Thete is no PoB coin. This is nothing but one idea  to cope with the current situation.  Take a coffee and read the thread.

@Thule

I know and read the auditing thread and I recommend everyone to read it as people know afterwards how to treat your comments (in case they didn't already)

Strange? Please read this thread. People are claiming that the dev left Quark which is simply untrue and I won't blow into this horn only because I don't believe that the communication behavior of Max is sustainable in any way. If you didn't understand by now what I meant when I said that I don't believe inthe development of Quark: this is what I meant. And no, I don't see the development problem would be solved by the new forum. When I had the idea it was mainly about creating an environment that a) would provide incentives to participate by rewarding networking activity and b) would serve as open place for a democratic foundation (btw a project I've been up to for months).
You seem to blame the fact that planning hasbeen done secretly on boards like Trello. Another wrong interpretation I have to debunk: i could look up the dozens of times that only I have called for others to become involved and help out. This was never closed to the community. Some parts where simply not for the eyes of people outside the Quark community. I don't remember one case where access has been denied. There was no reason for it as we were thankful for every helping hand. The forum is certainly a better place for communication and yes that is one reason why we brought it forward.

And let me be clear on one point that you may not be aware of since you just joined the community few weeks ago: me and many others put a lot of work and time into this project, so I have a high interest that this isn't lost and like other people I will look for measures to save this work, however as a consequence of the latest development I will do that as transparent as possible. That has nothing to do with being impatient. I hope you understand that.

@Maok

Maok, I know you would prefer the community to "stick together", but you have to accept that parts of the community have no interest on working on this project under given circumstances. I will give you an overview with regard to your arguments:


Exactly, that´s the effect - for as long as it is possible to burn. The more people become interested in the coin, the more Quark is gaining value - once the burning period ends the price will correct to what the real prospect on Quark is. The people who rest with Quark will have to care for that.


Massive advantage? As far as I know had Quark a fair distribution phase, didn´t it? (otherwise it wouldn´t make sense for you to support it, would it?)  
This is about giving Quark users who lost trust in the currency to start from scratch: The new users are the old users & value = prospect. If other users want to get in, fine, they can buy Quark, but that´s their business.


Unlike forking, creating a proof of burn coin is an individual decision and it is the same individual decision for those who burn Quark as it would be if they sell off. So, I guess you see that noone has the right to claim that others don´t sell their coins - you can´t construct a responsability for people who prefer to leave that other will have losses. I personally think that they do better to leave but this is everyone´s personal decision. Again: in a free market you can´t construct responsibilities as you attempt to do.


We don´t need patience, we need a rational discussion and analysis. Part of this has been done and even if some of us will decide to create Proof-of-Burn there will be enough time to go on debating. I am willing to take part in this discussion but I will still follow this option and fathom out ways to proceed in this direction (why wouldn´t I?)


Who is the avarage Joe? Altcoins like Dogecoin helped to get Crypto more exposure to the avarage Joe and so will other Coins who manage to be sufficiently innovative. Dogecoin managed to do that with a concept that most people would call senseless. Anyway, I agree that this is not about creating a hype coin, but I disagree that all features that are not in Quark are senseless, e.g. Voting with Coins. Your point seems to be that Quark is already perfect. I disagree about that and I would disagree with every person who believes that any other coin is perfect. Things are in in a state of flux. Quarks current hashrate issue has different reasons: it is an effect of a slowly decreasing inflation rate, a decrease in prize given to speculation cycles and a lack of trust in further development - and probably other factors. So regarding your questions:


So do other currencies


So do other currencies


Optimal? Yes, a low inflation is good if you want to maintain value at slow growth, but "optimal"? I had my courses in macro economics, so I wonder on what considerations you base your statement? Fact is that there is no such as "optimal inflation" because money is a medium and mediums are object to discourse. It is possible that a slower inflation decrease could have been beneficial to Quark in the current situation and it is also possible that the current model would have more success than it has now under different circumstances. So, please, could you explain in what way Quark has an inflation pre-set that is alternative-less?


Because Quark has a hashrate issue that leads to a security issue. I agree that a merge mining coin would HELP in this situation but it wouldn´t SOLVE it. Quark would be dependent on the existence and sense of the merge mining coin(s). I guess you see that this is a substantial and not just a minor problem.


