Dumping isn't the problem. Uncoordinated dumping is. Perhaps it should be coordinated so the buying and dumping happens at once. Perhaps offer a service to automatically pay writers dividends in Bitcoin on a regular basis instead of giving them all of their Devcoins at once. This way the dumping is coordinated.

ASICminer Devcoin passthrough is an example of how you can make people hold onto Devcoins. Honestly I don't think it will be enough but I do think if I had a lot of Devcoins I would want to invest with it.

Okay anyone who supports my idea should show my idea to unthinkingbit, I believe that is the lead developer. Also Wiser you should write about my idea because you're good at explaining stuff, just give credit to me by citing the source.

I think I have a solution to determine a pay structure. We should go with a meritocracy based around a badge system. These badges would act as rank and determine how much each writer gets paid.

This way you would have granularity, merit, reward for quality, and reward for work. This badge system could also apply to programmers, musicians, or anything else. In order to get a basic level badge an individual would have to pass an exam. This exam should cost some coins and this would prevent spammers. The exam process would make it easier for Fuzzybear or whomever to review works. Perhaps eventually let random community members or even pay individuals to review them. The initial badge would declare that the individual meets the minimum qualification to be recognized as a writer, a programmer, or whatever.

Then over time reward with different higher level badges. These different badges will act as rank and as long as the writer continues to write their pay grade will be a bit higher based on the quality of their previous work as recognized by their badge. There should be different sorts of badges passed around throughout the community which recognize different kinds of competency.

Integrity for example is very valuable no matter if you're a writer, programmer or anything else and a lot of us would rather see the rewards go to community members with proven integrity. This would act similar to ebay or amazon where people maintain a good reputation and can get business but scammers and cheats don't. The better the reputation and integrity of the artist, developer, etc, the greater the portion of shares they should get.

This would allow for the community to reward qualities not just of the work itself, but of the author or developer themselves and factor that into how much they get paid. For instance if Fin Shaggy is known to be a man of honor and integrity then he eventually will receive a badge and that badge will allow him to be recognized for that in pay rank. If Fin Shaggy is also known to be very competent at writing then he could get a badge for that and be recognized for that and get the $50 per share rate but the next person who does not have that badge or who isn't known as being a very competent writer, they'll have to focus more on earning the badge than on just pumping out low quality content. This will force them to actually care about the quality of their work for the badge.

The badge should be difficult to revoke if it's an integrity badge. If it's a competency badge then it should be permanent for writers because if a writer proves they can produce a good piece of art work or software that should be enough. The next step would be to create ranks which are even higher than badges which I'll call medals. Give the medals out to the truly exceptional people. It works very well in sports such as professional boxing or basketball where the champions and gold medalists are recognized as being the best and get the sponsorships.

This way established writers with good reputations for producing quality work will have badges, medals, and other qualifications and these should determine the worth of their shares. This way it's not marketing, it's not word count, it's not equally distributed like communism,  it's merit and competency and these badges could stay with the developer no matter what coin they use in the future. If Ethicoin, Devcoin, Bitcoin, Litecoin or Futurecoin becomes popular these badges will still have established the merit and rank and would persist throughout all of that.

This way I'll immediately know which among you are talented at whatever, which among you are knowledgeable or skilled, and which among you are honorable.

This is exactly one of the solutions I mentioned in a previous post on here. I asked why can't Devcoins be destroyed via a Freicoin style demurrage to cap the rate of inflation and people flamed me for it. They hated the idea of destroying Devcoins for any reason but I do think this solution has a chance to work and should be implemented robustly.

Mining at this time and probably into the future is the best way to actually distribute the coins and money initially. Without miners how exactly do you distribute coins / profits and how do you keep the hash rate up?

I don't know what is going to happen with Ethicoin, but I do agree that 50% for miners and 50% for everyone else is fair. I sense you just have a bias against miners but that is based on your emotional disgust at pump and dump coins. I don't admire pump and dump coins any more than you do, but I also recognize that mining is the best way to distribute coins initially. There could be better ways but right now mining is the best way to get Bitcoins or Litecoins or any other kind of coins. How else are you supposed to get some?

