Have been following this interaction diligently. Here's my take:

f2000 I completely agree with just about everything you've said and I really appreciate you collating all those examples. I would just caution though (and given the quality of your writing style; this won't be news to you) the need to remember just how limited is a back and forth written interaction in a forum like this on getting to the core of an issue and really understanding where everyone's coming from.

For me I am desperately hoping that professional marketing will happen and happen very soon. There's no doubt Darkcoin has enormous potential; I wouldn't have suffered the losses I have investing my time and money in this and if I didn't believe in its long term potential to be something of tremendous value and utility. What concerns me greatly (and has from the beginning) is the lack of focus and clarity as to just who we are targeting for Darkcoin and what will be the strategy to develop the core messaging to ensure it stays on track to an agreed positioning statement. We have vast number of views on here as to what DRK is going to provide and who the key users/customers will be. The constant reference to getting dark markets to take up adoption and people talking the attractiveness of DRK for gambling, porn, weapons, drugs is very very concerning to me. There's a high level of nerd/geek culture on here and unfortunately nerd/geeks are hopelessly inadequate at understanding how easily branding can go astray and (without careful management) can take a brand down a track that's eventually irrecoverable. We have a very real risk of DRK being subject to an unfortunate set of PR mis-understandings/misapprehensions and being immediately tarnished as a subversive/"dangerous"/criminal tool that no mainstream business would ever touch. I fear that this outcome is highly likely and will relegate DRK to a level of poor credibility and poor acceptability that will make Silk Road look like something mainstream businesses might consider supporting.

Tao I think f2000's point is entirely valid (not withstanding the difficulties of this written communication process we're all involved in on this forum) in that he's saying it's incredibly important to get a video made that's positioned properly, is not "geeky" and is easily understandable by mainstream Internet users who may not know anything about even Bitcoin, let alone the world of Alts. That doesn't mean we have to dumb it down; far from it. The Hungry Beast videos he posted are testament to how you can take relatively complex concepts and package them for wide audience acceptability and understandability.

f2000 I think Tao's just trying to point out that using the Bitcoinrush guy is just one avenue and will likely result in some good reach into realms we're not currently reaching. I take your concerns to heart though. 30 seconds in watching his video and it's far from what I'm hoping to see in terms of quality and "unkookiness" (he's funny and all but not what you'd want representing such an important project as the main outbound marketing stream....but Tao I've comprehended what you're saying about him too).

Lots to consider here. I'd really like to hear Evans thoughts on marketing and how we're going to get this thing onto a straight and narrow messaging platform before DRK ends up down some alternative track we'd not really hoped to see it travel. If we want widespread adoption we need to plan how we'll appeal to enough sections of the community that they'll appreciate what DRK is and have trust in using it. That won't happen though an ad-hoc uncoordinated fashion with mixed messaging going here, there and everywhere.

I've got to point out some naivety starting to creep in here. People are talking about the "V1 team" versus the "V2 personnel (i.e. Alex Green/Ryan Kennedy) like they're two separate entities, almost as if they have some sort of firewall between them. There's mention of V1 wallets versus post-migration V2 wallets. I think people are building mental constructs about how this is all playing out that are likely to have no bearing on the reality of the situation. To assume that there's a "V1 team" working under extraordinary pressure, trying to do the right thing and help the victims of the "V2 personnel" is to be making a whole raft of assumptions that aren't likely to be even remotely accurate.

Mintpal was sold to Moolah; whether we're talking V1 or V2, this shady character Alex Green/Ryan Kennedy appears to have control of the bulk of the coins, wallets and the payment process. Which of his employees (if any) are in there trying to serve us as Mintpal customers and get our coins back over and above what directives they still may be under via Green/Kennedy, we really have no idea.

I don't think we should be suggesting there's a "V1 team" per se. Even if the original Mintpal people (Jay, Jason?) are back in there somehow, what can they do if they  don't have access to all the stuff Green/Kennedy does?

I'm just very concerned people are getting too far ahead of themselves and there'll be even more disappointment when all these notions are shown to be a whole raft of guesses that people have started to assume are accurate.

It's a bizarre situation Bagholder. Check your PM as I've sent you a message.

