Bitcoin Forum

I wrote this article. I was amazed at data revealed by Peter R in his post. And I'm wondering if anyone sees it differently.

Do people focus too much on anything they perceive as new? Is it all just a game between speculators and the resulting bag holders?

Do you personally care about actual use, or are you only in this for the daytrading?

I'm obviously biased in favour of Bitmark since I'm involved in the project, but I'm more interested in discussing the concept in general. This doesn't have to be about Bitmark at all.

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From: http://bitmarknews.com/2014/08/12/why-bitmark-will-be-important/

I came across an interesting post by Peter R on the Bitcointalk forums that really helped put Project Bitmark into perspective for me.

The people who use the currency drive it's price tag: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=400235.msg6025866#msg6025866


This might seem obvious to some people. But seeing data to back up what you've been thinking is always nice. And confirming that we've been focusing on the right thing from the start makes what we're doing with Project Bitmark even more important.

Most, if not all, cryptocurrencies that have emerged this year have focused on developing novel technology that differentiates themselves from Bitcoin. Anonymity, Proof of Stake, exotic Proof of Work algorithms. These are all real technological improvements that have been achieved to varying levels of success so far in 2014. Their value proposition is that they are "better" than Bitcoin. But people seem to be forgetting what makes a currency a currency is the people using it. And making it fun and easy to use is what motivates people to actually adopt a currency and spend it. Not as just an investment, but as money.

A currency focused on adoption is more likely to succeed in the long term than one that focuses on the latest trend on Bitcointalk. Giving people an easy way to use their money is the most important thing that enables a technology to be adopted as an actual currency with utility. Other additional technology that proves useful to that end can be adapted for use when it's proved to be both stable and useful. That should come after, not before, giving people something they can spend. People will continue to pioneer these emerging technologies, and once they have proven themselves, they can be integrated into Project Bitmark. But only if they actually provide value.

The priority of Project Bitmark is to create a technologically stable, easy to use, daily use currency. And that's the focus of our effort. The proof that providing value in that way also happens to also provide price tag value is illustrated in Peter R's chart. Knowing this helps since it enables people to be comfortable in the fact that supporting, growing, and helping Bitmark do what it set out to do will provide real financial benefit. Knowing that you're on the right path, and that you'll be rewarded for it helps toughen resolve.

I want Project Bitmark to be the first alternative to Bitcoin that actually drives toward creating a real large scale network effect driven by actual use of Bitmark as currency. In my opinion Dogecoin has been the only currency thus far that actually put in an effort and flirted with the idea. But they focused on building a community around Dogecoin itself, while we focus on bringing Bitmark and Marking (https://github.com/project-bitmark/marking/wiki) to existing communities instead. Showing people something that provides value and can be adopted by millions of communities that exist already is, in my opinion, a much better strategy than trying to recruit people into a specific subculture based around a meme. It's not that they did anything wrong, their community sprung up organically and will continue to exist indefinitely. But by providing the tools for people to build their own communities(Discourse (http://www.discourse.org/) + Marking (https://github.com/project-bitmark/marking/wiki) being one example) we can spawn thousands of organic communities rather than just one.

It's still very important that we continue to reach out and continue to build our own core Bitmark community. We need more people participating on all levels. Development, design, any value anyone can provide is greatly appreciated. Even just being interested and following the project is valuable. But the core cryptocurrency enthusiasts that surround us are not going to be what defines Bitmark. That will be up to the people who see the value in it and adopt it. People will define the use of Marks in anyway they see fit. Payment, reputation, tipping, content filtering, anything you can imagine. Marking can be used in a infinite amount of ways. It solves lots of problems and breaks down barriers that exist on the web today. People don't have to be into Bitcoin, or be an altcoin trader to use Marks on their favorite website. But the door will be open to them if they decide they are interested and want to learn more.

So if you're new to Project Bitmark, or you've been here from the start and wonder if adoption really is the most important thing a currency should focus on, the proof is there with Bitcoin. Bitcoin has yet to have a real competitor when it comes to competing against it as a currency. Every time a new store takes Bitcoin, that's a new store that now has the technology in place to accept Bitmark as well. And we can find out what their problems are and solve them directly with Bitmark. Give them another alternative and tailor our value proposition to them. Bitcoin is clearing the path and making it easier for us. We're in a very good position to take advantage of that.

 

A. Marha

Bitmark Community Manager

 

Project Bitmark is 100% community supported through donations. No IPO, no premine, no instamine, nothing unfair. Just a bunch of people who want to make a useful currency. Come join us on Github, IRC, or our Bitcointalk thread:

https://github.com/project-bitmark

http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=bitmark

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=660544

No one interested in discussing adoption or lack there of? :P

Does anyone here believe that crypto currencies should focus on people using them in their day to day lives at all?

I ve read the article on bitmarknews 1 or 2 days ago . Thumbs up!

I agree that crypto currencies should focus on people using them in their day to day lives, but in order to do this I feel it needs:

1. Be easy to use
2. Secure
3. Transactions need to be instant (6 sec's or less) and this has to be natively built-in, no third party stuff.
3. Mobile, needs to be mobile, use it on phones and tablets.
4. Bloat free, a user shouldn't have to wait hrs to sync with chain.
5. Price stability, no big swings let we have seen with BTC.
That's what it will take for your co-worker, neighbour, spouse to use it.

