Peter Todd calls dash snake oil.

[TanteStefana2]

As for what Tok is trying to say here (I believe, I could be getting him wrong, hate to put words in people's mouths) is that cryptonote was designed initially to be used with a central authority that holds the "keys".

Okay well that's totally wrong.

Throwing those keys away only makes it impossible for anyone, not even a central authority to verify what happened, inside or outside of the blockchain.  The cryptography must be trusted, which kills the whole concept of trustless.

This totally misunderstands the concept of a blockchain. To verify a blockchain (even Bitcoin) requires cryptography. Unless you rely on cryptography, you could easily be given some fake bunch of data that looks like a blockchain but is actually nonsense.

No, not really.  I can follow the coins all the way back to when they were created.  I can do that with my own eyes, following the account numbers.  Nothing is obscured, even when mixing the coins, breaking them up into exact denominations, etc...  This is how Bitcoin works, this is how DASH works.

Actually, there is no way that you could call DASH snake oil, that is ridiculous.  It is simple, it does what it says it will do, it doesn't take anything other than simple math to understand the odds of guessing the owner of the coins.  Simple to understand, simple to implement (with a double network) simple to protect from attack.  I can understand it fully, deeply.  I can not glean all the information from cryptonote to see with my own eyes that all is true and correct.  Therefore I refuse to trust it, simply because I have to trust it.

[1714994810]

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[smooth]

As for what Tok is trying to say here (I believe, I could be getting him wrong, hate to put words in people's mouths) is that cryptonote was designed initially to be used with a central authority that holds the "keys".

Okay well that's totally wrong.

Throwing those keys away only makes it impossible for anyone, not even a central authority to verify what happened, inside or outside of the blockchain.  The cryptography must be trusted, which kills the whole concept of trustless.

This totally misunderstands the concept of a blockchain. To verify a blockchain (even Bitcoin) requires cryptography. Unless you rely on cryptography, you could easily be given some fake bunch of data that looks like a blockchain but is actually nonsense.

No, not really.  I can follow the coins all the way back to when they were created.  I can do that with my own eyes, following the account numbers.  Nothing is obscured, even when mixing the coins, breaking them up into exact denominations, etc...  This is how Bitcoin works, this is how DASH works.

You can follow the coins back how? By looking at gigabytes of 1s and 0s? Or by using a chain explorer which is connected to a node, which in turn only knows it is receiving valid information from anonymous people on the internet by verifying the cryptography? I'm pretty sure it is the latter

[TanteStefana2]

As for what Tok is trying to say here (I believe, I could be getting him wrong, hate to put words in people's mouths) is that cryptonote was designed initially to be used with a central authority that holds the "keys".

Okay well that's totally wrong.

Throwing those keys away only makes it impossible for anyone, not even a central authority to verify what happened, inside or outside of the blockchain.  The cryptography must be trusted, which kills the whole concept of trustless.

This totally misunderstands the concept of a blockchain. To verify a blockchain (even Bitcoin) requires cryptography. Unless you rely on cryptography, you could easily be given some fake bunch of data that looks like a blockchain but is actually nonsense.

No, not really.  I can follow the coins all the way back to when they were created.  I can do that with my own eyes, following the account numbers.  Nothing is obscured, even when mixing the coins, breaking them up into exact denominations, etc...  This is how Bitcoin works, this is how DASH works.

You can follow the coins back how? By looking at gigabytes of 1s and 0s? Or by using a chain explorer which is connected to a node, which in turn only knows it is receiving valid information from anonymous people on the internet by verifying the cryptography? I'm pretty sure it is the latter

Are you serious?  Are you not familiar with the Bitcoin block explorers?  This example below is how you follow a coin back in time, on a DASH explorer:





I can continue this process with any coin, until I find the block / blocks where they were first created, as a block reward, and I can do this manually with the help of a block explorer to organize the information, and I can check how the information is disseminated on the web page by looking at it's code.

[TanteStefana2]

As for what Tok is trying to say here (I believe, I could be getting him wrong, hate to put words in people's mouths) is that cryptonote was designed initially to be used with a central authority that holds the "keys".

Okay well that's totally wrong.

