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

[smooth]

I didn't add Shadowcoin for a few reasons:

1)  I forgot it existed

That's basically it. Look if you're going to start including coins in the 40+ ranking range you are going to have to include a whole lot of different coins and variations on how they work.

But I guess it is impossible to create a thread like this without having people come and spam their favorite coins to it. One of the SDC guys  (I don't remember if it was ffmad or someone else) created a thread comparing SDC/XMR and a few others. On that thread you have people backing coins even smaller than SDC showing up and spamming on why they should be included too. Just how it is.

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[r0ach]

Something I need to add to the main post, and I already said this over a year ago but forgot to add it.  I believe since each distributed coin only offers a probabilistic security model, which opens you up to various "long cons" and other black swan events, it's inevitable the market cap will somewhat equalize out in the top 3-5 coins.  The financial industry will hedge between them and there will be no Bitcoin monopoly.  Since PoW coins are expensive to maintain and are also designed to be monopoly players in the market, I don't think they will stay around in the long run.

The financial industry will just not tolerate all their eggs in one basket that can be wiped out by random occurrence.  They can handle losing big with Lehman Brothers crashes and taking a 25% hit or whatever, but nobody is going to go all in on something where they can take a 100% hit.  Assuming Ethereum doesn't turn out to be a giant security blackhole with huge overhead (which I think it will be, so I wouldn't personally recommend it), I could foresee large market caps for Bitshares, Ethereum, something like Emunie (if it actually works), and maybe one more coin that possibly hasn't even been invented yet.  Only coins capable of scaling to huge on-chain transactions would make the list.

Most consensus mechanisms are simply not viable to serve as sole world reserve currency because it's just too risky.  The one exception would be DPoS and having each nation serving as a delegate.  So that's really all there is to it, either a basket of currencies, or huge, non-anonymous entities taking over DPoS and serving as the delegates.

Market caps:
If cryptocurrency takes 1% of m2 (could take a lot more), and market cap is divided somewhat evenly between top 4 coins (which I think it will be), each coin will have a 299 billion cap.

[ffmad]

Interesting post.

On the Monero part, you're talking of "CryptoNote" as it was the anon tech, but the tech is Ring Signatures.

Shadow has Ring Signatures too and is based on Bitcoin. So it's not a 'CryptoNote' but share the same mechanism of Anonymity.

I didn't add Shadowcoin for a few reasons:

1)  I forgot it existed

2)  It's a standard proof of stake coin so it already falls under all the pros and cons there

3)  If I added Shadowcoin, I would probably also have to add Darkcoin.  Since Shadowcoin was flash mined, I would end up having to spend hours trying to determine the distribution of Shadowcoin vs Darkcoin vs Monero.  I would end up wasting all my time making the thread on the minor intricacies of the anon sector.  I knew I would be forced to deal with the annoying anon sector eventually, I just didn't feel like doing it yet, so I listed the anon market leader at the time in comparison to everything else.

4)  Most of the threads on the forum for a long time have been about Darkcoin vs Monero vs random anon coin of the week already.

5)  I planned to expand the original post much more, so I will probably get around to it eventually.

What's shadowcoin ? 

You're missing the point completly, what I was saying is: "talk about Ring Signatures". The anon tech is not "CryptoNote".

I don't see why you would need to mention Darshrkoin, it's just a coinjoin thing.

[smooth]

Interesting post.

On the Monero part, you're talking of "CryptoNote" as it was the anon tech, but the tech is Ring Signatures.

Shadow has Ring Signatures too and is based on Bitcoin. So it's not a 'CryptoNote' but share the same mechanism of Anonymity.

I didn't add Shadowcoin for a few reasons:

1)  I forgot it existed

2)  It's a standard proof of stake coin so it already falls under all the pros and cons there

3)  If I added Shadowcoin, I would probably also have to add Darkcoin.  Since Shadowcoin was flash mined, I would end up having to spend hours trying to determine the distribution of Shadowcoin vs Darkcoin vs Monero.  I would end up wasting all my time making the thread on the minor intricacies of the anon sector.  I knew I would be forced to deal with the annoying anon sector eventually, I just didn't feel like doing it yet, so I listed the anon market leader at the time in comparison to everything else.

4)  Most of the threads on the forum for a long time have been about Darkcoin vs Monero vs random anon coin of the week already.

5)  I planned to expand the original post much more, so I will probably get around to it eventually.

What's shadowcoin ? 

You're missing the point completly, what I was saying is: "talk about Ring Signatures". The anon tech is not "CryptoNote".

I don't see why you would need to mention Darshrkoin, it's just a coinjoin thing.

