[ANN][DASH] Dash (dash.org) | First Self-Funding Self-Governing Crypto Currency

[poornamelessme]

DRK has two big issues that I see:

(1) Because the power draw is only 60% of scrypt, large GPU farms that mine altcoins and dump them for BTC/fiat have an incentive to target DRK. More profit even at price parity due to lower electricity costs. This will keep market supply high perpetually and hence keep the price low.

(2) The legions of unremarkable clone-coins will implement DarkSend once it's open-sourced. See how zero-talent "devs" are copy-pasting Vertcoin's anti-ASIC adaptive N algorithm.

For both (1) and (2) the solution is greater adoption. In the case of (1) it reduces these quasi-commercial dumpers to a smaller proportion of the market. In the case of (2), it allows DRK to achieve escape velocity and get to a point where a competing clone coin can't catch up due to lacking the network effect.

So I see "marketing" as crucial, even in the short-term. In any case, DarkSend should probably be kept closed-source before hitting at least Bter and BTC38 (not that I'm in any position to advise devs). Call it an extended mandatory beta or something.

I agree, well said.

Personally, I don't think DarkSend should ever be open sourced. All it will result in are a ton of junk coins implementing it, and basically a ton of coins piggybacking on the dev's code here. Yes, if adoption was greater, then perhaps it'd make sense to open source. But to me, adoption means something like being able to be used for actual purchases somewhere.

So if DarkCoin turned into Bitcoin, sure, consider open source. But that sort of adoption would take years. Instead, if it was me, perhaps a verified 3rd party could look at the code for safety types of reasons every so often, rather than just release all of the code for free.

If the code is released, I expect the coin to drop in price ... a lot.

[bigrcanada]

Thanks bigrcanada!

As mentioned above I think we should get the mining pools involved to offer an auto-donation to get the foundation funded. I also think we should use a similar rewards structure as heavy, obviously with fewer coins since ours are and will be worth so much more!

eduffield can you put up a donation address for the Foundation and implement the donation option on your pool to that address? If you do it then other mining pool operators can follow suit, up until a fund ceiling of 200,000 DRK or so.

I think most miners would be happy to contribute, especially when it will go directly to the foundation and improving the awareness, development and value of the coin. It's in everyone's best interest!

I'm game with that.   I've spent about an hour or so going through Heavy Coins information and marketing.  This has been done very well for a coin that does not offer what Evan is building with our coin.  None of what has been done at HVC is flashy marketing fluff.  Its straight forward, very clear and concise and to the point.  Clean, functional, informative and  a good solid base in understanding what it will take to support a "serious" crypto coin ecosystem.  Someone spent alot of time and thought as to HOW to navigate their ecosystem and what would be needed to support a serious coin contender in the sea of shit coins out there.  Hats off to their team.   Ultimately its going to take bounties being set up for rewarding peoples hard work....and that is where we need to start.  I purpose starting a Dark Coin Foundation made up of stake holders to help push this forward, quickly.  Please advise further.

[bigrcanada]

DRK has two big issues that I see:

(1) Because the power draw is only 60% of scrypt, large GPU farms that mine altcoins and dump them for BTC/fiat have an incentive to target DRK. More profit even at price parity due to lower electricity costs. This will keep market supply high perpetually and hence keep the price low.

(2) The legions of unremarkable clone-coins will implement DarkSend once it's open-sourced. See how zero-talent "devs" are copy-pasting Vertcoin's anti-ASIC adaptive N algorithm.

For both (1) and (2) the solution is greater adoption. In the case of (1) it reduces these quasi-commercial dumpers to a smaller proportion of the market. In the case of (2), it allows DRK to achieve escape velocity and get to a point where a competing clone coin can't catch up due to lacking the network effect.

So I see "marketing" as crucial, even in the short-term. In any case, DarkSend should probably be kept closed-source before hitting at least Bter and BTC38 (not that I'm in any position to advise devs). Call it an extended mandatory beta or something.

I agree, well said.

