You must wait until the concept is proven. This could take a bit of time, as it requires rigorous analysis and field-testing. Animal trials will begin in the near future, once in vitrio studies have completed. Human testing likely in 2015-16.

I beg to differ. We are both Warren Buffet AND God.

To the community:

The following commentary is not so much for you, as you already know and understand the points it makes. It is something for the general population outside crypto, so please feel free to pass it along via blogs or other social media. And good news:
Reuters decided to post my article. Cool! See comment section immediately below this big piece on Bitcoin: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/20/bitcoin-future-idUSL3N0MH0AD20140320

Real glad to keep getting the word out on Crypto and the precious few truly outstanding coins, including Vertcoin, which is mentioned here alongside Bitcoin, Litecoin and Blackcoin. The four pillars of Cryptocurrency, imho. Anyway, please consider tweeting the shit out of the link, above.

A few thoughts on Digital Currency:
Perhaps some of you heard about Warren Buffett's recent dismissal of Bitcoin as 'a mirage'. Funny, my first reaction to that was that he's just too old to understand what it is and what it may imply for the future of money. Now I'm pondering whether he actually had to reject it, vehemently, because of the extent to which he feels threatened by it. Most people, himself included, are very invested in the illusion of the dollar and/or their own respective government-backed currencies. The more people there are who understand what Bitcoin is, the more that illusion frays at the edges and begins to come undone.
I've been reading up a little on Gresham's law. Fascinating stuff. Sir Thomas Gresham was a sixteenth-century financial agent of the English Crown. The 'law' had been formulated a generation earlier by Copernicus, in a treatise called Monetae Cudendae Ratio. This is the crux of it: "bad (debased) coinage drives good (un-debased) coinage out of circulation." Gresham used this to explain to the Queen (Elizabeth 1) the reason for the miserable state into which the English Shilling had fallen. To quote a historian whose name I didn't happen to note down:
"The statement was part of Gresham's explanation for the "unexampled state of badness" England's coinage had been left in following the "Great Debasements" of Henry VIII and Edward VI, which reduced the metallic value of English silver coins to a small fraction of what it had been at the time of Henry VII. It was owing to these debasements, Gresham observed to the Queen, that "all your fine gold was conveyed out of this your realm."
The connection I'm proposing here is that Bitcoin is, and is increasingly perceived to be, 'good' currency, while the dollar and other fiat currencies are increasingly perceived as 'debased'. This kind of thinking is still not widespread enough to have the disruptive impact it might have someday soon. But it has gained a lot of ground lately, enough to cause (in combination with a few other factors) Bitcoin valuation to rise from $25 to as high as $1,200 within a year.
Some may object that the parallel I'm drawing doesn't hold because, where (for instance) gold has 'intrinsic value', Bitcoin does not have it (or is presumed by Buffett and others not to). But what is 'intrinsic value'? I mean, yes, gold may have uses in old-school dentistry and in the making of pretty objects, but that hardly justifies the notion of value independant of the subjective, emotional consensus, "gold is precious". Still less does it confer any substance on the dollar, whose relationship to gold is but a distant memory. One might actually make a better argument that Bitcoin and its digital offspring, the 'altcoins', e.g., Litecoin, Blackcoin, Vertcoin etc., have more 'real' or 'intrinisic' value. Digital does what it does extremely well. The utility of it is tremendous. The intelligence and other resources that allow it to exist and function are tremendous (computing-power, among other things). And it cannot be minted arbitrarily in endless reams of paper at the whim of a central bank.
Others may object that while Gresham was speaking about currency, i.e., different grades of shilling within the realm, Bitcoin and the 'alts' are not currency. But this is just semantic quibbling. The mindless refrain of newspaper columnists lately has been that currency must be mandated by government, a qualification Bitcoin and the others lack. Meaning, it's not currency unless government says it is. I would say that it becomes currency in virtue of being used as such. Which it already is. By real people, in real commerce.
Anyway, we'll see how it all plays out. We may see a time when people try as hard as possible to palm off their dollars to anyone who still tolerates them in exchange for goods and services, while seeking to receive digital currency whenever possible -- to collect or spend in international trade where it's the only currency-form that is taken seriously at all. I believe we may be heading that way.

