[AEON] Aeon Speculation

[TPTB_need_war]

It's 2-4am in the states, maybe a wake-up call should be made later in the day.

Thanks. I have been awake for 24 hours.

Doesn't it bother you all in the least that Aeon and Monero are both in the same predicament as the shitcoins you hate, in that none of you have any use as a currency. Very near to zero. Perhaps Monero some. But no where near to 10,000 users, not to mention a million users?

No, it doesn't bother me.

That is disappointing. Because you as the leader set the standards and sense of urgency too low. As a leader I would feel miserable and highly embarrassed to create a crypto currency that had less than 100,000 users 6 to 12 months after launch. Anything less than that is a circle jerk. If you just want a private club, then you are just the same Bitshares or any other small macrocosm fetish (regardless of whatever tech you have).

If you want to play with the big boys, then you don't even start talking and opening our mouth until we have a 100,000 users and on the way to a million users.

I really wish you had said, "yes I am highly uncomfortable with being just another shitcoin and I want to do something about it, damn it". Where is the competitive fire in your belly?

I know you are smart and capable. Why the lack of drive? Burned out? Satisfied?

AEON has many more users than it had a year ago. Monero probably does too. Growth is often slow at first. But then we don't know whether they may hit a hard ceiling. That is certainly possible. Monero seems to have better absolute prospects by virtue of a larger profile and community (and I don't just mean bitcointalk forum users), but that is reflected in the price somewhat I suppose.

So Aeon is duplicating Monero speculators. No big surprise there. Yawn. Circle-jerk. You mine your own speculators twice. How about attempting something that requires real risk, dedication, hard work, and sacrifice? A real challenge?

It doesn't matter if it is growing. If the rate of growth is not at least 100,000 users in 12 months, then your efforts are entirely irrelevant to the world.

Don't you want to make your mark on the world?

Or are we unable to change? Always going to be talking about investor crap such as limit orders and shit that does nothing for adoption.

I have nothing against adoption but also nothing against speculation, nor development-focused projects that are rough but may or may not gain users at a greater level of maturity and utility. They all have their roles to play. If someone wants to create applications and/or use cases for AEON (or Monero or even Bitcoin or some other reasonably credible project), I'd be happy to help if there is something productive I can do.

Smooth I respect the desire to be logical and balanced in reason. But development-focused projects with 1000 users are not going to help us. And they are not going to make any mark on the world.

It is frustrating for me because I can't understand your rationale. Development-focused for what gain? Some nebulous idea that one day some block chain tech you did might be useful for something? Success must be seized much more rapidly than that, or it doesn't come at any great scale later. Because all natural phenomena have a natural rate of growth and it is evident early on what that growth curve is. It should be clear to you by now that Aeon can't scale usership to any significant level.

We only get so many productive years in life. We must carpe diem and maximize our impact on the world, if we want to be more than just another cog in the wheel.

I am not pressuring you if you don't want to be pressured. I am pressuring you if you need someone to push you. Maybe you need a drill sergeant. Or maybe you don't want.

Don't you want to kick some ass?

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[smooth]

It doesn't matter if it is growing. If the rate of growth is not at least 100,000 users in 12 months, then your efforts are entirely irrelevant to the world.

Really? Let's say it starts with 100 users and increases users by 10x every year. In the first 3 years it will still be below your 100k users, but after 7 years it reaches a billion users (and after eight years everyone on Earth, of course). That's approximately the same trajectory as Facebook. Yet for the first 3-4 years it seems totally irrelevant and too small to matter.

This is totally hypothetical of course but it just illustrates that different trajectories can result in massive user bases.

Personally I think crypocurrencies are facing bigger hurdles to user adoption than technology or marketing, which is that most users just don't have a use for them. We are largely playing a waiting-and-exploring game until new killer apps develop or conditions in the world change and make people want something other than traditional finance. The latter context existed in 2008 when Bitcoin was released but over the years has been largely lost. Trying to sell hard into a non-receptive market (which is almost the entire world right now) is a recipe for frustration, wasted resources, and failure.

