Original post at
http://www.reddit.com/r/peercoin/comments/28snqk/early_pos_developer_cunicula_wise_words_on/"It doesn't make sense to select an alternative based on current adoption because bitcoin's advantage along this dimension is so overwhelming. The point of investing in an altcoin is to jump in before other adopters. If you want high returns, you need to anticipate adoption, not just jump on the bandwagon. If you invest simply because others have already invested, it defeats the whole point (i.e. you should just invest in bitcoin).
Consider instead 1) differentiation 2) track record of developer 3) economic usefulness of the differentiating property
1) Peercoin (and its clones) & Primecoin have significant unique properties (not just parameter tweaks or new hashing algorithms).
2) Sunny King develops and maintains both Peercoin & Primecoin (he is the only developer (so far) who has released coins with significant innovative properties.)
3) Peercoin (and its clones) do not require expenditures on mining equipment and electricity; ultimately this means lower txn fees which is a major economic benefit.
The only coin that satisfies all of the three criteria listed above is Peercoin."
"Peercoin is the only coin with a legitimate value proposition (different security model). All the other coins are either unfinished or extremely similar to bitcoin but just with weaker networks.
For now, peercoin and keep your eyes out for new opportunities (eg mastercoin if it suceeds in implementing some of its promised features)."
"I hedge with PPCoin until some better version of proof of stake comes along. PPC has security features that bitcoin lacks. Bitcoin has security features that PPCoin lacks. And therein lies the hedge.
Disclosure: I have about 70% value in bitcoin, 30% value in PPCoin, and no other coins (well a few primecoin purely for the novelty value)"
"PPCoin is a fully PoS altcoin. The PoW isn't actually relevant for blockchain validity, only PoS matters. PoW is just used as a marketing device to distribute coins.
A pure PoS altcoin has the following properties: 1) The incentives to attack are the minimum possible achievable for any coin design.
2) The capital cost of attacking is relatively high.
3) The marginal cost of attempting an attack is 0. An attacks can be attempted as many times as you like at this cost.
The first point is ideal for PPCoin. The second point is generally good in all PoS coin designs, but could be much higher than what exists in PPCoin. Interestingly there is a trade off between (1) and (2). Improvements on point (2) have negative effects on point (1). PPC has gone for essentially the absolute extreme on point (1). No coin could do better in this area. I would prefer to trade a little bit of point (1) for some more of point (2).
Point (3) makes people want to include a bit of PoW. I'm not convinced it's necessary, but I think it makes sense to err on the side of caution here.
Another way of putting it is this: Minimization of attack incentives means that PPCoin is extremely safe from rational attacks relative to a PoW based currency. The lack of any marginal attack cost means that PPCoin is more exposed to irrational terrorists relative to a PoW based currency.
Irrational terrorism is the traditional threat model in computer science and this makes the core development community very skeptical of PPCoin. Rational attacks are the traditional threat model in economics. Since I am an economist, I view PPCoin much more favorably. In my opinion, the computer science threat model is ill-suited for analysis of bitcoin mining. It makes more sense for low value systems.
I believe that it is best to use a mixed system (which is simple to do but no one has been motivated to do it), but I also believe that pure PoS is better than pure PoW."
"Did some more analysis. Nxt is vulnerable to a type of sibyl attack.
Will post the math later. Sorry I missed this earlier. Can we get the developer to rise from the dead so we can fix the mining algorithm? "
source:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1409452629342904/
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