First annual crypto-currency awards! Featuring host 'Baroness' Yurizhai Krayt~!

[Yurizhai]

                                                                                                   Helllllooo and WELCOME folks! It's the end of the year and what a year it's been in the cryptocurrency world!

I am honored to be with you here tonight folks! We have got just a fantastic show for you here tonight. Numerous categories, "live" music, and maybe even some prizes  !! Hours and hours of vigilant debates behind closed doors and the cryptogenic council is finally ready to announce it's 2013 winners! But in the end only one coin can be crowned victorious and bestowed the prestigious title of Cryptocurrency of 2013.

Let's kick it off!

                                                                                                                                     
First up, we're gonna start nice and light:

                                                                                                       Joke Coins!
They may make you smile, make you giggle, or maybe they just annoy the crap out of you; but this year there's been more than ever so lets see our nominees!!!

CATEGORY: BEST JOKE COIN OF 2013

Bit Bar: This coin wasn't even intended to be  a joke but it was so bad it became one anyway. With it's creator desperately trying to point out how it's 'scarcity' made it so cool, hired who knows how many people to talk good of it, the hilarity of this crypto is overpowering.

BBQcoin: The coin you want to eat. Indeed. I mean the name says it all. This coin has died, been revived, and now it's sitting pretty with a 4 million dollar market cap! Now that's a barbeque I'd eat at!

Dogecoin:Who can deny that face? I know I can't.





                                                                                                And the winner is.......

                                                                                                          DOGECOIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                             Wow. Such winner. Many meme. Wow.

Next up, those shady coins that create oh so many victims... Scam coins!


CATEGORY: BEST SCAM COIN OF 2013

QuarkCoin: 97% of these coins were mined before anyone had even heard of these babies! Now the shills and marketing are coming full force, the exchanges heavily manipulated creating suckers everywhere you look! This would easily  outright win the category if it's competitors weren't so insidious.

THC Coin: Not only does this coin sport the name of the most evil drug out there, it's client also installed a keylogger (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349072.0) on your computer to steal your coins!!! That's not a coin I'll be getting high off anytime soon, hohohohho.

Goldcoin: A coin so classic in it's scammyness that it's earned a rightful spot on the list. No innovations and shills so aggressive you'd almost.. almost think it was legit.


                                                                                                                 


                                                                                                And the winner is.......





                                      QUARKCOIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                           Thus far this coin is probably the greatest scam coin in history!


What a great start to the awards! I hope you're having as much fun as I'm having! But alas, it's time for a short intermission! Don't you worry though, tonight we're featuring live music from Black Sun Empire. This song perfectly captures the intense battle all cyrptocurrencies are waging for right to reign supreme.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zW3dGB-vl8U&feature=c4-overview&list=UUr8oc-LOaApCXWLjL7vdsgw


                                                                                         



Alright we're back. Let's continue the show! It's time to get a little more serious. Next up we start classifying the heavy hitters in the crypto world. First it's the coins that were the first to add new features, and are attempting to be serious contenders - IE not scams or jokes.



CATEGORY: MOST INNOVATIVE ALT COIN OF 2013

Primecoin: Created by none other than Sunny King, this coin labels itself as the first scientific proof-of-work crypto. This coin attempts to find Prime numbers, something that apparently has a rich history in mathematics. Currently at least three world records have been broken thanks to this coin, and it's future benefits may prove useful indeed.

Peercoin: Primecoin's younger sister and the first coin created by Sunny King. The first coin to implement proof-of-stake, Peercoin attempts to bring far more energy efficiency and security through non-reliance  on miners. This is ultimately trying to avoid an uncertain future down the road in regards to Bitcoin transaction fees and the ASIC miner arms race.

Namecoin: Namecoin allows access to an alternative DNS system that lies outside of a centralized control. This would enable people to to avoid censorship and reduce outages. Although I haven't of anything too significant regarding this, it may prove to be incredibly useful in the future with this whole world-wide dystopia coming out way.



             
                                        And the winner is.....................



                                                                                                                             PEERCOIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!
                                                                                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                                With it's unique design and curious developer, it's held the #3 spot for over half of 2013.


                                                                                                                                                                                           


Up next.. we take a look at the alt cryptos that have made the biggest impact in this young new movement.

CATEGORY: BEST ALT COIN OF 2013

Litecoin: Litecoin has been paving the way for all other cryptos and slowly forcing Bitcoin purists into realizing a future where only Bitcoin exists just won't happen. Every record Litecoin breaks gives hope to all other alt coins out there. It's seen explosive growth this year, growing larger than all the other alt coins combined.

Peercoin: Always 20 steps behind Litecoin, Peercoin has still made great strides this year. It remains the highest alt coin that has a feature significantly different than Litecoin, and someday aims to take Litecoin on. A fantastic year for PPC!

