By now, most litecoin volume does not occur on the OKCoin exchange used by SimpleFX for LTCUSD, not that liquidity is directly proportional to volume anyway.  When litecoin used to be at $3 million daily volume even just a month ago, a $200 million volume day for Litecoin is a sign of volatility, not stability.

Litecoin has not had time to consolidate on every exchange at its new price point yet, not that I would count on that happening on OKCoin anyway with all People's Bank of China uncertainties.

In this case, it looks like a whale deliberately dumped and tried to crash the price on OKCoin.  Of your plots, the only ones really relevant are your SimpleFX and OKCoin plots.  Other exchanges no doubt influenced the recovery indirectly but lack direct relevance to the momentary OKCoin downspike.

There does superficially seem to be deviation between your 5-minute-scale plot of OKCoin futures, versus your 5-minute-scale SimpleFX plot.  But it is hard to really conclude much.  I know, from other exchange plots unrelated to SimpleFX, sometimes a downspike appearing on a 1-minute plot is reduced on a 5-minute plot's display, and so on.  Not all plots are really perfect.

SimpleFX seems to sometimes lag the exchange it is based on by a few seconds, so some weirdness is quite possible.  It is not a deliberate scam at all necessarily, though.

Beyond that, I have been using SimpleFX since last year, on many markets, and there is no time for me when they have seemed to deliberately be unfair.  So I would be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt here.


You choose the size of your positions relative to the amount in your account.  Personally, I like the range of options available.   Yet I usually deliberately maintain less than maximum-leverage positions even on Bitcoin, and that has far more liquidity than any altcoin.

Just because you can take out up to 16.67:1 leverage doesn't mean you regularly should, outside of brief hyper-monitored trading as a limited portion of a diversified portfolio.

SimpleFX market manipulation is doubtful, judging from my own positive experience, but there is always market manipulation by deliberate whale dumps.  For instance, whales will not only do dumps but deliberately yank away giant buy walls just at the moment they are actually needed, potentially on any exchange.

The idea is interesting, but I'm unsure how it is sustainable.  I know in countless contexts, even eBay, that most people are very inclined towards overpricing if given a chance.  Accordingly, the chance that node operators will agree to a reasonable transaction fee reduction in the future seems very iffy, as they would have to willingly give up money.  Sure, they might gain more money in the long view later on by doing so, but trying to get people to actually act so can be difficult.  

I could easily see XtraBytes stuck at 100 coins per transaction essentially permanently, while the coin eventually stagnated by accordingly having no regular users other than speculators.  Of course, "no regular users other than speculators" does describe most altcoins in general, but scalability seems low.

I saved the seed words.  I can get back to the same address, at least, each time regenerating the wallet.  I am mainly pointing out that other wallets for other coins don't need to be regenerated every time, regardless of browser settings.

EDIT:
I finally got it working better after managing extensions in Chrome and getting the app to create a desktop link.  That and/or adding an exception in Chrome helped.  Now it seems to remember, but it was a nuisance getting to this point.

I tried both the Github download and the Chrome addon version of the Waves Lite Client wallet for the mainnet.  Both forget all of my prior login info every time, with me having to not just re-enter but re-create anew my login and password starting from the multi-word seed.

Essentially, it ends up back at the "register" phase instead of simply a "login" phase.

Now I will have to waste time doing a small test deposit and withdrawal, to see whether or not the wallet forgets / deletes my prior currency balance as well or not.  (Or maybe I will try creating a Chrome exception for cookies / login data for this particular site, under advanced settings, but it is still a pain in the rear and barrier to newbies).

It is possible that the wallet was developed by people who do not realize how not everyone wants to have browser settings rigged to permanently save cookies or local login data.  One could almost excuse that for the browser addon but not for the version which has subdirectories on my hard drive.

But, until Waves can recognize and fix a glaring issue like this, it won't go anywhere.

As a lazy casual who has never bothered to go through whatever steps are involved to join a mining pool, personally I would consider it a positive if a coin just had solo mining.

Why not let solo miners be competitive?

Admittedly, like I say, I'm no expert on mining pools, so there might be something I am overlooking.

