more people into Bitcoin as a solution for those problems. And that's a bet that could turn out as very profitable. But the value for now is also totally based on the question "do other people see value in it, and will more people see function and therefore value in Bitcoin in the future?".

And... Also Bitcoin as a potential functional solution has problems and needs solutions. There is the question how to keep it decentralized. A centralized Bitcoin would include all problems the established systems already have, but it would die even faster. And there is the blocksize-problem that limits it's potential and is a threat for the Bitcoin-economy, etc. The high volatility is also seen as something that limits it's potential and for some it's a reason not to trust in Bitcoin as store of value, while others see a (potentially) profitable function especially in that aspect.


Factom

And Factom and Factoids are even more interesting if we focus on it's value more basically. The basic principles of value I tried to describe above are way better reflected in Factoms functionality and design than in Bitcoins functionality and design.

The problems that Factom promises to solve, with it's focus on data, are more pressuring for more people in the present, than the problems of the financial systems. That could change any time (financial crisis could become very intense at any time), but for now I believe it's true. And a lot problems of the financial systems also are connected to data.

With other words: If Factom or a system like Factom would already be finished and working since  3 years (for example), it's likely that it already would be used more than Bitcoin is used. And because a system like Factom doesn't record and store just the past of "cold" transactions, but data, it also involves a more intense incentive to continue with that. Data is more meaningful. The past of all kinds of data involves deeper identifications, even if it's more about business-data. That principle becomes even more intense if data is connected to other data. Potential barriers to use Factom are lower than in Bitcoin. The "establishment" still sees Bitcoin as kind of shady and if Bitcoin should become mainstream it would be seen as a real threat. And it's very common to attack everything in many ways that is seen as threat for existing interests. There may be scenarios that Factom also could be seen as threat for existing interests, but it's true what Paul Snow often says: Honesty is subversive. Factom's low barriers make it possible to be much more subversive than Bitcoin is. That makes it more possible for Factom to find it's way into already established system to change them to the better, while Bitcoin is like an offensive attack against an established system.

And it's economical design is also a better reflection of potential value than Bitcoin. The conversion from Factoids to Entry Credits gives additional trust. Plus: Maybe Factom is a better mix of control and decentralization at the same time, which could turn out as more time-stable.


The point is: If we think about the value of Factoids and if it's possible that FCT's become a store of value or would be used even as payment beyond the system itself, there are some reasons why the answer could be yes. The basic reason to see value in something is trust in time-stability - that "others" believe and continue to believe in it's value as well. And a recorded past of data gives a more of trust because it gives high incentive to continue with that. There is also more potential for a network effect or with other words: Factom is, (because it's about data) more "communicative". It connects in potentially many ways and therefore "deeper" than Bitcoin. It's all subjective of course, but it won't be machines who will make a decision to use or not to use Factom or if they continue using it or quit.

Btw: That principes are a little bit similar to Facebook. I know some people who say that they wouldn't make an account and use FB if they wouldn't already have one. They already "recorded" a past and that gives some incentive to update it. They are already connected to others and that also is a high incentive not to leave or to switch to another system. It's possible that there are social networks that are better in some or even many ways than Facebook, but nobody will use an alternative if others stay in Facebook. The identification with Factom is more intense because of the past and because of the connections. That is the basic value of Facebook for it's users.


And Factom's (and therefore Factoids) basic value will be - if successful:

1) ...there are a lot of existing and very pressuring problems for many people without an easy solution yet
2) ...Factom (hopefully) will be seen as a functional solution to solve those problems
3) ...if "some" use Factom "others" will see that as proof for that functionality
4) ...if "some" use Factom it can be an incentive to use it as well to connect with others

5) ...a already recorded past is a high incentive to continue with that instead of shifting to another system.
6) ...if there should be even connections of data between X and Y and Z, it will be an additional and intense incentive to continue instead to shift


With a focus on basic principles of value, it can be superior to a system like Bitcoin in my opinion, because it's a better reflection of all of those aspects and therefore more effective. The same can be true for a system like Ethereum. But even if "smart contracts" seem to sound more "special" for many than Factom's use case, that concept could turn out as wrong.  In my opinion it's superficial. Factom's use case will most likely turn out as superior to smart contracts, because it's more basic and the problems to solve are more pressuring. And because of the complexity, it will be much harder to establish a smart-contract-system on a blockchain than a data-recording-system on a blockchain. And while I believe it's not just possible what the Factom team wants to realize but also possible that it will be really useful and find it's way into the "business-world", I don't believe that Ethereum has much chance to become the system that really realizes smart contracts to become established. That is about Point 2... It will be most likely way easier to see a time-stable solution in Factom than in Ethereum.

