I've been doing a great deal of research on potential new features.  We have had some internal discussions regarding a clone source.  I will be compiling these into the next version of the Ora project plan, which will be due out after I have the website completed.

If you have any ideas regarding a clone base or features, feel free to speak up about them.

kind regards,
nio

This is a long term project, meaning months away from a release.  Right now we are in the planning and design phase.  You can find the prelim project plan here:  https://github.com/nioccoin/ora_project/releases/tag/v1.0.

We are concurrently in the process of working on the website, which has had a start-to-finish constraint with the logo contest, which is now over.  We are continually collecting ideas from stakeholders about what they would like to see in Ora in terms of features and what not.  Also, the team is conducting  some community-building contests, with more to come as the weeks and months go by.

We're building a coin, not just code.

kind regards,
nio

I find it interesting that throughout the process, we ended up with only one logo that distinctly portrays a starfish.  The rest of the final logos have subtle hints of starfishiness, but are really their own unique designs.

I submit a round of applause to ALL the entrants, regardless of outcome.  I continually struggled with narrowing down the field to the final entrants, and struggled with the final entrants themselves!  I can't remember the last time I was confronted with so many fine choices.  Usually the choices are much more obvious, because there are a preponderance of mediocre entries.  But not in this contest.  There were only a couple of choices that I could instantly strike out.  The rest were just fantastic, and believe me when I say that I'm not one to praise others as a way to soothe hurt feelings or anything like that.

So, to all the astonishingly talented logo designers who participated in the contest, I encourage you to stick around.  We may have need in the future of more of your talent!

kind regards,
nio

I think I like your prison bar variation, plain black and white, the best of all of your colour schemes so far.  The reason I like it is it is the one that most looks like a starfish.  The moire effect at the starfish arm ends causes the eye to make the ends more rounded and gives some boundary to the illusion.  It helps the human eye "complete" the figure.  BTW, the moire effect could effectively work in solid colour bars too, so it isn't limited in that respect.  Well done!

kind regards,
nio

Figroll, I think the greyscale logo is as beautiful as the colour logo.  No need to contort the design - it's already very, very good!

kind regards,
nio

I'm going with the same, #5.

For microtrust, I don't see any reliable way of knowing who ppl trust and who they don't.  For instance, I don't trust my bank, but I use them because it is too difficult to transfer all my services to another bank.  And, if I did, I know for a fact I would be faced with the same level of bad service I get now.  I can think of some major merchants that I dislike, but I still patronize their businesses for the sake of convenience, or because they have what I need and nobody else does.  My primary loyalty and trust is, however, price-based.  I usually buy the least expensive goods I can find, of equivalent quality.  And speaking of quality, raise your hand if you have been the victim of our disposable culture, where products you buy break within a week or two of normal use.

I guess my point is that insofar as commerce goes, when ALL services or products in a sector just plain suck, it is a mistake to assume that the space has the trust of its customers.  When just about every major business in the world has been hacked, I can't say as how I've come to trust online commerce.  Instead, I have more of a learned helplessness about it.  When they all have been hacked, I shrug my shoulders and type in my CC #.  I don't spend time finding a trusted commerce partner, because such a thing doesn't exist.

This is a brave new world.  The modern definition of trust seems more akin to "you're trustworthy until your not" than "you're emphatically trustworthy, a rockribbed bastion of trust".  Mt. Gox was trustworthy until it wasn't.  Solyndra was until it wasn't.  Enron was until it wasn't.  Sharexcoin was until it wasn't.  In crypto, the attraction of being able to sneak quietly into the night without a trace is both attractive (for the dishonest) and problematic (for the honest).  Crypto simplifies the existing problem of ripping others off.  Whereas an MF Global needs political connections to rob someone blind without repercussion, crypto provides this capability with near perfect anonymity, little expense, and absolutely no smear on one's reputation.

I don't know if there is a technological solution to the trust issue, really.  But if we could provide a fix, it would likely be profound in its impact.