Project Bitmark's 'Marking' initnisitive mentioned in the article should cover 1-4. Although 2 is not guaranteed but since it's meant for mircotransactions and microtrust it should be less of an issue and a lot of thought is currently being put in regarding how to maximize security on all fronts.

Number 5 is a tricky one since it's not really possible to control the market. I think time, volume, and market cap are the only things that can really calm the volatility inherent in these type of assets.

I want to know about other projects that are attempting to tackle these issues.

Is there anything in Bitcoin being developed? Circle perhaps? Anything else?

This most certainly needs a bump :)

There are several phases when it come to adoption.

It needs the support of developers, miners and geek first before it ever get to the average consumer. And this part of the process usually take longer than 6 months.

And coin that passes this phase such as litecoin and dogecoin doesn't automatically mean the merchant and consumer will use it.

At this point, only bitcoin still reign supreme and the rest of altcoins should still considered pump and dump.

That's what they are doing. There is some attention paid to Pow/PoS because that's what the security is founded upon, and it matters, but far more attention is paid to user-visible features.

You only mentioned one: anonymity. Well, anonymity and privacy are important, especially for coins that re-use addresses. Features like Nxt's asset exchange, digital goods store, arbitrary messaging: these are all new ways to use the coin, so they are exactly what Peter was asking for.

Except they aren't in Bitcoin, because Bitcoin development is moribund. Second generation coins like Nxt are designed to be extensible, to have new user-visible features added. That's another way in which core architecture matters.

It's important, but often overlooked. Too much focus is on adoption by investors, rather than adoption by users.

I am really new to the cryptocurrency world. It seems to me quite funny that new altcoins are appreciated for the method of their mining. It is like to debate if a new fiat currency can be printed on the ink jet or laser jet... And pumping and dumping at the exchanges is another crazy thing.

So, I agree 100% cryptocurrencies must focus on their usability for everydaylife. On the other hand I am not able to understand the concept of Bitmark (I read this http://bitcoinbarbie.com/project-bitmark/ and I am confused). Is there any explanation of this idea for idiots like me? :-) Some example: I like some article on the web and I want to like or "mark" him somehow with Bitmark. What should I do and what is the sense of it for me, for the publisher of the article and for the cryptocurrencies?

YES! I've been looking to discuss the concept if adoption with someone who understands... This thread is exactly what I believe. Features can be so easily copied that adoption is everything. That's why I'm invested in aerocoin. They're number one focus is adoption. They copied anonsend and encrypted messenger to show the competency of the dev team (Which both function perfectly) BUT, their main focus is the development of AeroMe. It's a complete marketplace / has a payroll function / has an auction / has a loan service / has merchant services / this amazing concept of smart property. It's a complete system dedicated to one thing... Being adopted and used . It's doing what all these million dollar start ups are doing for bitcoin. Please read the white pages in my signature. I promise this isn't spam... I really believe that trying to be used by the main stream should be the goal of every alt, and that's exactly what aerocoin is doing. I'd love to discus this with you OP. I think adoption is absolutely everything.

AeroMe (complete marketplace) is slated to have a beta in two weeks. After the release they plan to market the fuck out of the concept to the masses, so the coin can get used. To me It will essentially function like an online store where you must buy coins to use the site, similar to gaming devices (like Xbox points). SO YOU WOULD HAVE EVERYDAY PEOPLE BUYIG AEROCOIN AND USING AEROCOIN. the holy grail of adoption!

Support by the developers is key, yes, I agree. And the miners must secure the network for everything to function. And having a community of 'geeks' to support the coin and provide assistance helps as well. 6 months seems like a reasonable time frame for all this to come together. Mainly the development and all the work that goes in to that, but also the establishment of a community and places to communicate like message boards and such.

I agree with you when you say getting large like Litecoin and Dogecoin did does not automatically lead to merchant and consumer adoption. That takes an approach focused on meeting the needs of both parties. I don't feel that Litecoin or Dogecoin made much progress in this regard. Dogecoin focused on building an insular community, and was successful at that. But that's not something that leads to widespread adoption. Litecoin focused on adoption the first year or two that it came out. But the communities' efforts seem to have faded and they have become complaisant, save for a couple of people(TheMage in particular).

But I also think that focusing on adoption from the start and not waiting for investors to 'pump' up the price is a better strategy. It takes a long time and a lot of work to create things that both merchants and consumers want to use. Most people seem to think that comes later, but I think people should be focusing on it from the start.

From what I can tell very few currencies really focus on gaining widespread main stream adoption. But there are some that do we'll probably end up discussing which ones and what approaches they take in this thread as it develops.

I agree that anonymity is an important thing for many people, including myself. But for the average person who wants to use a currency online to order a book, or buy someone a beer by tipping their artwork that they just viewed on their website, anonymity is less important.

Yes, it's very difficult now for Bitcoin to add on new features and push any new development initiatives with the political situation that exists. That's why it's such a great time to be focused on building a competing currency that can rival if not overtake Bitcoin in adoption.

I completely agree, bitcoin is too big to change, but alts have the opportunity to add great features.