Cryptonote is not just ring signatures.

The transactions themselves in cryptonote also use stealth addressing. Those two portions (stealth adds and ring sigs) are borrowed by SDC. Together they form the solution to privacy and blockchain analysis resistance.

Other parts of cryptonote (in the white paper and code base) include things like smoothly varying block rewards and difficulty adjustment, automatic adjustment of block sizes, and the ASIC-resistant PoW. Those are not borrowed by SDC.

[EvilDave]

Something I need to add to the main post, and I already said this over a year ago but forgot to add it.  I believe since each distributed coin only offers a probabilistic security model, which opens you up to various "long cons" and other black swan events, it's inevitable the market cap will somewhat equalize out in the top 3-5 coins.  The financial industry will hedge between them and there will be no Bitcoin monopoly.  Since PoW coins are expensive to maintain and are also designed to be monopoly players in the market, I don't think they will stay around in the long run.

The financial industry will just not tolerate all their eggs in one basket that can be wiped out by random occurrence.  They can handle losing big with Lehman Brothers crashes and taking a 25% hit or whatever, but nobody is going to go all in on something where they can take a 100% hit.  Assuming Ethereum doesn't turn out to be a pile of crap since nothing with it is finalized yet, I could foresee large market caps for Bitshares, Ethereum, something like Emunie (if it actually works), and maybe one more coin that possibly hasn't even been invented yet.  Only coins capable of scaling to huge on-chain transactions would make the list.

Most consensus mechanisms are simply not viable to serve as sole world reserve currency because it's just too risky.  The one exception would be DPoS and having each nation serving as a delegates.  So that's really all there is to it, either a basket of currencies, or huge, non-anonymous entities taking over DPoS and serving as the delegates.

I think we're going to see a much more mixed environment than simply 3-5 top coins. Given the issues surrounding scalability, security and decentralisation vs centralisation, my model of the future of crypto is more like 3-5 different underlying technologies, supporting 100's , possibly 1000's of seperate blockchains, linked together by gateway/exchange systems (like SuperNet or Shapeshift). Think of it like a bunch of grapes, rather than one big apple.
This model aviods the security/control issues of  having 'all the eggs in one basket', doesn't require any single blockchain to scale up to global operations level, and allows a large degree of decentralisation. Given the way society, business and crypto technology are evolving, I see this scenario as the most likely outcome.

[smooth]

Most consensus mechanisms are simply not viable to serve as sole world reserve currency because it's just too risky.  The one exception would be DPoS and having each nation serving as a delegates.

That's not DPoS. In DPoS the delegates are elected by stake, not assigned (by whom?) according to lines on a map.

What you are describing is more like the private blockchains being explored by banks, etc.

Only coins capable of scaling to huge on-chain transactions would make the list.

I'm not sure that huge on-chain transactions will ever make sense when you can fundamentally scale so much more efficiently with something like a lightning network (or maybe EvilDave's model of blockchain specialization), but if it does it will be because the various Moore-style "laws" bail out this worse-is-better approach, and then it will likely work for any of the chains. Obvious obstacles like Bitcoin's fixed block size limit assumed to be fixed in that case of course.

[r0ach]

Most consensus mechanisms are simply not viable to serve as sole world reserve currency because it's just too risky.  The one exception would be DPoS and having each nation serving as a delegates.

That's not DPoS. In DPoS the delegates are elected by stake, not assigned (by whom?) according to lines on a map.

Yes, I'm aware.  What would happen is, nation states would boycott or make it hard for the currency to function via the legal system and claim they want network representation if the currency is to be allowed to function there.  This means voters would either vote out other delegates and vote the country in as one, or raise the delegate cap to include the country in order to raise the market cap which raises the value of their shares.  It's all common sense stuff.

[smooth]

Most consensus mechanisms are simply not viable to serve as sole world reserve currency because it's just too risky.  The one exception would be DPoS and having each nation serving as a delegates.

That's not DPoS. In DPoS the delegates are elected by stake, not assigned (by whom?) according to lines on a map.

Yes, I'm aware.  What would happen is, nation states would boycott or make it hard for the currency to function via the legal system and claim they want network representation if the currency is to be allowed to function there.  This means voters would either vote out other delegates and vote the country in as one, or raise the delegate cap to include the country in order to raise the market cap which raises the value of their shares.  It's all common sense stuff.

Or more likely they would just throw away DPoS (along with its dangerous and insecure PoS voting) by pushing it aside using the legal system as you describe, and create a nationscoin that does what they want with appropriate fixed membership and weighting of control (unless you think the major world powers are going to agree to give Tuvalu equal representation LOL). You don't need DPoS for that, nor is it desirable in the slightest.

