So seemingly a ceasefire was reached in the original battle. And auroracoin is still being traded.


Some of the OP text is still interesting to be thought about.

What about moving this thread to meta? How to do that?

I invite you to skim through this text:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=552226.msg6009832#msg6009832

Especially the paragraph "The filthy rich ..."

Not sure that I understand you right.

You plan to make those few who are already insanely-BTC-rich, in the future
now even richer with every coinsystem that is innovated in your way ?

I invite you to skim through this text:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=552226.msg6009832#msg6009832
(read the paragraph "The filthy rich ...")

Perhaps you can come up with a better idea, that is appealing not only to your clientele.

Let's take marketcap

that is

(all coins in circulation) * (current coinprice)

right?

I used an over-simplification (in a text about the recent/ongoing battles over altcoins), and I would appreciate your experts' opinion on it:



Or if you wish
Low (networkhashrate / marketshare) is dangerous.
which is more or less the same statement, right?


Is there is a way to determine how healthy and secure a (PoW-)altcoin is, by e.g. looking at hashrate and marketshare? For this question, it makes sense to ask about bitcoin, because it's the older project, longer data, and a tighter market, the same (or very similiar) code - and the more experienced devs. That's you   please help me to understand.


The hope would be that the linear or even sublinear relation is not true, so e.g. it's not:

Low (sqrt(networkhashrate) / marketshare) is dangerous.
or
Low (log(networkhashrate) / marketshare) is dangerous.


When you are using your deep knowledge of the PoW-protocol, and known attack vectors, and 5 years of experience with the mining industry, and fantasies about the future of cryptocurrencies ... what would describe the situation best, in your opinion?


From the view of conservation of electricity and rare metals, I hope that it's superlinear, something like

Low ( networkhashrate^a / marketshare) is dangerous.  with a>1 , preferably a >> 1
or even
Low ( b^networkhashrate / marketshare) is dangerous.  with b>1

So that for example, a tenfold networkhashrate can accomodate for more than a tenfold total value secured in the network.


We have seen a crazy growth of bitcoin hashrate, and thus bitcoin difficulty.
And (the moving average of) the price exploding exponentially over years.

For bitcoin, I would like someone who has both the 4-5 years data of price or marketshare and hashrate or difficulty, to plot the above relations. What was the empirical exponent a in the past?  (Perhaps after smoothing out local details, with a large moving average window; and not focussing too much on the last few days' drop in price, that will recover soon ). I am really looking forward to seeing those diagrams, and an empirical estimate for that exponent.


For the theoretical approach (and a more precise over-simplification ) please help, I haven't got my head around factoring in Moore's Law. It says that a four times hashrate costs only a double investment now, compared to ~18 months ago (or less months because this industry is in such a hot phase). Actually that's another diagram which would be interesting to see:   log (hashrate per dollar) /  (time - offset)

With Moore's Law counted in, any currently accumulated hashpower never suffices to secure any future network, almost independent of the marketshare - this seems to need to be an ongoing limitless exponential growth.

So
Low  d/dt (networkhashrate) is dangerous.  

PoW coins always need to have an ever-growing network of miners. Faster than Moore's Law if the marketshare is growing?

What is the necessary growth factor, factoring in Moore's Law AND marketshare-growth?

Please help me understand this. Thanks.


Fred_Om, 3.4.2014

:-)

?

Old and young members, unite!

I would like to assist. I have been breathlessly reading the aurora scam/rape debate for the past 5 days, probably 16 hours now - it's an amazing stageplay, thank you to all actors. I have learnt much on the technological level, followed links, understood connections, looked up concepts. Very cool classroom, staged as a confrontational drama between two allegedly enemy fractions.

I look at it as a "generational conflict", and I am starting to see patterns. I have actually changed my viewpoint, and "sides" about 6 reading-hours ago, that's when I noticed I had gotten the larger picture.  Gratitude.

And now I think I can help, and make a suggestion: You two teams might need each other more than it seems.