I agree, but neither is credit and debt. I prefer speculating and saving over credit and debt and this is why I promote deflationary currencies like Bitcoin. We simply don't need big spending anymore in a world which is becoming so high tech but also too polluted and potentially over populated.
How is Bitcoin not free? Anyone can send you some mBTC in a tip. It's not completely free because someone pays for it with electricity, but neither is Facebook. You pay for Facebook by giving up privacy which turns privacy into a commodity to be bought and sold for a price.
Bitcoin is money, and what stops people from earning Bitcoin and not wanting to give up their hard earned Bitcoin money for fiat? The same dynamic can work in reverse where Bitcoin wealthy wont ever want to go back to fiat and will do everything in their power to grow Bitcoin and bait people into it. I think with enough sales, rebates, points, Bitcoin exclusive products, music, films, that over time people will have to go to Bitcoin for Bitcoin exclusive content.

That is why I'm all about content. The content is what attracts people to Facebook after Facebook became big and it's what keeps people there. Bitcoin will grow by network effect but also by exclusive content. Right now unfortunately that content is only stuff on Silk Road but in the future it will be many kinds of products and services which only make sense to buy with Bitcon which will force people to buy Bitcoins.

I don't know what you mean by the shitty side.  All you will have to do is work for Bitcoin instead of dollars and suddenly you have Bitcoins. You're telling me that I can't set up a website right now which streams movies only to people who pay in Bitcoins? The benefit of this streaming site is that it would be completely anonymous for the users which means by using Bitcoins they would achieve privacy. The benefit for me is that I'd get to host the site and make a profit charging a small fee for each stream or even a monthly fee similar to Netflix. You're telling me that people wont pay for multimedia? Of course they will, they already do. When you can see what you want to see streamed to you whenever you want to see it without a contract, without a name, without any strings attached, just pay the Bitcoin and presto, this alone would grow the market cap on both ends. The viewers would pay to see the films or amateur movies, the hosts would take their cut for streaming it, the film makers would get their cut to make it.
I don't know what you mean by the "shitty side" of Bitcoin credit. Are you saying why would the Bitcoin have nots choose to borrow Bitcoins vs dollars? Maybe if you are poor you shouldn't be borrowing in the first place, but if you are going to borrow then it wont make a difference in the future if you borrow from coinlenders or from somewhere else.

I don't think we should encourage poor people to borrow though, even if they can make margin trades or go to coinlenders.
I don't understand what you're saying here.

I don't think (a) will be a problem because Ripple will solve the problem and OT may solve it also.

Let them try. But when the majority of businesses accept Bitcoin it isn't going to work. The reason it wont work is because people today are becoming millionaires from Bitcoin and eventually there will be billionaires. These billionaires will control the cryptocurrency industry, not random newcomers with new coins. I'm saying the early adopters in Bitcoin will be established, organized, and will be the big players in the cryptocurrency industry and the little coins will have a very difficult time changing the landscape. The old guard will have benefited from the deflationary aspects of Bitcoin and you're not going to be able to change the minds of people who became billionaires because they bought thousands or mined tens of thousands of Bitcoins in 2010 or 2011. These people will own hundreds of ASICminer shares and will own stocks in many other companies as well and as the shareholders these individuals may decide they like the deflationary aspect.

What will make matters even worse for you is that people right now are following the same path, buying Bitcoins, learning to appreciate the deflationary aspects of it, and in 2016 these people could be millionaires as well. What will happen is journalists are going to start interviewing more and more Bitcoin millionaires and billionaires and do you think these people who grew up poor or working class and through Bitcoin became rich are going to decide suddenly that Bitcoin has a flawed design? It never happens. And people who get in at 2016 will see what happened for people who got in at 2013, or 2011, or 2010, and they'll choose Bitcoin merely because by choosing Bitcoin they'll be better off.

I don't think anything can stop that trend from happening except making Bitcoin illegal. if Bitcoin is legal and people start becoming millionaires and billionaires overnight, then there can be other more stable coins, coins with better technology, stuff like Ripple with establishment support, but ultimately a billion dollars is cooler than a million. A thousand is cooler than a hundred. A hundred is cooler than ten. Ten is cooler than one.

ID software did not start out doing that. They do that now that they've had flagship games and made hundreds of millions.
You're saying this entirely on faith.
I was involved with the free software community and a user of Redhat since before Redhat went public. I know how difficult it was and still is, and you're triviliazing it to make it seem like it's not a miracle what they pulled off.

