Unlocking doesn't require merged mining. In the paper it can be done two ways:

1. Using a federated model. This is essentially a multisig. This requires no change to BTC. It is ultimately up to the signers to decide (however they want) that the scBTC has been killed.

2. Using SPV-proofs. You provide an SPV-proof (chain of block headers) validating a transaction on the side chain that kills the scBTC, which is accepted by a BTC miner to unlock the coins. During a contest period (suggested to be days), someone else can provide a higher difficulty proof that invalidates yours, canceling the transaction. This requires a new op code.

During the last big Bitcoin bubble LTC did even better. (DOGE didn't exist yet.) That's in general true of alts. They are positively correlated with BTC usually with leverage.

The idea that alts "compete" with BTC is not supported by historical data. Crypto grows and shrinks together, and the truly shit alts (pure pump and dumps, blatant scams, etc.) never account for much other than noise. Given their size, the number of people who lose their money in them isn't even all that high, though of course it is unfortunate that it happens at all. Far more people lost far more money on MtGox then the entirety of altcoin scams, and that's just one Bitcoin scam.

Alti-alt sentiment in the Bitcoin community a harmful obsession and looks a lot like arrogance. It's that sort of attitude, in part, that encourages people to want to create distinct communities.

Unlikely, but perhaps someday someone like another Satoshi (or perhaps the original one!) will come along with a true innovation in that area. For now it is crypto snake oil.

https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

"Distributed Consensus from Proof of Stake is Impossible"

Let's stick with what really works on this coin for now.

You are now dismissing their point of view on the same basis. I never said hearsay, etc. The Bitcoin brand is quite damaged from scams and more broadly impaired by being portrayed as a scary fringe idea that often appeals to criminals. That may be fair or unfair, true or untrue, but in marketing, perception matters. So yes, reasonably people see an opportunity to promote crypto while avoiding collateral damage from the likes of Karpells, etc.


Of course there isn't. Sidechains may be innovative (in terms of technology or otherwise) or they may be stupid, just as with anything else.

Innovation comes from innovative people and doesn't cease to be innovation just because such people happen to be working on an altcoin. The fact is that many altcoins have smart and creative people working on their development who are doing interesting innovative things. That's not really a function of which coin they happen to work on.

To clarify, by many I mean in absolute terms, and even there the number is probably not more than 20-30. The vast majority of the 1000+ altcoins are worthless scams. Most of those are copy-paste and don't even claim to be innovative anyway. Some number are likely scams in some sense but also innovative in some sense.

Also, it is possible to be innovative in marketing and community building. Maybe you don't agree with that, but if you think the Bitcoin marketing, community, and reputation is perfect, we will have to agree to disagree. It is no surprise at all to me that some reasonable people may like and support cryptocoins generally but want no part in Bitcoin specifically.

In fact, just thinking out loud here, you could create demand (and therefore value) for such a coin by requiring payment of a fee in SideCoin to perform the transaction that will unlock real BTC. Such a transaction could burn the fee, increasing scarcity and value, which incentivizes more mining making the side chain more secure.

There are just so many combinations of crazy ideas, some blatant scams and pozni schemes, some less obviously so.

This "altcoin killing" technology will create more altcoins than ever.

That's the whole point. You are assuming an "acceptable" answer is required. It isn't.

For many the answer will simply be "because that's what we want."

Many of the DOGE community want nothing to do with BTC and being a BTC side chain would be a negative to them, not a positive.

It has nothing to do with features or "need." They don't need to justify themselves to you or anyone else. It is more about identity and distinctiveness, and that has demonstrated a lot of importance in the market with the #2 and #3 coins (when I exclude Ripple and BSTX) being LTC, which have no significant feature differentiation with BTC, and DOGE, which has only a small monetary differentiation (perpetual maintenance reward).

I'm not in this group, but I recognize it for what it is.

It wouldn't clearly benefit miners, unless the price went up enough to offset the reduced rewards. If some of the miners depart, the coin becomes less secure.