Long story short: In my opinion and with a focus on basic value-principles, Factom is pretty perfect because it's the best combination of

1) "high incentive" to use it because of already existing and high pressuring problems without much alternative yet
2) hopefully high functionality to solve existing problems
3) low barriers to use it
4) high potential for a network effect,
5) a lot of potential for a first-mover advantage
6) and if established at one point: high incentive not to switch to another system.

REAL WORLD USE CASES:

1. : dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2016/06/17/st-awards-199k-austin-based-factom-inc-iot-systems-security   (BUILDING AN ID SYSTEM FOR THE US GOV)

2. Factom Use Case: Protecting Sony Pictures with Blockchain Technology: https://youtu.be/M8dey4Uo5eY

3. Factom Use Case: Saving BoA $17 Billion: https://youtu.be/2Dj3qZeSLdY

4. Factom Use Case: Unlocking $9 Trillion in Land Value: https://youtu.be/DxgoyMOrMBM


BITCOIN SCALING ISSUE:

gavinandresen.ninja/it-must-be-done-but-is-not-a-panacea   (Factom mentioned)


INTERESTING VIDEO LINKS:

FGS2016 Panel: Blockchain's Coming of Age hosted by WEF with IBM, R3 and Factom: https://youtu.be/LwoDzB1kHSU

Archives and Society: Record Keeping in Historical and Contemporary Perspective: https://youtu.be/H1mhiPrwrMg

Future Of Data: https://youtu.be/WFDvi7xW08E

The future of data, technology and the Internet: Futurist Speaker Gerd Leonhard #Online12 : https://youtu.be/i7qTCoNVj3s

The Secret Life of Big Data | Intel: https://youtu.be/CNoi-XqwJnA

What is Big Data? Big Data Explained (Hadoop & MapReduce): https://youtu.be/c4BwefH5Ve8

Cool video from IBM on DATA: https://youtu.be/aWShHDhF8Yo

Deep Learning: Intelligence from Big Data: https://youtu.be/czLI3oLDe8M    

The Future of Big Data: IT Insider with MIT Prof. Sam Madden: https://youtu.be/367KWPASWtE

The Future of Data Science - Data Science @ Stanford : https://youtu.be/hxXIJnjC_HI

Lockheed Martin Speaking of the Future: Data Analytics : https://youtu.be/t02BBmuiOOU

The Future of Big Data: Bigger and Smarter: https://youtu.be/-CABR38CbPM

Factom - Big Data on the Bitcoin Blockchain: https://youtu.be/oNv45gw44Wg

Bnk To The Future 2015 & forecasting the future of finance for 2016 & beyond: https://youtu.be/WmXKuSl3h8w  ( Factom mentioned at 7:20)

More Links:

http://healthitanalytics.com/news/is-blockchain-the-answer-to-healthcares-big-data-problems

http://www.wired.com/insights/2014/08/sciences-big-data-problem/

https://www.factom.com/apollo/

https://www.factom.com/isoftstone-and-factom-announce-a-partnership-to-integrate-blockchain-technology-and-smart-city-solutions/

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/real-big-data-ht-leverage-bitcoin-blockchains-for-unlimited-storage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saZlYvBw1xg  - Great interview with Paul Snow

https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/49632.wss  (Factom mentioned)

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/factom-signs-smart-city-deal-roll-out-blockchain-verification-across-china-1542059

So if you're pegging the factoid -> entry credit rate then there really isn't much room for speculation is there? Seems like they're indirectly setting the price.

- Price will go up and down just like a stock - do your research.

Factom is to data what Ethereum is to smart contracts.

I sure hope the 'powerhouse soon' fact of FACTOM materialize cause I do own some.

Factom will be a great hedge as BTC goes down in the coming weeks  

Price has been on the move past few days. They are working every day check their git hub.  M2 on the horizon
github.com/FactomProject/

You seem to be thinking of factoids as an altcoin. factoids are not an altcoin. I define an altcoin as a token who's primary purpose is be be a store of value and payment network for purposes outside of the network. Litecoin and Monero are examples of this. With altcoins, and all money for that matter, speculators are anticipating someone in the future will also be a speculator. Factoids do not require that there be future speculators to have a value. It only requires that people use the system as a publishing platform. This will do more to create value than anything else you can imagine.


