I'm willing to make it as easy as possible (simple words, short sentences...) to understand some aspects of cryptocurrencies to newcomers. Targets are your neighbour, you mum, your MP.... The following text is by no means complete - it doesn't even start with "what is a cryptocurrency". I'm not looking for something complete, just for something internally consistent. Completeness will come later. Please tell me if 1) this is correct 2) this seems simple enough. A good test would be to ask IRL, non-crypto friends about it. I appreciate your help. (single point of failure: please provide a layman way to explain)
What is double-spending?Double-spending is a complicated word for a simple thing: Computer : easy to copy Money: you don't want it to be copied How to solve double-spending?Solution #1 (up to 2009): central authority + trust it will behave honestly (adding layers of security only reduces the risk, without annihilating it - "who watches the watchmen?"). Solution #2 (from 2009 on): unforgeable logs, called "blockchain" (you can still copy the data, but that won't make a difference - you just have backup). "Trust" is placed on maths. Why bother with blockchain?Because you want something resilient to attacks on the central authority. This matter mainly concerned alternative currencies. Like the regulated currencies (fiat: euro, dollar...), they needed a central authority since we did not know any other way to prevent double-spending. And a central authority means a vulnerable, single point of failure. Satoshi Nakamoto, January 2009I think there were a lot more people interested in the 90's, but after more than a decade of failed Trusted Third Party based systems (Digicash, etc), they see it as a lost cause. I hope they can make the distinction that this is the first time I know of that we're trying a non-trust-based system. What's this crypto 2.0 thing?We came to realise that there is more than money were we need unforgeable logs. So what was first a monetary thing outgrew its original scope. Hence crypto 2.0, willing to extend the solution to other aspect of society (contracts, evidences of anteriority...) |
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On XMR Network Hashrate Fluctuations and Suspected Botnets: Regarding botnets: |
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To expand a bit about MEW for those who may be new, MEW = Monero Economy Workgroup, an open membership group that supports and promotes Monero adoption. Anyone can join. You can find out more on xmrmonero.com or https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=776479Also here: https://xmrmonero.com/?q=faq-page#t9n44MEW stands for Monero Economy Workgroup and had its own thread, Monero Economy WorkgroupThere are two sides of the Monero coin. Obverse is the core team, devoted to the technology i.e. coding. Reverse is MEW, devoted to the economy i.e. encouraging adoption, business opportunities… Let's extend the metaphor: the edges of the coin are the gray area where coding and economy overlap. The emission curve is such a gray area. The core team works internally under the collegiality (peer) governance system and externally under the benevolent dictatorship (for life) model. MEW works internally under the weighted voting governance system and has not (at least for now) any external governance system. The Core team and MEW are independant of each others: no group can force the other to change its mind. A vote from the MEW doesn't imply the core team has to abide; in reverse, if the core team asks the MEW to do something, MEW is not obliged to follow suit. Therefore, no one feels like being controlled by the other. If a post seemed to imply than one govering body rules above the other, it would be a misinterpretation and should be replied to by pointing to this FAQ entry. Any one who wants to join PM me (not because I am a core dev, but because I am the member executive of MEW). |
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Can anyone here spit out some ideas concerning websites that you think should be created around or focusing on Monero?
I started a list of what exists. It is incomplete (only by because of oversight, no political agenda here). This could help defining what else is needed. https://xmrmonero.com/?q=wiki/en/monero-tools(promised, we are working on fixing these questions marks) |
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Cross-posted from RedditIf you follow Monero carefully, you may have heard the word OpenAlias, without really understanding what it is. OpenAlias ( openalias.org) is an open standard for simpler addresses for any crypto — "Simplifying the World" is its slogan. As long as you have a domain name ( I recommend Gandi), you can transform these unreadable 35 characters long addresses (or even 96 for Monero) into something much more human-readable, like donate.monero.cc. Zooko's triangle: squared. "At its most basic, OpenAlias is a TXT DNS record on a FQDN (fully qualified domain name). By combining this with DNS-related technologies we have created an aliasing standard that is extensible for developers, intuitive and familiar for users, and can interoperate with both centralised and decentralised domain systems." No risk of disappointments like "chris678". No risk of phishing like "poloniex". No risk of losing your alias because you lost your private key. To own the alias, you just own the domain name and that's all. Raw address: 46BeWrHpwXmHDpDEUmZBWZfoQpdc6HaERCNmx1pEYL2rAcuwufPN9rXHHtyUA4QVy66qeFQkn6sfK8aHYjA3jk3o1Bv16em OpenAlias address: Any domain. Any crypto. Any address. Any time. Any domain. You can use any domain name, ICANN-sanctionned or not, as long as it follows the DNS naming system. This means OpenAlias works with .bit (Namecoin) too (but not with .onion and .i2p) Any crypto. Even if OpenAlias is a Monero Core Team creation, it works with other cryptocurrencies as well. In fact, it works with any crypto. So, yes, you can receive bitcoins, ripples, NXT... with OpenAlias. Any address. You can use the same address for several cryptos. The alias for the Monero development fund is donate.monero.cc and it has both a Monero and a Bitcoin address. So you don't have to remember one address per crypto. Just one address. Note though that an entry must be created for every crypto, so don't send us dogecoins that way, it won't work :)Also, the reverse is true: you can have several aliases with the same address. For instance, you can send to "david.latapie.name" or "latapie.name", I configured both (here too, this is manual, so if you send to " www.latapie.name", it won't succeed - www is deprecated anyway). Any time. You can change the address whenever you want, it won't break the alias. OpenAlias is fully implemented in the latest version of simplewallet (0.8.8.6) and on mymonero.com. We are in discussion with Poloniex to have implemented (for outgoing transactions only). For the moment, Monero is the only cryptocurrency to implement OpenAlias. OpenAlias follows exactly the Three Pillars of Monero. Privacy: DNSSEC and DNSCrypt compliant and we provide log-less resolvers (list on the website). Decentralisation: ready for Namecoin, DIANNA, P2P-DNS and other decentralised DNS. Scalability: Zooko's triangle and future-proof. We hope to see many implementations of OpenAlias soon! |
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I wrote yesterday a long reply regarding the GUI wallet on Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/2uqsl6/why_is_the_official_gui_wallet_not_released_yet/This is a recurring question, from long-time holders and newcomers alike. There is a misunderstanding here and we have to confess we have not been performing very well at dispelling it. Truth is we are not trying to merely create a GUI, as in a GUI wrapper. Fact is these simple wrappers already exist ( Jojatekok's Windows GUI, Neozaru's Qt GUI, jwinterm's lightWallet and we could probably use Bitcoin wallet too). What we are building is more than a wrapper, it is a full-fledged scalable GUI software. And scalable is the hard part, not GUI - remember, scalability is one of the three pillars of Monero. What is scalable?- Mnemonic seed for increased security (why).
- Low RAM footprint ("the DB", presently Symas Lightning MDB but later a lot others, since we built a database API).
- e-commerce prerequisites, notably for payment processors.
- Low bandwith footprint (a framework for SPV, like Electrum). The remote node provides a similar experience in that one doesn't have to download the whole blockchain, but this is where the similarities end and SPV would be lighter than a remote node.
- Much better understood (thus secure) and refactored code. This is behind-the-scene stuff and not sexy, but when it comes to securing your money, this matters. The Monero Protocol is sound, but we are not that comfortable with the source code we inherited in April (and improved since then). Note: we are pretty demanding on security, so when we say that "we are not that comfortable", this means the security is already high, just not high enough
 - Gitian binaries
- Various mainstream users niceties, such as an address book, an easy way to do bookeeping (including easily report to tax offices, because Monero is not meant just for l33t haX0r, but for everyone, including legal persons like corporations, NGO, political parties...)
- Viewkey for optional transparency (see fluffy quote on Three Pilllars)
- Have a solid foundation for easy improvements later on (like third-parties improvements). Because once the (scalable) GUI wallet will be there, we expect things to accelerate - and we rather be ready for the acceleration. Fasten your seatbelt, Dorothy.
Why is scalable important?Because it is one of the three pillars More seriously, because once the official GUI wallet will be there, visibility will increase a lot. Which means more users who know nothing about Monero and later not even about cryptocurrencies. These people won't give a second thought. One does only one first impression. It must be the right one. Hence the necessity for a wallet than can handle the load. Be scalable, not that much on a technical standpoint than on a, say, "political" standpoint. We hope we answered your questions and, as always, don't hesitate to provide feedback. We'll do our best to make this even more clear if necessary. This post was first published, in a slightly different version, as an answer to a commenter. Continue commenting, this is a great way to encourage us to write extensive replies! Oh, one more thing: we do not have any release date for the GUI wallet, not even tentative. The only thing we can say is that the GUI wallet requires the database to be operational - and the database is progressing very well. Update: some screenshots of the wallet some months ago: |
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So this sig-including doesn't work at all...  This is just a case of me typing to late at night, plus the force of habit. http:// shall be completely remove (since this is not the http protocol but the monero pseudoprotocol) Even if the resulting code is correct, it is confusing, because it behave like a hypertext link but obviously doesn't work since there is no tool to handle it yet. So I reverted back to a good old donate.monero.cc.
Yes, sorry, my question was phrased badly: where is development discussed? I mean, where could I go to find out the status of the RPC call implementation, or the often-discussed multisig stuff, or the db, etc? IRC? The Monero forum?
