The Cypherfunks[FUNK]: a coin for a global band! Talking v2. Join! 80+ songs

[soundposition]

I'm really doing backflips in my mind. I supposed I'm dischuffed. So we support traditional music platforms with fiat currency?
We also don't pay musicians by encouraging them to give away all music for free, and take the proceeds and destroy the FUNK coin? Is this the same Simon?

I don't know how long you have been in the music biz, but I've been doing this for at least 10 years. I have had several releases on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and the like (look them up and have a listen). They cost me $30 a year for the first year if it's an album to put in the stores, then like $55 the next year and they keep jacking up the price, or they threaten to take it down. Guess how much revenue I get from that? I get about less than $1.00 a month.  So when you talk about proceeds from traditional models, there really aren't any which is why I came here in the first place.

Now if you've been into music as long as I have, you know that equipment and software costs $$$. Lots of cash! I've spend lots of money on equipment so that I can mix, master and produce high quality music. That money came out of my hard earned money I spent on equipment, sounds, instruments, software etc. So now that I'm really poor, you tell me I should release my music for free and not earn anything.

I can tell you now as a musician, this is going to run musicians out of here really fast. Someone mentioned musicians are used to working for free. Maybe in some circles, but not in mine. All of my musician friends expect to get paid, and they don't work for free. Producers, Recording artists, promoters etc. all expect to get paid.

Simon from the idea you described, the only people to benefit financially from FUNK are the old traditional music distribution platforms. You imply that if I weren't in the FUNK community you would pay me money to master the song, but if I'm in the community I will just do it for free. In that case I'm better off leaving Cypherfunks, because at least you will pay me to master your songs.

So when you say we need to start figuring out the costs, I'm thinking "The costs?!" I thought we were talking about figuring out the income, not the expenses. So now I need to shell out money to someone outside of the community so they can master the song?? I could master it but I wouldn't get paid because I'm "in the community". This is maddening!

You showing me a payment processor solution that you own, which could be repurposed to compete with the traditional models. Instead you insist on not using it for what I suggest is a way musicians could earn a living - finally. We could cut out the middleman, but instead you want to court the middleman and bring them in, and for us to benefit them - financially while at the same time insisting on making the musician into a slave to support the middleman?

I suggest you think this through a little bit more. I've poured my money, time, resources and heart into this project so I'm getting a little bit upset. Other musicians would be upset too. Notice not many other artists have released music for the Cypherfunks. They want to keep their tracks to themselves, because they ask "How does it benefit me to put my music on Cypherfunks?". They could see that it gives them free exposure and way for people to tip in FUNK, but I don't think anyone really believes they will be tipped in FUNK. I've been releasing tracks and the only FUNK I've been getting is from you Simon. People running their computers are earning more FUNK than I am making music.

Making music is expensive, especially when nobody cares about the musician getting paid for their hard work. I don't want my music to become a multipool, I want my music to be an income stream.

I hope you really spend some time thinking about this.
 

[soundposition]

Soundcloud encourages musicians to get used to the idea that they should release their music for free. I thought the purpose of Cypherfunks was to support musicians. People have a hard time leaving the old paradigm, and switching over to new thoughts. It's not an easy thing for most people.

[soundposition]

The way forward is to pay the musician DIRECTLY. Also, we need a way to use our FUNK for something, or why do we want it at all?

[simondlr]

Hey Michael. Thanks for the response. I'll clarify.

I'm really doing backflips in my mind. I supposed I'm dischuffed. So we support traditional music platforms with fiat currency?
We also don't pay musicians by encouraging them to give away all music for free, and take the proceeds and destroy the FUNK coin? Is this the same Simon?

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. The idea is to use the traditional systems to our advantage to inject capital into the coin. Destroying the coin is a more verified, fair way to increase the worth of the rest of the cryptocurrency. You are simply cryptographically provably removing supply, which if the demand stays the same, increases the price. You could also use the proceeds to redistribute the FUNK, but is decidedly more difficult to do as you have to figure whom to give it to. ie 1) sell songs 2) convert to FUNK 3) redistribute to artists. Except now, who gets it?

I don't know how long you have been in the music biz, but I've been doing this for at least 10 years. I have had several releases on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify and the like (look them up and have a listen). They cost me $30 a year for the first year if it's an album to put in the stores, then like $55 the next year and they keep jacking up the price, or they threaten to take it down. Guess how much revenue I get from that? I get about less than $1.00 a month.  So when you talk about proceeds from traditional models, there really aren't any which is why I came here in the first place.

