The state of crypto - The only serious thread on the subforum

[ArticMine]

so travelling around some communities its interesting to see various alts evolve, problem i see is most are evolving the exact same way.

like all the 2013 coins that went POS to stay relevant  

anyone care to state some old alts of bitcoin/litecoin, that have gone their own path and done something unique, or solved an issue you yourself had with bitcoin?

The biggest issue that I have had with Bitcoin going back to 2011 / 2012 is the 1 MB fixed blocksize limit and the lack of an adaptive blocksize limit. I have recently come to the conclusion that this is closely related to securing the coin after the emission runs out; namely with just transaction fees. The latter very likely needs a tail emission.

So what POW coins have addressed this issue:

Full Solution:
1) Adaptive blocksize limits and tail emission Monero (XMR)

Only partial solution:
1) Tail emission only with no adaptive blocksize limits: Dogecoin (DOGE)
2) Adaptive blocksize limits only with no tail emission: Bytecoin (BCN). Bytecoin has a serious  premine / ninjamine issue but one can consider Dashcoin (DSH) which is a clone of Bytecoin without the premine / ninjamine. Most other cryptonote coins have adaptive limits with no tail emission (except Monero, above, which is a full solution).

Edit 1: Dashcoin is not to be confused with DASH (Formally known as Darkcoin, which has inherited both problems from Litecoin)
Edit 2: I found out about Monero back in 2014 because I was researching the fixed blocksize issue in Bitcoin. Only after I was satisfied that Monero did not have the fixed blocksize issue did I start to even consider Monero.

[kelsey]

so travelling around some communities its interesting to see various alts evolve, problem i see is most are evolving the exact same way.

like all the 2013 coins that went POS to stay relevant  

anyone care to state some old alts of bitcoin/litecoin, that have gone their own path and done something unique, or solved an issue you yourself had with bitcoin?

The biggest issue that I have had with Bitcoin going back to 2011 / 2012 is the 1 MB fixed blocksize limit and the lack of an adaptive blocksize limit. I have recently come to the conclusion that this is closely related to securing the coin after the emission runs out; namely with just transaction fees. The latter very likely needs a tail emission.

So what POW coins have addressed this issue:

Full Solution:
1) Adaptive blocksize limits and tail emission Monero (XMR)

Only partial solution:
1) Tail emission only with no adaptive blocksize limits: Dogecoin (DOGE)
2) Adaptive blocksize limits only with no tail emission: Bytecoin (BCN). Bytecoin has a serious  premine / ninjamine issue but one can consider Dashcoin (DSH) which is a clone of Bytecoin without the premine / ninjamine. Most other cryptonote coins have adaptive limits with no tail emission (except Monero, above, which is a full solution).

Edit 1: Dashcoin is not to be confused with DASH (Formally known as Darkcoin, which has inherited both problems from Litecoin)
Edit 2: I found out about Monero back in 2014 because I was researching the fixed blocksize issue in Bitcoin. Only after I was satisfied that Monero did not have the fixed blocksize issue did I start to even consider Monero.

tried monero again this morning after previous fails.

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

[smooth]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

[kelsey]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

[smooth]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone claims that Monero is a mass-market ready.

[kelsey]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone claims that Monero is a mass-market ready.

so then now tis all premine? (not that most aren't in the same boat).

[smooth]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone claims that Monero is a mass-market ready.

so then now tis all premine? (not that most aren't in the same boat).

Premine doesn't mean what you think it means.

EDIT: But if in your mind not "mass-market ready" constitutes a premine then I wouldn't say that most aren't in the same boat, rather all are.

[ArticMine]

...
so then now tis all premine? (not that most aren't in the same boat).

How can it be with all the "shilling" and "spamming"? One cannot have it both ways.  

[kelsey]

...
so then now tis all premine? (not that most aren't in the same boat).

How can it be with all the "shilling" and "spamming"? One cannot have it both ways.  

in the context of this forum verses the large pop you wish it to be adopted tis premined.

[kelsey]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone claims that Monero is a mass-market ready.

so then now tis all premine? (not that most aren't in the same boat).

Premine doesn't mean what you think it means.

EDIT: But if in your mind not "mass-market ready" constitutes a premine then I wouldn't say that most aren't in the same boat, rather all are.

agreed and its something i've argued against about bitcoin itself and especially for the longest time. i doubt anything from this community would be accepted by the mass' on this alone.

hardly makes any of them an alternative to the bankers controlled fiat, this crypto community is just trying to become the new bankers.

[sidhujag]

i'm lost on it, is it command line?