Personally, I don't think DarkSend should ever be open sourced. All it will result in are a ton of junk coins implementing it, and basically a ton of coins piggybacking on the dev's code here. Yes, if adoption was greater, then perhaps it'd make sense to open source. But to me, adoption means something like being able to be used for actual purchases somewhere.

So if DarkCoin turned into Bitcoin, sure, consider open source. But that sort of adoption would take years. Instead, if it was me, perhaps a verified 3rd party could look at the code for safety types of reasons every so often, rather than just release all of the code for free.

If the code is released, I expect the coin to drop in price ... a lot.

At this point I absolutely agree.  We have no brand awareness and as my favorite saying goes... " never forsake the real for the ideal!"   DarkCoins world needs to be tightly branded and every kink work out.  It would be suicidal to release anything until this coin is burned into peoples mind as the "NAME" in crypto security.

[tifozi]

There is no short cut for Evan actually doing presentations in conferences ala Charles H/Buterin et al and putting himself out there in front of people and cameras. Challenge sessions for white hat hackers should be publicized and of course use media both conventional and contemporary. People with lots of coins should come forward with some plans themselves.

[dean0]

Twitter rumours this will get a pump tonight 

[shojayxt]

I'll be speaking at the Cryptocurrency Convention on Apr 9th in NewYork, detailing how DarkSend works and promoting DarkCoin. If anyone will be in NewYork at that time I'd love to meet you!

http://cryptocurrencyconvention.com/

*My details should be up on the site soon

THIS is the type of "marketing" this coin needs.

Edu, can you talk any about what type of testing (beyond this community doing some DS transactions) you are doing? It's been mentioned before to try to let some "white-hat" types take a hammer to it... anything like that? To me, i'd like some sort of 3rd party endorsement on the anonymous transactions.

There were a few people that came into the forums and said that it wasn't anonymous and could break it, I'll reach out to them and see if they're up for taking a look at it.

Hi Eduffield.   Check out what Heavycoin did.  You can check what they are doing with this coin.  

https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/6988-launchedhvc-heavycoin-decentralized-block-reward-votingcpu-only-ultra-secure/


"Bounty details

Thanks to the bounty phase, Heavycoin will start with enough funds to do some serious work in terms of branding, marketing and promotion. Here are some of the projects we will be rewarding early adopters and promoters for.  If you are interested, then please post to the forum and send a PM so we can confirm the details.

30,000 HVC - professional grade commercial art and logos (specific guidelines, logo competition)
50,000 HVC - professional grade promotional video explanation (specific guidelines apply)
100,000 HVC - first substaintial merchant to accept payments with Heavycoin
50,000 HVC - second merchant
40,000 HVC - third merchant
10,000 HVC - fourth merchant
10,000 HVC - fifth merchant
50,000 HVC - first gambling site (specific guidelines apply)
20,000 HVC - first dice site
10,000 HVC - setup and maintenance of a dedicated Heavycoin forum
10,000 HVC - sign-up of the first Heavycoin exchange
30,000 HVC - first block explorer
10,000 HVC - second block explorer
30,000 HVC - first mining pool
10,000 HVC - second mining pool
10,000 HVC - first article published
10,000 HVC - second article published
30,000 HVC - article at CoinDesk, Bitcoin Magazine, Forbes or Money Week

Thousands more to be awarded to promotors on twitter, facebook and online forums.

Completed bounties
These bounties have been pre-allocated ahead of the launch for helpful contributions.

Twitter feed setup - 1,000 HVC awarded to robmillernow
Chinese PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to xiaocong
Greek PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to RealMiner
French PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to kuroman
Spanish PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to VanBreuk
Dutch PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to tinus42
First article published - 10,000 HVC awarded to qznc (Block Reward Voting: HeavyCoin)
Polish PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to Moozg
Russian PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to -Greed-
Informative blog post - 1,000 HVC awarded to Shuxy (Alt Coins Lookout! #1)
Setup and maintenance of a dedicated Heavycoin forum - 10,000 HVC awarded to cryptomind (heavycoinforum.com)
Italian PRE-ANN translation - 500 HVC awarded to Steve_Sanders

We are still awarding bounties for pre-launch contributions (ex. promotions and translations) so please send us a PM."