My masternode has had a problem in the last few hours and completely stopped. Looking to see if I can get some help to understand what happened. Please go over to DCT at https://darkcointalk.org/threads/v10-15-onyx-release.2683/page-29 to see my full posting on it there.

"Ok, I feel a little better..."

Absolutely bloody hilarious!

Well I had to read it to assess whether I liked it or not.

And now that I've ingested such a toxic venomous spew session by a very very very unhappy and sad little fellow let me just say this:

I followed Tao's guide (get it here https://darkcointalk.org/threads/taos-masternode-setup-guide-for-dummies.2680/#post-25672) and found it to be relatively straight forward. I had a masternode setup within a short time and I've since followed his guide a few times to upgrade darkcoind too. All without too much difficulty.

I'm not sure what you're expecting. There are steps you need to follow and tools (like PuTTY) you need to use. It's not terribly difficult but does require some patience and willingness to work through each step.

If you are so special that you know how to write up some sort of mythological "compressed-down-to-a-few-key-sentences" wonder guide that's a quantum leap over and above those that have been written, then instead of carrying on like the toddlers chucking massive tantrums georgem's so aptly posted, why don't you put something together and grace us with your extraordinary insight and advanced communication capabilities?

In the meantime though, you've basically vomited all over the good work Tao, Tante and others have done and carried on like the grand poobah of fucktards whose seemingly only purpose in life is to put shit on EVERYONE.

You're an intelligent guy Camo but geez you're a fuckwit too.

Not panicking Camo....just interested. By "work being done on the site" do you mean Elbereth's site? (meaning perhaps it's not querying properly). There are some MNs that are green and 100%, but only a handful.

(yes, illodin, mine are fine too)

Have just noticed that nearly all the MNs have gone to a status of "Partially inactive 92%" on Elbereth's Masternode Monitoring site

https://drk.mn/masternodes.html#payeeconsensus

Does anyone know why that is and what it means?

convoluted and retarded points are so very necessary sometimes....

I understand where you're coming from Icebucket and I do know how frustrating it can be to hold a view that no one seems to "get". But on this occasion I think the views people are expressing in response to you are pretty sound. You're expressing yourself like this feature allowing ease to start multiple MNs is somehow the opening of a pandora's box for massive centralisation and bulk acquisition of the MN network by just a few large coin holders that previously wouldn't have even considered running MNs. I don't think that's the case. It's an ease-of-admin feature that's hardly going to open flood gates and (purely by way of its release) suddenly result in the MN numbers rapidly doubling or tripling with the bulk of them now operated by just a few actors.

It's a good development to help strengthen the MN network by negating keying errors and problems during admin.

Is there really such a need to be so harsh? Adjed's probably lost 4 BTC. By all means point out the need for diligence on all these issues around exchanges this latest disaster has highlighted, but have some compassion in the manner with which you do it.

Thought you might find this amusing toknormal. A bit of text lifted from The Daily Reckoning newsletter I subscribe to (Australian version). These guys have been calling the façade that world markets are all enamoured by for sometime.

Apart from that site having THE worst and most absurd advertising that takes up almost all of the screen real estate, this statement in that article surely demonstrates a level of naivety that is overly apologetic to Alex Green:


I don't think I'll be reading too much more of their content.

Not suggesting the current level of liquidity will always remain; just wanting to stimulate conversation on this, as per Camo's commentary. I believe DRK will eventually have great liquidity and be very useful, but maybe there are ideas (like illodin's) that could accelerate DRK's ability to be used for more than just the current speculative focus.


No, I'm not thinking that. I know that the divisibility down to 8 decimal places creates a lot of room for movement in value. The essence of what I'm interested in is the pathway DRK needs to travel to see dramatically improved liquidity, to the point where large amounts of fiat can be converted without it causing massive spikes in the price.