Mostly yes, but there are some third party GUI wrappers. Unfortunately the developer of one of the most popular, MoneroX, (who was 17 years old) has moved on to other things, and it is suffering from lack of upgrades.

There is also MyMonero.com which is web wallet that doesn't store your spend key (so neither the site nor someone who accessed its database could steal your coins). There is a similar site (uses some of the same code) called monerowallet.com which does store your spend key but encrypted by a client-side password (similar to blockchain.info). The latter also has a mobile app version.

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

Absolutely. I don't think anyone claims that Monero is a mass-market ready.

so then now tis all premine? (not that most aren't in the same boat).

Premine doesn't mean what you think it means.

EDIT: But if in your mind not "mass-market ready" constitutes a premine then I wouldn't say that most aren't in the same boat, rather all are.

agreed and its something i've argued against about bitcoin itself and especially for the longest time. i doubt anything from this community would be accepted by the mass' on this alone.

hardly makes any of them an alternative to the bankers controlled fiat, this crypto community is just trying to become the new bankers.

You think penny stocks are premined? Do you think big caps are premined around big news releases? You think fed mins cause the entire market to be premined?

The insiders know information others don't leaving others having to buy later at higher rates.. Similarly those that do their research and even those on the inside of Bitcoin get in early while everyone else buys at higher rates.. How is it different than any other market.?

Part of the reward calculation is the risk.. It's so high that people will understand that there was a chance that they wouldn't get their money back (if your an avg joe you think Bitcoin is Ponzi) thus if you end up buying higher it's because of the premium on the instrument because the fact that it's a real recognized trading instrument and it's priced in as such.

Just the way all markets work.
Maybe this will sync in: you buy a property that needs tlc.. It's not priced in as such because the seller didn't know the labour required and discounted the buyer per negotiations.. Now the buyer renovates and sells for a profit..

Howver imagine the person buying from the renovating seller... Would he have liked to buy it cheaper and fix himself? Would the buyer really care that he has had to pay a premium after the tlc and paid market rate for home? Not so much because there was time and risk involved in doing the renovation.

Onto your second assumption.. Is the home now any worse than most other homes out there at sold rate? No.
Is the fact that your using a crypto over fiat still relevant in context of debt implosion and central bank Ponzi schemes of inflation control? Yes it is.

When the war against govt is won.. People will realize power of crypto over fiat.. Until then it won't be fully priced in.
Risk: govt doesn't get beat.. Doesn't reset.. Status quo.. Fist replacement Crypto project dies
Reward: chsnce to profit at any point the current government control is still in effect

There are other projects that target different markets.. But that is general essence. Imo with bitshares going after nasdaq it may help with markets and save people money and allow for true price discovery.. It doesn't need govt defeat to price in its true potential of that usecase .. It just needs recognition and acceptance by the exchanges that it is the way to go fwd.

[kelsey]

You think penny stocks are premined? Do you think big caps are premined around big news releases? You think fed mins cause the entire market to be premined?

The insiders know information others don't leaving others having to buy later at higher rates.. Similarly those that do their research and even those on the inside of Bitcoin get in early while everyone else buys at higher rates.. How is it different than any other market.?

seriously we are talking currency, and many of us would like a p2p currency to evolve as an alternative to the fiat corporate systems....hmm...you see thats kinda the whole point.

yeah i know most here, lost track long ago and it became more about ROI, making the next paypal visa, with us guys the new wealthy elite  

i know its too much to ask of people here to think outside the whole fiat mindset, but if you don't there is no point to this whole community; unless its just another get rich quick scheme.

[sidhujag]

You think penny stocks are premined? Do you think big caps are premined around big news releases? You think fed mins cause the entire market to be premined?

The insiders know information others don't leaving others having to buy later at higher rates.. Similarly those that do their research and even those on the inside of Bitcoin get in early while everyone else buys at higher rates.. How is it different than any other market.?

seriously we are talking currency, and many of us would like a p2p currency to evolve as an alternative to the fiat corporate systems....hmm...you see thats kinda the whole point.

yeah i know most here, lost track long ago and it became more about ROI, making the next paypal visa, with us guys the new wealthy elite  

i know its too much to ask of people here to think outside the whole fiat mindset, but if you don't there is no point to this whole community; unless its just another get rich quick scheme.

Again it's just how markets work., you don't seem to understand... Plz reread

[r0ach]

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

I tried to be as non-bias as possible in this thread and mentioned the pros and cons of monero, but reaching the half way mining point without a real wallet is a major problem.  People like Fluffypony seem to brush it off as a minor problem...because there's always CLI.  Now we're seeing this problem manifest in the real world in the form of potential users that were turned away due to it - the Australians don't like coins without wallet effect.