This in my opinion is a very well thought out roll out.  We need to set up a bounty found ASAP and I'll donate the first 500 DRK to the fund to start with.  FYI I do not current own or have any holdings in HVC.

Thoughts?

 

They had a good marketing plan but failed to deliver on the actual coin.  HeavyCoins launch was a complete failure due to horrible developer support.  Take that same marketing with the excellent developer support that DarkCoin has and you have a winner for sure.  However, one issue would be the bounty's.  HeavyCoin was a huge premine so they had a very large quantity of coins to use for bounty's.  They also raised 170+ btc through an IPO which they can use for marketing as well.  

[matt608]

Thanks bigrcanada!

As mentioned above I think we should get the mining pools involved to offer an auto-donation to get the foundation funded. I also think we should use a similar rewards structure as heavy, obviously with fewer coins since ours are and will be worth so much more!

eduffield can you put up a donation address for the Foundation and implement the donation option on your pool to that address? If you do it then other mining pool operators can follow suit, up until a fund ceiling of 200,000 DRK or so.

I think most miners would be happy to contribute, especially when it will go directly to the foundation and improving the awareness, development and value of the coin. It's in everyone's best interest!

+1

Completely agree.  We need a someone we all trust to hold the coins for the bounties.  It makes sense that eduffield be that person, seeing as he must have a lot of trust from us as we are all counting on his development of the coin.  I would step up myself except I'm having trouble with my wallet (on a mac, it keeps quitting).  If we can get a darkcoinfounation website or simply a bounty page added to http://www.darkcoin.io/ with an darkcoin address controlled by eduffield (or another trusted person) we can all start chipping in to pay for the bounties.  We can propose bounties here in this thread and/or over at https://www.darkcointalk.org/.  Let's do it!

[CHAOSiTEC]

Thanks bigrcanada!

As mentioned above I think we should get the mining pools involved to offer an auto-donation to get the foundation funded. I also think we should use a similar rewards structure as heavy, obviously with fewer coins since ours are and will be worth so much more!

eduffield can you put up a donation address for the Foundation and implement the donation option on your pool to that address? If you do it then other mining pool operators can follow suit, up until a fund ceiling of 200,000 DRK or so.

I think most miners would be happy to contribute, especially when it will go directly to the foundation and improving the awareness, development and value of the coin. It's in everyone's best interest!

I'm game with that.   I've spent about an hour or so going through Heavy Coins information and marketing.  This has been done very well for a coin that does not offer what Evan is building with our coin.  None of what has been done at HVC is flashy marketing fluff.  Its straight forward, very clear and concise and to the point.  Clean, functional, informative and  a good solid base in understanding what it will take to support a "serious" crypto coin ecosystem.  Someone spent alot of time and thought as to HOW to navigate their ecosystem and what would be needed to support a serious coin contender in the sea of shit coins out there.  Hats off to their team.   Ultimately its going to take bounties being set up for rewarding peoples hard work....and that is where we need to start.  I purpose starting a Dark Coin Foundation made up of stake holders to help push this forward, quickly.  Please advise further.

i think you should setup a vote that we, pool owners, can direct our users to, to see if their are in for raising the pool fee with 1% that would go toward the darkcoin foundation account.

And if the miners dont agree with it, then setup a donation address / homepage -- best place would be the official homepage, where people can donate and get info regarding donations...

Lotterymining.com is considering donating a % of its fee, but keep in mind that lotterymining.coms fees are essentially only 0.5 % so it would be a minimal amount comeing from there...

[eizh]

A lot of clone coins seem to do well above what one would expect before stagnating eventually. The pattern I see is that they have a very clean, professional looking first post that looks like it came from a Silicon Valley startup plus translations in several languages (especially Mandarin and Russian) plus a whole bunch of bounties. Of course, bounties = premine = bullshit. We'll have to work off donations and pro bono work.

By the way, the DarkSend image in the OP still needs to be fixed. User 2 or 5 should have 80 DRK, not 20. We wouldn't want a newbie to come in and think the DRK network just swallows up coins randomly.