Now as a speculator the million dollar question you must ask yourself is ....will this system be used in the future?

- Look at the facts: 1. Smart city deal in china
                             2. DHS deal
                             3. Medical record deals.
                    - All this just makes it easier for them to sign more deals as more and more people hop on board.

Why would BTC still be going down week/weeks from now?  What makes you think it'll continue dropping for such a long time - if it continues dropping at today's rate, btc would be worthless in two weeks....


So if people use this system as a publishing platform, how exactly does it affect a factoid's value?  So how valuable would a factoid be if two people use the platform and just take advantage of the system itself; how valuable would a factoid be if there are millions of publishers, if you can't actually do anything with them?

https://github.com/FactomProject/EthereumAPI


"Factom uses anchors (hashes embedded into blockchains) to allow cryptographic proofs of data in Factom from those blockchains. Furthermore, the administrative overhead (factoids, entry credit accounting) is segregated from the data in Factom. So those data proofs strip off all that;the proofs are just your data.

We will be supporting Ethereum, Bitcoin, and other chains. This allows a Bitcoin based application to access proofs to the same data as an Ethereum application.

Ethereum can certainly notarize data, but it is optimized for compute, and doesn't interface with other chains. One can write smart contracts on Factom, but factom is optimized for data; Factom has no native scripting language.

Hope this helps."

- Paul Snow

SOURCE: https://m.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/4lb6n4/ethereum_factom_insight_appreciated/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Ethtrader+(EthTrader)

1.4 TRILLION DOLLAR POTENTIAL FACTOM USE CASE: https://youtu.be/7xseZ-Veg4k

What was the outcome of the smartcity deal with China? Was it sucessful ?

Thank you for posting the information in the OP. The coin is very stable and it is a sign that it is good to invest and hold it for a while. My question is there a light wallet for this? I do not like to download another blockchain. But if I have no choice how big is the Factom blockchain now?

About 3Gb

Thanks for writing this great resource on Factom, it helped clarify a few points I wasn't sure on.

Factom is a solid coin, will be top 10 in the near future. it was top 10 coin but the market is saturated, it couldn't be top 10 for a long time, maybe this time it can be more higher.

Great hint, from a brand new account user, right in the middle of a pump.
 

It's not just a pump. There are news:

yeah, when i post it yestersay, the price was 0.0035, and now is 0.004+, so I think he should blame himself due to his conspiracy.

Factom is still going strong. Does anyone have any solid idea what the reason is? I speculate that it will still go up more. But until it will reach the same volume ETH, it will not fly like it.

Reasons are the chinese article about a partnership with datayes (just look above, my last post). Everybody is waiting for an official announcement, but they already confirmed it because DataYes is already included in their data-statistics here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1RUZLxxoAfT3C5jIJ144DLYdztYe_sqrKqbTlZuD05-s/edit#gid=445871101

And there is also a very successful selling of shares: https://bnktothefuture.com/pitches/factom-series-a

People also expect some media-echo because of that.

And the next release, Milestone 2 should be near.

DataYes + Factom Announce Collaboration

Immutable Stock Market Data Is Now Available To the World

Factom & DataYes are pleased to announce that together they have published onto the Factom blockchain pricing data for the 3,000 most valuable Chinese stocks. Program developers now have a powerful new tool for connecting their financial applications to the new world of blockchain technology.

This massive dataset of more than 10,000,000 records and growing, offers an amazing way for applications to verify and audit the world’s financial systems with more transparency and confidence than ever before.

“Some of the largest stock markets and the most valuable companies in the world are in China and so we believe it’s important to make their pricing data available to developers on a blockchain.” Said David Johnston, Chairman of the Board at Factom

“Today the exchanges send out the ‘mark to market’ price and we record them in blockchain as a two-step process. As Blockchain technology matures in the future, all transactions will be recorded on the blockchain, and the “mark to market” stock price as we know today will be evolved to ‘mark to blockchain’ naturally in one step.” Continued George Hu, General Manager at DataYes.

You can see the growing number of entries for DataYes the below chart.

(...)


About DataYes DataYes is China’s first open and big data information platform, curating both structured and unstructured data from across the globe covering key economic metrics as well as industry, company, e-commerce, search and social media data. It is a treasure box full of raw materials for artificial intelligence and quantitative investment research. DataYes is China’s leading edge financial technology company founded by a group of experts in the fields of finance and internet technology. It is invested by Wanxiang Group, one of China’s largest non-state-owned conglomerate. DataYes’ headquarter is located in Shanghai Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone, and has an office in Silicon Valley. For more information on DataYes, visit datayes.com.