[r0ach]

Or more likely they would just throw away DPoS (along with its dangerous and insecure PoS voting) by pushing it aside using the legal system as you describe, and create a nationscoin that does what they want with appropriate fixed membership and weighting of control (unless you think the major world powers are going to agree to give Tuvalu equal representation LOL). You don't need DPoS for that, nor is it desirable in the slightest.

The scenario you described isn't really possible.  They can't create a "nationscoin" because they're all using bogus accounting and none of them could agree on what the ledger is supposed to say.  They all want to print money, and they all want to do things like rig currency so they can increase exports.  They don't really have an interest in being all locked into the same ledger unless something grows so big they can't ignore it anymore, then they have to try and co-opt it.  The free market coin has to come first for the ledger to exist.  The plus side is that even if they do co-opt it, it will most likely get rid of fractional reserve, which is the real root of all problems in the first place.

[smooth]

They don't really have an interest in being all locked into the same ledger unless something grows so big they can't ignore it anymore, then they have to try and co-opt it

That may be true but then I find this whole discussion pointlessly stupid since there is no evidence any of these systems are going to grow so big that governments can't ignore it, with the possible exception of Bitcoin. With the #2 cryptocurrency (ignoring ripple for various reasons) at about 3% of Bitcoin's value and the rest far smaller, this whole line of discussion, predicated on something first getting bigger than Bitcoin and then becoming so big that governments are forced to co-opt it, is absurdly speculative.

To me it seems brilliantly clear there is a lot of mental masturbation occurring, motivated by the natural human (or perhaps it is somewhat culturally-specific) tendency to root for an underdog. Plus of course that in this space investing in an underdog has more upside leverage, so greed fuels it too (and I guess trading for a profit is not mental masturbation, so there is that).

[r0ach]

That may be true but then I find this whole discussion pointlessly stupid since there is no evidence any of these systems are going to grow so big that governments can't ignore it, with the possible exception of Bitcoin. With the #2 cryptocurrency (ignore ripple for various reasons) at about 3% of Bitcoin's value and the rest far smaller, this whole line of discussion, predicated on something first getting bigger than Bitcoin and then becoming so big that governments are forced to co-opt it, is absurdly speculative.

To me it seems brilliantly clear there is a lot of mental masturbation occurring, motivated by the natural human (or perhaps it is somewhat culturally-specific) tendency to root for an underdog. Plus of course that in this space investing in an underdog has more upside leverage, so greed fuels it too.

It's more like all the back ends of the legacy systems are already considered primitive so when some guy shows up talking about "hey, I got this miracle 5 TPS bitcoin system that might be able to serve a town of 100 people, check it out", nobody really cares.  Once you show up with something that actually compares to what's already running or better, then they start to notice.

[smooth]

That may be true but then I find this whole discussion pointlessly stupid since there is no evidence any of these systems are going to grow so big that governments can't ignore it, with the possible exception of Bitcoin. With the #2 cryptocurrency (ignore ripple for various reasons) at about 3% of Bitcoin's value and the rest far smaller, this whole line of discussion, predicated on something first getting bigger than Bitcoin and then becoming so big that governments are forced to co-opt it, is absurdly speculative.

To me it seems brilliantly clear there is a lot of mental masturbation occurring, motivated by the natural human (or perhaps it is somewhat culturally-specific) tendency to root for an underdog. Plus of course that in this space investing in an underdog has more upside leverage, so greed fuels it too.

It's more like all the back ends of the legacy systems are already considered primitive, so when some guy shows up talking about "hey, I got this miracle 5 TPS bitcoin system that might be able to serve a town of 100 people, check it out", nobody really cares.  Once you show up with something that actually compares to what's already running or better, then they start to notice.

We'll see. You have a minimum of 1-2 orders of magnitude of "noticed" before you even catch up with Bitcoin, much less surpass it. (I'm roughly measuring by market cap but I think that correlates reasonable well with notice, although notice is probably even more skewed.)

There is a cognitive illusion when you see lists like

Cryptocurrencies

Bitcoin
Litecoin
Ethereum
Bitshares

When in reality it should be like this if drawn to scale

Cryptocurrencies (that actually matter to "the state of crypto")
Bitcoin
Litecoin
Ethereum
Bitshares

[r0ach]

Ethereum

I don't really have high hopes for Ethereum (the world's most inefficient botnet).  What's strange is hearing people claim it's not even a currency.  The working unit had to be commoditized to do things like storage spam prevention on a turing platform that isn't even suitable for a currency, so it obviously is.  Information redundancy on a normal chain is also far more useful than computational redundancy that only needs to be done on one CPU for most tasks.  Seems like one of those things that theoretically sounds good but is just a collision of bad ideas in reality.