AeroMe sounds interesting. Reading the whitepaper in your sig now.

Honestly... What it is is marketable. And not just to the alt market. You can compete with bitcoin right away with AeroMe. You don't need much of a market share to get the coin to 10 bucks. It's currently trading for 1 penny right now...It has the functionality to allow easy use right away, and the marketing team just announced a sooner release date. It won't need speculation I can get regular people to buy and use it myself.

Adoption is definitely the most important thing, but part of the reason people focuss on the novel technological features is because they think that these new features will be what drives adoption of the coin.

Personally I like coins which have a purpose other than as a currency, whether that's asset exchanges, decentralized storage and other apps, smart contracts etc - because I think there is more reason for people to use these things than to use something which is meant purely as a form of money, because they offer novel advantages which people can't get elsewhere.

This anon tech is bullshit. It's an arms race, and it doesn't appeal to anyone but the paranoid. What's more marketable "hey we've got the most anonymous coin ever, no one will ever know what you're buying" OR "we have a complete market place WITH merchant services WITH auctions WITH loan services WITH payroll options WITH smart property WITH a decentralized exchange And oh yea, all the transactions can be anonymous" . Aerocoin is doing the latter. It's trying to get used. AeroMe.

Read the white paper in my signature. No spam. Not pushing you to buy. I just think Aerocoin is exactly what you're interested in. Marketable coin. The forum and alt lovers push anon tech because it's nerd Savvy, but most regular people don't care much.

OP have a look at Guldencoin - NLG and PM me about what you think.

https://timeline.guldencoin.com/

Warning: TL;DR...

Hi Este,

I am glad that you started this conversation, as I feel it is an important one to be had. I believe that most people in the larger crypto currency community (Bitcoin/Litecoin/??) think like you do in regards to the importance of marketing to attract new users, and pushing for merchant adoption. While I do not disagree that those things help increase the utility of their respective crypto currencies, I see things differently.

This was one of the main reasons why I left the Litecoin community and no longer support it. The Litecoin community and I largely disagreed on this principle, as they mainly want to focus on marketing rather than innovation and improving crypto currencies on a developmental level and in an innovative manner. Basically, they are content blindly following anything that Bitcoin implements with the few developers they have, and the rest of the community is dead set on marketing and merchant adoption as the path to success for Litecoin. I think there are several problems with this line of thinking, and I will try to explain why.

Alternative crypto currencies are supposed to be the testing grounds for improvements upon existing crypto currencies and new features. If they are not doing either of these things, then I do not see the point of their existence and it screams of a get rich quick scheme. Any crypto currency that does neither of these things I consider to be a "pump and dump" and/or "scam coin."

Marketing and merchant adoption are important, but marketing and merchant adoption coupled with no innovation and development is akin to betting that people are sheeple. In Litecoin's case, they are betting that people will look past the lack of innovation and the fact it is pretty much a copy and paste coin. While I do not disagree that the vast majority of people in the world are sheeple in regards to problems with trusted third parties and FIAT, it is not these people that are adopting crypto currencies at this point in time. The sheeple are somewhat ignorant to the extreme need of crypto currencies and decentralized technologies. These people will come eventually when crypto currencies have already blown up, and are a vast improvement over the current financial system. It will happen naturally, not by some marketing scheme with an underlying code base that was copied off of some other crypto currency.

It is the free-thinkers (skeptics/non sheeple) that are in the process of adopting crypto currencies and decentralized technologies. These are the same people that will be doing the marketing and pushing merchant adoption. If the free-thinkers can look past your crypto currency’s marketing strategies and see that the underlying crypto currency is mainly a “pump and dump” and/or “scam coin” with no innovation or improvements over another larger already existing crypto currency, then how can they be expected to support it? How can they be expected to help with marketing and pushing merchant adoption, when they don’t believe in the underlying technology themselves?

I believe there are only two answers to that question in regards to alternative crypto currencies. The first being that the supporters of the alternative crypto currency are sheeple themselves, and the second being that the supporters of that crypto currency are only focused on one thing and that is making a profit by "pumping and dumping" at the expense of sheeple. Both answers to this question make me completely and utterly sick, and I do not think that Satoshi would approve either.

After much analysis and reading user’s opinions and thoughts in such crypto currency communities over the years, I have come to the conclusion that most of their community at this point in time falls under the latter answer to that question, which makes me even sicker when thinking about it. Crypto currencies are still in the early adopter phase. As I said earlier, it is mostly the free-thinkers that are adopting crypto currencies and decentralized technologies at this point in time, and I find it highly unlikely that the majority of these early adopters are sheeple. It is utterly shameful people are praying on sheeple for their own financial gain, and relying on “the greater fool theory” to fatten their wallets.

Again, this is why I left the Litecoin community. I realized that it is an either/or situation, and I was completely disgusted by it. Either I was surrounded by sheeple, or I was surrounded by cut throat free-thinkers preying on sheeple by the use of the “greater fool theory,” and either way I decided I wanted no part in it. There was an “ah ha” moment in which I decided Litecoin needed to be innovative and really focus on improving crypto currencies on a technical and developmental level, or the sad reality is that's just how it’s going to be and how it will always be as long as they continue down the same path.

