Bitcoin Forum

Disclaimer: This post is NOT mainly about MineralsCoin (but rather its concept), but I had to mention it heavily because it is the catalyst for this whole reaction.
This post is about how some pool owners, together with big exchanges and probably big farmers monopolize the market on the expense of small miners and possible investors.

I wanna apologize of the lengthy post, so bear with me it, but let’s start:

About a week ago (June 12th) a new coin came to life – MineralsCoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=641057.0).
This coin came with the idea to challenge the unfair distribution that most, if not all coins before it had.
And by unfair I am talking about farms taking over a coins network, mining the majority of it, while being the minority (in sheer number) and then dumping it, leaving small miners (the majority) with nothing but leftovers, if they’re lucky.
The developers of MineralsCoin decided that in order to allow a fair distribution of the coin, they would have to limit the hashrate that each individual could use, and the only way to do so is by controlling all the pools of the coin during its PoW phase (a stage that lasted about 7 days) and limiting each account to 1 worker with a limit of 50MH/s (it’s using x11).
Also, wallet wasn't released until after PoW phase ended to prevent farmers from solo mining it.
 
Sure, you could work your way around it, but it would be a lot of trouble and as evident from the network hashrate, not to many farmers bothered with the coin.
Now, some of you might say it’s a scam because the dev of the coin could just relocate the hash somewhere else for his own benefits, but a quick look at the miner showed difficulty that matched the coins, block explorer of the coin worked perfectly fine and no other coin that uses x11 has had a jump in network hashrate proportionate to the size MineralsCoin.
Also, there was no ghost account mining the coin heavily as could have been seen by adding the total hashrate of the 6 pools.

During its PoW stage the developer worked hard on giving the miners an alternative to where to store their coins outside the pool, this alternative came in the form of exchanges. One exchange service was happy to add MineralsCoin and it’s C-Cex, however, most miners wanted (and still want), the bigger exchanges to accept MineralsCoins in order to see its value go up.
However, one of the biggest exchanges to date – Bittrex, has remained vague with its intention of adding MineralsCoin for reasons that made me make this thread:

Here are some quotes from pool owners/admins/whatever that for "unknown" reasons decided to group up in MineralsCoin thread:

Admin in DedicatedPools
Subtle threat?
Quoted for the irony that is about to come.

“Sorry, not supporting privatization of crypto coins” right into "You may or may not know there is a society of over 150 people, pool owners, exchanges, leaders in crypto that all VETO'd your coin - it is just not me”.
Probably the most disconcerting post of them all.

Purposefully blocking a coin that might create a wave of coins that will eat into his future pool profits.

Well, now it’s an obvious threat.

Admin in TradeMyBit:
Another pool showing its hate.

Admin in  Suprnova and various other pools (yet another pool owner…)
Quoted for irony ;)

Trying to control, throttle and manipulate the entire thread with the rest of the pool owners, does make what he just wrote to qualify as ironic.

Admin in Suchpool.sw (another pool owner…)

There were lots of other pools in that thread (to many pages to go through) in addition to shill accounts trying to spread FUD and quotes from Bittrex IRC which I did not bother to post.
For the record, MineP was actually the only pool that participated in the thread and did not seem to bash the coin but rather took interest in it.

As a side note, how many coins out there have you seen that have been controlled by a single pool? Don’t know about you, but I have seen a lot. Pools that owned 80%, 90% and even 100% of the network of the coins and those coins were added without an issue to the big exchanges only to allow pool owners to dump the coin to make an extra… God knows how much.

As far as Bittrex goes (and the other big exchanges), to this date, they have added a lot of other shitcoins, that are semi closed source, 100% pre-mined, 70% premined (Country coins anyone?), etc.
The only common thing here I can see between those coins that were listed on big exchanges is that they could have been mined on the big pools.

So my question to this forum is this: is the market that heavily monopolized? That only a select few people decide which coin is gonna go where, where it’s going to be mined, where it’s gonna exchange? Which coin is going to be lunched?
Was crypto not made in order to decentralize us from the control of a few powerful entities? How bad is what Binaryclock talking about? How serious is that group?

And as a last note, MineralsCoin is now in its PoS stage and became open source. Nothing malicious was found in the code and so far everything seems legit with the coin.

P.S. I wanna remind you again that this thread isn't about MineralsCoin, but rather the concept it brought to the table and the very sharp reaction from a group of people that got scared of its ramification if it succeeds.

*I wanna apologize if my English was not spot on, it isn’t my native language after all.