This in turn means you're relying on a small amount of CLI whales (Rptiela) instead of mass adoption to push the thing forward, which is an insider's market.  If you have Rptiela on speed dial, this could be a good mid term investment, if not, then it's like going to the dog track.  I'm not going to pretend that most coins don't rely on whale support (ie: market makers), but in this situation, you're probably investing more in the market maker than you are the coin.

As I also mentioned, I don't see a viable end game for PoW for all the reasons stated in the original post.  Some people are going to disagree, but in all cases I think it will prove to be a highly inflexible system, resistant to change, that doesn't scale, with not enough out of the box functionality, no consensus to change it, not enough decentralization, etc etc etc.  If someone were to invent "Martian Consensus Algorithm from space", that provides all benefits and no cons over PoW, you would probably never get consensus to implement it in the real Bitcoin either.

PoW's implementation in Bitcoin was also obviously just proof of concept since it doesn't take things into account like energy price not being a constant.  When something like 2/3rds the cost of producing a coin is electricity now, and this ratio only increasing by the day, the fundamentals people rely on for decentralization just do not function.  People then try to exchange those fundamentals for entirely new fundamentals saying everyone on earth will mine with water heaters.  The mining with water heater solution probably doesn't even work since the profit per unit would be low.  People would leave them on zombie auto pilot for certain pools, and decentralization with pool mining requires a very dynamic, pool hopping userbase.

Since Satoshi seemed to overlook a lot of things like the effect of ASIC, I highly doubt he planned that far in advance for scenarios like the one above.  At that point, if Bitcoin with PoW functioned, it would entirely be by accident and not by design.  It's very important to get as much out of the box functionality as possible, with as little uncertainty as possible, the basic definition of engineering.  This is how I came to the conclusion in the summary section of the original post for what has fundamentals and what doesn't.

[adrianopolis]

We should be grateful to bitcoin for starting the whole crypto currency alt coins are the next generation  because they can correct what went wrong with bitcoin for example this whole fuss about the block limit

[smooth]

from my perspective its alot harder to use (and a hassle to start using) then even bitcoin, which itself is too hard for mass adoption.

I tried to be as non-bias as possible in this thread and mentioned the pros and cons of monero, but reaching the half way mining point without a real wallet is a major problem.  People like Fluffypony seem to brush it off as a minor problem...because there's always CLI.  Now we're seeing this problem manifest in the real world in the form of potential users that were turned away due to it - the Australians don't like coins without wallet effect.

This seems like itself an insider's analysis. In actual end user terms, Mymonero.com (and I assume monerowallet.com although I haven't tried it) is about as easy to use you could hope for, including good support for most if not all mobile platforms, and is reasonably safe. The only gripe I have with it really, usability-wise, is that it doesn't support scanning QR codes (possibly the monerowallet.com app does), which would be needed for point-of-sale or easy in-person p2p use, neither of which really exists at all.

So you have a narrow range of probably a few hundred, possibly a few thousand, altcoin speculators on this forum, who can't handle command line and don't accept a web wallet. But those outside of that in both directions -- serious miners/investors/early-adopter types on one end, who are happy with CLI, and "mass market" on the other, who are happy with a web wallet -- are fairly well served. Unless you are looking to encourage and then trade on pumps in this silly altcoin-of-the-day game, there is really no particular reason to care about that group.

[r0ach]

This seems like itself an insider's analysis. In actual end user terms, Mymonero.com (and I assume monerowallet.com although I haven't tried it) is about as easy to use you could hope for, including good support for most if not all mobile platforms, and is reasonably safe. The only gripe I have with it really, usability-wise, is that it doesn't support scanning QR codes (possibly the monerowallet.com app does), which would be needed for point-of-sale or easy in-person p2p use, neither of which really exists at all.

So you have a narrow range of probably a few hundred, possibly a few thousand, altcoin speculators on this forum, who can't handle command line and don't accept a web wallet. But those outside of that in both directions -- serious miners/investors/early-adopter types on one end, who are happy with CLI, and "mass market" on the other, who are happy with a web wallet -- are fairly well served. Unless you are looking to encourage and then trade on pumps in this silly altcoin-of-the-day game, there is really no particular reason to care about that group.

The richest people around are the 50-90 year old guys that can barely work a VCR.  I would say, no, the serious investor is not served by the CLI.  Even if they, or one of their henchman can, they'll be put off thinking it's a duct taped together operation.  I mean, look at people like Ron Paul, he's pretty damn good at economics, but by his own admission can't figure out how Bitcoin works and would probably have trouble using a Monero CLI.  At that point you have an Austrian proof, Austrian currency.

