Spin-offs: bootstrap an altcoin with a btc-blockchain-based initial distribution

[Ix]

no, the argument is that it's the fair thing to do given this whole concept.  you just chose to ignore everything else i wrote in the preceding post and just focused on the possible consequences.

Why is it "fair" that we have to live under the threat of Satoshi? Why is the only definition of "fair" bitcoin? Anyone who owns bitcoins will be perfectly capable of buying altcoins--if Satoshi wants to diversify his holdings, he is perfectly capable of doing so.

we want all Bitcoiners to relax and fully support the altclone and not feel threatened by it taking over.

Who is "we"? Surely, the only ones who care are the bitcoiners themselves. Why shouldn't Bitcoiners feel threatened by altcoins? Should fiat not fear Bitcoin? You don't get to finish the first lap in first place and then stop and announce you've won. The free market will piss itself laughing.

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[opticalcarrier]

let's say we distribute an altclone by your method today leaving out Satoshi yet claim we are distributing said altclone according to the Bitcoin blockchain.

those 2 phrases on either side of the 'yet' in your sentence are mutually exclusive.  you seem to be under the impression there is some universal law that says that it is "wrong" for an altcoin creator to distribute altcoins in any arbitrary manner he so desires.  This includes only distributing his clonecoins to satoshi and to no one else.  Or he could distribute them all to himself.  Or he could distribute it to everyone in the BTC blockchain except satoshi.  or except to satoshi and any account holding more than 10000BTC.  or any other arbitrary fashion.

I postulate that however he does distrib then your "free market" will determine if it is a good idea or not.  But to say that because an altcoin distributor gave his altcoins out to everyone except satoshi, that some entity is "stealing" from satoshi, is just ludicrous.  the altcoins were never satoshis to begin with

[cypherdoc]

let's say we distribute an altclone by your method today leaving out Satoshi yet claim we are distributing said altclone according to the Bitcoin blockchain.

those 2 phrases on either side of the 'yet' in your sentence are mutually exclusive.  you seem to be under the impression there is some universal law that says that it is "wrong" for an altcoin creator to distribute altcoins in any arbitrary manner he so desires.  This includes only distributing his clonecoins to satoshi and to no one else.  Or he could distribute them all to himself.  Or he could distribute it to everyone in the BTC blockchain except satoshi.  or except to satoshi and any account holding more than 10000BTC.  or any other arbitrary fashion.

I postulate that however he does distrib then your "free market" will determine if it is a good idea or not.  But to say that because an altcoin distributor gave his altcoins out to everyone except satoshi, that some entity is "stealing" from satoshi, is just ludicrous.  the altcoins were never satoshis to begin with

you misunderstand me.  i said somewhere above that all issues of fairness, ethics, and morals don't belong here.

i'm content to let you start an altclone in any way you want.  i'm just arguing for the method that i think will win in the marketplace.  and it isn't the one you're advocating for which involves eliminating some perceived risk from Satoshi.

[Ix]

you misunderstand me.  i said somewhere above that all issues of fairness, ethics, and morals don't belong here.

Hello goalposts! Wait, where did you go?

[opticalcarrier]

let's say we distribute an altclone by your method today leaving out Satoshi yet claim we are distributing said altclone according to the Bitcoin blockchain.

those 2 phrases on either side of the 'yet' in your sentence are mutually exclusive.  you seem to be under the impression there is some universal law that says that it is "wrong" for an altcoin creator to distribute altcoins in any arbitrary manner he so desires.  This includes only distributing his clonecoins to satoshi and to no one else.  Or he could distribute them all to himself.  Or he could distribute it to everyone in the BTC blockchain except satoshi.  or except to satoshi and any account holding more than 10000BTC.  or any other arbitrary fashion.

I postulate that however he does distrib then your "free market" will determine if it is a good idea or not.  But to say that because an altcoin distributor gave his altcoins out to everyone except satoshi, that some entity is "stealing" from satoshi, is just ludicrous.  the altcoins were never satoshis to begin with

you misunderstand me.  i said somewhere above that all issues of fairness, ethics, and morals don't belong here.

i'm content to let you start an altclone in any way you want.  i'm just arguing for the method that i think will win in the marketplace.  and it isn't the one you're advocating for which involves eliminating some perceived risk from Satoshi.

you are either backpedaling or changing goalposts.  before, it was "its not fair to satoshi, he is being robbed and so if you include any bitcoin accounts into an altcoin distro then you are morally required to make sure satoshis gets in there too"  now its that you think that if you were to publish, at the same time, 2 altcoins that are technically identical, and with distrib schemes that are both based on BTC blockchain public keys except one doesnt include satoshi's accounts, that the one with satoshis accounts will win out.