Max is not as silent as people say, actually he contacted us today and asked for a meeting. I have always hopes that things in communication get better. I even think Max will cooperate with other devs. I have my concerns that we can rely on regular correspondence.

Quark and it´s community are one and the same thing. There is no Quark without people who believe in it. Are you complaining about people having doubts?  


@Thule


No, why would they? First off, I know you are obsessed with these large wallets, but it seems you´ve never considered that this wallets could be cold storage of exchanges. This has been proved for the largest wallets. Also, I don´t see any reason why you would like to do changes on the blockchain. There is no proof whatsoever that the blockchain has been manipulated. If you have, please provide.


This is not about changing Quark, it is about a Proof of Burn coin. Read about it. It does not need any agreement of any developer. It is also not "destroying" Quark. Quark can peacefully coexist with this coin.  


First off, it is not my intention to act on hearsay, so I will skip this information. I also don´t see why it would matter if either Kolin or Max were related to Russia.


Anyway, I can´t provide more than an idea. It is up to others to follow or help to make it possible. Everyone needs to take decision based on his or her own considerations. I can only motivate everyone to do the thinking on his and her own and not easily draw conclusions - also concerning my own statements.  We will have a meeting on Sunday 8th that will hopefully bring us together and allow us to move on in mutual understanding.

I contacted the dev of MC2 as I personally find the concept convincing (look up the whitepaper in the btctalk thread) and it would allow implementing PoS/PoW (with preference given to PoW) that would allow coping with a low inflation rate. Anyway, MC2 isn´t ready and will probably only be ready by the end of the year, so it is not so likely that the devs answer will be positive. Anyway he said he planned to release the concept open source and with 2 months of f/t work (his estimation) it can be implemented in Quark. To be honest I currently don´t mind skipping Quarks algorithm as long there is a decent inflation rate, a decent transaction speed and up to date precautions against ASICs.

I wrote him a long explanation of how this could be done and think it´s fair to give him 2 weeks to answer. In the meantime we can and should look out for other developers but while it is certainly crucial to find a competent developer it is also important to find convincing specs. Just redoing Quark doesn´t make sense to me.

We are currently preparing for a group chat on Sunday next week, announcement is likely to follow on Reddit soon. We should discuss different approaches there so that every position has it´s place. In the end it will be the individual decision of everyone which way to go. I already said, that I am willing to moderate the session. Any help is appreciated.

Kolin, I hope you realize that the current difficulty is currently of any importance as the revelation of the plan to silently release a coin, pretend it was not "our" idea and then - coincidence, coincidence - find it and proclaim it as Quarks future merge mining coin has made the whole project highly unlikely to take place because people won´t accept the fact that they were socially engineered. Noone will mine this coin now because people know that this was a planned setup and hold hard proof of it. Ask to present it and I am sure someone will do so.

Let me explain it to you in simple words:

In Cryptocurrencies you deal with something that is called difficulty. The more people mine, the harder it gets to receive the reward. Still with me?

So if someone launches a totally worthless coin like this one (why worthless? No infrastructure, no plans, no funds, no community) most people won´t mine it > effect is: difficulty stays decent and those few who mine receive large shares of the coin.

Now let´s assume just for coincidence one larger community, let´s call it "Quark" for the moment, is looking for a Merge mining coin, "discovers" this small and unimportant currency and decides that this could be a good opportunity to use it as merge mining coin. A handful of assumeably faithful "Quarkers" present this as a good opportunity and motivate the masses to mine this coin.

What happens is that difficulty goes naturaly up and people receive much smaller shares because the interest is higher.


* * * *

So, those who started early with mining had a huge advantage but who could know that this would turn into a valuable coin, right?

Unless this wasn´t the plan from the very first moment, this looks like a totally fair thing to deal with.

Maybe. Fact is, millions have been sold in the last time and immediately after some high buy order were placed.

 

I don't know why you are referring to merge mining. Of course people are free to convince other coins to give Quark additional hashrate.  This has anything to do with the latest complaints about merge mining (that is what appears to be a made up story). I personally won't support anything that is set up intransparently and I know others won't do neither.

