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

[camosoul]

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.

No Cryptoanarchist worth their salt would put their privacy and security in trust of any software that was closed-source.  You just don't get the idea why opensource software is so much more secure than anything closed-source.  

I think we should first get DarkSend working properly, release a stable binary version, then we'll find a few researchers/software developers to do an audit of the code. This way we can build a community and establish ourselves so we'll have the network to support the coin after DarkSend is open-sourced.

You "cryptoanarchists" are over doing it with wantinbg everything to be open soucre, I agree that Darkcoin should be Closed Source until it has a huge user base like Bitcoin does, then you can open source, if the devs open source Darkxoin before that, this coin will become.overlooked and useless as others mimic Darksend.

Why would the ability of others to mimic darksend cause darkcoin to become useless? CoinJoin and SharedCoin exist(ed)... ZeroCoin tried...

How many failed altcoins are there that were pretty much all the same?

If you want to claim anonymity as your core selling point, you can't be non-transparent about it. The general idea of how darksend works is already known, even if they can't copy and paste the code, other can still come up with their own mousetrap... You're really not stopping anything by keeping it under lock and key. The idea is already out there.

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[illodin]

At the risk of sounding cheeky, but for general community moral.....could a tor user possibly give us all a screen shot please. It really sounds like a genuine milestone and a picture speaks thousand words.

[DuvajBalone]

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.

I would contact forum folks carefully, too many trolls with their own coin agendas. I would use the upcoming conference as a way to network some connections. Put it in your talk or something that you are looking for a verified third-party to help confirm the coin's claims.

Again on the marketing stuff, you need to set an agenda for everyone to follow. I think there are way too many voices screaming marketing and what they are really doing is pushing DRK to be "just another coin". This coin will not succeed because there's a dice game.

IMO, these are the core elements that should always be addressed:

1. Why anonymity is important in cryptocurrencies. What are the shortcomings of the current cryptoworld (only in terms of BTC, I think discussing DRK w/ any other coin is counter-productive).

2. How does DRK solve the anonymity issue. To what extent are DRK transactions anonymous? This needs to put proven and put into an understandable diagram. Again, in my mind, this is the biggest priority for DarkSend. If everyone goes off into a tangent working on dice games or other alt-coin "standards" AND DarkSend ends up failing, then the coin will fail with it. I can't put it any more bluntly than that. So if everyone is focusing on shit like dice games and not figuring out how to validate the anonymity factor, all other effort is wasted.

3. If #2 is proven, how does DRK fit into the Crypto-World alongside BTC? Competitor/compliment?

4. Become a (or THE) Crypto-Anonymity spokesman. You get noticed by leading, not following. I think you can solve this by putting some effort into media outreach. The CryptoLife Blog did that nice piece about anonymity that featured some nice coverage of DRK, along with some other coins. So, you should do some basic PR outreach (this is where you could bring in someone from the community to help). Here's what I would do:

- Find someone you know and trust to handle all of your public relations effort. Announce it here and announce a basic PR plan with milestones. This would be something like:

A. Make a list of the top 5-10 crypto bloggers/journalists that have big enough voices in the community that it's worthwhile.
B. Have the marketing person conduct outreach saying that you are available to discuss crypto-anonymity, interviews about DarkSend and/or whatever you're planning on talking about at the conference.
C. If interviews are scheduled, always be there for them or respond promptly (if done via email). Journalists are notoriously self-centered and can take something like a perceived slight and turn it into a negative article.

4. Use your conference appearance to really build some new relationships that can help the coin's future.

-----

Again, I would implore you NOT to be distracted by these alt-clone marketing suggestions. This is the wrong place to put your attention. Develop the coin & conduct outreach to the media and NOT focusing on the crypto coin miners/traders.

+11111111
Organizer really knows the stuff!

[Honest Tim]

ILLODIN, AWESOME-O THANKS!!!!!

[Dude5082]

Lottery mining has just been having bad luck with the blocks today.

[camosoul]

My DNS is unable to solve this address

[facepalm]

[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.

I would contact forum folks carefully, too many trolls with their own coin agendas. I would use the upcoming conference as a way to network some connections. Put it in your talk or something that you are looking for a verified third-party to help confirm the coin's claims.

Again on the marketing stuff, you need to set an agenda for everyone to follow. I think there are way too many voices screaming marketing and what they are really doing is pushing DRK to be "just another coin". This coin will not succeed because there's a dice game.

IMO, these are the core elements that should always be addressed:

1. Why anonymity is important in cryptocurrencies. What are the shortcomings of the current cryptoworld (only in terms of BTC, I think discussing DRK w/ any other coin is counter-productive).

2. How does DRK solve the anonymity issue. To what extent are DRK transactions anonymous? This needs to put proven and put into an understandable diagram. Again, in my mind, this is the biggest priority for DarkSend. If everyone goes off into a tangent working on dice games or other alt-coin "standards" AND DarkSend ends up failing, then the coin will fail with it. I can't put it any more bluntly than that. So if everyone is focusing on shit like dice games and not figuring out how to validate the anonymity factor, all other effort is wasted.

