Here's a variation to consider--might be an easier way to start. Have a form on the Devtome or related to the Devtome where people can submit what it is they most want to read. It could be a type of fiction story, an answer to a burning question, or anything, really, as long as the request is specific. For example, instead of saying: "I like to read fiction," they should say "I'd like to read a thriller in which a hostile government attempts to destroy a promising cryptocoin by adding a malicious bug to automatic software updates which systematically deletes people's wallets and a band of scrappy computer hacks saves the day." BTW, my "example" is referencing this thread ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=237284.0) in case anyone is curious as to how I came up with it  Submissions could be posted (following some screening process) and Devtome writers could choose to take on those subjects. Rather than having the one who submitted the request put up a bounty, just have those stories count double or something. So if I wrote a 30,000 word short novel covering the above topic, then rather than earning 30 shares I'd earn 60, just because I wrote something that someone else said they wanted to read. Any multiplier could work; I just use 2 as an example. I'd still earn 1 share for every thousand words I wrote that was just my own choice of content. If there are enough people submitting requests, they could probably be categorized and aggregated and maybe increased rewards given for people writing content which has been requested multiple times. Along with that, you would need a systematic way to keep track of people's emails (something you'd want to do anyway) and then sending them a message when their request has been fulfilled. Along with that, you could build in a small reward system for those users (not writers but people who request specific types of content to read) who then share the content written for them with their friends--maybe some small number of devcoins for each view a unique link to their requested article brings. Maybe the writer could also earn some portion of referrals as well? I'm not a computer person, so I'm not sure how feasible the above idea is, nor how easy it would be to exploit. I'm assuming the computer people can figure that out and come up with appropriate countermeasures if this is something that should move forward. An obvious issue that comes to mind is that someone who submits a request for content cannot be the same person as the writer who fulfills the request. Also, submissions themselves would have to be vetted as being sent by real, unique people (no repeats). From a writer perspective, a Devtome writer should be able to "reserve" a request and have a limited and reasonable time in which that writer has exclusive right to answer the request (although in the above example, there's probably no good reason there couldn't be five or ten thrillers written that fulfill it, and that would be fine as long as each writer was adequately compensated). I personally would want to avoid the scenario where I'm in competition with other writers to produce the "best" answer and it's a winner take all reward, which is why I suggest having a limited time where if you accept a request it's all yours. But if you sit on it beyond that time, then it goes back into the pool and another writer can snag it. Anyway, some ideas to go along with your original idea. And I say, this is getting long enough that I should just turn it into a Devtome article If others add their thoughts, maybe I will put together an article that compiles them all or something (it can be difficult to keep information organized in these threads if they get long enough...). Google has a cool feature which seems to use regular expressions, where you type into the bar and it automatically and instantly shows you results. I think that kind of search functionary would solve any problem with the interface, just ask your question. Hashtags are nice too. As far as competition goes, I think competition for the best solution produces the best solutions. So that would be a good thing for somethings. There could be other sites which aren't as competition focused but my site uses the survival of the fittest algorithm to make the best solutions rise to the top. My idea is basically a knowledge distribution system where it taps into the brilliant minds of the Bitcoin community. Some of the smartest and most knowledgeable people on the planet are part of this community. Why not encourage knowledge sharing by economic incentive while also boosting the market cap for Devcoin, isn't that what Devcoin is all about? |
|
|
|
Its a nice idea but Rugatu's been slow to get going so it might take a while to get popular. The biggest issue I have with Q and A systems like that is the layout, wikepedia gets edited and re-edited to correctness (yes, I know, but its good for most info) whereas Q and A pages usually mean reading a lot of answers to get an overall picture.
Not sure how that could be improved, often answers use links to wiki articles so if the questions where well categorised then the top answer might work as the devtome article or section on that subject and further improved edits of that piece be awarded from the questions bounty. Just thinking out loud there, that would still be vulnerable to the same kind of crap as the Bitcoin wikipedia article.