I am a big believer in an altered quote from a corny 90s movie named “The Field of Dreams” in regards to crypto currency adoption, “if you build it they will come.” If you stop and think about it for a second, this is exactly what Satoshi did with Bitcoin, and look at how far Bitcoin has come today. If a crypto currency is innovative enough and a vast improvement over prior crypto currencies, the users and merchants will come eventually. Now and in the near term future, as a crypto currency community… the free-thinkers and early adopters… we should mostly focus on improving crypto currencies the best way possible through innovation and development.

Sadly, I think Bitcoin and Litecoin have mainly gotten off the path that Satoshi paved which was focused on innovation and development, and adoption happening naturally instead of forced upon people. A large part of their community has trouble seeing that both of these crypto currencies are not perfect and have flaws. Try bringing up the flaws of Bitcoin in the General Discussion sub forum and see the kind of hostility and ignorance you are met with. This kind of group think is poison, and it affects the improvement of crypto currencies on an innovative and developmental level, and will only slow down the improvement of crypto currencies. They are not in a large way focusing on implementing new features, improving existing features, and openly talking about flaws of their respective crypto currency.

Doubly sadly, I think most of this group thinking stems from greed. They do not want to talk about the flaws of Bitcoin/Litecoin, and they brush everything off as FUD or “scam coins gonna scam coin.” When in reality they are the ones that are doing the scamming, as they are so worried about fattening their pockets, that they stifle innovation and development. In general, they are so worried that if someone reads a genuine concern about a flaw or short coming about Bitcoin/Litecoin and believes it, that that someone will not invest in the crypto currency they have invested in. This affects the size to which their pockets can fatten, they do not like this one bit, and they make every attempt to shut it down and label it as FUD.

In summary, marketing and pushing for merchant adoption is important, but it is equally important to not succumb to greed and ignorance and to push the crypto currency and/or decentralized technology movement forward through innovation and development. Don’t take this as an attack against Bitmark. I have read what you guys are doing and I realize that you guys are being innovative, and truly making an effort to improve crypto currencies as they are today. I applaud crypto currencies like this for paving the path to the future of crypto currencies, a path that Satoshi started and a path that the larger crypto currency community seems to be wandering off of. Once that path is filled with great new useful features and vast improvements over old crypto currency features, the general public will flock to that path once they realize it is so much better than the government built overgrown bumpy pebble path they have been travelling down their entire lives.

That post is just too big for the average user.  :P
Well the focus on adoption should be primarily with Bitcoin, not for altcoins. Do you think that a coin like Doge could succeed if the community focused primarly on adoption?
Wouldn't it be the same for any copycat coin then? For the altcoins it's the technical aspect that matters I believe, without it they will not succeed.
I'm surprised that litecoin is holding up but it might just do that for a little longer.

I came up with a litmus test use case this week:

Can I use it to put gas in my car?

If not, your "currency" is going to have limited use in the real world.

Nothing against AeroMe or Nxt or any other coin, but if I have to come to your exchange and buy what's there, that isn't life-changing utility.  It's cool, and, full disclosure, I do own some Nxt.  But it's more like a gift card than currency.  

I can use bitcoin to buy a computer, or maybe book some travel.  But these are not things that I do every day or every week.  I buy gas fairly often and I'd LOVE to use BTC or some alt for it.  Why?  BECAUSE IT MAKES SENSE.  I've done consulting work with c-stores and I can tell you that their margins for gas are terrible.  They also have to pay credit card processing fees on most purchases.  With BTC, they could save money and pass it along.  (CoinFueled is also like a gift card and the merchant ain't gonna give a discount to get you to use it.)

It could be done.  It wouldn't be easy.  It would certainly require merchant adoption, but it would save merchants money in the long run.  At least, it would IF adoption was wide enough.  Chicken and egg question, really.  Why would they do it if nobody is going to use it?  

Innovation is clearly important (DARPANET => worldwide web), but innovation without adoption is pretty empty.  

I apologize, that post was quite long, but I think everything said was necessary to get my point across.

Exactly- Bitcoin already has a major focus on both merchant and new user adoption. This goes along with my "if you build it they will come theory," but I believe that there is a trickle down effect in Bitcoin's adoption that other alternative crypto currencies are rewarded from. After learning about Bitcoin, I think they will mostly realize that it is not perfect and how the community largely stifles innovation on the basis that there is nothing that needs to be changed. Once they come to this realization, the innovative alternative crypto currencies will benefit largely from this realization.

For the record, no I do not think a coin like Dogecoin can survive if they are primarily focused on adoption. However, I'm not sure this is the case for them, as they seem like open minded free thinkers themselves. They have been largely supportive of Dogeparty, which is focused on innovating on top of the larger crypto currency model, so I do not think they are going away anytime soon. Although it started off as a meme, they are expanding beyond that, which is something that a coin like Litecoin has failed to do.

I think all "copy cat" or "copy and paste" coins are destined to fail eventually. Even the innovative ones, if they don't stay vigilant in innovating and improving their original innovation will fall by the wayside. It is a very competitive market and those that aren't focused on innovating and improving their crypto currency will die a slow death.

If Satoshi thought like this, would Bitcoin and crypto currencies be as ground breaking as they are today? He was focused on creating and improving upon his idea, and realized that adoption would come naturally if Bitcoin was a vast improvement over the current financial system and worked as described.

