Is a stampede for DASH Masternode redemption about to begin?

[TechorMarketing]

GET TO DA CHOPPA!!!!  
  
But seriously, any of these people are welcome to come support Monero.  We don't have masternodes or built-in profit schemes, but we do offer the most esteemed cryptography in any blockchain coupled with a passionate and welcoming community.  No rivalries will be held over anyone's head - all are welcome in our tent.

It appears as if the inevitable time may finally be nearing. I would like to take this moment to graciously welcome new members to the Monero community.

[1715028089]

1715028089

[TechorMarketing]

Is it almost time? Any trends developing? How does everyone feel about the situation?

Feeling good about long term prospects for your Masternodes or not?

[bbc.reporter]

For me the current price trend of Dash is not so good. If you look closely you could clearly see that it is starting to drop slowly. Also the price of bitcoin starting to rise will not help. I would wait for this to go down and buy at a better price.

[iCEBREAKER]

Is it almost time? Any trends developing? How does everyone feel about the situation?

Feeling good about long term prospects for your Masternodes or not?

DASH just got outclassed by Monero, first in terms of market cap (even though Dash's is faked with exaggeration) then in terms of price per coin.

DASH just got banned from the Apple store, probably for being an illegal unregistered security.

Relevant XPOST (that the DashHoles are loathe to discuss):

Dash is still trying to decide whether or not to perform the due diligence that should have been done before launching the project.

Cite:

Proposal: Legal (September)

https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/proposal-legal-sept.10457/

1) Legal opinion on the treatment of masternode block rewards under the Internal Revenue Code
a. Whether they are treated similarly to mining rewards, interest, or other tax treatment
b. Tax treatment of the initial collateral “investment”​

2) Liability of masternode owners for the transactions they facilitate
a. Whether masternode owners may be responsible for criminal activities connected with transactions they facilitate
b. If so, under what circumstances
c. Whether participation in “mixing” services might give rise to criminal liability
d. If so, under what circumstances​

3) Liability of exchanges that support Dash transactions and guidelines on meeting existing compliance
a. Whether an exchange might be held liable for criminal activity associated with PrivateSend transactions​

Jaxx should have known better, but they were bribed by Evan to add Dash.

It's been clear for years the Dash Masternode HYIP is an unregistered illegal investment security, and it's not surprising Apple is swinging the banhammer.

the SEC will be coming after you eventually for very clearly running an unregistered illegal investment security (and you come from the finance world so you know very well that you are skirting the securities law). Hope you've paid off the regulators with the $million you mined from the gullible speculators in crypto. Personally I don't see how it has been worth it. The $million you've perhaps pocketed will never sustain you to be rich for the rest of your life, and you will constantly have hanging over your head the threat of SEC action at any time in the future. That is criminal liability in exchange for $million. Not worth it. You are nearing the end of the road for your run.

I have studied the SEC regulations and all these marketing to speculators is clearly a violation of the Howey test for being an unregistered illegal investment security. It doesn't matter how you've obfuscated it by pretending the masternodes are in control, the Supreme Court has consistently said that the test overlooks any attempts to obfuscate the economic reality of the situation. Then on top of that is the evidence of deception with the premine and the advertised money supply protocol being altered ex post facto, etc.

And afaik you are a USA citizen, so thus you incur the maximum culpability.

[newb4now]

At first I think masternode redemption's may be slow (we are still in the denial phase where many cult members still think that DASH tech is innovative and valuable). That means there may still be plenty of time to get out without significant losses.

However the last people to sell their masternodes could get badly hurt. Hopefully those parties have not put a large percentage of their assets into DASH

[ArticMine]

...

DASH just got banned from the Apple store, probably for being an illegal unregistered security.
...

I have to disagree with this. I actually consider being banned by Apple to be very honourable and also bullish for Dash.

