What do you think are the most important features in a coin?

[spartak_t]

I also want to know if some of you think that holding long term conception is lately not really working in cryptocurrencies. Would like to hear some opinions, which will be taken as advices.

[barabbas]

Every single coin, except bitcoin, is conceived, designed and developed with a main purpose, regardless of features or anything  else: to make money for its developer. Andvthat money comes, logically, from the investirs. Not the real ones, mind you. The real ones buy large amounts directly from the developer at less than half the price you buy them from the exchanges. In the case of Bobsurplus and others, for free in many instances. Everything is done in the background. The regular individual investor has no chance and, in fact, is actually playing lotto... or russian roulette. Even when investing in established projects, such as NXT. All ICOS, by design, are scams. No exceptions: devs are putting their money from the right pocket and into the left one while keeping 90% or more of the coins and faking volume and investor interest to dump those free coins on noobs ... or cretins. Or both. The longer you hold the bigger the risk you are taking, of couse but, unless you are able to escape by pure luck with profits, you are just a mark. A walking target. A bagholder.

[spartak_t]

barabbas, let's be open-minded for a while. Many of us are aware (though we can't always caught them) of the scams going on around crypto-world, but there are still few decent projects with good people behind them. I don't think there is anything bad in ICO's (while funds are used properly) or developers to earn some money, because if someone is working, I find it pretty normal to have some profit. No one should work for free.

[sdmathis]

Holding long term was never a good play in crypto. So many people treat crypto like it were an equity, but it's not. Crypto is currency and needs to be treated as such in order to make a consistent profit. I know, If you had bought Bitcoin at $5 you'd be rich. All that means is that Bitcoin had a good run (and there will be other good runs). Crypto needs to be spent because it's money. If it can't be spent, it's useless. If you are looking to make a profit, trade it, but for God's sake, don't buy and hold. That's just foolish.

You asked about features and I don't have a specific feature in mind, but I do feel that any features need to promote the spending of the coin. If a coin isn't spendable, it's useless.

[patmast3r]

any feature that results in actual adoption outside of the cryptosphere. Everything else are bells and whistles most people won't use for a long time.

[jacktheking]

Community. Without a community, the currency wont hold long. Just like a country.

[Snail2]

Services, services and services... am I mentioned services? Perhaps more services? Even the best coin with the most ground breaking features and with the best community ever, worth nothing if I can't use it for something what is actually useful in my everyday life, like buying a sandwich or a glass of water...

[spartak_t]

I think that the best "feature" of a coin is adoption. Technology is not that important as long as the coin has no flaws in source code/network.

[tokeweed]

I think that the best "feature" of a coin is adoption. Technology is not that important as long as the coin has no flaws in source code/network.

I agree.  Work on the foundation then the cool features can come later.

[jabo38]

the biggest technical hurdles are blockchain bloat, speed, security, scalability, ease of use, and privacy.  not one crypto has a good solution for all of these and few have a good solution for even one.  others have mentioned adoption and I agree that adoption is the end game, but really some serious tech leaps need to happen first.   

what you want to do from a tech perspective if find a platform that is fixing these problems and isn't plagued by problems

problems are some dev holding 20% or more and is just waiting to dump when the marketcap gets big enough.  or that a pump group is behind the coin (Bob Surplus). or that they just lie about their platform.  or that they have some kind of giant marketing scheme (Paycoin/Neucoin).  The later seems to be the new wave of big scams.  In 2013 a person could copy and paste a code, think of a funny name, lie about how it would change the world and make a huge amount on a pump with just a BTT ANN thread.  but now it seems like they have gone pro style and are actually investing 10s of thousands of dollars making a good website, pumping publicity, and acting like they have big connections with powerful financial movers.  then they promise the world, have a big ICO and run away with the profits.  

People in this thread have called ICO's a scam, and I tend to agree 98% of the time, but not always.  The truth is, it is exceedingly rare to find a POW coin move up into the top 20 and then top 10 on CMC, but lots of them have been kicked out.  POS or other novel proof-of-x are here to stay and watching how the top 10 gets POW pushed out one by one, is very telling.  At the start of 2013 it was basically all POW, everything.  Then the start of 2014, just a couple of POS.  Now in mid-2015, I doubt there will ever be a good POW coin that comes forward that isn't already born.    