I didn't know Rugatu existed but yeah that is exactly the sort of idea I'm thinking about. How can we do it? I don't have time to code it but if there is an open source solution or if a programmer bounty can be set up then lets do it. |
|
|
|
Also, I think you should probably update the info about DVB on Cryptostocks, because it's kind of difficult figuring out what you are actually investing on. Reading the actual DVB thread here sort of helps, but honestly, I'm still mostly clueless about DVB, and I'd like to invest in something that I understand.
I agree. I have bought a couple shares of DVB with my faucet earnings and as a way ro learn how the site works. But I am also unclear on what I am investing in. I would need to know much more before I would be willing to buy in any significant quantity. EDIT: ...but if someone just wants to make money, they are going to invest all their DVC into ASICMINER.  I am guessing this is the reason the DVC asicminer pt share is currently overvalued. That will likely continue to be the case until there are more DVC investment options. Review the idea I just posted and if it's good that is something to build Devcoin around and invest in. |
|
|
|
|
AskDevs:
An idea for a site to leverage cryptocurrencies. A business model. A better Devtome.
This is a site I would set up myself if I had both the time, resources and expertise. Since I do not, instead I'll give this idea to the community so that maybe a bounty or series of bounties can be set up to create this site for the benefit of both the community, and for Devcoin.
The idea is to create a question/answer site which leverages the knowledge of the crowd/community. The difference between this site and all the other similar ask sites is that this site will pay people for answers creating a market which both funds the site but also encourages people to share knowledge and give answers. Unlike Devtome where knowledge is shared but it's not always relevant to solving a particular problem, this would be relevant to solving particular problems. In this way quality would not go down and there would not be an issue with individuals spamming.
The mechanics of the site would work like this:
1) People ask a question to the site, pledging Devcoins as the bounty to whomever answers it.
2) Viewers will see the questions pop up and vote up the questions by adding to the bounty. Each vote will cost Devcoins.
3) People begin answering the questions, the best answer(s) collect the bounty. The person asking the question can set it so the top 5 best answers or the top 1 best answer etc. In the case of multiple parties giving good answers the bounty would be split between each proportionally.
If anyone can implement this idea then contact me and let me know, or maybe we can set up a bounty if we think the idea can work. I do think this would be better than Devtome is today. But please give this idea a thorough peer review and shoot it down if it wont work.
|
|
|
|
Any update?
The next iteration of the whitepaper is almost done. If all goes well after that we can open the crowdfund and get developers ready.  Are you in contact with Taco or working on the whitepaper as well? I believe the peer review phase is coming. Taco did mention he is working on the whitepaper and based on the time frame it would explain why he has been quiet. My guess is the whitepaper will be presented within 2 weeks and then peer reviewed. Then of course the crowd funding phase comes after that, then the development phase. Let us have faith in the integrity and work ethic of Tacotime. If he has not posted the whitepaper within 2 weeks then we should begin to worry. |
|
|
|
Is it possible to receive devcoins for translations into French, for example?
Not yet, primarily I think because there aren't enough people to be able to vet/edit any writings not in english. You can offer to translate from french to english, if anybody is interested in taking you up on it: http://devtome.com/doku.php?id=devtome_translatorsshame!!  it there's a lot of texts in English to translate .. and very few texts in other languages! Community devcoins be more open to the world. DVC not have much interest if it there's only English fluent spoken who can benefit. I do not think it is difficult to find volunteers to check texts in other languages. I volunteered for the French. Who do I contact to advance much about this? Let me make a clear and ardent point, translation is the best purpose for Devtome. American writers will not have a use for it after a few months if it continues at this rate but translators and individuals who speak many languages will. If it takes 100,000 words to produce 1 Bitcoin then in countries where 1 Bitcoin equals a lot, those 100,000 words are more likely to be produced. |
|
|
|
- More money is better than less money. I'm not going to turn down donations when people want to donate. (Though when asked, I often recommend that people not donate.) I'm not going to stop selling ads even though the forum probably has "enough" money. It's not bad for the forum to have extra money. It will be used on something useful at some point. If you don't like this, don't donate.
- More than half of the forum's money is from ads, not donations.
- During the school year, I am a full time student. I barely have time to administrate the forum.
- When I do have time, there are many interesting/important/fun things that compete for my attention. I don't spend all day working on the forum. I've certainly not been working full-time for 12 months on vaporware forum software...
