Bitcoin Forum

Well, the market (http://bitcoinpie.com/) has spoken (for now), and Tenebrix is the top alternative currency with a 1.16% of the entire Bitcoin market cap. I believe this number does represent a faith by "the market" that Tenebrix as a whole is worth that much.

What I don't get is why people trust Locust (with 90% of TBX pre-mined) to really use these coins as he advertises (bounties & laundry). I'm not saying that I have specific concerns or complains about him, but I don't understand where the positive trust is coming from. Does he have any credentials other than a two-month post history on Bitcoin Talk? If yes, I would very much love to see his references.

I know many do not yet trust him and Tenebrix, but "the market" obviously does. Is it just lack of better alternatives, and a hatred of Bitcoin early adopters? If it's a desire for alternatives, why not Namecoin? Isn't it just a better (more feature rich) Bitcoin? Namecoin merged mining is just 5 blocks away (http://explorer.dot-bit.org/) (happens at block 19200)...

FYI, I currently only hold Bitcoin, do not hold Namecoin, TBX, or any other alt.

P.S.
Not that I think "The Market" is infallible or something. After all, it thinks 1 BTC is only worth 4.3 USD, while I won't sell for less than 40 right now.

Now that I think of it, Namecoin does't have a GUI yet, and this might explain the lack of jumpers.
There only UI for Namecoin is MultiCoin, which is a bit difficult to download a binary for (the "project page" of www.multicoin.net (http://www.multicoin.net) is just a redirect to a forum thread).

Why are people dumb ?

I believe they do. Suppose the following:

1. Locust is an evil dude.
2. Tenebrix will become a raging success in the next few months, and its market cap will be 10% of Bitcoin (merely a X8 increase from now).
3. Tenebrix exchanges will have a large order book with a lot of sell orders.
4. Locust sells all his pre-mined coins at once ... profit (for him), loss for everyone else that invested in the currency.

He promises not to do this, but why do people trust his promises?

The TBX market cap is woefully inflated by those 7.7m coins.
You need to subtract them to get the true market cap.

What you say is "evil"

What you mean is "batshit insane"

I may very well be evil and eat babies. But as long as I am a long-term planning agent that is rational enough (note, not perfect-rational, just rational enough) not to prefer unpredictable probability of unpredictable short-term gain over systematic, fairly predictable,  gain arriving automatically (that is, without much repeated efforts on my part) at a steady pace, I can be trusted not to abuse the funds and safekeep the laundry like the glorious jewel it is (okay, technically, will be)

You do know that several people are already auto-watching my fun-ds in blockexplorer, and should anything fishy (like an attempt to move stuff to exchange) happen, will raise a shriek and cause a panicsell ? (that's why I warned folks about beginning of funding of faucet on the main page, so auto-watchers don't misinterpret my actions)



My references are, basically, enlightened self-interest. As long as there are no reasons to believe that I will act against the interests of myself and my laundry enterprise by engaging in risky and potentially devastating games , there are no reasons to distrust my claims.

You don't need to believe I am a nice person, only not irrational one.


Markets are like that *shrug*


I don't really get how hatred for early adopters translates in trust towards me. Could you clarify this line of reasoning ?



That's their current market value.

Your subjective valuation is 40 USD.

There is no such thing as "real proper value" so your claim that market is being "wrong" seems rather...audacious.

P.S.:
Anyways, I think this has been discussed quite for some time in the main thread.

No need to make yet another Lolcust thread, I'm starting to feel shy ;)

Yes, if the premined coins are indeed kept off the market, then they should not be counted in the market cap. But he plans to give out or spend some of those. Once they are given out as a bounty, the price will probably drop like a rock.

My answer?
I don't trust Lolcust, or anybody else on this forum, to do anything but act in their own best interest.
In this situation Lolcust's best interest is for TBX to grow huge.  Whether he wants that because it's his baby or because it has to be significantly larger before he can sneakily dump a few thousand coins I neither know nor care, as it makes no difference to me current trust of him nor to my plans.

OK, so the investors in TBX think that it is in Locust's best interest to do as he said. Let's analyze that for a second.

Currently TBX is all the rage. But, what if at some point in the near future, Locust thinks, for whatever reason, that TBX doesn't have a promising future. Perhaps a new GPU method comes up to calculating TBX, and he can't seem to figure out a way to defeat it. Or perhaps the current prices are a bubble, and Locust uses his crystal ball to predict a significant crash. What-ever.

If Locust loses faith in his own currency's future, then it would be rational for him to sell off his entire stash. Even though his stash is monitored, he could sell everything off in 1 second before anyone has any chance to do anything about it. He cashes out completely, and TBX crashes ... completely.

This is not a fatal flaw in TBX that cannot be fixed. The fix is very easy - crash it now. If Locust sell 90% of his stash on the market, or otherwise donated it, then sure, TBX would crash now, but it wouldn't have this huge hammer hanging over its head.