Not only did they pull off the impossible but I don't think many companies have been able to duplicate it. Many other Linux distributions have failed. Redhat also is not anywhere near as rich as Microsoft or Apple. Do you really think Devcoin is going to fund the next Redhat?


It's the free software movement because it empowers the user. Programmers who follow this philosophy do so becaue they wish to empower the user. Sometimes empowering the user does not get you nearly as much money as you'd get if you went the Apple or Microsoft route of locking people into your formats, or the route of trying to turn the computer into some sort of interactive Internet TV type box. If you empower users sometimes you'll never get rich or never make a profit at all, I've seen it happen that far more often than I've seen a Redhat miracle or Google miracle.

If you work for a startup which empowers the user then I wish only for the success of your startup. Maybe it could be the next Redhat or Google but I doubt it.

I never said there should be no inflation. I'm saying inflation has to be controlled or adjusted on the fly so that the value in $ of the coin stays within a certain level while the coin is expanding. Once plenty of people are using the coin the inflation rate should decrease more and more until it reaches around 1-3% which is near the rate of population growth.

We always want more jobs than people so we have to limit inflation.
When did I ever said Bitcoin is going to die? Just because I don't have faith in Devcoin it does not mean I have no faith in Bitcoin. And I said nothing about a premine. Where are you getting this script from?
So now you think the coin is going down because people aren't hoarding it? And you're claiming people who refuse to hoard it are opportunists? If you give something to someone or someone earns something from you then they can do anything with it that they want.

You have no right to judge other people by how they choose to use their coins. If the currency is designed right this shouldn't even matter.

And why pick on writers? What about everyone else?

The best method you can think of to fix Devcoin is to somehow convince even less people to work for it? Basically too many people want to work so we gotta lower the hiring rate to fix the economy? This is starting to sound a lot like what is wrong with the global economy being imported into Devcoin. Let's lay people off and reduce their pay and call it austerity?

The point is, if Devcoin were designed to work there would be no crisis in the first place. Blame me for pointing out the crisis and calling for a hard fork. You can diagree with me or even ignore my warnings, and then deal with what happens 10 months to a year from now if Devcoin can even last that long.


That is the free market. People can pump and dump. I don't care what people do with their money. I know Bitcoins will be going up because the long term trend of Bitcoins is up and has been for years. I also know only 21 million will ever exist, unlike Devcoin where there seems to be no end to the dumping if the dumping starts because there is no cap. I'm not saying a cap is even necessary but the fact that there isn't one built in provides people with no psychological safety.

With Bitcoin I can see the big picture and can see how it can work. I can do things with Bitcoin that I cannot do with Paypal. There is no reason for me to believe I can do things with Devcoin that I cannot do with Bitcoin. The only thing Devcoin offers is receiver shares and Devtome. Until we can do more with it, it's utility is not enough that it will survive competition and no I'm not going to buy and hoard on it just to try to manipulate the market. If I have to take irrational charity courses of action to save this coin then it should be forked.


Why is everyone blaming the writers? Do you think if writing were removed that Devcoin would suddenly become a success? I don't see how it would change anything. I think if you remove writers okay what about artists? What about podcasters? Or are you saying Devcoin is only for programmers?

If Devcoin is only for programmers then it will never be anything more than a coin for computer nerds because 90% of the human population are not programmers and even the majority of programmers aren't going to work for Devcoin when they can write their own coin which is better than Devcoin and become a hero to all the writers and artists.

Whether you like it or not, the Bitcoin community isn't going to be made up of computer nerds forever. If you ever want to bring women into the community and non-nerds, you have to allow these people to contribute and gain wealth too.



I'm not a billionaire. I'm not even a millionaire. Some people in this world are millionaires and billionaires. So why would I want to work in the USA, and buy shares in Google when they are so much more expensive than they were during the IPO? Why would I want to work when so many people before me became millionaires and billionaires from less work or from other peoples work?

The reason is I'm not trying to be a billionaire and never expected to be. Nor do I ever expect to be a millionaire. All I want is to work hard and at the end of the year have more money than when I started. All I want is progress, advancement, whether it makes me rich or not is irrelevant.

People dislike inflation because it makes this goal impossible. You'll never have more purchasing power next year than you had this year when inflation is high. Under deflation on the other hand you will. As technology becomes more advanced we need an economy which is more deflationary because it's more efficient. Robots will be doing most of the work and there is no point in having the traditional notions of what money is. People who are late to transition into the new economy will not be the leaders of the new economy but it does not mean we should replicate the flaws of the old economy so that the leaders of the old economy can better get a grip on the new economy.