Accept not only the existence of "the other side" (they won't go away) - but think "How can they be useful for us, and how can I help them?".



For the moment, let's split into team bitcoin, and team mutationcoins.

[I might be torn into pieces because of my oversimplification, please forgive me. And when you criticise, please be kind, then I try to take it, I promise. Still, I switch this to "self-moderated", because I am unusually thin-skinned for this brutal environment bitcointalk.org ]


On the one side is unguessable experience, having read libraries, programmed hundreds of thousands of lines of code, went through computer science tenure, or being prodigiously autodidactic. Talked, written, understood. Perhaps conferences. Created companies, went bankrupt, tried again. Having seen things go terribly wrong, coins born and dying.
Most of all, naturally: A much much deeper TECHNOLOGICAL understanding.
If you see a technology grow, you know nowadays hidden layers, because you used, fixed or even created them.  Knowledge essential for DESIGNING technicalities, and PROTECTING security.  
And right here right now ... seemingly limitless patience with explaining the basics of cryptocurrencies over and over again (not surprised that being a "bot" is suspected /irony), and to people who tend to only half-listen, who rather go rhetorical.  
You are doing an amazing job, thank you so much for educating us!


On the "other" side is a new breed of users. Halfnerd/halfuser, new types of people participating in these revolutionary currencies. Isn't it fantastic how popular the technology suddenly is?  
The new ones won't go away, ever. No, quite the opposite, they will get more and more and more. THAT is exponential growth, no only in quantity, but also in surprising qualities.

Thanks for "bridging", you two sides, in this debate.

You don't earn much in the beginning, the first month next to nothing, but the next months is not additive, but already multiplication - so just keep on learning. Up to now, my plus is still small, a classical slave job would have gotten me plenty more money in those ~4 months, but I want to learn; and I see more and more opportunities, and have hope to get into a lucky phases again.

For a newbie, it is impossible to drill down into the depth and width of technicalities in a 5 year industry, so many do not even try. "It" seems to work, anyways. You learn on the way. Google is your solutions archive; problems are solved without understanding the inner workings. Error gone, good.
Like most other desktop programs, a wallet does not seem to be overly complicated.  Dangerous half-knowledge is enough for USING it, to try make some money. Without looking under the hood. Even fortunes can already be earned, AND great plans of real social change dreamed up. Finally, we take power back that was stolen from us people by banksters for such a long time.  This is one of the most exciting technology in ages, not only bitcoin - but applied cryptology, and cryptocurrencies.



What do they know about each other?

Surprisingly perhaps due to the rebellious behaviour, I feel the younger ones do understand both sides better. Because of the gross asymmetry (in knowledge=power), intuitively the new generation understands the technological head start of the "elders" quite well.  But that does not mean those elders are to be trusted. As we all are trained here to always suspect hidden agendas in everything, we don't know if a "Hero member" shares technology wisdom, or tweaks realities to protect and enlarge his wealth which is sunk into what looks to us weirdly like "old" technology already.

Do the long standing members of this scene, this forum, this technology really understand how it must be for this next generation?  Do you see THEIR most pressing issues?  Nowadays moneymaking here happens on new emergence levels, do you really understand the challenges of this current level?  This moment is only HALF about technology anymore, the other half is SOCIO-ECONOMICAL.

Security, trustlessness, fairness is touched by both hemispheres.


The filthy rich are attractive and disgusting.

ONLY for the early birds it is self-explanatory why technological head start must automatically mean social and economical nobility beyond comparison. The later-comers shall put up with a peasant role?

And now since this open threatening event, more "peasants" shall understand that they even have to live in existential fear of the feudal masters of cryptocoins?  Who say they can move dozens of GH; with their perverse wealth of bitcoins, and machines, and their social network. And openly organize themselves to "clean up", by raping what is not secure, with a PinkFloydian teacher's entitlement to educate.  Because the technology MUST be understood and made secure, so any other angle on it IS secondary.

True, but hard to swallow.


Why is more than half of the "only secure" currency already mined already after 5 years?
And thus in the hands of a tiny group?  What about the other 7 billion people?  

