A warning about Alt-Coins

[thefunkybits]

I have my eye on XPM, FTC and obviously LTC

[thecube891]

what do you all think about ppcoin ?
I know everyone says LTC will rise, but i think ppcoin is very interesting too?
I am thinking about invesyting in some ppcoin, because their prices are still very low.

[saif313]

currently LTC is best investment and its going to be more reliable in near future

[rlhead7173]

I am also poring most of my resources into FTC, LTC, and XPM. I currently have 4 – 3x 7950s that also mine XPM on the CPUs. I am not sure how long they will be profitable though. Sounds like scrypt FPGAs are not too far off. Blockburner.net is actively working on one.

[MSwiza2]

currently LTC is best investment and its going to be more reliable in near future

What makes you think LTC is currently the best investment?

[Clou7]

I am also poring most of my resources into FTC, LTC, and XPM. I currently have 4 – 3x 7950s that also mine XPM on the CPUs. I am not sure how long they will be profitable though. Sounds like scrypt FPGAs are not too far off. Blockburner.net is actively working on one.

FTC and LTC Will rise above all other coins 

[standardcrypto]

I have a blog that talks about altcoins. Here's one from about a month ago on primecoin:

http://blog.standardcrypto.com/2013/08/02/primecoin-down-50-time-to-buy/

Come on by!

[magic man]

I have a blog that talks about altcoins. Here's one from about a month ago on primecoin:

http://blog.standardcrypto.com/2013/08/02/primecoin-down-50-time-to-buy/

Come on by!

Interesting read for sure.

[CEG5952]

I am also poring most of my resources into FTC, LTC, and XPM. I currently have 4 – 3x 7950s that also mine XPM on the CPUs. I am not sure how long they will be profitable though. Sounds like scrypt FPGAs are not too far off. Blockburner.net is actively working on one.

FTC and LTC Will rise above all other coins 

Not so sure about that........

[elliwilli]

FTC, LTC and NVC now that BTC-E Destroyed the premined NVC it should be a good currency.

[Real1Guy]

Only LTC has right to call it self try altcoin, thats my apinion.. Ltc has powerefoll hash rate and its minded all the time.. Coin of the future bisede BTC

[shawnim]

LTC and FTC have avoided the bitcoin problem of ASIC miners temporarily because of the more difficult algorithm and the lower value and interest in the coins but that won't last for very long.

[drowningman]

LTC and FTC have avoided the bitcoin problem of ASIC miners temporarily because of the more difficult algorithm and the lower value and interest in the coins but that won't last for very long.

After reading this article :http://www.coindesk.com/alydian-targets-big-ticket-miners-with-terahash-hosting/    I realized that why is good to have a coin like Ltc even with possible price volatility in the future when will be traded on mt gox. I prefer a market where are no big shareholders.This did not worked out with bitcoin .Unfortunatelly.

[Mixles]

As far as I can tell, it is easy to prove that alt-coins were not premined, by including a verifiable timestamp in the genesis block.

The only reason pre-mining can pay off is that so few people do the due diligence, right?

[miner19]

I prefer LTC myself.   Its what I mine.  But the difficulty sucks since all the BTC guys started coming over.  I pretty much use my profit now just to play dice....

[Cryddit]

I think proof-of-stake, or maybe even proof-of-burn, is a winner in the long run.  But both have problems.

In thinking about an alt-coin suitable for most money-flavored purposes in the long run, I reach a few conclusions;

1.  Ways to originate coins other than mining, tied into main currency economy.  For example, could issue initial coins to holders of savings bonds or stocks or etc, without requiring payment of coins back at savings bond maturity.  So coins become a part of the "interest" paid on a main-currency instrument.   Could do this not even needing cooperation of main entity issuing benchmark instrument; someone who can show that they own N shares of some asset through entirety of some period, gets coins proportional to holding.  But all of those coins count as "pre-mine", I guess.  If you don't come up with a crypto-secure way to show ownership of benchmark asset through the period, ownership of those coins must be awarded via genesis block.   Of course could do crypto-secure in parasitic way; someone shows they owned 150 bitcoin for two year period, gets 15 coin of new issue. 

