Standards for Listing a Coin on an Exchange

[Nolo]

Anyone else feel that there should be published standards by the exchanges for when a coin should be listed and delisted?  This would prevent backhanded deals, such as what was attempted with NVC & BTC-e.

For example: 

"A scrypt based coin will be listed once it achieves a mining hashrate in excess of 100Mh/s.  A coin will be delisted once its trade value drops below .0001 BTC/XXX and remains there for a period of 72 hours." 

This would prevent the bribing of an exchange to list a coin, and it would also prevent the countless threads of people crying for their coins to be listed on various exchanges. 

Obviously each exchange would be free to adopt their own standards.  But they should at least be publicly available. 

[Rannasha]

The exchange rate in BTC is not a good measurement for value. After all, it fully depends on the amount of coins generated. If I make an alt-coin that gives 10K coins per block, it's going to have a low exchange rate with BTC no matter how popular it is. On the other hand, the OneCoin example: The whole currency is capped to 1 coin, trading only happens with fractions of that coin. The single coin is never going to drop below 0.001 BTC (it has that much value for curiosity reasons alone).

A better metric would be the market cap measured in BTC, so exchange rate times coins mined.

[Nolo]

The exchange rate in BTC is not a good measurement for value. After all, it fully depends on the amount of coins generated. If I make an alt-coin that gives 10K coins per block, it's going to have a low exchange rate with BTC no matter how popular it is. On the other hand, the OneCoin example: The whole currency is capped to 1 coin, trading only happens with fractions of that coin. The single coin is never going to drop below 0.001 BTC (it has that much value for curiosity reasons alone).

A better metric would be the market cap measured in BTC, so exchange rate times coins mined.

Good suggestion.  I like it. 

[Mapuo]

Anyone else feel that there should be published standards by the exchanges for when a coin should be listed and delisted?  This would prevent backhanded deals, such as what was attempted with NVC & BTC-e.

For example:  

"A scrypt based coin will be listed once it achieves a mining hashrate in excess of 100Mh/s.  

We have 200Mh/s with FTC2 

[BitJohn]

I think you should list them all and let the market shake them out. Some will make $$$ some will lose big but in the end the good will rise to the top and people will spend less time dumping electricity and good cash into shit coins.

[Nolo]

I think you should list them all and let the market shake them out. Some will make $$$ some will lose big but in the end the good will rise to the top and people will spend less time dumping electricity and good cash into shit coins.

I'm not sure what's involved in listing a coin on an exchange, as an exchange operator.  In theory I agree.  I would certainly hope that the exchange operators aren't saying "I'm not going to list XXX coin because we're too good for that coin! We have a reputation to keep up!"  That would be foolish. 

But if it costs resources and a cost/benefit analysis has to be done, than I understand their reasoning for not adding all coins.  I just believe their standards should be made public so as to prevent outright bribery. 

[hdclover]

Then I will create coin + exchange

[coinerd]

Wait, so we want regulation now?   

[syn999]

Wait, so we want regulation now?   

you cant have regulation because the free market on here
thats just a suggestion

[Mapuo]

Then I will create coin + exchange

Delete your post, or we'll have 20x coin + exchange every day

[BitJohn]

I'm ok with coin+exchange every day if I can move it all out to BTC and my bank. The best will rise the garbage will fall everything has value if folks are willing to trade its that simple really.

[Nolo]

Wait, so we want regulation now?   

Swing and a miss.  Let's try this again.  This is a suggestion for voluntary compliance.  Those that don't comply could be viewed at with a skeptical eye by the traders. 

[willhash4food]

I agree with Nolo. There's a huge opportunity here to make an exchange that can be easily scalable to adopt any coin within a few minutes. Let the market sort out the value while the exchange coder gets PAID.

[Dreamweaver]

I'm not sure what's involved in listing a coin on an exchange, as an exchange operator.  In theory I agree.  I would certainly hope that the exchange operators aren't saying "I'm not going to list XXX coin because we're too good for that coin! We have a reputation to keep up!"  That would be foolish. 

I'm not too sure about that..let's pretend MtGox accepted almost every altcoin out there. I think that'd discredit them in the eyes of the mainstream, and this is critical if were ever gonna see these types of ideas reach significantly beyond these forums/niche audience. Because after all, the mainstream doesn't share our view of the free market as we know. However I would agree with exchanges setting standards that people should adhere to concerning cryptocurrencies. Of course this would all be voluntary, and if an exchange wanted few or no standards, that's fine too (just think of bter "spreading its legs" and being "slutty" )

[SylTi]

I'm not sure what's involved in listing a coin on an exchange, as an exchange operator.  In theory I agree.  I would certainly hope that the exchange operators aren't saying "I'm not going to list XXX coin because we're too good for that coin! We have a reputation to keep up!"  That would be foolish. 