The whole premise of the Apple IOS model is taking all of human knowledge and placing it before a censorship board operated by Big Brother (Apple). Big Brother then decides what the citizens of Oceania (iSheep) may use, view or listen to. This is all enforced by the Ministry of Truth (DRM) with severe punishments for those who seek knowledge not approved by the Ministry of Truth (United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and similar laws against circumvention of technological protection measures worldwide). The one thing George Orwell got wrong in 1984 is that people were not carrying the telescreens in their pockets.

Thankfully freedom is slowly winning over tyranny. In 2011 IOS had 60% of the mobile market. Now it has dropped to 27%. https://www.netmarketshare.com/.

To the Dash community I have one message:  Wear your Apple ban with honour. It is something to be proud of, not ashamed of.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I. The real Big Brother will appear at the very end.

[iCEBREAKER]

...

DASH just got banned from the Apple store, probably for being an illegal unregistered security.
...

I have to disagree with this. I actually consider being banned by Apple to be very honourable and also bullish for Dash.

The whole premise of the Apple IOS model is taking all of human knowledge and placing it before a censorship board operated by Big Brother (Apple). Big Brother then decides what the citizens of Oceania (iSheep) may use, view or listen to. This is all enforced by the Ministry of Truth (DRM) with severe punishments for those who seek knowledge not approved by the Ministry of Truth (United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and similar laws against circumvention of technological protection measures worldwide). The one thing George Orwell got wrong in 1984 is that people were not carrying the telescreens in their pockets.

Thankfully freedom is slowly winning over tyranny. In 2011 IOS had 60% of the mobile market. Now it has dropped to 27%. https://www.netmarketshare.com/.

To the Dash community I have one message:  Wear your Apple ban with honour. It is something to be proud of, not ashamed of.

Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I. The real Big Brother will appear at the very end.

So when Apple likewise bans fake Bitcoin wallets and other Dash-type malware/scamware from its walled garden, is that also a jackboot stomping on the face of humanity forever?

Perhaps we should nationalize Apple, and make it for faaaair for every dev whose software did not meet the quality control requirements Apple enforces on behalf of its customers.

And why should people even be allowed to have the option of buying, owning, and using Apple products, when their corporate practices are such anathema to our fundamental common values as a species sharing a small blue dot (   *SOB SOB SOB*  ).

This a perfect example of market failure, which requires government intervention.

There should be a law requiring everyone to use Android instead.  Because Freedom^®.

We need the strictest measures possible to stop this company from selling things to the mindless bourgeois consumers who want to buy and use them.

I modestly propose all federal, state, and local officials (even teachers) be given shoot-on-sight orders with regard to Apple users.

We shall not tolerate Apple's malignant oppression one moment longer!  Forward, Soviets!

[ArticMine]

Di Iorio then speaks with a representative of the company a couple days later. He’s informed Apple should not have approved Jaxx wallet featuring Dash functions and they don’t approve of Dash, a blockchain some tout as hosting solutions to some of the Ethereum blockchain’s shortcomings. During the unexpected conversation, Di Iorio learned which crypto-currencies Apple approves: Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, the DAO and Ripple. Apple was “tight-lipped” about their reasoning. Di Iorio sprung into action.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/apple-dash-dashpay/

Yes The DAO is currently approved by the Big Brother (Apple) censorship board. The very same DAO that was so poorly coded, that it was hacked and drained of over 100 million USD worth of Ethereum.  The very same DAO that led to the ETH / ETC fork. The very same DAO that has been forked out of existence by the ETH / ETC fork. Need one say more.

As for the Soviet Union it suffered that same fate that Apple will face for essentially the same reasons. The requirement to get permission in order to innovate and either banning or heavily taxing any form of innovation or entrepreneurship. A 30% tax on gross sales is a brutal way to tax a business.

[iCEBREAKER]

Di Iorio then speaks with a representative of the company a couple days later. He’s informed Apple should not have approved Jaxx wallet featuring Dash functions and they don’t approve of Dash, a blockchain some tout as hosting solutions to some of the Ethereum blockchain’s shortcomings. During the unexpected conversation, Di Iorio learned which crypto-currencies Apple approves: Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, the DAO and Ripple. Apple was “tight-lipped” about their reasoning. Di Iorio sprung into action.

https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/apple-dash-dashpay/

Yes The DAO is currently approved by the Big Brother (Apple) censorship board. The very same DAO that was so poorly coded, that it was hacked and drained of over 100 million USD worth of Ethereum.  The very same DAO that led to the ETH / ETC fork. The very same DAO that has been forked out of existence by the ETH / ETC fork. Need one say more.

