Hello All,
I am VERY glad to have joined this community, and i hope I will not get on anyone's nerves with newbie questions or suggestions.
I am a technology analyst (aka- economist) and while I understand barely half of what you guys are talking about regarding mining hardware, efficiency and optimization, I hope to contribute my 2cents in ideas and in observation on key elements (that's basically the only two things that Analysts are claimed to be worthwhile at).
building a network effect on non-techies:
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I have been into cryptos for a long while and I have lately felt that all my friends who are not techies want to get into cryptos, but do not have the minimum understanding (in spite of all the material out there). They have all heard about bitcoin; they have all heard about gox collapsing and coins being stolen at exchanges... and they come to me asking how to start.
Normally, i tell them to open an account at btc-e, buy btc and transfer it because if they start by downloading a -qt wallet and have to wait for 24hours until it synchronizes, and then learn how to open it, or encrypt it, etc. they simply abandon any interest in getting into the game.
Last night, I downloaded and installed darkcoin-qt because I decided darkcoin is in line with everything I believe in crypto (open source, no pre-mine, no billion coins, difficultly adjustment, darksend/anonymity, etc.).
It them struck me that within minutes, the wallet was synchronized and ready to go...
I know this sounds trivial because it is a new coin... but it's also a huge advantage.
I've been playing around with the idea of social network effect as means for bringing more people into the game.
From my perspective, we are in 1990 in terms of internet adoption, with merely 2 million crypto users, just as it was 2 million internet users in the 1990, aka - really early in the game.
I know that until now there were bonuses and bounties given to users, but I'm thinking about making a "trusted social pool", like a pyramid scheme, only there is no "reward", only giving.
Yesterday, I bought a handful of DRK, and I am responsible for some of the rise in price.
Suppose I put 1,000 drk into such pool, and invited 10 people that are trusted by the community or myself, each gets 100 drk and is required to open 10 wallets to 10 people he/she trusts and transfer 10 drk each. each of them will them be required to open 10 wallets and transfer 1 drk to each. and so forth.
Within the third interaction, we reach 1,000 users... and thus the word spreads.
I know this probably sounds naive, but if we had a structured system to verify that the users who get the coins really open new accounts for new people, that could be great. If there is no such system, then social ties/trust is a way to go.
Having coins transfered within minutes, and darkcoin-qt installed and synchronized in minutes is a great advantage that will evaporate over time. Why not be the first coin to tun this disadvantage into an advantage?
Welcome to the community!
The biggest hurdle with your idea is determining an efficient way to verify that the new people are real. Methods like email, IP, etc won't work. It's extremely easy for someone to spoof identities online.