Bitcoin is missing some infrastructure which keeps it from going mainstream but it is experiencing the network effect and just like Facebook did, it's going mainstream whether the infrastructure is ready or not. I agree with you it's not ready for it yet, but it's happening because there is nothing else and there tens of millions waiting to try Bitcoin who are ready but who for technical or infrastructure reasons cannot actually figure out how to buy a Bitcoin. Once buying them becomes as easy as going to an ATM or a Walmart then it's going to go from having a few million users to having 20-30 million users or what I'll call the Myspace phase of development. It will probably go up to 100 million users over the course of a few years. 100 million users does not seem like a lot because it really isn't, but it's enough that the market cap will be in the trillion dollar range in my opinion because thats 100 times the amount of users we have today and I do believe that is possible within 3-5 years. I predict a trillion dollar market cap, I admit this isn't a scientific prediction it's just speculation and based on a gut feeling that if Bitcoin reaches a critical mass of around 50-100 million users that it's market cap will explode along with that. It's very possible that it could be 100 million computer programmers and male nerds and then the market cap might not grow as much but if it's a diverse 100 million the market cap will explode and the price of Bitcoins along with it.


This isn't true. The idea that superior technology always wins isn't true. Myspace was a superior technology to Facebook and it did not win. Facebook won and offered nothing that Myspace didn't have and Myspace had groups, features for musicians, etc. Facebook offered the network effect and because it managed to get over 100 million users before Myspace could, it won. Bitcoin offers the network effect and even if it has nothing else this alone will make it cool. When the people buying Bitcoins now are talking about about how they bought Bitcoins at $100 when everyone was calling it a ponzi scheme and a scam then those people who called it a ponzi scheme and scam wont have people listening to them anymore. People listen to success, and all Bitcoin has to do is make enough people millionaires and the network effect of that will make people buy Bitcoins even if just to invest.

And once they buy them to invest then they'll spend some of them on investments and financial products and services or on paying bills. The point is the network effect cannot be reversed. It couldn't be reversed with the Internet, or with social media, and it's not going to be reversed with cryptocurrencies.


The only thing it would take to make Bitcoin be mainstream is infrastructure. When a human being can live off Bitcoins, pay their bills, rent, buy food, and Bitcoins are easy to use and buy, then it's ready to go mainstream. Right now Kashmir Hill has tried to live of Bitcoin and found it's still not ready. When this test takes place again and they find out its ready, then these journalists will begin hyping Bitcoin.
And this is where we disagree. I don't think Bitcoin will be stopped once the technology is set up where people can live off them. It's not there yet. There needs to be Bitcoin banks, ATMs, credit/debit cards, secure hardware based wallets, distributed exchanges, and jobs which pay in Bitcoins along with the ability to buy anything with Bitcoins.

These problems are being solved this year. Sometime in 2014 most of these problems will be solved. Then it's just a matter of scaling up.

You shouldn't have to buy them. You should be able to work for them. The reason Bitcoin isn't mainstream is because there isn't enough infrastructure set up for people so they can work for them. Coinbase is solving this problem, and Bitcoin banks and credit unions solve the other half. Coupons which give discounts to people using Bitcoin will promote demand.

There will be other coins. Bitcoin does not have to be a niche coin either. When the exchange problem is solved then anyone who wants to can buy portions of Bitcoins at any time from any ATM or Walmart. When that happens it's all over for Paypal and that along would make Bitcoin mainstream. Go into Walmart and buy a Bitcoin debit card. Go to the Bitcoin ATM to turn Bitcoin into fiat and fiat into Bitcoin. Go to the Bitcoin credit union to get loans. Receive discoints, points and rewards for buying products and services with Bitcoins.

It's an easy choice for anyone to use Bitcoins when they can get sales.

Cookies work better than IP addresses. One cookie per machine and register it in a database.

Closed source software like games? Yeah that brings a lot of users and money. Open source software on the other hand does not. Devcoin promotes free software and for this reason will have the same difficulty getting revenue from programming that it has from writing.

