The Problem With Altcoins

[AnonyMint]

A P2P transaction network interfacing with tor is *not* the same as your typical (lol what?) tor user scenario. No, I'm not going to hold your hand until you understand the implications of this.

I already explained the lack of anonymity with Tor against a global entity. Which both Tor and Tails admit in their warnings. Some other use cases of Tor are not threatened by such a global entity. Our use case is.

Even if you don't believe there is much risk, why not protect yourself and be sure?

... it doesn't matter what gidget you come up with to anonymize the network, shit is going to hit the mother f***ing fan. There is no winning here.

I would prefer to defend myself against the coming SHTF.

If you sacrifice liberty for security... (do I need to finish this sentence or is the ellipsis enough?) Liberty being very loosely defined as the utility and accessibility of the network.

I don't need the properties of the network to degrade in order to get strong IP anonymity. The key to achieving this is not use a general purpose web browsing anonymizer like Tor, and instead build-in a special purpose design for the coin.

Cheap, fast, scalable are properties that are of paramount importance to anonymity. And IF you can find a way to increase anonymity via increasing difficulty/cost with little affect on those who do not want it or need it, then you allow a happy medium between both needs and, imo, have the best chance of achieving what I think is roughly the same goal between us.

Agreed. So I don't know why you are against improving the anonymity. I guess you assume it will be slow, expensive, and not scalable.

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[JessicaSe]

The real problem with altcoins is they can go up really fast and they can died all of sudden. Its risk vs reward...

[Etlase2]

I already explained the lack of anonymity with Tor against a global entity.

No, you didn't, you regurgitated what someone else said.

Some other use cases of Tor are not threatened by such a global entity. Our use case is.

If done correctly, it is precisely the opposite. The common man Tor use case will make it magnitudes more effective.

Defeatist. I would prefer to defend myself against the coming SHTF.

Rationalize all you want, hose beats crypto. So does surveillance.

The key to achieving this is not use a general purpose web browsing anonymizer like Tor, and instead build-in a special purpose design for the coin.

Tor is not a web browsing anonymizer. Belittling it in such a way means that either your understanding of it is poor, or it is an attempt to manufacture a reason for your case, again. Neither choice leaves me impressed.

Agreed. So I don't know why you are against improving the anonymity. I guess you assume it will be slow, expensive, and not scalable.

I am against you wasting your time on pursuits that are not that useful.

[AnonyMint]

Etlase2, you try win arguments by talking endlessly without ever saying anything, i.e. filibuster.

If you have something concrete to say instead of talking around the topic and in circles, then I will be willing to listen.

Some other use cases of Tor are not threatened by such a global entity. Our use case is.

If done correctly, it is precisely the opposite. The common man Tor use case will make it magnitudes more effective.

I guess you want us to read your mind.

I think I know what you are thinking, and you are incorrect in your assessment.

Defeatist. I would prefer to defend myself against the coming SHTF.

Rationalize all you want, hose beats crypto. So does surveillance.

Orthogonal threats. I want my crypto anonymity.

The key to achieving this is not use a general purpose web browsing anonymizer like Tor, and instead build-in a special purpose design for the coin.

Tor is not a web browsing anonymizer. Belittling it in such a way means that either your understanding of it is poor, or it is an attempt to manufacture a reason for your case, again. Neither choice leaves me impressed.

It is low-latency because it is designed to support the general purpose interactive things such as web browsing as one example.

It is not optimal anonymity for our use case.

Agreed. So I don't know why you are against improving the anonymity. I guess you assume it will be slow, expensive, and not scalable.

I am against you wasting your time on pursuits that are not that useful.

Is Bitmessage a waste of time?

If not, then please shut up or be very specific, because you are wasting my time with this nonsense.

P.S. I suppose you entirely missed the point that coin mixers are useless unless everyone is using IP anonymity, i.e. it is built-in. That is one reason it is useful. The other reason is Bitmessage is more surely and reliably anonymous than Tor is.

[mrhelpful]

The real problem with altcoins is they can go up really fast and they can died all of sudden. Its risk vs reward...

Isnt this how bitcoin started? or am I wrong..

[Etlase2]

I guess you want us to read your mind.

I think I know what you are thinking, and you are incorrect in your assessment.

Is Bitmessage a waste of time?

Over and over and over and over and over again. If you would stop for one second and drop the megalomania, we could possibly go somewhere. But nothing ever works for you but you. I try to pry you open, but you shut tighter, so there is no point and I am just wasting my time yet again. I guess I don't learn either.

[Rassah]

My apologies, I did not realize that you were a crazy person. Cary on.

Character assassination is what losers revert too when they can't present a cogent argument. Your prior comment was weak logic which I refuted, so then come back and character assassinate to get revenge.