Additional links to read:
http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/minerals-x11-powpos-with-no-wallet-download-before-end-of-pow
http://www.cryptoarticles.com/crypto-news/minerals-altcoin-with-100-fair-launch-upsets-big-miners-and-pool-operators
http://altcoinspeculation.com/new-coins-new-wealth-any-future/
http://altcoinspeculation.com/are-new-altcoins-being-monopolised/

I think you answered all those questions and more in your own post. People will get tired of being played eventually. I don't know if Minerals is the coin to wake anybody up but it did start a very interesting conversation for sure.

+1 - followed this from the start and the behaviour of the "large operators" is nothing short of consolidation of a monopoly position

Their attitude has been, quite simply, "No way for us to affect the outcome, so we are going to try and bomb you from orbit"

If you are mining on their pools then you are being taken for a ride, BIG time.

Chances are you are mining a shitcoin for them?

This Minerals coin has had the fairest possible distribution, with NO PREMINE (that's right, you read it correctly) and yet it is still being called unfair by hashfarmers and feckless parasites.

Bunch of monkeyballsuckers  >:(

Let's all go trade decentralized ;) http://thecoinfront.com/blackhalo-aims-to-save-bitcoiners-from-another-mt-gox-scenario/
BlackHalo (http://blackhalo.bitcoin42.com/) is on it's way ^^"

Also, Bittrex isn't the biggest crypto-exchange. Here is a list: http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/v2/markets/info
Not all are pure altcoin-exchanges, but the biggest are Mintpal and Cryptsy in their category. Though Bittrex is climbing its way up ;)

Hey glad to see you start this thread :)

Thanks :) fixed.

Interesting summary, thank you. Made some conclusions about bittrex and some pools.

You point out some interesting contradictions.

That guy from dedicated pools... It's clear why he's so upset. He was in hurry to fastly inform exchanges and other pools to ignore "coin".
Also he's talking about quality of his pool, 5 of 10 times he's pool is "under heavy load" So what quality is that? Also that cloud flare - cheper then to have it's own.

I still Have some axis coins on his pool because he's lazy bastard who has other priorities then to update axis wallet (now about week)
Mined there since his pool had almost 100% of hashrate. Yes, who's is talking about "Centralization"

He chooses to be member of those ~150 peoples, his problem,  and probably he will profit. Meaning i, small miner, is totally inessential.
At least i felt bit bigger miner with minerals.

Bittrex - will just quote.

I'd say you deserve some answers brother.  Props on your effort to make this case as you have.

Dev of Mineral Coin this parabens, a coin made ​​so far very good mining some regular days and now I'm mining for the multipool and paying this just right, and her price valuing this, speak now something to take fashion to limit hashrate 50 mhs catch al that will have people crying in kkkkk

Thank you. It is really disconcerting for me to see this organized attacked from so many pool owners, which obviously indicates that they do communicate and monopolize, but to what degree I do not know.

If there is really such a thing. It would be more dangerous to the cryptoworld than one monopolized coin...
I wish to know more about this, and will do some research at my own.
Will post here if i find something.

I'm not saying Minerals is monopolized. If the initial mining period was honest then it is way more fair than others.

I've been involved with a few coins at launch - and Minerals had the fairest distribution I think I have ever seen.
Everything was above board and NO-ONE was excluded, just asked to limit the individual hashrate to 50MH/s per work.
The large pools didn't want that, their preferred method is to hashrape the new coins with all the power they can muster - leaving the little GPU miner with next to nothing.
Still, they were not excluded - just allowed to mine up to the 50MH/s limit like the rest of the little people.
Then the threats started................ "You'll be mining air" has to be the best :)

The large pools ARE putting pressure on the exchanges to do what they want - why else would Minerals NOT be listed on the larger exchanges (given some of the true shitcoins they are happy to handle on a daily basis).

Shine the light people, tell your friends and re-tweet "MIN for the win" - shine the light on these collusive fuckers and take back crypto for the little guy  ;D

"I am here for the goodness of Crypto. "

 :D lmao!

Minerals Dev just posted Pool.mn information on a ninja lauch
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=652220.0

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=641057.msg7319877#msg7319877



the whole lunch was a clusterfuck.

the pool owner was allowing people to mine without restriction. for hrs peopel had 500mhs/s each. Even after we were complaining they took their time to block and enforce the 50 mh/s restriction.

The pools were all set up by pool.mn peeps. so its funny you attackother pools yet a major pool one ran this

as you can see. after few hrs they lunched on other coin. clearly shows pool.mn/minerals will not spend too much dedication to this coin. its just a pump and dump.


the only thing this coin got going is that it fooled their miners and they stayed loyal. So that is nice. Meaning that some of them might try to keep this coin from dying for like a month. So it could be a fun trading experience. but thats all

the whole Starcraft thing is a flop. Blizzard will sue them the moment they try to sell anything trading goods.



which pissed me off since i love starcraft and i love crytpo-coin. i think there is room for tons in the top. but if they do not play fair in the beginning, will most likely not play far later.