Maok, I don´t have the time to debunk one argument and then the next and then the next. No, proof of burn doesn´t need a hardfork, no it doesn´t need an agreement by the dev and no, it doesn´t have to have Quarks hashrate issues. As long as there is no 51% attack in the Proof of burn phase there is no more need to rely on Quarks blockchain (even though this depends on the way you handle proof of burn).
And re: Satoshi comparison: Bitcoin reacted to Satoshis disappearance with the creation of the Foundation and that was why there was a lot of stability in the creation, maintenance and future perspective of BTC. Also as far as I remember Satoshi handed over the Github access to Gavin or someone else so there wasn´t even the need for a hardfork. If Max Guevara handed over (or shared) Github access I wouldn´t argue the way I do, but he didn´t. He is also still active as you could see from his fast reaction to the Heartbleed bug but the lack of responsiveness (or at least the reliance on individual members) is to me unacceptable (and btw. also not really suits the "decentral" character that we are/were promoting).

Anyway (I think I repeat this at least the 5th time) this move would certainly mean to start from 0, but at least we could make sure that we already have a community with a good network factor plus we can make sure that a real Foundation would exist from launch. Also Proof of Burn wouldn´t mean killing Quark as was suggested by some in this thread. Counterparty didn´t kill Bitcoin and is still kinda successful. It just means that people take a decision to go a different way and try a fresh start. I still believe this is the last matter we have, but I must say that it becomes more attractive to me.

As cryptohunter and others said, the question whether it´s worth to try it depends on the question whether it is possible to find a dedicated and talented developer (or more) who is willing to work with us.

No...this is technically on top of Quark like CP, it doesn't need a hard fork. It would also make no sense to do it differently im this case which why I pointed out the irony that you were complaining about people with a lack of understanding.
Yeah, maybe you missed the idea. This is/was an (emergency) plan how we could solve the hashrate issue if the developer is not responding. Unlike simply forking Quark this would allow raising funds to work on the future of the currency. Quark may have good specs but still
1. A hashrate issue
2. Other coins have good specs at well and
2. As you pointed out on your own: the currency is worth nothing without the community. So I prefer another and presumeably better coin if the alternative is losing the community.

Btw. I don't see why people should blame Kolin for the current state (especially those who are not even part of the community anymore). As I expressed on Reddit I have serious problems with the recent proceedings but Quark has problems apart from individual behaviour.

Which prominent Proof of Burn concept uses hard forks? None.



I already outlined the possible innovations, won't repeat it the 10th time.

@maok


Funny cause your post shows clearly that you don't know what you are talking about.


Aha...it needs hardfork... intetesting. No it doesn't.  Read about it. Coins are burned by sending them to a "dead" address. A hard fork is not needed or did counterparty need a Bitcoin hardfork? The coins ate still in the blockchain bur they are lost. The protocol only confirms your "work". You obviously completely misunderstood proof of burn or simply don't know about it.



Who wrote about Quark shozld be the slave of another coin? That proposal wouldn't make any sense to me.


Monero has a dedicated and responsive dev with talent and good ideas. It is all about the community but a) the developers are imüortant figures and b) the community doed not exist for nothing - a community needs to be built. With secrecy and closed discourse this is not going to work. I explained on Reddit why I have problems with mimiccoin, I wont repeat it here. You don't have to agree with me but you will certainly understand that I won't spend more time into Quark if I see that the team structures we tried to create to move things forward are made effectively irrelevant. Also I can't see a clear correspondence between dev and community but rather between devs and single individuals. This has no future in my opinion.

@Alice

That is nonsense. When the distribution is burnt from another coin the market conditions don't change.  Please, do be a favor and read:https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_burn

Technically a proof of burn coin can be considered as being created on the top of the other coin, so by saying there is no free market you say Quark has no free market.

First off, I am not launching anything. What I will do however is looking for a feasible way for Quarkers to translate their share to another project where the community can start from scratch and stick together. Why is Proof of burn better than an IPO? Because for an IPO you would need the coins to be already premined + you would need trust for those who distribute the shares.  With proof of burn trust isn't needed because pwople would simply do it on their own.
As I said before, the protocol could be created ao e.g. people burn 1 QRK and receive for that 0.5 of the new currency,  0.2 is reserved for a community fund and 0.3 is deposited and subsequently paid back over a certain period of time (e.g. 3 years). This way everyone would donate equally 20% to the community and 30% are paid back slowly so the interest in pumping&dumping is kept low mid term.


No, burning is trustless as explained above. Look up Counterparty. They use Bitcoin proof of burn. And no, there are no QRK for a community fund. Quarks are burned and disappear from circulation. Instead the community receices 20% of the whole burnt sum as community fund. This solution needs a solid foundation in forehand otherwise it is doomed to die.