(...)

https://www.factom.com/datayes-factom-announce-collaboration/

RT: https://twitter.com/factom/status/763388834096812033

Just wanted to thank Blazin8888 / OP for the first post—super helpful and a great analysis IMO.

This passage in particular I thought was spot-on:

"The problems that Factom promises to solve, with it's focus on data, are more pressuring for more people in the present, than the problems of the financial systems [which BTC is solving]. That could change any time (financial crisis could become very intense at any time), but for now I believe it's true. And a lot problems of the financial systems also are connected to data."

If you follow this line of thought, the implications are massive. I think most ppl aren't fully aware of the extent to which data is the bedrock layer of just about everything that has any economic value today.

That guy is a thief!! :D


"And Factom and Factoids are even more interesting if we focus on it's value more basically. The basic principles of value I tried to describe above are way better reflected in Factoms functionality and design than in Bitcoins functionality and design.

The problems that Factom promises to solve, with it's focus on data, are more pressuring for more people in the present, than the problems of the financial systems. That could change any time (financial crisis could become very intense at any time), but for now I believe it's true. And a lot problems of the financial systems also are connected to data.

(....)"
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=850070.msg15480162#msg15480162

@Blazin8888: 1000 Factoids because of breaking copyright! :D

Wow—my bad! Props again to you, Tempus!  :) A really great post IMO ...

No problem and thanks! :)

And Blazin8888 really did a good job with the first post. A very good overview. We're all on the same side here. ;-)

Ok but what is your opinion on Datayes? I have not heard about it before and I see no reason to get excited about it except that the price of FCT is going high. :)

Is Datayes a big company in China?

What you need to know about Factom is: It will be all about the demand for Entry Credits. EC's are like the licenses to record hashes of data into Factom. And every time EC's are purchased, Factoids are converted into EC's and consumed (out of the system - "burned").

That means: The more demand, the higher the price has to be or the total supply would decrease (Inflation/payment for federated servers is about 73k FCT per month).


And this new partnership is big. This is Factoms official announcement:


DataYes + Factom Announce Collaboration

Immutable Stock Market Data Is Now Available To the World

(…)

“Some of the largest stock markets and the most valuable companies in the world are in China and so we believe it’s important to make their pricing data available to developers on a blockchain.” Said David Johnston, Chairman of the Board at Factom

“Today the exchanges send out the ‘mark to market’ price and we record them in blockchain as a two-step process. As Blockchain technology matures in the future, all transactions will be recorded on the blockchain, and the “mark to market” stock price as we know today will be evolved to ‘mark to blockchain’ naturally in one step.” Continued George Hu, General Manager at DataYes.


(…)

About DataYes

DataYes is China’s first open and big data information platform, curating both structured and unstructured data from across the globe covering key economic metrics as well as industry, company, e-commerce, search and social media data. It is a treasure box full of raw materials for artificial intelligence and quantitative investment research. DataYes is China’s leading edge financial technology company founded by a group of experts in the fields of finance and internet technology. It is invested by Wanxiang Group, one of China’s largest non-state-owned conglomerate. DataYes’ headquarter is located in Shanghai Lujiazui Financial and Trade Zone, and has an office in Silicon Valley. For more information on DataYes, visit datayes.com.
https://www.factom.com/datayes-factom-announce-collaboration/


What they plan is to record stock-market-data. And for me it seems to be complementary to their last partnership-announcement with smart contract:

"Factom gives you the ability to publish immutable data AND establish yourself as an authority that publishes immutable data. Over time, the validity of that data can be judged and your reputation as an Oracle can be cemented. Factom also by its nature is accountable because one can conduct full audits on all published data."
https://www.factom.com/smartcontract-factom-announce-collaboration/



And again, what I've said above: Every time data is recorded into Factom it needs Entry Credits. And every time Entry Credits are purchased, Factoids are burned. So, there is an objective reason for the price to rise, even if it's anticipation because Factom is not totally finished yet. It's rational to expect an explosion of demand as soon as the system is completed.

Tempus thanks for the informative reply. But it looks like there is a correction in price. This may be a good time to add more FCT while it is stable. Or maybe wiat for it to go down more? What do you think?

No problem!