It wouldn't necessarily benefit the reputation or adoption of the coin, since it looks like an instamine. If you have been involved for the past six months, you got the benefit of large numbers of coins being minted and traded at low (and even increasingly lower) prices. Then mining gets cut and everyone but the early adopters gets to fight over a smaller supply, or pay up to buy from early adopters' stashes.

It also wouldn't necessarily benefit confidence in (and again reputation of) the coin. If it is considered acceptable to change once, it could be acceptable to change again. No one knows where that leads, and it is hard for anyone who is buying to know what he or she is buying.

Also a slower curve now means higher inflation later, for a longer period of time. Pay now or pay later?

This is not a the sort of change to be made lightly. I most certainly preferred a slower curve at the start. Now, I'm not sure the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.

I don't really think there is anything wrong with that theory. I don't entirely subscribe to it, but I respect people who do. As this is all new, the actual conclusion is unknown.

The difference is that when the conclusion is assumed (as is the case when asking "Why do you need ...") rather than stated as a theory, it becomes a bias.

You can't pay for mining with BTC. That alone is a reason. In fact that's the original reason BTC exists at all. From the point of view of a sidechain, BTC is an external currency. If you could use BTC to secure a sidechain, you can use USD to secure a standalone blockchain. You can't.

Other people will probably want to do proof-of-stake (used for most new altcoins today, I think) or other things with different monetary properties. That also can't be done BTC, because you can't stake BTC into existence on the side chain.

Finally there are people who will simply not want to be associated with BTC for reasons of branding, marketing, distinctiveness, dislike or suspicion of BTC, etc. They won't use BTC backing simply because they can, at least not in a straight 1:1 form.

The question "Why do you need to create a new currency?" exposes a bias. From a neutral perspective, one might just as easily ask "Why should I use BTC or BTC backing as my currency?" If you set aside the bias, there is no technical necessity to use BTC or exclusively BTC on a side chain.

These may all sound dumb to you, and perhaps they all are, but they can and will be done anyway.

I'm pretty sure yvg's miner does too.

That's pretty terrible though. Who wants to be paid to add to wolf's and/or tsiv?

The key is the only relevant part of the wallet. The rest of the files are irrelevant. The bin file is just a cache of some blockchain data and the address file is just the public address.

If Ryan has the key, then he has the coins. (I don't know if this is the case.)

What does the MEW-170 tag denote?

Anyway, I'll bid 9000@0.23

A simpler version of this is described in the paper. Simply pay miners in a new altcoin that is distinct and can't be used to unlock Bitcoins at all. But still tradeable and valuable if has demand and scarcity.

You then have the benefit of two different types of coins on the same chain and can do atomic cross-coin trades easily without the need for slower and more complicated cross-chain trades.

Anyone who thinks this won't spawn a new explosion of altcoins is delusional.

Pool downtime shouldn't be a big factor since you can and should set up backup pools in your miner.

I think there is. Altcoins get criticized constantly for not warning people enough about the risks involved, and therefore contributing to people losing money. Bitcoin developers should not get a pass on doing the exact same thing.

In my opinion sidechains (by which I mean locks that are contingent on actions of another chain) are a valuable extension of the Bitcoin functionality but they are also being hyped.

Could be a discount or a premium depending on market supply and demand factors. Long term, yes you would expect a discount given the weaker security.

A lot more than 4%...it was down below 0.0017, now back up to 0.0021. That's almost 23.5%!

My thoughts are this coin is very volatile. Don't buy more than you can afford to lose!

BTC can't literally be "transferred," only locked.

What you are talking about is an altcoin that is backed by BTC and is likely to have lower volatility relative to BTC than an altcoin that doesn't have this backing. (Interestingly though, this could in theory mean higher volatility relative to fiat, though in practice that would not be the case with most current alts.)

http://konradsgraf.squarespace.com/storage/Monetary%20analsyis%20of%20sidecoins%20KG%2024Oct2014.pdf


Hard coded does not mean the code can't be changed. It is the same as with any altcoin. If the developers decide to change the code, and the community accepts it (without forking) then it is changed.

It would be hard not to be aware of that after the past 10 months.