Throwing those keys away only makes it impossible for anyone, not even a central authority to verify what happened, inside or outside of the blockchain.  The cryptography must be trusted, which kills the whole concept of trustless.

This totally misunderstands the concept of a blockchain. To verify a blockchain (even Bitcoin) requires cryptography. Unless you rely on cryptography, you could easily be given some fake bunch of data that looks like a blockchain but is actually nonsense.

No, not really.  I can follow the coins all the way back to when they were created.  I can do that with my own eyes, following the account numbers.  Nothing is obscured, even when mixing the coins, breaking them up into exact denominations, etc...  This is how Bitcoin works, this is how DASH works.

You can follow the coins back how? By looking at gigabytes of 1s and 0s? Or by using a chain explorer which is connected to a node, which in turn only knows it is receiving valid information from anonymous people on the internet by verifying the cryptography? I'm pretty sure it is the latter

You added that last bit, yes, the explorer, which is easily read.  It is indeed served up by anonymous people who check it via cryptography, to verify that the Proof of Work was done at every block.  These anonymous people come to a single consensus, yes, true.  HOWEVER, the LEDGER that is the blockchain, is easily readable right back to the creation of the coin, so you can see clearly the coin's integrity.

[entertheabyss]

Dash is not in competition with Monero, which is not a cryptocurrency, was not designed as a cryptocurrency and is unlikely to ever perform a cryptocurrency role other than as a minority speculative asset (as it is does right now).

Monero (or the original design specification that characterises cryptonote's behaviour) is a cryptographic record keeping system designed to track money in a bank. What some fly developer decided to do (wittingly or unwittingly) is lift the template for the record keeping system, ditch the bank and try to get away with calling the residual cryptographic transport mechanism "money".

The Nature of Money is Not Obscurity
Contrary to what a lot of cryptographic programmers come-self-appointed-monetary-analysts assert, privacy (in the sense of hiding transactions) is not an integral part of any "money like good". It is the domain of record keeping for such.

Metals, Coal and even Paper cash do not have privacy "buit into them". They have fungibility which supports anonymity amongst its holders. The records that track the transactions for such "money like goods" are private and may (as in the case of bank accounts) in fact be referred to as 'money' but they are not the money, they are just the records.

Obscurity - A Bookkeeping Concept
In the case of cryptocurrency, there is no intermediate counterparty holding records on your behalf. (If there was, a system like cryptonote might still be of some use). Cryptocurrency therefore re-orders the priorities of monetary transparency and record keeping privacy such that latter becomes the domain of the holder and not the monetary media itself. This is what allows bitcoin to be defined as base money as opposed to a mere record keeping system.

Anonymity - A "Visible Cash" Concept
What IS important in cryptocurrency, however, is fungibility - as everyone keeps raging about. Improving fungibility enhances the performance of any money-like-good as a cash medium. Coal is pretty fungible. You could watch a shipment of coal arrive at the port without reasonably distinguishing it from any other shipment. But you wouldn't improve the fungibility by hiding the shipment altogether - you'd simply be sowing doubt about the its existence and destroying coal's suitability as a monetary medium.

Dash does not try to do this. It is possibly the only cryptocurrency project right now that has all the design priorities of blockchain-based money in the right balance.

Who Has the Right Design Goals ?
Dash hasn't thrown the baby out with the bathwater like sidechains does (by ruining bitcoin's fungibility and mobility - two fundamental properties of good money) or by reverting the blockchain back to a mere bookkeeping system as cryptonote does. Instead of such car crash, ill thought through sledghammer approaches, it adds a little bit of salt, in a minimally invasive way to the existing bitcoin architecture while extracting huge gains from the result. In other words, it doesn't hide the coal shipments, it just makes the piles of coal less 'lumpy' and perfectly fungible.

Peter Todd may have had a weak technical case if Dash and Monero had been trying to solve the same problem. They are not. Cryptonote is solving the wrong problem - one that's associated with its original role as a record keeping system. You can't just take a cryptographic banking system, throw away the bank and call it money. (You can fool some of the people...).

Dash, on the other hand, is addressing a genuine monetary property - i.e. solving the "right problem" without adversely impacting any other characteristic of bitcoin's almost-perfect design.

Sometimes I'm blown away by comments like these, I wonder how people say thing so stupid.