Shit. That doesn't indeed suck. I know streaming sites pay next to nothing.

Now if you've been into music as long as I have, you know that equipment and software costs $$$. Lots of cash! I've spend lots of money on equipment so that I can mix, master and produce high quality music. That money came out of my hard earned money I spent on equipment, sounds, instruments, software etc. So now that I'm really poor, you tell me I should release my music for free and not earn anything.

I can tell you now as a musician, this is going to run musicians out of here really fast. Someone mentioned musicians are used to working for free. Maybe in some circles, but not in mine. All of my musician friends expect to get paid, and they don't work for free. Producers, Recording artists, promoters etc. all expect to get paid.

Yep. I really don't like it when musicians who want to make a living does shit for free. We are creators & crafters and we should expect to duly remunerated. I agree.

Simon from the idea you described, the only people to benefit financially from FUNK are the old traditional music distribution platforms. You imply that if I weren't in the FUNK community you would pay me money to master the song, but if I'm in the community I will just do it for free. In that case I'm better off leaving Cypherfunks, because at least you will pay me to master your songs.

So when you say we need to start figuring out the costs, I'm thinking "The costs?!" I thought we were talking about figuring out the income, not the expenses. So now I need to shell out money to someone outside of the community so they can master the song?? I could master it but I wouldn't get paid because I'm "in the community". This is maddening!

This was more a reference that if we don't have someone who could master a song, then we'll just pay one. *crowdfunding it*. Think of it like this. We are a band. If someone in the band can master music, then it's a bonus. We don't have to pay someone externally to do that.

You showing me a payment processor solution that you own, which could be repurposed to compete with the traditional models. Instead you insist on not using it for what I suggest is a way musicians could earn a living - finally. We could cut out the middleman, but instead you want to court the middleman and bring them in, and for us to benefit them - financially while at the same time insisting on making the musician into a slave to support the middleman?

We can yes, but the question is, how do you manage who gets the money? This is something we need to figure out as a community. For what it is worth, I'm okay with anyone just taking any of the songs and selling it for FUNK. Releasing songs for free doesn't also fit in the paradigm of selling it. That's why a coin was invented to fit with the decentralized band as ownership becomes decentralized. It makes more sense to release free -> increase network effect of the coin -> increase demand for the coin -> get financially rewarded.

I suggest you think this through a little bit more. I've poured my money, time, resources and heart into this project so I'm getting a little bit upset. Other musicians would be upset too. Notice not many other artists have released music for the Cypherfunks. They want to keep their tracks to themselves, because they ask "How does it benefit me to put my music on Cypherfunks?". They could see that it gives them free exposure and way for people to tip in FUNK, but I don't think anyone really believes they will be tipped in FUNK. I've been releasing tracks and the only FUNK I've been getting is from you Simon. People running their computers are earning more FUNK than I am making music.

I apologise if I came across wrong. It feels like there is some miscommunication here. The mining part is integral to keep the concept decentralized. We are also only a few months old. Down the line as the mining reward halves, making music and receiving tips for it will become much more profitable than mining.

Making music is expensive, especially when nobody cares about the musician getting paid for their hard work. I don't want my music to become a multipool, I want my music to be an income stream.

I hope you really spend some time thinking about this.

I agree completely. All my music equipment I have, has been paid for by doing other jobs. I know how much hard work it is!

Michael, I do think there's been a slight misunderstanding here though, and I still can't quite place exactly what it is. I'll try to clarify what I meant by my previous post. That is:

The question is. How do we increase the value of FUNK? FUNK's value increases when we inject capital into it. Currently (as with most coins), the only capital that comes in is from other people that believe in the coin. Think Bitcoin is cool? Buy Bitcoin. Think Dogecoin is cool? Buy Dogecoin. That's how capital comes in, that drives up the price of the currency. Some are true believers, some are miners, some are speculators, all forming a family of contributors.

With FUNK, unlike any other cryptocurrency we are also generating significant value: that of making music together. Contributors from across the world. That means it increases the desire to hold the currency. However, our strength is that we can a way somehow to use the music to inject capital into the currency for gains for ALL of us. Me, you, and anyone holding FUNK.

One of the ways I proposed (which is just an idea), is to find ways to get capital flowing into FUNK that's unlike any other way a coin has done before. We sell what the community creates, and we take the proceeds to buy up "stock" in the currency. This means EVERYONE's FUNK becomes more valuable. There's more liquidity from a different source. Everyone wins. The proceeds won't be owned by anyone, but the whole community.