The first step should be to operationally define what these components are.  When you do that, it clarifies what problem is being solved, to the point that it sometimes ceases to be a problem.  For instance, the issue of trust is really what rep is about.  But what "is" trust?  And, is trust the same thing in e-monies as it is in fiat?  Another good thing to define would be fiat.  Once you define that, you will probably come to the conclusion that the distance between fiat and crypto is almost zero.  The two are identical except insofar as who controls the distribution and use of the money.  Most ppl in modern economies don't even spend fiat any more.  Instead, they spend what can only be called "e-fiat", or electronic money, in the form of plastic cash denominated in a specific country currency.

So, if we can solve the fiat-->crypto access problem - and that is a big problem, in my estimation - the transfer of the common man's finances to crypto seems more of a trivial matter of location: do you want your holdings in crypto cash, or in plastic cash?  I guess my question is, how can we accomplish this on our own, without dipping in to the existing fiat systems that are so grotesquely compromised?  Perhaps, instead of creating crypto systems and then trying to convince the fiat-accepting merchants to accept it, we should create our own crypto merchants.  That would give us some street cred with the fiat merchants, and once they see the utility and popularity of the system, they will want to be cut in on the action.  Instead of us going to them, they would be coming to us.  That's my ideal scenario.  Somewhere between that and the reality is where we will likely end up.

kind regards,
nio

Congrats to everyone.  A job well done!!!  I agree this is a tough decision.  Never seen a coin with this many quality entries, truly!

Here's my #1 (pentamon):
Sticking with a starfish design, not necessarily this coulour.  The symmetry will make it easier to animate, when the time comes:



My #2 (boubonicnougz):
But it will need a transparent BG:



And my #3 (kusakka):
Some variant of this design, not necessarily this colour:


kind regards,
nio

rabbiter = upset when Ora decided to clone Qora.
rabbiter = upset when Ora decided not to clone Qora.

Rage!

Hi all, see here:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=675484.msg8515196#msg8515196 for an announcement regarding using Qora as the source code base for Ora.

kind regards,
nio

It's official!

The Ora team has decided to reject cloning Qora as a candidate solution for Ora.  As we have delved deeper into what kind of currency Ora will be, and gathered requirements from the project stakeholders (including everyone active in the forums), the direction we want to take Ora will be better served by eliminating Qora from the candidate solutions pool.  Instead Ora will strike out in a different direction.  This should be no surprise to many of you who have followed Ora since the beginning.  The project documents for Ora were created in anticipation of this contingency.  In fact, it has been our intent to remain loosely coupled to what coin, if any, we would ultimately clone. 

This decision opens up a multitude of new possibilities for Ora, but the greatest relief is it unshackles Ora from waiting on some other coin's months-long open source release, and the subsequent waiting period during which the open-sourced code is vetted, a process which by itself may take months of distribution to reveal errors and weaknesses.

Because we have anticipated this risk from the beginning, and even codified this into our founding documents, we have lost no momentum whatsoever.

Stay tuned for more information in the next few weeks as we continue updating our investigation into Ora's business requirements.

kind regards,
nio

I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere.  I try to post every few days or better, and you will find much of my discussion in the dev forum.

kind regards,
nio

You may be the first person to implement something I suggested (it may have been in a pm to the team), which is to have the logo designerS also submit complementary website styles and designs.  Nothing in the web process is set in stone.  Even if I end up undoing the work I've already done, we are trying to get the best site possible.

Everyone feel free to submit additional holistic designs such as this, that incorporate web assets that "finish" your logo submissions.  That is not part of the contest, by the way.  I personally would like to see your respective marketing visions, because you have all done such a great job on logo design!

kind regards,
nio

No, but I see a different "key".  Look at how the R and the A in "Ora" create an "s" in the negative space.  That gives us RSA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSA_%28cryptosystem%29).  Your key makes a more subtle statement.  The double entendre warms my nerdy little heart.

kind regards,
nio

I was going to reply to a couple of posts from earlier pages, and just caught up to the end of this thread (so far).

