Zero Knowledge Transactions

[smooth]

So side-chains may still be viable, but probably not with the tech Blockstream has available today.

Well that was 100% of what was being debated on cypherdoc's thread. Not to say I told you so, but the fact is I have a better-developed understanding and refined intuition on these matters than most, likely a consequence of other background I have, but is not disclosed to my crypto pseudonym.

If there are other technologies that exist later, we can discuss them later.

How so? Did you forget arbitrage?

No.

Remember (see above) arbitrage was the same argument being made with side chains. It works in orderly markets, but doesn't defeat unsoundness.

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[TPTB_need_war]

So side-chains may still be viable, but probably not with the tech Blockstream has available today.

Well that was 100% of what was being debated on cypherdoc's thread. Not to say I told you so, but the fact is I have a better-developed understanding and refined intuition on these matters than most, likely a consequence of other background I have, but is not disclosed to my crypto pseudonym.

I encourage you to go reread my comments there. I admitted the same at that time. You are not telling me something I didn't state then. You apparently just choose to read it as me disagreeing. I conditioned my support on side-chains to needing my improvements for block chain. I specifically said that in cypherdoc's thread.

I suppose what has changed now is that I have become more realistic about how long it has taken me to get my designs out into the market. And because of that and as I have tried to figure out ways to accelerate coding, I realize that attaining perfection in the first version on every aspect is not the right goal. The right goal is hit the sweet spot K.I.S.S. asap. I removed my tech hat and put on my VP marketing and CFO hat.

If there are other technologies that exist later, we can discuss them later.

How so? Did you forget arbitrage?

No.

Remember (see above) arbitrage was the same argument being made with side chains. It works in orderly markets, but doesn't defeat unsoundness.

You are rightfully concerned what happens to the stragglers who are still in the old coin as M becomes small. Some may miss the deadline and be stuck with a coin that no one wants to buy thus the market exchange rate has destroyed the value they had.

This can be solved by having an "auto-burn if X% burn" setting on each coin UXTO, perhaps set to a default of say 75%, and so even people on vacation won't miss out.

It is entirely in the community's interest to have compelling upgrades and for those upgrades to go smoothly and complete 100% as soon as the consensus to do so has been attained.

To have lingering two forks of the same basic coin tech in the market is very dilutive to the ecosystem and market momentum.

You tell me you know best about distribution but with its widely touted "fair distribution" did Monero ever raise hell in the market yet like DogeCoin, BitSharesX, and Ripple did? It has been real stable though, so perhaps that meets your design goal.

Think out the various options for organizing and funding upgrades. I think you will clearly see I am correct. Perhaps I will enumerate these after I eat breakfast (again another night with no sleep).

[smooth]

You are rightfully concerned what happens to the stragglers who are still in the old coin as M becomes small.

That is not the only concern no. But the existance of that concern points to others.

And remember your own comments about avoiding complexity. Your response to this or that issue here is to add another patch (time penalty, autoburn, etc. etc.). Likely an indication of being on the wrong track. This is common in crypto.

I don't claim that the spin off method has no negatives, but I think the others are worse, for reasons that get to the heart of why crypto exists in the first place. It is okay that you disagree, though. Different approaches make for experimentation and learning.

You tell me you know best about distribution

I don't recall that. If I did I retract it. I don't know what is best about distribution.

but with its widely touted "fair distribution" did Monero every raise hell in the market yet like DogeCoin, BitSharesX, and Ripple did?

I'm not sure what you are getting at here at all. All four of these seem to have peaked early and gone into a long slump. Ripple had a second pump but still ended up with another big decline and slump. Dogecoin had pretty much the same distribution method as Monero as far as I know, though maybe a bit faster (don't know the details).

What distinction are you trying to make here?

[TPTB_need_war]

You are rightfully concerned what happens to the stragglers who are still in the old coin as M becomes small.

That is not the only concern no. But the existance of that concern points to others.

And remember your own comments about avoiding complexity. Your response to this or that issue here is to add another patch (time penalty, autoburn, etc. etc.). Likely an indication of being on the wrong track. This is common in crypto.

I suggest you create a coin with no features. Blandness has its virtues.