As I mentioned before, the idea is that to increase the financial reward, to allow us to keep making music, is to instead of using the proceeds (from the fiat world) to redistribute it to everyone (which is difficult to do), we simply buy up the currency and remove it from the supply. That's only a proposal. I haven't been through the process of selling music through traditional fiat models, so thanks for your input. It helps with some perspective!

You are an integral part of the community, and I hope this clarifies some of my thoughts. There's only good intent. All I want is 1) people to make music & 2) allow them do that in a new way & 3) allow us to be supported financially through FUNK.

That way, we create a future where we can keep making music that's different from anything that's been done before.

[jommy99]

This would be an interesting service for FUNK, Coinlock is a neat little service which allows digital content developers to easily sell their content for cryptocurrency.
Sell anything in seconds. No programming, no infrastructure, no hassle. Immediate payment via Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Dogecoin but perhaps they could be persuaded to include Cypherfunks FUNK.

https://www.coinlock.com/#/

https://www.coinlock.com/#/faq

What is this?
The short answer is that Coinlock is a platform that lets you sell digital content. The long answer is that Coinlock is a fully encrypted anonymous escrow service. It is designed to help you sell your content from anywhere in the world without any infrastructure or up front commitments. We operate entirely within the Bitcoin ecosystem, so no traditional banking or other relationships are required.

What are the main advantages of this versus other options?
There are no up front costs, no required development, no infrastrucutre, no integration, and no commitments. Payment occurs quickly without charge backs on the Bitcoin network. You don't need to host a shopping cart, and you don't need to design your site to serve large content or handle scalability if your content is popular.

Could a similar but superior service be created for the Cypherfunks FUNK?

[simondlr]

This would be an interesting service for FUNK, Coinlock is a neat little service which allows digital content developers to easily sell their content for cryptocurrency.
Sell anything in seconds. No programming, no infrastructure, no hassle. Immediate payment via Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Dogecoin but perhaps they could be persuaded to include Cypherfunks FUNK.

https://www.coinlock.com/#/

https://www.coinlock.com/#/faq

What is this?
The short answer is that Coinlock is a platform that lets you sell digital content. The long answer is that Coinlock is a fully encrypted anonymous escrow service. It is designed to help you sell your content from anywhere in the world without any infrastructure or up front commitments. We operate entirely within the Bitcoin ecosystem, so no traditional banking or other relationships are required.

What are the main advantages of this versus other options?
There are no up front costs, no required development, no infrastrucutre, no integration, and no commitments. Payment occurs quickly without charge backs on the Bitcoin network. You don't need to host a shopping cart, and you don't need to design your site to serve large content or handle scalability if your content is popular.

Could a similar but superior service be created for the Cypherfunks FUNK?

We can try. Easiest would be to just use http://min.io (which I developed a while back). You will be able to sell any digital content for FUNK. I just don't have the time atm. I'll try, but I can't promise an ETA to get it finished.

[soundposition]

Destroying the FUNK currency may drive up the price due to artificial deflation, however raising the price of something that already can't be used to buy anything useful, well... isn't useful. It's like if I had a big bag of rice, and everyone had plenty of rice and I said, "Yeah, but it's a really expensive bag of rice!" I don't think people would be lining up to buy it.

How do you manage who gets the money? That shouldn't even be a question, so I'm not sure why you would ask that. The musician gets paid the money DIRECTLY to their wallet. So I'm not sure what the problem is there.

I'm really interested in making this work. As I said before that means turning making music into an income stream with FUNK. How do we increase the value of FUNK? I don't think injecting capital is the only way to do that.

I really like that you have new ideas, and I love hearing them. 

On your website you wrote:
"By creating music for this internet band and sharing it, musicians increase the network effect & subsequent demand for the currency. As contributors, musicians can be tipped FUNK by other members. FUNK can be exchanged into your currency of choice through various online exchanges. In the future, you will be able to use FUNK directly to buy products that assist in music making, and eventually anything else you can think of.
 The long-term goal is to have a community of musicians use FUNK as currency to help each other continuously create great new music."

You summed it up in your last post:
"increase network effect of the coin -> increase demand for the coin -> get financially rewarded."
When I break that down, I don't follow the logic. How does increasing the "network effect" whatever that is, increase demand for the coin? Next, how does increasing demand for the coin translate to me getting financially rewarded?

It's true musicians CAN get tipped FUNK coin, but will they? What incentive does someone have to tip a musician with FUNK when they can just hoard them, sell them on an exchange for BTC, and buy cheeseburgers (or whatever else with the BTC.)