Before I respond to posts, I just wanted to say that I am truly amazed at the skill floating around here!  I can't remember the last time I felt like posting a positive comment on design, in any forum.  I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't give out unwarranted compliments, to gain favour or for any other "falsetto" reason.

I've seen a number of coins and their logo contests.  These entries decimate them all.  Normally you see a lot of designs that make you go "meh".  Not so with the Ora entries.  The "meh"'s here are few and far between.

my compliments!

nio

I'm glad you asked! Yes, reputation is something I want to incorporate into Ora.  I have some ideas to break new ground in this arena.  But as always, I'm accepting ideas from the community on this (and everything else).

kind regards,
nio

OK, so I've been reading the debate about what to do with remaining coins.

My first inclination is to save the coins for a rainy day, even at risk of being called a scam coin.  Yes, the premine issue is real, but anyone reading this forum will know that there is in fact no premine: for all intents and purposes, on release day when the coin actually becomes "real" and not just an NXT asset, we could match the total # of coins minted with the total # distributed.  Problem solved, entirely.  Then, any future coin creation would come from the staking mechanism.  Or, we could have a nominal premine, and release the total # of coins with that in mind.  Nothing says we have to release Ora with an unspent 50% or some such thing.

As for the heated issue of whether or not the next distribution should or should not include those who dumped their stakes, I would like to point out that this is a global system, and in the global economy, some ppl live in desperate circumstances.  I won't begrudge anyone who dumped, because 50 USD might feed them for a month.  Even if they dumped out of greed, I still wouldn't begrudge them, because I believe in free choice in free markets.  Anything else produces mischief that is far worse than the original greed that prompted the economic controls.

I'm not sure that the buyer is more angelic than the seller here, or more or less of a devil.  I could make the argument that those who bought from the dumpers are at fault, because they encouraged the dumpers to dump!  Should we penalize them?  But what of it?  That's the free market at work.  And I don't like this backdoor threat that "we know who the dumpers are, and can prevent them from getting a new stake".  Wow.  Listen to us.  That sounds ominous, and Orwellian.  Were that list in my hands, I would destroy it - without hesitation or remorse - before it destroyed me.

To me, there are no dumpers, only sellers.  And buyers.


Nevertheless, for the sake of peace, here are two ideas:

Idea #1:

Give the dumpers a future installment, and give the current Ora holders (even if they bought from a dumper and didn't have an original stake) their choice of a future installment or an instant payment.

This only penalizes the dumpers on a timescale, meaning you dumped your coins, so for the next distribution you won't get them until the coin releases, or until some strategic happenstance.  BUT you will still get them.  Meanwhile, those who didn't dump are free to participate in the free market as they see fit.  My expectation is if they didn't dump already, they are holders, but that might be proved wrong.

If it bothers ppl that stakeholders sell, then prevent them from selling at this point in time by restricting their ownership of the asset.

Idea #2:

Offer ALL stakeholders, original and current, their choice of:

a) 100k ora now, OR
b)  100k ora plus 50% simple interest at some point in the future.

Voila.  Those who want to hold get an incentive to take the "annuity" at "b".  Those who want to dump (or just want the Ora in their hands) can choose a, and get less Ora.
This could be done with any combination of reward amounts, such as half of 166k now OR the entire 166k in the future.



kind regards,
nio

To think of where Ora is without even having a wallet yet, that is pretty good.

Price goes up and down.  I only watch price when I am trading.  I'm holding for a very long time.  The coin needs a chance to become established, and continue on with a solid code base and new features.


kind regards,
nio

Whether it was in this thread or not, it did show up on the dev thread here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=675484.msg8029565#msg8029565

I may also have linked it off the main forum to the dev forum.  I don't recall.

If anyone has a suggestion of a coin to clone, let's hear what, and why, in the dev forum.  Always looking for suggestions!

kind regards,
nio

I think the convo got started in this thread.

You might go back and look for them here.

I'm thinking maybe it was around the 70s page range, but not quite sure.

In any case, the idea was noted, and I've been looking into bitshares.

kind regards,
nio