IMO adoption is the most important thing for cryptocurrency.
Without adoption It's just for pump/dump really useless.
We should adapt cryptocurrency in dailylife so It'll grow bigger.

Maybe most people disagree with me on this, I don't know. I admit often there are times I am prone to thinking outside of the box. I just think adoption will come naturally if your crypto currency is a vast improvement over Bitcoin and/or the current financial system, and it is not something that needs to be forced down people's throats as it will be met with skepticism and reluctance if done this way. I believe this kind of promotion is stifling the adoption of Bitcoin itself. The way people talk about it and try to force adoption onto people, it does kind of sound like a scam of some sort until people actually learn what Bitcoin is and how it works.

90% of the alt coins can't be used for anything just for a pump and dump. People won't adopt something that is just a copy of litecoin.

You're right actually if you ask me. Bitcoin has pretty much established itself here, there is no need for something that features no or minor improvements over it. People tend to think different. There was no need for LTC and for this reason it shall not gain much traction.
Even these so called 'crypto 2.0 coins' aren't enough. I do not see them being able to gain a wider adoption as they are mostly premined/used to get money out of your pockets.

I don't think adoption changes anything for altcoins. All they need is promo and hype.

I am absolutely sure that the world needs innovators.  The world needs people who will be single-minded and focused on improvements and innovation.  I'm glad that there are people who will focus on these things.

But BTC has already achieved a certain level of adoption.  In order for crypto to take the next steps, whatever they might be, adoption is actually important.  You can have the best technology sitting on a shelf and if that's where it stays, it doesn't change the world.

In other words, we need BOTH creative innovators AND adopters in order to reach the highest heights.

I think I partly agree with you here after thinking it over a while longer. I may of come across as very anti-marketing in that post, but I didn't mean it quite that way. Mainly my problem is not necessarily with the marketing of crypto currencies, it is with the marketing of crypto currencies that are not innovating and improving upon Bitcoin. I liken the marketing of "copy and paste" coins to scamming via the greater fool theory.

As long as your crypto currency is innovative, is in the process of innovating, and as long as you continue to do this, then I don't really see any problem with marketing yourselves. Just don't try to shove it down people's throats, as then it is met with skepticism and reluctance, as it will seem like some sort of scam at first glance until they make the effort to learn what your crypto currency is all about.

Yes, I agree with you about Litecoin. Very few people in Litecoin seem to want to progress and integrate things that will improve usage. Even now Litecoin is still on Bitcoin's 0.8.x version, and has been for a long time with no signs of any desire to upgrade it. I have no idea why there is such little enthusiasm in that community for improvement.

I don't think marketing itself is a good path to adoption. I think coming up with new and innovative ways to make crypto easier to use and more convenient is what matters most for average people. The main goal of Bitmark is to provide innovations and improvements on how people can use crypto in their lives as a daily use currency. In a lot of cases it's not very convenient, or it's hard to use. Instead of marketing things that already exist in a new package(Bitcoin, Litecoin) I think it's better to take them and improve upon then and provide new value on top of what they already are by developing new ways they can be used.

The biggest question is what innovations actually provide value, and to whom? Anonymity definitely provides value to a certain part of the population who demands anonymous transactions. Bitshares is aiming at providing value to business. Lots of different currencies are innovating in many different ways, and that's great. For us we want to see which innovations will provide value in a daily use currency, and once they are proven stable and useful, integrate them in to Bitmark. Right now there are many implementations of PoS and anonymity, but which one is going to turn out to be the best? And which one will go through rigorous testing? Bitcoin development is deadlocked, and Litecoin seemingly has no desire to ever change anything. So surprisingly there are very few actual alternative currencies that are attempting to improve on the traditional formula of creating an actual currency that people can use on a daily basis.

People are developing all kinds of new and exciting technologies, and they get rewarded for it through people speculating on their currency. But in the long term without adoption it's likely their market share will erode. Especially considering the open source nature of all these technologies and the fact that other forward thinking projects can implement technology that they feel will benefit them. Imagine if there was a schism in Bitcoin and new a development team took over that was free of petty politics and had a clear agenda of improving Bitcoin. A year from now they could implement all of these innovations and drastically improve Bitcoin, but as we know, that's almost certainly not going to happen. Thus we are left with a big hole in the market for someone to come along and take the best of both worlds, focus on adoption and adopting proven innovations.

The general crypto scene is disgusting, I agree. How many projects actually focus on building something that intends to be a long term project that provides real value? Not many. Some definitely, but only a handful out of hundreds, if not thousands. I think in the short term innovators are rewarded for their innovations by the market, but in the long term I suspect it will take more than that to sustain a market cap. The demand has to be there to keep up with the inflation. Something like a good anonymous currency might have enough utility in itself to sustain demand for a long time. There is lots of utility to anonymous transactions. But one example of an impressive innovation that I feel has little chance of growing is the miniblockchain tech from Cryptonite(XCN). Unless they either continue to innovate, or focus on creating new ways for people to use the currency(like Marking or something similar) I doubt they will see sustained growth even though they've developed novel tech.