Not at all. Your argument was, eh, ok, and I thought of refuting it, but then you waded into crazy, and I decided not to bother.

You decided not to quote where I wrote "Speculation follows". Speculation is not a statement of fact.

My bad, I mistook that line to refer to the prior paragraph. But it was some deep crazy you were speculatively wading in. We have a lot of members here who are in that part of the pool, and it's easy to get lost in that crowd. Besides, your speculation was presented as your opinion of how things are. Not my fault it sounded crazy.

You clearly are biased for Bitcoin and will say anything to protect Bitcoin, while ignoring reality.

I am quite a realist (just ask the people in the religious threads  ) I'm not biased for Bitcoin, I just don't see anything that can challenge it in any way, yet.

[AnonyMint]

You decided not to quote where I wrote "Speculation follows". Speculation is not a statement of fact.

My bad, I mistook that line to refer to the prior paragraph. But it was some deep crazy you were speculatively wading in. We have a lot of members here who are in that part of the pool, and it's easy to get lost in that crowd. Besides, your speculation was presented as your opinion of how things are. Not my fault it sounded crazy.

I suppose it was on-the-feral-side-of crazy in Rome when the population fell from 1.4 million to 30,000 and stayed that low for 1000+ years. Are you asserting such events never happen?



Are you aware of the things government did during the fall of Rome:

http://armstrongeconomics.com/693-2/2012-2/anatomy-of-a-debt-crisis/

So why are the limbs of statues littered all over the countryside, if crazy, feral outcomes never occur?



Because if you are going throw around a loaded word like that, you should be able to at least provide some rationale for what is crazy and what is not crazy?

Now I really want to see how you can respond in a rational way to that challenge I just gave you.

I think it is crazy that Bitcoin was created by some entities named "Satoshi" we can't identify, yet we blindly trust it even though it has cartelized mining by design.

I think it is crazy that Bitcoin accommodates drug dealing and money laundering which can taint all our coins, yet it was designed to not have anonymity built-in.

You clearly are biased for Bitcoin and will say anything to protect Bitcoin, while ignoring reality.

I am quite a realist (just ask the people in the religious threads  ) I'm not biased for Bitcoin, I just don't see anything that can challenge it in any way, yet.

I agree there is nothing that can challenge yet. Several of us have pointed out that we don't think an altcoin has to defeat Bitcoin in order to be viable.

[AnonyMint]

I guess you want us to read your mind.

I think I know what you are thinking, and you are incorrect in your assessment.

Is Bitmessage a waste of time?

Over and over and over and over and over again. If you would stop for one second and drop the megalomania, we could possibly go somewhere. But nothing ever works for you but you. I try to pry you open, but you shut tighter, so there is no point and I am just wasting my time yet again. I guess I don't learn either.

Okay maybe the underlying issue for you is that the type of anonymity I am proposing for an altcoin perhaps won't work with your Decrits design, so maybe that is why you are trying to convince us we don't need it?

[AnonyMint]

The real problem with altcoins is they can go up really fast and they can died all of sudden. Its risk vs reward...

Isnt this how bitcoin started? or am I wrong..

My thought is that if you really believe in the altcoin, you will put some of your money there for safe-keeping, because you trust its future more than Bitcoin. And just like with Bitcoin, there will be numerous perilous plunges in the price, which should be seen as buying opportunities, because the others will not stop coming to realize what you realized.

So the key is are the features of that altcoin compelling enough to cause you and others to strongly prefer it over Bitcoin.

For me personally, without built-in strong IP anonymity I won't even consider an altcoin seriously, because I understand the taint issue is assured death of bitcoin down the line (or morphed into something we wouldn't recognize as a decentralized currency any more). And there is no such altcoin, not even anoncoin has a strong form in my analysis (and I told them about it and they are aware of it).

And I will also not take seriously any altcoin that doesn't fix the ballooning blockchain and resultant cartelization of mining which also due to not being CPU-only PoW or PoS.

What are readers thoughts on this and are there any required features I have failed to mention? Feel free to disagree with me of course. This isn't my thread. Apologies for so many posts.

[AnonyMint]

Etlase2, I am thinking about what you wrote that everything is going to f---ed up, where you were implying that anonymity couldn't really solve every problem and that we shouldn't expend too much effort there nor inconvenience ourselves because you implied it won't be our savior.

I am thinking privacy is fundamental to private property. The only way for private property to survive against the crazy devolution of society that always occurs with widespread economic failure and defaults, is for the private property to be mobile and well private.

Gold was never marked with your identity. And cryptocurrency will not be a better gold for as long as it is.

Anonymity is thus non-negotiable. We either have it, or we don't have anything.

Even in a normally functioning society, taint is a very big problem if the money carries your identity or traces of crime in a decentralized system like cash or bitcoin, at least for gold it can't even carry a drug residue like paper cash can. Issues range from the ones I already wrote about upthread, to even identity theft. Even with a credit card, you run some risk of your identity being stolen and used for nefarious activities.

