Scamcoin Special Episode - Let's Talk Bitcoin! show

[mindtomatter]

Hi everybody,
So we've been seeing quite a few new alt-chains release which is totally great!  Only problem is, it seems like instead of doing innovative things or adding improvements, instead they're just coins that are easy to mine but which don't actually have any advantages besides being new. 

This means they basically have no chance of succeeding, and instead of "IPO" coins where they are pre-mined, then released on one small exchange so "suckers" will buy them hoping to be buying early, but in fact they're buying late.

The miners sell, and this continues until people figure out that the coin doesn't actually have a chance in hell, at which point it collapses and the miners move on to a new coin.

I'm looking for suggestions of what you would consider a "Scam Coin" - What the benefit is of pre-mining, what alt-coins are NOT scamcoins.  Looking for people both for and against various coins, we want to represent a variety of perspectives.

This show will run middle of next month, we'll be recording interviews over skype with stakeholders in the next two weeks.  Please post your interest here, email me at adam@letstalkbitcoin.com, or send me a PM.

Thanks,
Adam B. Levine
Editor-in-Chief
Let's Talk Bitcoin!

[smoothie]

TO the community using an alt coin there is no benefit to them when a chain is premined. Simple as that.

Any person premining a chain then releasing is only hoping to get rich quick. IT is bullshit essentially.

Just my two crypto cents. 

[Vycid]

TO the community using an alt coin there is no benefit to them when a chain is premined. Simple as that.

What?

You know Satoshi mined a quarter million Bitcoins, right? Bitcoin is the original premined coin.

[mindtomatter]

TO the community using an alt coin there is no benefit to them when a chain is premined. Simple as that.

What?

You know Satoshi mined a quarter million Bitcoins, right? Bitcoin is the original premined coin.

And it's the only case where it was acceptable, because he was the first adopter of decentralized cryptocurrency and it's got to start somewhere to create the network.

The problem is, that's no longer the case.  There is already a functional standard, many in fact.  So why create a new coin that offers nothing but an easy thing for miners to produce lots of in the hopes that it catches that 1/1,000,000th chance of blowing up.

[Galimore]

The alt-coins that I'm currently holding a lot of aren't scam coins.
The alt-coins that I don't hold any of are scam coins.

There, just saved you a lot of trouble.

[r3wt]

The alt-coins that I'm currently holding a lot of aren't scam coins.
The alt-coins that I don't hold any of are scam coins.

There, just saved you a lot of trouble.

Ta Da!

[Sting17]

Yeah i'm not to sure what your after Adam? YOu already have made up your mind about the alt-coins, i know this from your posts here today and also from listening to the last few eipsodes of Let's Talk Bitcoin...which i love btw.

I don't believe coming in here and kinda of blasting all the other coins out of the water is the best move, yes they don't really offer anything new or different other then a few but what are you looking to acheive?

[Caesar V]

The alt-coins that I'm currently holding a lot of aren't scam coins.
The alt-coins that I don't hold any of are scam coins.

There, just saved you a lot of trouble.

[mindtomatter]

Yeah i'm not to sure what your after Adam? YOu already have made up your mind about the alt-coins, i know this from your posts here today and also from listening to the last few eipsodes of Let's Talk Bitcoin...which i love btw.

I don't believe coming in here and kinda of blasting all the other coins out of the water is the best move, yes they don't really offer anything new or different other then a few but what are you looking to acheive?

People ask us what Alt-Coins they should be paying attention to, and in researching ChinaCoin which has seen quite a bit of popularity among novice cryptocurrency investors, we discovered a whole host of so-called "scamcoins"

The way I operate is as follows:

I look at the evidence

I make a judgement based on the evidence.

I ask people who disagree with me to explain their reasoning

I look at the evidence with the new additions

I make a judgement based on the new evidence

If you're talking about the GLDcoin thread, I went in looking for an explanation and got a bunch of blank stares and "well people will value it because it has GLD in the name"

I am happy to be wrong, please explain to me what I'm missing - If I wanted to just talk about this, I wouldn't bother asking.  I'm here because I want to get perspective from people involved on all sides, I can't help if the people who are pro-GLDcoin can't come up with a single reasonable argument.

How would you suggest I go about this?

[Prattler]

Every coin other than bitcoin is a scamcoin (including litecoin), because I think it will fail in a short period of time. Bitcoin might fail too, but it's much less likely.

[mindtomatter]

Not that I see much point to Litecoin either, but it does have the second largest userbase and a decent transaction volume.   It also uses different encryption, so stands to gain as a lifeboat in the somewhat unlikely scenario Bitcoin fails for technical reasons.

Ultimately I think the greatest threat to the Crypto's are legislation and regulatory action, so from that perspective Altcoins are like tornado insurance when you like in a flood zone.  Yeah it's protection, but from all the wrong things.

[ictin]

From my point of view, a coin that is launched now without any premine is a dead coin from the start, and a coin with to much premine is again dead from the start.