Humanity's greed tell me that you are wrong.  That, plus the fact that then satoshi could never crash the altcoin - no trust required. But I could be missing something here, and be mistaken.  So tell me what is it about the method with satoshis accounts that would win out over the one without?

[cypherdoc]

let's say we distribute an altclone by your method today leaving out Satoshi yet claim we are distributing said altclone according to the Bitcoin blockchain.

those 2 phrases on either side of the 'yet' in your sentence are mutually exclusive.  you seem to be under the impression there is some universal law that says that it is "wrong" for an altcoin creator to distribute altcoins in any arbitrary manner he so desires.  This includes only distributing his clonecoins to satoshi and to no one else.  Or he could distribute them all to himself.  Or he could distribute it to everyone in the BTC blockchain except satoshi.  or except to satoshi and any account holding more than 10000BTC.  or any other arbitrary fashion.

I postulate that however he does distrib then your "free market" will determine if it is a good idea or not.  But to say that because an altcoin distributor gave his altcoins out to everyone except satoshi, that some entity is "stealing" from satoshi, is just ludicrous.  the altcoins were never satoshis to begin with

you misunderstand me.  i said somewhere above that all issues of fairness, ethics, and morals don't belong here.

i'm content to let you start an altclone in any way you want.  i'm just arguing for the method that i think will win in the marketplace.  and it isn't the one you're advocating for which involves eliminating some perceived risk from Satoshi.

you are either backpedaling or changing goalposts.  before, it was "its not fair to satoshi, he is being robbed."  now its that you think that if you were to publish, at the same time, 2 altcoins that are technically identical, and with distrib schemes that are both based on BTC blockchain public keys except one doesnt include satoshi's accounts, that the one with satoshis accounts will win out.

Humanity's greed tell me that you are wrong. But I could be missing something here, and be mistaken.  So tell me what is it about the method with satoshis accounts that would win out over the one without?

did you answer my hypothetical question above about Satoshi showing up publicly?  would he be right or wrong in your book?  what would you say to him? 

just curious.

[Peter R]

The blockchain will be preserved.

[smooth]

I happen to think that believing SN (who invented the whole damn thing 10 years after the rest of the world had failed and given up) shouldn't get any is absurd. Believing this on the basis of "fairness" borders on clinical insanity.

nothing to do with "fair".  a world with money will never be "fair".  Its about removing the risk that satoshi could crash the new coin.  face it, BTC has a vulnerability of satoshi crashing it.  You just have to trust him not to if you want to go with BTC.  This trust should never be required in a cryptocurrency

the free market has already determined that they trust Satoshi and aren't afraid of him dumping his coins.  he earned them, and rightfully so, by bootstrapping the system with his mining.  you could've mined alot of coins as well if you'd found out about Bitcoin in 2009.  not his fault.

you're missing the whole point of this proposal.  no one can be accused of trying to steal someone else's coins, even Satoshi's.

thats a strawman.  yes we agree that the free market has already determined that they trust Satoshi and aren't afraid of him dumping his coins.  doesnt mean that it is a good idea for a cryptocurrency.

There are a few hundred altcoins, none of which, as far as we know, has Satoshi owning 10%. Some of them probably don't have anyone else owning 10% either, and all of them are quite similar to bitcoin. If the risk of Satoshi dumping his coins were a major factor in success, one of those coins would have eclipsed bitcoin by now.

[YarkoL]

So, umm, what if we end up in a situation where, whenever somebody releases
some innovative code, umpty-ump spin-off clones with different distribution models
start to compete for attention?

Sounds a little like the altcoin scene right now, doesn't it?

[KingSchultz]

Spin-offs/sidechains are great for the development of Bitcoin, but IMO killing alt coins is a fantasy. As much as I love Bitcoin, it is not a system without flaws. And though I believe BTC will be the established leader for a long, long time there will always be groups of people building and supporting new crypto-currency if they believe it offers something over Bitcoin.

Say hello to alternate protocols. There are already functioning examples of crypto-currency protocols not based on the Bitcoin code. Regardless of this news, I expect the alt market to mature into something more interesting than 10,000 versions of the Bitcoin codebase and I'd wager in a few years time there's more than one big player unrelated to Bitcoin.

