How much OC and aggression do you need for these to reach the 200Mh+..?
My stock speed 5770 does 172 MH/s on an old guiminer with f 128.... so probably not much. |
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I'm still using the one from May of 2011... works fine.
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That AML compliance nonsense is for the exchange. The idea seems to be that they can pretend that transfers within the blockchain exist in lala land and that the company is not responsible for reporting information on them. There is no way the justice administration in the US or EU will buy that. They need to go to a country where you can bribe the gov't to leave you alone.
OTOH, how is it any different from physically issued gift certificates or "town money" that can be redeemed for cash? (EDIT: Or even banks giving out cash, for that matter?) The issuing entity has no way of tracking user-to-user transactions to report to the government in those cases either, but that sort of trading is still allowed. It'll be interesting for sure. I don't think it's safe to say that it will be completely free of government intervention, but I don't believe it falls under violation of any already-established rules or laws either. |
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I do like the idea of a crypto bearer bond. Lets call the issuer a cryptobank.
A cryptobank issues coins that are redeemable for cash. It invests the cash in AAA rated investments and gives interest to holders in RLC. This would be great because you dont need to keep account ledgers. You would get dividends based on the number of coins you own. This may not be different from flexcoin but a 'bank' that invests your coins may raise lots of interest (no pun intended)
The above definitely seems like the winning model to me. Problem is that the outlook for this system still bleak as 1QaZ points out. Here are some scenarios. 1) Company is located in Moldavia. US can't bother it, but "Bank" runs off with everyone's money. 2) Company is located in Western, developed country. Can't run off with everyone's money, but quickly gets shutdown for violating AML rules. 3) Company never gets off the ground because investors anticipate outcomes (1) and (2). Hard to be optimistic. I'd just hope that the people behind it have some fancy lawyers. Might want to make the legal stuff clear to the public to avoid outcome (3). What AML rules are being violated? In the US, whatever the SEC decide are being violated?  Bitcoin is somewhat grey area but new US AML regulations required anyone issued prepaid access (doesn't have to be dollars) resister as a "money services business". They need to keep detailed records for 7 years on transactions, submit a money laundering prevention program to the SEC financial crimes division for approval, put in place protocols to limit daily purchase & redemption amounts, and creates an obligation on the business entity to file "suspicious activity reports" as determined by SEC. Now you or I can say "Bitcoin or RealCoin" isn't currency it is a commodity but it doesn't really matter. If the SEC determines that stored value is being exchanged for currency then the entire business falls under SEC "money services business" regulation which opens a whole mountain of red tape, audits, compliance costs, and legal overhead. If a company sets up shop and takes a "gamble" that SEC will agree they aren't a "MSB" well that opens up liability. I agree with you, but TheGobbler said he was complying with all AML regulations (which I would assume means he is registering as a MSB, but he should clarify that for us). |
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I do like the idea of a crypto bearer bond. Lets call the issuer a cryptobank.