As for the Soviet Union it suffered that same fate that Apple will face for essentially the same reasons. The requirement to get permission in order to innovate and either banning or heavily taxing any form of innovation or entrepreneurship. A 30% tax on gross sales is a brutal way to tax a business.

Yawn.  Wake me up when Apple has a monopoly not only on overpriced gimmicky watches, mp3 players, phones, and apps, but also on the use of force in a geographical area.

When the walls of Apple's curated garden have watchtowers staffed with armed guards to prevent defections, your tortured, hyperbolic analogy will be more apt and a less self-pitying, maudlin overstretch of metaphorical inference.

Until then:

Don't like Apple?  Don't use Apple.  Problem solved!

All of this "Apple is worse than Stalin  " crap is just a cute way of sidestepping the letter of Godwin's Law, while violating the spirit.

And this is coming from someone who despises Apple and everything they stand for (but still respects free markets).

Wandering back within the narrow confines of the thread's topic, Apple's top shelf legal dept. determined Dash's Masternode HYIP and centralized governance structure almost certainly run afoul of the Howey test.

Apple doesn't need the liability of hosting illegal unregistered securities, so Dash got thrown out.

It's really not that complicated.

No need to get cranky and start grinding the old saw of longstanding anti-Apple/DRM/The Man/Babylon System/neoimperialism butthurt; especially when it distracts and deflects from the OP.

[ArticMine]

...

When the walls of Apple's curated garden have watchtowers staffed with armed guards to prevent defections, your tortured, hyperbolic analogy will be more apt and a less self-pitying, maudlin overstretch of metaphorical inference.

...

They do:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1204 United States

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/technology/09steal.html?_r=1&oref=slogin France

[iCEBREAKER]

...

When the walls of Apple's curated garden have watchtowers staffed with armed guards to prevent defections, your tortured, hyperbolic analogy will be more apt and a less self-pitying, maudlin overstretch of metaphorical inference.

...

They are:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1204 United States

So every individual or company that enjoys the (Constitutionally mandated) protection of their intellectual propery is As Bad As Stalin?

There's the tortured, hyperbolic "ZOMG STASI" analogy I was talking about again.   

That's beyond a mere stretch; you're getting well into advanced conceptual yoga....

If you want to abolish copyright, trademark, and patents, work with the Pirate Party and pass an amendment.

Good luck with that, especially if you insist on using Dash as the martyed poster child for your "Freedom To Scam" campaign.   

[ArticMine]

...

So every individual or company that enjoys the (Constitutionally mandated) protection of their intellectual propery is As Bad As Stalin?

,,,

Or worse. In the digital age one actually needs that level or worse of oppression to actually enforce "protection of intellectual property" against end users.

Copyright itself is not the issue. It is when companies attempt to forcibly prevent others from infringing copyright.

Edit 1: I did not choose Dash as the martyr, Apple did.
Edit 2: When standing up for freedom, it is especially important to stand up in cases where one may not be particularly sympathetic to the victim.

[iCEBREAKER]

...

So every individual or company that enjoys the (Constitutionally mandated) protection of their intellectual propery is As Bad As Stalin?

,,,

Or worse. In the digital age one actually needs that level or worse of oppression to actually enforce "protection of intellectual property" against end users.

Copyright itself is not the issue. It is when companies attempt to forcibly prevent others from infringing copyright.

Edit 1: I did not choose Dash as the martyr, Apple did.
Edit 2: When standing up for freedom, it is especially important to stand up in cases where one may not be particularly sympathetic to the victim.

Apple didn't make Dash run afoul of security regulations, which BTW have nothing to do with your DRM bugbear.

