Current Crypto-Currency Analysis

[twelph]

Current Analysis Relating to Diversification of Funds Within Crypto-Currencies.
Ordered by priority.
 
1) Bitcoin(BTC) - Use as most stable store of wealth and to purchase goods. Expect 15% price fluctuations especially during the beginning of the weekend. My recommendation is to not panic sell during MTGOX DDOS events, just keep your head .
 
2) Litecoin(LTC) - Due to upcoming MTGOX integration, expect these prices to soar. The current price is partly based on speculation of this event. Faster confirmations is the main selling point of this crypto-currency. I'm still skeptical that being ASIC proof is of great value. Also, I need to learn more about it's security features compared to bitcoins to make a statement on long term store of value. We should start seeing more vendors accept these as payment soon.
 
3) PPCoin(PPC) - With upcoming BTC-E integration, expect prices to go up substantially. In my opinion this is the most innovative mature alt-coin. With all of the prior focus on having to obtain massive rigs that use lots of energy, it's refreshing to see an alternative that sees this situation as a major area in need of improvement. The developer seems professional and is working hard to prove his commitment to the project.
 
4) Terracoin(TRC) - Another coin with upcoming BTC-E integration. Seems like a solid mature crypto-coin that doesn't take too many risks. The largest determining factor that will contribute to a massive price rise will be the low amount of coins in circulation, especially when more people start trading it.
EDIT: Even with TRC rising 2.5x just today, there is widespread reports of miners abusing a glitch in hash rates, it was supposed to be fixed but hasn't been.
 
-Unsorted-
 
* Namecoin(NMC) - While it seems to be doing well, I don't know if the general population will be able to perceive the value of it's DNS features. It might be best left for people that are excited about this feature.
 
* Novacoin(NVC) - An interesting mashup of features from BTC, PPC, and LTC. Controversy surrounding it being pre-mined is a potentially hindering factor, even if the coins were destroyed. The developer seems to be working hard on what I consider to be an immature crypto-currency. I would like to see him responding to criticism in a more professional manner, as it seems to be hurting his project's image.
 
* Bytecoin(BTE) - A 1:1 copy of BTC, the youngest currency by far. A fresh start for people that missed Bitcoins the first time around. A major benefit of this currency is it's proven codebase, and the possibility that this might fix the scaling issue that Bitcoins might have in the future.
 
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Crypto-Currencies that I have not mentioned are omitted because of lack of current popularity, or me not having a basic understanding of it's unique features. The way this crazy circus is playing out, I am a strong believer in diversification between these various options. Let's all have fun witnessing this revolution first hand, and hopefully come out better because of it!

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

[Vorbane]

Any more information on PPCoin and TerraCoin? Im looking to diversify, but i can't really find any good info on these 2 alt coins. So far all i got is: TRC will have 42 million coins, faster confirmation then BTC (?), only 2 million TRCs in the economy atm.
PPC: Proof of stake, asic proof, 18 million coins in the economy (?)

[twelph]

Any more information on PPCoin and TerraCoin? Im looking to diversify, but i can't really find any good info on these 2 alt coins. So far all i got is: TRC will have 42 million coins, faster confirmation then BTC (?), only 2 million TRCs in the economy atm.
PPC: Proof of stake, asic proof, 18 million coins in the economy (?)

I think you've got TRC nailed down. As for PPC, I don't think there is currently a hard cap on amount of coins. Also, I believe it uses the same hashing algorithm as regular Bitcoin.

[Vorbane]

PPcoin already showing to be a pump and dump sadly. https://vircurex.com/welcome/index?alt=ppc&base=btc&locale=en

[twelph]

PPcoin already showing to be a pump and dump sadly. https://vircurex.com/welcome/index?alt=ppc&base=btc&locale=en

Because there is a quick spike and then a return back to slightly above normal? At the volume it's being traded at, that's an insignificant amount of data to be making a generalized statement about the currency, especially before it is has even begun trading on a major exchange like BTC-E.

[VforVictory]

You list Bytecoin but not Freicoin?  I guess everybody decided to jump on the Bytecoin bandwagon, even though everyone said it offers nothing innovative.

[twelph]

You list Bytecoin but not Freicoin?  I guess everybody decided to jump on the Bytecoin bandwagon, even though everyone said it offers nothing innovative.

I also used current popularity as criteria as I believe that to be an important factor. Don't see much mention of it recently on the forums.

[Vorbane]

You list Bytecoin but not Freicoin?  I guess everybody decided to jump on the Bytecoin bandwagon, even though everyone said it offers nothing innovative.