I'm not too sure about that..let's pretend MtGox accepted almost every altcoin out there. I think that'd discredit them in the eyes of the mainstream, and this is critical if were ever gonna see these types of ideas reach significantly beyond these forums/niche audience. Because after all, the mainstream doesn't share our view of the free market as we know. However I would agree with exchanges setting standards that people should adhere to concerning cryptocurrencies. Of course this would all be voluntary, and if an exchange wanted few or no standards, that's fine too (just think of bter "spreading its legs" and being "slutty" )

There is a tone of crappy compagny with crappy stocks out there, just look at most of the pink sheet.

[Number6]

A scrypt based coin will be listed once it achieves a mining hashrate in excess of 100Mh/s.

 

Make this "A scrypt based coin will be listed once it achieves a mining hashrate in excess of 100Mh/s for a minimum of a 30 day period." and you would be closer to what I feel should be the requirements. You can also make the Mh/s number higher, as has been pointed out FC2 is at 200 Mh/s already. Any new coin with enough publicity can easily achieve high hash rates for a few days, it is maintaining that interest that counts.

A coin will be delisted once its trade value drops below .0001 BTC/XXX and remains there for a period of 72 hours.

 

As others have pointed out, this will depend on block size, coin supply, etc. I think a better metric would again be dependent upon hash rate. If the hash rate goes down to the point that transactions are taking many hours/days to confirm, it should be a criteria for delisting. Again, I think to be fair, a timeframe of a few weeks/months would be better.

If a coin musters enough support to be listed, it shouldn't be delisted overnight. Any successful coin would easily be able to meet these stricter requirements. It is a joke some of these recent coins hit the exchanges as soon as they did. It only goes to show the exchange operators are more interested in a quick buck than the long term credibility of their exchanges or any currencies they have listed.

[willhash4food]

There's no "muster" scale. If a coin shows little interest, let it ride at the bottom of the exchange. If all established coins stay established, there will be less need to create new ones all the time.

[Impaler]

What ever kind of community standard is created needs to be built around recognition of innovation and improvement, not simply volume or hype.

I'd propose the following as minimums for anyone to touch a new alt-coin in any way (mine it, trade it, give it the time of day).

1)  Has a publicly identified development team consisting of more then 1 competent programmer, wannabees who don't know the ins and outs of BTC protocol do not count, nor do mere cheerleaders.  The people behind a coin must be of sufficient caliber to actually make improvements and the requirement of 2 ensures that their will be continuity if someone his hit by a buss.  Needless to say the people behind a coin need to be reputable.

2)  The development team needs to have published a design or white paper for some significant change to the BTC code base and articulated how this will be an improvement.  Simply changing some of BTCs arbitrary values like block-times, rewards or market cap dose not count.  Obviously the design should be scrutinized and worked over by the community and be judged to have some chance of working on a technical basis.

3)  A publicly accessible forum and website exist for the coin and MORE discussion about said coin occurs their then on Bitcointalk.  The developers should have shown diligence in designing and working out the details of their coin and have a home-base from which they will provide ongoing support and can be contacted.  Operating principally out of the alt-coin forums is a sign of amateurishness and pumping.

4)  The coin is launched in a respectable manor, the pre-mine definition has a bit slippery lately as people invent new ways around it such as too low difficulty starts in the wee hours of the night, over-rewarding new blocks etc etc.  In principle people mining in the first week should not end up with a disproportionate amount of coins and no 'insiders' should be favored.



So far only a few coins have meet this standard, and some not initially at launch.  Still these standards are smart because they have great power at predicting which coins will actually succeed in the marketplace and which will die.  So miners/investors and the like would be well served by using this criteria for their own speculation.  Would be developers should attain the first three criteria before launching their coins, if you can't attract a second programmer, can't publish a white paper and can't even get enough interest to fill a forum then your not ready to launch.

Of the coins that are brewing I see MC2/Netcoin and Decredits have potential to meet these criteria but they each need additional developers and their own dedicated forums, to speak nothing of actually doing the programming.  Still they show the REAL hard work and time necessary to make a coin and their efforts put to shame all the clone-coin crap we have been seeing lately.

[donjonson]

Anyone else feel that there should be published standards by the exchanges for when a coin should be listed and delisted?  This would prevent backhanded deals, such as what was attempted with NVC & BTC-e.

For example: 

"A scrypt based coin will be listed once it achieves a mining hashrate in excess of 100Mh/s.  A coin will be delisted once its trade value drops below .0001 BTC/XXX and remains there for a period of 72 hours." 

This would prevent the bribing of an exchange to list a coin, and it would also prevent the countless threads of people crying for their coins to be listed on various exchanges. 

Obviously each exchange would be free to adopt their own standards.  But they should at least be publicly available. 

I absolutely agree. This is something I posted a couple of days ago that goes on the line: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=203457.msg2126526#msg2126526

[twobits]

Anyone else feel that there should be published standards by the exchanges for when a coin should be listed and delisted?  This would prevent backhanded deals, such as what was attempted with NVC & BTC-e.

Right now I think at least standards for things a coin must not do should be set.    I say this because some of the newer chains all chatter on the same peer network.   Thus slowing each other down with needless traffic to then reject.    One post claims that many of these coins got made to help kill alts, so maybe this is not just complete incompetence in coin making.  Either way, these coins should not be supported by legitimate exchanges.