Well 10 out of 10 for persistence Camo in trying to get your point across! I absolutely agree with you. It's a lovely notion that we might end up with 3000 MNs and far less coins in circulation as a result with DRK's price increasing substantially (and MN payments being higher; amongst other factors) but if liquidity isn't there, your examples of a potential user of DRK avoiding it because of the costs of getting hold of enough DRK to perform their transaction outweighing the benefits are a real issue. I know that BTC has gone through many phases in its progression from pure speculative play to being used to transact with, and it still has a long pathway to go before it's truly acting as a "currency", but it's essential we focus on DRK being usable for people to transact anonymously with and they can't do that for any reasonably large sums as it currently stands. If someone wanted to move US$100K anonymously using DRK, their buy (and subsequent sell which everyone would cry "dumper...!" at) would shift the price substantially. So it's currently just not usable for its intended function and we need to get it to be.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts Evan Duffield on this important facet of DRK's economic make-up.

Good summary of BTC-e Tok. It's certainly an institution (of sorts).

I spent quite a bit of time on the BTC-e troll box in the early part of this year and, in fact, found my way to Darkcoin because of the negative comments about it on there. They often refer to it as DORK. It's truly a fascinating study in human nature to spend time on there and witness the blatant lack of balance and the never ending mis-information that's thrown around (peppered with ad nauseum "arise chikun" and "to da moon" posts....mournfully imbecilic doesn't come close to describing it). It's like the BTC-e troll box is representative of all the issues, anomolies and flaws of crypto in general and you can find dozens of Shojayxt's on there....it's quality central (not!) but it's certainly educational to go on there for a bit.

Ha! So true. Takes me right back to my school days when bullies try put shit on someone ad nauseum, eventually running out of ammunition because everyone can see right through them but then they just can't bring themselves to disengage and continue to do their pathetic psychologically deranged muck-raking long after it's just so obvious what a total tool they are. ShoJackOff's still here even after being exposed with multiple sock puppets accounts, a clear agenda of trying to put DRK down to further some other coin and a clear indication of mental instability.

Darkcoin is very innovative and something ground-breaking is certainly being built. This is a long term project and requires much patience.

You are such a waste of space shojayxt!

You clearly hate everything about DRK and the people that support it, yet you just can't stop coming here and injecting your negativity and criticism.

Toknormal has made many substantial contributions to this forum. He's never claimed to be able to "predict" the altcoin market; he's making commentary like many people do, and I've found it to be intelligent and insightful.

But, really until you respond to the 1000DRK challenge Evan has set for you and either accept it or reject it (giving your reasons why), you have absolutely no credibility posting the trash you post in here.

Put up or shut the fuck up.

I look forward to your posts Tok; they're quite insightful and of great interest to me. I'd be very happy to keep reading them. Your assessments on global financial issues and the games being played out by the central bankers (and all the other manipulators of currencies) I think are spot on. Thanks

I haven't yet tried Bitfinex, but will. I was a dedicated Mintpal trader but that's definitely all over now; what they had, although pretty simple, was very sound in its operation. What they've gone to and the manner in which they've done it is a backwards step and anyone's guess on a likely success/failure outcome. I've had a small amount of different alts at Poloniex too and they've been pretty competent (although their DRK volume is usually very small). I had to get some help with disabling 2FA after I dropped my phone and the screen wouldn't come back on (terrible incident; everything, except the Google Authenticator codes was backed up so no data loss just a massive pain for a few days) and they were pretty good at cross checking me before removing it from my account.

Mintpal have demonstrated a level of incompetence, recklessness and lack of stakeholder management that (IMO) negates their validity at handling financial systems. I wouldn't dream of sending coins there now. And as for transferring fiat; I think you'd just be asking for loss.

As per a previous post I wrote, I managed to get the coins I had on Mintpal transferred out of there a few hours ago. The process was relatively painless (for me, I know others are having trouble access their accounts and whatnot) with most of the transfers happening in around 30 minutes. However, the last one I did (of around 6 in total) was for a small amount of leftover BTC and it is very slow with the confirmation email one has to click on taking at least 2 hours to come and the BTC still not transferred an hour later. I think these are ominous signs their wobbly disaster of an "upgrade" (and one could only use that term ever so loosely; I can't see anything at all that appears to be improved, even if they will be able to handle fiat, the whole thing's so untrustworthy now) could completely implode.

If you have coins on there I'd be attempting to transfer them out urgently. Mintpal have demonstrated they're no longer the relatively sound and useful facility they once were. Pretty much all done bar the screaming....