Dash is not in competition with Monero, which is not a cryptocurrency, was not designed as a cryptocurrency and is unlikely to ever perform a cryptocurrency role other than as a minority speculative asset (as it is does right now).

1) monero is a cryptocurrency and it has the following characteristics.
    a) decentralized nodes that anyone can run, each independent nodes can independently verify the entire blockchain
    b) decentralized payment protocol based on committing signed to be rolled into blocks
    c) decentralized currency generation and block minting blocks through a distributed proof-of-something that anyone can do
2) also Dash kind of really is in competition with monero. If you look at total -> coins in circulation * price <- the market cap difference is actually pretty close. Dash marketcap is artificially fluffed by counting dash that is parked. However its worth noting that Dash has much more volume
    a) Dash marketcap = 3.66usd/dash * (~5,6,000,000 total supply - ( ~2700 masternodes * 1000) = $10,614,000 usd
    b) Monero marketcap = 0.52usd/xmr * 8,600,000 = $4,472,000 usd
    c) Bytecoin marketcap = 0.000049usd/byt * 174,500,000,000 total supply = $8,550,500 usd
    
ie the difference between marketcap bytecoin vs dash is less than 20% adjusted for parking

there are of course many other metrics to consider however i demonstrate that runner ups are within a reasonable distance to be taken seriously

Monero (or the original design specification that characterises cryptonote's behaviour) is a cryptographic record keeping system designed to track money in a bank.

Not only are you totally wrong. you are linking to an article that has to do with chaumian based digital cash. ie the precursor to cryptocurrency. You see bitcoin and its alcoins as well have cryptonote based coins have something called a blockchain. The blockchain is a decentralized ledger which takes the place of the third party used in traditional banking system.

What some fly developer decided to do (wittingly or unwittingly) is lift the template for the record keeping system, ditch the bank and try to get away with calling the residual cryptographic transport mechanism "money".

this flyby developer only known by his pseudonym "satoshi nakamoto" happens to have developed the underlying technology the so called "residual cryptographic transport mechanism"  in his 2008 white paper Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

you may not like it but it kind of plays an important part in all cryptocurrencies including dash.

[TanteStefana2]

Please show me you can do the same on your blockchain, which I can't see how to do, and then I'll be satisfied that monero is trustless.  Otherwise, I'll never be a fan

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1126927.msg11919237#msg11919237

[entertheabyss]

As for what Tok is trying to say here (I believe, I could be getting him wrong, hate to put words in people's mouths) is that cryptonote was designed initially to be used with a central authority that holds the "keys".  Throwing those keys away only makes it impossible for anyone, not even a central authority to verify what happened, inside or outside of the blockchain.  The cryptography must be trusted, which kills the whole concept of trustless.  Thus his constant harping on illegitimatizing the blockchain.

except that cryptonote uses a decentralized ledger where all users control the keys and sign messages that get rolled into blocks and chained togeather. ie a blockchain

[entertheabyss]

Please show me you can do the same on your blockchain, which I can't see how to do, and then I'll be satisfied that monero is trustless.  Otherwise, I'll never be a fan

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1126927.msg11919237#msg11919237

http://moneroblocks.eu/

[smooth]

You added that last bit, yes, the explorer, which is easily read.  It is indeed served up by anonymous people who check it via cryptography, to verify that the Proof of Work was done at every block.  These anonymous people come to a single consensus, yes, true.  HOWEVER, the LEDGER that is the blockchain, is easily readable right back to the creation of the coin, so you can see clearly the coin's integrity.

Not just verifying the proof of work, the signatures need to be verified as well, otherwise those blocks might contain invalid transactions making your coins worthless. That's hard core cryptography using actual math. It is essentially the same situation as crytponote, just slightly different math.

[TanteStefana2]

Please show me you can do the same on your blockchain, which I can't see how to do, and then I'll be satisfied that monero is trustless.  Otherwise, I'll never be a fan

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1126927.msg11919237#msg11919237

http://moneroblocks.eu/

Yes, that is a cryptonote block explorer, but what you can not show me is the hash that the coins previously came from, because it's hidden.  you can't tell what the "names" of the coins are going back to their creation.  The "name" or account number, changes whenever the original coin is broken up, merged or changes hands.  In XMR, this information is completely lost and not stored on the blockchain.  I can't see it, I have to trust in cryptography.  If anything goes wrong, nobody would ever know.  And at it's worst, if computers ever get strong enough, which is quite possible with quantum computers on the horizon, all transactions will lose their privacy, the very reason for all this convoluted mess.