[opticalcarrier]

did you answer my hypothetical question above about Satoshi showing up publicly?  would he be right or wrong in your book?  what would you say to him? 

just curious.

there is still a disconnect here between us.  For some reason you are under the assumption that SN is entitled to some particular portion of any altcoin just for the sake of his being SN.  Your stance indicates that some altcoin creator is not free to choose an distribution method he desires, and to let the free market prove if his method was sound or not.

If SN showed up Id tell him its neither right or wrong.  you are asking the equivalent of, say, if the color orange was right or wrong.  it is neither.  it is just orange.

Lets say that you were a genius coder/mathematician/crypto scientist, and you were coding a brilliant new cryptocurrency that had novel new code and some other chain-esque structure that was superior to the BTC blockchain.  This new system had the capability to compete HARD with bitcoin.  YOUD BE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND to give, of all people, SN, the creator of bitcoin, the ability to wreck havoc in your new cryptocurrency.

Also, you are operating under the illusion that the free market happily and conscientiously decided they could trust SN, when in fact this is not the case because when BTC is the only game in town, you either play it or play nothing at all.  its not until up until recently have the altcoins really come out hard.  playing the game may be trusting SN, but in no way is it happily and conscientiously deciding to trust him.

Can you answer my question as to what is it about the distro method with satoshis accounts that would win out over the one without?

[cypherdoc]

did you answer my hypothetical question above about Satoshi showing up publicly?  would he be right or wrong in your book?  what would you say to him?  

just curious.

there is still a disconnect here between us.  For some reason you are under the assumption that SN is entitled to some particular portion of any altcoin just for the sake of his being SN.  Your stance indicates that some altcoin creator is not free to choose an distribution method he desires, and to let the free market prove if his method was sound or not.

If SN showed up Id tell him its neither right or wrong.  you are asking the equivalent of, say, if the color orange was right or wrong.  it is neither.  it is just orange.

Lets say that you were a genius coder/mathematician/crypto scientist, and you were coding a brilliant new cryptocurrency that had novel new code and some other chain-esque structure that was superior to the BTC blockchain.  This new system had the capability to compete HARD with bitcoin.  YOUD BE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND to give, of all people, SN, the creator of bitcoin, the ability to wreck havoc in your new cryptocurrency.

Also, you are operating under the illusion that the free market happily and conscientiously decided they could trust SN, when in fact this is not the case because when BTC is the only game in town, you either play it or play nothing at all.  its not until up until recently have the altcoins really come out hard.  playing the game may be trusting SN, but in no way is it happily and conscientiously deciding to trust him.

Can you answer my question as to what is it about the distro method with satoshis accounts that would win out over the one without?

Lol.  The only disconnect here is your putting words in my mouth and ignoring what I've plainly said multiple times.

Go right ahead and create your altclone minus Satoshi and try to market it as a Bitcoin blockchain distribution thats fair. Peter will then release his version with Satoshi.

I think you lose (not will lose) because of all the principles Peter has already delineated.  And yes, I'd publicly make the argument against your altclone that Satoshi could show up claiming your scheme was an attempt to more greatly enrich yourself and other Bitcoiners. You'd respond just as vehemently as you have. Who cares? Let the market decide.

You made the argument that people are greedy. Well that applies to Satoshi himself I presume. Therefore, by your logic, he should show up publicly to accuse you of stealing his distribution, right? And not only do I think you have not given me a satisfactory answer as to what you would say to him but I think that would be enough to tank the credibility of your altclone.

[cypherdoc]

The other ludicrous assumption here is that you know exactly what addresses Satoshi owns.

Please provide a list and amounts with proof. don't get it wrong though or else there could be a lot of angry people showing up making the accusations of you stealing.

The Peter Principle (like that one?) is that it's elegant and easy to do. Yours, not so much, as there could be many errors.

[cryptohunter]

so hold on....

If you are BTC rich (like most early BTC adopters) you will now automatically become rich in any other altcoin that maps to the bitcoin distribution?

Is this the idea?

[cypherdoc]

so hold on....

If you are BTC rich (like most early BTC adopters) you will now automatically become rich in any other altcoin that maps to the bitcoin distribution?

Is this the idea?

please read Peter's Principle in the OP and tell us why the current market-based blockchain distribution is wrong or unfair.

[Brangdon]

We've refined the idea of "spin-offs" as alt-coins that are launched with a pre-mine exactly equal to the unspent bitcoin outputs at the time the "snap shot" of the blockchain was taken.

