What are all possible dimensions along which to evaluate cryptocurrencies?

[metamitya]

What are the dimensions along which cryptocurrencies should be evaluated?

Like if I want to know how good a coin is along the SCAM (bad) to FUTURE (good) spectrum what should we be looking at?

Some ideas:

Level of Decentralization - how to measure?
    number and share of mining pools
    number of nodes
    number of developers, and development teams/clients
    number of jurisdictions that coin operates in
    potential regulatory threats (how "subversive" is the coin?)
  
Primary Problem Solved - how to measure?
    user testimonials
    partnerships
    trials
    website
    whitepaper
    blog posts
    market research (eg. how big is the market being addressed?)
  
Developers - how to measure?
    pedigree
    github activity

Community - how to measure?
    how active are they?
    how willing and able are they to entertain and effectively counter critiques?

What else!!?!


  

[metamitya]

Level of Decentralization - how to measure?
    running on its own blockchain?

[Herbert2020]

the most important thing that you forgot is merchant adoption. you are talking about crypto currencies so they have to be adopted as currencies to be considered successful and their whole focus should be on that and that alone.

    number of jurisdictions that coin operates in

a decentralized coin does not even have a jurisdiction.

Primary Problem Solved - how to measure?

by seeing it in action and under load to see if it is actually solving the things it promised or it fails.

 
Community - how to measure?
    how active are they?
    how willing and able are they to entertain and effectively counter critiques?

i don't think any of this matters really!

Level of Decentralization - how to measure?
    running on its own blockchain?

if it relies on another platform (like the tokens) then it is not a currency, it is a token. i don't think we can call it centralized though.

[metamitya]

the most important thing that you forgot is merchant adoption. you are talking about crypto currencies so they have to be adopted as currencies to be considered successful and their whole focus should be on that and that alone.

    number of jurisdictions that coin operates in

a decentralized coin does not even have a jurisdiction.

Primary Problem Solved - how to measure?

by seeing it in action and under load to see if it is actually solving the things it promised or it fails.

 
Community - how to measure?
    how active are they?
    how willing and able are they to entertain and effectively counter critiques?

i don't think any of this matters really!

Level of Decentralization - how to measure?
    running on its own blockchain?

if it relies on another platform (like the tokens) then it is not a currency, it is a token. i don't think we can call it centralized though.

Thanks for your feedback!

a decentralized coin does not even have a jurisdiction.

The coin's infrastructure operates in physical locations which answer to some sort of local government. The number of locations and the regulatory environments those jurisdictions have correspond to some level of regulatory risk. For example if all of your mining is in China, and China decides to ban mining your coin will suffer more than if your mining is setup across 10 different countries with various approaches to crypto.

if it relies on another platform (like the tokens) then it is not a currency, it is a token. i don't think we can call it centralized though.

i was using cryptocurrency as an umbrella term for both "pure" cryptocurrencies and hosted tokens, but both can be analyzed in this framework. A "pure" cryptocurrency is typically more decentralized than a token because it's mined into existence and not an issued pre-mine by developers. This is what the SEC looks at when making a determination about how to regulate cryptocurrencies and why Coinbase only lists the coins it does. I wrote a bit about this here if anyone is interested: https://cryptograf.io/blog/2018/03/23/Government-Eyes-Cryptocurrency/