RingCT hides not only the sender and recipient of a transaction, but masks the AMOUNT as well.  It's a step closer to Perfect Privacy.

Next is Monero's I2P router, which is being carefully ported from Java (lol WTF) to C++ (monitor progress at https://github.com/monero-project/kovri).


The Dash vending machine should be stocked with bottles of snake oil.

It's what we expect from Evan Maddoffield's sleazy, HYIP scam-marketing outfit:

Shen is a beast.

Math lord, Crypto boss, and Pro coder all in one.  Monero Mountain is lucky to have him as a resident mustang! 

Send him a tip if you like.  His XMR donation address is at https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3pw30d/ringct_for_monero_updated_versions/cwdnkaz

zomg teh hawt fire

 

Intel CPU ok, or AMD OCL only?

A rowdy, boozy car show is a completely different atmosphere than a calm, professional cryptography conference.

Investment and tech people are mostly there to be serious during business hours and don't expect crude, gimmicky, hard-sell techniques like a stripper in a thong.

Do you think every venue in Miami is appropriate for sleazy come-ons, just Because Miami?  Have you been to Miami?  It's a huge city, and not at all 100% titty bars, clubs, and beaches.

The "damn prude" defense of this incident shows how far you will go to rationalize anything negative about Dash.

Instead of letting it go and supporting an apology for the embarrassed conference security guards/organizers, you deflect with your normal attack-the-attacker strategy.  The 'Dash can do no wrong' act is getting old.

This is what we are supposed to believe is some neckbeard's "girlfriend."



Sorry, not buying it.  Those shoes say "paid by the half-hour" not "Bitcoin widow."  

I feel sorry for the guys in the next booth.  They paid to exhibit at BTCMIAMI only to have Dash make it look like they are selling lap dances.

The hooker sex worker cameo was completely unprofessional, and (exactly like the unprofessionalism/incompetency of the Instamine) you just refuse to accept that fact.

Wait, what?

Are you saying that because I am a "scammer" it's implied that DASH is not a scam?

How does that even logic?   

I also don't understand why you only want to read posts supportive of DASH.  I like to hear all the opinions about a topic, then decide for myself.

*If* I was going to Ignore anti-Dash critics, I'd have to Ignore pro-Dash cheerleaders too.  Don't you think that's fair?

Or do you want to only read posts that confirm your existing pro-Instamine, pro-Foundation bias?

The old Darkcoin community wasn't like that.  They knew how to handle criticism like adults, without throwing tantrums and urging retreat to echo-chamber forums.

No wonder the price has collapsed since the rebrand (and vertoe left).  This new look just isn't doing it for the market.  It's kind of ugly, TBH.

There's no trick question here or lurking 'gotcha' waiting to pounce on you bro.  I only asked you to spell it out because your highly-informed expert opinion is one of the most valuable to me.

I'm not sure you are getting what I'm saying, because you reference "hundreds of millions of dollars worth of mining hardware" that, in a contentious fork war, would have stopped being an asset to Bitcoin and started being a liability (or at least may have entered a grey zone where sha256's value is unclear and possibly zero or negative).

Catastrophic consensus failure would entail that Bitcoin must "start again from scratch."  And facing headwinds of terrible publicity to boot.

In a DEFCON ZERO situation, by switching PoW we would have little to lose (despite the intrinsic chaos involved in moving from one stable state to another), much to gain by defending the blockchain from adversity, and maybe even mitigate the ASIC centralization problem in the process.

Perhaps where we disagree is on the impact of increasing block size on Bitcoin's antifragile aspect.  IMO antifragility is an emergent property of the diverse/diffuse/defensible/resilient network, and anything over 1MB tx + SEGWIT blocks are too risky.

I know that's a controversial opinion, but being out on the fringe isn't so bad when I am in good company with the 'let's consider DECREASING max_block' crowd, to whom I am sympathetic in that I'd rather set max_block at too low a value than too high.

Thanks for stepping into the endless debate to LMK your POV.  I think I got it now, so you can go back to making Bitcoin more awesome!   

Yawn.  Wake me up if there is an "urgently needed" capacity increase.  I'm not expecting one for at least a year or two...

So long as competitive fees effectively pay for tx priority within Bitcoin's fee-for-service markets (plural because in- and out-of-band markets exist), Bitcoin is just starting to work the way it's supposed to.

The idea of FREE TX 4EVA is bunk; block subsidies won't last forever and we must have a better, loop-of-self-sufficiency-closing way to pay miners for our collective security.

If fee markets fail to develop as block subsidies decline, there will be less incentive for miners to secure the One True Blockchain.  And that would lead to talk of a tail emission, which might entail raising the 21e6 coin limit.

Do you really wan to go there?

If you want free tx, use a less popular, alternative chain with (effectively) no minimum fee.

http://qntra.net/2015/08/concerns-for-the-toomim-brothers-mining/




Did we ever get complete answers to the important questions asked here? 

