Except the fact that darskend nodes are not centralized. There is no "center" in the darkcoin network where there is some masternode that conducts the anonymous transactions and that you can only go through there. All darksend nodes / masternodes, are part of the network / p2p.

Ring signatures, as used in Bytecoin clones, are extremely bloated and almost non-scaleable. Evan has apparently found a solution to give ring-sig level of anonymity by implementing something else within the existing functionality of DarkSend, thus bypassing the bloating / scale-ability problem. We'll see how it goes.

Nice stuff....

It's hazy (the relation between cryptonote devs / bytecoin devs).


I'd take the real devs over the cloners for a bytecoin 2.0 upgraded coin. Cloners would probably be best for fixing the peripherals (gui's, logos, branding, etc).


I like skepticism but Darkcoin isn't even marketing or selling itself. It attracts attention by virtue of its characteristics. Always has, since the start.

I think what happened is that large and small players bought MRO either as a hedge or as a legitimate contender. However gmaxwell's comments about the problem of monero's team cloning bytecoin and then being unable to do the low-level stuff to improve its problems, made investors lose confidence.

The bytecoin landscape is pretty fucked up for investment. On the one hand you have the 80% premine Bytecoin and on the other hand you have 4 clones of Bytecoin, with Monero being positioned as "first clone". The options are one less appealing than the other.

One of my projected scenarios is that given the technical problems of Bytecoin/Monero etc, and the fact that Bytecoin was quickly trashed by Monero people for the 80% premine and the fact that Bytecoin devs will probably not "forgive" the Monero people for stealing their coin implementation, it might go down like this: Bytecoin devs will dump their BCNs and launch a new coin that is not backward-compatible / fork-upgradeable for Bytecoin and clones. It will probably improve a bit on the anonymity and other aspects like scalability and then be presented as the better solution, thus killing first gen bytecoin + clones.

If that happens, DRK must be ready to compete with an upgraded bytecoin that might have less bloat issues, more anon. features, better user friendliness etc.

Regarding future directions:

Anonymity is now the talk of the day. Just as POS was a few months ago, now everyone is scrambling to become anonymous to get a piece of the anonymous pie. Coins are declaring themselves anonymous without having any tech right now, but rather promises of tech that will be arriving. Stuff like stealth addresses and basic darksend functionality are being discussed among minor competitors that want to be pumped by DRK's success.

Now, from what I'm seeing, Bytecoin and clones face significant bloat issues with their ring signatures (cryptonote tech). As they say over in the monero thread (monero is a bytecoin clone), what they have seems like an efficient anonymity tech that doesn't scale. Aside from their usability and compatibility issues for not being a bitcoin-based coin, this renders them near DOA (dead on arrival).


They are talking about 8 times the size of bitcoin's blockchain but they have a different type of blockchain in which ring signatures are integrated. Their only debate is whether 8x is considered scalable or not, but the bloat fact is undisputed.

If ring signatures can be implemented on a bitcoin blockchain in a much lighter fashion it'd be an epic win. If not we'll inherit the scalability issues and might have to go for the encrypted system route, provided that it has no weaknesses and that it allows for max anonymity. Competition is getting tougher, DRK must become the undisputed leader in anonymity.

They have a proven track record of delivering an effective anonymous solution. If they replace premine greed with an IPO, Bitcoins will be flooding their way.


Darkcoin is opensource. DarkSend is closed source while in development. It might take a month or two to get to opensourcing, after RC3/4/final.

Darkcoin has two options for V2. One is ring signatures. If it bloats the blockchain to non-scaleable levels, it'll probably take the second option. The other is encrypted transactions while mixing - or something to that effect.

You should. Every weakness of MRO could be improved by BCN devs in a second iteration and say "hey, you know what? BCN was the original but had problems... In terms of scalability it was DOA (dead on arrival). Now we fixed those problems and we launch BCN 2.0 (another coin), with new blockchain tech etc etc, that can scale". RIP BCN1 + clones + our money.

DRK will need a price of 0.144 BTC per DRK to reach LTC. Sounds much* but DRK has one ninth as a total number of coins in circulation.