As I said, I am not planning to launch a coin, but I can contribute to the discussion and if there are enough interested Quarkers we can prepare thia to happen. Good deva are the key as you said and probably funding to get them started. If you know devs who are looking for a motivated community to start to work with, you should post contacts.

Wtf? You haven't understand a word of the approach, otherwise your post doesn't make any sense at all.


So you think a new coin is better? Guess what,  proof of burn is exactly that: a new coin. It is also not unfair because everyone can decide on his and her own whether he or she likes to burn or stick with Quark. Of course if the majority of people and their infrastructure are withdrawing from Quark this could cause Quark to become less valuable or even worthless but this would be anything else but letting the market determine the price.

What is the difference to a new coin? Only Quark holders would receive shares.  This is a way to SAVE the potential, time and ressources that many of us spent into Quark. The new coin would start at 0 with all the relevant tasks to be done (exchange rate listing etc.) but it may be a good option for those who don't agree with the current events.

So all in all, proof of burn is not really a concurrent approach to merge mining. It is rather a new coin to allow Quarkers to leave the community without losing their sahre. You don't need to like it. If it becomes reality you can still stick with Quark as is.

Just wanted to let you know that I will contact developers for a proof of burn project. I explained my thoughts on this some pages ago. I will also encourage to use the forum that we are working on for the proof of burn concept if it appears feasible.  We put a lot of work into this and I am not neither willing to donate this work of mine nor Bubble up to the current state of Quark.

Other approaches were already presented. Once people get to the conclusion that it is more productive to invest than to sell people will donate. But yeah look it up, the discussion was more complex

True that doesn't make any sense to me as well.

Also


You repeated that at least three times. It's time to get into detail. What is "handeled correctly".


The only argument I see is the team funds. We can raise those funds or even donations as well. We don't need another coin for it. But again,  I'd be interested in the exact handling to get more in detail with my critic.
 

No, it's not the same. Proof of burn allows to proceed without pre- or instamine. Like Counterparty a proof of burn concept would be created on the top of Quark. People don't need to trust or pay any third party. Whoever wants the coin burns it on his or her own. Destroying Quark is not as radical as you may think it could even have positive effects. This coin can still be mineable. It can even have a different inflation rate.

But yeah, it all comes down to where I expect the companion coin to be seen as what it is: a desperate move to get money and hashrate. While I have doubts that people get into it shortterm I see no way how it can be successful midterm.

But then, even though I dislike the plan I still see the Quark IPO as the best alternative. Guess you like to hear that.

@Vic & CH

I know I am repeating this on and on but the same as CH didn´t hear any specific argument against the companion coin I don´t see how a companion coin wouldn´t damage the Quark brand. Money is not a product, it is a medium. If it was a product I can see the argument to market it to different groups but as it is a medium I think we should focus on making the medium better instead of launching a better medium that is suppose to replenish Quarks purpose.

Now, I want to get the arguments straight as there seem to be a lot of different directions in this discussion. I try to list the arguments why we went into this discussion in first place. I believe them to be very different and so are the conclusions we can draw from them. I list them with the contra arguments:

1. Hashrate is too low >> "Companion" coin with merge mining - however: people (e.g. mako, who is a developer) argued that this is in fact not a real issue because of automated checkpointing, which is why the companion coin is not necessary from a technical side.
2. Value is too low >> making the coin more attractive (more features, more projects, more prospects)  - People argued that the main issue is that we have no money to finance projects.
3. No Community Funds >> "companion" coin as a "product" we sell for QRK, proof of burn, donations, superblock
4. Dev is inactive >> involve developer stronger (talk to developer) / find other coop developers


@1 I was bit astonished that the hashrate in fact is no real issue, I would like to hear more about that from another developer.
@2 I personally think that is not the case in terms of exchange rate, however we need to raise a substantial share of the whole distributed money to use for future projects. I am against a companion coin as I don´t see any way to create real distinguishing features. Also if merge mining isn´t that important (which may not be the case) the main reason seems to be raising money.
@3 If this is only about raising money I would prefer sidechain solutions (proof of burn etc.) or donations.
@4 As I argued before, I think paying a Dev in QRK is the best solution to get a dev involved in Quark. With regard to latest coops I am positive about including other devs ( than Max)