Why should they join a game that is rigged right from the start? After months here, I have not found a single plan, strategy, airdrop, distribution mechanism or any other fairness creating initiatives in place, to make this a currency of humankind.

No, it's a currency of a select few, who would like the whole world to adopt it, to replace one unfair system with the next one - and incidentally make them unspeakably rich.

Shall it really stay the hands of a few hundred?  Age of the geek, baby - sure. But:
Are these few hundred morally, intellectually, empathically ... really the cutting edge of mankind?

Does the original whitepaper demand this unfair centralisation of OUR new currency?



Participation fairness

Participation is key, and that's where this almost violent and self-harming hyperactivity with altcoins comes from.

What worked once, twice, a dozen times ... has to work again - but now for a new group of people. Understandable, isn't it?  The bitcoin elite shows no inclination to share their coins. Oh yes, there are faucets. A friend of mine typed in so many captchas that he got 7 USD worth of BTC together - after weeks, poor guy. Is that your sharing concept?  Faucets?

Obviously not. So instead what we can do is learn from them, how they did it. With a new currency.


A new technology, industry, employment, gold rush

Technology, of course, is the way to go. It's the most interesting virtual reality that I ever had the privilege to step into. I am grateful to all of you who helped to create this.  Me personally, I have always partly paid myself not by materialism but by intellectual satisfaction. Learning!  But I can only afford all that time that this takes - by also trying to earn money. Sounds ideal, doesn't it?  

Typewise, I am kind of late here, I might belong into an earlier "generation". But more important experiences than money ... kept me busy and happy - until that last price explosion. So I have only come with the last wave, and thus I think I can understand both sides.
When I started to look into bitcoins, I was hooked in the very first night, mid November 2013. My starting point was my outrage about this irresponsible waste of energy, for solving a clever but completely senseless mathematical equation over and over again. Why isn't the core of this biggest man-made parallel computer dedicated to calculate real questions (climate, physics, mathematics, you-name-it) - and as a by-product, coins are generated?  At the end of that night, I had not solved that minor problem - but I had found my new rabbit hole, which I have been exploring ever since.

A lot of people who seemingly came in the same wave with me, are already two steps further down the road, less tech more money. We are not here as users of your currency, to simply buy stuff with it, and make you richer.  All of us want to earn coins ourselves; we mine them, we trade them, we try out Ponzi schemes, win or loose in IPOs, create new coins in this exciting rush, compete and help each other.


Why all these highly dangerous current experiments, that annoy the elders so much?

Un-understood, there is an urgency. Whatever seems to be the most profitable way, short term, fast fast fast - perhaps because there won't be much time until the next wave will hit, and we don't know what that will mean for us, but we know we won't have 5, 4, 3 or even 2 years to get our now already only tiny piece of cake.

So lots of decisions are not thought through, towering edifices of complexity are hardly standing; how many coins do not even get out of their birth crib properly, many altcoins are very shaky houses of cards. But some of them do the trick. I have profited from a > 1000% price rise of a new coin that I tried out mining, vertcoin, first time that I needed to configure for a new algorithm - and man, the reward was a life-changing experience; never before anything rose in value so quickly, amazing. I only heard about the NXT IPO, and those shareholders must still think they are dreaming. Blackcoin shoots up by a factor of four, because someone launches a surprisingly simple yet clever mutation of an existing concept - and suddenly there is a real use for a coin.  
Some people seem to get rich by pumping coins (that is ... pumping out of others, be honest) - and yes, by far not all activities here are morally exemplary; I do try out things, then I drop them - I continue to live with my conscience.

But still, that my month March had a netto minus - simply means that I need to stop working in this field, and rather do something else, perhaps sell myself to a multinational company?  I don't want that!!  You see the point, there is so much hope - for nothing less but freedom, in gold rush phases.


Why is no one listening to the well-known wisdom?