[JackRipper]

the biggest technical hurdles are blockchain bloat, speed, security, scalability, ease of use, and privacy.  not one crypto has a good solution for all of these and few have a good solution for even one.  others have mentioned adoption and I agree that adoption is the end game, but really some serious tech leaps need to happen first.   

what you want to do from a tech perspective if find a platform that is fixing these problems and isn't plagued by problems

problems are some dev holding 20% or more and is just waiting to dump when the marketcap gets big enough.  or that a pump group is behind the coin (Bob Surplus). or that they just lie about their platform.  or that they have some kind of giant marketing scheme (Paycoin/Neucoin).  The later seems to be the new wave of big scams.  In 2013 a person could copy and paste a code, think of a funny name, lie about how it would change the world and make a huge amount on a pump with just a BTT ANN thread.  but now it seems like they have gone pro style and are actually investing 10s of thousands of dollars making a good website, pumping publicity, and acting like they have big connections with powerful financial movers.  then they promise the world, have a big ICO and run away with the profits.  

People in this thread have called ICO's a scam, and I tend to agree 98% of the time, but not always.  The truth is, it is exceedingly rare to find a POW coin move up into the top 20 and then top 10 on CMC, but lots of them have been kicked out.  POS or other novel proof-of-x are here to stay and watching how the top 10 gets POW pushed out one by one, is very telling.  At the start of 2013 it was basically all POW, everything.  Then the start of 2014, just a couple of POS.  Now in mid-2015, I doubt there will ever be a good POW coin that comes forward that isn't already born.    

You are right that POW has seen it's day come and go, but I really think it's still to early to say that POS is here to stay. POS is still fairly new. I'm sure that another model will take it's place before too long.

[barabbas]

barabbas, let's be open-minded for a while. Many of us are aware (though we can't always caught them) of the scams going on around crypto-world, but there are still few decent projects with good people behind them. I don't think there is anything bad in ICO's (while funds are used properly) or developers to earn some money, because if someone is working, I find it pretty normal to have some profit. No one should work for free.

It isn't a matter of being open minded, but of looking at things the way they are. Let me explain it to you a bit. ICO: Lets say that you are selling 100k coins of your project in an ICO at 10k satoshis each, ok? demand reaches only to 5 BTC, so the only real money you get is those 5 BTC, you follow? But those 5 BTC only buy 50k, you still have 50k more to sell, right? so you sell them to yourself, hence you pay yourself 5 BTC. %BTC go from your right pocket to your left pocket while your "no premine" account now holds 50k coins that, effectively, have cost you absolutely nothing. Get the picture now? Even if you dump those 50k coins for half the "price" (5000 sat) you stil make 2.5 BTC clean profit. As you can see, any and ALL ICO's, no exception, as I wrote, are a simple and easy to spot scam. I repeat: No exceptions.

Now, for a developer to "earn money because they are working", sorry but no, that is NOT how it should work. Imagine launching a coin is a business, ok, let's say a restaurant, for example... number one, a LICENSE is required. Several permits and compliances are required. A very big investment is required. And a name and address of the person ultimately legally responsible. That "simple" business is full or risk and complexity and, no matter how successful, the one's putting up the money, let's say the sole owner who happens to be a chef, is not counting on ANY PROFITS in YEARS!!! And that is IF the business is successful... as opposed to 65% or more, on average, that result in net losses instead when the lack of success forces them to close doors. Are we getting the picture now? Most "devs" are just loser jerkoffs living in their parent's garages and with a very limited ability to code some sheet. Most "dev teams" also include some impossible to employ jerkoff -also living in the parent's garage-, who took some graphic design classes and has never been paid to work, not one single day. Those "teams" usually include also some "community manager" who is the proverbial jerkoff who never has worked a single day in his life, is a "professional" stoner, has a couple of outdated antminers and has spend the last 5 years of his life jerking off to websites of one kind or another. That's the picture of your average "dev team" in cryptoland which copy/pasted the code of Shadow Coin and launch their ICO, ok? And, naturally, they expect to be paid "for their work". Sorry but that's the reality. And that is why crypto is the land in disarray it is... and getting much worse every day.