[bigrcanada]

I'll be speaking at the Cryptocurrency Convention on Apr 9th in NewYork, detailing how DarkSend works and promoting DarkCoin. If anyone will be in NewYork at that time I'd love to meet you!

http://cryptocurrencyconvention.com/

*My details should be up on the site soon

THIS is the type of "marketing" this coin needs.

Edu, can you talk any about what type of testing (beyond this community doing some DS transactions) you are doing? It's been mentioned before to try to let some "white-hat" types take a hammer to it... anything like that? To me, i'd like some sort of 3rd party endorsement on the anonymous transactions.

There were a few people that came into the forums and said that it wasn't anonymous and could break it, I'll reach out to them and see if they're up for taking a look at it.

Hi Eduffield.   Check out what Heavycoin did.  You can check what they are doing with this coin.  

https://cryptocointalk.com/topic/6988-launchedhvc-heavycoin-decentralized-block-reward-votingcpu-only-ultra-secure/


"Bounty details

Thanks to the bounty phase, Heavycoin will start with enough funds to do some serious work in terms of branding, marketing and promotion. Here are some of the projects we will be rewarding early adopters and promoters for.  If you are interested, then please post to the forum and send a PM so we can confirm the details.

30,000 HVC - professional grade commercial art and logos (specific guidelines, logo competition)
50,000 HVC - professional grade promotional video explanation (specific guidelines apply)
100,000 HVC - first substaintial merchant to accept payments with Heavycoin
50,000 HVC - second merchant
40,000 HVC - third merchant
10,000 HVC - fourth merchant
10,000 HVC - fifth merchant
50,000 HVC - first gambling site (specific guidelines apply)
20,000 HVC - first dice site
10,000 HVC - setup and maintenance of a dedicated Heavycoin forum
10,000 HVC - sign-up of the first Heavycoin exchange
30,000 HVC - first block explorer
10,000 HVC - second block explorer
30,000 HVC - first mining pool
10,000 HVC - second mining pool
10,000 HVC - first article published
10,000 HVC - second article published
30,000 HVC - article at CoinDesk, Bitcoin Magazine, Forbes or Money Week

Thousands more to be awarded to promotors on twitter, facebook and online forums.

Completed bounties
These bounties have been pre-allocated ahead of the launch for helpful contributions.

Twitter feed setup - 1,000 HVC awarded to robmillernow
Chinese PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to xiaocong
Greek PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to RealMiner
French PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to kuroman
Spanish PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to VanBreuk
Dutch PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to tinus42
First article published - 10,000 HVC awarded to qznc (Block Reward Voting: HeavyCoin)
Polish PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to Moozg
Russian PRE-ANN translation - 1,000 HVC awarded to -Greed-
Informative blog post - 1,000 HVC awarded to Shuxy (Alt Coins Lookout! #1)
Setup and maintenance of a dedicated Heavycoin forum - 10,000 HVC awarded to cryptomind (heavycoinforum.com)
Italian PRE-ANN translation - 500 HVC awarded to Steve_Sanders

We are still awarding bounties for pre-launch contributions (ex. promotions and translations) so please send us a PM."

This in my opinion is a very well thought out roll out.  We need to set up a bounty found ASAP and I'll donate the first 500 DRK to the fund to start with.  FYI I do not current own or have any holdings in HVC.

Thoughts?

 

They had a good marketing plan but failed to deliver on the actual coin.  HeavyCoins launch was a complete failure due to horrible developer support.  Take that same marketing with the excellent developer support that DarkCoin has and you have a winner for sure.  However, one issue would be the bounty's.  HeavyCoin was a huge premine so they had a very large quantity of coins to use for bounty's.  They also raised 170+ btc through an IPO which they can use for marketing as well.  

Thanks Shojayxt.  I agree...Heavy's Coin is already showing some teething issues or they could be premining the hell out of it prior to release.  I've just set up an account with them to see how they move forward and see how the cpu only mining system is going to work out.

I don't think the proposal is to come out with the marching band just yet.  But we have some serious work to do with getting this coin out.  A foundation made up of pool owners and large coin holders and our devs would be a great starting point.  From this we could come out with a plan that we can build on.