Again the point is upgrades need to fund developers and go smoothly. You have not offered a solution to those two objectives. You instead propose to set the ecosystem into Rigor mortis.

I don't claim that the spin off method has no negatives, but I think the others are worse, for reasons that get to the heart of why crypto exists in the first place.

Upgrades shouldn't exist then. Because you are thinking that crypto is about not having to trust.

Let's create the perfect coin and declare it final.

Let's eliminate market moves and declare the business cycle dead.

Sound anything like socialism's aims for nirvana?

It is okay that you disagree, though. Different approaches make for experimentation and learning.

You tell me you know best about distribution

I don't recall that. If I did I retract it. I don't know what is best about distribution.

We are discussing the distribution of upgrades.

but with its widely touted "fair distribution" did Monero ever raise hell in the market yet like DogeCoin, BitSharesX, and Ripple did?

I'm not sure what you are getting at here at all. All four of these seem to have peaked early and gone into a long slump.

And that is why crypto exists. For speculators.

And for users, they need upgrades, because they have to use this stuff.

Ripple had a second pump but still ended up with another big decline and slump. Dogecoin had pretty much the same distribution method as Monero as far as I know, though maybe a bit faster (don't know the details).

What distinction are you trying to make here?

Market moves are part of how we bring our new features to users. Speculators want market moves. Users want features. Developers need funding.

I'll tie it all together in another post after I eat.

[smooth]

Again the point is upgrades need to fund developers and go smoothly

I understand that you want someone to pay you to develop. I hope that works out.

I'm deeply skeptical of coins intended to function as currency also serving as a funding vehicle. I don't rule it out but so far every effort has not gone terribly well. Maybe there are exceptions but they are hard to find.

I think Sia has probably the most promising model now (separate the coin from the project funding with a second token backed by a dedicated revenue stream), but that's still a work in progress so we'll see.

Upgrades shouldn't exist then. Because you are thinking that crypto is about not having to trust.

No.

[iamnicholas]

Hello,
I am Nicholas.
I've sent you a couple of messages, but i understand you are busy.
I have some $ coming in a couple of weeks and like to invest.
I also have a killer name (in pm).
Please reply at a suitable time.
Thank you.

PS. Have you considered adding a charity function to your coin? I like the idea of a coin that has either an optional donation function, or better yet, a small percentage of mining fees go to charity. Just n idea..

[cryptodromeda]

I will await for feedback.

Feedback:-

As an investor I wouldn't invest in a one-man show. It's too risky and I've been burned before. A single ego is a liability and so many things can go wrong. Personality flaws can destroy projects if the personality is the only thing holding it up. So the more talented people on the team the better.

If you were to crowdfund a project I'd want to know how many people were on the team, who they were, and what degree of notoriety they had in respect of their credibility.

[TPTB_need_war]

smooth I will reply after I sleep. I am very sleepy after eating.

cryptodromeda, I think that is very valid line of thinking for those who like smaller ROI. But remember this, it isn't always true that the largest team wins. And the more mouths to feed, the larger the crowdfund, thus the larger the initial market cap and the lower the potential upside. And larger teams may bicker more and waste more time and money. Google "The Mythical Man Month" to learn why larger teams are worse.

And most of all, remember the victors go to those who bet correctly, with the most discernment. The greatest gains for speculators on altcoins have come from the coins created by one or two guys, e.g. DogeCoin, Litecoin, BitsharesX. Maybe because creativity doesn't come from large teams, but rather from individuals. Perhaps you invested in Ethereum and Monero with their large teams and are sitting on 10 bagger gains?

Something didn't compute.

iamnicholas, I will catch up on private msgs soon. Wearing too many hats.

[TPTB_need_war]

Again the point is upgrades need to fund developers and go smoothly

I understand that you want someone to pay you to develop. I hope that works out.

I'm deeply skeptical of coins intended to function as currency also serving as a funding vehicle. I don't rule it out but so far every effort has not gone terribly well. Maybe there are exceptions but they are hard to find.

Need to find out asap.

Only Dogecoin and Bitcoin were designed to function as a currency. All the others have been designed for other things and mostly for speculation use only.