I believe it's not predictable for the next days. If you want to buy, maybe don't do it at once but with a focus on a good average. At least the weekend will most likely be quiet and if there should be a combination of "bored/impatient" and "profit-taking" it will go down. But I don't believe it would go down much. I only would expect that if Bitcoin should shoot up. But I don't believe that will happen for the weekend but in general I believe it will go back where it was before the Bitfinex-hack. 

On the other side it's obvious that Factom gets more and more attention and I believe that's a tendency that will continue to increase.
And what I believe is that we can expect more good news in the "near" future. Not sure if days or weeks but I don't believe that it will be boring for a longer time-frame.

So, I'm really unsure regarding short-term. In longterm I'm sure that Factom (and the price) has a lot of potential. Most important in my opinion is: No bad news.

I'm a new convert to Factom and have bought in for the long-term with a fairly large purchase.  This had better work because I am missing out on a fairly nice recent uptick in Lisk price, where I've been since their IPO.  The problem with Lisk is, they are still organizing and are nowhere near actually implementing a business on a sidechain.  And they are depending on others to create that sidechain business, too.  Obviously, Factom is landing actual real-money contracts Right Now.

Weighing significantly on my decision to jump in here,  I met Paul Snow two years ago at the first Texas Bitcoin Conference.  He's a great guy.  If he's involved with Factom, that's a Good Thing.

So...how does one get selected to run a Federated Server or Audit Server?

I intend to spread my little funds over three to four altcoins and factom seems like an interesting little altcoin to look into. . . hmmmm :)

Welcome! If you're looking to do some more research, this is the main bitcointalk FCT thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=850070.new#new

And the website factom.com has a lot of great info, actually, including a good FAQ. Also some excellent videos on YouTube.

From the whitepaper:

Federated servers are re-ranked every four hours. The ranking is a function of a vote by the
users, who must create a profile Chain in Factom. The profile contains any number of signed
public address Entries. The weight of a user’s vote is determined by the public addresses in
their profile. The function computing the weight of a public address is the sum of:

● Weighted Number of Entry Credits purchased in the last six months (Sum of purchases
of each month, weighted by 6 in the current month, 5 in the previous, etc.)

● Weighted Number of Entries used in the last six months (Sum of Entries used in each
month, weighted by 6 in the current month, 5 in the previous, etc.)

When running with n servers, the top ranking n servers are the Federated servers, and another
n are Auditing servers. All the servers are maintained by rank based on the quantity of votes for
them. The number n is initially specified as 16, but this number is up for community debate, and
could be a floating value based on transaction volume.

Market recovering after a quite irrational dump of roughly 1/3 the order book. I believe it'll pick up next week with a few press releases.


There was somebody linking a fake article that never existed on thedashtimes about a "security issue" with Factom which might've caused last nights exit which Factom replied to here https://twitter.com/factom/status/764521719906332672

Factoms Series A completed https://bnktothefuture.com/pitches/factom-series-a

And Maidsafe stole the Poloniex show this weekend releasing an alpha version of a decades work. I'm impressed by their work and their undertaking but if an alpha takes a decade it's too long for me to stick around for their beta considering what that could happen up to that point.

Yes I am confused as to why someone dumped FCT hard. This is a point in time to hold because it is rising in price. Maybe there is someone who does not like for it to go up? But why?

Deep-pocketed whales sometimes manipulate the price downward either to ensure their shorts are successful, or to accumulate cheaper coins.

Ok I get the idea of getting cheap coins. But why ensure their shorts? You mean to say there are people who still go short in FCT? That is like betting against it. If they manipulate it to go down at the same time then surely their bet will win. What do you think?

Yeah, I personally think it's mostly the other possibility—whales suppressing the price to accumulate cheaper coins. If the price weren't suppressed (assuming I'm right that it is), then the only people selling would be the "natural" sellers looking to lock in a profit. Without price-suppression, I believe FCT's price would jump quite a bit, attracting new investors ... until, ultimately, an accelerated price rise would give way to a bubble. Not sure how far the price would go, but I believe it would be considerable.

But in regards to shorting ... If you look at lending rates on Poloniex, for instance, you'll see that over the past week, the daily lending rate for FCT has been jumping to 0.2 - 0.4, which is very high. The lending market is a free market, and when rates jump, it means the borrow-side pressure is more significant than the lending-side (which generally remains more stable). So basically: there's been a jump in borrowed funds, for the purpose of shorting FCT. Again, there's no telling what the intentions or long-term-play of people shorting FCT are, but IMO there are much better cryptos to short if that's all you're going after.