I am still very interested in creating new forum software, and we probably now have enough money to do it. SMF works alright (definitely not perfectly), but there are two main problems with it that require more than just some modifications. Firstly, the coding style is generally insecure. It's very easy to introduce new security flaws, and it's likely that SMF has unknown security flaws. Secondly, modifications to SMF are somewhat difficult, and some types of modifications are so difficult that they will almost certainly never be done here. (Other forum software isn't significantly better, from what I've seen.)
There is unfortunately no magical machine which takes money and creates excellent software or hires a team of competent people. I'm not quite sure how best to turn the money into a good software product. I originally intended to give someone a bunch of money and have them handle the whole thing. I talked with dozens of people interested in doing this, but none of them made me totally confident. A while ago I decided that I will probably never be confident in any one person/company handling the entire project because I've thought about it much longer than they have (2 years), and I have many details about how it should work in my mind. So I probably need to get closer to the development process. My current plan is to write some detailed up-to-date specifications and do some of the high-level architectural work (DB tables, primarily) and then lead a team to do the rest.
I have a little more time now, but the forum software project is a somewhat low priority. I have several high-priority things to fix with the current software. If you want to help, I could use a very security-conscious PHP programmer to help me maintain/improve the current SMF installation.
I hoped you considered some of my ideas. I do think we need a completely redesigned forum designed for cryptocurrencies. SMF is not designed for making trades, or for tipping, or for microtransactions, all which could provide security and monetize the forum. Microtransactions would discourage spamming for instance. Lotteries could be built into threads for instance. Trades could be built into threads with escrow. There is a lot which would be possible with a forum which is designed to handle cryptocurrencies. My suggestion is you should hire some contractors who have world class skill and put them to work on building a new forum. If you get this right you'll probably become a millionaire from the new forum technology. You have thousands of Bitcoins to work with so why not a contest to see who can come up with the best new forum design and reward 1 Bitcoin to the winner, then take it from there? Or if you have the idea yourself why not just give us a white paper or specs and let us peer review it? If it has any weaknesses the community will certainly find it. Frankly, this forum software seems perfectly fine for the job it is doing right now It has strengths and weaknesses. For debate and conversation it's nice, but for anything business related or for cryptocurrencies it's not so great. People are having to use Google docs to trade and group buys aren't even efficiently handled. Why don't you use that CIYAMOpen site from the guy here (Ian Knowles) to have task based bounties Theymos? You could easily add any small features and fix bugs that way. There is plenty of money on the site for it.
There are a lot of big brains in this forum and it would be nice see some cooperation to bring a new forum to the table, especially if that can offer all the crypto kung fu, ratings, top security, and all. Descentralize the tasks, Theymos! I don't know how many hits this forum gets but it's big, big like MtGox is big. I think certain features would be in so much demand that people would pay for the development of the desired features. I know if you add trading functionality to this place it would be worth it to pay for it. When a new coin launches and people are mining it we should be able to have people buying and selling it on the forum, why not? But this would make the forum an exchange so I can understand the legal implications. |
|
|
|
Is there anywhere we can see how much shares are?
You just do the math. 180,000,000/(total shares)= the value of each share. looks like you'll need at least 10 shares to get 1 BTC. That would be 10,000 words for $100. It's still profitable but not nearly what it was. If you write 80,000 words you'll get something like 8 BTC. 0.1BTC for something that I didn't spend all too long on? Not bad, not bad. Definately not as profitable anymore, but still a profit, and I'm a quick typer. Yeah but in terms of quality, it's completely dead now. Anyone who wants to upload their whitepaper will probably still do it for $13 but I have a feeling in the next round it will be less than $5. |
|
|
|
|
In round 24 there were 1,277 receiver lines, so the average number of devcoins per share is 180,000,000 dvc / 1,277 = 140,955 dvc, at the prices of the time that was 13$.
|
|
|
|
Is there anywhere we can see how much shares are?