But the topic is probably just like when, several months ago, PascalCoin had a nominal upgrade for the sake of allowing ASIC or whatever mining instead of just CPU mining.  It seemed to accomplish nothing but kick out the smaller casuals, for no real gain.

IMO, the best mining coin is one which can be competitively mined just by leaving the wallet open, taking nothing more.

Pooled mining has genuine advantages now apparently for Bitcoin, from solo mining becoming less competitive after the arms race or whatever happened.  But solo mining PascalCoin in the old days was a breeze, super easy, literally nothing more than downloading the wallet with it going automatically.

How long has the create wallet feature been down?  

All attempts to import a private key on the web wallet failed (and were greyed out on the downloaded Windows client even after it reached apparently the current block 630,000-and-some).

So then I tried simply the general "create wallet" feature on the web wallet ... only for it to display a message of:

"Sorry, we have some problems here, cannot create wallets now, please try again later."

I had done the ICO claim part two months ago.  On the bright side, the block explorer does show the proper balance at my ANS address.  But I can't access it in any way so far.

Okay.  Thanks.  Apologies for the harshness of my prior message.

Several days ago, I entered my withdrawal address for tokens on the dashboard for my ICO account.  Nothing has happened.  (I added TIME tokens on MyEtherWallet, the withdrawal destination, and still it shows 0 balance.  Also, the Chronobank ICO account shows no withdrawal in transaction history).

I really hope Chronobank has not ended withdrawals, using the excuse of the Cloudflare issue referenced in their emails.  That slight data leak happened for like under 1 in a million page visits, and it was around for several months before anybody even noticed it.  There is a big difference between a 0.0001% chance of an issue, versus 100%.

It has been less than a month since the end of the ICO.  Every single other ICO which I have ever participated in has allowed withdrawals for at least this long afterwards, as people can be busy -- and I have participated in more than a dozen ICOs.

Recent tweets include one about a person getting bitcoin-shaped chocolates from his wife, and I highly doubt anyone paid him for that.

Checking Darcrus twitter (https://twitter.com/darcrus), all I see related is 2 tweets about Coinigy.  He might just be doing so because he likes the service.  (In fact, it does appear kind of interesting; I will look into it).

So I wouldn't worry.

The minor and casual tweets are good in a way, as they remind everyone he is still around.  That is better than some developers on other projects, who just disappear for weeks.

Clivemy, that sounds workable as an approach which university departments could appreciate.  I could see a few professors encouraging their students to take part, for instance.  (A different but slightly analogous contest happened when I was in school, in one engineering class where there was an extra credit contest, with an external sponsor, to come up with the best way of transferring irrigation water in a remote South American village).

One concern would be ensuring potential participants know that what is being offered has much value, since a given amount of XEL won't mean much if not knowing what XEL is worth.  But that is easily solvable, if promotional communications mention what XEL is equivalent to at the time.

That would seem possible as a contest, if giving out prizes to such as the top 1 or top 5 submissions.  Each submission would show working code in the Elastic programming language, while finding and demonstrating an use case where Elastic exceptionally exceeds other alternatives on something particularly useful.

(Presumably the niches of Elastic are where it has much increased performance on some problems, compared to a single personal computer, while being a lot cheaper and more conveniently accessible for many users than a conventional centralized supercomputer).

Judging the most useful and best submissions would be tricky, but a small panel of several people volunteering as judges might make a reasonably fair attempt, if each judge had some reputation and expertise (again, probably drawing from universities).

Since that metric of success is somewhat subjective, perfect judgment may be impossible, but it does not have to be perfect, as long as competitors feel the judging is decent enough to take part.

After all, there have been contests elsewhere which are even more subjective (such as awards for top artist submissions, or top engineering concept designs).