Many Bitcoin users may think this doesn't affect them, and again I ask them what percentage of the trade in Bitcoin is drug dealing, money laundering, crony Chinese officials moving money offshore, etc??

[St.Bit]

What are readers thoughts on this and are there any required features I have failed to mention? Feel free to disagree with me of course. This isn't my thread. Apologies for so many posts.

I wouldn't say Anonymity* is a must have for an altcoin to succeed (against bitcoin), but it would be nice to have.
Not so sure about it anymore

On the other features I'm more strict. A crypto without POS and POW rewards can't ever beat bitcoin longterm.

That's not due to security issues or programming, but economical problems. It's a difference to work or paying someone to work for new coins and having to to buy them directly. POW is also nessasary because it provides additional coins to everyone and makes them physilogically easier to spend. It gives exponential growth and IMHO without exponential growth currencies can't work.

Exponential growth is no problem as long everyone can participate.

In short:
POS rewards earlier adopters while new POW rewards prevent newcomers to get screwd by early adopters. Once PPC has moved to POS only it will be very hard for new people to get coins. Prices will rise, ok that looks good, but real value of all coins doesn't. That's like having a really expensive collection of all paintings from one painter, sell one and it's a million, but sell all and you won't get much ...

Finding paramets on this will be extremly problematic, since early adopters expect rising prices of one unit.

EDITED

[Etlase2]

The only way for private property to survive against the crazy devolution of society that always occurs with widespread economic failure and defaults, is for the private property to be mobile and well private.

But this is wrong. Private property isn't going to survive a crazy devolution of society. That's why it's a crazy devolution of society. If the establishment kicks and screams so hard to stop it, there is nothing to be done for western society. As I mentioned previously to you in a PM, it becomes time for the "3rd world" economies to take the reign where the governments have much less power. They can't go after everybody, so anything that is a hindrance to adoption by everybody slows down the possibility of a quick and hopefully less painful switch.

Even in a normally functioning society, taint is a very big problem if the money carries your identity or traces of crime in a decentralized system like cash or bitcoin, at least for gold it can't even carry a drug residue like paper cash can. Issues range from the ones I already wrote about upthread, to even identity theft. Even with a credit card, you run some risk of your identity being stolen and used for nefarious activities.

Coin taint is only an issue with a transaction ledger--less so with the "mini-blockchain" but still there. Rather than square pegging the round hole, the universally better design of the account ledger solves it natively.

Additionally, in lieu of "sending coins", one can simply send accounts by changing keys. Following this principle, it is impossible to follow more than one hop in an account's life without rubber hosing each person down the line. If done correctly, it is impossible to know how much was even sent.

As far as IP anonymity, the NSA cannot be everyone. Timing attacks on tor cannot isolate individual transactions from the noise. With a healthy mix of clear net and tor nodes, very good IP anonymity is possible with very little effort (and those who wish for greater privacy help those who don't care!). And, if they do catch something, all they have is the tiniest window of information that is stopped in its tracks at the next account change. And of course for those who need even more, there are more precautions that can be taken. But the protocol should not be designed to cater to them.

[AnonyMint]

The only way for private property to survive against the crazy devolution of society that always occurs with widespread economic failure and defaults, is for the private property to be mobile and well private.

But this is wrong. Private property isn't going to survive a crazy devolution of society. That's why it's a crazy devolution of society. If the establishment kicks and screams so hard to stop it, there is nothing to be done for western society.

Private wealth surely won't like your altcoin then if crazy devolution comes!

Some private wealth escaping is the only thing that stops a 600 year Dark Age from reigning every where. While Rome fell for 1000 years, Eastern Byzantine did not.

Your logic is too binary. There are gradients of result and strong IP anonymity helps those who want to move to where the freedom is.

We were additionally talking about dealing with coin taint in a normal functioning society (non-devolutionary) case.

As I mentioned previously to you in a PM, it becomes time for the "3rd world" economies to take the reign where the governments have much less power.

Exactly. And anonymity helps capital move there.

They can't go after everybody, so anything that is a hindrance to adoption by everybody slows down the possibility of a quick and hopefully less painful switch.

I never proposed implementing anonymity that added any hindrance whatsoever. It should be even easier and less intrusive than Tor. And I've written down such an algorithm already. Serious implementators can PM me.

Even in a normally functioning society, taint is a very big problem if the money carries your identity or traces of crime in a decentralized system like cash or bitcoin, at least for gold it can't even carry a drug residue like paper cash can. Issues range from the ones I already wrote about upthread, to even identity theft. Even with a credit card, you run some risk of your identity being stolen and used for nefarious activities.