You just do the math. 180,000,000/(total shares)= the value of each share. looks like you'll need at least 10 shares to get 1 BTC. That would be 10,000 words for $100. It's still profitable but not nearly what it was. If you write 80,000 words you'll get something like 8 BTC. |
|
|
|
I'm interested in what happened in Africa in the 1990's and 2000's. In many parts there infrastructure is poor, and liable to being unmaintained, stolen, or destroyed by conflict. Many parts of Africa have good mobile phone networks, though, as they're relatively cheap to deploy and can be deployed in numbers to provide redundancy (or even just moved around on trucks). If you said to a villager in many parts of Africa that his mobile phone can generate $2 a day if it does Bitcoin, he'd probably offer his daughter to you.
I've had a couple more thoughts riffing on this idea over a glass of wine. Yes, it is after 5 where I am. Make the chips as cheap as possible, maybe even *pay* mobile phone makers to bundle them into handsets. Consider collaborating with other leading Bitcoin miners to fund development. Design goals are the best performance possible with low power. It will be designed to go into a cheap phone, so sleek design is not so important, i.e., the phone might be a "brick" with a larger battery. Great idea. The bitcoins on phone can be changed to credit automatically. A phne that makes its own free credit. In some places in Africa, cell phone minutes are actually used as a type of currency. Once someone figures out how to implement this idea (although I am skeptical until batteries can put out a lot more juice), OR trade bitcoins via SMS, I think we will have a MASSIVE market that opens up in Africa. Not just in Africa, the whole world really. Everyone uses cellphones and everyone wants free minutes. |
|
|
|
I'm interested in what happened in Africa in the 1990's and 2000's. In many parts there infrastructure is poor, and liable to being unmaintained, stolen, or destroyed by conflict. Many parts of Africa have good mobile phone networks, though, as they're relatively cheap to deploy and can be deployed in numbers to provide redundancy (or even just moved around on trucks). If you said to a villager in many parts of Africa that his mobile phone can generate $2 a day if it does Bitcoin, he'd probably offer his daughter to you.
I've had a couple more thoughts riffing on this idea over a glass of wine. Yes, it is after 5 where I am. Make the chips as cheap as possible, maybe even *pay* mobile phone makers to bundle them into handsets. Consider collaborating with other leading Bitcoin miners to fund development. Design goals are the best performance possible with low power. It will be designed to go into a cheap phone, so sleek design is not so important, i.e., the phone might be a "brick" with a larger battery. Great idea. The bitcoins on phone can be changed to credit automatically. A phne that makes its own free credit. This is actually a brilliant idea and doable. The phone wouldn't last very long but if it's a disposable free phone then it can beat out the Obama phone the US government is offering. You could just distribute the free phone to anyone who currently has an Obama phone as marketing. Is someone actually intending to work on this idea? It seems like it could be doable right now. |
|
|
|
Actually I do and there are discussions about this in other threads. Search the forum and see for yourself.
This is the most terrible response that anyone could post. I hate googling for something and clicking a link to a post that says "OMFG SEARCH NOOB".. hah Can you provide a link? I do not see a correlation between BTC to USD & Max Block size. Thanks. Here is the link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=210298.msg2220582#msg2220582And there are other more technical threads with the same debate and more math involved but generally speaking if Max Block Size is not increased then transactions per second cannot increase and how are you going to have Bitcoin reach $1000 a Bitcoin and surpass Paypal or Visa / Mastercard when there are these sorts of caps? It's basically the same stupid problem Mt Gox has with it's limit on transactions per second. |
|
|
|
Max Block Size and the limit on the amount of transactions per second means it cannot go over $500 unless this is fixed.
You have clearly no clue what you are talking about. Actually I do and there are discussions about this in other threads. Search the forum and see for yourself. |
|
|
|
Circuitry has a very good point.
Most people are hoarding and holding there bitcoins.
They are holding them in expectation that the price will go up.
There really is no Bitcoin economy. Most of the investment instruments, stocks on sites like Bitfunder, are investments in mining or investments in companies that loan money. (Bitpride is the exception, they sell t-shorts with bitcoin logos.)
Until you can use bitcoin to buy non-technological goods, and items other than alpaca sox, like jewelry, chocolate, food stuff, clothing, things that you need for daily life, then Bitcoin will have a little incestuous economy of being generated by bitcoiners to be sold on markets where speculators buy them and hold them or try to flip them, but where most bitcoin are held and not used.