[eduffield]

So I just had a random idea and I wanted to see if there's any interest in me developing this (after DarkSend of course).

I think it would be really neat and much more friendly if you could type something like "Evan" in the Pay To field. Bitcoin/Darkcoin addresses are just really long and impossible to remember, it's even harder to show a Bitcoin address in a video or picture without a QR Code.

The solution? Named Addresses

When mining, the miner who successfully mines the block could "name" a darkcoin address. It would be permanently added to the block chain as an alias of that darkcoin address. The names could be up to 8-20 characters and would be paired with the 160 bit address. Upon loading the blockchain the client would form a cache of all of these and then they could be used in place of the full addresses.

It's decentralized, permanent and tamper proof.

The block explorer could even show the alias instead of the address when it had it available, so in a DarkSend you could tell that "Evan" paid someone, but you would have no idea who.

How do you get a name?

This could be an opportunity for the pool operators to make extra cash. They would take orders for name/address pairs and tell the daemon which ones to add to the blockchain next. The blockchain could only support 1 of these per block, so there could be a premium for adding them. Eventually I could see a centralized market where you buy a spot in the queue to get a name.

Thoughts?  

[CHAOSiTEC]

So I just had a random idea and I wanted to see if there's any interest in me developing this (after DarkSend of course).

I think it would be really neat and much more friendly if you could type something like "Evan" in the Pay To field. Bitcoin/Darkcoin addresses are just really long and impossible to remember, it's even harder to show a Bitcoin address in a video or picture without a QR Code.

The solution? Named Addresses

When mining, the miner who successfully mines the block could "name" a darkcoin address. It would be permanently added to the block chain as an alias of that darkcoin address. The names could be up to 8-20 characters and would be paired with the 160 bit address. Upon loading the blockchain the client would form a cache of all of these and then they could be used in place of the full addresses.

It's decentralized, permanent and tamper proof.

The block explorer could even show the alias instead of the address when it had it available, so in a DarkSend you could tell that "Evan" paid someone, but you would have no idea who.

How do you get a name?

This could be an opportunity for the pool operators to make extra cash. They would take orders for name/address pairs and tell the daemon which ones to add to the blockchain next. The blockchain could only support 1 of these per block, so there could be a premium for adding them. Eventually I could see a centralized market where you buy a spot in the queue to get a name.

Thoughts?  

gives more coin to add to the lottery, im in  :-p

seriously, that would be awesome!!

[duazo]

So I just had a random idea and I wanted to see if there's any interest in me developing this (after DarkSend of course).

I think it would be really neat and much more friendly if you could type something like "Evan" in the Pay To field. Bitcoin/Darkcoin addresses are just really long and impossible to remember, it's even harder to show a Bitcoin address in a video or picture without a QR Code.

The solution? Named Addresses

When mining, the miner who successfully mines the block could "name" a darkcoin address. It would be permanently added to the block chain as an alias of that darkcoin address. The names could be up to 8-20 characters and would be paired with the 160 bit address. Upon loading the blockchain the client would form a cache of all of these and then they could be used in place of the full addresses.

It's decentralized, permanent and tamper proof.

The block explorer could even show the alias instead of the address when it had it available, so in a DarkSend you could tell that "Evan" paid someone, but you would have no idea who.

How do you get a name?

This could be an opportunity for the pool operators to make extra cash. They would take orders for name/address pairs and tell the daemon which ones to add to the blockchain next. The blockchain could only support 1 of these per block, so there could be a premium for adding them. Eventually I could see a centralized market where you buy a spot in the queue to get a name.

Thoughts?  

IMO, it sounds like a useful feature, but it's counter-productive to the ethos of DarkCoin. Crypto currencies are immature - there are hundreds and hundreds of useful features like this that could be added, but if you add too many to one such as DarkCoin, then it runs the risk of overcomplicating things and confusing people. Such features should be allowed to be introduced gradually to the market. For DRK, it doesn't add anything to help its cause.