A cryptobank issues coins that are redeemable for cash. It invests the cash in AAA rated investments and gives interest to holders in RLC. This would be great because you dont need to keep account ledgers. You would get dividends based on the number of coins you own. This may not be different from flexcoin but a 'bank' that invests your coins may raise lots of interest (no pun intended)
The above definitely seems like the winning model to me. Problem is that the outlook for this system still bleak as 1QaZ points out. Here are some scenarios. 1) Company is located in Moldavia. US can't bother it, but "Bank" runs off with everyone's money. 2) Company is located in Western, developed country. Can't run off with everyone's money, but quickly gets shutdown for violating AML rules. 3) Company never gets off the ground because investors anticipate outcomes (1) and (2). Hard to be optimistic. I'd just hope that the people behind it have some fancy lawyers. Might want to make the legal stuff clear to the public to avoid outcome (3). What AML rules are being violated? |
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Also people tend to forget: a solar panel still works in 20 years+++
Not necessarily. There's always the possibility of the panel breaking (neighborhood kid's baseball going through it, tree branch falling on it, etc), or rust/corrosion turning it into a pile of scrap, or some other unrepairable damage happening. Solar panels aren't going to last forever, and I wouldn't even expect one to last 20 years on average. I could be wrong though. |
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The same could be said of Paypal. Why use Paypal dollars when you can already pay with a credit card? Well, because Paypal is faster/more convenient. I think RLC would be even more convenient than Paypal, based on my recent purchase of a Bitcoin Magazine through bit-pay. No logins, no hassles, I just copy/pasted the address to pay, sent the payment, and the whole thing was done in less than 20 seconds (in part, because my browser auto-filled my address information). An added bonus for some is that the RLC could be fairly easily anonymized, even while the central agency is fulfilling all MSB regulations. I agree with your two final points though. I though $1B or $10B would be a reasonable cap on circulation, and that $1 should equal 1 RLC. However, it is not up to me. Interesting. It wants to be a cheaper, simpler alternative to paypal. Ok, thats a reasonable business model. In which case, you dont really need a fixed number of coins. Let people buy as much as they want and as and when they want. Since its tied to USD, there is no incentive to invest and hoard RLC anyway. I do like the idea of a crypto bearer bond. Lets call the issuer a cryptobank. A cryptobank issues coins that are redeemable for cash. It invests the cash in AAA rated investments and gives interest to holders in RLC. This would be great because you dont need to keep account ledgers. You would get dividends based on the number of coins you own. This may not be different from flexcoin but a 'bank' that invests your coins may raise lots of interest (no pun intended) I think the idea of a limited number of coins was that they could potentially increase in value down the road, if they were all issued and in circulation and none could be bought from the central entity anymore. With a lower limit, this could potentially happen in a short period of time, but I think $1T is lofty enough that no one would hold the coins for that purpose. I do like the idea of returning investments to holders of the coins though. It'd be easy to do, and would give some incentive for holding/using them. |
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You know, it only happened because I sold all my coins @ 5.72. It happens Every. Freaking. Time.
I never sell at the right time.
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I think RLC has a few advantages over using straight BTC.
- You don't have to immediately exchange it for USD. There'd be no steps beyond making sure the RLC hits your wallet.
- Prices are easy to calculate/figure out. The customer doesn't wonder how much RLC a shirt in a store will cost - they already know, since RLC is tied to USD, and easy to convert.
- The customer doesn't have to play games with the exchange rate. They don't have to wonder if they will save money by waiting 5 minutes to purchase the shirt.
- If RLC becomes big, I see it being used in transactions more than BTC would be, since it is stable. I would imagine most consumers are more likely to use something for transactions when they know exactly what purchasing power it has. I think BTC has the potential to become stable enough with high enough usage, but it isn't there yet.
- AFAIK, the only instant liquidator is bit-pay, and they charge 3% on each transaction.
Agree on your comment about the 1 trillion...
Yes, but if 1RLC = 1USD, why do you even need RLC? Right now USD is as electronic as it needs to be. Why add another layer? Who would want to buy into and pay in RLC if paying in USD is already more convenient? If preventing uncle sam from tracking your currency moves is the only benefit, I have no doubt that the US secret service will shut this down before you can say RealCoin. This idea may be on to something but I think it needs to be fleshed out a bit. Sounds like its just a bank, they take your money and invest it and give you something akin to bearer bonds. I think this project should consider dropping the name realcoin and position itself as a bank. And get the network up and running first, and once it can guarantee security, then start accepting money. That way, you can get rid of the centralization. Also make version 1 smaller like $1 million. 1 trillion? Come on, seriously? Also who is gonna spend $100 on a coin? Denominate it in 1$. 1$=1RLC. its easier. The same could be said of Paypal. Why use Paypal dollars when you can already pay with a credit card? Well, because Paypal is faster/more convenient. I think RLC would be even more convenient than Paypal, based on my recent purchase of a Bitcoin Magazine through bit-pay. No logins, no hassles, I just copy/pasted the address to pay, sent the payment, and the whole thing was done in less than 20 seconds (in part, because my browser auto-filled my address information). An added bonus for some is that the RLC could be fairly easily anonymized, even while the central agency is fulfilling all MSB regulations. I agree with your two final points though. I though $1B or $10B would be a reasonable cap on circulation, and that $1 should equal 1 RLC. However, it is not up to me. |
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It disappoints me that you can't "cash out", tho. Surely they could do something like 1099s or something so that the gov't wouldn't have a cow, too?
