Once upon a time I read somewhere that Butterfly Labs stuff does not play well with p2pool, and that they had no plans to correct that when they do ASICs. Has p2pool maybe done something meanwhile to fix it at their end, or is it that you plan to use some other brand of ASIC?

-MarkM-

Squatting can only be battled by letting whoever pays the most get the name (always; you must sell it if anyone offers more) or some similar (or maybe even not so similar) algorithm executable by machines, or by human crap not executable directly by computers and likely not algorithmic thus subject to political machinations, bribery, violence, whatever. I think? Any other potential approaches?

-MarkM-

BiTCoins go out automatically, I don't know how many of those people got.

Our hashing rate is low so we expect massive random luck variation in the merged chains; for example we have not found any devcoin, namecoin, ixcoin or coiledcoin blocks yet.

Currently so far we have mined 4450.00000000 GRouPcoin, 456.00000000 I0Coin, according to the actual mature balances readouts of the daemons. I took the extra time to look at the actual transactions to see if we found blocks that have not matured yet; with I0Coin that will usually be unlikely at our current low hash rate, and sure enough there are none; with GRouPcoin we usually get all the blocks so yes of course there are many many immature blocks in the GRouPcoin pipeline.

The latest valuations in terms of devcoins, as shown at http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html is 6.72493150 DVC per GRP and 6.68054794 DVC per I0C, at which rates our gross altchain income so far would be 32972.27503564 DVC (3046.32986064 from the I0C plus 29925.94517500 from the GRP).

Supposedly some code for divvying up mining proceeds from pools based on p2pool is to be open-sourced this month so I am somewhat inclined to wait to see that code before finalising how best to go about divvying up these proceeds.

Since already p2pool has everyone's bitcoin address, and devcoin addresses are identical to devcoin addresses, I still think paying it all in devcoins is best simply because that involves no extra overhead such as finding out and recording and looking up and using different addresses for people.

(Although, actually, it is I think technically possibly to convert addresses even between other chains, so in principle it maybe would be do-able to calculate groupcoin, namecoin, i0coin, ixcoin and coiledcoin addresses directly from people's bitcoin addresses, that they would use by importing their private key into the appropriate other coin's software...)

-MarkM-

So in short you are not a devcoin mining pool, you are a mining operation selling shares and happening to use pool software privately behind the scenes in your mining operation?

-MarkM-

So basically it is turning out not to be simple at all, but more and more complicated.

So might as well just leave name stuff to namecoin and let bitcoin stick to the money stuff.

-MarkM-

There is however an "opportunity cost", which might to folk who are not yet accustomed to merged mining be "hidden", and that is the conspicuous absense of other chains customarily included in the merged chains list when merged mining.

Namecoins of course are the ommission most likely to be noticed by the largest number of merged-mining afficionados, however anyone aware of bitparking's merged mining pool might also wonder how much they are missing out on by the ommission of ixcoins and i0coins.

Me I went with merged mining at home, since even bitparking does not include all the chains I am accustomed to merging.

I think a lot of people used to getting namecoins in the mix will feel that the amount they can sell the devcoins for is trivial compared to the amount they are missing out on by not getting namecoins...

-MarkM-

How do you re-assign a name to a new address, such as when you lose control of the address you sent that first transaction from?

Namecoin seems to be designed to solve this kind of problem, and can be merged-mined right alongside bitcoin so wherever bitcoin is, namecoin can easily also be. Maybe even designate a new namespace in namecoin, specifically for associating a bitcoin address with a label?

-MarkM-

The more chains get added onto the typical miner's list of chains all merged-mined at once the more resilient this all should become, as more chains reaching high levels of difficulty should result in more confidence in all of them, more money coming in to miners as even if money moves out of one chain it might well merely move to another instead of out of the cryptochain world completely, and the prospect of co-ordinating attacks on all chains at once might look more complex too. Maybe also depending on the niches various types of chain end up addressing the perception of what kinds of people you would be going up against by attacking might change. (For example if some nuclear labs use a blockchain for some weird reason or something suddenly you are looking at hmm do we want all the powers behind such a chain also coming after us not just the weirdo libertarians who use bitcoin?)

-MarkM-

If you and maybe all the people you know have not managed to come up with customers you can sell bitcoins to for fiat, that is just an arbitrage opportunity for someone who does have some customers secreted away somewhere.

A lot of the best prices one can get when selling virtual/digital currencies are inside games or near games (such as where gamers hang out even if that happens not to be an in-game location). A person selling bitcoins at an important bridge in a game, where the troll that guards the bridge is basically undefeatable and cannot be "sneaked" past and demands toll in bitcoins, can likely get a better price for bitcoins than those selling them elsewhere not only to smart adventurers who think ahead and know they will meet that troll eventually, likely with a pack of dire-wolves on their heels, but also to random passers-by who maybe have no idea trolls and direwolves, or the game in which players meet them, is out there somewhere.

A general public exchange is probably mostly a clearing-house frequented by people who have no really good method of doing whatever the conversion the exchange provides in a more "controlled" environment possibly with customers who are not so much looking for fine distinctions in exchange rates as simply to buy a certain type of coin regardless of the price because they need it right now and it is available right near where they want it.