I don't mean to discourage your enthusiasm for reaching a mass market. I certainly encourage you, I just don't share your (short term) optimism that there necessarily is a mass market to be reached.

[aeoncurrency]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1190988.0

I suck at chess but think this thread is good at bringing more positive attention to CryptoNote in a friendly environment. Are there enough Aeon chess players to warrant asking that Aeon be included in the thread (with some links in the OP)?

At a minimum I can see that smooth plays chess and has participated.

@smooth how is the CryptoNote GUI integration going? What would most help Aeon development right now? More developers or more donations to incentivize existing developers to spend more time on Aeon?

[TPTB_need_war]

It doesn't matter if it is growing. If the rate of growth is not at least 100,000 users in 12 months, then your efforts are entirely irrelevant to the world.

Really? Let's say it starts with 100 users and increases users by 10x every year. In the first 3 years it will still be below your 100k users, but after 7 years it reaches a billion users.

Saplings grow exponentially fast to be oak trees, but oak trees don't grow the moon. They rot and decay.

That's approximately the same trajectory as Facebook. Yet for the first 3-4 years it seems totally irrelevant and too small to matter.

Aeon is not in the same category as Facebook. Facebook was invested in from the angel stage by Peter Thiel, JP Morgan, and the CIA. This was a planned world takeover.

Any crypto currency has to make its mark now in 2016 - 2017 or it is too late.

You seem to be clueless about the changes coming in 2017 to the global capital controls.

CoinCube is precisely spot on target, when he says the only defence against the 666 system coming is an economic one, meaning massive adoption.

I reliably estimate that you have reached precisely 0 retail-level users in the developing world with Aeon. And that is where the future and billions of humans are.

This is totally hypothetical of course but it just illustrates that different trajectories can result in massive user bases.

Different categories entirely. Crypto currency has a very small window of time. Bitcoin will soon be centralized and ubiquitous and that is what we will be stuck with for the rest of our miserable lives.

Personally I think crypocurrencies are facing bigger hurdles to user adoption than technology or marketing, which is that most users just don't have a use for them.

They don't have a use because we as app and website developers can't accept Bitcoin because no one has any Bitcoin!

It is a chicken and egg problem.

And the people who will really have a use for Bitcoin have none of it, that is the people in the developing world. Because they don't have any money. But the value of a currency is from use, not from initial capital of speculators.

There is only one way to get unstuck from this predicament and in a 1000 years you will never get there because you and none of you are even addressing the marketing issue at all.

We are largely playing a waiting-and-exploring game

No you are playing a waiting and delusion while you fade away into irrelevance game of circle-jerking.

until new killer apps develop or conditions in the world change

The killer apps will come once Bitcoin has been fully centralized so the TPTB feel safe to let it spread out to the entire world. Then the corporations will start using it in mainstream ways.

Or we can try to accelerate that if put the currency out there in million of users and let them get accustomed to using it. The electronic generation is the youth.

None of the crypto currencies are marketed to them, but I know how to! And they do everything electronic all day.

Kids in the west have less incentive because they have access to their parent's credit cards. But if the kids in the developing world lead, the western kids will follow because they will be jealous/curious.

It is time for the West to stand aside and be the tail instead of the dog.

and make people want something other than traditional finance. The latter context existed in 2008 when Bitcoin was released but over the years has been largely lost. Trying to sell hard into a non-receptive market (which is almost the entire world right now) is a recipe for frustration, wasted resources, and failure.

I don't mean to discourage your enthusiasm for reaching a mass market. I certainly encourage you, I just don't share your (short term) optimism that there necessarily is a mass market to be reached.

There is no certainty in anything. The calculation is the miniscule cost of testing what could be a huge win.

Cripes if we don't have $25,000 invested in Aeon and Monero combined then please just all of us delete our BTC accounts.