People make plenty of money from song lyrics. Song writers are making plenty of money and contests could generate money. Venture capitalists don't invest in small scale software projects that could be funded by Devtome. And I don't see Devcoin replacing venture capitalists, that is delusional.
We have enough software as it is. We need content. Just producing all this cool software isnt going to make people want to use it. What would napster be if there were no content? What about Bittorrent?


Writers and artists are the producers of content. Content is why people want to use the Internet for anything other than work.

But that doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the articles on Devtome. How much does a cookbook cost? But you can find recipes on Devtome for free. So you're saying people who share their recipes are suckers and should keep it a secret or sell it to a cookbook company instead? Devtome exists to promote the creative commons, and not everyone is a computer nerd.

It's not the writers job to worry about the presentation.
I agree. Wikipedia works well and it could be like that. Honestly it could be better than Wikipedia if done right because people would get paid and quality could be much higher.
I cannot disagree with this.
Writers aren't website developers or the admin of the site. Why are you blaming stuff on the writers when writers have nothing to do with the design of Devtome?
I agree with you but blame it on the people responsible. Writers aren't paid to design Devtome.

Someone is trolling. Look at my profile. I did not register in June.

PM me, I'll give you some ideas.

If it isn't working now, why should I believe it can work 5 years from now when there will be better alternatives for sure? This is the Devcoin moment where it either finds a way to get everyone working for it, or next year the infrastructure to work for Bitcoin will be set up and no one will care about Devcoin.

Ethicoin has a chance to fill the void and possibly fill the niche so I'm waiting to see what they do and Litecoin isn't exactly Bitcoin so they have a couple years and then they too will be in the same position of Devcoin. Bitcoin is about to go mainstream in 2014 and if Devcoin isn't being used by all of us by that time then I would say it may be too late.

And when I say used by all of us, I mean anyone who wants a job on this forum should be able to find a job which pays in a significant amount of Devcoin if they are willing to do the job. I know people will say Devcoin was set up to pay developers, but most people on this forum are developers and how many of us are paid in Devcoin right now?

Bounties are not a very good way to do things. Subscription models like what Coinbase is offering could kill Devcoin once enough podcasters and bloggers switch over. Writers just starting out will use Devcoin but once they become successful they'll sell their works for Bitcoin. Journalists may have to go with a Bitcoin subscription model because Devcoin just wont pay them enough in $. I can't believe I'm the only one who can see this coming.

The deflationary model is right. You don't agree for philosophical reasons but to anyone who owns Bitcoins which are worth $100 each, and who owns ASICminer shares worth 2.5 BTC each, or who is mining with an ASIC right now, why would these people have a problem with the 21 million Bitcoin limit?

How is a hackathon any different from a writeathon or a poetry contest? Just because a lot of programmers produce a lot of code it does not mean that code will be worth any money. A lot of very valuable free software doesn't make any money for the programmers writing it. Bitcoin is really a change in the model and the reason I support the deflationary model of Bitcoin is because early adopters (beta testers) and the original programmers are getting rich now. To me that is how it's supposed to work when you invent something of value for the world.

Imagine if Satoshi were paid in Devcoins instead. If Satoshi had millions of Devcoins, or even billions, it just would not work because there is no reason to mine Devcoins when 90% of profits go to the developers. Ethicoin has the advantage here in that it's fairly distributed 50/50 which to me makes a lot of sense.
This is true, but it does not change the fact that it's easier for people to get paid writing for Devcoin because the bounty system isnt automated while Devtome is.


And I'm saying it wont substatially go up. I know you have the masters degree in mathematics but lets see who is right. Our differences are philosophical and not based on abstract calculations. The statistics are what they are, the numbers are what they are, but I interpret them to mean something different. Let's find out who is right and if I'm wrong then I will eat my words but if you are wrong then perhaps you should consider a different model and consider my suggestion of a hard fork.


If it's about paying as many workers as possible are you saying that people who produce code are somehow more valuable than people who write poems and books? I'm saying they are relatively the same because the nature of the work is relatively the same. This is why the pay should be relatively the same.

But you're under the impression that somehow if we turn all the writers into programmers that this will make any difference? It's still just people getting paid for language arts, it's not going to make any real difference. Devcoin isn't going to become more valuable just because some guys writing python and visual basic are making apps for Devcoins instead of a bunch of guys writing novels and poems. My argument is that Fin Shaggy has done more to popularize Devcoin than anyone else and he did it with his words, not writing code.