Generally the best cryptos to short are the ones with the weakest buy walls, which create the least resistance to price suppression. But FCT's buy wall has been growing increasingly large over the past few weeks, so ... if the intention is simply to short a crypto and make profit that way, it doesn't really make sense to choose FCT. Which is why I believe the whales currently shorting FCT have another motive—namely, to accumulate cheap coins from dispirited sellers.

Looked at another way, FCT being shorted so aggressively can be seen as a (somewhat ironic) vote of confidence for FCT ... Whoever's shorting+accumulating really wants to collect a lot, which raises the question: Why, exactly? Because they've done the research, realized the potential future magnitude of FCT, and are collecting as part of a long-term plan.

One strategy in all this: Be a lamprey. By this I mean: you can basically have the whales short for you, and simply accumulate at the lower price just as they are. But without having to deal with lending, margin, and the associate risks.

But the hardest part in all this is the psychological/emotional part—not getting caught up and demoralized by temporary price drops, but instead to see them as opportunities to "shadow" a whale's strategy. Easier said than done, especially if you have significant money on the line, but to quote Buffett: "be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." When the price drops, you can either see it as an indication of the quality of the crypto, or as a temporary buying opportunity. The better you understand Factom and its potential, I believe, the more you'll see it as the latter.

Caveat: This is crypto, and there are no guarantees. What I've written above are my own beliefs, based on my own research, but ultimately they're nothing more than unprovable theories. Trust your own judgment, and always remember—and make sure to follow—the crypto perma-disclaimer: Never invest more than you can afford to lose.

This is my gut feeling too, and I am a lamprey.  Psychologically, not easy right now.  Thanks for an insightful post.

Yes. I am a victim of this too. I usually check the price almost every hour even every minute when I am home and I always keep thinking if is still worth holding the coin. Some people trading is simple but I have realized it is really not. It will take me some time before I get used to the emotions.

Yep, I've been there. It can be exhausting and demoralizing at times. My advice, fwiw, is:

—As a general rule in crypto: never invest more than you can afford to lose.
—It's difficult, but if you can commit to only looking at charts at a 2-week or 1-month zoom, it can really help keep your focus on the bigger picture. Remember that daily price fluctuations have nothing to do with the quality or potential of the tech, but instead with the whims of the market, price manipulation, the effects of shorters, etc.
—If you buy at 1x, and the next day the price is 0.8x, logic would suggest that one should buy more, given that the tech hasn't changed, but the coin is now selling at a discount. But this is logic, and logic isn't the hard part ... However this very short analysis can be a counterbalance to the psychological/emotional strain of price movements.
—When it doubt: research. This is IMO the most important. The more you know about a crypto, the more secure you'll be in your decision of whether or not to hold. You may learn something that causes you to reconsider your allocation or strategy, and if so, that is what you should base your investment decisions on. I used to check the charts very regularly myself, but the more I personally learned about Factom, the less concerned I became with market vicissitudes. Yes, I often wish I bought at 0.8x instead of 1x the day before, but ... the important thing is to get in (if that's what you choose) at the right order of magnitude, not at a percentage discount to a previous price.
—If you believe whales are manipulating the market, and if you believe a lot of what we've been seing lately is large players trying to shake out weak hands, then ... if you sell, they win. Something to think about ...  :)
—This isn't advice to continue to hold FCT, much less to add to your holdings. The most important point IMO is just to be as informed as possible, to focus on a bigger-picture view when available (i.e. for the charts: when it doubt, zoom out), and to avoid playing into a whale's hands.

Thoughts on where the FCT price will be post-M2?

Heads up that there's now a FCT trading subreddit: www.reddit.com/r/fctrader

Note only only "t" in name ...

FCT going through a nice rise ...

Yes. The interest is continuing right now. Is there any news about this or is this still connected to the partnership with DataYes?

Factom Inc. and Intrinio are putting Wall Street on the Factom blockchain https://www.factom.com/intrinio-factom-announce-collaboration/

All the good news about Factom keep coming and coming. Now I regret not buying more when it was hovering just below 40k satoshis. The trend looks like it will continue for months.

XMR went from $25M to close to roughly $60M market cap on a DNM announcement.
FCT has Department of Homeland Security and a Wall Street firm amongst their clients.