And let me explain.
When the bitcoin was launched, there where a few guys mining, so the original developer was able to mine a good share, and having this share of the coins has an incentive to make it work, to fix was is broken, to improve it. Now there are people that have rigs that have 20 to 100 more hashing power than the average consumer hardware, and there are many people like this.

So if a developer will launch a coin without any premine chances are that it will get almost nothing, and at the same time he will watch how other people will accumulate large amount of coins. And so he has no incentive to continue the development of the coin and the coin will die. If there is among this community someone that is willing to work for free to make other people rich please rise a hand.

The second part i think is obvious. If the developer has premined a lot, and let's say that after 1 week the coins that he had premined will worth above 50.000 dollars, chances are that he will not resist the temptation to dump them and then the coin will die.

And so from my point of view an alt coin that has a decent premine is acceptable if it fixes one of the following problems:
  1. shorter block chain. Because of the block chain, bit coin WILL become a centralized currency or it will die.
  2. faster transaction.
  3. more secure to expensive hardware and quantum computers.
  4 easier to use by the average human
Fixing any of this things will make a step forward and so that coin is not a scamcoin.

Money is after all a competition. And everybody want to get an advantage over the other. This is the reason why premine is so hated. Because a large part of the community have powerful hardware bought with the bitcoins that they had mined in the early days. And they want to keep this advantage. Yes, many of them just want to use that hardware to generate money for them and someone else to do the actual work. But if that someone else try to take a share from their profit, is a scamer.

And to generalize, from what I see on this community, and Galimore had a valid point: is someone else has a much powerful mining hardware than mine, is scamer, if i don't have to much from X coin, that coin is a scam coin, and in general what i don't have is a scam, what I have is the future. And sadly this is not to good for the future of crypto currency. Because at this moment, bitcoin is broken and needs to be replaced, but nobody will admit that.

[mullick]

From my point of view, a coin that is launched now without any premine is a dead coin from the start, and a coin with to much premine is again dead from the start.

And let me explain.
When the bitcoin was launched, there where a few guys mining, so the original developer was able to mine a good share, and having this share of the coins has an incentive to make it work, to fix was is broken, to improve it. Now there are people that have rigs that have 20 to 100 more hashing power than the average consumer hardware, and there are many people like this.

So if a developer will launch a coin without any premine chances are that it will get almost nothing, and at the same time he will watch how other people will accumulate large amount of coins. And so he has no incentive to continue the development of the coin and the coin will die. If there is among this community someone that is willing to work for free to make other people rich please rise a hand.

The second part i think is obvious. If the developer has premined a lot, and let's say that after 1 week the coins that he had premined will worth above 50.000 dollars, chances are that he will not resist the temptation to dump them and then the coin will die.

And so from my point of view an alt coin that has a decent premine is acceptable if it fixes one of the following problems:
  1. shorter block chain. Because of the block chain, bit coin WILL become a centralized currency or it will die.
  2. faster transaction.
  3. more secure to expensive hardware and quantum computers.
  4 easier to use by the average human
Fixing any of this things will make a step forward and so that coin is not a scamcoin.

Money is after all a competition. And everybody want to get an advantage over the other. This is the reason why premine is so hated. Because a large part of the community have powerful hardware bought with the bitcoins that they had mined in the early days. And they want to keep this advantage. Yes, many of them just want to use that hardware to generate money for them and someone else to do the actual work. But if that someone else try to take a share from their profit, is a scamer.

And to generalize, from what I see on this community, and Galimore had a valid point: is someone else has a much powerful mining hardware than mine, is scamer, if i don't have to much from X coin, that coin is a scam coin, and in general what i don't have is a scam, what I have is the future. And sadly this is not to good for the future of crypto currency. Because at this moment, bitcoin is broken and needs to be replaced, but nobody will admit that.

ummm Where do I begin  

[Buffer Overflow]

Because at this moment, bitcoin is broken and needs to be replaced, but nobody will admit that.

Please continue...

[Goldmember]

A new coin needs to solve at least one of the many problems with bitcoin. If there is no attempt to do so, or in some cases make the situation worse, one must ask what the developers intention is. Since it is currencies/commodities we are dealing with, the answer is usually a get rich quick scheme.

[ruecanonrails]

I discovered your site about a week ago and have promptly listened/watched nearly all content. Really enjoying it thus far.

On topic,
I would define scam-coins as any coin that attempt to cash in on the sudden surge of "early adopterism" while not differentiating itself from the many other alt's. People are so willing to jump on the next big thing they don't think ahead and take that leap of faith. While this does diversify and allow for more options when considering what to mine/buy/sell, it over saturates the market and with chain hopping raising the difficulty and then abandoning it. Effectively killing the coin and leaving a bunch of people holding the bag. The scam alt coins can and should be treated like the lottery style hot potato/bomb games where they can be profitable but very high risk if you're caught holding it when it explodes.