If they allowed cashing out, they'd have to register as a MSB, follow all the related rules and regulations, and keep track of customers' identification to comply with anti-laundering laws. It's a HUGE amount of complication that a dev studio simply doesn't want to deal with. |
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Better question is, why doesn't bitcointalk upgrade to xenForo? Scores better than anything else out right now... it doesn't look like it came from the 90's!
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Fair enough, was just wondering.  I figured it'd come up, given that I am responding to more inquiries than TheGobbler is... I should probably step back and let him answer more of the questions. :p |
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Out of curiosity, Spike, what connection with this do you have?
I gave TheGobbler a lot of tips in his original thread, and he took most of them. I don't have any financial or other interest in the project though. I do want it to succeed simply because it is nearly exactly what I would have done if I had the proper group of programmers/investors. It's a smart gap to plug with Bitcoin-like technology, IMO. But that's why I am helping defend the idea - because a lot of it was created with my input. And because I believe it can work. If I was doing it, there's a few things I would do differently, but the overall idea is the same, and should proof similarly (whether it works or does not). |
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Most great inventors don't give a damn about money. They tend to be easily exploited by Capitalist hippies that sit around the pool collecting dividends. The real hard work of Capitalism is the lawyers that sue startups over patent infringement.
Sure, some innovation is done by greedy inventors, but original ideas tend to come from people not interested in money itself.
For the sake of argument I will say your right (although I disagree). Without capital most ideas go nowhere. How does one acquire capital ... by working harder (or having a ancestor who worked harder). Yes even people who acquire wealth through fraudulent or dubious means had to work at it. A system where acquisition of wealth is impossible because everyone's share of the pie is equal means no rich greedy investors to "exploit" inventors by bring products to market. Even when inventor is "exploited" by Capitalists the system is made stronger. Quality of life for the aggregate population improves due to access to new and improved products & services. Democracies aggregate capital through taxation and choose progressive commons based on the best information available to improve the (theoretical) quality of life for the many. I'll defer to Maslow's hierarchy of needs to point out the usefulness of a baseline of equality. Besides, the system is broken and there are few ethical occupations where one can aggregate any personal wealth anymore. It follows then that individuals that do manage to acquire capital are not ethical and should not be trusted to make decisions for the many. I very much disagree. If I only bought the absolute necessities, I could survive and save money, retiring on a modest income. Fact is, all you need is food, clothing and shelter. You don't need a car. You don't need a 800 sq ft house (when 200 will do just fine). You don't need children. You don't need a cell phone. You don't need cable, television, or internet. Live in Detroit, where housing is incredibly cheap. Sell trinkets on the internet, or get a minimum wage job. You could get by on $300/month for all your living expenses. The rest is money in your pocket, where you begin building wealth. Building wealth has nothing to do with how much you make, and everything to do with how you manage the money you have. If you believe you cannot build wealth with just about any ethical occupation, then you're not living your life in a way that facilitates building wealth. In other words, it is YOUR fault you can't build wealth with those ethical occupations. Spoken like a true republican that has never been poor a day in his/her life. I can't pay my bills right now. But thanks for the assumptions anyway. If anything, I'm just a hypocrite, not practicing what I preach. |