But why are you skeptical when some have raised a lot of money. And some coins have had huge gains from their launch price.

Funding the initial coin has proven to be viable for those with interesting new ideas, solid implementation, and good marketing skills.

What I am skeptical of is whether there is a way to fund upgrades. The spin-off gives nothing to the developer unless debasement is added to the new coin or the developer just takes a cut of every coin. The crowdfund gives nothing to the developer unless it gives a high rate of coins for earlier birds than latter burns, with the developer taking a cut (which is perhaps more masked by the non-expectation of a unity conversion).

Also looking at it from the speculator and user's mindset, they are most motivated to switch if they can buy low and sell high. Or if they can get parity but with more features and the ecosystem switches over (do no dilution of the ecosystem).

Perhaps the best way to do an upgrade is crowdfund a new coin and let the others trade for it after launch. It is terribly disconcerting for HODLers because the value of their holdings can be changed by the decision of when to trade. But this rewards speculators, incentivizes developers, and users get the major features they want. And it is likely to limit upgrades to those features which are worth the tumult.

For refinements, probably a donation model is all that will work.

I think Sia has probably the most promising model now (separate the coin from the project funding with a second token backed by a dedicated revenue stream), but that's still a work in progress so we'll see.

If the protocol is open to all to use and they don't have controlling entity status, then the profit margins should be driven towards 0 by competition unless control can be centralized. So any sort of revenue model seems to be the antithesis of decentralized, uncontrolled, and legal under securities law.

Excuse the poor quality of the last 3 posts. I am droopy eyes. Zzzzz.

What I meant earlier by "not have to trust" is that no one controls the protocol, so it would live on indefinitely as decentralized for as long as there remain coins and demand/use for them.

[cryptodromeda]

Perhaps you invested in Ethereum and Monero with their large teams and are sitting on 10 bagger gains?

Maybe. But I also remember Wolong's Pandacoin.

While he may be considered a risable individual now, at the time he commanded a strong-enough ego to be taken seriously as an investment - particularly following the rise of Doge.

And look what happened: He threw a hissy-fit, declared something along the lines of "The world doesn't understand my genius!" and therafter purposefully crashed the coin down to 1 satoshi.

So as an investor I'd be paying close attention to your personality flaws.

[TPTB_need_war]

Perhaps you invested in Ethereum and Monero with their large teams and are sitting on 10 bagger gains?

Maybe. But I also remember Wolong's Pandacoin.

While he may be considered a risable individual now, at the time he commanded a strong-enough ego to be taken seriously as an investment - particularly following the rise of Doge.

And look what happened: He threw a hissy-fit, declared something along the lines of "The world doesn't understand my genius!" and therafter purposefully crashed the coin down to 1 satoshi.

So as an investor I'd be paying close attention to your personality flaws.

Was the coin not running live before he got paid?

If the coin was running, why couldn't the community keep it running?

The point is the developer should not be in a position to do that. That is why I mentioned crowdfunding where investors' funds are in escrow and get returned by the trusted escrow agent if the thresholds and deadlines are not met.

Crowdfunding for the first version of a coin seems like a solid idea. Upgrades after that which are troubling me. Trying to think of a good solution for that.

[smooth]

I think Sia has probably the most promising model now (separate the coin from the project funding with a second token backed by a dedicated revenue stream), but that's still a work in progress so we'll see.

If the protocol is open to all to use and they don't have controlling entity status, then the profit margins should be driven towards 0 by competition unless control can be centralized. So any sort of revenue model seems to be the antithesis of decentralized, uncontrolled, and legal under securities law.

It is open source (I think), so anyone can fork it and compete. In that sense it is similar to Boolberry's mining payments to developer feature, or a premine. Anyone can fork it but if you want to use the original network (i.e. the developer created useful network effects) you are going to pay the developer.

As far as securities law, you would have to ask them. I do know there are some differing opinions (by which I mean actual professionally researched legal opinions) about what sorts of coin structures are legal. I have no idea if they are going that route or just ignoring the law.

What I meant earlier by "not have to trust" is that no one controls the protocol, so it would live on indefinitely as decentralized for as long as their some coins and demand/use for them.

