2017: The Year of Anonymous Coins

[Febo]

OP said that 2017 will not be Year of ICOs, but also mentioned Komodo that is an ICO. Also DASH, ZCash and ZCoin that have a ,however you want to call it, premine.  I dont know much of other mentioned coins.

About anonymous coins and about a  Year 2017 i could say this.   I think 2017 year will be year of Bitcoin 2.0 so all those platforms that was made in last few years need to flourish in 2017. Counterparty, Omni, Bitshares, Ethereum, ...  I am sure i missed more then half. Each of this platforms will have almost weekly announcements of new users using their platforms. If not, they failed in last years.


I can go on to Year 2018.  In year 2018 all those ICOs started in 2016 should start showing profit. Only the ones that will survive 2017. So year 2018 will be Year of the ICOs.


To return to anonymous coins. Anonymity is really not important right now. Rare realy care of it. Most care just to transact as cheap as posible. But that will change when next financial crisis hit and banks close their doors and decide to take all savings to those that have to much. One or 2 years after next financial crisis hits in will be The Year of Anonymous Coins. When will that be? 2019, 2020, 2020 or even latter. Who knows?

[buwaytress]

I for one truly hope that 2017 will be the year that pump and dump alts and ICOs stop plying their trade (and hopefully the Average Joe wisens up).

I also hope it is the year that the big guns in bitcoin come out a bit more publicly with gentler and simpler tones - more people globally have to be brought into the fold. The technical experts cannot continue to look upon the rest with disdain, while taking advantage of them for profit.

[hdn]

2017 maybe people will jump to TBC

[pseudonymdude]

Monero, Dash, Komodo, Zcash, Zclassic, ShadowCoin, Zerocoin, VCash, etc...

2016 was the year of the rise and recognition of the profitability of altcoins and summer of ICOs but people are tiring out.

Most of the altcoin ICOs have gone nowhere and have no real use cases until they actually deliver on their development and it could be a long time until they get a fully working product delivered that is actually used. Even still, with all the money raised by their ICOs, you have to think.... Who will really use them? Why is the ICO's idea worth millions of dollars?

Pumping and dumping was great in 2016 and a lot of people lost and a lot of people won but the amount of money sucked from people willing to lose is growing thin. The pumps are getting weak, people are getting smarter and most newer coin releases after an ICO are sitting close to the ICO value because no one wants to sell because no one wants to buy. Volume on exchanges is decreasing at an alarming rate all across the board.

Bitcoin is the grandfather of the blockchain scene. It is getting outdated in terms of technology, but it is tried and true and works without any bells and whistles. It is a coin that ACTUALLY gets used on a global scale daily by the mass. The largest use case of Bitcoin is online commerce and transfer of value. Most of the time, the simple way of using Bitcoin is perfectly fine on websites but most people do not want to reveal their tracks or hide their balances. This is where people realize crypto's biggest use case is for most people and take it a step further by adding anonymity.

This year (2017), many people will pull their money from worthless alts with lagging development or a fake purpose. The community will finally leave them in the dust. Watching Poloniex this year, the volume of trading on over 50% of the coins listed has gone down to less than 10 BTC a day. Poloniex is full of bots so you can't even rely on those being the true numbers.

Something I have noticed that makes me realize the money is in anonymous coins in that no one ever gets hyped when someone speaks of any other coin's purpose. Everyone flips out when news hits about how development is  happening in anonymous coins. This shows what people really care about and what excites people about blockchain tech. With this potential excitement like a tank of gasoline, it only takes one successful development's spark to ignite the rush of money flowing in. Once use cases start emerging, money will flow in from other altcoins and fiat, pumping the price "To The Moon".

ZCash has had a lot of hype and Monero's development is finally seeing some light. In reality, blockchain technology is fascinating and bulletproof, but for the average Joe (IMPORTANT! Who will spend money on Crypto and bring money in!), the blockchain tech's real use and purpose is TRANSFER OF VALUE. A lot of money came in from the average Joe when the great Bitcoin hype was about how Bitcoin will be fiat's greatest enemy.

The next great hype will come from the succeeding anonymous coin that will work alongside Bitcoin to transfer value across the globe anonymously. Be careful in 2017. Take a long hard look at your positions and really ask yourself if you are being sucked into holding up the value of a coin by holding due to a false purpose of that coin. Blockchain tech is great, but doesn't always beat centralized methods and a lot of coins are creating solutions for problems that don't really exist.

