Shadowcash vs. Monero, an unbiased debate.

[americanpegasus]

Disclosure: I have a stake in Monero, both in the community and financially.  Despite that, I attempt to impartially start this topic of debate between these two privacy-centric currencies. 
 
 
 
I am interested in anonymous cryptocurrencies, and Monero and Shadowcash both catch my eye (as well as BoolBerry, luv u 2).  Monero we have probably heard a lot about in recent threads, but I will recap some basic stats of both currencies.  I present ShadowCash first as a gesture of good will:

 
 
And Monero's specifications: 
 

 
 
 
I am not sure the world is big enough for two totally successful anonymous cryptocurrencies.  Each new ultra-successful crypto will present something fundamentally new and valuable to civilization.  That is the only way they will rise to dominance.  We saw this with Bitcoin already, and I humbly submit (as my personal opinion) that a truly anonymous cryptocurrency will be the next crypto to break and hold the $1-billion dollar marketcap with significant volume. 
 
Of these two, which one has the superior technology, better distribution scheme, fairest launch, and most potential going forward?  I will not be commenting on this thread with my opinions because I have bias and would like to hear some opinions from both sides.  I'm hoping the ShadowCash supporters and developers will take the time to come and discuss their currency with us, and we can have some of the long-time Monero supporters and devs comment as well.

[unusualfacts30]

SDC>XMR

\thread

[americanpegasus]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
 
Please elaborate.

[smooth]

I don't know about the SDC launch, I wasn't there.

The SDC distribution process of 100% of the supply going out in two weeks is terrible.

The Monero launch was fair, and the distribution process of 85% of the base supply going out in 4 years, with a 0.3 XMR (0.9%) disinflationary perpetual reward after about 8 years is a bit fast, but defensible.

Technology-wise they are somewhat comparable as the SDC anonymity scheme is based heavily on cryptonote. The SDC code base is largely based on Bitcoin, via Blackcoin or some other path of forking (I'm not sure of the details), so part of it is more mature than Monero, although the anon part is newly implemented and probably less mature.

The cryptonote alleged improvements on Bitcoin that aren't anon-related such as dynamic blocks sizes are not present in SDC, so that would be a point for Monero if you think those are good.

That SDC has an integrated non-anon portion of the chain could be viewed as a privacy negative since it will pull some of the transactions out of the anonymity set. Monero is going in the other direction pushing all transactions into the anonymity set, although that isn't implemented yet, so Monero also has a non-anon portion of its chain currently.

EDIT: I agree with fluffypony's later point that proof of stake is cryptographically unproven and likely unsound and unfixable.

[unusualfacts30]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
  
Please elaborate.

Where do I begin?

lets see...SDC has been increasing in price constantly overtime while XMR is declining since it was first launched.

SDC has been on first page of trex for as long as I can remember while XMR doesn't want to leave last page

SDC folks don't spam altcoin discussion section while XMR is creating thread in hourly basis and go as far as telling me that it's going to beat BTC (that's a big turn off since I'm early adopter of BTC and honestly don't see comparison)

that's all.

[smooth]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
  
Please elaborate.

Where do I begin?

lets see...SDC has been increasing in price constantly overtime while XMR is declining since it was first launched.

That is false, both have fluctuated up and down. SDC traded early at a peak 38K sat, traded several months later at 15K, had a recent high of about 80K, and is now about about 55K.

Likewise XMR traded early at a peak of 1m sats, for a long time at around 100K, peaked back at 400K and is now around 200K

SDC has been on first page of trex for as long as I can remember while XMR doesn't want to leave last page

SDC main exchange is Bittrex, XMR main exchange is Polo. Their relative positions are reversed on the other exchange.

[fluffypony]

Having met Ryno (sdcdev) and had lunch with him, I can honestly say that he struck me as being a decent guy. 10/10 would have lunch with again.

I guess my three concerns with ShadowCash, in order of importance, are:

1. Proof-of-Stake is cryptographically unsound, in the long run. I know this is a hotly contested topic, and I don't want to flog a proverbial dead horse. Nonetheless, I have seen no cryptographic proofs (or assumptions under cryptographic models) to convince me that Proof-of-Stake is secure.

2. Being forked from Bitcoin is a blessing and a curse. Merging bug and security fixes from upstream Bitcoin (which will remain the target of more powerful proving and attack than any altcoin for the foreseeable future) is great, but it is going to be progressively more difficult to do so. The risk is exceedingly great that (as has just happened over the last few days) Bitcoin will reveal a security hole, and a cryptocurrency forked from it will not have implemented the fix.

3. Bitcoin's use of secp256k1 is...ok, but given that SafeCurves (Daniel J. Bernstein and Tanja Lange) view secp256k1 as unsafe, the use of the same curve is a little bit of a risk (Monero uses Curve25519).

[unusualfacts30]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
  
Please elaborate.

Where do I begin?

lets see...SDC has been increasing in price constantly overtime while XMR is declining since it was first launched.

