IEO which in full means initial exchange offering is not a new topic in the crypto eco-system. Long before Binance Launchpad, several projects have taken that path to raise funds for there project by offering the native currency of their platform to traders on exchange. I remember observing a few on mercatox some years back. It was definitely no big deal as at that. Today IEO has become a menacing rave in the crypto-space owing to the fact that majority of the ICO in time past have failed to list on reputable exchange for investors. regardless of the hype and uniqueness of a project,  securing reputable exchange with good trade volume is key to the liquidity of digital assets and sad to say it today's crypto investors don't want to wait for products. They rather sell the hype than wait for the long term yield that will accompany this project gaining real-life application.
The impact of this IEO model proposes three debilitating factors on the blockchain community.

1. Lack of widespread distribution of nodes and monopolization of the. Today's IEO model literally plays into the hands of whales. With the likes of bittrex favoring high purchase by a single user. It's not hard to see whales controlling the valuation of these upcoming projects cryptocurrency on exchange. Asides from prices, centralization of nodes can be dangerous as it can lead to treats on the network with respect to mining. A Single-user acquiring a subset of the network can be catastrophic.

2. The IEO mechanism does not truly favor long term growth of this project. Now it's important to note that the majority of these coins sold on exchange are bought not by investors but by traders who actively trade on exchange. Majority of this traders do not no a thing about this project and will dump at the slightest profit or in the face of the slightest loss. Some might say it's part of the market cycle. Weak hands selling to stronger traders but it's key to note that community is very important in crypto compared to other market and it's almost impossible to build suck around traders who do not care or look towards the success of this project.

3. This exchange is also doing too little to protect the interest of participants who take part in these IEOs. In my opinion, it shouldn't just be about raising funds and meeting Hardcaps. These exchange should take up more roles. Some examples I picked up from the Pledgecamp project concept includes. Strategic disbursements of funds raised during these IEO events based on achievements of milestones, certification and other pre-agreed terms all design to ensure this project doesn't just bail off with people's money or fail to develop products that can attract value to the native currency.

In conclusion, a lot more tinkering needs to be done in order for IEOs to continue to flourish and promote the growth of the blockchain community. If steps aren't taken to prevent these impacts, we might see the IEO trend failing just like the majority of ICOs have failed.

You're a high ranked member here and as a Hero Member you must've spent at least two years in this forum. But it's really amusing that you still haven't come in terms with the fact that Theymos likes to pull a prank every April 1st. Well, I hope you submitted your credit card details too and also submitted your private keys to that Darkstar thread here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5126721.0

Yeah, though I would suggest that anyone--not just merit sources--check to see if a post is plagiarized before meriting it, especially if it's being made by a newbie and looks like it was written in a "professional" style.  That might sound like prejudice against newbies...and that's because it is.  It's unfortunate, but the vast majority of lower-ranked accounts are non-English speakers trying to write stuff in English in order to get paid for bounties, and there have been so many examples of them resorting to plagiarism that it's almost the norm at this point.

Agree, and this is the reason why I don't send merits exclusively to you and most of the members of DT1.  Even though the best posts tend to come from that list of members, I don't want my merit-giving behavior to give even the appearance of being a political thing.  

The thing is, merit sources are under more scrutiny than the average bitcointalk member, and you definitely don't want to hand out merits to friends, alts, or for any reason other than rewarding a good post.  Oh, and I'm not sure why Cryptopreneurbrainboss can't be a merit source along with TK808.  I think the altcoin sections need multiple merit sources out on patrol.

I gave you 50 I checked your posts and its obvious you are one of the outliers who obviously deserve to rank up as you have been here a long time and aren't a total shitposting fuck.. PM me in a month and ill drop another 50 on you.

unfortunately with any unilateral system there will always be a few people who suffer and unfortunately it is you in this case.

Others will disagree with this I am sure, but I think its the right thing to do in this case.

Please no one else ask me - no begging for merits people..

Wash trade is out of hand
https://openmarketcap.com/exchanges/difference

Sorry to interrupt your merit spree, tk808. Please be careful on sending merits, especially those who are a plagiarist.
A sample is user Favouredhart, the profile has been autobanned, the most likely reason for autobanned is plagiarism case. Make sure that you have given your smerit to non-alt of spammers or any plagiarist.

What do you need the Legendary title for? It doesn't come with any special privileges. And you haven't even reached the upper bound of Legendary activity.

If it bothers you that much - report your posts here. Apply to become a merit source. Be part of a solution if you think there is a problem.

Hahah OP thats the best i heared the last days ! LOL   Grin

You have to work for Merits in form of good posts and helping newbies or the Community !

Nothing is for free and you have to do it the same way as others have done or i am doing !

Get out of your BOX and dont be Lazy and try it to get some Merits but not in form like this thread to ask or beg for !

How is attaining 500-1k merit virtually impossible? Others have done it. I myself reached 591 merits from 250 in a decent timespan(I think) without trying super hard. The problem is on you, not on the merit system.

Short answer, no.