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Basically, RLC is not a cryptocurrency, but a corporate scrip tied to USD. In this respect, its exactly like disney dollars. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_dollarAlso issuing your own currency is not illegal http://www.treehugger.com/culture/how-to-print-your-own-money-build-community-not-get-arrested-by-the-feds.htmlNow the question about its usefulness is an entirely different issue. I could basically replace this with an automated calculator and BTC liquidator. i.e. I buy 2 coffees from starbucks. Price is $6.6. I ask to pay in BTC. They calculate it to BTC 1.02. I pay, they exchange it for dollars right away. The risk of slippage is small and they can mitigate it by simply charging slightly more for BTC. And oh, a 1 trillion $ play may piss off some governments a lot more than you expect. I think RLC has a few advantages over using straight BTC. - You don't have to immediately exchange it for USD. There'd be no steps beyond making sure the RLC hits your wallet. - Prices are easy to calculate/figure out. The customer doesn't wonder how much RLC a shirt in a store will cost - they already know, since RLC is tied to USD, and easy to convert. - The customer doesn't have to play games with the exchange rate. They don't have to wonder if they will save money by waiting 5 minutes to purchase the shirt. - If RLC becomes big, I see it being used in transactions more than BTC would be, since it is stable. I would imagine most consumers are more likely to use something for transactions when they know exactly what purchasing power it has. I think BTC has the potential to become stable enough with high enough usage, but it isn't there yet. - AFAIK, the only instant liquidator is bit-pay, and they charge 3% on each transaction. Agree on your comment about the 1 trillion... |
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How about, call it a centralized digital USD equivalent (I wouldn't call it a currency of its own) that strives to eventually have decentralized transaction processing? What's wrong with that?
The easiest way I have tried to explain it to someone who asked is like chips in a casino ... chips have a face value but they are not currency, you pay fiat for chips and later if you're not too unlucky you take them back and trade them in for fiat at the same rate. Only real difference is these "chips" are designed to be traded like you would if you used paypal. That's a good explanation. |
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How about, call it a centralized digital USD equivalent (I wouldn't call it a currency of its own) that strives to eventually have decentralized transaction processing? What's wrong with that?
Nothing. Although in a perfect world some transparency on metrics for the conversion to decentralize processing would be nice. A vaguely worded statement of "someday" doesn't inspire much confidence. I mean if it works centralized then why decentralize it? Because the company would like to share the transaction fees which are generating revenue? So it can add the risk of 51% to its business plan? My totally self admitted unsupported belief is no company which is profitable using a centrally processed system will decentralize it to share those profits with the masses. If they aren't profitable then the network likely never got to the point where decentralization was possible making the whole debate academic. I agree, metrics would be good. I suppose we should list the potential advantages/disadvantages of decentralizing the transactions. Advantages: - No downtime if central node goes down - can still perform transactions. - Government can't easily stop the transactions (though they could surely freeze funds in RLC's reserve). - Anti-DDOS. - Public ledger (if it was completely centralized, the company could potentially alter the ledger and no one could prove that they did so). - Government couldn't force RLC to de-anonymize the blockchain (via IP address that transactions originated from, or other means), if it transactions were processed in a decentralized manner. Disadvantages: - Users could potentially double-spend via a 51% hashing attack. - Requires paying fees to miners. I think some very careful analysis would be needed to calculate the feasibility of a 51% attack when the company considers switching over to decentralized transacting. A switchover cannot happen until a 51% attack is completely unfeasible, from the perspective of profitability of the attacker. I do see what you are saying though - why pay miner's fees? If they are successful as a centralized entity to the point where decentralization would be feasible, why decentralize? Maybe the disadvantages aren't worth the advantages? Given that they are targeting the Bitcoin crowd though, I think that people here feel better with public, transparent projects. Having the blockchain public, and constantly having other miners verify it as legitimate, would help maintain credibility. Also, the anti-government aspect is an advantage that likely would see particular favor among this crowd. I'm speculating as much as you are though. Just pointing things out. I do understand your point of view, and you could be right. But right now, I'll give the project the benefit of the doubt that they will do what they say they will do. |