So, now you're paining an apocalyptic future that is so dire that even I no longer believe in any perspective for TBX?

You do realize that should something so dire indeed happen, everyone would be running away likely before I even get the memo (let alone prep fund for sale, since no exchange accepts 0 conf), and I won't have anyone to sell the millyoonz to ?

Basically, at the point at which you postulate that "Locust loses faith in his own currency's future", Lolcust already has no one to sell to, since Lolcust isn't privy to any unique insider info and every single investor and trader sees the same doom and gloom on the horizon that has struck Lolcust so deeply, but by virtue of having funds already at exchange has already beat Lolcust to the exit thus crashing value to "shit pies" long before the slow, ponderous mass of Lolcustfund even starts moving to an exchange 

With all due respect, you are contriving more and more intricate and implausible scenarios to provide, essentially, ethically motivated complaint with a veneer of economic plausibility (a veneer which is rather irrelevant since the market has already demonstrated that it doesn't give a single rat's ass about my premine)

I'm not sure that is correct. All the people buying now are buying with the knowledge of these 7.7m coins. If it's public information, then I think these coins should be counted in the market cap.

However, there is one other qualification - the total number of BUY orders are 1653 BTC = 0.02% of the number of Bitcoins. Market cap doesn't tell the whole story.

If I invented RipperCoin tomorrow, pre-mined a million coins, and put a few buy/sell orders around 10 BTC, does this mean I've created 10,000,000 BTC's worth of RipperCoin out of thin air? No it doesn't.

If anyone has a suggestion for more measurements of a currencies' "strength", please let me know so I can put them on Bitcoin Pie (http://bitcoinpie.com). I think the next up is the total amount of BUY orders in BTC.

1. You do have insider information. You are most intimate with TBX code, perhaps along with a few other people. I'm sure it is far less scrutinized than the Bitcoin source code. Since you're the developer, you know exactly what TBX can and cannot do. While in theory the code is open source so everybody can know as much as you, in practice this knowledge might take a long time to get out there, simply because most won't read or fully understand the code. With Bitcoin it took about three years for the "insider information" Satoshi had to fully leak its way into public awareness ... and (I hope) we're not there yet, and that the public will become more and more aware of Bitcoin's "real/potential worth".

2. Even if you didn't have insider information, bubble do burst. If you see the value of TBX going down because "everybody is realizing its a bubble", you would have a vested interested in doing the same because you would be realizing it's a bubble as well. You currently own a theoretical $364,000 of TBX, you surely have an interest to save it if the market thinks it's going to crash.

Cthulhu almighty in the seas, it's open-source so it would take you a few clicks to become as privy to the code as me, ArtForz, or any other curious individual.

Anyone who bothers to read the source gets as much "inside" as me (actually, given that I'm not even a programmer, a coder would likely get more insider info than me)



Dear lord Cthulhu, I really don't want to sound mean or something, but did you read first post?

I am not "TBX Leader" and definitely not a Master Programmer or "The Developer"

50% is Multicoin, 45% ArtForz.

Whatever left (Like, logo, smalltime user support, the "general" idea itself, negotiating with exchanges, the name, etc.) are my contributions.

Also, there are some contributions from pidgeons and twobits that might be not large by volume, but are pretty vital

If anyone, ArtForz is the "inside info" guy, I am a graphic designer with a pile of ideas I decided to go through with.


You do realize that by the time I grok the fact that it's dying, everyone on the exchange has already sold off and everyone not on the exchange are on their way to exchange?

By the time my ponderous mass of TBX reaches an exchange, everyone of impact has gone already.

I'll inevitably be beaten to the exit by every single trader and even the trader's paraplegic grandmother.

Not good enough. If you decide to really sell out, those people will just watch your dust. You can sell off everything in a split second.



When I sold my (very minor) Bond-RonGross (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=31041.20), I gave enough credible information to identify me.
See my arguments why it might be rational for you to sell off everything at some point in the future. If you provided other credentials (even outside of meat-space, but just 'convincing enough'), that would make people (me, at least) more relaxed that you will follow your plan for TBX. Any particular reason not to provide such credentials? I can understand why Satoshi stays hidden, his idea is a real breakthrough that will collapse whole organizations (banking, paypal, etc...), so he should very well stay hidden to avoid persecution. I don't think TBX is innovative on that caliber, so even if successful, people won't hire assassins to kill you. I hope.



Easy. People hate the fact Bitcoin early adopters "got rich" or "will get rich", so they seek an alternative. SolidCoin isn't really an alternative (The IRC chat between CoinHunter and Gavin showed that to a lot of people). NameCoin isn't well developed yet. Basically TBX is the only alternative I'm aware of that has an exchange and a GUI client. So those early-adopter-haters flock to TBX. Why doesn't FBX have an exchange yet? I might buy in if it did.