Please explain why it is in Apple's interests or within its obligations to provide a platform and thus incur liability for scamcoins which fail the Howey test.

Must Apple be completely content agnostic, and open their walled garden to every fake Bitcoin wallet and OneCoin type HYIP that wants access to their customers, who are paying a premium for the curation which provies a superior user experience?

[ArticMine]

...

Apple didn't make Dash run afoul of security regulations, which BTW have nothing to do with your DRM bugbear.

Please explain why it is in Apple's interests or within its obligations to provide a platform and thus incur liability for scamcoins which fail the Howey test.

Must Apple be completely content agnostic, and open their walled garden to every fake Bitcoin wallet and OneCoin type HYIP that wants access to their customers, who are paying a premium for the curation which provies a superior user experience?

Apple can curate their store all they want. There is nothing wrong with that.

What I find particularly reprehensible and Orwellian is that Apple goes out of its way to prevent the users of the devices they sold and no longer own from obtaining applications form other stores or directly from the application developers.

If an end user wants a store curated by Apple then they can choose to only obtain their software from Apple's store; however if an end user wishes to obtain software from other stores or sources for the devices they own then that is their right.

When it comes to their own store of course Apple should not be agnostic, but when it comes to devices they sold and no longer own, then it is simply non of their business what software the new owners of those devices choose to run or not to run on those devices. The question of a particular piece of software being a scam or not is completely irrelevant in the latter case.  

Edit 1: What part of centuries old concept of private ownership of property is so hard to understand here?
Edit 2: Preventing the new owners of the devices from obtaining their applications from any source they so choose, actually creates a situation where Apple is always in the wrong with respect to their own store. This happens when choosing to list or not list an application on their store because in many cases it can be both inappropriate for Apple to list an application, and also inappropriate to censor an application by not listing it.

[iCEBREAKER]

...

Apple didn't make Dash run afoul of security regulations, which BTW have nothing to do with your DRM bugbear.

Please explain why it is in Apple's interests or within its obligations to provide a platform and thus incur liability for scamcoins which fail the Howey test.

Must Apple be completely content agnostic, and open their walled garden to every fake Bitcoin wallet and OneCoin type HYIP that wants access to their customers, who are paying a premium for the curation which provies a superior user experience?

Apple can curate their store all they want. There is nothing wrong with that.

What I find particularly reprehensible and Orwellian is that Apple goes out of its way to prevent the users of the devices they sold and no longer own from obtaining applications form other stores or directly from the application developers.

If an end user wants a store curated by Apple then they can choose to only obtain their software from Apple's store; however if an end user wishes to obtain software from other stores or sources for the devices they own then that is their right.

When it comes to their own store of course Apple should not be agnostic, but when it comes to devices they sold and no longer own, then it is simply non of their business what software the new owners of those devices choose to run or not to run on those devices. The question of a particular piece of software being a scam or not is completely irrelevant in the latter case.  

Edit 1: What part of centuries old concept of private ownership of property is so hard to understand here?
Edit 2: Preventing the new owners of the devices from obtaining their applications from any source they so choose, actually creates a situation where Apple is always in the wrong with respect to their own store. This happens when choosing to list or not list an application on their store because in many cases it can be both inappropriate for Apple to list an application, and also inappropriate to censor an application by not listing it.

Apple's trendy, status-seeking customers may own the hardware, but they AFAIK only license the OS software.  Otherwise Apple could charge them for updates and eschew responsibility for shipping bug patches to the as is/caveat emptor product.

Legality aside, I have no issue with the ethics of those who preserve their freedom to tinker by ignoring Apple's arguably abusive TOS.  If you want to make a compatible "clean room" FOSS replacement for iOS equivalent to Android's Cyanogen project, I might even donate XMR in support of the effort.

You and I may strenuously disagree with Apple's decision to create tension with the age old first-sale doctrine, but we are free to refuse to give them our business (and speak often and loudly to encourage others to refrain from doing so as well).

Put another way, it would be even more authoritarian if we made the government(s) big enough to force Apple to do what ArcticMine, rather than Tim Cook, prefers in their course of private enterprise.