2.  Proof of stake as main method of creating coins.  Needs some development.  Basic idea as I understand it is transaction outputs slightly greater than transaction inputs, depending on length of coin ownership of coins transacted, in an amount that mimics 'interest' paid over intervening time.  Not a bad idea; very simple.  Current implementations mix proof-of-stake with hashing proof-of-work.  Not sure that's a good idea; not sure how else do it.

3.  Recovery of dead coins.  This is sort of the anti side of proof-of-stake.  Part of the way of the world is that people sometimes lose coins.  Hard drives die, wallets get corrupted, coins are sent to unspendable addresses, etc.  I think any coin not transacted in seven years should be subject to yielding no PoS reward if actually spent.  If coins get ten years old untransacted, they should disappear, say twenty percent at a time, over following five years.  Allows disappeared money to be used to fund Proof-of-stake interest or if other means of mining used, keep positive stake in mining. 

4.  Block chain needs limit.  Much cheaper to keep 'ledger' that records which accounts own how much without recording every transaction.  Scales much better.  Transactions are evidence, not primary information.  Must be able to prove transactions, but once proven, ledger needs 'closed' so transactions don't hang around on chain forever. 

5.  Some way to clear payments faster than waiting for blockchain.  This is necessary for mainstream accept coin as money.  Someone wants to use vending machine, someone wants to pay for beer, etc.  Vendor doesn't want to wait 30 minutes to clear, spender doesn't want to wait 30 minutes to clear.  Need some strategy for issuing quick-clear or offline-clear coins like Chaum's e-cash or something, make place-holder coin until block chain catches up.

6.  In long run coin needs to be slightly inflationary;  Annual 2 or 3 percent growth in coin as units of account allows paying miners and so on without complicated tx fees, also allows economy to proceed, make more advantage by building businesses than just hoarding coins. 

Anyway, just my thoughts.

Edward.

[jackjack]

3.  Recovery of dead coins.  This is sort of the anti side of proof-of-stake.  Part of the way of the world is that people sometimes lose coins.  Hard drives die, wallets get corrupted, coins are sent to unspendable addresses, etc.  I think any coin not transacted in seven years should be subject to yielding no PoS reward if actually spent.  If coins get ten years old untransacted, they should disappear, say twenty percent at a time, over following five years.  Allows disappeared money to be used to fund Proof-of-stake interest or if other means of mining used, keep positive stake in mining

Theftcoin

[wiggi]

For example, could issue initial coins to holders of savings bonds or stocks or etc, without requiring payment of coins back at savings bond maturity.

This could go horribly right. If the coins in question are valuable due to lack of selling pressure,
holders (mostly filthy rich even before that) will lobby for general adoption of it. Dollar will have
a hyperinflationary fit (to convince everyone), mining becomes environmental crime #1, borrowing rates
for the new 1%-coin will be usurious etc 

[ranmn7]

Most Alt coins are completely pointless and just poor replicas of what's already out there with little to no improvement.

The problem I see is that even though Bitcoins are extremely popular, there simply will never be enough of them for this ever to become a true currency, or to be used in any major way for currency exchange. So in order for a crypto currency to actually be used in a major way in the world economy there has to be a coin which has far, far more quantity.

In order for that to occur, the crypto currencies have to evlove, which occurs in the form of alt-coins. Eventually there will be a coin that truly does have the quantities to become a real currency for actual trade between nations, with enough volume to handle the multi-billion dollar exchanges that happen.

So, for now we have our current crop of alt-coins, and they are evolving, which is exciting, and I do in fact forsee a time when we have people using a common crypto currency instead of a fiat currency.

Unfortunately I think we'll see the fiat currencies fail before that really occurs, or maybe that will be what will make it a reality. But we'll need something besides Bitcoins to handle it.

Can you imagine if some future form of Bitcoin becomes the world trade currency instead of the US Dollar?

[jackjack]

there simply will never be enough of them for this ever to become a true currency, or to be used in any major way for currency exchange.

This has been addressed a thousand times