It's perceived (from what i've known and read) that we are about anywhere from 20-100 years away from a usable, everyday, quantum computer. The essence of it, no one knows when this will occur, or if it can even be achieved in our lifetimes. This subject is pretty in-depth overall, and I'll briefly go over what exactly a quantum computer is and how crypto will ultimately benefit and (fail) due to this enormous milestone for humanity.

To begin with, a bit represents a 1 or a 0, the most fundamental way to interpret the very fabric of reality into machine (or digital language). Essentially, a 1 means on, and a 0 means off. Computers behave by interpreting data in this fashion, reading bits, or a string of 8 bits (a byte), in order to process information. 0 essentially means no information, or a gap, a 1 means some sort of information is present. Thus, stringing these values, will ultimately denote a character, or any piece of information desired.

A Qbit is a quantum entangled pair of particles. Entanglement is inherent in quantum mechanics, a phenomenon whereby 2 particles, no matter the distance, will react instantaneously inversely to the particle entangled with (spin, polarization..etc). A Bit is binary it can only occupy one state, a 1 or a 0, with a Qbit, it can occupy both a 1 and a 0, called superposition. As you can imagine, this has drastic implications on the amount of information that can be processed.

The problem is, the current quantum computers are very unreliable, unstable and require a temperature near absolute 0 to even function (superconductor). Coinciding with that, you need enough Qbits to compute anything reasonable (100-150 is the latest), therefore the power of a quantum computer right now, is virtually useless. To create a near-absolute 0 environment requires an enormous amount of energy, to remove energy from the system, it's impractical for all intensive purposes. The colder the temp, the less resistance, and you need virtually no resistance (superconductor) to handle a Qubit operation. (i encourage you to read further, I'm not expert on material sciences)


Leading into cryptography -

The implications of the amount of information that can be processed due to the Qbit will directly affect all forms of encryption as we know it. Bitcoin utilizes SHA-256 encryption, and to crack a Bitcoin key: "it takes on the order of 2^128 basic operations to get the Bitcoin private key associated with a Bitcoin public key." - Wiki. I should note, there can be 2^256 different variations of private keys, and it would take roughly 0.5-0.6 billion years to compute all the variations with a modern supercomputer. That's very roughly 1/28 or 2% the age of the observable universe. Not practical or feasible to even think about or attempt. But, a quantum computer theoretically crack SHA-256, obtain private keys, rendering Bitcoin's blockchain useless. I should note, that transacting Bitcoin and announcing your public key happens in seconds, so what is perceived if you have 1 address, it's still somewhat impractical to cracking your public key, to obtain the private-key, even with a quantum computer.

Now, there are a lot of cryptos that have mitigation against quantum computing already created. IOTA, NEO and Qtum, there are various of others. Each one of these blockchains handles quantum resistance differently from what i understand, IOTA with DLT, Neo with ECC and Qtum with QRL. Not going to go into the specifics.

Essentially, with our current understanding it's very feasible to create quantum resistant blockchains, and all cryptos already have some sort of resistance already built into them. As we move forward in the decades, cryptos will fork off into newer algos or will already have mechanisms in place to defend against these types of attacks. Bitcoin has essentially done this, first mined with CPU, GPU and now ASICs. The various of forks were to prevent a 51% attack, first from the threat of GPUs and then ASICs, ASICs representing the epitome of power for computing hashes p/s, today. The second is brute-forcing (as expressed above) is obtaining private keys from the public key. As you stated, quantum computing can be used not only as an attacking mechanism, but also be used to encrypt information itself. Thus, somewhat nullifying this entire discussion.

The problem is that everything is mostly theory (not quantum mechanics) in terms of prevention against quantum computing.  I don't and very few actually know the mathematics behind all this stuff. And because of that, this answer is going to remain somewhat incomplete, unless someone else wants to weigh in on this topic that's more well-versed in computer science and quantum mechanics.

I will ultimately say, the biggest issue will reside with a quantum computing machine from an unknown party. Governments are no doubt working on these things, and the biggest issue for cryptos is not if, but when a quantum attack will occur. The prevention against these machines will quickly follow. But, it will have a significant impact on the entire market, you will see (no matter what occurs) an enormous sell-off, because of the fear, uncertainty (negative sentiment) and threat they pose. I believe, once a quantum computer is stable enough to operate, the first target is cryptography and all forms of encryption held over the internet. I really do not believe public companies like Intel and etc. will be the first to build a practical, stable quantum computer; simply because there is too much at stake for a government not to be investing in this technology for cybersecurity purposes. You can see glimpses of what computing power is doing to nations, just look at how the U.S. is reacting and telling it's allies not to use China/Huawei's 5g network capabilities/infrastructure. What would a quantum computer mean for governments across the world? Power, whatever it means to have a nuclear capabilities, by multiply that by some large arbitrary large number for how much significance a quantum computer has. The world is not disconnecting from the net anytime soon, in fact we are in the beginning. The IOT is real, somewhere in the future (if humanity hasn't annihilated itself), i image our consciousness will be uploaded to achieve near*-immortality.  


If this topic interests you or anyone, i highly recommended just researching these field. There is so much information out there, and what was presented in the post above is really basic. Begin with the basics of Quantum Mechanics, then research further into the specifics of quantum-entanglement and superposition; Lastly, cryptography and encryption in general.