* This in itself might create a perception of overpricing at that level. It amazes me that the vast majority of people in cryptoland have so little economic thinking in terms of fundamental parameters like coin numbers and are comparing prices in absolute levels - like coin numbers are irrelevant in the greater scheme of things... This is very exploitable against buyers, because you have phenomena like DOGE being more expensive than DRK if adjusted for an equal amount of coins. If DOGE had just one million coins, these would cost 36$ each - and at some earlier moments they could cost like 100$ each. Then it would appear as "expensive". However if you make 78 billion coins and you put a price of 0.000458$ each, nobody cares because the price seems trivial. Seems dirt cheap and the buyer loads the truck by the millions.
   

I think their point was more to have fun with DOGE than anything. The creator said something to the effect of don't expect to get rich with DOGE etc (responding to the inflation thing).

Deflationary currency is bad in the sense of an economy dominated by it. Like a country with a national currency that is deflationary - where its entire economy is dependent on how the national currency progresses. DOGE is not a national currency dictating the future of a nation, so it doesn't have to inflate. It can be a good store of value without debasing itself.

There are trillions of fiat money out there inflating every day. Deflation of the monetary base is the least of our worries.

DOGE did one good and one bad thing.

Good: Success / made people more familiar with cryptos
Bad: Infinite monetary supply that was then replicated by other coins. WTF was the creator thinking. This thing actually killed DOGE as it prevented big money / investors from moving in. Who wants an infinite coin to store their money in?

Indirect "bad" thing: We got a shitload of clones and a lot of people lost money on them. The indirect good out of it was that people learned to appreciate the fundamentals instead of the hype.

LOOOOOOOOOOOL

6    Dogecoin   $ 35,736,595   $ 0.000454   78,699,696,278 DOGE   $ 906,849   +1.20 %   
7    Darkcoin   $ 34,302,932   $ 7.96   4,311,879 DRK   $ 1,301,083   +18.92 %

Closing in for the kill

Yes, the issue would be if they made it purposefully incompatible with gen1 so that they can sell gen2 as superior and gen1 as obsolete.

If Bytecoin people are greedy but capable coders/hackers who want money, that's an issue that I must factor in: Their "revenge" from MRO + getting the money that they aim for.

Hmm... it'll take a change of plans then.


Traders got comfy between 140-144... I bet a few were locked out.

Wired? Nice

...
"Darkcoin’s price may in fact be “manipulated” by investors, says Allen Price, a trader in the bitcoin alternatives known as “altcoins.” But he says it’s already outlasted his expectation that its price growth was caused by a pump-and-dump scam. “I had sort of smugly stood to the side waiting for the big, inevitable crash with an ‘I told you so’ ready,” says Price. “But no crash ever really came, and it’s been kind of an ongoing success for investors.”
...

Yes, ok, that's obvious that Bitcoin > DRK (trumps, as you say), but I'm asking something different.

Say, 10% of the people engaged in crypto want anonymous coins / balances / transactions etc. That's 700mn market cap right there from the total crypto pie. Anonymous coin prices would reflect that by revaluing upwards.


1000% would take us on par with LTC. People forget that LTC has something like 28-29 mn coins out there while DRK has only 4.5. Coin numbers are mighty important. Coin price is irrelevant without coin numbers.

Coin-number-adjusted, for 10mn coins, BTC would be like 630$ per coin and DRK at 3$ per coin. That's 210x in terms of price and marketcap.

I don't know how a 210x can already be considered to have factored-in that a lot of transactions will be conducted anonymously / privately. For this to happen DRK should have far higher price.

The price rise must stabilize to the new levels - on that we agree, however if a coin was delivering, had mass adoption etc - it would be too late for investors to buy. You buy before these things when the coin is undervalued and has potential for growth. The sync between real life value and price is rarely the case on speculatory markets.

Bytecoin clones would immediately be inferior to the new "prototype". Non-bytecoin clones will not necessarily lag in comparison with a v2 of bytecoin. It depends what they use in terms of blockchain tech and where they are with their development.