Notice the free market is already punishing Apple's approach by taking away swaths of their market share and giving it to competitors.

None of this navel-gazing about whether or not the AppStore should disappear in a puff of logic and justice has one iota of relevance to Dash Masternodes failing the Howey test, and thus creating a situation where Apple could be sued by the SEC (for obvious reasons) and their own investors (for incompetence or malpractice or whatever you call it when executives ignore their lawyers and thus destroy value).

[dinofelis]

Apple's trendy, status-seeking customers may own the hardware, but they AFAIK only license the OS software.  Otherwise Apple could charge them for updates and eschew responsibility for shipping bug patches to the as is/caveat emptor product.

Legality aside, I have no issue with the ethics of those who preserve their freedom to tinker by ignoring Apple's arguably abusive TOS.  If you want to make a compatible "clean room" FOSS replacement for iOS equivalent to Android's Cyanogen project, I might even donate XMR in support of the effort.

I understood that Cyanogen has abided up to a certain point to Google's requirements, for them to be able to legally access the Google Play Store.  They got a cease-and-desist letter from Google that if they wanted to write tools that accessed Google's stuff, they had to comply to certain requirements by Google.  I don't know exactly which ones, but that sounds somewhat like if Linux/GNU wanted to continue to distribute WINE, they should agree to certain kernel requirements by Microsoft.

So Cyanogen is not so FOSS as you may think (this also comes about because the Cyanogen main dev now has his own business, selling Cyanogen).

I don't know the terms they accepted.  If this is security-related (if Google wants to have its hands on certain privacy related aspects), then this would seriously annoy me.  If it are just some technicalities not to screw up Google's store, then I can understand.

In any case, DRM and freedom are not compatible.  Intellectual property and freedom are not even compatible. 

Notice the free market is already punishing Apple's approach by taking away swaths of their market share and giving it to competitors.

I think that a weak point in all this FOSS/liberty thing is the propriety hardware.  In the end, the code can be free, but you're linked to propriety hardware of which part of its functioning is unclear.  And in as much as a small set of people around the world can develop software, it is quite difficult to do the same with hardware, where you need big, and centralized, investment (not just time and competence, but real material stuff: a factory).  Maybe FPGA are an answer, but this is slow hardware.

None of this navel-gazing about whether or not the AppStore should disappear in a puff of logic and justice has one iota of relevance to Dash Masternodes failing the Howey test, and thus creating a situation where Apple could be sued by the SEC (for obvious reasons) and their own investors (for incompetence or malpractice or whatever you call it when executives ignore their lawyers and thus destroy value).

I'm still not sure whether THIS is the reason (the real reason, not necessarily the announced reason).  It might just be a matter of image and "we're a law abiding company that stays away from dark net stuff".  The real test would be whether Apple accepts monero to be taken up, or zcash.  Then this would be cleared out.  If monero is refused also, it is because Apple doesn't want to be associated with the "dark net anonymity" image.  If monero is accepted, your explanation might very well be true.  But I suspect that Apple is rather "corporate", and wants to give a public impression of law abiding.
It depends on what the majority of their customers think.  As any company should care about.

[iCEBREAKER]

None of this navel-gazing about whether or not the AppStore should disappear in a puff of logic and justice has one iota of relevance to Dash Masternodes failing the Howey test, and thus creating a situation where Apple could be sued by the SEC (for obvious reasons) and their own investors (for incompetence or malpractice or whatever you call it when executives ignore their lawyers and thus destroy value).

I'm still not sure whether THIS is the reason (the real reason, not necessarily the announced reason).  It might just be a matter of image and "we're a law abiding company that stays away from dark net stuff".  The real test would be whether Apple accepts monero to be taken up, or zcash.  Then this would be cleared out.  If monero is refused also, it is because Apple doesn't want to be associated with the "dark net anonymity" image.  If monero is accepted, your explanation might very well be true.  But I suspect that Apple is rather "corporate", and wants to give a public impression of law abiding.