DISCLAIMER:
I am a trader and watch trends and news. This is the sum of all of my experience. It may not be correct, but I wanted to share my thoughts and would like your opinions and feedback on what 2017 may be like for the crypto scene as a whole (NOT trading advice).

My current position is all in Bitcoin in a cold wallet because trading has been slowing down and it is getting harder to make money. My realization is that pumping and dumping has created a false sense of purpose for most coins. With disappointing profits for Q4 2016, it would be interesting to see if most people will be going back to Bitcoin. I sense a great altcoin "winter" coming with only coins with a purpose staying alive because money will flow from worthless coin dumps.

I disagree with you that 2017 will be the year of anonymous coins. This is not new anymore, most cryptos already have some degree of privacy implemented in their core as you mentioned. But if you look at the current state of Bitcoin and most altcoins, what is missing?  

Fast transactions from wallet to wallet and wallets that sync fast on mobile devices are missing! There is almost no coin that implements fast transactions in a secure and descentralized way, and those who claim that can do it...actually if you research deeper you will find that they actually have some centralized parties involved.

Causally, you mentioned one coin where the development is focused on performing fast transactions on blockchain (zerotime technology), syncs fast (zeroledger technology) and thus not relying in centralized parties. Plus, it does not lose it's anonymous feature (chainblender technology). This coin is https://v.cash/ (XVC), and you will probably see people talk a lot about it next year.

My argument is reinforced by the fact that SegWit will not activate any soon which is a result of the undefined blocksize debate (Bitcoin Unlimited getting traction), and so Lightning Network will not activate next year as it depends on SegWit. This opens the doors for altcoins like https://v.cash/ (XVC) get a share of this market.

2017 could certainly be all about Vcash.  Look into Zerotime, Zeroledger, and Vcash's scalability.

[Spoetnik]

ok NOOB... 

[Eugenar]

I for one truly hope that 2017 will be the year that pump and dump alts and ICOs stop plying their trade (and hopefully the Average Joe wisens up).

I also hope it is the year that the big guns in bitcoin come out a bit more publicly with gentler and simpler tones - more people globally have to be brought into the fold. The technical experts cannot continue to look upon the rest with disdain, while taking advantage of them for profit.

In 2017, more altcoins will be well established. It is more difficult to create a new scam coin and then pump.

[ray88]

Anon coins is so 2014 dark pump, 2017 will be the year of real development and ease of use, aka NO wallet with huge blockchains, No waiting time for transaction and it has to be light (the smallest hardware must be able to handle it).
As today all i see around me is ppl that want instantaneous stuff, no more slow computers or we get mad.
It goes the same way for everything else, it gotta be easy, light and fast. I want to send transactions with 40mb not 8gb...
Anon blockchain is great for dark web when you can wait hours for a transactions but you gotta stay audible or who can prove me someone is not making Zcrash coins out of thin air.

So on this, Watch out for Vcash
Its fast -Zerotime (insta transaction)
Light - Zeroledger (the only decentralized spv client at the core 40mb ram client & downloads in 1.5min)
Anon & audible - Chainblender (mixing at the core clients side)
Simple and easy to use wallet client.

Get your self some of that.

[thejaytiesto]

It's clear that the anonymous coin thing is very tending nowadays, my question is: has any coin a real option at all against bitcoin? if people want to be anonymous, they will soon have confidential transactions and mumble jump, which should be enough... so who will use those coins?

[buwaytress]

I for one truly hope that 2017 will be the year that pump and dump alts and ICOs stop plying their trade (and hopefully the Average Joe wisens up).

I also hope it is the year that the big guns in bitcoin come out a bit more publicly with gentler and simpler tones - more people globally have to be brought into the fold. The technical experts cannot continue to look upon the rest with disdain, while taking advantage of them for profit.

In 2017, more altcoins will be well established. It is more difficult to create a new scam coin and then pump.

But why would the establishment of more altcoins make it more difficult to create new pump and dumps? The market is bursting at the seams but saturation still seems many altcoins away.

But I hope you're right, for whatever rationale.

[iamnotback]

I am @AnonyMint, the guy who first pointed out to @gmaxwell in 2013 (or was it 2014?) that his idea for blacklists to prevent jamming of CoinJoin wouldn't work, because (or unless the anonymity doesn't work) the participant's identities can't be tracked.

I was the first one who pointed this out to Evan the creator of DarkCoin (Dash), which prompted him to invent the masternodes concept, and Dash went on to become the highest market cap anonymity coin (with the ostensibly worst technology, lol).

