Introducing "ORA::Shuffling" NXT can become anonymous via 'Shuffling' tech! ORA has existed as a leaderless decentralized community based 'starfish' project in search of a purpose for almost a year now.
We now have a (possible) purpose thanks to a wonderful suggestion by user 'Jack Needles'.
We also have in principle support from jl777, a true crypto dev powerhouse, to help us pursue 'ORA::shuffling' further, so this idea is much more than mere brainstorming.
ORA *could* become the default 'shuffling' MS currency that adds anon capabilities to NXT.If this idea is going to work we need community support and engagement NOW!
To get everyone up to speed asap I've decided to put everything 'out there' without any editing to speak of, so what follows is the full communication between myself and jl777 regarding 'ORA as the default NXT shuffling currency' idea over the last couple of days.
Please forgive the verbosity, but I favor full disclosure where possible, and I am not a tech person myself, so there is a great need for input and suggestions from those with skills and ideas in order to achieve this goal.
Adding anon capabilities to NXT via 'shuffling' is a BIG thing, and as a community based project with a solid history for honesty and integrity over nearly 12 months now (i.e. free stakes via webapp registration, sockpuppet countermeasures, no IPO, no 'funny business') ORA is in a great position to make NXT shuffling work, so this is well worth the read, and (hopefully) worth getting involved with!!
If you're looking for a community based decentralized project to get involved with, consider ORA!!
Kora forum post
The other day forum member 'Jack Needles' suggested a possible use case for ORA MS currency as the 'go-to' coin to anonymize NXT accounts via 'shuffling'. I think this is an excellent idea to pursue further, as basic fungibility of crypto currencies is in serious doubt without the ability of ALL users to periodically anonymize their coins when they wish. ORA will be (probably) the MS coin with the widest distribution (and we still have coins to distribute too!), so Jack Needles suggestion is try and position ORA MS as the NXT communities defacto 'shuffle coin' is definiely worth debating & exploring further! Thanks Jack
jl777 forum post
I like this idea of a default shuffle coin!
It will require payments on a regular basis for the tx
However, I think what would be most effective is to have a single block every so often where all the shuffling happens
No matter how good the shuffling if the total anon set it 2, then it has little privacy.
But if ALL ORA users at block N*1000 did the shuffle, then it will do a few things
a) totally fill up some NXT blocks
b) randomize which tx end up in these full blocks
c) create a pretty large anon set, which will allow others to more safely mix their tx during this specified block
d) create regular (weekly?) events that are at least noticeable
However, ORA will need to have a meaningful market value for it to be useful for doing anything real.
The total value should be > than the total tx volume of these shuffling blocks. I have an idea for this.
Also, I think someone can make a shuffle party plugin so you can set it to be active and it shows some cool countdown sequence, or just memes to tie it into its MIC
history
James
Kora forum post
Thanks for the support James, very much appreciated!!
I agree that for ORA to become useful as the default shuffle MS it needs a wide distribution and a decent market value, so any ideas you have for making those two more likely would be excellent James.
We still have a good chunk of coins to distribute (the exact amounts for the distro has changed as circumstances of the project have changed from the original idea back in May 2014). Originally the balance of coins was going to pay bounties for developers and community workers, but that was all based on ORA being a separate coin with a blend of new and old tech with its own P2P network. As that is redundent now we could always explore distribution ideas to meet other goals, or even reduce the coin supply and have no more distro.
Since the decision to go with the MS idea was made we tried and experimented with an idea suggested by BTM's coinsolidation to let holders of other dead and dying coins 'burn' other coins for ORA MS coins. Darkhorse did this with holders of a late 2014 scam coin 'ReserveShare' initially as his own project, and we did plan to do more of these coin 'assimilations' to get a wider distribution, with the biggest being the merger with MIC.
We can always re-assess the best method of further distribution to suite the current needs. My primary goal is not to sell coins, but give them away in ways that add value to the project, so something more meaningful than an "interested". We did have plans originally for "proof of action" giveaways, like entries in out short film competition "Cryptofest", but none of them has been very successful to date.
Any ideas you have James for how to distribute further ORA to make the shuffling idea work better are most welcome! I do like the "shuffle plugin" idea showing MIC memes to NXT inspired music, that's fun, and that's always been part of NXT, and crypto ingeneral!!
jl777 PM
I want to help
What is the current distribution of ORA? At least theoretically when all the outstanding balance issues are settled?
James
Kora PM
Thanks James!!