[DieCommieScum]

So I just had a random idea and I wanted to see if there's any interest in me developing this (after DarkSend of course).

I think it would be really neat and much more friendly if you could type something like "Evan" in the Pay To field. Bitcoin/Darkcoin addresses are just really long and impossible to remember, it's even harder to show a Bitcoin address in a video or picture without a QR Code.

The solution? Named Addresses

When mining, the miner who successfully mines the block could "name" a darkcoin address. It would be permanently added to the block chain as an alias of that darkcoin address. The names could be up to 8-20 characters and would be paired with the 160 bit address. Upon loading the blockchain the client would form a cache of all of these and then they could be used in place of the full addresses.

It's decentralized, permanent and tamper proof.

The block explorer could even show the alias instead of the address when it had it available, so in a DarkSend you could tell that "Evan" paid someone, but you would have no idea who.

How do you get a name?

This could be an opportunity for the pool operators to make extra cash. They would take orders for name/address pairs and tell the daemon which ones to add to the blockchain next. The blockchain could only support 1 of these per block, so there could be a premium for adding them. Eventually I could see a centralized market where you buy a spot in the queue to get a name.

Thoughts?  

I think disconnecting it from the mining process would make it more accessible to most people, I would think maybe an extension to the client that allows the creation of vanity addresses would get more use. Regarding remembering sending addresses, the address book would seem to eliminate much of the use case for this.

[bigrcanada]

Thanks bigrcanada!

As mentioned above I think we should get the mining pools involved to offer an auto-donation to get the foundation funded. I also think we should use a similar rewards structure as heavy, obviously with fewer coins since ours are and will be worth so much more!

eduffield can you put up a donation address for the Foundation and implement the donation option on your pool to that address? If you do it then other mining pool operators can follow suit, up until a fund ceiling of 200,000 DRK or so.

I think most miners would be happy to contribute, especially when it will go directly to the foundation and improving the awareness, development and value of the coin. It's in everyone's best interest!

+1

Completely agree.  We need a someone we all trust to hold the coins for the bounties.  It makes sense that eduffield be that person, seeing as he must have a lot of trust from us as we are all counting on his development of the coin.  I would step up myself except I'm having trouble with my wallet (on a mac, it keeps quitting).  If we can get a darkcoinfounation website or simply a bounty page added to http://www.darkcoin.io/ with an darkcoin address controlled by eduffield (or another trusted person) we can all start chipping in to pay for the bounties.  We can propose bounties here in this thread and/or over at https://www.darkcointalk.org/.  Let's do it!

I would also propose that we make a central portal for DarkCoin marketing and administration discussions such as www.darkcointalk.org or off the main site...and maybe move that away from here.  

[coins101]

orders @ cryptsy are just not following any logics ... i cant understand why we see a new bottom on cryptsy and a spike in difficulty up to 415 ... that makes absolutly no sense ...

can someone explain the logic behind that? has someone a theory?

there will always be dumpers. I just bought myself 500 more.

me too 

[DieCommieScum]

Thanks bigrcanada!

As mentioned above I think we should get the mining pools involved to offer an auto-donation to get the foundation funded. I also think we should use a similar rewards structure as heavy, obviously with fewer coins since ours are and will be worth so much more!

eduffield can you put up a donation address for the Foundation and implement the donation option on your pool to that address? If you do it then other mining pool operators can follow suit, up until a fund ceiling of 200,000 DRK or so.

I think most miners would be happy to contribute, especially when it will go directly to the foundation and improving the awareness, development and value of the coin. It's in everyone's best interest!

+1

Completely agree.  We need a someone we all trust to hold the coins for the bounties.  It makes sense that eduffield be that person, seeing as he must have a lot of trust from us as we are all counting on his development of the coin.  I would step up myself except I'm having trouble with my wallet (on a mac, it keeps quitting).  If we can get a darkcoinfounation website or simply a bounty page added to http://www.darkcoin.io/ with an darkcoin address controlled by eduffield (or another trusted person) we can all start chipping in to pay for the bounties.  We can propose bounties here in this thread and/or over at https://www.darkcointalk.org/.  Let's do it!