While up to the community, I would see four near-term purposes for the donations pool described in my prior post:

1) Helping ensure an orchestrated mainnet launch

2) Then helping get Elastic listed on exchanges, paying exchange fees

3) Funding a contest, like the contest proposed by Ttookk

4) Fueling other marketing efforts, such as semi-paid volunteers systematically contacting university after university, an idea related to what someone else proposed a while back

Manage #1 through #4 well, and this could take off greatly and fast, leading to more coders and technically skilled volunteers arriving, along with general community expansion.  (EK said he might pay one exchange fee himself, but, as generous as he has been, the proposed donations pool would actually aid decentralization by making such funding not dependent on a single person -- and, besides, EK presumably couldn't pay everything else by himself, not that he should have to do so).

Sounds like a good idea.

Naturally, we can't promise "there is a reward of X bitcoins for ..." in a contest unless X amount is already collected and ready.  And I don't think any single person here can fund everything solo.

So, to best do anything like the contest (and much else), there should be an Elastic donations fund, as in some Bitcoin address and some Elastic address which accept donations from a number of people.  The latter could not be set up until after Elastic goes live on the mainnet.  The former could be set up anytime, even now.

That means there needs to be one or more donation funds coordinators, in terms of people acting to set such up and manage it, giving out appropriate reward payments.

Myself (and probably other would-be donators) would be fine with donation fund coordinators receiving a small fee for their efforts, like an escrow: maybe each 0.5 Btc plus 2% of the amount received in the future over time (a fee perhaps adding up to a number of Bitcoins over time if Elastic becomes large eventually).

A small funds pool might be managed by a single person with some reputation, or a larger funds pools could use a 2-of-3 multisignature wallet with 3 people.

For those 3 people, probably there should be at least one person from among top original contributors (such as Evil-Knievel, Unvoid, Coralreefer, ImI, and/or ... you). Selsonblue and Clivemy have already volunteered for other tasks and might be willing.  While debatable whether or not needed, a professional escrow from elsewhere on Bitcointalk could probably also be found willing to help out for a 2% fee or something.

As one of the original contributors to Elastic's development, you personally being involved with those two wallets could be helpful.

Do you volunteer?

Sorry, I'm not trying to seem pressuring, since of course you are not obligated, but getting anything going requires someone specific.  The workload wouldn't have to be all you alone, as others (such as Selsonblue) seem to be ready, but you being involved would lend the aid of reputation as an original contributor.  (Of course, any other original contributor reading this could volunteer too or instead, but there aren't that many).

Disagreement with the logic in my post is possible, naturally open for debate, but it seems reasonable: To give out funds for a contest, beyond what a single donator can cover, some funds have to be pooled.

I wish devs being away from thread posting for a week was rare.  Presently, among coins I hold:

Darcrus coin: No hide nor hair of the developer has been seen in any way, in more than 2 weeks.  Yet nobody has made a single post pointing it out; nobody is accusing him of being a scammer; and the price has been almost flat.

Omicron coin: He hasn't posted in the thread in months, though apparently he said something hidden on login-requiring Slack a couple weeks ago (albeit giving a scheduled date for something which is now already a few days past, overdue, and not met).  Nobody seems to care, though, and the price has barely fluctuated.

Truly, not bothering to post at least a couple times a week is illogical, when community image influences the success of your primary work, but a lot of people are a bit illogical.

Some other coins do have continuously-posting developers (such as Elastic and Byteball), but those are more the exception than the rule.  Even among coins with developers around, often they mostly hide out on a Slack group where it is a login-requiring pain in the rear to see their posts.

Personally, I'll start to worry if there is no evidence within, say, 3 weeks from now, for the Vidz developer being still alive.

(bolding added)

Indirectly offering fiat to crypto conversion is nominally nice, a feature like OKCoin, Coinbase, Kraken, or other large regulated exchanges but on smaller scale.

However, I do wonder how much investigation has been done into issues with AML / KYC regulations.  In the U.S., those antiprivacy regulations are seriously nasty, to a degree which could greatly surprise anyone who has not extensively looked into the matter.  Europe is sometimes a little better in that regard, though still with issues.

Hopefully you guys aren't too based in the U.S., as you likely really wouldn't want GameCredits to be counted as "an administrator" of a cryptocurrency under U.S. money services business laws and FINCEN regulations on what counts as an MSB.  Games won't want to require players to upload scans of photo IDs, utility bills, and the like.