Not really. Everyone buying or selling any stock or commodity is basically say that the market is wrong at the current price level. If I buy Google stocks at whatever price, it's because I think they will be worth more tomorrow ... in effect, they're worth more now to me than the market believes.


This thread was mostly aimed at other people, not yourself - I want to get their thoughts on why they trust you. The other thread is too long, and is the announcement thread, thus being a little bit too general for my taste.

I wouldn't put too much faith in the "Manipulated Market", you must remember artforz and co have a fair amount of BTC that they are propping up the market with in an attempt to run a bigger scam. When the market opened they placed a buy order for 2 million coins for instance when only 400K were available (non premined). They have no morals and when it finally gets 51% attacked or the premined coins are spent a convenient excuse will be made.

artforz/lolcust/bitcoinexpress have questionable morals, no one who is reasonable would disagree. However there are enough warnings out there for the people who will end up losing in this, so they have no one to blame but themselves I think.

What if Satoshi Nakamoto sold his premined coins? It would be just the same...
You can't trust anyone...

x2

Well said.

Now that is just plain wrong on a factual level

Please let me know how do I magically sell coins faster than an exchange confirms incoming fund transfer (it's pretty trivial to see that stuff is not on exchange) which with 5 min/block is definitely not a split second.

No offense, but you seem to be glossing over vital technical details, hopefully unintentionally.


Ever heard of Republic of Belarus?


So... you both believe that bitcoin will destroy "classic" banking (and paypalbomination), and you think that multi-billion companies are petty enough to hire hitmen to seek vengeance upon Satoshi (an act that would only make BTC more popular, and make them somewhat less popular)?

I am afraid our worldviews diverge quite radically... And that makes finding common ground harder :(


So by your logic they hate system with phat first-adopters so much that they move to a system with even phatter first-adopters ?

Well, IMHO that makes no sense.

But then, IMHO, neither does first-adopter hate so there is a probability you have unique insight into that mindset.




Well, markets are just so designed that they inherently sorta-kinda with  current value (there are ways around, like shorting, but they still hinge on current value+agent's belief about future) :)

Market isn't wrong, it's just stating that current value is X. If you believe that circumstances will force it to reconsider at a later date, you can act accordingly, but at this moment, market isn't wrong - market is never really "wrong" or "right". Market simply is :)


Satoshi didn't pre-mine, but he mined quite a bunch and likely holds a very big (if not the biggest) of market-crash capable BTC stash. Not that I mind :D




Peer 2 Pig market is so un-manipulated...

+1 to this entire thread. There's always fairbrix though..

In theory yes. In practice I don't have the time to devote to reading TBX source code. Hell, I haven't taken a peek at Bitcoin source code since I heard about it six months ago. I'm sure many people are in my boat, and a lot of them even can't read code.


Proof you're evil = you keep praying to Cthulhu :)


And a pile of coins. The fact is that these are just words, and they don't convey enough trust, at least for me. What I was trying to understand is why it seems they do work on other people.


I don't understand why this is true. But let's try to stop this ping-pong, this thread was aimed at other people. Of course you trust yourself, I'm trying to understand others who do.

Just in case you (and some others) missed the memo - I only vaguely can read it, too ;) With a dictionary ;)

You can probably do better than me.

So one thing I certainly am not - I am not the guy with any ability to gain "inside info"

Satoshi doesn't have pre-mined coins. He only minded a tiny amount (anyone knows how much) before the entire project was made completely open source, talked about it cryptography discussion groups, etc... It's not his fault we haven't heard about it until recently.

True, he surely has a large stash, but those aren't pre-mined, not by my definition anyway. He has earned those coins.

That is argument from ethics not economics.

For a market, it doesn't matter if Satoshi mined them, conjured them through premine, or just plain got them from a fairy.

What matters from economic perspective  is that if he so desires, he can crash BTC value to nothing by selling off.

And, apparently, the BTC market cares about that just as much as TBX market cares about me, that is, it does not.


And I don't know if his stash is already on exchange or not, he didn't, as far as I know, consolidate stuff on one address so that people can track its movements (I did, because autotrack folks asked me).

P.S.:


Because trader has his funds on exchange, and his grandma is first to get "TBX gunna diiiieee selll selllll!" memo.

I am unlikely to be in the first row as to the memo, and my funds aren't on the exchange (see BE), so I'm unlikely to be the first to run and even when I start running, I'll have to wait quite some time before it even becomes technically possible to sell (confirmation accumulation), thus getting beaten to exit by everyone + grandma.

Once again, you gloss over / ignore technical details

Except Satoshi invested years of his life into the project so people have a little more faith in him doing right by the currency. You spent one afternoon with artforz and changed a few parameters, gave yourself 7 million coins and put together an automated site from a template and now think you're in the same boat as him.