I don't trust this system.  I can't see it and verify it.  What good is it for everything to be hidden completely, to the point where you have to trust that it is working?

With a simple, understandable system that fully protects the privacy of the user,  yet requires no trust - as was always the whole point of the decentralized crypto currency of Bitcoin - DASH is not more superior due to it's complexity, but due to it's simplicity.  If you're such a technocrat that you don't understand this, I can only feel bad for you because the majority of the world will.

[illodin]

Toknormal's description of how Cryptonote works or what is required for money to work was not legitimate.  With his pictures, he seemed to even imply that central bankers are needed for money to function at all.  Is this guy shilling?

He's trying to rationalize dash is better than bitcoin and monero at the things bitcoin and monero are best at. Bitcoin is the world's largest most secure decentralized clear blockchain. Monero is the world's largest and most secure decentralized opaque blockchain. He thinks (or wants us to believe)that masternodes are the preferred bridge between these two networks, but refuses to see (or admit) masternodes for what they really are: middlemen who can be bought and have control over the network they are supposed to decentralize and secure--so yeah, he is actually replacing bankers with masternodes and saying it is a good thing. Good for him and the other dash bagholders, bad for anyone who wants decentralization and/or privacy.

Whereas Bitcoin and Monero miners and payment processors can't be bought and controller, nor Monero coins borrowed and amassed to produce large amounts of ouputs to reduce the anonymity set.

[smooth]

With a simple, understandable system that fully protects the privacy of the user,  yet requires no trust

You don't understand what the concept of 'no trust' means. It means that you can verify the cryptography yourself on your own computer, generally using a program (although in theory you could do it by hand on paper). Without doing that you have no way to do know that a blockchain (be it Dash or Bitcoin or Monero) is valid. Once you do that, you do know it is valid.

It especially does NOT mean that you trust masternodes to not reveal the mixing they are doing for you, and without that Dash is no better than Bitcoin terms of privacy. It is either not trustless or completely worthless.

[medusa13]

Please show me you can do the same on your blockchain, which I can't see how to do, and then I'll be satisfied that monero is trustless.  Otherwise, I'll never be a fan

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1126927.msg11919237#msg11919237

http://moneroblocks.eu/

Yes, that is a cryptonote block explorer, but what you can not show me is the hash that the coins previously came from, because it's hidden.  you can't tell what the "names" of the coins are going back to their creation.  The "name" or account number, changes whenever the original coin is broken up, merged or changes hands.  In XMR, this information is completely lost and not stored on the blockchain.  I can't see it, I have to trust in cryptography.  If anything goes wrong, nobody would ever know.  And at it's worst, if computers ever get strong enough, which is quite possible with quantum computers on the horizon, all transactions will lose their privacy, the very reason for all this convoluted mess.

I don't trust this system.  I can't see it and verify it.  What good is it for everything to be hidden completely, to the point where you have to trust that it is working?

With a simple, understandable system that fully protects the privacy of the user,  yet requires no trust - as was always the whole point of the decentralized crypto currency of Bitcoin - DASH is not more superior due to it's complexity, but due to it's simplicity.  If you're such a technocrat that you don't understand this, I can only feel bad for you because the majority of the world will.

[generalizethis]

Toknormal's description of how Cryptonote works or what is required for money to work was not legitimate.  With his pictures, he seemed to even imply that central bankers are needed for money to function at all.  Is this guy shilling?

He's trying to rationalize dash is better than bitcoin and monero at the things bitcoin and monero are best at. Bitcoin is the world's largest most secure decentralized clear blockchain. Monero is the world's largest and most secure decentralized opaque blockchain. He thinks (or wants us to believe)that masternodes are the preferred bridge between these two networks, but refuses to see (or admit) masternodes for what they really are: middlemen who can be bought and have control over the network they are supposed to decentralize and secure--so yeah, he is actually replacing bankers with masternodes and saying it is a good thing. Good for him and the other dash bagholders, bad for anyone who wants decentralization and/or privacy.