That kind of seems to be the case with Boolberry. For a long time the developer was almost entirely absent (and is still mostly absent), yet while no serious technical obstacles exist, there was not really the incentive to fork it to remove the developer mining payments, so he's still getting them, and people continue to demand and use the coin, a little.

[smooth]

But why are you skeptical when some have raised a lot of money. And some coins have had huge gains from their launch price.

Because they have mostly failed as developments, and especially as you say for ongoing development. Huge gains don't constitute success from my perspective if it just means getting a big pump and then engaging in a long march toward zero while interest fades and the original promoters and developers move on to their next big score. Of course the final chapter has not been written on most of these coins, but the outline of the story seems to be the same for all (or at least most) of them.

For refinements, probably a donation model is all that will work.

Perhaps now you understand my support for Monero's model as an inclusive open source project, where there are donations in cash, but most donations are in kind (collaborative development by ecosystem stakeholders). It struggles at first by comparison with ICOs, instamines, etc. but if you care about staying power, it is hard to beat.

It is a proven model that successfully develops core software infrastructure and has many examples of projects that has succeeded for decades (including, for a shorter time so far, Bitcoin, which BTW, entirely dwarfs all the "successful" coin projects you cite). I don't know that there is another applicable model with a similar track record.

[TPTB_need_war]

After getting some sleep, I came to the realization that Shen's solution is strictly speaking less secure than mine and thus it remains "broken" in terms of strictly fulfilling the unlinkability requirement of the original Cryptonote white paper (see also this explanation). All along I knew there was something missing in Shen's design and the result of that is conflating outputs and inputs in the signature. But before now I wasn't able to realize exactly what is "broken" by his design. Now it comes clear to me.

Context:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3oi16k/ring_ct_for_monero_a_work_in_progress_comments/cw5h9s0

Specific post:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monero/comments/3oi16k/ring_ct_for_monero_a_work_in_progress_comments/cw67x1d

You only need >1 output if you are sending money to someone you previously received that same amount from

I understand this now. If you have used the more accurate word 'value' instead of 'output' then perhaps I would in my very sleepy state have noticed that you are referring to a 0 value on the basepoint H but the y value on the basepoint G which accompanies it will be non-zero. Thus masking z and the ring.

When I woke up with a fresh mind, I realized that your algorithms conflation of inputs and outputs is I think strictly speaking less secure because the hidden values (not the commitments which also include the fuzz of the key on the basepoint G) cross the ring orthogonally and can be linked! Thus you strictly speaking break the unlinkability requirement of Cryptonote. If an adversary is doing holistic block chain analysis knowing many outputs on the chain (see other white papers about holistic chain analysis on Bitcoin for example) and combining this with combinatorial analysis of the rings holistically across the block chain (remember I am the guy who pointed out the combinatorial unmasking risk for one-time rings to smooth who apparently raised the issue which got put into one of your Monero Labs Research reports), then the probability of unmasking cascade on the rings increases. Your algorithm treats the masking of the ring as orthogonal (due to basepoint G) to the masking of the sum of the values on the orthogonal basepoint H. So again I realized that my first realization that your design is missing something remains correct, because I am not only using two basepoints in my design but I am also using another epiphany in order to make the input and output values unlinkable, not just the unlinking input and output commitments.

Also I could rewrite your white paper in a way that every layman could understand the math. Your elucidation is fine for people who want to take the effort to assimilate all the little details of understanding how it all fits together equationally, but it is lacking a demystifying version of the explanation. Just feedback for you on how I would address this if I were releasing a coin and I wanted the market to thoroughly trust the technology.

I think it is wide cross-section of talent that gives me the edge here. I can not only compete with the math nerds (as I have demonstrated to myself by inventing an equivalent or better anonymity tech than you, although I must commend you that I learned a few new tricks from your white paper, thanks!) but I also know how to write for and market to a wider audience, as well I know how and enjoy programming across the gamut of programming tasks and have completed large million user products all by myself in the past.

I think this peer review interaction has been very instructive to me about my limitations and strengths, as well I learned some new things and hopefully also helped readers gain some understanding.

Cheers.