If you want to make bitcoin viable, then convince your fiat bank to also have a hosted bitcoin wallet, convince your pizza place on the corner to accept bitcoin, convince the local frozen yogurt store to accept bitcoin.
You can. The problem is if I want to start a business and do an IPO are there enough investors? The answer is yes, if what you say is true that everyone is hoarding. So all we have to do is turn hoarders into investors. The best way to spend Bitcoins is to invest them and the only way to be able to invest them is to have more companies on the virtual stock exchange to invest in. The majority of people don't even know how to work the virtual stock exchange yet and haven't even heard of ASICminer yet and of the people who have they probably just heard of it. The people starting businesses aren't using BTCT.CO like they should be. Forget about convincing the pizza place or established businesses to accept Bitcoin. Start a business which accepts Bitcoin. The focus of the Bitcoin community must be on entrepreneurship. Start by perfecting the formula of going public. ASICminer is currently the only truly successful Bitcoin business right now so it's going to take a bit of time for a truly deep economy to form. But when it does then we will log into BTCT.CO or whatever site and we will see thousands of different companies to buy shares in and hundreds of companies having IPOs. When we see that then people will start investing more. When people invest then those businesses they invest in can create jobs which pay out in Bitcoins and the people who earn those Bitcoins will have to pay their rent, buy food, and socks. Everybody can't be a miner and until people start figuring that out there wont be any opportunities to invest in. |
|
|
|
$1000 a Bitcoin is not a lot and if the software ceiling issue weren't there I would say it could reach $1000 this year.
Speculation noob here. It seems to me that one of the short term collateral aspects of the ASIC war that's ramping up will be an exceedingly large supply of bitcoins in a low demand market. There are very little people actually using bitcoin, the exchange activity is mostly bots and whales, and acquiring bitcoin is a difficult task for your average internet user. On the other hand, there are LOTS of miners selling their bitcoins for fiat. I'm bullish on Bitcoin long-term, but in the current context, $1000 a Bitcoin is impossible. We're struggling to keep three digits, and nothing in the horizon suggests any kind of reversal (more likely the opposite). Please enlighten me if I'm missing something. Yeah, hackers, bots, DDOS, market manipulators, and the fact that Bitcoin isn't designed to go over $500 are all reasons why it can't reach $1000 right now, but when those problems are solved then it can. Demand is clearly there as you can see by the media attention and businesses adopting it. Bitcoin not designed to go over $500..? Max Block Size and the limit on the amount of transactions per second means it cannot go over $500 unless this is fixed. |
|
|
|
Why would it cost 0.0000047? Who says the cost has to be that high? Do you have any real numbers showing how much it actually costs to do a transaction?
And why not have 10 million people doing that? Don't you want bitcoin to grow? The idea that we should limit its growth seems absurd to me.
You always want to limit the growth of an uneconomic activity. Even a loss leading item has to be economic when considered part of total inventory. 1 satoshi is ridiculously small. It is 0.5 millionths of a US$. If you had a music service where 10 million people bought single-tracks for 1 satoshi a time then you would earn $5 per day. This is 10 million transactions processed for $5 (ignoring costs and scope for profit). In four years Bitcoin has just processed 14 million transactions: https://blockchain.info/charts/n-transactions-totalCould it have done that for $7 ?? Consider all the disk space across thousands of nodes, the hashing power used, electricity, IT work, bandwidth! Then your music "service" wants Bitcoin to process 10 million more transactions, every single day, for $5, customers are always good to have, right? Draw your own conclusions about what micro-transactions are realistic. What it costs in USD isn't what it costs everywhere in the world. It also isn't factoring in Moore's law and cheaper energy costs going into the future. You're thinking in $ when talking about what Bitcoin should become in the future and that might be the flaw. It's really a problem of physics and energy costs. Also you're putting the profits of miners above the function of the currency. If Bitcoin has to cater to miners this much then Proof of Stake is going to be the ultimate answer. |
|
|
|
If these were in color and had blue in the background it would be perfect. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