The current distribution is a bit ambiguous. By that I mean we were always open to discussing options for how to proceed as circumstances changed, so things are a bit complicated
The original idea from May 2014 was:
50% - distributed equally to ~3000 webapp registration applicants
5% - goes to the registration webapp dev
5% - goes to the dev who clones Qora, and creates the Kora wallet applications
2% - Kora founder fast tracking expense account PAID
8% - goes to node bot bounties
4% - website & marketing
1% - Qora dev
25% - POWER BOUNTIES
We only reached ~890 staked from the first webapp registration, so what we did was distribute ~890 lots of 166,000 ORA, which was the stake size assuming we had reached out goal (i.e. 50% of 1billion is 500 million, divided by 3000 = 166,000 ORA per stake). The plan was to continue with "proof of action" type distribution up to the goal of 3000 initial stakeholders.
Then the our lead dev went MIA, and we pivoted the plan to the MS (which was a better option anyway IMO). That meant some of the original distro items were not relevant, so what was left was more like:
50% - distributed equally to ~3000 webapp registration applicants
5% - goes to the registration webapp dev
5% - goes to the dev who clones Qora, and creates the Kora wallet applications
2% - Kora founder fast tracking expense account PAID
8% - goes to node bot bounties
4% - website & marketing
1% - Qora dev
39% - POWER BOUNTIES
My 2% was a personal expense account which I was using to fast track some things like bounties to the first few guys who started helping me (like Darkhorse) and the ORA asset faucet etc while we developed proper decentralised starfish community processes for decision making, so I bought on the NXT AE all of my personal stake (~11million ORA).
The "power bounties" are dev and community worker bounties, to be voted on by the community over time, assuming a lot more dev work was going to be needed with out own coin.
The coin 'assimilations' Darkhorse planned to do (including, I think, MIC) were coming out of the ~2100 first round left overs (i.e. we only distributed 890 of the 3k, so we had 2110 166K ORA stakes left over from the 50%).
Before DH disappeared we were still discussing things based on many more coin assimilations like MIC and 'reserveshare' were going to happen, but I think with DH gone (and coinsolidation who suggested that idea and offered to help), and this current focus on 'default shuffling coin', what we end up with probably more like this:
50% - distributed equally to ~3000 webapp registration applicants (+ MIC redemptions) - about 50% left
5% - goes to the registration webapp dev PAID
2% -Kora founder fast tracking expense account PAID (about 50% left, i.e. 1% of coin supply still unspent)
4% - website & marketing AVAILABLE - 100% left
39% - POWER BOUNTIES AVAILABLE - 100% left
Of the 50%, probably about half is still available, but I'd have to check to be certain.
So ... it's a bit complicated, but the TL,DR is we have plenty of ORA left to play with.
jl777 PM
I have some silver coins that I planned to use to promote MS with
I am thinking that we can back the ORA with the silver coins to give it some specific value
it is the pondsea supernet coins
Kora PM
Ok, that's a good idea James! I just received my order of 5 silver supernet coins yesterday, so I can vouch for them, very nice job he did!!
Can I assist with that?
jl777 PM
We would need to come up with some sort of exchange rate and the the lot of these coins can provide backing for all of ORA
Then we can add value by making the shuffle plugin and I can start using it for some other use cases. The key is to push into it enough hard value so it has enough value for meaningful transactions. Which then provides the environment for getting more usages, etc.
Now this will mean a giant windfall to all ORA owners...
So, to make this fair, the community needs to agree to a few things. First we need the plugin to be written that does the synchronized shuffle. Second we need everybody to agree to spend the 1 NXT tx fee at least once per week for at least a year. But probably just monthly at first.
If you can make these things happen, I would be willing to dilute the value of the silver coins, but there needs to be strong and active community based around cooperatively creating these shuffle blocks. It will become the safest way to transact!
If we can get 1000 different nodes all transacting the same block(s), it makes for a very nice anon set indeed
James
Kora PM
Ok, so our goal is:
1- shuffling plugin developed and paid for
2- everybody to agree to spend the 1 NXT tx fee at least once per week for at least a year. But probably just monthly at first (maybe we need an added incentive for these shuffling nodes??)
3- ideally 1000 nodes online shuffling at all times
Ok, I will propose this to the ORA community and try to get a plan of action to take us forward!!
jl777 PM
for 3, it is not realistic to be shuffling all the time, just not enough people doing enough tx. But by coordinating everybody (using tech to get precise sync) we can flood the network with all the shuffle tx at the same time. This does a few things. In addition to providing the cover traffic for people that want to maintain privacy, if you are doing this every week (along with everybody else), then when you want to do a real tx shuffled, it looks exactly the same as a normal week where you are just doing the synchronized!