I would also propose that we make a central portal for DarkCoin marketing and administration discussions such as www.darkcointalk.org or off the main site...and maybe move that away from here.  

Started a Reddit thread that might be a good jumping off point, given the format. http://www.reddit.com/r/DRKCoin/comments/1zzfoz/thoughts_in_marketing_this_coin/

[coins101]

just bought 500 darkcoin on cryptsy for 0.00125. Someone dumped a lot. Get them cheap while u can.

Whoever did that dump....I missed some, can you do it again please. 

[tifozi]

So I just had a random idea and I wanted to see if there's any interest in me developing this (after DarkSend of course).

I think it would be really neat and much more friendly if you could type something like "Evan" in the Pay To field. Bitcoin/Darkcoin addresses are just really long and impossible to remember, it's even harder to show a Bitcoin address in a video or picture without a QR Code.

The solution? Named Addresses

When mining, the miner who successfully mines the block could "name" a darkcoin address. It would be permanently added to the block chain as an alias of that darkcoin address. The names could be up to 8-20 characters and would be paired with the 160 bit address. Upon loading the blockchain the client would form a cache of all of these and then they could be used in place of the full addresses.

It's decentralized, permanent and tamper proof.

The block explorer could even show the alias instead of the address when it had it available, so in a DarkSend you could tell that "Evan" paid someone, but you would have no idea who.

How do you get a name?

This could be an opportunity for the pool operators to make extra cash. They would take orders for name/address pairs and tell the daemon which ones to add to the blockchain next. The blockchain could only support 1 of these per block, so there could be a premium for adding them. Eventually I could see a centralized market where you buy a spot in the queue to get a name.

Thoughts?  

IMO, it sounds like a useful feature, but it's counter-productive to the ethos of DarkCoin. Crypto currencies are immature - there are hundreds and hundreds of useful features like this that could be added, but if you add too many to one such as DarkCoin, then it runs the risk of overcomplicating things and confusing people. Such features should be allowed to be introduced gradually to the market. For DRK, it doesn't add anything to help its cause.

I agree. More than over complicating, it just doesn't flow with anonymity and privacy aspects that should resonate with DarkCoin imo.

[bigrcanada]

Thanks bigrcanada!

As mentioned above I think we should get the mining pools involved to offer an auto-donation to get the foundation funded. I also think we should use a similar rewards structure as heavy, obviously with fewer coins since ours are and will be worth so much more!

eduffield can you put up a donation address for the Foundation and implement the donation option on your pool to that address? If you do it then other mining pool operators can follow suit, up until a fund ceiling of 200,000 DRK or so.

I think most miners would be happy to contribute, especially when it will go directly to the foundation and improving the awareness, development and value of the coin. It's in everyone's best interest!

+1

Completely agree.  We need a someone we all trust to hold the coins for the bounties.  It makes sense that eduffield be that person, seeing as he must have a lot of trust from us as we are all counting on his development of the coin.  I would step up myself except I'm having trouble with my wallet (on a mac, it keeps quitting).  If we can get a darkcoinfounation website or simply a bounty page added to http://www.darkcoin.io/ with an darkcoin address controlled by eduffield (or another trusted person) we can all start chipping in to pay for the bounties.  We can propose bounties here in this thread and/or over at https://www.darkcointalk.org/.  Let's do it!

I would also propose that we make a central portal for DarkCoin marketing and administration discussions such as www.darkcointalk.org or off the main site...and maybe move that away from here.  

Started a Reddit thread that might be a good jumping off point, given the format. http://www.reddit.com/r/DRKCoin/comments/1zzfoz/thoughts_in_marketing_this_coin/

Ok...so here's the next most difficult part, we need to put someone in charge.  For being in charge we could again donate some DRK for someone to organize everything and be a go to person. Naturally that would be Evan, though I suspect he already has alot on his plate...maybe one of the other devs or someone that Evan can propose to be the central goto person in regards to creating a task list and moving us forward.  I immediately remove myself from a possible candidate at this time due to our heavy work season at our winery coming up.  Evan...thoughts?