Can even they exchange their FUNK for BTC? In theory FUNK should be able to be exchanged into your currency of choice. That's only if people want them, and since they don't actually do anything useful, hardly anyone will want to buy them with BTC. So, you can put your FUNK up for sale on the exchange, but I'm not sure anyone will want to buy them, because they ask themselves, "What can I do with a FUNK coin except give them away for free?"  Why would you want to buy something, and give it away for free unless you are a charity?
We can try to get capital flowing into FUNK coin in a way that's never been done before. Or we can try to get it flowing in a way that has already been done before, and has been proven to work.

I'll take GPUCoin for example. Started by Jaymes Reilly, he had bad experiences with computer retailers with a lack of stock and over priced goods. This was due to the high costs of the middleman, such as Paypal and Ebay charging 18% fees. As a solution he made his own alt-coin - the GPUCoin, which he accepts exclusively on his online store so he cuts out the middle men to save the customer money.
What increases the demand for the GPUCoin? It's not the "network effect". The high demand physical commodity (Namely, the GPU) that is sold at a reduced price and only sold in GPUCoin is backing the GPUCoin.

Music products can be digital or physical commodities. What we need is to accept the FUNK coin as payment for REAL (or digital/virtual goods/services) that people actually want. It could be music, tickets, t-shirts, food, Gridseeds.. Whatever.. As long as it has a real demand in the real world.
You had it spelled out on the website that in the "future FUNK could be used to buy products that assist in musicmaking." Why stop at products that assist in musicmaking? Why not back this currency with something of real world value so people have a real demand for it like the GPUCoin?
There is not going to be a demand for a charity that tips musicians from money coming from donations of regular people. In other words, regular people aren't going to buy FUNK coins to tip musicians, so they can get continue to get free music.

If I may be so bold and lead the way. Take something of value and sell it for FUNK coin, anyone can do it. Just like anyone can accept BTC for payments. Just make sure to charge the right amount. 34 million GPUCoins is worth about $300 which is enough to buy a video card. So 3 million FUNK coins should be worth about $15-20 about as much as a cheap ticket to a concert, or something music related. Price things according to the current exchange rate.

[MadCow]

What we need is to accept the FUNK coin as payment for REAL (or digital/virtual goods/services) that people actually want. It could be music, tickets, t-shirts, food, Gridseeds.. Whatever.. As long as it has a real demand in the real world.
You had it spelled out on the website that in the "future FUNK could be used to buy products that assist in musicmaking." Why stop at products that assist in musicmaking? Why not back this currency with something of real world value so people have a real demand for it like the GPUCoin?
There is not going to be a demand for a charity that tips musicians from money coming from donations of regular people. In other words, regular people aren't going to buy FUNK coins to tip musicians, so they can get continue to get free music.

If I may be so bold and lead the way. Take something of value and sell it for FUNK coin, anyone can do it. Just like anyone can accept BTC for payments. Just make sure to charge the right amount. 34 million GPUCoins is worth about $300 which is enough to buy a video card. So 3 million FUNK coins should be worth about $15-20 about as much as a cheap ticket to a concert, or something music related. Price things according to the current exchange rate.

I agree with everything said above! You want to make FUNK valuable, and at the start offering to pay a musician or a venue in a 'strange' crypto currency that's worth a minuscule amount does seem like a difficult task. But it's not impossible. In order to succeed you need to convince the people being paid in FUNK that there is a very good chance that what they're being paid today will be worth something down the track. Anyone looking at a price chart of bitcoin can be convinced to see the potential. FUNK has everything that bitcoin has, but it has a specific PURPOSE, and a COMMUNITY.

IMO the key is to think along the lines of local/community/complementary currencies. Look at case studies of what other groups have done. The essential task is to link unused resources with unmet needs via the introduction of a 'token' that's created by somebody or a group. Who creates the 'token' and how they distribute them becomes the task for anyone setting up a community currency.

As long as buyers and sellers agree (or can be compelled) to only use the community 'token' for transactions involving the goods & services you 'control/organise/influence', and there are ways to exchange the token for other currencies, the mere fact that NEW goods & services are produced that otherwise would not have been will eventually give value to the community 'token'.

Many local currencies work in this way. A local authority will create some 'local dollars' and give them to people who undertake needed work that isn't being done because the local authority doesn't have enough fiat resources. The local authority then works to get the agreement of local businesses to accept the 'local dollars' 1:1 with the national fiat currency. People accept that the 'local dollars' have value because they can buy things with them in local shops. As long as the authority who issues the local dollars is 'trusted' not to mess with the supply, the local dollars stimulate local business AND pay for needed work in the community that would otherwise not occur.