The one thing you will find with any and all scam alt coins is some form of pre-mine allowing the developer to pump the coin up as the next big thing while constantly selling it from the start. It works as a quick cash grab to those gullible. Sadly this will not stop as everyone feels that fleeting chance of hope that it may very well become the next big thing.

The only ALT coins that I currently consider not a scam-coin are the ones which truly build upon and innovate in some major way differing themselves from the others. Primarily a different hashing algorithm. As ASIC's continue to make GPU mining non profitable the ability to switch to a different algorithm not compatible with those ASIC's is required to keep competition and innovation alive. A single entity market is rarely a good thing.
Right now I'd go as far as saying LTC is the only ALT coin that is not a scam. It has one of the highest volumes being traded and is slowly finding it's own place in the market. LTC also differs enough from bitcoin with a "unique" algorithm and faster confirmations while not being too fast that would cause flooding the market or constant orphans and mini forks in the chain which can be seen in the current worldcoin.


That's just my general thoughts right now which are constantly changing.

[Sting17]

Yeah i'm not to sure what your after Adam? YOu already have made up your mind about the alt-coins, i know this from your posts here today and also from listening to the last few eipsodes of Let's Talk Bitcoin...which i love btw.

I don't believe coming in here and kinda of blasting all the other coins out of the water is the best move, yes they don't really offer anything new or different other then a few but what are you looking to acheive?

People ask us what Alt-Coins they should be paying attention to, and in researching ChinaCoin which has seen quite a bit of popularity among novice cryptocurrency investors, we discovered a whole host of so-called "scamcoins"

The way I operate is as follows:

I look at the evidence

I make a judgement based on the evidence.

I ask people who disagree with me to explain their reasoning

I look at the evidence with the new additions

I make a judgement based on the new evidence

If you're talking about the GLDcoin thread, I went in looking for an explanation and got a bunch of blank stares and "well people will value it because it has GLD in the name"

I am happy to be wrong, please explain to me what I'm missing - If I wanted to just talk about this, I wouldn't bother asking.  I'm here because I want to get perspective from people involved on all sides, I can't help if the people who are pro-GLDcoin can't come up with a single reasonable argument.

How would you suggest I go about this?

So essentially you want to know what these alt-coins bring to the table that make them a more attractive coin then bitcoin? or why is it they are being created in the first place?

At this stage I don't beleive alt-coins are bringing anything to the market different. Alot are trying WDC brings faster transaction at the cost of security for instance, but they are trying. I believe this to be a good thing for the market. This is different to let's say a competive market where competition brings innovation because coins once released and developed aren't going to change paramenters like block rewards and transaction times etc. So alt-coins aren;t going to make bitcoin do this, however they could in some way serve a particular purpose for special circumstances, what they are I'm not sure but they could be used for in-game purchases or as giftcards or something like that. They are not more attractive then bitcoin and that is due to worth, alt-coins arent worth anything unless they fit a particular need and do it well, thus being used in the real world by business etc etc much like Bitcoin is now, hence bitcoins worth, they are trying though.

[ictin]

Because at this moment, bitcoin is broken and needs to be replaced, but nobody will admit that.

Please continue...

Is there a way now or in the future to pay with bitcoin at the supermarket? NO
Is there a chance that the average human will want to deal with paying 0.,0000023 bitcoin for something? NO
It will survive if the US government will see it at a threat to US dollar? NO
If i buy something online, i have any guarantee that the seller will not scam me? NO

So what use is for bitcoin except as a saving and investment currency ?

Don't get me wrong, it was a good start, but is not the end, just an early experiment to replace fiat money. And if is not evolved in to something useful, the crypto currency don't stand a chance

[mullick]

Because at this moment, bitcoin is broken and needs to be replaced, but nobody will admit that.

Please continue...

Is there a way now or in the future to pay with bitcoin at the supermarket? NO
Is there a chance that the average human will want to deal with paying 0.,0000023 bitcoin for something? NO
It will survive if the US government will see it at a threat to US dollar? NO
If i buy something online, i have any guarantee that the seller will not scam me? NO

So what use is for bitcoin except as a saving and investment currency ?

Every point you just made is bullshit. Lurk moar and gtfo

1.http://www.howtoacceptbitcoin.com/
2.http://www.howtoacceptbitcoin.com/
3.You are stupid
4. Escrow

[ictin]

Because at this moment, bitcoin is broken and needs to be replaced, but nobody will admit that.

Please continue...

Is there a way now or in the future to pay with bitcoin at the supermarket? NO
Is there a chance that the average human will want to deal with paying 0.,0000023 bitcoin for something? NO
It will survive if the US government will see it at a threat to US dollar? NO
If i buy something online, i have any guarantee that the seller will not scam me? NO

So what use is for bitcoin except as a saving and investment currency ?

Every point you just made is bullshit. Lurk moar and gtfo

As i said, nobody will admit the truth, because there is a competition, and admitting the truth means losing "money"