I think when Litecoin came out back in 2011 I think it was fair to say we needed a fair Bitcoin alternative on a different PoW algorithm in case something happened to Bitcoin. At the time we were plagued by scamcoins like Solidcoin and Tenebrix. There really was no alternative at that point. So Litecoin was lucky in the sense that it was in the right place at the right time.

Overtime the Litecoin community degraded to the point that it's at today, but I think that three years ago it was reasonable to expect it to keep a marketshare of 2-5% of Bitcoin, just on the fact that there was no real alternative.

 You can use BTC to put gasoline into your car.  There's blogs of people traveling across the United States and Europe with just BTC, using intermediary services to purchase things when BTC itself is not accepted.

Expecting to be able to do that on the day a new currency is launched is unrealistic. Adoption takes time. It goes in stages. Even Bitcoin is still in the early stages, after 5 years.

I'm a fan of Nxt. I think the biggest single thing they could do to help adoption is reduce the fees. They can't do it, because the technology isn't there. So they are working on the technology, and they'll probably have it done by Christmas. It's a race, not a sprint.

Marking is the first major adoption initiative of Bitmark. What you will be able to do is use marks(0.001 BTM) in different ways, here are some examples:

• Using marks to mark posts you like on a message board. The posts that have more marks are more visible. Think karma on Reddit, but customization for any particular community who integrates Marking. People who post good content and contribute can be rewarded with currency and there is less incentive to mark content is merely average. Posts that are bad or considered spam could be marked that way, and if enough people mark it as spam as well or when a moderator checks it, the post could be deleted and people would receive their marks back and possibly a small incentive reward from the site. You risk your own value to keep it honest.
• Reading an article on a blog, you'll be able to tip the author in marks if you wish. It will be an easy way to tip in general, but that's probably the most basic usage of marking.
• A website that integrates marking could raise money for a charity by allocating a percentage of all marks used on the site for donations to their charity of choice.
• Micro-transactions on a website that integrates marking will be simple and easy. Buy digital media, order a t-shirt. Play a game that requires many small transactions worth pennies that would be eaten up by transaction fees otherwise.
• You'll eventually be able to mark things like restaurants which in effect acts as a review, or their reputation. It will be a simple and impartial way for people to share their opinions.
• Building on that last point, in general eventually you should be able to mark almost anything by marking it's GPS coordinates. That could be used for much more than just restaurant reviews. There's a lot of possibility there.
  
  

There's lots more ways marking can be used, and there's still more ways that people will figure out over time. It's something that's going to grow over the next few years. What makes it special is the fact that marks will be universal. You'll be able to transfer them between websites that have adopted marking, you'll also be able to instantly convert them back in to Bitmark by getting them back on the blockchain if you wanted to. There's also the possibility of sidechaining the marking system with the Bitmark blockchain, which will be evaluated as time goes on. And if it's deemed to be benefiical or necessary at a later date, it will be integrated. It's one of the things that need to be decided over time.

https://github.com/project-bitmark/marking/wiki is an overview of the concept that's still in development. There's still a lot of documentation that needs to be written as development takes shape.

The big thing is that there will be a lot of opportunity for people to either integrate marking in to their existing business if it provides value to them(which to start with, would clearly benefit lots of different websites), and there will also be a lot of opportunity for people to be new business that take advantage of marking. Think web 3.0, the semantic web. By interacting with meaningful tokens that actually have value(unlike facebook 'likes') much more meaning can be gleaned about what users actually like and how they can interact on the web with the services they use. It's not about tracking people all over the web, it's about improving the services people have already decided to use.

I was not around this back in '11, but I've read up what happened in the past. Indeed back in the past there was a need for a second solution and Litecoin was enough. Now there isn't such a huge need for more currencies yet they keep surfacing. It's good that some did, because LTC obviously isn't improving much if not at all. If all coins focused on adoption this would create an even bigger mess. You would see random coins being accepted at random places. If the technical features behind the coin have proven themselves enough, adoption will come with time.
But Bitcoin will always stay the kind of adoption.

Bitcoin has a lot of good companies like Bitpay and Coinbase pushing for adoption. But they are on their own in the sense that it's unlikely Bitcoin development is going to make any special modifications to the protocol like faster transactions or allowing sidechains. The fact that no one is really thinking about innovative ways to increase adoption outside of Bitcoin and developing the technology to do so means that there is room for a competitor. There are still lots of people in this world who know nothing about Bitcoin, but imagine if instead of Bitcoin, their first interaction with cryptocurrency was easy to use and actually provided them value over their normal ways of transaction. And what if it wasn't Bitcoin, but another currency that was directly focused on this type of person and building infrastructure that made crypto easier to use for regular people. Seems like there is still a huge market out there for whoever steps up.

Our internal market, the one were all in now, is obviously over-saturated. But there's still a blue ocean of people who can benefit from this new technology. Only if it's presented well enough that they would actually want to use it though. It has to provide value for them.

Another thing regarding Litecoin specifically:

Yes, at one point Litecoin was focused on adoption quite a bit. And you would see lots of new places accepting LTC.

Imagine that Litecoin kept up with it's adoption efforts and had strong active development pushing forward by adapting useful technologies and creating infrastructure that made it easier to use than Bitcoin? It could have been much bigger than it ever was.