Actually the test could be even $1000, but the real cost is the software development work that needs to be done any way and which you are not doing. You are working on the wrong things.'


Your coin and client couldn't get mass adoption even if the market was ready because you haven't programmed it the right way. So it is self-fulfilling prophesy for you to say there is no mass market. You are not even trying at all. YOu don't care.

[TPTB_need_war]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1190988.0

I suck at chess but think this thread is good at bringing more positive attention to CryptoNote in a friendly environment. Are there enough Aeon chess players to warrant asking that Aeon be included in the thread (with some links in the OP)?

At a minimum I can see that smooth plays chess and has participated.

@smooth how is the CryptoNote GUI integration going? What would most help Aeon development right now? More developers or more donations to incentivize existing developers to spend more time on Aeon?

I hope you won't get offended if I speak frankly to you.

Mining the forum will never get you any where near mass adoption.

A real marketing plan isn't on this forum. Period.

Sometimes I just scratch my head in amazement at how clueless we are in BCT. Do you really think this forum could ever get you to adoption?

OTOH, the users of this forum do have enough capital (many times over) to fund a marketing plan that could likely attain mass adoption. Leverage. But it seems the speculators here are not interested in trying for mass adoption? They are contented to mine and circle jerk each other?

[smooth]

re: chess thread, I kind of dropped off the game since it was becoming time consuming to work out the chess moves, although I still watch the thread for technical discussion. Since it is a cryptonote discussion thread it is certainly on-topic to AEON.

@smooth how is the CryptoNote GUI integration going? What would most help Aeon development right now? More developers or more donations to incentivize existing developers to spend more time on Aeon?

On this note I have agree with TPTB that expanding the user base, services, and awareness is really the main thing. At the current scale there just isn't a lot of resources anywhere to support the coin.

In my opinion, to gain momentum, we have to be at least a top-50 coin in terms of awareness, usage, and (sorry, TPTB) speculation. At the current scale it is not only money that is the problem, but not too many people want to work on a #130 coin, sites and exchanges don't want to support it, etc.

Donations are appreciated but there is really no use in donating the entire coin supply to the development fund. It could grow a bit, and there has been some usage of it in bounties for mining software, etc. but too much concentration is really self-defeating.

I am happy to continue to work on the coin as a part time project to which I contribute some of my time, but it also needs ongoing pounding of the pavement by users and supporters to reach at least the low rungs of the "coins with recognized potential" rankings where more resources start to become available.

I'll have more of a specific update on the GUI and database integration fairly soon.

[TPTB_need_war]

I am totally in support of speculation. I just don't want to sell an ICO nor give away most of the coins to miners (which are not users!). I have a better plan. The speculators will still find their way.

Edit: yes you can't do everything with one guy ongoing, no matter how great he is. A coin needs momentum. It needs an ecosystem with developers all over the world racing to get in.

I'd rather attempt something bold and fail, then waste my time on something not even lukewarm. Especially given that bold attempt doesn't have to consume too much real capital.

How are we going to feel about ourselves years from now when we didn't even try to be bold?

[smooth]

They don't have a use because we as app and website developers can't accept Bitcoin because no one has any Bitcoin!

Not really. They don't have a use because regular money serves the market just fine. WhatsApp supposedly collects $1 per year (plus more for "extras") from hundreds of millions of users via mobile payments, app stores, or whatever. Likewise countless mobile F2P games that collect lots of money.

There just isn't a big mass market hole when it comes to payment services that crypto can jump right in and hope to fill.

If you do have a great idea for a social app, a game, or whatever, you should just launch it using app store payments and make bank. From a business perspective, crypto is a waste of your time, and probably trying to push it into the app will just destroy value, not add it.

[TPTB_need_war]

They don't have a use because we as app and website developers can't accept Bitcoin because no one has any Bitcoin!

Not really. They don't have a use because regular money serves the market just fine.

There are apps you can't do with fiat because the users don't have any fiat!