That is false, both have fluctuated up and down. SDC traded early at a peak 38K sat, traded several months later at 15K, had a recent high of about 80K, and is now about about 55K.

Likewise XMR traded early at a peak of 1m sats, for a long time at around 100K, peaked back at 400K and is now around 200K

SDC has been on first page of trex for as long as I can remember while XMR doesn't want to leave last page

SDC main exchange is Bittrex, XMR main exchange is Polo. Their relative positions are reversed on the other exchange.

XMR was at 0.004 now (launch) now it's at 0.0019

that's not fluctuation rather free fall

SDC was at 0.00026 (launch) now it's at 0.00058

good times.


XMR seems to be struggling a lot lately. not sure if it's even a good comparison to be honest since SDC has made its name through constant hard work and constant increase in price with little fluctuation...increasing investors while gaining popularity and giving confidence to people so they can hold it for long term without confusion or doubt.

in fact I'm extremely surprise to see it at this price it should be at least 200k and that is still cheap imho.

[smooth]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
  
Please elaborate.

Where do I begin?

lets see...SDC has been increasing in price constantly overtime while XMR is declining since it was first launched.

That is false, both have fluctuated up and down. SDC traded early at a peak 38K sat, traded several months later at 15K, had a recent high of about 80K, and is now about about 55K.

Likewise XMR traded early at a peak of 1m sats, for a long time at around 100K, peaked back at 400K and is now around 200K

SDC has been on first page of trex for as long as I can remember while XMR doesn't want to leave last page

SDC main exchange is Bittrex, XMR main exchange is Polo. Their relative positions are reversed on the other exchange.

XMR was at 0.004 now (launch) now it's at 0.0019

that's not fluctuation rather free fall

No, it was at 188K (not 400K, although it did get added to Poloniex at 346K EDIT: about 100k -- see below) when it was first listed on Bittrex, and that is not the same as launch. It traded as OTC and on the small cryptonote.to exchange for a while before polo. The prices for that (starting at 50K and as low as 20K) can be seen here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=578192.0

As I said, both coins had ups and downs. If you bought SDC at 38K early on, you're up a little now, but you had some tough times when it languished at around 15-20K for quite a while.

Also, the histories are not really comparable because when XMR traded at 50k or 20k or 188k or 346K, the nature of mining and gradual distribution is such that there were very few coins even in existence at the time. So very few of the coins in todays investors' holdings could possibly have traded at those prices, it is literally impossible. The majority of currently-outstanding coins were probably mined when prices were around 100k-200k, and have only ever traded in the range of 100k-400k, although someone could actually calculate that I suppose.

[newrad]

I've always viewed shadowcash as a scam. Not only that but it's complete bloatware and the coding is corrupted. That alone makes me question it's security.

Monero (XMR) is flawless in every sense, and fully anonymous... Everyone loves monero, especially the deepwebs.

[luigi1111]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
  
Please elaborate.

Where do I begin?

lets see...SDC has been increasing in price constantly overtime while XMR is declining since it was first launched.

That is false, both have fluctuated up and down. SDC traded early at a peak 38K sat, traded several months later at 15K, had a recent high of about 80K, and is now about about 55K.

Likewise XMR traded early at a peak of 1m sats, for a long time at around 100K, peaked back at 400K and is now around 200K

SDC has been on first page of trex for as long as I can remember while XMR doesn't want to leave last page

SDC main exchange is Bittrex, XMR main exchange is Polo. Their relative positions are reversed on the other exchange.

XMR was at 0.004 now (launch) now it's at 0.0019

that's not fluctuation rather free fall

No, it was at 188K (not 400K, although it did get added to Poloniex at 346K) when it was first listed on Bittrex, and that is not the same as launch. It traded as OTC and on the small cryptonote.to exchange for a while before polo. The prices for that (starting at 50K and as low as 20K) can be seen here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=578192.0

As I said, both coins had ups and downs. If you bought SDC at 38K early on, you're up a little now, but you had some tough times when it languished at around 15-20K for quite a while.

Also, the histories are not really comparable because when XMR traded at 50k or 20k or 188k or 346K, the nature of mining and gradual distribution is such that there were very few coins even in existence at the time. So very few of the coins in todays investors' holdings could possibly have traded at those prices, it is literally impossible. The majority of currently-outstanding coins were probably mined when prices were around 100k-200k, and have only ever traded in the range of 100k-400k, although someone could actually calculate that I suppose.

I'm nearly 100% certain I made the first sale on Polo; here is my trading history for part of that day. After the typical high orders of new markets, prices were just above 0.001. I was extremely surprised when they rose so much over the coming weeks, as they'd been trading in that lower range for a while on the other exchange.

[Wheatclove]

SDC>XMR

\thread

 
  
Please elaborate.

Where do I begin?

lets see...SDC has been increasing in price constantly overtime while XMR is declining since it was first launched.