Community/local/complementary currencies can do great things, and crypto currency technology makes them very easy to setup now.

In some ways FUNK would be better suited to a pure POS coin like COMM or ShareCoin, but in the long-run POW is decentralised and secured.

Don't give up!! FUNK has so much potential.

IMO you have all the key ingredients for a community currency:

- the token or currency
- the basic raw materials for the goods & services (i.e. music & musicians),

so the task is to COMPEL the 'buyers/audience' to pay in FUNK, and to CONVINCE enough suppliers of the other raw materials to accept payment in FUNK also (i.e. venues, equipment hire, sound engineers etc). You need to encourage people to hold their FUNK payments and not convert to fiat, otherwise people will mentally calculate exchange rates and feel like they're playing for free. I don't advocate anybody playing for free but I do argue that at the start people who contribute music etc need to be paid in FUNK - everything is transacted in FUNK.

I believe if FUNK is to succeed all involved must be encouraged to view the value of FUNK as a long-term proposition, and while today a payment of 1000 FUNK is practically nothing, one day it might be worth $10, or $50, or $100.

[jommy99]

This would be an interesting service for FUNK, Coinlock is a neat little service which allows digital content developers to easily sell their content for cryptocurrency.
Sell anything in seconds. No programming, no infrastructure, no hassle. Immediate payment via Bitcoin, Litecoin, or Dogecoin but perhaps they could be persuaded to include Cypherfunks FUNK.

https://www.coinlock.com/#/

https://www.coinlock.com/#/faq

What is this?
The short answer is that Coinlock is a platform that lets you sell digital content. The long answer is that Coinlock is a fully encrypted anonymous escrow service. It is designed to help you sell your content from anywhere in the world without any infrastructure or up front commitments. We operate entirely within the Bitcoin ecosystem, so no traditional banking or other relationships are required.

What are the main advantages of this versus other options?
There are no up front costs, no required development, no infrastrucutre, no integration, and no commitments. Payment occurs quickly without charge backs on the Bitcoin network. You don't need to host a shopping cart, and you don't need to design your site to serve large content or handle scalability if your content is popular.

Could a similar but superior service be created for the Cypherfunks FUNK?

We can try. Easiest would be to just use http://min.io (which I developed a while back). You will be able to sell any digital content for FUNK. I just don't have the time atm. I'll try, but I can't promise an ETA to get it finished.

Ahh, that is a great start   Nice work Simon and brothers, how did I miss that.

[simondlr]

@soundposition:

Destroying the FUNK currency may drive up the price due to artificial deflation, however raising the price of something that already can't be used to buy anything useful, well... isn't useful. It's like if I had a big bag of rice, and everyone had plenty of rice and I said, "Yeah, but it's a really expensive bag of rice!" I don't think people would be lining up to buy it.

The value chain is different though. You can see what is happening with Blackcoin. People buy it simply because there's a guaranteed exit price, which is the multipool that mines other coins, converts them into BTC and buys up Blackcoin. The Blackcoin is then distributed to the people. But yes, it is artificial deflation. Not the best form of value injection. It IS still value injection though.

How do you manage who gets the money? That shouldn't even be a question, so I'm not sure why you would ask that. The musician gets paid the money DIRECTLY to their wallet. So I'm not sure what the problem is there.

Sorry. I think I need to clarify what I mean by this. Let's say music is made for "The Cypherfunks". If this gets sold, then technically we "all" own it. We are "all" a part of the band. We should all get proceeds from Cypherfunks songs being sold. For example, think of it in another way. What if "The Cypherfunks" get radio play and we get paid out royalties. Who gets the money? We all own it. So how do you transfer that value so that everyone in the community reaps benefit from it.

Tipping directly is a gesture to say thanks for the contribution. There's no reason to "sell" Cypherfunks music for FUNK. Just release it for free and get tipped for it. That makes the most sense. Selling it is only then an extra barrier.

However. If you are a musician and want to get FUNK and not release music under "The Cypherfunks", THEN it makes sense to be paid directly. ie I can release one of my old songs, sell it for FUNK. Then I'm using the value network of FUNK to tap into. I'm then using FUNK as currency, not as stock.

Did I clarify it correctly?

I'm really interested in making this work. As I said before that means turning making music into an income stream with FUNK. How do we increase the value of FUNK? I don't think injecting capital is the only way to do that.

"Capital" in this sense is any forms of value really. Currently that means using LTC/BTC/Doge to buy it one exchanges. Any additional income streams can hopefully feed directly into increasing value of FUNK. That's what I mean by injecting captial.