I just told you the developing world is our fertile ground.

There are other apps you can't do with fiat, because you are not allowed to. And this problem will be growing more pervasive. For example very difficult to get Paypal or Amazon Payments to accept certain business such as dating sites, selling precious metals, etc..

WhatsApp supposedly collects $1 per year (plus more for "extras") from hundreds of millions of users via mobile payments, app stores, or whatever. Likewise countless mobile F2P games that collect lots of money.

There just isn't a big mass market hole when it comes to payment services that crypto can jump right in and hope to fill.

yes there is. It is in the developing world.

If you do have a great idea for a social app, a game, or whatever, you should just launch it using app store payments and make bank. Crypto is a waste of your time.

I have a great ideas (and others do too) but can't monetize them because the billions of people in the developing world have lots of energy and time but no disposable fiat and/or at least especially NO CREDIT CARDS!

You entirely missed the elephant in the room. Crypto was supposed to be for the unbanked but no one is even trying to distribute to them.

[TPTB_need_war]

Smooth no offense. I am just trying to inspire us to try something bold. Otherwise I am leaving crypto.

I want to see if someone can refute me as to why trying something bold is pointless. Perhaps they can convince me sprint away and not walk from crypto.

I also want to see what the attitude of everyone is. Perhaps I am the delusional one?

[FGHPenguin]

Thanks for your input TPTB,  you've inspired me to create an account here when I'd previously just been lurking..

I tend to agree that there isn't any clear sense of direction from the aeon community (such as it is) in how to promote the coin
to users / speculators/ enthusiasts / whoever and things like the logo etc should be decided upon asap so marketing can push ahead
while the window of opportunity is open.

Let's agree for the moment that the developing world is where we decide to focus any efforts.

What countries should we focus on specifically and why?
How does a collection of largely Anglophones start
letting the people who might need to use aeon know about it?  
How easy it for these (non English speaking) people to get onto bittrex ?    
How easy Is it to list aeon on other language exchanges ?  -  Do they need some of us the community to step up and market make/ provide liquidity?
Is there anything they can do with these coins beyond holding them for the moment?

  

[aeoncurrency]

You entirely missed the elephant in the room. Crypto was supposed to be for the unbanked but no one is even trying to distribute to them.

If you are willing to share your ideas about how to achieve mass adoption with this market please do so! I think most of us agree on the importance of this but it is easier said than done.

[smooth]

It isn't the case that people in the developing world don't have any fiat.

How do they pay for their mobile phones (of which there are >7 billion in the world today)?

Answer: with fiat.

There are certainly people who don't have credit cards, and certainly payment methods can be an issue (though I'm pretty sure at least some of the markets have "top off" type methods available).

But it also isn't true that people in the developing world can't get Bitcoin if they had a reason to want it. Supposedly a lot of the traffic on purse.io comes from developing world people who do Mechanical Turk work and then trade their Amazon store credit for Bitcoin. I don't know how to tell if that is correct or not.

There are other apps you can't do with fiat, because you are not allowed to. And this problem will be growing more pervasive. For example very difficult to get Paypal or Amazon Payments to accept certain business such as dating sites, selling precious metals, etc..

This is absolutely true. The problem is that it is very difficult to run these businesses with crypto. Once you sell your precious metals for crypto, what do you do with the crypto? The same systems that block precious metals, etc. block crypto as well. It is virtually impossible (and certainly unattractive to most rational businesses) to try to live in a crypto-only world. So injecting crypto here is just trading one headache for another.

[FGHPenguin]

Ok so let's say Purse is a good way of getting mechanical turks into crypto.    How do developing world people find out about / become mechanical turks.

Are there mechanical turk forums/ websites etc where it would help to market Aeon?   Does Purse do any active marketing to these people? 

[TPTB_need_war]

Of course it is not easy to gain mass adoption. But I am leery if I share the idea here in public, one of our shitcoins such as Dash is going to go implement it before we do.