Was going to wait to add it to the main post in case they find some undiscovered killer app like hooking a 3d printer to each node and creating an army of nano robots.

[mtnsaa]

Like others said, you can discuss all you want about the technical aspects of a new coin, but the main an most important issue remains and it's an old one. To make actual people using it and go full mainstream. Security is even something minor in priority, there is credit card and bank fraud everyday with the actual system.

This is similar to what happened with the PC and MAC if you want. We all know Wozniak and others invented the technology but as amazing as it was, it needed a visionary to bring it to the masses. For that to happen, you need to make deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. People will embrace Bitcoin or whatever cryptocoin they implement, that's it. Or they will create their own, which is most likely and that will be the one.

Bitcoin is like Napster if you want, Apple or a company like that will see the potential when it fits and create iTunes. But that took A LOT of impossible deals with the labels music industry moguls.

[smooth]

Like others said, you can discuss all you want about the technical aspects of a new coin, but the main an most important issue remains and it's an old one. To make actual people using it and go full mainstream. Security is even something minor in priority, there is credit card and bank fraud everyday with the actual system.

This is similar to what happens with the PC and MAC if you want. We all know Wozniak and others invented the technology but as amazing as it was, it needed a visionary to bring it to the masses. For that to happen, you need to make deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. People will embrace Bitcoin or whatever cryptocoin they implement, that's it. Or they will create their own, which is most likely and that will be the one.

Bitcoin is like Napster if you want, Apple or a company like that will see the potential when it fits and create iTunes. But that took A LOT of impossible deals with the labels music industry moguls.

Somewhat reasonable analogy but as I recall Napster got literally nowhere where with big companies, and there certainly was not an entire nascent industry of VC-funded companies building around the Naptser ecosystem, whereas Bitcoin at least has some support from large companies (for example you mentioned Microsoft, which accepts Bitcoin) and many startups are building on Bitcoin, and this can really only be said to a significant extent for Bitcoin specifically (i.e. see above "to scale" list). Whether that is enough to not get replaced by iTunesCoin is hard to say, but the differences with the Napster experience are certainly there.

[mtnsaa]

Like others said, you can discuss all you want about the technical aspects of a new coin, but the main an most important issue remains and it's an old one. To make actual people using it and go full mainstream. Security is even something minor in priority, there is credit card and bank fraud everyday with the actual system.

This is similar to what happens with the PC and MAC if you want. We all know Wozniak and others invented the technology but as amazing as it was, it needed a visionary to bring it to the masses. For that to happen, you need to make deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. People will embrace Bitcoin or whatever cryptocoin they implement, that's it. Or they will create their own, which is most likely and that will be the one.

Bitcoin is like Napster if you want, Apple or a company like that will see the potential when it fits and create iTunes. But that took A LOT of impossible deals with the labels music industry moguls.

Somewhat reasonable analogy but as I recall Napster got literally nowhere where with big companies, and there certainly was not an entire nascent industry of VC-funded companies building around the Naptser ecosystem, whereas Bitcoin at least has some support from large companies (for example you mentioned Microsoft, which accepts Bitcoin) and many startups are building on Bitcoin, and this can really only be said to a significant extent for Bitcoin specifically (i.e. see above "to scale" list). Whether that is enough to not get replaced by iTunesCoin is hard to say, but the differences with the Napster experience are certainly there.

I understand the comparison is not perfect nor fair. However Napster had the piracy issue, their reputation was tainted. Bitcoin also has this to a much lesser extent, but really the average person doesn't care that it's "anonymous" or decentralized, for god's sake, they use Google and Facebook all the time. It just need to be somewhat secure, cheaper and easy to use. Bitcoin and others already have these features. To me it is inevitable that a major player will come out with it's own coin/currency and the rest are doomed.

It can be sort of a subscription and small limit plan too, kinda like store credit but that can be accepted and used in many places. If you have some extra iCoins, you can pay Spotify with that or renew a Netflix subscription.

[smooth]

Like others said, you can discuss all you want about the technical aspects of a new coin, but the main an most important issue remains and it's an old one. To make actual people using it and go full mainstream. Security is even something minor in priority, there is credit card and bank fraud everyday with the actual system.

This is similar to what happens with the PC and MAC if you want. We all know Wozniak and others invented the technology but as amazing as it was, it needed a visionary to bring it to the masses. For that to happen, you need to make deals with Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple. People will embrace Bitcoin or whatever cryptocoin they implement, that's it. Or they will create their own, which is most likely and that will be the one.