Whereas Bitcoin and Monero miners and payment processors can't be bought and controller, nor Monero coins borrowed and amassed to produce large amounts of ouputs to reduce the anonymity set.

Smooth has covered this with you and the other dashtards on multiple occasions. I need to save it so i can copy and paste it to your foreheads. Not that it makes dash any less snake oily.

[generalizethis]

I don't trust this system.  I can't see it and verify it.  What good is it for everything to be hidden completely, to the point where you have to trust that it is working?

With a simple, understandable system that fully protects the privacy of the user,  yet requires no trust - as was always the whole point of the decentralized crypto currency of Bitcoin - DASH is not more superior due to it's complexity, but due to it's simplicity.  If you're such a technocrat that you don't understand this, I can only feel bad for you because the majority of the world will.

LOL. Here's the attack vector Evan created out of ignorance, stupidity or pure not giving a fuck.

The easiest attack is to buy masternodes and ddos attack competing nodes until you own the traffic. Evan claims it's financially implausible, but ignores that nodes are most profitable when there about a 1,000 masternodes (he has a ROI graphic on the dash BCT thread that underscores this). He also ignores that the attacker would be pulling incomes from these masternodes--given that most are held on corporate servers underlies that no one knows who owns them outside of the host and the owner. He also ignores how motivated an attacker may be, that he or another masternode operator might comply given the right circumstances (threat or lawful compliance) and how deep LE's pockets are--silly, dangerous, stupid.

If you trust that system knowing the flaws, you deserve whatever comes your way--except maybe being linked to pedophiles--can you show that link on your explorer?

[smooth]

Toknormal's description of how Cryptonote works or what is required for money to work was not legitimate.  With his pictures, he seemed to even imply that central bankers are needed for money to function at all.  Is this guy shilling?

He's trying to rationalize dash is better than bitcoin and monero at the things bitcoin and monero are best at. Bitcoin is the world's largest most secure decentralized clear blockchain. Monero is the world's largest and most secure decentralized opaque blockchain. He thinks (or wants us to believe)that masternodes are the preferred bridge between these two networks, but refuses to see (or admit) masternodes for what they really are: middlemen who can be bought and have control over the network they are supposed to decentralize and secure--so yeah, he is actually replacing bankers with masternodes and saying it is a good thing. Good for him and the other dash bagholders, bad for anyone who wants decentralization and/or privacy.

Whereas Bitcoin and Monero miners and payment processors can't be bought and controller, nor Monero coins borrowed and amassed to produce large amounts of ouputs to reduce the anonymity set.

Smooth has covered this with you and the other dashtards on multiple occasions. I need to save it so i can copy and paste it to your foreheads. Not that it makes dash any less snake oily.

To state it simply, creating outputs has an inherent cost since it consumes a non-renewable resource (block space). The design is carefully constructed so even miners or someone working in collusion with miners can't create unlimited outputs without incuring that cost, and can really only create a linear number of outputs over time. Even a high but limited number of sybil outputs does not significantly reduce anonymity because of the exponential explosion of tracing paths. (I've given numerical examples before, I won't repeat them here.)

An attacker trying do to this will need to compete with regular users for block space and therefore incur a cost proportional to the share of the outputs created. This in turn is likely to be pointless for the reason stated in the last sentence. As with most good cryptography, you have a linear function competing with an exponential function. The exponential wins.

[TanteStefana2]

Then why are none of these attacks working?  We're #4 on coin market cap.  You think we're not being attacked?  Aside from monero's verbal attacks, you think there aren't hackers out there trying to attack our network?  We're over a year and a half old, we've been attacked, we solved those issues within hours each time.  Proof is in the pudding.  Good luck with that.

[smooth]

Then why are none of these attacks working?  We're #4 on coin market cap.  You think we're not being attacked?  Aside from monero's verbal attacks, you think there aren't hackers out there trying to attack our network?  We're over a year and a half old, we've been attacked, we solved those issues within hours each time.  Proof is in the pudding.  Good luck with that.