Where is the LLC registration letter?  Where is the insurance policy?

Thanks in advance!   

Well of course changing PoW in anything but the most dire circumstances would be "absurd."  But that is the SHTF scenario a ToominCoin 51% attack forces us to confront.  So let's hope for the best while we plan for the worst.

Are you saying sha256 is a 'less arbitrary/more intrinsic' feature of Bitcoin than 1MB blocks?

I have no problem sacrificing sha256 in order to preserve 1MB blocks, unless you can demonstrate PoW change is more of a threat to our diverse/diffuse/defensible/resilient network than >1MB (2MB or whatever) blocks.

It seems you have reached the opposite conclusion, and say that 1MB blocks may be sacrificed in order to preserve sha256.

Is that correct, or was something lost in my translation from the Australian?   

Characterizing Guy Corem & Co's POV as "absurd" only tells the rest of us you disagree with it, while leaving your audience wondering what your exact points of contention are.

IMO, changing the PoW is not something to be done except as a last resort to protect the blockchain from a ~51% attacker.

But in a doomsday scenario, with an ongoing contentious hard fork causing unacceptable risk of catastrophic consensus failure, I'd appreciate having some good 2nd strike options having been presciently filed away on the shelf for future consideration in exigent circumstances.

It's like having a fire hose behind glass.  Not a good idea to play with most of the time, but if there's a fire then it's time to break the glass and deploy emergency countermeasures.

In your opinion, is Bitcoin married to SHA-256 like it's married to other control variables like the 21e6 coin emission schedule, 10 minute block target, and 1MB blocks?

Is there a better way to resolve a (messy, scary, dangerous, mutually destructive) fork war than by one of the chains moving to another PoW?

I don't see Bitcoin as being defined by SHA-256; IMO the particular PoW (while carefully chosen as the best fit for the job) isn't an intrinsic feature of the Nakamoto Consensus protocol.

Is there something special about SHA-256 that other functions cannot do as well or better?

Are you talking about XT/Classic style contentious hard forks, having a backup plan to change the PoW if necessary, both, or neither?

I'm not sold on super-complex functions with Byzantine rules (despite the fact when I tried to write one, it looked a lot like what Guy came up with)!   

More complexity just raises the barrier to entry for ASIC manufacturers, exacerbating the centralization we already see with fairly simple SHA-256.  Not that working at 16nm is simple...but still, buying proprietary IP for up to all 100 isn't going to be cheap!   

Since we can't defeat all ASICs, perhaps we should try to encourage as much competition as possible and KISS.

$ represents the idea of centrally organized fiat.  Especially the US dollar, but all of them really.

The pic looks like a good hard asset portfolio to me.  20% BTC, 20% Gold, 20% cash, 40% Monero.

And desktop... 

Oh brother, bantering with angry Dash bagholders like you two and big-blockers like Frap.doc is just a hobby.  But I'm flattered you think I'm good enough to go pro.   

I'm here in the Decred thread to learn, and maybe be helpful and or actually productive.  How about you guys?

I notice you both have been in Dash a long time and very nearly exclusively post on its thread.  Any plans to sell some masternodes and buy into the Decred airdump?

What's the right balance of XDC/DASH/PPC for the balanced PoS porftfolio?  1/3 each?

The code Blockstream writes is what's important, not who funds them.

https://medium.com/@vcorem/lesson-learned-from-the-classic-coup-attempt-or-why-core-needs-to-prepare-a-gpu-only-pow-6a9afe18e4b0

So, as I write these words, it seems that Classic has a good chance of meeting its activation Threshold. Jonathan is aiming for Classic to be activated when 75% of the last 2,016 (currently coded 1,000 but he said in the interview that he might increase to 2,016) mined blocks indicate support of the Classic fork, meaning the miners that mined them are ready to do a 2MB Hard Fork and leave behind everyone on Core.
What will happen to Core chain if Classic will be activated?

Will Classic activation mean the end to the Core chain ?
Not necessarily; Careful planning on behalf of Core will allow it survive.

I believe that Core developers will split into three camps: Some will join Classic Chain (and fork), some will quit Bitcoin altogether, and some will continue development on Core Chain (and fork).

I tend to believe that most Core developers will remain and implement the Core scalability road-map as planned. I simply don’t see Core following Classic’s governance model in which the users vote on issues.

Mainly, Core needs to replace its PoW function, preferably to a function which make any effort to create ASIC for it economically nonviable. I’ll discuss such a proposal below.
The other thing Core needs to do is to change the Transaction ID, in order to create a complete split of coins.

By implementing the above, upon Classic activation, each Bitcoin will be split to ClassicCoin and CoreCoin. Each coin will be transact-able separately and will have a different market value. Most of the exchanges will probably support both Chains, hence each Coin will have different market value based on supply and demand.