You summed it up in your last post:
"increase network effect of the coin -> increase demand for the coin -> get financially rewarded."
When I break that down, I don't follow the logic. How does increasing the "network effect" whatever that is, increase demand for the coin? Next, how does increasing demand for the coin translate to me getting financially rewarded?

If more people know about Cypherfunks, more people will want to get involved. In order to get financial reward from it, one should own FUNK. Using the currency represents the community of people, the idea. The value of the idea hopefully, over time, increases the demand for the currency beyond just the idea. As a reference, check out this post about currency as a language (I wrote: simondlr.com/post/81166506190/currency-as-language). It's like looking at new coins. The only way their value gets increased is if people are willing to jump in and take the initial risk (like the guy who bought the 10k BTC pizza). As the community (and network efffect grows), so the sum of the parts become more than the whole. People will exchange it for goods/services/etc. You get financially rewarded because you hold FUNK. Think of it like stock.

It's true musicians CAN get tipped FUNK coin, but will they? What incentive does someone have to tip a musician with FUNK when they can just hoard them, sell them on an exchange for BTC, and buy cheeseburgers (or whatever else with the BTC.)

That's how most alt-coins work at this moment. Bitcoin is a conduit for value for experiments like this. We rely on the fact that FUNK has real world value because it can be exchanged back into BTC and then back into Rand, Dollars, Euros, etc. Direct payment (a store accepts FUNK directly) or FUNK/fiat exchange only decreases the hops. You tip FUNK because you want this network to grow. It's like people giving out Bitcoin in the early days (I got 0.05 BTC from faucets back then). And it's not just free. We tip because we like things. To say thanks. To give kudos.

Can even they exchange their FUNK for BTC? In theory FUNK should be able to be exchanged into your currency of choice. That's only if people want them, and since they don't actually do anything useful, hardly anyone will want to buy them with BTC. So, you can put your FUNK up for sale on the exchange, but I'm not sure anyone will want to buy them, because they ask themselves, "What can I do with a FUNK coin except give them away for free?"  Why would you want to buy something, and give it away for free unless you are a charity?

Like I mentioned previously, it's an investment in the idea & the community. There's an initial kick-start period where that is where a coin's value resides. All altcoins & Bitcoin you couldn't do anything with it except send it around like monopoly money. That's until enough people believed in the future potential to build out infrastructure so it becomes more useful besides just that.

I'll take GPUCoin for example. Started by Jaymes Reilly, he had bad experiences with computer retailers with a lack of stock and over priced goods. This was due to the high costs of the middleman, such as Paypal and Ebay charging 18% fees. As a solution he made his own alt-coin - the GPUCoin, which he accepts exclusively on his online store so he cuts out the middle men to save the customer money.
What increases the demand for the GPUCoin? It's not the "network effect". The high demand physical commodity (Namely, the GPU) that is sold at a reduced price and only sold in GPUCoin is backing the GPUCoin.

That's cool! That's what we also hope to achieve. Adding additional value to the currency besides its value as an idea.

Music products can be digital or physical commodities. What we need is to accept the FUNK coin as payment for REAL (or digital/virtual goods/services) that people actually want. It could be music, tickets, t-shirts, food, Gridseeds.. Whatever.. As long as it has a real demand in the real world.
You had it spelled out on the website that in the "future FUNK could be used to buy products that assist in musicmaking." Why stop at products that assist in musicmaking? Why not back this currency with something of real world value so people have a real demand for it like the GPUCoin?
There is not going to be a demand for a charity that tips musicians from money coming from donations of regular people. In other words, regular people aren't going to buy FUNK coins to tip musicians, so they can get continue to get free music.

Yep. That's what we'd love to do. It's really really hard work though. I'm already strapped for time & money (put in so much into FUNK). Our initial selling point will be products for music making. Stuff that fits our niche. But it will hopefully expand past this!

If I may be so bold and lead the way. Take something of value and sell it for FUNK coin, anyone can do it. Just like anyone can accept BTC for payments. Just make sure to charge the right amount. 34 million GPUCoins is worth about $300 which is enough to buy a video card. So 3 million FUNK coins should be worth about $15-20 about as much as a cheap ticket to a concert, or something music related. Price things according to the current exchange rate.

That would be cool.

So in short. FUNK's value is currently the belief in the idea (like how all altcoins start). Otherwise, no-one would mine it & no-one would want it. It firstly represents decentralized stock in a decentralized band. This is how we hope to catalyse the network effect. Grow, grow, grow until we start absoring more and more musicians. Once the value increases (people that take the risk), we can start rolling out other services to make the currency even MORE valuable.