[smooth]

This seems like itself an insider's analysis. In actual end user terms, Mymonero.com (and I assume monerowallet.com although I haven't tried it) is about as easy to use you could hope for, including good support for most if not all mobile platforms, and is reasonably safe. The only gripe I have with it really, usability-wise, is that it doesn't support scanning QR codes (possibly the monerowallet.com app does), which would be needed for point-of-sale or easy in-person p2p use, neither of which really exists at all.

So you have a narrow range of probably a few hundred, possibly a few thousand, altcoin speculators on this forum, who can't handle command line and don't accept a web wallet. But those outside of that in both directions -- serious miners/investors/early-adopter types on one end, who are happy with CLI, and "mass market" on the other, who are happy with a web wallet -- are fairly well served. Unless you are looking to encourage and then trade on pumps in this silly altcoin-of-the-day game, there is really no particular reason to care about that group.

The richest people around are the 50-90 year old guys that can barely work a VCR.  I would say, no, the serious investor is not served by the CLI.  Even if they, or one of their henchman can, they'll be put off thinking it's a duct taped together operation.  I mean, look at people like Ron Paul, he's pretty damn good at economics, but by his own admission, can't figure out how Bitcoin works and would probably have trouble using a Monero CLI.  At that point you have an Austrian proof, Austrian currency.

Investors meaning those who would invest in cryptos at all.

Bitcoin has a GUI, and had one since 2009. So you just disproved the connection between GUIs and any relevance to the outside world.

Ron Paul, if he could figure out cryptos, could certainly use MyMonero. His technical experts would probably do key management, secret sharing for cold storage, etc. using command line tools the way early Bitcoin investors did, and probably some still do.

The GUI argument is a red herring. The other arguments about lack of mass market appeal are not, but they apply equally to cryptos that do have GUIs.

[sidhujag]

This seems like itself an insider's analysis. In actual end user terms, Mymonero.com (and I assume monerowallet.com although I haven't tried it) is about as easy to use you could hope for, including good support for most if not all mobile platforms, and is reasonably safe. The only gripe I have with it really, usability-wise, is that it doesn't support scanning QR codes (possibly the monerowallet.com app does), which would be needed for point-of-sale or easy in-person p2p use, neither of which really exists at all.

So you have a narrow range of probably a few hundred, possibly a few thousand, altcoin speculators on this forum, who can't handle command line and don't accept a web wallet. But those outside of that in both directions -- serious miners/investors/early-adopter types on one end, who are happy with CLI, and "mass market" on the other, who are happy with a web wallet -- are fairly well served. Unless you are looking to encourage and then trade on pumps in this silly altcoin-of-the-day game, there is really no particular reason to care about that group.

The richest people around are the 50-90 year old guys that can barely work a VCR.  I would say, no, the serious investor is not served by the CLI.  Even if they, or one of their henchman can, they'll be put off thinking it's a duct taped together operation.  I mean, look at people like Ron Paul, he's pretty damn good at economics, but by his own admission, can't figure out how Bitcoin works and would probably have trouble using a Monero CLI.  At that point you have an Austrian proof, Austrian currency.

Investors meaning those who would invest in cryptos at all.

Bitcoin has a GUI, and had one since 2009. So you just disproved the connection between GUIs and any relevance to the outside world.

Ron Paul, if he could figure out cryptos, could certainly use MyMonero. His technical experts would probably do key management, secret sharing for cold storage, etc. using command line tools the way early Bitcoin investors did, and probably some still do.

The GUI argument is a red herring. The other arguments about lack of mass market appeal are not, but they apply equally to cryptos that do have GUIs.

The non techy investor would probably prefer the more polished project because theyd know it takes proper software development from management down and years to achieve. Cli is just the first step (the data layer) which will serve the next layer to complete the polish. Once you get past that youd look for support and how easy you can find it or lack thereof. Put those 2 things together and you achieve network effect if there is a market for that tech.

[gjhiggins]

In actual end user terms, Mymonero.com (and I assume monerowallet.com although I haven't tried it) is about as easy to use you could hope for,

I keep reading your positive assertions and I keep wondering whether I'm missing a trick, yet every time I follow up it seems I get a different experience to you.

Is it possible that you are underestimating others’ expectations?

Case in point - the Mymonero web site fails to canonically identify the entity making the privacy statements, rendering them worthless. That's an obvious, no-brainer FAIL --- and worse, whoever’s responsible for the site is apparently either careless or ignorant of that fact which, for me, has to call their competence into question.

Given the cryptocurrency context and all that this implies, it’s a triple word score fail in my book and changes my perception of the service from an untrusted one to an untrustworthy one.

Cheers

Graham