From the user perspective, she will needs to install both wallets (Core and Classic) and import the old private key into both wallets. It makes sense that multi chains wallets will be created, so the user will be able to transact easily with wallets on both Coins. These wallets may even present the following arithmetic: 1 CoreCoin + 1 ClassicCoin = 1 BTC, so if you have 80 CoreCoins and 73 ClassicCoins it would show up as 73 BTC + 7 CoreCoins. It might be able to transact in that way as well, sending CoreCoins and ClassicCoins with one wallet “Send” action to the receiver.

....


Suggestion for GPU only PoW change for Core

In order to survive, Core needs to change its PoW or else Core miners won’t be able to mine at all or Core chain will be susceptible to 51% attacks from Classic miners. I purpose the following, in order to prevent mining centralization, and prevent the possibility of such a governance coup in the future:

    Core will prepare a large set of cryptographic hash functions, at least 100 or more initially. Any simple (not memory hard) function will do

    Every 3 months (12,096 blocks), the PoW change automatically, by random data hashed from the last block before the change

    A selection of 10 or more functions is made from the large set, selected deterministically from last block data

    If the functions have tunable parameters and or constants then those are also selected deterministically from the last block data

    Those 10 or more functions are constructed in a stack (e.g. X11)

    The Stack of functions with their new constants and parameters (all selected deterministically by hashing last block data) is the NewPoW

    In order to prevent Hash-Rate oscillation (very bad…), The OldPoW and the NewPoW coexist for one month (4,032 blocks)

    Each PoW function actually serves for 5 months:

    - One month of Phase In period in which it co-exists with it’s predecessor

    - Three months in which it serves alone as the only PoW

    - One month of Phase Out period in which it co-exists with it’s successor

    During the Phase In period, the NewPoW difficulty is set initially to a very low value, to incentivize miners to mine it.

    However, During the first 252 blocks (1/16 of the phase in period), only one block with the NewPoW is allowed every 16 blocks. If more then one block with the NewPoW is mined during this period, the rest will be discarded.

    There will be a lot of miners trying to mine the new PoW since its difficulty was set to a low value, there will be a lot of soft forks. To avoid it, the block with NewPoW with minimum BlockHash is accepted as the winner, all the rest are discarded.

    In the next 252 blocks (second 1/16 of the phase in period), only two blocks with the NewPoW are allowed every 16 blocks.

    Every subsequent 252 blocks of the phase-in period, one more block with NewPoW will be allowed.

    After each 252 blocks of the phase-in period, the difficulty of the NewPoW will be adjusted based on the time it took to create blocks with NewPoW from the beginning of each 16 blocks period.

    By the end of the phase-in period, the OldPoW will be retired and the only acceptable blocks will be blocks with the NewPoW


This proposal if implemented correctly, will bring a never ending GPU mining on Core chain. It will also reduce the hash-rate oscillation between each PoW change. In order to make sure an ASIC effort will be uneconomic, the initial set of functions needs to be large enough. In addition, on every future Hard Fork of Core Chain, additional hash functions need to be added to this set (assuming CoreCoin price increase).

....

Thanks goes to:

    Adlai Chandrasekhar for suggesting the automatic method of replacing PoW parameters using Blockchain data
    Benny Gorlick for suggesting to select the next PoW from a large set of predefined functions
    Emin Gün Sirer for suggesting the mechanism to prevent hash-rate oscillation after each PoW change
    James Hilliard for creating a tool that generates a transcript from the WeChat group “MinerInWorld”
    Vitalik Buterin for reviewing the proposal
    Luke-Jr for reviewing the proposal

Will need to examine photographic evidence of Mrs. Instamine in said bikini to determine degree of guilt and proper embarrassment.

She was paid with MegaBlock-printed marketing funds?  How did we miss that budget proposal?  Submitted and approved at the last second?   

Well that "defense" didn't take long to crash and burn.

I thought there was resistance at 0.01.  I was wrong.   

Market not very impressed with Evolution's hyper-ambitious roadmap.  The open secret is that all that development must be paid for by dumping (more) wantonly printed coins.  The MegaBlocks are like a monthly instamine.

No way the bagholders will endure 12-18 months of that.  The are racing for the exits as smoke fills the theater.  Stampede, carnage, and burnt corpses in 3, 2, 1....

DASH

Last Price
0.00972061

24hr Change
-12.43%

24hr High
0.01201897
24Hr Low
0.00972009


DASH CRASH right through 0.01 floor like it wasn't even there.

The market is screaming "we hate this Evolution roadmap of vaporware BS."

DASH must inflate by creating more coins to dump and pay for 1.5 years of EVOLUSHAM development and marketing BS like soda machine.

But the more Evan's MegaBlocks print and dump, the lower the price goes, so the more he must print/dump.

It's a vicious cycle.  Result: hyperinflation, DASH #R3KT.

DASH