[TPTB_need_war]

I think Sia has probably the most promising model now (separate the coin from the project funding with a second token backed by a dedicated revenue stream), but that's still a work in progress so we'll see.

If the protocol is open to all to use and they don't have controlling entity status, then the profit margins should be driven towards 0 by competition unless control can be centralized. So any sort of revenue model seems to be the antithesis of decentralized, uncontrolled, and legal under securities law.

It is open source (I think), so anyone can fork it and compete. In that sense it is similar to Boolberry's mining payments to developer feature, or a premine. Anyone can fork it but if you want to use the original network (i.e. the developer created useful network effects) you are going to pay the developer.

Yeah I was thinking of the payouts to devs ongoing from mining debasement. All of these parasitic "features" can be removed by a competing forks, e.g. as Monero has apparently done to BBR. I don't dislike BBR's devs and competition, I am just talking about the reality of economics. The world will not agree to pay an ongoing fee that it doesn't have to pay, because the scale of the world is humongous so there is ample capital relative to demand for the technology to remove the ongoing fee from it via a fork. When we are talking about making a technology that can scale out to the world, then the only opportunity to make a profit is either adding services and products to the ecosystem or participating in the ramp up of the value via the adoption of (demand for) the asset.

As far as securities law, you would have to ask them. I do know there are some differing opinions (by which I mean actual professionally researched legal opinions) about what sorts of coin structures are legal. I have no idea if they are going that route or just ignoring the law.

One can form all the theories they want, but multi-national multiple-jeopardy is inherently rolling the dice on becoming a "convicted criminal".

Also even if one registers the securities (as Ethereum may or may not have done, I didn't check), this still doesn't stop the many nations from bringing civil and criminal cases against you due to varying interpretations of compliance.

Being a "controlling entity" in a widely adopted international security is in my opinion insane. And my father is a high-powered attorney, so hopefully the basic common sense of the way they think has rubbed off on me. You don't sweat the little things because contracts need to be fair, but you sure better sweat the unnecessary introduction of culpability within the scope of ill defined international securities law.

Also long-term investors and HODLers of coins in my view should also not be holding coins which have chosen the route of a "controlling entity" and sold coins or control a revenue stream from the coin (that is not an orthogonal product or service but integral to the control of the coin), which includes BitShares, Ethereum, and others. Sorry I don't want to want to express legal opinions on other coins, but users seem not to be aware or care that the G20 is rapidly getting organized on harmonizing their laws and enforcement and as we slide into the sovereign debt abyss a lot of angst and hunting for money is going to be accelerating. The bankrupted peoples are going to push the governments to be more proactive about going against all forms of illegality that deal in financial activities, since the people will always want to blame their problems on someone else who profited while they didn't.

Although it appears that Monero's core devs and cryptographer(s) are not a controlling entity because they never sold shares and they rely on donations, one could still fathom a legal argument made whereby it is shown the investors in Monero were relying on the capabilities, pronouncements, and activities of this ongoing group. The fact that this consistent core group responded to the BCX incident could be interpreted perhaps that they are a defacto controlling entity on the shares in the coin thus being a defacto company. But this will be much harder to prove, so I am not thinking this is likely.

For me, I'd much rather release a coin that runs on auto-pilot and managed by the community decentralized, and then just take occasional donations to refine any issues. If there are major improvements needed, then we need an upgrade model which is what we've been discussing (thank you).

The question is it possible to create a coin that runs on auto-pilot? Is Bitcoin running on auto-pilot other than bugs the core team fixed and the need to deal with the impending block size scaling issue?

What I meant earlier by "not have to trust" is that no one controls the protocol, so it would live on indefinitely as decentralized for as long as their some coins and demand/use for them.

That kind of seems to be the case with Boolberry. For a long time the developer was almost entirely absent (and is still mostly absent), yet while no serious technical obstacles exist, there was not really the incentive to fork it to remove the developer mining payments, so he's still getting them, and people continue to demand and use the coin, a little.

Interesting.

So coins can run on auto-pilot if well developed.

Boolberry is perhaps not able to run ahead of Monero, because it is perceived perhaps that all the features needed for a crypto coin are not done, and that Monero has more people working on it, thus Monero has a better chance of adding the features needed to become a large market cap.

