This post of Alex's ended up here so I am replying here, not in the dark thread...
a) Who made Monero and why? What was their vision?
The vision was to bring CryptoNote to the masses without the two year ninja mine.
b) What had the Monero team done for privacy, before copying the Bytecoin code?
The main focus at the moment is to make the software usable. At the moment the memory usage, transaction dust and blockchain size must be focused on. At the moment CryptoNote is private enough. They will work on adding I2P at some point, but core usability is the focus right now.
Alex, they are not going to add fluff to pump and dump, this isn't dark. The anonymity in CryptoNote is working as it should, it doesn't need more features for features sake.
c) Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier?
Actually the timing is a reaction to the public release of Bytecoin, not Dark.
d) Can Monero scale?
At the moment the aim is to get the Monero blockchain scaling at a linear function to Bitcoin. I personally think that an anonymous chain can be about five times larger. The extra size is worth the anonymity, just like Bitcoin requires several million times the space on your PC as mastercard requires, the extra function of bitcoin makes it worth it. The same goes for monero. If the monero chain can scale in a linear fashion albertly being larger we'll be fine.
We're talking about real anonymity here, the chain is going to be larger.
e) Is Monero's PoW futureproof, for providing almost 90% of its coins in just 4 years? Why would someone invest in such a curve?
Actually it's not 90% Monero will have an immortal coin release, coins will never stop being minted.
I argue we need a release of about 1% a year, some others think a lower amount. This discussion is ongoing and not set in stone.
f) Why would I put my money on something with 2% daily inflation? As a currency, does it fulfill one of the basic criteria - that being an adequate store of value?
No currency in it's first few years will be a good store of value, so many uncertainties. Even Bitcoin is not a good store of value at the moment. There has been no evidence of a nation state trying to attack Bitcoin, so we are in the dark as to how secure crypto currencies really are.
Alex, if you're truly looking for store of value, diversify into bonds, property and gold.
Cryptocurrencies will one day be a good store of value, but it's too early days to call it case closed. You make it sound like one crypto offers store of value whilst another doesn't.
g) What is the cost to render the blockchain DOA for someone who wants to kill Monero, in terms of Bitcoins? Can a kid, a hacker, a government spend 10 BTCs and make the blockchain so bloated that it doesn't even load the wallet - killing my multi-million investment?
Monero is still very experimental, so don't buy if you're afraid to lose it. I haven't seen 10 bitcoins destroy monero yet, let someone try, 10 bitcoin isn't a lot.
At the moment many Governments could easily take down bitcoin, let alone monero or darkcoin.
Also by the time it's commonplace to have a multi million dollar investment in Monero, many bugs and attack vectors will be ironed out.
h) Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? If it is the later, how exactly is it so anonymous, and how can you vouch for the IP obfuscation network that it will be using? Is there an IP obfuscation network that is 100% reliable for anonymity purposes? As far as I am aware, there is none.
Monero makes the transactions from the perspective of a third party doing blockchain analysis anonymous.
However at the moment IP sniffing could render some information leakage for analysis of real time transactions. That is why using TOR like with Dark and Bitcoin is advised for now.
i) Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? The specs of Boolberry are superior and the dev is seemingly doing more work on his own than the Monero devs. Remember I am a buyer and I don't care about who mines what so I don't care about CPU and GPU miners.
The specifications are superior? How so?
k) What happens if the Bytecoin guys (who made the code) discover a flaw, patch it in their own coin and then kill the clones by exploiting the flaw? If they are really underground hackers that hate the Monero copycats, isn't that a real possibility?
It might be, who knows. I heard the team split up, who knows how good the leftovers are?
l) What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original?
The monero team have identified many areas that need improvement and are working on them, as the monero project goes forward, one can hope more people will join the core team as more people get skin in the game.
As far as I can tell the team are working on many issues and I have confidence in what they are doing. I don't have confidence in the Bytecoin team due to their deceptive past.
m) What assurances do I have that the codebase is solid? For all I know it's totally untested in public use, being public for 2 or 3 months. Even the boolberry dev openly declares it to be untested.
Normally with white papers and code, you look into it yourself, if you can't then perhaps leave of investing for a few years.
Did you invest in Dark just because of "assurances"?
n) Is it usable by average joe?
o) Is it usable by companies and businesses?
Right now no, no and no. Although please don't forget that even Bitcoin is a pain to use by average people. In fact average people can barely get a printer to work.
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