There's a mismatch with the demographic of crypto here and many investors put their idealism before money. The US government and Wall Street are easily in the top 5 of what most crypto people despise and for this reason it'll take some time to reach price discovery. The kind of revenue US government and Wall street can generate stomps any shady DNM.

Here is an interesting forecast, from here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=850070.msg16092497#msg16092497

@matt608. That is just pure speculation with made up funny numbers. It will be hard to take that seriously. But let us see and hope I am wrong. :D

It is speculation, yes. Because nobody can know what will happen in future. But it's not just about funny numbers out of thin air.

Since the price of Factoids will be highly dependent on the demand of Entry Credits it is possible to calculate prices for different demand-scenarios. The question is: Is a billion entries per day unrealistic? No. The Factom-team is known to not hype. They are also known for being very correct. If two members of the team say, with the intention to explain how much data Factom can process, that there are single potential customers who ask if Factom could handle 1 billion entries per day - it's pretty safe to say: They don't lie.

And Factom won't be about one or two or five customers. It will be about hundreds and thousands and for a lot of different use cases nobody, not even the team, can foresee.

My perspective is: If there won't be a disastrous event, it's just a question of time that Factom will handle billions of entries. It is rational to expect that because all what has to happen is that they move on the way they did since they've started it.

How likely is a "disastrous event"? What I like to see is that they act carefully and step by step. They say themselves that they treat the software as financial software, they don't go from 0 to 100 in a moment but decentralize it over time, they test everything until it's as perfect as it can be.

The only black-swan-event I can think of is that there is an unknown vulnerability in blockchains in general. But if something like that should happen Bitcoin and the whole market would be done.

as off today 5th Sept 2016, the factom block since 2016-08-16 10:40:00 is still not anchored into the bitcoin block chain. More than 3000 blocks are still not anchored into blockchain.
1 week delay is acceptable but 2-3 weeks for anchoring to bitcoin blockchain. I think it is too long. What do you think? Is this normal.

http://explorer.factom.org/dblock/d36f4f5c4e7030c0f14b49eebb0c4134796ab42762b23bf413824ff8f9b8f8b5

+1

I'm not sure where you got the idea the last 3000 blocks aren't anchored, do you have any proof of that? If you are meaning that every block since the 5th Sep hasn't been anchored then that is wrong. There isnt meant to be any delay, certainly not on the scale of weeks.

10 mins ago:
http://explorer.factom.org/dblock/120601e389eb2e4d611c5a522f68e71884feda3f5542f4d0641e3cace7170200

As for this particular block you have linked, I have no idea why. Perhaps this question is best raised in the main thread.

M2 should be close. Very close.

DLT Financial & London FinTech Startup Tramonex Releases Global Crypto-Currency Financial Index “DLT10”:

https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2016/09/89935-dlt-financial-london-fintech-startup-tramonex-releases-global-crypto-currency-financial-index-dlt10/


"On Thursday, DLT Financial and London-based fintech company Tramonex, announced the launch of DLT10, a crypto-currency financial index. The companies stated the index was designed to track the performance of major digital currencies that run on public blockchains and unlocks information and access to the 10 most relevant cryptocurrencies through a corresponding tracker fund.

The 10 currencies listed on the DLT10 Index are Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple, Stellar, Litecoin, Dogecoin, MadeSafeCoin, NameCoin, Factom and NXT. DLT Financial stated it will be launching a matching tracker fund within the next few weeks, which will provide businesses and individuals access to a securitized method for investing."

Factom, Intrinio partner to bring US stock market data to blockchain

http://www.econotimes.com/Factom-Intrinio-partner-to-bring-US-stock-market-data-to-blockchain-266673

“Every 15 minutes the pricing data for the 3,000 most valuable US stocks are now being published into the Factom blockchain”, Factom said in an online post. “This is an exciting new development for the blockchain technology space as it will enable a whole new generation of fintech applications to be developed”.

Well blazin, you sold me.  I just entered into a substantial position on Factom that I hope to hold for at least 6 to 12 months.

This looks like it is the 2nd best performer after XMR. I regret selling some of it. Now I am thinking of holding this for the very long term which now brings me to the question. How do you store your FCT? What is a good wallet to use. Hopefully a wallet that does not download the whole blockchain.

The wallet they have now isn't great apparently, but they'll be integrated into the Exodus.io wallet around the time of the M2 release ... so hopefully within the next days/weeks.

Price is up 30% today on Poloniex. What do you guys think?
Just a pump or is this a sustainable rise?
I've heard a little bit about this coin recently and I'm wondering if this is a coin that actually has a future.