Reuters decided to post my article. Cool! See comment section immediately below this big piece on Bitcoin: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/03/20/bitcoin-future-idUSL3N0MH0AD20140320

Real glad to keep getting the word out on Crypto and the precious few truly outstanding coins, including Blackcoin, which is mentioned here alongside Bitcoin, Litecoin and Vertcoin. The four pillars of Cryptocurrency, imho. Anyway, tweet the shit out of the link. Thanks!

Nice tale of hard-won experience. Thanks for sharing.

What Yogi Berra have said to all this?
Answer: "Blackcoin? It's like de ja Bitcoin all over again."

Seriously, these four strike me as the four pillars of crypto. Bitcoin the grandaddy of them all, Litecoin the great Scrypt original, Vertcoin the N-Scrypt King, and Blackcoin the PoS King.

Yikes, no, green was for Vertcoin. Lol, sorry for the ambiguity. (not Emerald or Pot either haha).

After the great shakeout of shitcoins and wannabees, behold! The International Flag of Crypto, recognized worldwide: https://i.imgur.com/I7kRgRi.png

That update from Sunny King was from around Feb 18.

That is my understanding.

Understood. To my knowledge, Sunny King sorted the matter out already over a month ago. To wit:

The protocol upgrade in 0.3.0 includes a new algorithm to derive proof-of-stake hash modifier, the entity that scrambles computation for stake owners, which replaces the current proof-of-stake difficulty used as modifier in 0.2 protocol. The design was started late September last year, when I first began to realize the issues with using difficulty as modifier. Honorary mention also goes to Jutarul, who independently discovered and verified an issue with using difficulty as modifier and published on bitcointalk in December last year, while successfully executed a demo attack on the block chain. Other changes in the protocol include starting hash weight from 0 at the 30-day mininum age, and requirement that coinstake timestamp must equal block timestamp. Overall 0.3 protocol should significantly strengthen the proof-of-stake protection and resolve the current known vulnerabilities.

My sincere appreciation to co-contributors of 0.3.0 release:

Robert VanHazinga of Hartland PC (dreamwatcher) for the vanitygen compatibility fix
Jutarul for demonstrating stake generation vulnerability
EskimoBob for reporting issue fixed in 0.3.0

What, image-link posts don't work anymore? Damn. I had the perfect Cryptocurrency flag of the future.

As I've mentioned in a previous post, parity with Litecoin today would signify approximately $5/BC. I see that as a reasonable benchmark destination, for the time being. If LTC goes up faster than its currency expansion/dilution, I would raise that benchmark accordingly.

Thanks - looks much better. And on re-reading I just realized I'd misspelled Warren Buffett (now corrected). No doubt this is a sign of how much of my respect he has lost.

To the community:

The following commentary is not so much for you, as you already know and understand the points it makes. It is something for the general education of the populace outside crypto, so please feel free to pass it along via blogs or other social media:

A few thoughts on Digital Currency:
Perhaps some of you heard about Warren Buffett's recent dismissal of Bitcoin as 'a mirage'. Funny, my first reaction to that was that he's just too old to understand what it is and what it may imply for the future of money. Now I'm pondering whether he actually had to reject it, vehemently, because of the extent to which he feels threatened by it. Most people, himself included, are very invested in the illusion of the dollar and/or their own respective government-backed currencies. The more people there are who understand what Bitcoin is, the more that illusion frays at the edges and begins to come undone.
I've been reading up a little on Gresham's law. Fascinating stuff. Sir Thomas Gresham was a sixteenth-century financial agent of the English Crown. The 'law' had been formulated a generation earlier by Copernicus, in a treatise called Monetae Cudendae Ratio. This is the crux of it: "bad (debased) coinage drives good (un-debased) coinage out of circulation." Gresham used this to explain to the Queen (Elizabeth 1) the reason for the miserable state into which the English shilling had fallen. To quote a historian whose name I didn't happen to note down:
"The statement was part of Gresham's explanation for the "unexampled state of badness" England's coinage had been left in following the "Great Debasements" of Henry VIII and Edward VI, which reduced the metallic value of English silver coins to a small fraction of what it had been at the time of Henry VII. It was owing to these debasements, Gresham observed to the Queen, that "all your fine gold was conveyed out of this your realm."
The connection I'm proposing here is that Bitcoin is, and is increasingly perceived to be, 'good' currency, while the dollar and other fiat currencies are increasingly perceived as 'debased'. This kind of thinking is still not widespread enough to have the disruptive impact it might have someday soon. But it has gained a lot of ground lately, enough to cause (in combination with a few other factors) Bitcoin valuation to rise from $25 to as high as $1,200 within a year.
Some may object that the parallel I'm drawing doesn't hold because, where (for instance) gold has 'intrinsic value', Bitcoin does not have it (or is presumed by Buffett and others not to). But what is 'intrinsic value'? I mean, yes, gold may have uses in old-school dentistry and in the making of pretty objects, but that hardly justifies the notion of value independant of the subjective, emotional consensus, "gold is precious". Still less does it confer any substance on the dollar, whose relationship to gold is but a distant memory. One might actually make a better argument that Bitcoin and its digital offspring, the 'altcoins', e.g., Litecoin, Blackcoin, Vertcoin etc., have more 'real' or 'intrinisic' value. Digital does what it does extremely well. The utility of it is tremendous. The intelligence and other resources that allow it to exist and function are tremendous (computing-power, among other things). And it cannot be minted arbitrarily in endless reams of paper at the whim of a central bank.
Others may object that while Gresham was speaking about currency, i.e., different grades of shilling within the realm, Bitcoin and the 'alts' are not currency. But this is just semantic quibbling. The mindless refrain of newspaper columnists lately has been that currency must be mandated by government, a qualification Bitcoin and the others lack. Meaning, it's not currency unless government says it is. I would say that it becomes currency in virtue of being used as such. Which it already is. By real people, in real commerce.
Anyway, we'll see how it all plays out. We may see a time when people try as hard as possible to palm off their dollars to anyone who still tolerates them in exchange for goods and services, while seeking to receive digital currency whenever possible -- to collect or spend in international trade where it's the only currency-form that is taken seriously at all. I believe we may be heading that way.
--Jabulon

In fact to the contrary, the evolution of cryptocurrency is both desirable and necessary. It may displease some who bet big on the wrong coin, but that says nothing about what is good for the long-term viability and health of crypto. Eternalsoldier, I would suggest you are getting emotional in a misguided way, about the wrong thing. This cannot serve your own survival very well as an investor in crypto. Consider that the anatomically modern human as we know him, of which you are presumably an example, i.e., 'cro-magnon man', at one time co-existed with the Neanderthal subspecies. The latter eventually disappeared, due to one or more of the following:

Competitive replacement due to anatomical differences (affecting running ability, hunting ability, etc.)
Rapid extinction by violence
Rapid extinction by parasites and pathogens.

Anyway, if you feel that crypto is or could become a good and useful thing - let nature take its course in gradually refining and improving the product.

Agreed overall, however the three examples you mention had the advantage of massive premine/VC investment (in the case of Ripple 100% 'premine'). It will therefore be even more noteworthy to see how Blackcoin evolves, which I expect it to, into a top 5 coin.

This is no doubt the case, and I have pointed out the same in previous posts. It would be a challenge to determine the extent of that, though. At very least, most people who mined would have mined into one address and bought into another. Surely some others have deliberately broken up their stash in other ways as well. Nonetheless, it is evident that there's an increasingly vast number of smaller players coming in to stake their claim to a bit of Blackcoin real estate. I think a few fat whales got eaten by the 10,000 piranas.

I suspect a very large percentage of the original miner-dumpers unoaded a long time ago, on the way down from 2000's to 500 and below, and that what we have seen has been a cycle of distribution/buy-backs, with periodic sell-offs by purely speculative players. Orderbook behaivior suggests increasing number of average-wallet investors losing any interest in selling. Look at the maarx wallet list for further interesting insights.