Basically your folk are thinking a thing is worth zero because they have watched the price drop and drop or whatever; they are all about the exchange rate. The guys facing the troll just know it is something they need right now and have no idea, maybe, how much the last player to pass that way paid nor how much the next to pass will pay.

Maybe your markets simply do not attract the people who actually value the things; I know plenty of people who buy up bitcoins any time they can spare enough of whatever other assets they can buy them with, but never sell any simply because they are so insanely undervalued right now that they cannot get anywhere near the amount they think they are worth. The prices being offered are, basically, an insult. If those people were "rich" you'd see their impact more, but since the only riches they have are their bitcoins, they simply do not have much volume to offer until they win some lotteries or something.

-MarkM-

If the pools do not have to actually mine DeVCoins, only pay out in DeVCoins, then I am not convinced the unexpanded plan is good so I would prefer making it that they actually have to mine DeVCoins rather than to reward a larger number of pools for (potentially) not actually mining them.

So I guess if you are happy with the current bounty being only for paying out in devcoins I'd suggest instead of adding to the number of bounties for that, create a boiunty for pools that actually mine the stuff.

If however actually mining the chain as well as paying out in the chain's coins is actually part of the requirements already then yes certainly as you said its a very important service worth making sure there are a few of.

-MarkM-

If you believe that you are basically promoting a ponzi / bubble-game if you promote bitcoin.

Bitcoin is insanely underprice right now and has been for a year or so, maybe because of people promoting such "this is actually just a ponzi scheme or bubble of sorts, not a long term project/thing" ideas.

Every single bitcoin that you part with in return for X value from someone else is only ever (in your lifetime anyway) worth less than X if you yourself are defaulting, scamming, giving someone a "token of value" that you do not plan to honour when it comes full circle back to you.

Basically if each individual is a scammer planning not to return value equal to what they accepted for the token when the token having gone around comes around then yes it is a scam and each individual who plans not to honour the token they give out when it comes back is part of the scam.

Many people are basically refusing to part with bitcoins simply because such scammers are offering such little value for them; it is insulting how puny the value they offer...

-MarkM-

I wonder if the tale about students specifically taught about bubbles is just an urban myth?

A bubble is just a ponzi really isn't it, other possibly than the "deliberate act of fraud" aspect. (A ponzi is a deliberate bubble, often accompanied by fraud?)

Supposedly the students acted totally against the intent of the lesson; in effect the lesson they took from it was get in quick before it is too late to profit, instead of do not get in because it might already be too late to profit.

Basically the fools who lose are colluders who were too late to profit that time around. Entire communities of afficionados form, all trying to make sure they get in on the next one quicker so hopefully they won't be too late next time around.

Sure there can be "innocents" out in the wild somewhere. But the people on these forums weren't them, the people here were fully informed. The innocents are those who were not yet part of the bubble-blowing community; some of them might decide next time they need to get in quicker.

Maybe people who are too slow getting in too many times eventually get bitter, its not right those quick young snips getting profit just because they are quick, racing should be banned, blah blah blah. (Yeah I am being snarky-cynical now.)

("Economic Man" = Rational Psychopath?)

-MarkM-

So basically never attribute to collusion that which can be passed off as ignorance / stupidity / foolishness / being a victim?

(Oh look, a ponzi! Better get in quick, get my capital out fast, and make sure to suck in lots of other people who if they follow me in fast enough might even also manage to turn a profit on it... Oh, wait, almost forgot, pretend I didn't recognise it as a ponzi!)

-MarkM-

Oh awesome idea, scare people away like they scared people away from alcohol, oh no wait I mean marijua oops uh make that, uh... cocaine oops maybe not, uh, well you know, all that stuff that prohibition eliminated so well that I cannot even think of an example of it offhand...

-MarkM-

Thats like, what, four bitcoins for a litecoin? Sure, I'd ride it...

-MarkM-

I don't have blow by blow archives from way back then; I only began keeping snapshots of historical data a while ago and only recently started making some quick and dirty scripts to put the data into HTML table form so I could look at it using a web browser. Its just a simple start, made actually for my own use so I can look at the numbers: http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/digitalisassets.html

-MarkM-

The Brits and Canucks discovered this, much to their surprise, when they tried to manipulate prices to achieve GBP parity for the UKB (United Kingdom Britcoin) and CAD parity for the CDN (Canadian Digital Note). Selling off coins cheap just ends up with everyone else holding the coins you sold, and the price climbing way above your target price again whenever you stop throwing away your coins. NKL (bitNicKeLs) also tried it to some extent, partly perhaps due to pressure from the Brits and Canadians arguing that maybe it was the rising price of bitNicKeLs, combined with people's tendency to think a nickel should be a twentieth of a something (whether 1/20 CDN, 1/20 UKB, or even 1/20 BTC), that was spoiling their attempts at keeping UKB and CDN from rising too high. It just doesn't seem to work...

-MarkM-

Count the empty popcorn containers resulting...

-MarkM-

Since it might have to be re-started once the best way to actualy do working proof of stake / proof of work combo is worked out, making an exchange might be premature, you might turn out to pretty much be trading testnet-coins...

-MarkM-

From a litecoin-exchange thread:


That reminded me:

We do not accept deposits! Wanna buy some tokens, okay, maybe we will sell you some tokens.

We are not a deposit-accepting entity! (Very important, apparently!)

-MarkM-