I speculate that this is just a pump. We have seen this many times before. There are some whales that sometimes cannot accept that a coin is falling so they try to pump it up and expect that everyone will follow him. Sometimes it works but most of the time it will fall back again.

I agree with you. It is just a pump. But FCT has big potential to growth.

 http://www.coindesk.com/factom-blockchain-series-a-4-2-million/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CoinDesk+%28CoinDesk+-+The+Voice+of+Digital+Currency%29

As much as I hate the government being involved in any crypto project name, this company is getting funding and attention from big names.
There might be some potential for long-term growth here.
I would buy stock in this company if it was publicly traded.

(Thanks to u/tokeweed for posting the article in his speculation thread)

Well I have explicitly told my idea about the recent increase, that it looked like a dead cat bounce. It still does but the major bounce may yet to come as the lending rates are over %0.1 now. A lot of people shorted around 420-400. This usually causes price to spike up. What do you guys think? It may not reach even 500, but sub 500 is quite possible.

i think we just need to wait and see

It seems that the bounce is over now and it is going back down below 400k satoshis. The fall is not as fast XMR and they are the two coins that have lost a lot of value the past week. Is there any news why this happened to FCT? There was good news about it saying that Tim Draper led a new $4.2m funding round but there is no effect on the price. Why?

I am sure they have a plan, bu can't tell us more.

There was effect on the price. It was at about 360k before and it's at 430k now. The dumping before was because of rising Bitcoin and whatever kind of manipulative attempts.

This still seems like a good investment at $2 a coin.
Unless the company totally fails I can't see these being worth than less than $5-10 eventually.
If they are super successful, you could be looking at $50-100 a coin.

I think you would be crazy to not buy at least a few Factom.

Ok so meaning if bitcoin continues to rise FCT will continue to go down. That is the problem, bitcoin is giving no signs that it will go down and is actually giving signs that it might go to $700 by the end of the month. Where will Factom be if that happens?

It's unpredictable what Bitcoin will do and even if it's price should be at $700 by end of the month, it's not predictable where the FCT-price will be.

But what everybody who knows more about Factom expects is:

1. Release of Testnet
2. Release of Milestone 2
3. exodus.io will implement Factoids

And what is always possible in Factom: Business-announcements like new partnerships.

The above is enough that the Factoid-price can rise out of own power. But of course, if Bitcoin should go up sharp and there is a longer "boring" time in Factom, it's likely that Factoids would drop. I personally feel more safe in Factoids, because my experience with it since exactly one year is: It always just needs a little time to see the next price-explosion.

And Bitcoin: I believe that it still has a lot of potential but there are also problems and there is controversy in the community. Both about the Blocksize. I believe that there is the risk that a respected group could fork it, backed by companies, to enable bigger blogs. That could lead into a scenario like we see it with ETH and ETC. That's one reason why I'm carefully with holding BTC at the moment.

Seems to me like factom hype is generally over and we are heading to a correction around 0.0025 - 0.003. Fake walls are removed and the buy interest is gone. It will either slowly decline or decrease with huge dumps. But the fake walls are removed and I think a lot of long time holders are annoyed with the fact that nothing really happens but announcements. I set my huge buys at 0.0025 and still didn't close my short at 470. I'll probably buy back huge chunks when it goes sub 300.

Strap in.  Will be a fun next 4 months. See you all around xmas time ;)

Fct will see a new ath very soon buy while its still cheap

I think the same. The next time until end of the year won't be boring. I believe it's a safe prediction. And the next year could be even much more exciting. Factom is a project like a catapult. Paul Snow once said about Factom in an interview: "It is going to surprise people (...) the delivery is going to shock people!" ;-)

It was this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1noFK6M8ktU (somewhere at the very end)

I think there is no sense in speculations about price now. We should wait for releases and then see what happens. I think project has a serious potential

I bought some Factoms. A nice coin - price rises slowly but barely nobody pays attention to it... An investment for smart money nowdays.

Are you sure nobody is paying attention to  it, Factom is one of the most traded Altcoin in the space and the price has been enjoying steady rise and I think the will continue as more development goal is reached. Factom is not a pump and dump coin that is common in the space

Well, instead of community circle jerking each other the price rises, and the rise without hype is a sure sign of smart money moving into it.
Before I wrote this post, the recent post was made into this thread on Oct. 13th 2016 so like 6 months ago....