The preceding is among the reasons that few major cryptocurrency startups have happened in the U.S., other than some small ones sneaking under the radar (and aside from possibly Bitcoin itself but with Satoshi Nakamoto -- probably not his real name -- concluding to go dark and flee).  Ripple was an exception, yet they did have huge issues in their history including millions of dollars of government fines and forced changes.

GameCredits has an U.S. contact address on its website.  Fortunately for this, the CEO and some others appear to be European.  However, even if GameCredits is decentralized or non-U.S. enough to get by itself, "regulatory compliance" can still be an issue for game companies using GameCredits, if there is back and forth conversion between GAME and fiat.

EDIT:

On second thought, I'll post my other comment after the end of today, so it isn't buried in the birthday wishes.

Happy Birthday, though.

I've never understood the popularity of Slack for investor communication (admittedly not just Tokes but many other projects).  It seems to mainly consist of making developer posts invisible unless going through a major nuisance barrier.

An extra login is a pain in the rear to spend time creating and handling.  Most of us already have tens to hundreds of other logins.  Besides, so much as typing a password is an annoying waste of time.  A better alternative to Slack already exists for public updates: the bitcointalk thread, visible without login each time.

Glad you're around, though.

Button pushing, so to speak, might be helpful.  We will see who we get for volunteers at the time approaches -- and some payment from myself and/or others is an option.  I might be able to help somewhat, a casual hobbyist programmer although not remotely at the level of EK, Coralreefer, or Unvoid.  I'll look more into it over the next several weeks.

I'm hoping Evil-Knievel leaves really easy to follow instructions for non-experts when the time comes.  (EK, I assume you read this).

You're welcome, and thanks.



In a way, your wording of that points towards a solution.

I understand EK and you don't want to take on a semi-official project leader mantle in the future.  While I would be curious to hear from Unvoid in general, indeed quite possibly none of Elastic's coders wants to be labeled so.

Fortunately, that doesn't seem necessary for the issue of the mainnet launch.  Once EK's timeline is completed several weeks from now, there seem to be just two needs for the launch itself, not necessarily needing to be both provided by the same person:

a) technical knowledge ... although the person pressing the button, so to speak, might not be the expert, as long as getting instructions from an expert

b) one or more reputable members involved, so many casuals will flock to join, and so we start the mainnet nicely enmasse

Elastic could probably go forward after launch with the closest to a lead organizer being Selsonblue, for example.

Most of us have never before seeded anything with a genesis block and don't really know how to do so.  I like to think I can figure out anything with time.  But I may be slow at learning how to do it, also having no reputation to ensure enough others flock to whatever I attempt.  The net result would likely be a mess.

All would go so much better with a technically skilled and reputable lead person for the mainnet launch.

The bystander effect has been the subject of studies.  Most of us are like a bunch of people without technical skills, seeing someone lying with a broken spine on a sidewalk.  We have a vague idea that a skilled doctor needs to help him and also tell us how to safely load the patient into a stretcher.  But if we all charge forward, trying to intervene in every way at once, with no skills, it wouldn't go well.  It would go a whole lot better if a doctor stepped up.

Doctors = coders and experts, in the above analogy ... especially those with a prior reputation on Elastic.

If both EK and you are unwilling, that is really unfortunate, as that takes out two of the top three Elastic coders.

I have been trying to assemble a list to aid in candidates for an organized effort (as well as recent volunteering of Selsonblue and Clivemy).  The following users have particularly contributed to development in the past, AFAIK:

Evil-Knievel      coding the client, Elastic Language, etc.      
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=159191

unvoid         debugging, testserver, faucet, etc.         
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=98343

coralreefer      coding the miner, design suggestions      
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=320483

ttookk         website, suggestions               
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=765856

ImI            frequent commenter and tester         
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=92361

Other testers:      josegines, trader19, hagie, BigBoom3599, provenceday
... and probably a number of others who I'm missing

Possibly the slack channel was created by Thefrolly.

The above is based on imperfectly browsing through various parts of the thread.  Inaccuracy in missing some contributions is unintentional but nevertheless practically guaranteed, considering the length of the thread and history involved.  Feel free to add corrections.