Exactly equal or proportional? The latter seems fine.

Right again, smooth.  You have a good eye for detail and logic.  I corrected the post.  

It's an interesting point. How is the constant of proportionality determined, and does 0 count?

There's an argument that if the alt-coin is inflationary, then the allotment for bitcoin addresses should be in proportion to the number of alt-coins that exist when they are claimed. That's if you don't want to penalise bitcoin owners for waiting (as has been mentioned in some posts). There is also an argument that they should be penalised for waiting.

My comment concerning the initial distribution was addressing the perceived unfairness of the distribution; why should we award nakamotos and other btc moguls with mountains of altcoins?

So I tried to say that wouldn't matter since that initlal distribution would quickly be replaced by another distribution that would reflect the value of the altcoin, as indifferent holders would dump their coins and interested parties would pick them up again dirt cheap. The price would then adjust to the demand.

In practise I'd expect most bitcoin owners to ignore the alt-coin launch, either through shear ignorance (not seeing launch publicity), or else feeling they can't be bothered to track every alt-coin that comes along. If, after a few years, the alt-coin succeeds and comes to their attention, that's when they might claim their new coins. Unless you address this, you will find you are actually rewarding those supremely indifferent bitcoin holders.

You may also find it is a source of instability for the alt-coin. The effective number of alt-coins could suffer large increases at any time, due to previously passive bitcoin owners making alt-coin claims and then dumping them to buy more bitcoin. Even if they don't dump, and hold onto their claimed alt-coins, the currency would surely be very inflationary due to these influxes. Of course, we might hope they would manage their claims so as not to crash the currency they are acquiring, because that would devalue their own new holdings; but people aren't always smart, and anyway they might see the alt-coin as a threat and want to disrupt it. In particular, if the alt-coin uses proof-of-stake, I wonder if this could be a source of 51% attacks.

So for these reasons it might be best to make the proportion of alt-coins per bitcoin reduce over time. Give the biggest rewards to those who support the alt-coin earliest.

I'm not advocating this; just putting the idea out there. One drawback is that it's more complicated. Another is that it diminishes one of the virtues of the spin-off idea, which is that it reduces the threat of the alt-coin to Bitcoin. Spooking Bitcoin investors and venture capitalists by destroying its value could poison the well for all crypto-currencies; a fantastic alt-coin that caused a bitcoin crash could make everyone unwilling to trust any crypto-currency as a store of value in case the same thing happens again. So the way spin-offs preserve bitcoin value is important.

Also, when a new user adopts the alt-coin and becomes active with it, they necessarily increase demand for it, and the coin's value goes up. This deflationary effect may offset the inflationary effect of the new alt-coins generated when they claim, so it the inflation might not be as bad as I thought above. This is only true if their behaviour is broadly the same, and spend/hold the alt-coin in similar proportions to their bitcoin; and it won't be true if they dump and return to bitcoin.

The other ludicrous assumption here is that you know exactly what addresses Satoshi owns.

Please provide a list and amounts with proof. don't get it wrong though or else there could be a lot of angry people showing up making the accusations of you stealing.

Well, rather than targeting Satoshi personally, you could limit claims to coins from recent transactions. For example, with a hard cut-off you could only give alt-coins to bitcoin users who had been spent or bought in the previous year, in proportion to their spending/buying. These active users are arguably the people who will most benefit the new alt-coin. Or, you could use a softer approach, by awarding more alt-coins to the newer transactions with some more or less complex formula. You don't need to know or care who owns the coins.

(Again, not advocating this, just pointing out some more possibilities if you don't keep a fixed proportional premine.)

[cypherdoc]

Altclones based on The Peter Principle are easy, simple, cheap, and fast to implement as he has proposed it.

any deviation from that introduces expense, time, difficulty, bias, and potential errors to the distribution.

it's not my project.  Peter and i have never spoken directly about it.  i don't stand to make anything from it other than my share of the distribution as everyone else.

i just happen to think it's a brilliant and devious idea to clamp down on the altcoin space and separate out true innovation that will help, not hinder Bitcoin.  one that i can get behind that doesn't involve any change to the Bitcoin Protocol whatsoever.

[opticalcarrier]

Lol.  The only disconnect here is your putting words in my mouth and ignoring what I've plainly said multiple times.

Go right ahead and create your altclone minus Satoshi and try to market it as a Bitcoin blockchain distribution thats fair. Peter will then release his version with Satoshi.