So the incentive is that by working together we all get a safe time to transact with a 1000+ possibile source and destination, baasically everybody looks the same as they are always doing the same, so nothing to latch onto.
Now the incentive (2) that you ask for is the following:
"estimate what the value of a currency that provides the highest level of cover traffic"
This is a non-tech aspect that combines with the shuffling tech magnificently, together it is actually quite a good privacy and with so many people involved, the word will spread and then it will get more and more use, which will increase its price.
The good old fashioned "increase in market value" should provide the incentive, as long as the vision is communicated.
Also, we can use InstantDEX to trade it so there will be an active near realtime market for it during the non-shuffle times
James
Kora PM
Ok, got it, or most of it anyway!! What you're describing sounds like an incredible opportunity for us. I agree that the expected increase in ORA value is incentive enough, or it should be. We still have plenty of ORA to distribute if we need, and my feeling is some sort of MIC styled promo giveaway on nxtforum.org would spread ORA around to stakeholders more likely to appreciate the opportunity for ORA with this shuffling idea (i.e. free giveaway to NXTers for memes or something similar). I don't think ORA has much traction on bitcointalk.org now.
I'm not much of a tech guy myself (more someone who has some appreciation for the big picture), would you mind if I quoted some of your PM's in my posts to help people understand what's on offer for ORA with shuffling, and what we need to do as a community to make it happen? Your explanations are far superior to anything I could do!
Also, just to confirm, would ORA holders need to have their NXT account logged in to act as a shuffling node, similar to how forging works? If that is true, then maybe we could distribute some of the remaining ORA to shufflers based on something similar to forging (i.e. you get some ORA when you're running the shuffling plugin using some formula that takes into account your balance and/or how often you're assisting the shuffling process). Even if just for the first few months it might help get people shuffling. I agree the increase in value *should* be incentive enough, but I worry that apathy might make it hard to reach a target of 1000, assuming the user needs to have their account with ORA online and unlocked/shuffling. If in fact the shuffling process still works with 'passive' participation, then 1000 target should be easy to reach. Am I correct in thinking the shuffling plugin would require similar setup for the user as forging (i.e. account unlocked on a running NXT node)?
thanks James
jl777 PM
I can only guess at the details, but my assumption is that to shuffle, you just need to send a payment. So to do that you have to be online at the designated time(s) and have enough NXT in the acct.
Why not to reserve ORA as incentive to do this, like NSC is used to encourage hallmarked nodes. So people that shuffle get more ORA.
no problems in quoting me and if there is a thread with specific question, I can post there directly. At some point, I might come up with some special offchain shuffling where people would just be able to run it in the background, no NXT fees. My idea is that we circulate small amounts of ORA offchain, using people's ORA, but they are not paying out of pocket for this, so even if it is stolen, it is not a giant loss.
Now imagine all this ORA constantly being bounced around offchain. It will be like oxygen in the air. Almost always enough to breathe, but not enough to be able to extract it and sell it. So some sort of public service to jump start the oxygen supply. Now who is tracking every oxygen molecule? As that is what would need to be done to break the privacy at this level
So this is quite a significant thing, but it requires community, active and dedicated more than anything else. Once ORA becomes the anonymous oxygen for crypto, we can do transactions via osmosis
James
Some Issues to consider (please add more!):
- we have plenty of ORA left over from first round distribution
- we have less dev & network support expenses as an MS currency
- we need as many ORA holders 'shuffling' as possible
- how can we motivate people to 'shuffle'?
- how do we pay for the shuffle plugin?
- what further distribution do we need (if any) to achieve our goal?
Some ORA stakeholders sent their ORA & MIC assets to the redemption address, but many did not - if this idea 'works' ORA *could* experience a lot more attention & a windfall gain for current holders. I advise ORA stakeholders to adjust offers on the NXT AE for ORA accordingly.
Please have your say on anything related to 'ORA::shuffling', ideas for further distribution of ORA - anything you think is relevant to making this new direction for ORA successful!
More information on 'shuffling' can be found here :
Some discussion on the forum:
https://nxtforum.org/monetary-system/ms-coin-for-shuffling-nxt/Feature description on bitbucket:
https://bitbucket.org/JeanLucPicard/nxt/issue/135