YACoin: YAC coin showed us all that crypto's potential is incredible and.... just kidding.



                                                 And the winner is........................



                                                                                                                                           Litecoin!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                                     
                                                        All hail the King of Alt Coins.



And now we slow it down and take a journey into our second and final intermission. This time the music comes from Rameses B and captures the idea that we're all into this together and cryptos have a bright future in 2014 and beyond. 
                                            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPBHTs5mCaE

                                                                                                                   


Alright folks. The time has come. It's the time everyone has been waiting for. It is time to crown the one and only Crypto Currency of 2013.


CATEGORY: CRYPTOCURRENCY OF 2013, OUR GOD, OUR SAVIOR, THE ONE MAKING ALL THIS POSSIBLE!!!!!



         
BITCOIN

                                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                  Thank you Bitcoin. Thank you.
                               
And that's the show folks. Hope you had fun. Oh! The prizes. Just post a response detailing your compliments, anger, insults, questions, statements, anything and on January 1st 2014 I will announce a winner for a very special prize. Thanks for coming, and be sure to tune in next year for the 2014 Cryptocurrency awards!

[CrytoEnthusiast]

Oh god, what a good time I had reading this. I love it

[RoooooR]

What an enjoyable topic. Lol.

[t3a]

Agree with everything except PPC. I don't think they deserve the award because their algorithms failed. PoS is vulnerable which is why they had to centralize it. Maybe if they got it working without easy attacks and centralization they would deserve it.

[AuroraHF]

Much better than the YouTube Music Awards or the horrible gaming awards a few weeks ago.

[Sophokles]

Thanks for this! Made my day. 

[Yurizhai]

Thank you for your feedback everyone!

Agree with everything except PPC. I don't think they deserve the award because their algorithms failed. PoS is vulnerable which is why they had to centralize it. Maybe if they got it working without easy attacks and centralization they would deserve it.

Nothing in PPC has 'failed'. The checkpoints are just a safety measure until it is reasonable to remove them. As this coin is designed with the long term in mind I have no problem with it. Bitcoin had the luxury of being the first coin that did not have as many people interested in cryptos at the time. Feathercoin has been successfully attacked twice this year I believe. Other coins as well. The checkpoints will be removed starting in client version 0.5(0.4 is due out in a week or two).

I do not see his caution in regards to his long term oriented cryptocurrency as a stain on the innovation of the coin overall.

The award stands.

[t3a]

Thank you for your feedback everyone!

Agree with everything except PPC. I don't think they deserve the award because their algorithms failed. PoS is vulnerable which is why they had to centralize it. Maybe if they got it working without easy attacks and centralization they would deserve it.

Nothing in PPC has 'failed'. The checkpoints are just a safety measure until it is reasonable to remove them. As this coin is designed with the long term in mind I have no problem with it. Bitcoin had the luxury of being the first coin that did not have as many people interested in cryptos at the time. Feathercoin has been successfully attacked twice this year I believe. Other coins as well. The checkpoints will be removed starting in client version 0.5(0.4 is due out in a week or two).

I do not see his caution in regards to his long term oriented cryptocurrency as a stain on the innovation of the coin overall.

The award stands.

The reason for the checkpoints was the ease of a 51% attack using the PoS. If the innovation doesn't work I wouldn't consider it innovative.

the problem with PoS is, ironically, that there is nothing at stake. When you PoW mine you expend costly resources and the expense only has a return if your blocks have a chance of making it into the longest chain... you're wasting energy going off to mine a losing fork.

in PoS you expend no resource, your PoS mine in one chain doesn't preclude you from PoS mining infinite forking chains.

PPC was exploited via this basically as soon as PoS mining became possible: someone started mining many alternative histories, finding ones where his coins got selected in block after block.

PC was revised so that the identity of the PoS stake was depended on past PoW blocks, ... making it forever dependant on PoW for security too... the weird incentives still remain, though you can no longer use it to mine all the blocks without also having hashpower.

initially the developer signatures were just supposted to bootstrap it until PoS was mining most blocks, ... but its remained due to pos turning out to be less awesome than expected.

[Yurizhai]

The reason for the checkpoints was the ease of a 51% attack using the PoS. If the innovation doesn't work I wouldn't consider it innovative.

But the innovation does work it just turned out it needed to be approached differently than a regular coin. New ideas lead to new problems. It's not like PoS was turned off completely, it's benefits are being reaped as of today.

Do not argue with the cryptogenic council. They do not make mistakes sir.

[t3a]

The reason for the checkpoints was the ease of a 51% attack using the PoS. If the innovation doesn't work I wouldn't consider it innovative.