Bitcoin is like Napster if you want, Apple or a company like that will see the potential when it fits and create iTunes. But that took A LOT of impossible deals with the labels music industry moguls.

Somewhat reasonable analogy but as I recall Napster got literally nowhere where with big companies, and there certainly was not an entire nascent industry of VC-funded companies building around the Naptser ecosystem, whereas Bitcoin at least has some support from large companies (for example you mentioned Microsoft, which accepts Bitcoin) and many startups are building on Bitcoin, and this can really only be said to a significant extent for Bitcoin specifically (i.e. see above "to scale" list). Whether that is enough to not get replaced by iTunesCoin is hard to say, but the differences with the Napster experience are certainly there.

I understand the comparison is not perfect nor fair. However Napster had the piracy issue, their reputation was tainted. Bitcoin also has this to a much lesser extent, but really the average person doesn't care that it's "anonymous" or decentralized, for god's sake, they use Google and Facebook all the time. It just need to be somewhat secure, cheaper and easy to use. Bitcoin and others already have these features. To me it is inevitable that a major player will come out with it's own coin/currency and the rest are doomed.

It can be sort of a subscription and small limit plan too, kinda like store credit but that can be accepted and used in many places. If you have some extra iCoins, you can pay Spotify with that or renew a Netflix subscription.

Well look I think the existing payment methods are somewhat secure, cheap, and easy to use. Netflix, Spotify, etc. have how many subscribers? Amazon has how many customers? Somehow these people are getting along fine without Bitcoin. They don't miss it at all.

That's not even true for Napster. Napster had far more pull demand from (most) users than Bitcoin/crypto ever has, the latter being more of a solution in search of a problem. Exceptions maybe being things like online gambling (including coin speculation as a sort of gambling game) and online drugs.

There is a context here. When satoshi built and released Bitcoin it was in the wake of the 2007-2008 financial crisis and there really was a desire for something better. Outrage over bailouts, Wall Street bonuses, etc. was mainstream. Strong hatred of banks and bankers was common. Even many in the power elite were open to alternatives. There really was a sincere and widely-held feeling that the system was broken. That was nearly a decade ago and much of that is gone. There are some low-level concerns, but the average Joe no longer gives a shit about banking one way or another. Politicians no longer mention it. The problem that Bitcoin was largely intended to solve no longer exists from the perspective of people who would need to adopt it.

If and when the pendulum swings back, then crypto will have a chance to actually do something useful. Until then, Bitcoin is languishing and all the rest have no chance at all, outside of the speculation game.

[sidhujag]

There will be a turning of the tide as people realize that centralized services are no longer viable because they steal information and sell it or give it up forcefully. The trust in government and other centralized entities will dwindle and be a calling card for decentralized services and applications. I guess its much like the cycle between private and public debt armstrong elludes to but once people are fed up they will switch. The value add of being decentralized will surface only when there is a strong enough market demand such that the average joe sees immediate need to switch over.

[smooth]

There will be a turning of the tide as people realize that centralized services are no longer viable because they steal information and sell it or give it up forcefully.

People don't know this already about Facebook, Google, banks, NSA, etc.?

I don't believe it. They know but they just don't care. I imagine this is a great disappointment to Snowden. He revealed all sorts of amazing things about the extent of the surveillance, at apparently great personal cost. He probably thought it would be earth shattering. The earth didn't even start to crack. For the most part (other than a few large corporations worried about losing business from other large corporations) people just don't give a shit.

Maybe the tide will turn when they start caring, but what causes that (and when) I don't know.

[sidhujag]

There will be a turning of the tide as people realize that centralized services are no longer viable because they steal information and sell it or give it up forcefully.

People don't know this already about Facebook, Google, etc.?

I don't believe it. I think they just don't care.

Maybe the tide will turn when they start caring, but what causes that (and when) I don't know.

No because there haven't been many widespread breaches that hit their wallet or head (Ashley Madison's) to really care about on a global basis to affect the market. However I do believe its just another cycle and trust in government and other centralized services has already peaked.. thats just opinion. If one can see that it has peaked and that people are caring more and more and there is an exponential function we are on with regards to trust and privacy with privacy/non-trust being on the hockey stick end of the curve then its smart IMO to be prepared and invested in technologies that specializing in decentralization(trustlessness) and privacy. Perhaps not having trust is a stronger driver because it is affected by more markets but I believe both are parallel drivers bringing us to the same objective in a cryptocurrency.

Whether that currency is adopted is a whole 'nother subject but atleast we know there will be money coming in to the subject of interest because people suddenly have started caring.