I will not go into detail explaining to the "newbies" that the "older" ones are one hundred percent right with their urgency about security. I do not like some of the habitus, but I get the message now - after reading those two workdays&nights, I have made the shift; I know that some "elders" have a crippled understanding of social interactions and other humans. But technically ... they are right. Let them continue to explain it to you, and better listen - but not here in this thread, please.  Let's stay meta, because there is an elephant in the room.

Let's look at that new generation. New very active members of this forum. Mainly in the altcoin section because the elders show no signs of sharing their "only safe" currency with us, so we are trying out our new ones.

That gold rush is not over simply because the last three generations of cryptocoinpeople are rich, wealthy or filthy rich now. There is at least time for two (or even more) generations of gold rush, before this excited system is relaxed. And then it might become "only" a currency, for the other 7 billion people?

Can you see that you two groups are actually more similar to each other than both of you to the rest of the world?


Unite!

You two groups, please understand: You could continue to compete with each other, declare the other side to be ignorant, moronic or evil. But you need each other. Those with whom we could only compete if we had enough bitcoins to pay for the time machine trip ... are now in the same boat with us, exactly as they found themselves suddenly crammed into a too small boat with their (even weirder) predecessors. And then the boat expanded suddenly, through synergy and cooperation, back then. Can it repeat, once more?
 
We can understand what is going on right now, and try out solutions. That will make space.

The next generation is not even aware of their future here yet - but they are only a few weeks away from entering this forum, believe me.



A now

So what I think happened in the past months, is described. We (not me, but we as these last waves) are cloning a code which has provably worked before; and then what can possibly go wrong?  The naive thinking of copycats who had months between entry into the scene, and major decisions - dangerous half-knowledge. Copies of Copies. Of bitcoin.

BUT: The situation of bitcoin back then was different. There was no attention of sinister government agencies on it. There were no gigahashps owners who enjoy role-playing as warlords. But fact is now, both can easily crush any coin if they need that for politics, theft, or for their classroom presentation: Low (difficulty / marketshare) is dangerous.

And that is not bad. Nor good. And it's not changeable. It is just the situation, into which new steps are born now.



Lift your spirit

I come from a loving, trusting, positive-thinking world out there, and I am shocked in this forum.   The (technical) commandment of trustlessness has tilted some of you (psychologically) into very harsh, negativity seeking sceptics. The basic assumption here about another human being is: scammer - or prove the opposite. Perhaps that attitude comes with thinking about money all day. Getting rich comes with the challenge of inner deterioration.
 
I am sure there is still a strong spark of good-willing idealism in most of you, that's why you came here in the first place, back then in prehistoric times, as the first citizens of ... Cryptonia :-)



Your ideas now, please.



Here are some of mine

Some ideas, hopelessly idealistic - but Cryptonia is not fully set in stone yet, so worth considering:

Share wealth.
Rethink property.
Think fair games.
Create employment.
Offer bounties.
Create protected areas, in which fragile constructs are tried out.
Allow newbies to become as rich as yourself.
Let each wave have their goldrush.
Donate hashpower to research projects.
Look into the drawers of the first year, there are ideas untried.
Decentralisation of power structures.
Share power.
Undo concentration.
Welcome the new ones. Pass on traditions.
Let them refresh your nowadays sinister outlook by naive enthusiam.
Be our teachers AND be our students.
Protect stability, and welcome evolution.


Fred_Om, 1.4.2014

Sorry - has this been discussed in a constructive way already?

What would a feasible distribution of a currency to 300,000 people need, in the trustless paradigm?

A technological AND socio-economical thought experiment  

After 20 these highly educating pages filled with division, separation, accusation, misunderstanding, and mutual celebration of intellectual high points ... I dare to ask a question to the "two sides" of this fruitful thread:

Could you describe in which aspect "the other side" is right, and could convince you?

Easier: Where do you see common ground now?

I guess that is ... about 7,250,024,070 people.

Oops, that could easily become much larger than the current altcoin section.

 

Wow. Innovation alarm. Cool. New concept?

If that is what I think it is, it's a breakthrough!

THANKS!