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I really don't get it, it seems as if all the negative comments are basically "Why is this NOT Bitcoin?"... This aspires to be a business providing a financial service ... think "paypal savings accounts" except implemented that instead of centralized gateway processing servers electronically transferring USD, it is decentralized gateway processing divisible $100 USD "vouchers"... really not sure why everyone keeps just wanting Bitcoin jr.s all over the place.... this is something entirely different with all the risk/reward potential that comes with the territory. It's not a cryptocurrency, it's a business, a business that could privatize all of the processing but instead chose the option which would allow them to do this cheaper and in return "miners" have the opportunity to run their own "processing" nodes and get a piece of the transaction fee pie. It is impossible for distributed transaction processing to be cheaper. There is massive overhead in using a blockchain and proof of work. It can never be cheaper (under any circumstances) than a simply ledger system. A server w/ a single core celeron and couple gigs of RAM could handle all the transaction processing for Bitcoin much less RealCoin. Mining isn't just something which is bolted on top, it is the "cost" of acheiving consensus without a trusted third party. So if it is not a distributed crypto-currency then be honest about it. Drop the miner charade and call it a centralized digital currency. Done. How about, call it a centralized digital USD equivalent (I wouldn't call it a currency of its own) that strives to eventually have decentralized transaction processing? What's wrong with that? |
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What are you going to do with the up to 1 trillion $ that you get from selling your RLCs? Will you always keep all that money in reserves or are you going to do fractional banking just like traditional banks? If you will keep that money in reserves, you risk having it stolen, embezzled, or just having need to use it because your company is running out of money. If you don't plan to keep all of it in reserves, then you are no better than the current banking system + paypal.
In a sense, you are just printing your own currency backed by USD. Just like the US printed dollar backed by gold. And maybe one day, you will remove that backing. I hope you are prepared for the legal mess you are getting into.
I believe he said he will use smart investments to slowly grow any monies invested, which would be returned both into the company itself, and to miners. I would hope that this means that all funds are available within X number of days, if necessary. IMO, the funds should be invested in very safe, but very liquid investments. I think he said the minimum balance needed was $200k for the particular investment he was looking at starting with. Did you miss the part where he said the central signing would be removed when there were enough miners to take over?
No but that isn't a guarantee of anything. Merely a vague promise with no specific conditions or enforcement if they decide not to. No, it is not a guarantee. I guess I don't understand your point? Why does it matter to you whether miners play a role in it or not? This is meant to be a Bitcoin-like Paypal alternative. Something where people can buy and sell in USD-equivalents, without paying Paypal-level fees (advantage vs Paypal), and without worrying about their money losing value while they hold it (advantage vs BTC). Ideally, miners would be able to eliminate the need for a central authority signing transactions, but the system still works even if that never happens. Realcoin is ready for the USD collapse... Hyperinflation is coming....
If it's tied to USD, it'll inflate just as much as the USD will. |
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I do agree with you that unless RLC becomes BIG, miners will be a very small part of it. But, there is always that possibility. And if/when it did become big, it would be nice to know that there is built-in protection against DOS attacks (or accidental downtime, maintenance downtime, etc). The advantage of being able to transact without connecting to a central server could prove to be very important in some cases. What built in protection? The mining doesn't replace the confirmation by central authority. It is simply supplemental. So if tomorrow RLC has 9TH of hashing power the central server could be DDOS and the mining would serve no purpose. Transaction signing with a central server is going to have some disadvantages, and I think mining could alleviate those disadvantages if it is ever used enough. How? The amount of mining is completely immaterial. 1 million miners, 1 miner, 0 miners. The whole point of mining is to create a distributed consensus. If one authority has an override then there is no purpose except to waste a lot of resources pretending the network is distributed. Did you miss the part where he said the central signing would be removed when there were enough miners to take over? |
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