I think perhaps the problem with Devcoin is that it can only support a finite amount of writers and programmers at a time. That isn't how a market is supposed to work. When more people are willing to work, the pie isn't supposed to shrink. When productivity and quality increases the profits aren't supposed to shrink. That is what I see happening with Devtome. Devtome is more popular than ever, has higher quality works being produced than ever, yet the pay for each worker is going down?

This provides no further incentive for workers to improve quality, or produce better work. The same will apply to programmers, eventually the pay ceiling for programmers will be reached just as it is for writers and then no amount of innovation, hard work, or quality will transcend that ceiling.

That is the problem with Devcoin in the immediate future. Unless quality and innovation is rewarded then it's all going to fail. And no one said anything about communism, but the purpose of Devcoin and of an economy in general is to allow people to trade and in this case people want to trade writing because Devcoin currently supports only writing.

Bounties are going to be very limited. So basically you're saying Devcoin is always going to be a very small market which can't really grow too large or it stops working. That is why I say it's broken from the start.

And articles attract eyes which pay for ads. Devtome drives ad revenue. I admit ad revenue is not going to be good enough.
Highly unlikely example. Why would a game designer choose Devcoin? There are other coins which would work even better or perhaps they could roll out their own coin.

But currently it's not. You're saying what it can be, but right now it's not any of the things you say.

I agree. I don't want people just to get Devcoins for writing. What about films, music, and visual art? There are many other industries other than writing but right now since Devcoin only pays writers what do you expect? The workers go where the money is, and if graphics artists for instance were in demand and could get paid, or musicians, or Youtube and podcasters I can see many people wanting to work for Devcoins. The problem is the math still isnt going to work with infinite supply and with it being inflationary because inflationary coins can't scale. When you try to scale it globally (globalization) then it spreads thin and the only people who can make money will be the developing nations who work for the cheapest. It's the same problem we have right now where people complain that China takes all the jobs, and Devcoin being so inflationary would basically mirror the problems of the dollar.


Okay let's call it code instead of words. Does it make sense to buy code? If it doesn't then how do programmers get paid?
So if it were code, it makes sense only to pay for completed programs?

But you have to understand an article isn't exactly just a bunch of words, it's structured and readable. It's definitely worth something. What if it's journalism, how much would that collection of words be worth?

But they don't all know the same english and don't all know it equally as well.
If you cannot determine the nuances between southern english and western english then this is exactly my point but the nuances go even deeper, if you don't know the buzzwords, the buzz phrases, the memes, the unique cultural traditions, then you're easily identified as a foreigner. Human beings can't be fooled as easily as Google translate.

It's not just about grammar. It's cultures and subcultures. If you did not grow up in the USA you don't really know US culture as well as someone who did. You wont understand cultural references or popular memes, and you wont be able to discuss certain topics which you'll have limited understanding of. You'd know more about the Ukraine and would be qualified to talk about those topics but you'd be speaking foreign English in a foreign dialect, you wont always use the right words in the right places, in the right tone (yes even text has a tone), there is a lot to writing and the American English is not the same as Ukraine or British English.

That being said if you're really smart and determined you could study all the words in the urban dictionary and try your best to assimilate US culture into your writing but most people aren't going to be able to do that unless they've lived in the US for a significant amount of time and had certain common experiences associated with this.

We have differing measures of success. If you really think this is the best we can do, then we totally disagree. I think we can do better than this iteration of Devcoin and I think we can do better than Devcoin in general. A lot of Devcoin isn't working, and you can blame Devtome all you want but if that is the only part of Devcoin that is working then by attacking that you're effectively killing Devcoin. Devtome is the heart of Devcoin because they designed it to be that way and honestly most of us would never have heard of Devcoin, never would take it seriously, and never would work for it, if not for certain articles from individuals like Fin Shaggy and others. You're underestimating the value of Devtome.


It's supposed to be. There are a lot of things which went wrong with this coin. I think if Ethicoin turns out to be more than vaporware it could be the end of Devcoin entirely. I think the intention behind Devcoin is respectable and I support what it's trying to do, I just don't believe this version will scale.


And how exactly can anyone know that in advance? You don't know which article is the article which drew everyone into Devcoin but I'm pretty sure it was something on Devtome. One of those articles or several caught my attention and I'm sure I'm not the only one. Other than Devtome there is no real reason not to just pay people in Bitcoins because Devtome is the major innovation and writing is the major reason why it's an innovation. No one else is paying people to write, and journalism is a dying industry.