Coin taint is only an issue with a transaction ledger--less so with the "mini-blockchain" but still there. Rather than square pegging the round hole, the universally better design of the account ledger solves it natively.

Incorrect on both points.

Coin taint is no problem in the ledger if your IP address is never known and you never otherwise reveal your identity on any spend. Thus the ledger alone is not the problem.

And the mini-blockchain solves/improves nothing on taint, because the full history has been saved by someone. It just isn't required to be a full verifying client.

Additionally, in lieu of "sending coins", one can simply send accounts by changing keys.

You mean EXchanging (transferring) the private key.

Following this principle, it is impossible to follow more than one hop in an account's life without rubber hosing each person down the line. If done correctly, it is impossible to know how much was even sent.

That does nothing for solving taint. This can't be anything more than a mixer at best (which I already explained upthread are useless without EVERYONE using IP anonymity and otherwise not revealing their identity), and at worst it is simply the recipient using your private key to transfer to a new address.

Also it isn't secure until the receiving party sends it to a new address and 6 or so blocks have elapsed.

You still need IP anonymity when transferring the private key. It is very unlikely you can find a FX exchange bid without going online.

You simply have not thought this out deeply yet.

As far as IP anonymity, the NSA cannot be everyone.

Agreed. But it doesn't help your point.

Timing attacks on tor cannot isolate individual transactions from the noise.

Incorrect. The traffic+timing analysis adversary can, unless the data is encrypted (which it is not on Bitcoin) without any control of any node nor pool nor peer.  Additionally even if encrypted it can be known if the adversary also controls the peer decrypting the data, i.e. the pool server (or the ISP that hosts the pool server). How can you know the pool is safe? You can't. Bitcoin is a target.

With a healthy mix of clear net and tor nodes, very good IP anonymity is possible with very little effort

They are all low-latency (unless you are talkig freenet, which isn't practical for this use case), and thus it doesn't matter how many you chain, traffic+timing analysis still applies for a global adversary such as the NSA.

And, if they do catch something, all they have is the tiniest window of information that is stopped in its tracks at the next account change.

What account change? You mean the exchange of private keys idea which is wrong. Or you mean restarting your Tor session. IN any case, you are wrong sorry.

[Etlase2]

Coin taint is no problem in the ledger if your IP address is never known and you never otherwise reveal your identity on any spend. Thus the ledger alone is not the problem.

Disastrously incorrect. Anyone in the line of coin taint who is caught can leave trails to prior coin holders.

You mean EXchanging (transferring) the private key.

No, for fuck's sake, I don't.

[AnonyMint]

Coin taint is no problem in the ledger if your IP address is never known and you never otherwise reveal your identity on any spend. Thus the ledger alone is not the problem.

Disastrously incorrect. Anyone in the line of coin taint who is caught can leave trails to prior coin holders.

Logic fail!

But it doesn't matter because they can't identify me if I employed strong IP anonymity (at least not without going to extraordinary measures of tracking me physically or with a virus, etc.).

You mean EXchanging (transferring) the private key.

No, for fuck's sake, I don't.

Then explain what you mean please. I am eager to hear this hair-brained idea about generating a new key offchain. It can't be secure!

[Etlase2]

Why, so we can continue this game of you thinking you know everything and can prove everything incorrect by saying so? Stop wasting everyone's time including yours and build your wonderful system on top of broken technology. No one's going to validate an idea that you have not proposed. No one (else) is going to code it either.

[AnonyMint]

All is proven by discussion. If you want to quit, that is okay with me.

I have spent a lot of time thinking and researching on that. If you truly had something important to say, you would explain it clearly.

P.S. I have no ill feelings towards you and you know that.

EDIT: of course whitepapers must come out. And someone can then implement. Or maybe someone will prefer to implement before publishing whitepapers to keep the good ideas secret so they aren't copied by another altcoin first.

[Etlase2]

I have spent a lot of time thinking and researching on that. If you truly had something important to say, you would explain it clearly.

No, I wouldn't. I didn't spend over 2 years doing this to give it away. Where is your algorithm, Anonymint? Oh yeah, no where. I've done far more than my fair share of being free with information. You have contributed nothing but ego. And you constantly misinterpret EVERYTHING in a way that you can easily attack (oh, he must mean private keys! I can attack that!). You are a hopeless cause and your stubbornness knows no bounds.

[AnonyMint]

Apparently being an amateur musician armed with a guitar and a bus pass can get you 3 hours of interrogation with the TSA and denied entry into the USA, because somehow the TSA had information from his private emails. How did they get that info?

Supposed to be allowed 90 days visa-free.

Naw, we don't need anonymity, and there is no police state. I am delusional for sure.

Etlase2, I would never want to diminish your effort, except by any other reason of necessity. I have no wish for you to fail nor to be arrogant. Let's move forward.