If there was any capable developer, even loosely "honest", with a vision and a plan, real investors would flock en masse to support his or her project: Sorry but it doesn't exist. Not to my knowledge. I know of some that are somewhat capable (at least capable enough to know and admit that they are not very capable but are willing to hire capable people), but not a single one that is honest... not even in the loose sense of the term. If by any miracle you would find one somewhat capable and loosely honest, FOR SURE you would ALSO find in the same person an insufferable egomaniac with absolute no idea whatsoever of what a business plan is but still convinced beyond any doubt that he knows more than anyone else, no exceptions, of finances, business administration, promotion endeavors and feature development, so you would still be left with a maniacal idiot when everything is said and done, one holding all the power (and the kiss-ass disposition of all the major investors) over the project that YOU have financed. Like the picture? How's that as a recipe for success, ah?

And yet, people in general would be more than glad to give that person also a 5-10% premine of the project without hesitation, so he could "profit from his work" (which would be as "hard" as, at most, 30 minutes of coding sheet per day, most probably not even that.

So, as you can see, my mind is quite open. To see reality for what it is, not for what you want to delude yourself to believe it is.
 

[spartak_t]

barabbas, would like to have you in FAILCoin's team as a spokesman or something and I'm not joking.

[Viper1]

Don't know if barabbas has always been like this but he's extremely jaded that's for sure lol.

The interesting thing about what I would consider "real" devs who are in it more for the tech than anything else, they all seem to disappear after awhile, Satoshi for example, leaving the coin to either die, or be maintained/developed by those that are more interested in financial gains.

Thing is, those sorts of coins are out there but since they don't get hyped, no one looks at them and thus they have no chance what so ever to really succeed. There was a coin called spreadcoin last year based on the darkcoin source but with a couple differences. For example, the dev had made it so that mining via pools wasn't really feasible and you could only cpu mine. Was fun to do and felt like what I imagine the early days of bitcoin were like. Course, he succumbed to the pressure to get GPU miners running for it. Not sure if it ever really made it onto any real exchanges since there was only a handful of us interested in it. Apparently he's been awol for a few months now and so someone else is trying to keep the coin going. Qora is unique but again, there was no hype and it's simply floundered. The dev just coded and end of last year finally released the source and "disappeared" in the same fashion of bcnxt.

At the end of the day though, these are all currencies, so of course people are interested in financial gain. The moment bitcoin started being traded, it stopped being about anything other than money.

In terms of the original Ops question, I really don't know if long term holding is really feasible unless the coin is backed by a team of developers with a passion for more than "just" the money. I'd look at "older" coins that are still plugging away. I've been away working on a project for a few months but I see that a lot of the older coins I was looking at are still at roughly the same prices, some up, some down a bit. Interestingly, so many "anon" coins that were PnD driven are pretty much dead but I was surprised to see that SDC has doubled in price since I was trading it. I'm not 100% sure, but I don't think there's ever been any major PnDs with that one as they seem to have steered clear of all the PnD guys. Now I'm kicking myself for not continuing with my 0% profit accumulation the last few months lol. Pretty much the story of crypto currencies, kicking ourselves in hindsite.

[spartak_t]

I will repeat that imho devs has nothing to do with success of a coin as long as there are no flaws in code. Thing is that many people are looking for some features before they decide to invest and thid is wrong imo. barabbas is right in general though he sometimes can be a big troll.

[nizamcc]

Personally, I have never seen any coins except Bitcoin with any features, even if any had, they were of no use because it has just been a Pump-&-Dump market, so no matter what you try to serve here, it is going to get abused hard by the whales in the end.

[spartak_t]

Personally, I have never seen any coins except Bitcoin with any features, even if any had, they were of no use because it has just been a Pump-&-Dump market, so no matter what you try to serve here, it is going to get abused hard by the whales in the end.

Whales can enter and exit. This is their thing. More important is how the community of one coin will react afterwards and if people who are supporting it (with developing and such) are still willing to stay.

[nizamcc]

Personally, I have never seen any coins except Bitcoin with any features, even if any had, they were of no use because it has just been a Pump-&-Dump market, so no matter what you try to serve here, it is going to get abused hard by the whales in the end.

Whales can enter and exit. This is their thing. More important is how the community of one coin will react afterwards and if people who are supporting it (with developing and such) are still willing to stay.

Like? XPY (Paycoin)?
So many promises, and what did the dev deliver?

[spartak_t]

Like? XPY (Paycoin)?
So many promises, and what did the dev deliver?

Here you can see what I personally think about XPY. Empty promises has nothing to do with coin's development in my eyes.

[mad max]

Fair distribution and fluctuant money supply.