That's the plan. And remember, this is an experiment. This is a world & reality that we think can exist. A currency kickstarted by a bunch crypto-musicians. How cool would that story be if we could make it work? But pulling reality into this timeline is not easy. It constantly feels like we are pulling people out of quicksand into this reality: telling them. "Look! How fucking awesome is a currency that represents musicians freely making music together from across the world? Look how far we've come already. Thought it would suck? NOOOPE. Look at the kick-ass tunes we've made already. Want to be a part of this awesome community? Then help us become so much more. \m/"

@MadCow

so the task is to COMPEL the 'buyers/audience' to pay in FUNK, and to CONVINCE enough suppliers of the other raw materials to accept payment in FUNK also (i.e. venues, equipment hire, sound engineers etc). You need to encourage people to hold their FUNK payments and not convert to fiat, otherwise people will mentally calculate exchange rates rates and feel like they're playing for free.

Yep. It's hard work. But that's the risk we take to create such a future.

We need more people who would love to spearhead such projects. I wish I had more time.

btw. Thanks for the discussion soundposition & MadCow.

[simondlr]

oh. btw. Check this out!

Soundposition, I think you'll like this: http://www.playwithyourmusic.org! This time they've Peter Gabrial on board! How awesome.

[soundposition]

If you dangle a shiny golden carrot (or something like that) and put a pricetag on it - Whatever the price-tag is, if people want it they will pay what the price-tag says (as long as the price is good, and especially if the price is right). It doesn't matter what the thing is as long as there is a demand for it.

In the case of the crypto-world, mining equipment is king. I suggest buying something like a Gridseed, and putting it up for sale for FUNK coins. I'm talking like 27,070,000 FUNK for one Gridseed, (which includes $15 for a guess as to whatever the shipping costs are). An escrow service would be great for something like this.

I like how the GPUCoin guys put a video card up as a prize for a contest. 1 Entry was 10,000 GPUCoins and people could either buy the GPUCoins and send them or mine them to an address to enter. That really got people to get involved. Like I said a shiny golden carrot.

Thanks for all the suggestions, and discussions. I'm glad to hear about the playwithyourmusic.org, I'll check it out. I've been a fan of Peter Gabriel since the 90's, and always thought it would be nice to work on something with him. I have a friend named Wynne Paris that has worked with him in the past doing work to benefit the Hippy (Bonobo) monkey..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZGa0F-yqTI

[simondlr]

Thanks for all the suggestions, and discussions. I'm glad to hear about the playwithyourmusic.org, I'll check it out. I've been a fan of Peter Gabriel since the 90's, and always thought it would be nice to work on something with him.

I looove Peter Gabriel. The stems for Sledgehammer will be released. So keen to remix that! Excited.

[simondlr]

Sup guys.

I paid for 3 months of hosting (less than a dollar) at AltcoinFaucet, and donated 1M of the 6.2M for the faucet bounty to it.

http://cypherfunk.altcoinfaucet.net/

It should be live soon! Cheers.

[MadCow]

I've had an idea I'd like to share.

I said before that maybe a pure POS coin might have suited the goals of Cypherfunk better than a 100% POW coin like FUNK. I thought this mainly because in order to setup FUNK as a local/community currency you need to have a central 'authority' to 'create' the token used for the complementary currency ecosystem. Without a central authority to distribute the token it's very hard to establish any viable economic transactions using the local currency. The central authority acts like a mini FED, treasury, bank, exchange, employer, merchant, promoter and rule maker etc etc, and without a central authority I fear FUNK will fail.

As it stands, POS might be better suited for a community currency 'token'  because at the start a central authority controls & distributes ALL of the currency, but POW is truly decentralised, and thus easier to secure the network through mining long-term.

I've brainstormed an embryonic idea for Cypherfunk that could potentially marry the two (POS & POW) so you end up with the best of both.

What if you created a central authority to facilitate the 'community/local/complementary currency' aspects I keep banging on about. This central authority would be a non-profit organisation who's charter would be to promote and sustain the Cypherfunk band through promoting music & gigs, and generally supporting the implementation of the Cypherfunk vision.

For now lets call the central authority the Cypherfunk 'Parliament' (bare with me, I'm an old George Clinton fan!).