From what i understand, PPcoin is not deflationary, there will not be a hardcap. That ontop of the fact that there is 18 million PPcoins in circulation leads to me believe this is a pump and dump

[legend]

I missed bitcoins so I'm hoping bytecoins can be something like it. Your analysis on bytecoins seems correct to me

[twelph]

You list Bytecoin but not Freicoin?  I guess everybody decided to jump on the Bytecoin bandwagon, even though everyone said it offers nothing innovative.

From what i understand, PPcoin is not deflationary, there will not be a hardcap. That ontop of the fact that there is 18 million PPcoins in circulation leads to me believe this is a pump and dump

It would be nice if Sunny would specify when he plans to implement the hard cap and how much it might possibly be, but I do believe it is planned unless something has changed recently.

[tacotime]

The cap is based on the assumption that the hash rate of the network will increase exponentially, and that this exponential increase in hash rate will drive reward down according to the algorithm for reward decrease (reward decreases exponentially with network difficulty).

Is there a cap on total money supply like Bitcoin's 21 million?

There is no hard cap other than a 2 billion coin max put into the code for now. But that should not be interpreted as an approachable cap, as it might never get anywhere close to that. It should not be considered a hard cap either as it may get lifted but that's likely not needed in a very very long time. Due to the nature of the mint rate design it's not possible to predict a final limit as it depends heavily on market participation, as well as the influences between proof-of-stake minting and fee destruction (there may not even be a mathematical limit if minting continues to outpace fee destruction). What we do know is that the proof-of-work minting would slow down exponentially according to Moore's Law (we are aware that Moore's Law eventually would stop to apply), and proof-of-stake minting introduces at most 1% annual inflation. So generally speaking it is still a very low future-inflation design comparable to Bitcoin.

In 0.2 release a 'moneysupply' stat is included in the getinfo output so everyone can see how many coins are in the market.

In my opinion this assumes at least a semi-stable monetary value for PPC, which in less than guaranteed.

[twelph]

In my opinion this assumes at least a semi-stable monetary value for PPC, which in less than guaranteed.

A new minting process is introduced for proof-of stake blocks in addition to Bitcoin’s
proof-of-work minting. Proof-of-stake block mints coins based on the consumed coin age
in the coinstake transaction. A mint rate of 1 cent per coin-year consumed is chosen to
give rise to a low future inflation rate.

The way proof-of-stake works, it seems to attempt to address this issue.

[Vorbane]

The cap is based on the assumption that the hash rate of the network will increase exponentially, and that this exponential increase in hash rate will drive reward down according to the algorithm for reward decrease (reward decreases exponentially with network difficulty).

Is there a cap on total money supply like Bitcoin's 21 million?

There is no hard cap other than a 2 billion coin max put into the code for now. But that should not be interpreted as an approachable cap, as it might never get anywhere close to that. It should not be considered a hard cap either as it may get lifted but that's likely not needed in a very very long time. Due to the nature of the mint rate design it's not possible to predict a final limit as it depends heavily on market participation, as well as the influences between proof-of-stake minting and fee destruction (there may not even be a mathematical limit if minting continues to outpace fee destruction). What we do know is that the proof-of-work minting would slow down exponentially according to Moore's Law (we are aware that Moore's Law eventually would stop to apply), and proof-of-stake minting introduces at most 1% annual inflation. So generally speaking it is still a very low future-inflation design comparable to Bitcoin.

In 0.2 release a 'moneysupply' stat is included in the getinfo output so everyone can see how many coins are in the market.

In my opinion this assumes at least a semi-stable monetary value for PPC, which in less than guaranteed.

thank you for sharing this I known very little about PPcoin and thus far it has been very hard to tease out information about it. Where did you pull that from?

[twelph]

thank you for sharing this I known very little about PPcoin and thus far it has been very hard to tease out information about it. Where did you pull that from?

That was taken from their Github wiki: https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/FAQ

[Balthazar]

The developer seems to be working hard on what I consider to be an immature crypto-currency.

Some minor changes coming soon, but it's stable enough.

and proof-of-stake minting introduces at most 1% annual inflation.

Inflation is a process of forced money devaluation, it works due to limited group of money issuers (FED, ECB, etc.) and controlled by them. There are no things like this in cryptocurrencies, because there are no limited group of issuers. I think that the term "inflation" couldn't be used for decentralized currencies (with some exceptions), the term "devaluation" fits much better.

I would like to see him responding to criticism in a more professional manner, as it seems to be hurting his project's image.

There are some differences between lie and criticism.   I think that there is enough published info, but if anyone has a questions or real criticism, I am available here to answer it.