Content farming isn't the same as what Devtome can be. Is a magazine a content farm? Is a scientific journal a content farm? What about a cook book? Devtome is all of that.

But you're right, it's hard to make a profit without a subscription model which is exactly why scientific journals remain locked behind paywalls. I was hoping Devtome could actually contribute to changing that trend.
That killer app is Bitcoin. I don't see why anyone writing a killer app is going to ask for pay in anything other than Bitcoin. I think writers will accept Devcoin for the chance to turn it into Bitcoin and I think programmers who already wrote killer apps would accept donations in Devcoin but I do not see Devcoin being something to make someone set aside hours a day or quit their day job to write a killer app. There is just not enough money in it. In fact most people who write killer apps don't make much money in general and will make even less going into the future whether they use Devcoin, USD or Bitcoin, until a new payment model is figured out. It's the same problem as we see in journalism where source code just isn't valued for what it's worth. Any indian programmer can code just like any English speaking foreigner can write English poetry.

Speculation cannot save Devcoin. Prediction markets wont save Devcoin. As soon as Devcoin faces a competitor it's over.  Devcoin cannot compete with this: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221375.0
Be realistic. You aren't going to build a Tome without thousands if not millions of writers. If they didn't think this through it's because they didn't think this through. Don't blame it on writers. Also there are plenty of readers, but if they aren't making money then perhaps they should go with a subscription model and charge in Bitcoins, Litecoins, PPcoins, and others a small fee to access Devtome. This would work just fine if Devtome actually had enough works in it, and this combined with ads would make Devtome into a paywalled academic journal style site. Otherwise quality is going to go down and it's going to fall apart.


They already get plenty of users but ads just aren't going to pay much and it's that way even for big journalism sites so you think Devtome will be different? The New York Times is struggling.


How do you know that hasn't happened already? But attracting eyes doesn't generate much money. So if Devcoin isn't somehow intrinsically valuable it wont work. Bitcoin is deflationary, so people want it just to hold onto it. Devcoin will never be like this.
And I'm saying even in that they got the math wrong. Devcoin was designed by well meaning idealists who did not think it all through in my opinion. You can blame the writers, theres only around 1000 or so, so there isn't a lot of blame to go around.
Even if you don't write code or if you do, if you have to live off charity you won't be able to pay your bills. There are better ways to do this than Devcoin, much better ways.
And who decides what is an accomplishment?
If I go to Devtome can I rate the articles which impacted me? Can I vote on how much of a share of the pie different writers should get? What happened to democracy? What happened to the free market?
Pay-per-word is the only reason Devcoin has life at all, it's attracting the interest. Without attracting interest the coin dies.
It's not just inflation that I'm talking about, I'm saying the idea that somehow Devcoins will become valuable when they are generating at this rate. Inflation by itself isn't an issue unless it's at a rate faster than the market can handle and then the actual purchasing power and pay of every worker shrinks. This is the opposite of what is happening with Bitcoin and Litecoin. With those coins if you write or code and get paid in either of those coins then it's reasonable to believe that a year from now your coins might be worth even more so you might save them. With Devcoin we aren't seeing that trend are we.  So if you're a mathematician explain to me why we aren't seeing the same trend with Devcoin that we see with Bitcoin and Litecoin? Are you saying it's just because of market cap?

Honestly, no I don't. I see Devcoin being replaced this year. Maybe my opinion would change if Devcoin changed but if it stays as it is now, in 6 months people in third world countries will have to write for Devtome and this is fine and all but if I want to read opinions from Americans on American concerns I wont be able to find it on Devcoin because it will no longer be worth the time for people to put it there. There were around 500 writers last month, now there are around 1000, so if it keeps growing at this rate it wont sustain.
You assume it will make it to 10 years without any changes and I don't. I think Ethicoin if it is released will probably steal all the interest from Devcoin this year. Then there is Netcoin which is coming probably in 2014 which would steal the show entirely. I don't see a future in Devcoin assuming these other coins can pull off what they are attempting because I believe the designs of these other coins are more fundamentally sound.

But I admit, I'm not the mathematician.