Imagine it was demonstrably easier to use than Bitcoin. People would have been recommending people start out with Litecoin. It's already faster. And in this situation you would probably have Bitcoin being the one doing the copying. What would that say about Litecoin, and how much credit would Litecoin gain from that? It could have happened. But it didn't and now it's time for others to try to make it happen.

Your litmus test is a great milestone to achieve. I especially appreciate you comparison of Darpanet -> World Wide Web. The first was innovation driving adoption, the second was adoption driving innovation. I firmly believe that it is now time for adoption to drive innovation where currency is concerned.


CoinHoarder, an excellent post and I agree with it in entirety. It actually prompted me to write this article (http://bitmarknews.com/2014/08/25/bitmarks-future-the-power-of-the-api/) today, I would appreciate your feedback.

Your quoted quotation reminded me of this


:)

I think there is a big difference in forcing adoption down peoples throats and giving them something that actually provides value. If you look at Bitcoin like you say, it's useful for some people right now, but there are still a lot of people for whom the use cases don't really line up. And the Bitcoin community doesn't seem particularly interested in improving on that. Some people are, sure. But for the most part a lot of people think Bitcoin is perfect the way it is. I agree with your points here.

I think if you create something that people actually want to use, there's not much 'marketing' that needs to be done. If it just works, then it sells itself. Give people an actual reason to use it.

I think we probably agree a lot more than we disagree!

You CAN use BTC to put gas in your car, true, but it's those intermediary services that take away the native benefits of BTC.  If I use a QORA card or a CoinFueled card, I'm not actually utilizing BTC's advantage of reduced transaction costs compared to credit card processing.  I can't go from BTC wallet-to-gas-tank, which would be ENORMOUS and powerful. 

You actually re-stated it really, really, really well....far better point than the one I clumsily tried to make.

Dammit, I hate it when developers aren't either clueless about communication or just complete jackasses.  Now I'm going to have to do a bunch of reading on Bitmark!

It could be suggested that a trust based intermediary processor will be required in order to reduce transaction latency. When a third party is put in to the mix they handle instant transfers from account balance to account balance, and it opens the door to competing services with lower fees. If using blockchain only, there is the microtransaction problem, the safety problems of being under non trusted network control, and confirmation times to deal with. Imagine if putting gas in your car required a 6 hours confirmation because a block wasn't found quickly?

Perhaps worth discussion.


LOL, yes there is a bunch of reading to do, much has been written.

This should get you started: Generic Summary (https://github.com/project-bitmark/bitmark/wiki/Generic-Summary), Approach to Innovation (http://bitmarknews.com/2014/08/25/bitmarks-future-the-power-of-the-api/), Marking (big read) (https://github.com/project-bitmark/marking/wiki/), Thread with links out to lots of information (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=660544.0)

Well this is all if/could have/should have. Indeed Litecoin could have gotten much further than it did right now, but well what can you do about it (now).
Sadly the development behind Litecoin was lacking and it's too late now I assume even if things were to change.
I do however doubt that any of these 'newer' coins are going to replace Bitcoin/capture such a market cap.

Yes, you have done a very good job of concisely identifying one of the fundamental sets of choices with crypto in general.  The possibility exists that we could cut a LOT of fat out of the system by eliminating current fees.  I remember reading (and sorry, I can't source it) that the CEO of Overstock said that they save 8% when people use BTC.  Works fine for a purchase online, but the gas pump is a different world.  Six hours to confirm just doesn't work in that situation. 

Thanks for the link!  I have to guess that Bitmark might offer a solution?  I hope so! 

Proof that LTC ever focused on adoption?  This is the first I ever heard about it.

The way I heard about LTC was when people were spamming about how you should buy LTC (during the BTC boom) on large internet forums.  Were these paid advertising shills or just people pumping LTC after BTC itself exploded in value?

Really the only alternate coin which ever succeeded in any adoption was Doge and that was like cryptos for newbies, due to the mechanics, rampant inflation and then the Doge-billionaires who dumped the coin to death.

Cryptographic currency offers multiple benefits but also has limitations. For example we can store and manage our own money, send unlimited amounts to anybody without any barriers, and with minimal fees, often large transactions are faster than legacy systems. Conversely it is relatively clunky and slow for every day transactions, it cannot be sped up, and the interfaces for usage with legacy wide spread systems do not exist.

We have choices to make, do we try to come up with new things and replace what exists, or do we try hard to become part of what exists recognising that it is not an omnipotent solution to everything money related?

Within Bitmark we have named a concept micro-trust (https://github.com/project-bitmark/bitmark/wiki/Microtransactions-and-Microtrust). The game provider Steam is a concrete example, we deposit funds through some methods then perform purchases instantly. Prepaid debit cards, credit cards, paypal, skrill, multiple services and many stores, giftcards and loadable credit, all of these things are examples of micro trust. The important thing to note is that we do not trust these services and companies with all of our money, only small amounts for whatever purpose we need. Micro trust for micro transactions.

We consider that the blockchain is great to store larger amounts, and to transfer funds between services. The latter point is where it can really shine.

To be usable however, for every transactions, we must become part of what exists. We will get nowhere fast if we try to get a Gas company, a gas franchise, or even a franchisee to accept our highly latent systems which require them to jump through hoops and change their infrastructure.