I think if someone creates a totally new block chain tech that scales, that coin can run on auto-pilot and run ahead of many other coins that exist in the Top 10 on coinmarketcap.com

The key is choosing the feature set to focus on first wisely.

Then following that up with another upgrade to address any features not addressed in the first version (because you can't do everything at once and still be fast to market and auto-pilot mode with all major bugs fixed). The remaining issue is how to best do upgrades. My next post will continue on that aspect of our discussion.

Edit: another interesting thing is that if BBR's dev is no longer working on the coin, then even though he is receiving a revenue stream, then he is not really a controlling entity. Hmmm. That is another funding model in the sense that although the world can eventually remove that parasitic fee, if it is insignificant enough to motivate others to do so and for as long as the tech in that coin is more compelling than what the world has created otherwise, then that parasitic fee can sustain and if the dev is not working on that fork any more (after the initial crowdfund and delivery of debugged product), then there is an argument that he was never a controlling entity and only selling a product in exchange for an income and feature in the product.

[rdnkjdi]

And most of all, remember the victors go to those who bet correctly, with the most discernment. The greatest gains for speculators on altcoins have come from the coins created by one or two guys, e.g. DogeCoin, Litecoin, BitsharesX. Maybe because creativity doesn't come from large teams, but rather from individuals. Perhaps you invested in Ethereum and Monero with their large teams and are sitting on 10 bagger gains?

You are saying Dogecoin and Litecoin are more creative / innovative than Ethereum and Monero?

Successful sustained projects, innovation, and early adopters getting rich are all three are completely different things and they don't have to go hand in hand.  In crypospace I would say they have never gone hand in hand outside of bitcoin.

The devs of Monero seem to be more interested in capitalizing on the first priority I mentioned at the expense of the latter two.  Ethereum - on the second and third priority (although replace early adopters with "Foundation Members").  Dogecoin and Litecoin defiantly have primarily the third priority.

If your primary motivation is raising $25,000 I would heavily suggest doing a presale and launching an imperfect coin.  That's 100 bitcoins - way more has been raised for way less.  If the first project dies (hell you can even plan on it dying and still be less of a scam than 90% of the projects around here), then integrate your tech into Monero or Darkcoin or whatever you perceive the leading privacy coin is with best chance at mass adoption.

You get your health issue fixed, early adopters double their money dumping on the heads of noobs, you have the energy to move your tech into a legit project.  I'm not interested in investing but I am interested in coming up with some type of solution that drives innovation forward.

[TPTB_need_war]

And most of all, remember the victors go to those who bet correctly, with the most discernment. The greatest gains for speculators on altcoins have come from the coins created by one or two guys, e.g. DogeCoin, Litecoin, BitsharesX. Maybe because creativity doesn't come from large teams, but rather from individuals. Perhaps you invested in Ethereum and Monero with their large teams and are sitting on 10 bagger gains?

You are saying Dogecoin and Litecoin are more creative / innovative than Ethereum and Monero?

Successful sustained projects, innovation, and early adopters getting rich are all three are completely different things and they don't have to go hand in hand.  In crypospace I would say they have never gone hand in hand outside of bitcoin.

I am observing that for those speculators who were buying/mining coins at the IPO, the flexibility, nimbleness, K.I.S.S., and low overhead of small development teams has trumped the large teams thus far in terms of payoff for the early adopters. Bitcoin was developed by one entity "Satoshi Nakamoto" (if he was one person or not we don't know).