You would then make an IPO announcement that for a set period (say 4-6 weeks) people can 'burn' FUNK 1:1 for P-FUNK. All the P-FUNK created would be controlled and distributed by the Cypherfunk 'Parliament' for use in promoting music and gigs, and all the other needed activities to allow your vision for Cypherfunk to reach critical mass.

As long as the exchange rate of 1:1 between FUNK & P-FUNK is guaranteed by the 'Parliament', those who wish can mine FUNK and carry on as usual and sell their coins on an exchange, but for those who want to help establish FUNK for it's intended purpose (i.e. promoting & paying for great music to be created) they have the option to burn FUNK for P-FUNK.

Maybe there doesn't need to be a deadline for the 'burn', I'm not sure. Either way, I think this idea does establish a mechanism to create a central authority out of the existing FUNK currency, and it preserves the benefits of POW and mining for the coin network.

If you wanted you could setup the 'Parliament' to pay dividends to the 'shareholders' if you wanted to sweeten the deal. I think this idea could work with the 'Parliament' being a non-profit OR a commercial venture, so that's up for debate. If there was a way to offer incentives to people to burn their FUNK for P-FUNK you would probably raise more P-FUNK. I'm still unsure of what would be the best structure for the 'Parliament', but that's something you guys could work out later.

I've already picked up some cheap FUNK from allcrypt, so I'm ready to burn a wad of FUNK for P-FUNK to help the cause.

Anyway, I felt like I needed to brain dump that idea asap!

[simondlr]

@MadCow

Interesting idea. Keep the ideas flowing.

It does a bit confusing though. Basically. What would P-FUNK do better, than just FUNK? If enough people believe in the idea then FUNK itself will find its equilibrium value.

[soundposition]

I've had an idea I'd like to share.

I said before that maybe a pure POS coin might have suited the goals of Cypherfunk better than a 100% POW coin like FUNK. I thought this mainly because in order to setup FUNK as a local/community currency you need to have a central 'authority' to 'create' the token used for the complementary currency ecosystem. Without a central authority to distribute the token it's very hard to establish any viable economic transactions using the local currency. The central authority acts like a mini FED, treasury, bank, exchange, employer, merchant, promoter and rule maker etc etc, and without a central authority I fear FUNK will fail.

This idea makes my head hurt. Marry decentralized and centralized? I really don't like centralized anything. If the end goal morphs into being adopted by the 'mainstream' you can count me out. A centralized 'parliament' could easily be absorbed or dissolved into the presently existing music industry. Anything centralized can be attacked, and brought down or taken over by outside forces.

Central authority? Mini-fed? Micro-Rothschilds? Nah...

We need to stop looking backwards to the old paradigm. Let's build something better than the current system. A new system that benefits musicians directly. A good example is Wikipedia. The Bitcoin Group (a youtube channel) had a discussion and one of the people they had on basically said Wikipedia is setup as a non-profit organization 501(c)3, which has a Board of Directors (Authority) that 'controls' the money. Meanwhile the authors that directly do the hard work and contribute to Wikipedia, scarcely see any money. To paraphrase him he said, "Why doesn't someone just fork Wikipedia on Github, and set the payment system to go directly to the authors that contribute?"

I'm all about cutting out the middle men.

[soundposition]

One way sound designers can get in on this is to make Sound Libraries and let people download in exchange them for FUNK coins. Already there are 100,000 FUNK bounties for stems and remix packs. Maybe selling music is a bit outdated (since listeners now expect it for free, and musicians don't seem to be used to getting paid). So selling music making tools is the way to go.. In FUNK coin. I really see this becoming a resource for musicians, that want good sounds but they don't want to buy them with fiat, they want to pay the person directly for their hard work.

I personally would buy Soundpacks with FUNK coin. It would be really nice to have something so fun, and useful in exchange for my FUNK coins. I plan on releasing some more packs, in the hopes that people will TIP. However, releasing for free and hoping people will TIP is not likely. All the producers of loops and sounds that I know will not give away their loops for free.. Hardly ever..

Simon, that barrier you call selling.. It's there to make sure you get paid. Without that barrier, it's free booze, free festivals, and free music. With the musicians, promoters, and vendors slaving away, hoping that listeners will support it, all the while leaving empty handed...

[soundposition]

Garbage men, toilet cleaners, and ditch diggers get paid. Why shouldn't musicians get paid?
I think musicians need to improve their self respect.

[Cryptocoinrank.com]

█ ★Cypherfunk (FUNK) █→ Now Live on: http://www.cryptocoinrank.com/Cypherfunk
Hope you like it! You can also display your Dev news just by creating two widgets and sending me the information like described here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=579901.0

Enjoy