It depends on what the majority of their customers think.  As any company should care about.

If Apple didn't want to taint their law-abiding image, they would have never allowed Bitcoin anything to begin with.

Monero's recent massive relative gains aside, I'm fairly certain ~95% of "dark net stuff" commerce is conducted using Bitcoin, which due to orders-of-magnitude higher numbers of CoinJoin, etc. participants offers "dark net anonymity" far superior to Dash's unusably slow, obscure, lightly used DarkSend feature.

But you did specify that "image" may be Apple's (illogical) concern, so my response there is that the godawful optics of Dash's well known instamine scandal and Ponzi-like Masternode HYIP should fairly dominate any trace of DNM association left from the Darkcoin days (when only one or two sites briefly experimented with adoption).

Perhaps we'll find out more when Dash finally gets around to performing the legal due diligence which should have been done at the very start of the project, or at the very least before introducing Masternodes (complete with a table of absurdly high ROI figures).

[dinofelis]

If Apple didn't want to taint their law-abiding image, they would have never allowed Bitcoin anything to begin with.

Monero's recent massive relative gains aside, I'm fairly certain ~95% of "dark net stuff" commerce is conducted using Bitcoin, which due to orders-of-magnitude higher numbers of CoinJoin, etc. participants offers "dark net anonymity" far superior to Dash's unusably slow, obscure, lightly used DarkSend feature.

But you did specify that "image" may be Apple's (illogical) concern, so my response there is that the godawful optics of Dash's well known instamine scandal and Ponzi-like Masternode HYIP should fairly dominate any trace of DNM association left from the Darkcoin days (when only one or two sites briefly experimented with adoption).

It is of course all about "image", not about reality.  I think that bitcoin's image is now "clean" - even though you're right that most of the real use of bitcoin is probably still in the legal grey zone ; however, most of its market cap, transactions, and "news" is now "clean, corporate, and high finance", and the "dark net usage" is not the dominant image any more.  One even has an answer: "look at Silk Road: bitcoin is a transparent ledger, and some silly goons that thought they could conduct illegal business with it have been caught by the FBI - so bitcoin is not suited for illegal stuff, even though some idiots still use it that way, and will get caught". (which is, BTW, factually correct)

Also, Apple's image has to be a bit, a slightly bit, rebellion, but within the confines of the law.  We've seen this with the ridiculous battle over that iphone that Tim Cook didn't want to provide with a hacked iOS to be able for the FBI to unlock it.  It is good to defend "privacy" for Apple's image, but it is not good to be associated too much with the Dark Web.

I think bitcoin's image fits perfectly in there.  Ethereum too.  It is accepted by the corporate world, and it even gets legal ground (think of the bitcoin licenses and other legalese that starts to emerge in the US, in the EU, and other places).

So bitcoin is sufficiently "rebel" and legal enough to fit perfectly in Apple's image.  But anonymous coins, I'm not sure. (independent of the true cryptographic and OPSEC anonymity provided: we're talking image only).

[bbc.reporter]

@dinofelis. Apple has lost their "rebel" image a very long time ago when they became one of the largest companies during the 1980's. It would be naive to think that they are still for the people and the downtrodden. If they really were they should stop using poor Chinese workers and giving them very low wages plus poor working conditions.

Also if Apple was really on the edge and a "rebel", they would have embraced the idea of bitcoin from the very beginning. Too bad they were busy counting their money.

[dinofelis]

@dinofelis. Apple has lost their "rebel" image a very long time ago when they became one of the largest companies during the 1980's. It would be naive to think that they are still for the people and the downtrodden. If they really were they should stop using poor Chinese workers and giving them very low wages plus poor working conditions.

Also if Apple was really on the edge and a "rebel", they would have embraced the idea of bitcoin from the very beginning. Too bad they were busy counting their money.

I was talking about "image" not about "intend"

You can be in reality a greedy corporate bastard walking on corpses for a dime more profit and colluding with all TPTB, and still have an underdog rebel image that you cultivate carefully with professionally done communication amongst the gullible Brave New World crowd.