There are known attacks on Bitcoin that aren't happening, such as spending money to buy hash rate, the NSA using its own semiconductor facilities to build ASICs (or paying Intel to do it - something even much smaller governments could do since they too have secret contracts with major corporations), or a small number of pools working together, or being hacked and then used together, or even selfish mining. There are also more exotic attacks that have been published recently that also work. None of these happen in practice largely because all of crypto is tiny, and major attacks won't come until it is much larger.

#4 cmc sounds all impressive but it is less than 1% of the size of #1 (probably even less than that in terms of actual use), and #1 is still very small relative to finance generally.

Attacks will come in time. Now is the time to choose the strongest systems and continue working to strengthen defenses.

[TanteStefana2]

Toknormal's description of how Cryptonote works or what is required for money to work was not legitimate.  With his pictures, he seemed to even imply that central bankers are needed for money to function at all.  Is this guy shilling?

He's trying to rationalize dash is better than bitcoin and monero at the things bitcoin and monero are best at. Bitcoin is the world's largest most secure decentralized clear blockchain. Monero is the world's largest and most secure decentralized opaque blockchain. He thinks (or wants us to believe)that masternodes are the preferred bridge between these two networks, but refuses to see (or admit) masternodes for what they really are: middlemen who can be bought and have control over the network they are supposed to decentralize and secure--so yeah, he is actually replacing bankers with masternodes and saying it is a good thing. Good for him and the other dash bagholders, bad for anyone who wants decentralization and/or privacy.

Whereas Bitcoin and Monero miners and payment processors can't be bought and controller, nor Monero coins borrowed and amassed to produce large amounts of ouputs to reduce the anonymity set.

Smooth has covered this with you and the other dashtards on multiple occasions. I need to save it so i can copy and paste it to your foreheads. Not that it makes dash any less snake oily.

To state it simply, creating outputs has an inherent cost since it consumes a non-renewable resource (block space). The design is carefully constructed so even miners or someone working in collusion with miners can't create unlimited outputs without incuring that cost, and can really only create a linear number of outputs over time. Even a high but limited number of sybil outputs does not significantly reduce anonymity because of the exponential explosion of tracing paths. (I've given numerical examples before, I won't repeat them here.)

An attacker trying do to this will need to compete with regular users for block space and therefore incur a cost proportional to the share of the outputs created. This in turn is likely to be pointless for the reason stated in the last sentence. As with most good cryptography, you have a linear function competing with an exponential function. The exponential wins.

In cryptonote, I still can't verify it with logic, therefore I will not trust it.  That's all I have to say on it, I'm going to go back to my hole.  I can see your point, that you are willing to trust.  This is a philosophical difference, a difference in what we value to be important.  In this case, the argument can never be resolved.  Good day to you

[illodin]

I don't trust this system.  I can't see it and verify it.  What good is it for everything to be hidden completely, to the point where you have to trust that it is working?

With a simple, understandable system that fully protects the privacy of the user,  yet requires no trust - as was always the whole point of the decentralized crypto currency of Bitcoin - DASH is not more superior due to it's complexity, but due to it's simplicity.  If you're such a technocrat that you don't understand this, I can only feel bad for you because the majority of the world will.

LOL. Here's the attack vector Evan created out of ignorance, stupidity or pure not giving a fuck.

The easiest attack is to buy masternodes and ddos attack competing nodes until you own the traffic. Evan claims it's financially implausible, but ignores that nodes are most profitable when there about a 1,000 masternodes (he has a ROI graphic on the dash BCT thread that underscores this). He also ignores that the attacker would be pulling incomes from these masternodes--given that most are held on corporate servers underlies that no one knows who owns them outside of the host and the owner. He also ignores how motivated an attacker may be, that he or another masternode operator might comply given the right circumstances (threat or lawful compliance) and how deep LE's pockets are--silly, dangerous, stupid.

If you trust that system knowing the flaws, you deserve whatever comes your way--except maybe being linked to pedophiles--can you show that link on your explorer?

DOS'ing masternodes doesn't reduce the anonymity set of the transactions or coins mixed before the DOS. If the masternode count drops 50% for example all of a sudden, mixing coins at that moment is not a good idea. It was already suggested a year ago or so that the wallet would take care of this and protect the user during the network downtime. It hasn't been implemented yet afaik, DASH must grow at least 100x at minimum before this (an appearance of such a motivated attacker) would become even a possibility.