Mostly #monero-dev. |
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humor me...explain in 2-3 sentences why is Monero "the true e-cash" Can't be tainted, thanks to the opaque blockchain. Like physical coins (banknote have serial numbers). With Monero and its decentralised mixing, you can know that a transaction occured, but not whence, how much and whither. Curious minds go here: The Three Pillars of Monero/. Back on topic: kazuki is the second person I hear saying Bitcoin could be like gold. So a store of value, but not a medium of echange? I'm wondering, should the scenario proves true, if it would a unit of account. I don't know what to think of it, really. My own belief is that there is much more money to be made on the expertise of blockchain than on the coin themselves. Because coins (including Bitcoin and Monero) are open source. So they can be cloned. And frankly, why bother with annoying holders (me and you) whilst you can just click the "fork" button on github? Isn't it what overstock and IBM+Samsung did? The only thing that an established and "cumbersome" coin has that a fresh clone doesn't have, it is the hashing power. And I don't think this is much an issue: either you use you clone for internal purposes or you make int ubiquitous (like a "Samsung coin" in all Samsung mobile phones, for instance). Opinions? |
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Can we setup wikimedia on monero.cc or xmrmonero.com It is already the case, but, since xmronero has a WYWIWYG editor, there is no need for the syntax - except for creating new links and this already possible. The wiki has revisions, diff visualisation and permalinks, as well as talk pages and table of contents, but not eveything works well - for the moment content creation and diff works but TOC and talk pages not - fortunately, this is not the most important. The most important is that YOU populate the wiki
Good post, didn't know Monero already passed the "peer-review" finals. Not yet, in the work. |
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Also notice the monero: pseudo-procotol.
In case anyone is wondering, the full URI spec is here: http://monero.wikia.com/wiki/URI_formattingThat wikia also has the new RPC API spec, if anyone wants to modify / add before it gets ratified in the coming months. Same goes for the URI format. If I wanted to have the pseudo-protocol redirect to mymonero.com (thus, a browser page), is it possible? I suppose a Chrome extension or Firefox plugin would allow it (but I know nothing to extension coding). |
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Also notice the monero: pseudo-procotol. monero:49VNLa9K5ecJo13bwKYt5HCmA8GkgLwpyFjgGKG6qmp8dqoXww8TKPU2PJaLfAAtoZGgtHfJ1nYY8G2YaewycB4f72yFT6u?recipient_name=MoneroPrices You can use it in your sig too: [url=monero:46BeWrHpwXmHDpDEUmZBWZfoQpdc6HaERCNmx1pEYL2rAcuwufPN9rXHHtyUA4QVy66qeFQkn6sfK8aHYjA3jk3o1Bv16em?recipient_name=DevFund]donate.monero.cc[//url] ([url=monero:your_address?recipient_name=nospace]donate.monero.cc[/url] |
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CrazyLoaf: My flawed calculation of the coin was that it could become a social/tipping coin (HYP it up). Then again, I was the only one who thought this since for everyone else it was an experiment/toy. To anyone who saw that the community would never do anything to move this coin outside of the usual altcoin heap and dumped into oblivion, well played. You're smarter than me. The will was here. The way? Well, almost no coder and the ones we have are busy. The community is here and you know it, look at ##hyperstake. You did your best and so I did. It was not enough, now what? Biomech: Great post. |
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Generous users can help the site to feed the faucet by sending some coins, even a few is already kind enough. I propose you implement an option to give a part of your profit (either as an investor or as a gambler) to the faucet (with a base value of, say, 1%). Option is turned off by default (on would be better, but probably not well received). With a text saying that this gift allows the faucet to run better and to attract more visitors, which is beneficial both for investors and for players (higher max profit). To prevent the system to be abused, I put some limitations: - You can claim coins only if your balance is to 0.
- You can't claim if tips are pending for that coin.
- You can't send tips to other users with coins from the faucet.
The faucet is mostly to helps new users to try the game without the need of a deposit, or to give some fun to users having not any funds on a specific coin. So you mean you can only use the faucet once? Because after that, you won't have a balance of 0, anymore. Otherwise good. I believe this is the accumulation of little things that will make the difference. |
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I get a lot of satoshis from referrals and also some from their newly betting platform. But since they do not pay...
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i registered because i see the patern, we are still largely ignored, monero is fundamentally better than bitcoin but still ignored by everybody. Well, let's see who is speaking high of Monero or CryptoNote in general and has some reputation. I've seen worse ignorance. More information: Why Monero matters, The Three Pillars of Monero |
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Does this make more sense now? I does and the answer is: people saying the coin is overvalued either usually either are deluded and suffer from confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance or are trying to either pump the coin (clumsily) or to lure newbies into buying their coin that they are trying to sell (but will never admit to). So, basically, this is not economy, this i psychology. There are exception, though but Technical Analysis is NOT one - suffice to say how TA fails at prediction BTC price. If I had to tell of a reliable methods, I'd say: "look at the lenght of the post, it is usually proportional to the relevance of what is written. Look at the grammar - people with poor grammar rarely have something smart to say. Finally and most importantly, look at rationales. With time you will whitelist and blacklist rationales (that's called "experience") and you'll be more able to tell real reasoning from fallacy. Fallacy is one of the biggest ennemy of crypto. This is probably not the answer you expected, so let me say it another way: don't look for economy, look for psychology. |
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How to build a formula to put long term investment value onto a coin? Elaborate. |
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To foster donation to the development fund, you can add donate.monero.cc to you signature (without a hyperlink). But what is people mistake it for a URL? Now they'll have a landing page: donate.monero.cc(yes, I know, it is raw. This is on purpose) Depending on when you'll read this, the page may not be ready yet. Meanwhile, you can preview it here: http://monero.cc/donateEventually, there might be a real page, but nothing for sure - donation page might be better somewhere else. |
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