As for innovation, all those were innovative at least is some facet (e.g. marketing for Dogecoin, and Scrypt hash mining for Litecoin), including Ethereum and Cryptonote, but Ethereum's inability to master all the technical details (and mired for months in expanding complexity of research) combined with their very bloated IPO valuation, in my and others' opinion makes it very unlikely most early adopters will see very large ROI. Monero in my opinion suffers from lack of momentum, because Cryptonote is not a technically complete solution to using something as a currency nor even complete for anonymity even though they tried by integrating I2P and now Shen's anonymity improvement coming (and noting anonymity being a smaller subset of the feature of being a currency as r0ach and Fuserleer pointed out). Anonymity is very difficult to complete and perfect (maybe impossible, but certainly a huge task relative to the fewer number of people who realize they really, really need that feature). I am not giving up on anonymity and I'd still like the best it can be, but I have to put my marketing hat on make priorities. What is odd for Monero is the first listing for market cap is $2 million and the highest is $6 million. Was there no way to trade XMR during the earliest days of mining so we can know the price of attaining it at its earliest adopter juncture? Monero had a very fast mining curve, so those who mined at the very start would have gotten more coins more cheaply than those mined by the time exchanges for it were ready. It appears the only way to have gotten rich speculating in Monero thus far was to have mined it very, very early. Hmmm. What does that potentially say about those devs who claim to have lost money on Monero? Where they not able to obtain Monero very cheaply in the early weeks of mining? Did they not sell the coins at much higher prices? I have not done the forensic research.

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/monero/

Compare to Dash (DarkCoin's) rise from near $1 million to $53 million marketcap:

http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/dash/

Why? Because Dash was first on anonymity? They were expert on marketing? Many early adopters had cheap coins to promote? Was the dev or some vested group selling the premine at the start to hold the price down and then hitting the ask sometimes on the way up helping to drive the speculative frenzy?

So I guess what I am observing is unless the coin is Bitcoin thus having the perception that the entire world is entering your ecosystem, then your coin is going to suffer from a boom and bust. If your tech can cross the Rubicon and seriously take on Bitcoin in terms of ecosystem adoption, then maybe you have a shot of rising up to that perception level (and actual network effects with perception being one of the effects). But other than perhaps Ripple (and maybe Nxt briefly or still amongst their large base of supporters?), I don't think any altcoin has gotten near to that widespread perception even for a brief moment. Litecoin was always a bet on gold/silver arbitrage, most everyone did not seriously expected it to overtake Bitcoin because it didn't really offer any compelling reason it would. Afaik, it's strong adoption came when ASICs arrived for Bitcoin and GPUs needed a coin to mine.

There appears to be strong correlation with being the first to present a hot new feature, e.g. Dogecoin with social networking, Litecoin with GPU mining (as Bitcoin lost it), Dash with anonymity, BitShares and Mastercoin with assets and features on block chain other than currency, Ripple with a totally different model, Peercoin with PoS, Nxt with building an ecosystem of developments around PoS. Ethereum on the generalized scripting of a block chain, but they never got the tech truly solved and their valuation was bloated from the start. Another point of evidence is that in spite of being technically superior Monero has had a difficult time selling the concept that on chain ring anonymity is superior to Dash and overtake Dash's market cap. They've had to try to correct people in other threads to try to get that point across, and I bet they feel like, "we have the higher intellectual tech, so why aren't we fully appreciated? Because there are scammers out there who fool the users". And thus they went on an anti-scammer cruscade at one point (but all this seems to have died down and they focus on their own threads now).

As for sustainability, none of those new features appears have been the killer feature that enabled challenging Bitcoin. And the follow through of implementation of their core features has been incomplete.

What I would propose is to create new coin with the killer feature that challenges Bitcoin specifically block chain scaling. And I would propose to focus on a core set of features and then find some way to follow it up with an upgrade, while letting the first version run on auto-pilot after delivering the debugged product and being paid then.

This is what I am contemplating now. Feedback is very much appreciated.

P.S. my health has been doing well past days especially considering the two all-nighters I should not have done. Hopefully soon I can shut up and code, so I can not get off on long tangents in these forums that cause me to lose any sense of time, lol.

[child_harold]

Without doubt the most fascinating thread I've ever read on BCT.

As somebody who has macheted (sabered) his way through the jungle of Cryptnote and walked the hallowed halls of the Church of Monero it was always known to me the day would come that we went beyond Cryptonote. Now it would seem there are two different parties working at this more complete Zero Knowledge crypto.

Much of what is said here goes above my head even though I'm aware of the significance. I wish all parties the best of luck in their endeavors, for the betterment of society and man.

TPTB's work should show other crypto-currencies (you know who you are) the importance of a strong whitepaper which certainly since Satoshi we should realize can change the world in and of itself. I cannot wait to learn more about TPTB's epiphany as best I can.