Back to your litmus test, consider a reloadable debit card that you could fill with daily use money from time to time quickly by depositing crypto. It's a simple solution enabled by the presence of just one service provider, made optimal by the presence of many.

As for fees, because crypto is entirely digital and isn't integrated in with heavy fee taking legacy systems, new lean startups can be created, or older companies can adopt and save money behind the scenes. 0.25% to an exchange for the conversion, and 0.75% on deposits to us to pay for the service, on currencies which change 10x that in a day and 100x that in a year, is a minor concession to make.

Where Bitmark and Marking come in, is that we enable the flow of money between people for the smallest of every day things, you can write a post or share something online and get reputation+money for it. Now imagine if the money you deposited to your daily use card, had been earned by two forum posts, a commit of some code, and a funny video shared on line? Does that not change the way money flows and the way we think of things quite a lot?

An additional point, is that we suggest crypto should be hidden through several layers of abstraction, if you can transfer money by clicking a button on a website, swap between services by linking accounts, and fill a debit card by hitting 'deposit' on-line or in an app, then why not? Blockchain and clients and daemons all still exist, they just become optional usage parts rather than required. It's perfectly feasible for people to only want to keep 25% of their weekly loose change in crypto and use it by clicking buttons, rather than 100% of their lifes savings stored in multi-secured extravagant cold storage.

None of this is exact or well defined or anything of the sort, but if you can follow the principles, and indeed agree it has some merit, then please do join in with ideas and discussion to make them reality.

Ah hell.  You really make a LOT of sense.  I'm impressed by your thoughts and also by the way you have presented them.

But it's also a teeny weeny bit depressing, too.  I think that you're probably absolutely correct that QuikTrip is not likely to accept the latency of the blockchain with its multiple confirmations--and, yes, you're right that it would involve a massive infrastructure change.  The easiest way for me to envision QuikTrip getting involved would be through some new start-up company that provides turnkey gas pumps with BTC (or other crypto) functionality built right in, as well as some service like BitPay that allows them to convert receipts to fiat upon arrival.  Even that doesn't overcome latency, though, and it would force QuikTrip to spend a good chunk of money on a capital improvement that people might or might not use.

Because BTC is the crypto closest to significant adoption (I'm assuming, I realize, based on Dell, NewEgg, Overstock, Expedia, etc...) I tend to think about use cases in BTC terms.  And you're right...there are limitations there.  I totally appreciate the concept of sidechain transactions that you mentioned in the linked article.  If I'm spending $3000 on a new alienware laptop, maybe that transaction hits the blockchain.  If I'm spending $14 on a pizza, maybe it doesn't, or at least it doesn't right away.  

The only place you lost me a little bit was with the concept of rewarding funny videos or forum posts.  I mean, I'm not AGAINST it, but I like to think some human interactions aren't really done for transactional value.  I'd feel really strange about somebody "marking" one of my youtube videos (instead of just liking) if that meant a financial gain for me.  I'd almost hate to reduce it to that.

But I can see some areas where that would be fairly awesome...probably gaming, which I am not involved in.

DEFINITELY, DEFINITELY think the concepts are worth discussion and I look forward to learning more!  I may have to mark you by buying some BTM!  The whole discussion makes me realize that cryptos might be a little farther away from adoption than I was thinking they were.  But I'm happy to be exposed to these concepts, as a relative newcomer.

Hmm, I don't have any proof other than just seeing it first hand since 2011.

CoinHorder here in the thread was a Litecoin supporter who's mentioned in his post how he advised against Litecoin focusing on adoption only and ignoring any technical advanced.

Litecoin's focus on adoption seems to have gradually faded once the market cap ballooned enough that people thought that was sufficient reason for Litecoin to continue.

Consolidation, just wanted you to know that I bought some BTM simply because I appreciated your comments in this thread so much.

Wish I had bought a lot more. Holy shit...quite a price explosion lately! Getting some run on the Polo trollbox, too. Good work!

Man...why didn't I buy more???

If you see BTM as an investment and want to later sell it for BTC then maybe you should have bought more, and maybe you will come back in 1 year and say why didn't I buy more then too!

If you see marking as the future of money, then you probably have thousands or maybe even millions of marks, so you have enough marks to last you a life time already. Why worry? you can earn more just by doing things you enjoy and being marked.

I see it as this last thing, I have enough already, I can earn more. We even decided that the Bitmark Foundation could keep only 5000 as a reserve, to give to projects and charities in the future. It will be marked for the good work it does, so we don't need to raise funds any more.

I definitely have some more reading and research to do.  Not sure exactly how I see it just yet, but again, your point is well made.

Read both of the top posts here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=660544.1440 - it should be enough.

Sometimes I think I'm reasonably intelligent.  Other times I feel really slow on the uptake.  This is one of those times I feel a little slow.  I've read about it several times and I think it's finally starting to sink in a little bit.  Mind kinda blown a little...

We really need to get users involved and the investments will then start to really pour in.

The user part happens naturally, it is a viral by nature system. I key concern is not releasing too early, to gain 25k users and lose them because we had not tested would not be good.

As for investments, none are needed, a little donation always helps though. The project solves the funding problem, for itself too.