But if the cost to try is not so great ($1000 would could get us 20,000 users by my calculation) then we'd only have the development work to do which would be the most costly part to run the test. And I have some work done and smooth has some work done. But development is expensive. But I think the development we need any way, so might as well do it. We would only pay for verified users who did the action of bringing us another user, but it is the way we pay them that is unique and I think quite enticing and is tied also to distribution.

But we'd need to talk about the development. For example smooth and I could discuss it if he was willing to. He may be tired of discussing with me which would be understandable.

The other major sticking point is Aeon is already distributed so we'd have to use a new token. I don't know how we could organize that around Aeon's existing investors. Dash may not have such a dilemma since they've been known to increase their money supply drastically at-will, haha.

I personally would target the Philippines first where I am because it is a market I know how to access and I am here. It is 100 million people and they were the texting capital of the world before Twitter arrived. And the filipinos made friendster the #1 social network before facebook arrived. And they are all over the facebook now and they are also very spread out all over the world as OFWs and they interact with the other Asians and westerners.

We'd have to look into how to apply the idea I have to other countries. I haven't done that. It has to do with the mobile providers. I think I read that most of South America would work the same way but I don't know if there is the same attitude there. Might have to tweak it for each region.

The mass market users won't have a clue about exchanges. They would be in large part a captured market until the ecosystem kicked into high gear. This captive market may provide some advantages in terms of driving initial ecosystem.

All these things I am not going to discuss in public. Perhaps we could select a trusted group to discuss privately.

I am first trying to gauge the community's pulse on these matters.

I am not saying it will work. I am saying it isn't that expensive to try, except for software development which is expensive.

[TPTB_need_war]

Ok so let's say Purse is a good way of getting mechanical turks into crypto.    How do developing world people find out about / become mechanical turks.

Are there mechanical turk forums/ websites etc where it would help to market Aeon?   Does Purse do any active marketing to these people?  

That is far too indirect to be effective in my opinion.

Mass users have a different set of priorities and crypto wouldn't be something they would naturally be looking at and already organized into some relevant forum. We have to offer them an incentive which they already related to. And then connect that incentive(s) to the crypto until it starts to click that these things are worthwhile tokens for holding and using. Note I am purposefully not using the word money because I don't want to be involved with any illegal unregistered investment securities, thus I am sorry I am not interested in Aeon because it has been marketed to speculators directly.

Apologies for the thread jack and we can stop at any time.

I am exasperated and trying to make a decision what I am doing with my technology, ideas, and career.

[TPTB_need_war]

It isn't the case that people in the developing world don't have any fiat.

How do they pay for their mobile phones (of which there are >7 billion in the world today)?

Answer: with fiat.

Smooth be careful thinking you know the Philippines better than me. I lived here since the 1990s. I have seen all the changes up close.

Of course they have some fiat, but for many still not enough to pay their daily needs. They get a hand me down mobile or that is their prized possession, but they still don't have enough money to pay the telecom provider always, so their phone is only fully active some of the time. They rely on free data from Facebook to be always online but this means they can't access the web.

There are facts like these which give me unique insights.

There are certainly people who don't have credit cards, and certainly payment methods can be an issue (though I'm pretty sure at least some of the markets have "top off" type methods available).

Only <1% of the population in the Philippines has a credit card or something like that. None of the people we know have a credit card. There is no top off sevice that is instant access. There is GCash from Globe telecom (and SmartMoney from Smart telecom) but there is no way filipinos are going to travel to the Globe or Smart office and stand in a long time in order to sign up for some measily electronic token online. I did see the first ATM top off at my gym just recently so maybe that will change over the coming years, but for the meantime the situation is still as I stated.

You don't have a clue about marketing if you don't understand attrition rate.

But it also isn't true that people in the developing world can't get Bitcoin if they had a reason to want it.

That is the most clueless statement ever. Not to be condescending, but seriously you have no clue about marketing or what you are talking about.