I also invented the never fully published Zero Knowledge Transactions at about (but I claim before) when Shen-noether merged Cryptonote's ring signatures with Blockstream's Confidential Transactions homomorphic hiding of values. I claim I achieved the same but with the much more efficient Compact Confidential Transactions (wherein I think I showed how to remove the proof-of-square that made it lose some of its efficiency, but I am not a mathematician so I may be incorrect). I still haven't published this white paper because it needs some edits. Will get around to it someday I hope.

Since then I have also privately invented some new technology for offchain anonymity, which I have yet to fully document and formalize.


Anonymity will never be perfect. Your anonymity will always be subject to possible foiling by hackers, National Security Agencies (e.g. the NSA), and large corporations.

More important than anonymity is privacy. We don't want your average Joe to be able to see every thing we do.

For large valued transactions, I believe Zcash's technology will ultimately win. It has the largest anonymity set which can't be practically spammed, because the anonymity set is every coin and every transaction that can ever be done.

For smaller valued microtransactions, I believe my offchain technology will win. The NSA can foil it, so the governments shouldn't be concerned. But your average Joe can't foil it.

Additionally I don't think Proof-of-Work block chains will win (but their failure may be some years from now), especially those which don't leverage Bitcoin's SHA-256 ASICs security such as Zcash's EquiHash and Monero's CPU/GPU hash PoW (which btw Komodo does do correctly and it also claims to have Zcash's anonymity technology). "ASIC resistant" proof-of-work will be subject to rented hashrate attacks double-spending.

About the impending death of Proof-of-Work, I know a secret (soon to be released that I believe will forever change our ecosystem).

Stay tuned...

[ray88]

About the impending death of Proof-of-Work, I know a secret (soon to be released that I believe will forever change our ecosystem).

i would like to know your secret. any eta 

[iamnotback]

About the impending death of Proof-of-Work, I know a secret (soon to be released that I believe will forever change our ecosystem).

i would like to know your secret. any eta 

estimated ETA January or February.

[naneto]

2017 will be the year of Waves.I'm sure it will be a game changer 

[raphma]

It's clear that the anonymous coin thing is very tending nowadays, my question is: has any coin a real option at all against bitcoin? if people want to be anonymous, they will soon have confidential transactions and mumble jump, which should be enough... so who will use those coins?

bitcoin is the king? yes.
that doesn't mean other coins don't have market... and who said bitcoin will be king forever? to me it's just a matter of time to other coin take it place.

[ArticMine]

There is a lot more to Monero than just anonymity.

[bbc.reporter]

OP said that 2017 will not be Year of ICOs, but also mentioned Komodo that is an ICO. Also DASH, ZCash and ZCoin that have a ,however you want to call it, premine.  I dont know much of other mentioned coins.

If he really believes that 2017 is the time for those coins then let us already presume that next year will be a time for scams all over again for him. We all know ICO's are mostly created with the developers' self serving agenda behind them. The same with the premine and zcash's new twist on the premine. The worst is Dash's ninja mine. They are all serving and profit seeking with the outward facade of a "pro community" project. I will appreciate it more if they became honest and find a way to generate dividends for the holders of their coins.

[dbstmddhks]

There are always 'anon' for pump and dump

Not only this year

[dinofelis]

For large valued transactions, I believe Zcash's technology will ultimately win. It has the largest anonymity set which can't be practically spammed, because the anonymity set is every coin and every transaction that can ever be done.

That would have been true if ZEC didn't screw it up and made anonymous transactions compulsory, instead of an option.

[iamnotback]

For large valued transactions, I believe Zcash's technology will ultimately win. It has the largest anonymity set which can't be practically spammed, because the anonymity set is every coin and every transaction that can ever be done.

That would have been true if ZEC didn't screw it up and made anonymous transactions compulsory, instead of an option.

I underlined "technology", not any specific coin's implementation (and its design choices). Meaning I think the technology will win. I have no opinion about which implementation of the technology will win.

Afair, there are some issues around a view key in Zcash's technology which apparently Cryptonote/Monero may have some advantage in some cases if that feature is needed. But I haven't studied that issue in depth, especially not lately. I do not know if that is what you are referring to. Any way, I don't want to go off on that tangential discussion at this time. It isn't important to me right now.

[g3rszpi]

IMO anonymity is just pretty unimportant these days since 80% of the people owning a coin, keep their funds on exchanges and never uses the anon transaction feature