Demand might grow, but I don't think the American and European workers will fuel that demand and the audience will follow the workers. This is not to say Devcoin wont survive, it will. It just wont be something I see Americans and Europeans deciding to work for when other copycat coins come along and they will. Any copycat could fork Devcoin right now, modify it so that all the problems I mentioned are resolved, and the people working for Devcoin would simply make wallets under that new coin and accept that coin too. Eventually no one will even bother making Devcoin wallets as they'd get paid more in the newer coins.

Even if the newer coins don't even offer much in advancement, if people think they can make more money from them they'll use it. Devcoin has a good intention, and a good idea, but implemented wrong, and designed wrong, these are my opinions.

Damn, I would have sold you mine. I'm in the first 100.  Oh well.

The NSA can see everything we do online. Everything we did online.

Even more interesting why would anyone donate to support someone else's greed? This ASIC does not benefit Litecoin nor would it give us anything to donate. I'm not against them trying to do it if they do it like ASICminer it could just work but if they do it like Butterfly labs then it's guaranteed to fail. The days of independent mining are coming to an end and will be over in 2014 when large rigs of ASICs and cloudhashing or ASICMiner type scenarios become the norm.

Go the route of ASICMiner and offer shares. That is the proven best route and you'll gain support to sell your hardware. If you don't set up a company similar to ASICminer and offer shares then the next group making ASICs will and you'll be put out of business.

The reason is people don't want to have to deal with the ASIC's arms race or mining when they can buy shares or pay someone else to mine for them.  If you set up an account on LTC global and set up an initial public officering similar to or exactly like how ASICMiner did it then you could become a 100 million dollar company too.

Good luck!

Inflation slows down because more people use it faster than it generates but it wont slow down fast enough, and it also means less money for those who do use it under the current math.  I just don't see it working.

So why aren't Devcoins getting more valuable? More people are using Devcoins than ever.


One problem which I mention is that all words cannot be sold for the same price. Writing in english costs more to produce than other languages due to the high cost of living in these countries. Right now all Devcoin words are priced alike. Then you have the various different dialects and subcultures which bring even greater value to words and you'll see that eventually unless something changes all of this will be lost and we will have many articles written in foreign english.

I think you don't understand what Devtome is trying to do. I'm not saying they get it right, but it's critical. There are more writers available than just about any other kind of worker so monetizing writing is an excellent way to grow market cap. The problem isn't that Devtome is offering nothing in return, go read some of the articles and you see it does offer something. The problem is the math is unsustainable, if the growth of Devtome actually somehow is making Devcoin and the shares less valuable then it's going exactly backwards. The more people write and work for Devtome the less valuable writing and working for Devtome becomes and it seems to do nothing to improve the value of Devcoins.

The only way it would be able to improve the value for Devcoins is to literally charge people per article per view. But that approach would be undesirable on a philosophical level and unsustainable as well because once again there are infinitely many Devcoins and the inflation rate is just too high. Maybe if they set it nice and low this wouldn't have been a problem.

I agree it needs to stop paying for failed projects but I still think it needs a hard fork. I'm not the only one who thinks Devcoin messed up in the design phase.

I agree with this. But I would like Unthinkingbit to consider doing a hard fork to save Devcoin and Devtome because I think both are critically important to the success of Bitcoin. I think Bitcoins will never become popular until anyone can find a Bitcoin job. Since almost anyone can write it's a good place to start.


The problem with Devtome isn't that the articles aren't useful. I've read some of them and the majority seem to be pretty useful. The quality is also pretty good at this time. The problem is I don't see how this can be sustained if the profit pie keeps shrinking. There will be no incentive to produce quality when the share value goes down.

Something has to be fixed so that the share value can go up and down but there must be a minimum value for words in english, a minimum for words in spanish and so on. Eventually if Devcoin does become more valuable the minimum value would raise for all words if Devcoin were truly deflationary.

I'm not saying the best talent exists in any particular place. I'm saying in order for a currency to work it has to work for everyone. It can't only work for the third world and not for anyone else. Race has nothing to do with it.

A lot of us only read english so we'd rather read native english writers, but the english language will cost more to write in than any other language because most english writers live in english speaking countries which means a higher cost of living which means it costs more to write in english.

And yes there is a major difference between native english and foreign english. Native speakers know the dialects and intricate nuances. So there is important work to be written and which can only be written by people who understand the culture and it's more cultural differences than racial.

The problem has to be solved because the current community is the audience, not the community of 2020.