Question: Is the work of TPTB and/or Shen/gmaxwell intended to improve the Cryptonote protocol or can this tech be used on a BTC side-chain or blockchain too? Is it designed to be built on top of the CN protocol or does it stand alone?

Many many thanks for this mind-blowing thread. Satoshi might well be reading this so "Hi, Satoshi!".

In Crypto We Trust.

[rdnkjdi]

Here is where we disagree on what made early adopters rich (which I believe at its core was about supply and demand ... Not innovation that kicked bitcoins ass)

Litecoin was successful because there was a "demand" for a bitcoin backup in case something went horribly wrong with the network and early adopters who had money wanted to diversify.  In combination with this there was a demand to anonymize by obscurity (there is a reason why the biggest litecoin exchange is anonymous and requires no identity verification).  I think this is a better method and more widely used than coin mixing services.   For it to work it needed liquidity which early bitcoiners wanting to cash out brought to the table.

I disagree with the scrypt / decentralization as being much of an innovation.  It failed when GPUs replaced CPUs and then again when ASICs replaced GPUs - litecoin failed to follow its decentralizion innovation very intentionally.  And the wealth in litecoin did not move into what tried to carry on it's original intention (Scrypt-N / Vertcoin & X11 / Darkcoin)

The reason Darkcoin succeeded was due to the masternode method of tying up 50% of the coins and cutting down emissions to a fraction of what was originally planned to limit supply.

Dogecoin I agree had the most innovation with marketing.

But (correct me if I'm wrong) the marketplace is full of innovation that takes crypto well beyond Bitcoin.  Monero / cryptonote wipes it's ass with anonomization and supporting a dynamic block size out of the gate (what Bitcoin has been fighting over for years).  Cryptonite fixes the blockchain size / bandwidth issues.   Ethereum provides a programmable blockchain and has much better transaction time and ongoing development than Bitcoin.  I would argue the talent they've brought in from outside of altcoin world greatly exceeds bitcoins (and the same might be said for Monero).  I do agree that scope creep and mismanagement is 90% likely to kill the project.

I guess my point is that the pattern of getting rich for early adopters has much less to do with innovation and market penetration (compare Monero and Darkcoin) than making sure supply is much lower than demand.  The most successful projects judged by making early adopters money are the least innovative (Darkcoin vs Monero, Litecoin vs Vertcoin or Cryptonite, Dogecoin ... Maybe it doesn't have an equivalent etc.). Innovation is divorced from payoff in this space.

[TPTB_need_war]

the importance of a strong whitepaper

That would correlate to my point in my prior post that Monero had a difficult time selling that their tech was superior enough to Dash that Monero could overtake Dash's "first mover" momentum on the feature of anonymity. But I am not sure a layman's white paper would have overcome that Dash was "first mover".

How many investors actually understand the math in the Cryptonote paper? I'd guess almost none of them. This is another problem with making anonymity the main focus of a coin right now. Very difficult to educate the users as to what is important. But this new hiding of values along with rings to hide sender, is perhaps a new frontier for anonymity. But who will explain to newbies so they understand well. I know I can, but I am also not sure if anonymity should be my first priority. I think block chain scaling is #1 for me. For Monero and Dash, they need to protect their market share on the anonymity feature, so they have more incentive to make it a #1 priority.

Question: Is the work of TPTB and/or Shen/gmaxwell intended to improve the Cryptonote protocol or can this tech be used on a BTC side-chain or blockchain too? Is it designed to be built on top of the CN protocol or does it stand alone?

It can be implemented on any coin that wants to implement it and has UXTO. Will probably be a hard fork and the entire ecosystem has to be upgraded, so it is surely a non-starter for Bitcoin. Only those few coins that have a balances-only design would be technically ineligible.

Note Cryptonote is a technology that can be added to nearly any coin that manages UXTO. But CN required extra wallet complexity because the values are not hidden so the powers-of-10 balances need to be employed. Whereas this new improvement hides values, so that complexity of power-of-10 balances is removed.

Satoshi might well be reading this so "Hi, Satoshi!".

Surprisingly I didn't think of that. I must be too focused on trying to find my direction.