You don't factor in attribition rate to any of your analysis. There is no way the referral system can work if people have to go obtain Bitcoin. No one here has a clue how to do it and it would consume a whole day of effort to get it done even if they knew how. I know because I have purchased bitCoin here with cash and it takes me at least a half of day.

We are talking about very small morsels of tokens.

Another thing you do not understand is that filipinos for example do everything in small morsels. They buy their shampoo in 10ml packets, they buy their cooking oil daily from a vendor in small cellophane. Etc..

You are not thinking correctly from their economy-of-scale perspective.

Marketing is a very detailed science.

Supposedly a lot of the traffic on purse.io comes from developing world people who do Mechanical Turk work and then trade their Amazon store credit for Bitcoin. I don't know how to tell if that is correct or not.

High tech filipinos probably doing that but that is not the masses. Many (I think most) filipinos find they are not confident enough or not qualified for online work of that sort.

Some of the college grads of the better universities dabble in something like that if they have the inclination and their degree did not give them a better opportunity. So it only fits to some. A graduating doctor would prefer to practice medicine.

There are other apps you can't do with fiat, because you are not allowed to. And this problem will be growing more pervasive. For example very difficult to get Paypal or Amazon Payments to accept certain business such as dating sites, selling precious metals, etc..

This is absolutely true. The problem is that it is very difficult to run these businesses with crypto. Once you sell your precious metals for crypto, what do you do with the crypto?

You are so defeatist.

In the west maybe, but then again we don't know all the things being done with Bitcoin that we can't see!

Multiply by a 1000 perhaps in the developing world because the laws are much more lax here. We don't really know. And people have more incentive to ignore laws here and they have an attitude of ignoring laws as much as possible.

My thought is that the youth here have a very big incentive to adopt anything that pays them even a $1 a day if it means they can do it from the mobile phone at home at their leisure.

[TPTB_need_war]

So when we start to consider attrition rate then we will see that your block chain design which impacts your client design has to be very different than the kind of wallets we are making for investors/speculators.

Thus much of the work we are doing in crypto is not even aligned to the mass market. So it is no wonder that Coinbase can just grab our users because we are too inept.

Primary because we have server programmers who are not marketers nor user interface specialists trying to run projects. That is one of the main reasons I didn't join Monero nor Aeon.

I have seen some quality UI and websites in the Monero ecosystem, but still the wallets that I've seen are not at all designed correctly for mass markets.

In short, we don't expend any resources on the areas we need to. So no great wonder we get the shitty adoption results we do. We have no marketing experts (except maybe the Dogecoin devs)

I looked at GetGems website and they are doing it all wrong! Maybe all their UI is in their apps which I haven't looked at but their website is any indication then they are not addressing the markets I envision.

Marketing is very nuanced. When you broadstroke as smooth is, you can miss swaths sometimes.

It is so ironic you all are expending valuable time and energy posting about a circle on a logo (which is inane and pointless detail relative to its potential relative impact) and not even tuned in to the potentially huge markets that you are blissfully ignoring.

[arielbit]

Another thing you do not understand is that filipinos for example do everything in small morsels. They buy their shampoo in 10ml packets, they buy their cooking oil daily from a vendor in small cellophane. Etc..

true haha, laundry soap, dishwashing liquid, canned foods, alcoholic and soft drinks etc. just look at a sari-sari store, and these stores are everywhere infesting housing subdivisions

Multiply by a 1000 perhaps in the developing world because the laws are much more lax here. We don't really know.

My thought is that the youth here have a very big incentive to adopt anything that pays them even a $1 a day if it means they can do it from the mobile phone at home at their leisure.

hmmm.. I think he's on to something here, might have a network effect.

[TPTB_need_war]

Sorry for the threadjack  

We can lead a horse to water but we can't make him drink.

Sometimes it is too difficult to change and try radical new things. The cost of failure may be too great. The cost of discarding existing inertia may be too heavy. The resources needed may not be aligned and available.