That is false, both have fluctuated up and down. SDC traded early at a peak 38K sat, traded several months later at 15K, had a recent high of about 80K, and is now about about 55K.

Likewise XMR traded early at a peak of 1m sats, for a long time at around 100K, peaked back at 400K and is now around 200K

SDC has been on first page of trex for as long as I can remember while XMR doesn't want to leave last page

SDC main exchange is Bittrex, XMR main exchange is Polo. Their relative positions are reversed on the other exchange.

XMR was at 0.004 now (launch) now it's at 0.0019

that's not fluctuation rather free fall

SDC was at 0.00026 (launch) now it's at 0.00058

good times.


XMR seems to be struggling a lot lately. not sure if it's even a good comparison to be honest since SDC has made its name through constant hard work and constant increase in price with little fluctuation...increasing investors while gaining popularity and giving confidence to people so they can hold it for long term without confusion or doubt.

in fact I'm extremely surprise to see it at this price it should be at least 200k and that is still cheap imho.

Can we keep this discussion/debate technical? Market prices should be irrelevant.

[kekek]

BooBerry is best, Count Chocula and Franken Berry can suck it

[smooth]

I'm nearly 100% certain I made the first sale on Polo; here is my trading history for part of that day. After the typical high orders of new markets, prices were just above 0.001.

It is odd that Polo's "all time" chart shows a starting price of 346k but your numbers are more in line with what Bittrex shows at about the same time period, so it makes sense.

[smooth]

Thank you for considering BBR

I have nothing against BBR but this is off topic. Please don't spam.

Subject: Shadowcash vs. Monero

[Wheatclove]

Having met Ryno (sdcdev) and had lunch with him, I can honestly say that he struck me as being a decent guy. 10/10 would have lunch with again.

I guess my three concerns with ShadowCash, in order of importance, are:

1. Proof-of-Stake is cryptographically unsound, in the long run. I know this is a hotly contested topic, and I don't want to flog a proverbial dead horse. Nonetheless, I have seen no cryptographic proofs (or assumptions under cryptographic models) to convince me that Proof-of-Stake is secure.

2. Being forked from Bitcoin is a blessing and a curse. Merging bug and security fixes from upstream Bitcoin (which will remain the target of more powerful proving and attack than any altcoin for the foreseeable future) is great, but it is going to be progressively more difficult to do so. The risk is exceedingly great that (as has just happened over the last few days) Bitcoin will reveal a security hole, and a cryptocurrency forked from it will not have implemented the fix.

3. Bitcoin's use of secp256k1 is...ok, but given that SafeCurves (Daniel J. Bernstein and Tanja Lange) view secp256k1 as unsafe, the use of the same curve is a little bit of a risk (Monero uses Curve25519).

1. Developers are capable of changing to PoW if a vulnerability in PoSv2 presents itself, yes?

2. Is this in regards to the vulnerability that BIP66 fixed w/ DER signatures?

3. Gonna check this out.

Anyone have any opinions on the anonymous tokens that Shadowcash uses to destroy and mint new coins and conduct ring signature transactions?

[smooth]

1. Developers are capable of changing to PoW if a vulnerability in PoSv2 presents itself, yes?

Not really. It is a huge change to the social contract to do that. The overall community could do it with sufficient consensus, but good luck.

Anyone have any opinions on the anonymous tokens that Shadowcash uses to destroy and mint new coins and conduct ring signature transactions?

The anonymous tokens are just coins. They have two different signature styles on the blockchain, Bitcoin-style and Cryptonote-style. The latter are what they call tokens.

[fluffypony]

1. Developers are capable of changing to PoW if a vulnerability in PoSv2 presents itself, yes?

No, not without ruining their social contract and destroying any trust in the cryptocurrency's emission.

2. Is this in regards to the vulnerability that BIP66 fixed w/ DER signatures?

'Twas just a recent example, coming off the back of Namecoin having to deal with it.

[bbreconomy]

Thank you for considering BBR

I have nothing against BBR but this is off topic. Please don't spam.

Subject: Shadowcash vs. Monero

Disclosure: I have a stake in Monero, both in the community and financially.  Despite that, I attempt to impartially start this topic of debate between these two privacy-centric currencies. 
 
 
 
I am interested in anonymous cryptocurrencies, and Monero and Shadowcash both catch my eye (as well as BoolBerry, luv u 2).

smooth I am quoting the OP just to prove I am not spamming. americanpegasus mentioned boolberry by name

[Diplo]

Does Monero intend to develop an i2p market as well? I'm not familiar with the plans. If it intends to solely cater to the TOR-based DNMs, well, ok... TOR is not what it used to be thanks to the NSA, and centralized markets are going to be a dying breed, thanks to exit scams, and the NSA.

Having a fully integrated system is one of the major reasons the shadow project could be so revolutionary, not just in the crypto space. Convenience carries a major value and decreases the barriers to entry=mass market adoption.