But the innovation does work it just turned out it needed to be approached differently than a regular coin. New ideas lead to new problems. It's not like PoS was turned off completely, it's benefits are being reaped as of today.

Do not argue with the cryptogenic council. They do not make mistakes sir.

>it needed to be approached differently than a regular coin.

So are we agreement that that different approach is centralization?

[Yurizhai]

So are we agreement that that different approach is centralization?

Oh yes. That's a known fact. The disagreement was whether or not that made PoS a 'failure' or non-innovative. That would be like saying someone who invented a cell phone that never needed to be charged wasn't innovative just because they had to put a temporary cap of 10 calls per day on it.

[t3a]

So are we agreement that that different approach is centralization?

Oh yes. That's a known fact. The disagreement was whether or not that made PoS a 'failure' or non-innovative. That would be like saying someone who invented a cell phone that never needed to be charged wasn't innovative just because they had to put a temporary cap of 10 calls per day on it.

Pretty bad analogy. The problem with PoS isn't that it limits anything. It's that it creates a central point of failure and isn't decentralized. The whole purpose for PoS was to make the coin 51% resilient, but now with checkpoints it is not even 0.1% proof. (The 0.1% being the checkpoint signer).

[Brewins]

made my year, if you have a dogecoin wallet, ill give you some

[mladen00]

nice post


+1

[Yurizhai]

So are we agreement that that different approach is centralization?

Oh yes. That's a known fact. The disagreement was whether or not that made PoS a 'failure' or non-innovative. That would be like saying someone who invented a cell phone that never needed to be charged wasn't innovative just because they had to put a temporary cap of 10 calls per day on it.

Pretty bad analogy. The problem with PoS isn't that it limits anything. It's that it creates a central point of failure and isn't decentralized. The whole purpose for PoS was to make the coin 51% resilient, but now with checkpoints it is not even 0.1% proof. (The 0.1% being the checkpoint signer).

I see what you're saying. The council will not change the award though.

[masterOfDisaster]

Agree with everything except PPC. I don't think they deserve the award because their algorithms failed. PoS is vulnerable which is why they had to centralize it. Maybe if they got it working without easy attacks and centralization they would deserve it.

Firstly: @Yurizhai
Nice post! Very entertaining.

Secondly: @t3a
In earlier stage it would indeed have been rather the PoW that has been vulnerable to "> 50% attacks" than the PoS (because the PoW of Peercoin utilizes SHA-256 like Bitcoin and there are legions of SHA-256 devices in the wild...).

The Peercoin network is already quite far on its way to transition to PoS. If you have a look at this block explorer you see that only 7 of the last 50 blocks have been PoW blocks. So a "> 50% attack" with PoW is not really possible.
With PoS a "> 50% attack" is still possible but much more difficult and costly than attacking a "PoW only" coin! Absolute security is not possible but the relative security of PoS is higher than the security of PoW. If you want to attack using the PoS process, you need more money (in relation to a PoW attack).
It is an illusion that there is an "easy attack" for PoS

I have made a calculation some weeks ago.
Feel free to point out errors in it:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=326216.msg3526904#msg3526904

And as previously stated: the checkpoints will phase out.

[GameKyuubi]

I appreciate this thread 

[Tenchi]

wow           such awards                      wow
very shibe            dogecoin to the moon               very skyrocket         wow
          very thanks              doge approves  wow
wow         very millionaire

[RenegadeMind]

DOGE so wow               much prize                       so winner

                    nice show                   vry compete
                                                                                             amaze

[t3a]

Agree with everything except PPC. I don't think they deserve the award because their algorithms failed. PoS is vulnerable which is why they had to centralize it. Maybe if they got it working without easy attacks and centralization they would deserve it.

Firstly: @Yurizhai
Nice post! Very entertaining.

Secondly: @t3a
In earlier stage it would indeed have been rather the PoW that has been vulnerable to "> 50% attacks" than the PoS (because the PoW of Peercoin utilizes SHA-256 like Bitcoin and there are legions of SHA-256 devices in the wild...).

The Peercoin network is already quite far on its way to transition to PoS. If you have a look at this block explorer you see that only 7 of the last 50 blocks have been PoW blocks. So a "> 50% attack" with PoW is not really possible.
With PoS a "> 50% attack" is still possible but much more difficult and costly than attacking a "PoW only" coin! Absolute security is not possible but the relative security of PoS is higher than the security of PoW. If you want to attack using the PoS process, you need more money (in relation to a PoW attack).
It is an illusion that there is an "easy attack" for PoS

I have made a calculation some weeks ago.
Feel free to point out errors in it:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=326216.msg3526904#msg3526904

And as previously stated: the checkpoints will phase out.

You need money to perform the attack in the first place, but finding alternative histories where you're awarded the PoS block is computationally inexpensive.