3. If #2 is proven, how does DRK fit into the Crypto-World alongside BTC? Competitor/compliment?

4. Become a (or THE) Crypto-Anonymity spokesman. You get noticed by leading, not following. I think you can solve this by putting some effort into media outreach. The CryptoLife Blog did that nice piece about anonymity that featured some nice coverage of DRK, along with some other coins. So, you should do some basic PR outreach (this is where you could bring in someone from the community to help). Here's what I would do:

- Find someone you know and trust to handle all of your public relations effort. Announce it here and announce a basic PR plan with milestones. This would be something like:

A. Make a list of the top 5-10 crypto bloggers/journalists that have big enough voices in the community that it's worthwhile.
B. Have the marketing person conduct outreach saying that you are available to discuss crypto-anonymity, interviews about DarkSend and/or whatever you're planning on talking about at the conference.
C. If interviews are scheduled, always be there for them or respond promptly (if done via email). Journalists are notoriously self-centered and can take something like a perceived slight and turn it into a negative article.

4. Use your conference appearance to really build some new relationships that can help the coin's future.

-----

Again, I would implore you NOT to be distracted by these alt-clone marketing suggestions. This is the wrong place to put your attention. Develop the coin & conduct outreach to the media and NOT focusing on the crypto coin miners/traders.

Ahhh...a voice of reason!  Like it!   ++1
This is why its important to see some more senior peeps that have a broader perspective to chime in.  Its always important to lead...and I think organizer has some very valid points.  Like always...it comes down to a plan and a time line.  

[hamiltino]

lol how is edufield going to explain this to the public. haha.

[eizh]

My DNS is unable to solve this address

[facepalm]

I do not catch it 

.onion is non-standard; it's part of the Darknet. http://theanonymousinternet.tumblr.com/faq

[wonko86]

My DNS is unable to solve this address

[facepalm]

I do not catch it 

You need Tor browser to visit the website.

https://www.torproject.org/projects/torbrowser.html.en

[eizh]

At the risk of sounding cheeky, but for general community moral.....could a tor user possibly give us all a screen shot please. It really sounds like a genuine milestone and a picture speaks thousand words.

Less Lethal (0). LOL. These people certainly have their priorities.

[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.

No Cryptoanarchist worth their salt would put their privacy and security in trust of any software that was closed-source.  You just don't get the idea why opensource software is so much more secure than anything closed-source.  

I couldn't agree more. Well put.

I fully agree...that opensource is the only option...once the branding of this coin and its features are close to prime time.  I cant speak for any others on here's business acumen, but from one such as I that has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in having a couple of my own projects pilfered...its important to keep your cards closed. The Utopian view that others will be working for the common good would be naive.   Lets not forget...this is about business and its most certainly about dollars and cents!  Period. And there is nothing on any of these crypto coins...including this coin that with enough money thrown at it can not only be done better, but faster by any group of devs, no disrespect Evan, please.

Put our heads in the sand...and we don't value every portion of this "business" and guess what...someone will take care of your business for you.  In todays world...its a race against time.  I've paid dearly for this oversight in past...nearly the value of this whole coin combined.

Open source- yes
White hat and outside verification that this is secure and working - yes
Brand awareness - yes
PR - yes

All in due time...with a plan!

[Lloydie]

Open source darksend only after zerocoin is released. Meanwhile, get code audited. I suggest dev seriously considers the zerocoin protocol when it is released, to maintain momentum and market share in people wanting anonymity.

[Lloydie]

Meanwhile work on encrypted transaction to move further ahead of anoncoin. Make statement that darkcoin will at least consider zerocoin protocol if it is proven to be reliable.

[bigrcanada]

On the another note, Eduffield are you still planning to attend the New York conference?   Didn't quite get a clear picture on what your intention was due to some changes. 

[DieCommieScum]

Open source darksend only after zerocoin is released. Meanwhile, get code audited. I suggest dev seriously considers the zerocoin protocol when it is released, to maintain momentum and market share in people wanting anonymity.

I think Evan hit the nail on the head stating, once we have a stable binary of Darksend, then it can be opened/audited. Releasing the source should not be dependent upon any external parties, particularly another alt that may or may not launch.

[CHAOSiTEC]

Lottery mining has just been having bad luck with the blocks today.

yeah   

[metstijl]

Nice gun shop , will order that ak and some pistols.
Any childporn site in the making?
This is really big news. Hope silkroad will add the coin to.


Btw this coin should not release the darksend code till some other coin will make it / release it.
Best for businesse

[camosoul]

Lols, installed Mint 16. The very first thing I try to do is install the catalyst driver, it fails...

Supported adapter detected.
Check if system has the tools required for installation.
Uninstalling any previously installed drivers.

Creating symlink /var/lib/dkms/fglrx/13.251/source ->
                 /usr/src/fglrx-13.251

DKMS: add completed.

Kernel preparation unnecessary for this kernel.  Skipping...

Building module:
cleaning build area....
cd /var/lib/dkms/fglrx/13.251/build; sh make.sh --nohints --uname_r=3.11.0-12-generic --norootcheck.....(bad exit status: 1)
[Error] Kernel Module : Failed to build fglrx-13.251 with DKMS
[Error] Kernel Module : Removing fglrx-13.251 from DKMS

------------------------------
Deleting module version: 13.251
completely from the DKMS tree.
------------------------------
Done.
[Reboot] Kernel Module : update-initramfs

In failing, it automatically deletes everything so I can't try anything manually...

[tom_o]

You "cryptoanarchists" are over doing it with wantinbg everything to be open soucre, I agree that Darkcoin should be Closed Source until it has a huge user base like Bitcoin does, then you can open source, if the devs open source Darkxoin before that, this coin will become.overlooked and useless as others mimic Darksend.

I agree somewhat, some things can't be truly transparent and not get exploited. I can't even code and over that last couple of days have considered learning enough to make a darkcoin clone till I read this thread properly and found out about it's closed source nature.

A good compromise would be a full audit from greg maxwell and possibly some other trusted contributors to the original idea.