I think you lose (not will lose) because of all the principles Peter has already delineated.  And yes, I'd publicly make the argument against your altclone that Satoshi could show up claiming your scheme was an attempt to more greatly enrich yourself and other Bitcoiners. You'd respond just as vehemently as you have. Who cares? Let the market decide.

You made the argument that people are greedy. Well that applies to Satoshi himself I presume. Therefore, by your logic, he should show up publicly to accuse you of stealing his distribution, right? And not only do I think you have not given me a satisfactory answer as to what you would say to him but I think that would be enough to tank the credibility of your altclone.

why are you starting to be hysterical/rude?  Im responding vehemently?  It not like I called your mother a whore or insulted you in any other fashion.  you seem to take my reference of a disconnect as a strike upon your honor when Im just pointing out that we may be talking past each other here in an attempt to start discussing the same thing, because I think we may not be.  Ive run into situations like this before, and the other party's native language was not english.  Is this the case here?

So back to the discussion...

I keep telling you, it wouldnt be trying to "market it as a Bitcoin blockchain distribution thats fair"  because fair has NOTHING to do with this.  it has everything to do with a novel new cryptocurrency being resilient to flooding in the event SN *does* own all BTC we suspect.  Even you have conceded that point previously here when you said "what if our actions piss off SN and so he decides to flood BTC and crash the market.  none of us want that"  that may not exactly have been the phrase but it was something very close along those lines.  You now cannot go back and say "oh well you have to prove it now or your argument is invalid"  My point is that an ideal cryptocurrency will not inherently exhibit the trust issue

Can you tell me what you mean by me putting words in your mouth?  I honestly dont understand, another reason I think there is a disconnect here.

Im not talking about "fair" at all here.  Im talking about long term viability of a novel cryptocurrency and its distribution.  And given that SN was so concerned with creating such a decentralized structure in the first place, Id believe that if he DID own all that BTC out there, how could he not argue that it is a bad idea for one person to control so much?

Altclones based on The Peter Principle are easy, simple, cheap, and fast to implement as he has proposed it.

any deviation from that introduces expense, time, difficulty, bias, and potential errors to the distribution.

it's not my project.  Peter and i have never spoken directly about it.  i don't stand to make anything from it other than my share of the distribution as everyone else.

i just happen to think it's a brilliant and devious idea to clamp down on the altcoin space and separate out true innovation that will help, not hinder Bitcoin.  one that i can get behind that doesn't involve any change to the Bitcoin Protocol whatsoever.

you are absolutely right here.  these things are possible.  but you have to admit that it is not a REQUIREMENT for some altcoin to want to help and not hinder bitcoin?  That is the big discussion point between us, I think.

[cypherdoc]

why are you starting to be hysterical/rude?  Im responding vehemently?  It not like I called your mother a whore or insulted you in any other fashion.  

who's being hysterical?:

YOUD BE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND to give, of all people, SN, the creator of bitcoin, the ability to wreck havoc in your new cryptocurrency.

look, i don't care that there's a disconnect btwn us, b/c to me, you're ignoring all my attempted answers to you.

hence, i'll say it again:  PLEASE, PLEASE start your altclone minus Satoshi.  and Peter will start his.

then, we'll just see how it goes.

[opticalcarrier]

why are you starting to be hysterical/rude?  Im responding vehemently?  It not like I called your mother a whore or insulted you in any other fashion. 

who's being hysterical?:

YOUD BE OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND to give, of all people, SN, the creator of bitcoin, the ability to wreck havoc in your new cryptocurrency.

look, i don't care that there's a disconnect btwn us b/c to me, you're ignoring all my attempted answers to you.

hence, i'll say it again:  PLEASE, PLEASE start your altclone minus Satoshi.  and Peter will start his.

then, we'll just see how it goes.

sure, peter will do it, because it is a clone of etherium; he wont have any real sweat or hard work in the game.  Ill admit it will be a nice experiment.  But no real coder with novel code will do it that way though, simply because then if his coin takes off, SN may decide to protect BTC by dumping his reserves of the new coin and crashing it.  that is the point which you refuse to address.

and as to SN showing up to complain, did you not see my response:

And given that SN was so concerned with creating such a decentralized structure in the first place, Id believe that if he DID own all that BTC out there, how could he not argue that it is a bad idea for one person to control so much, or either BTC or any altcoin?  that seems to me to sort of an oxymoron.

it should be all about true decentralization and a core that can operate with no trust required.