Bump.
I want more people to see this.

So as i understand it,, crypto has at its heart an underlying ethic of wanting to decentralise the banking systems of the world and therefore distribute power more fairly and evenly.  The reaction of the pool operators to this coins method of pow is staggering in its level of arrogance and clearly mimics the initial problems of which crypto set out to tackle.

I urge everyone who can see these bullying tactics to think for themselves. 

 

bittrex/mintpal are only for pump/dump people :)

Less money if no big whales,

thats why i support minerals because of fairness.

Thank You

Minerals may be the fairest distribution I have seen and I have been in Crypto a LONG time.

I am perfectly happy with it staying on C-Cex and I suspect that Poloniex will pick it up before too long as their owner is a very ethical person.

There is no doubt poolowners are out of control....

All a pool owner has to do or be involved in is running a pool.

Shameless comments regarding a startup coin has nothing to do with doing their job, or is their job not just being a pool operator?

Kill CoinCrime , MIN FTW

LMAO !

its came from dedicated poops owner !

https://i.imgur.com/8QupRCA.jpg

Really  good distribution , pool owners are scared.  ;D  I believe there'll be followers to Minatals.

I don't know who he is, but this may apply http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messiah_complex

At 2000+ satoshi, small miners made good money off of this new distribution concept - which coin will try it next?  ;)

Hey, could you edit the currency name as it is not MineralsCoin, because we do not want more coins, we want more minerals  ;D So Minerals is just Minerals and that's what we want for people to remember.

No, Bitcoin... mimicked by the Alt ecosystem has CO-OPTED the above ethic...
In order to run a highly organized RACKET that methodically fleeces Tech-Mooks with pyramid schemes.

ANYTHING that threatens Pyramid Coin assembly line... gets destroyed without prejudice.

The Alt Ecosystem will never change or improve (it's near perfect for the job)...
But it will be replaced by Silicon Valley Venture Capital and Wall Street firms...
The Pros will just take over when this thing grows another order of magnitude.

BCT probably has about 2 years left... make your EZ money now...
Any talented Zero Sum Game player should be able to figure out this Game.

Soo those 150 pool owners want to become like american top richest families and control everything in cryptoworld but russian c-cex against them.lol.

xD

Good post, I've been wondering about some of these issues for sometime,

Do you think some of the Exchanges also have massive Mining Farms?

I wonder where all the Mining Hash power comes from, tonnes of people have 100's of MH's and some GH's of mining power, its incredible, the small miners are totally out of the game these days...

Here i blogged a post about similar issues with new coins and the speculative frenzy;

New Coins, New Wealth, Any Future?:
http://altcoinspeculation.com/new-coins-new-wealth-any-future/

Good read, thanks! Will add to my OP.

And for your question, I don't think exchanges got mining farms, but I am pretty sure they are entangled with the big pools that host all those coins so that pool OPs can dump the coin ASAP.
Obviously, the exchanges get more than just the fee from normal exchanges: they get extra $ on the side to add those coins quickly.

I'll be honest, I'm gonna attack Bittrex directly. They are just adding coins that pool ops benefit from.

Thanks Starscream, It's certainly interesting,
and more reason to avoid new speculative coins, and focus on potentially longterm (or at least medium term) decent ones, with good devs and a growing community.

Anyhow you inspired a new post so thanks for that to:
Are New Altcoins Being Monopolised?:
http://altcoinspeculation.com/are-new-altcoins-being-monopolised/

+1, nice article

My pleasure!
I've also added a link to your 2nd article in my OP.

I haven't really thought that pools and exchanges have been monopolizing coins up until this point.  I understand that pools are losing profits, but they cannot control the altcoin community.  All along, I know that the big whales control the market, and I think they are an even larger threat to the altcoins community.  If the altcoin community wants to move on, everyone must re-evaluate the situation.  I think that Minerals really has taken a step towards a more distributed and fair coin, but I would like to see other altcoins that focus on preventing centralization.

they are clearly mad because they did not obtain any large amount via their big giant scam farm

I don't think it necessarily means the pools are colluding to protect their profits.  A lot of this may stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of Minerals and perhaps a knee-jerk response based on partial information which got out of hand.  This is understandable in light of the recent catalogue of crypto scam coins.  A lot of people had questions about the Minerals formula.  The issue is not just about fair mining but about the centralisation of mining that is encouraged by the way it was launched.  This makes it easier for scammers to take advantage of people.  That doesn't mean it is is or was a scam though.  I think a lot of people are still undecided for now.  So far the developer seems above board and legit.  I honestly think that exchanges (and earlier pools) could foresee that this would be a big hit and if it turned out to be a scam the backlash and fallout against them would immense.  They therefore took the stance of assuming it was a scam rather than take the risk.  They were not protecting profits by not participating, if anything they were losing out on easy money.  However the fear of being tricked over-ruled their logic in this regard.  Again I don't think the developer did anything wrong and I don't think the concerns of exchanges or pools were wrong either.  The crypto world has become a lot more cynical and paranoid and everyone is afraid of being scammed.  It is sad that Minerals got caught up in this but I believe it will still succeed. It would be a lot better for the community if people just try to see things from both sides.  Most exchanges and pools are not run by mega-bucked gazillionaires who don't care about the community.