You're not. Trying to draw parallels between him and you is quite ludicrous, he has some talent and gave a gift to the world, you just want to scam people and get rich.

Well said, I stand corrected. Still:

1. Do we have proof that the pre-mined coins aren't already at an exchange of sorts? Perhaps even an exchange that will pop up later? I don't know who owns btc-e, perhaps you're the owner and those coins are there already. If not, you can start another exchange tomorrow. In this scenario, you can really sell everything off instantly.
2. Suppose the coins aren't in any exchange, and that it takes you 10 minutes to move them to an exchange. Would a significant part of TBX holders be aware and sell their holdings before you do? If their holdings aren't on an exchange, it would take them longer than you to move them. I'm not sure a 10 minute window is enough to defend against you selling off the pre-mined coins.
[/quote]


Do enlighten me.


I think in 10-20 years, Bitcoin could eliminate a lot of the fat in a lot of financial organizations. And that if I were the inventor of such a currency, I would want to remain very well hidden. Imagine a disgruntled bank owner that just lost 1 billion dollars over a few years "because of Bitcoin". Is it inconceivable to imagine he would try to avenge? I don't think this is plausible, mind you, but I understand why Satoshi would want to eliminate the possibility.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist.


People do not "make sense", or act logically (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_dissonance). IMO it is probable that people will be jealous of early adopters but still would like the chance to become early adopters themselves.



I sort of agree. But I hope you agree that a person can "disagree with the market valuation". So if he disagrees, and he thinks valuation Y is "correct", then he subjectively thinks the market is "wrong". Anyway, meta point, not really on topic.

Does Fairbrix have an exchange?

How is your Coin Police doing ?  :D

Now this is libel.

Put up some evidence, shall you ?

Haha libel, right. You failed to mention when you "created" TBX that there were premined coins, just like with GG. Thieves try to hide their activities, and it isn't until someone found out the truth did you "confirm it".

The irony is all your trolling and hacking activities are going to undo you and anything you support. The only sad thing here is the people who believe your lies and fairy tales.

Let's see what happens over the coming days to TBX..... and what your excuse will be.

Errr, btc-e consolidates its incomings, so it is trivial to prove my stuff is separate.

Now, owning my own exchange would require me either to engage in some serious confirmation fiddlery or other scheme that is apparent in BEX, and generally problematic when folks are watching the stash automatically. Stuff getting added to the fund gets noticed as well as stuff withdrawn.

Also, I'd need a veryhuge pet exchange to sell off any meaningful portion of fun-d.


2 confirms ?

What kind of madman runs that ?


Typical confirm limit for exchanges is around 5, especially since recent shenanigans.

So I am exceedingly unlikely to sell off in less than 25 minutes unless a supernatural force helps me.


You know, since 2010, even going online without registering your MAC with govt is a major offense (not to mention fiddling with crypto without State license), and our president premines votes via "thugs v 1.0" and "Pig horde aka police state v 1.1" exploits


I find both scenarios fairly fantastic

Well, like I said, you might have an insight into a unique mindset. I just find that...far fetched as far as hypotheses go.


Mkay

LOL, I stated the existence of "protecshun fun-d" from moment 0, so your pathetic speculations are pathetic.

"My" hacking?

Boy, that's quite flattering.

Also, a guy who steals electricity from miners by taking away coins generated by their efforts for "protection phun-d" is in no position to lecture anyone on ethics, due to being a petty electricity thief :D

At least my fund was made via my electricity, for which I paid.

Um ... that's exactly what you did with SC1.0
Although I do agree with the comments, you happen to be making them about yourself also ...
(which is why I don't trust SC2.0 - people don't change)

7.7 million is too much coins IMHO.

You said 10% of max possible coinage is okay.

Tenebrix has no mining-limit, so max coinage is above 136 billions.

I am well within the limits you have arbitrarily ordained in your comments in TBX main thread.

I don't think the max coinage is relevant. If you'll dump your coins in three months, you will cause a permanent crash in TBX, so nobody will care what max coinage TBX may or may not have.

Nah, bulanula specifically said that 10% of all possible coins is fine with him in adjacent thread. He doesn't like them smarty mathematications that much  :D

P.S.:
And we've been through market-crash argument.

Any market I care to think of has agents who could crash it at a press of a button. Including BTC.

The market cares not.

Neither should anyone.

You really think someone will still mine TBX in 100 year from now?  ;D

Why not ?

Stranger things happen with markets all the time.

Yeah sure !

The first botnet that realizes they can take whatever they want from Tenebrix will solve the problem of Lolcust having 7.7 million coins.

That problem, game theory has solved already.

I complimented it with classic lock-ins just in case :)