Personally I'm tired of multipools, I'm tired of them spamming every coin thread multiple times, I'm tired of them raping and dumping coins and preventing them from going to the moon, I'm tired of every miner whining if he loses a coin here and there when miners are generally making money hand over fist, I'm tired of it all! It's nice to see a coin where the little guy miner and trader could possibly win for a change.

is there a TDLR on the OP?

Surely, the answer is (Open Source) code that gives any node an equal chance of a block whatever it's hash rate. Then pools would be redundant and everyone could mine on Rasp Pi!  ;D

So, after a very interesting night, it seems like some major exchanges decided to add MIN after all:
Poloniex
Allcoin
and surprisingly enough, Bittrex.

So props for them for not bending for pool ops demands.

Can't see how this is possible.
Any open source code can easily be alternated and w/e limitation you put there can be removed.

^
More people see it the better.

Seems like it might be good to start pushing P2Pools again.  A lot of nodes are run by community members, and it also helps to decentralize hash over the network. 

Also there's no chance of being scammed by the pool op, because when a block is solved, the miner's share gets deposited straight into their wallet, were it then matures.

Granted P2Pool doesn't have some of the features that alot of miners want, like stats for each rig, email notice when a rig times out/doesn't submit shares after X seconds, etc, but I think the orig codes of P2Pool could add that in.  I would, but I don't know python well enough to do it.

Interesting to see that altcoins are having major problems with pools as well.

Although this seems a lot worse than with bitcoin seeing as how they are attempting to exercise control over the whole marketplace.

I mined mineral with my small rig and there was actually quite a difference compared to other recent cryptocoins - their system definitely made the distribution process fairer. It's a shame that some pools and exchanges reacted that way, as a fair distribution process probably adds more value to the coin...

Indeed. It is a lot worse than with BTC. Here's a more recent example of binaryclock being quoted from Bittrex IRC channel:


It saddens me that Bittrex has a close relationship with such person.
I used to use them a lot, but this whole experience with Minerals really did open my eyes.

Yes it's all monopolized.  The professional miners are dominating and dumping everything.  PoS hasn't proven to be any better as most PoS coins have IPOs which allocate the vast majority of coins to less than 30 people.

The alternate coin section is essentially one big get quick rich scheme.

PoS and IPO are completely not related. Lots of PoW coins also have IPO.
IPO is completely and utterly up to the creator of the coin and not to the algo or proof that is being used.

Otherwise I agree that the vast majority of coins in the alt coin world are used as nothing more but a get quick scheme for pool ops and exchanges.

Much respect to the OP for starting the thread and bringing an interesting topic to the attention of others who weren't aware(myself included).  I know Crypto is not free from corruption but compared to Wall Street I'd say it is at the petty theft level for the most part.

I'm not happy to know a small amount of people could manipulate which coins are getting certain amount of attention and people investing in alts would probably feel the same if the knew.  I applaud the Devs for making minerals and for taking a bold step in the right direction.

Thank you for your kind words.

OP is an idiot, mineral coin sounds like a scam and even if it wasn't I'm glad he didn't get any support from the exchanges ect. How can you say you're worried about a mysterious monopoly when mineral coin wanted exactly that, a monopoly on the coins and mining.

Not sure what made me feel dumber, opening this thread or replying to it  ::)

Well, I can tell you that you're looking like a fool for posting, that's certain.

Dev did not get any monopoly over anything. PoW is over and PoS is up and running and decentralized so your post (if you can even call that garbage a post) is completely invalid.
If you'd bother to check Minerals thread (which you didn't because you're either stupid or just a shell account of some pool op) you'd see it's evident that the distribution was by the far the fairest any coins has seen so far.

And......... Minerals has been accepted to many exchanges since I opened this thread, so it appears you made yourself to be the local clown.

well there is a conflict of interest when pool operators are also exchange owners/operators. Add to those two the possibilty of being a founding or adopted coin owner and thats where it all begins, the big fish eating the small fish.

Keep this thread in view, its important.

Crypto all about de-centralized system, coins 'for the 6.5 billion people who don't have access to banking' (Andreas Antonopoulos ) yet here we see pool operators acting just like the governments - f*cking over the small guy, getting all the power and abusing it.