[XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency

[Rias]

Regardless of our having fun with theory, I have first hand knowledge that two botnet operators are mining XMR as we speak. So whether or not you or I think it is profitable is a moot point.

Happen to know how fast those are?

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[Rias]

I've probably mis-formulated those paragraphs as they're consistent with one another. What I've meant under "botnet operators don't have to earn a margin" is that in case of virtually zero monetary costs (leaving out opportunity costs) they don't have to cover those to still profit. Opportunity costs only move the decision point for the botnets to exit XMR somewhere earlier.

In terms of economic decision making,  opportunity costs are usually equivalent to monetary costs. If you can rent your botnet out for $X per day (or do something else with it to earn $X), then it makes no economic sense to mine <$X per day of anything, you are better off renting it out. This has exactly the same effect on decision making as monetary costs of $X/day. More than $X of mining, you mine, less, you don't.

Logically the argument of not having to earn a margin just doesn't make sense, as described above. There is revenue level below which it makes no sense to mine, above which it does make sense to mine. This applies to every botnet and every other type of mining equipment.

That is exactly what I've been trying to tell you. And as there are botnets in XMR (see above), it is obviously lucrative to botnet mine it. Just have a look at the price of other CryptoNote coins (except for Bytecoin, which is unprofitable for botnets due to lower emission rate).

I'm not saying that XMR is doomed to go down. What I've mentioned was that there are more downward forces at the moment, so the price is unlikely to go up in the next few months.

[smooth]

except for Bytecoin, which is unprofitable for botnets due to lower emission rate

Except this is false. The emission rate adjusted for hash rate (difficulty) is higher than XMR, not lower.

[Rias]

except for Bytecoin, which is unprofitable for botnets due to lower emission rate

Except this is false. The emission rate adjusted for hash rate (difficulty) is higher than XMR, not lower.

Don't forget that XMR has twice the number of BCN blocks per day (due to lower time between blocks). So you have to consider daily emission rate adjusted for hash rate (difficulty) and denominated in dollars of course.

This results in XMR generating more revenue for the miners (around 10% increase according to my estimates). And Bytecoin exchange rate was even lower that it is now (6 satoshi vs. 8 satoshi). With 6 satoshi for BCN, XMR was a perfect target for botnet miners with 45% higher revenue than from BCN.

[smooth]

except for Bytecoin, which is unprofitable for botnets due to lower emission rate

Except this is false. The emission rate adjusted for hash rate (difficulty) is higher than XMR, not lower.

Don't forget that XMR has twice the number of BCN blocks per day (due to lower time between blocks). So you have to consider daily emission rate adjusted for hash rate (difficulty) and denominated in dollars of course.

Yes, that is exactly what I considered.

This results in XMR generating more revenue for the miners (around 10% increase according to my estimates).

Your estimates are incorrect, by a wide margin.

I have no idea why the difficulty of XMR is so much higher than BCN (and others), but it is. Apparently people want to mine XMR because they like the mascot or something, because it has nothing to do with relative profitability, monetary costs, opportunity costs, or any other economic considerations.

I actually consider this healthy for XMR, as commercial miners (whether they are using a botnet or any other equipment -- in case it is not clear I consider a botnet to be just another form of mining gear) motivated by immediate economics are more likely to sell, while miners who do so for non-economics reasons might be mining and holding, or just mining without really thinking about economics. Apparently XMR has a lot of these.

[drawingthesun]

ok, no trust in this coin anymore
my message deleted:
A reply of yours, quoted below, was deleted by a Bitcoin Forum moderator. Posts are most frequently deleted because they are off-topic, though they can also be deleted for other reasons. In the future, please avoid posting things that need to be deleted.

this coin is full shit and dead now
i lost every fucking coin in my wallet!!
somebody else spent those, cant use them anymore.

move on, dont lose your time and money


i moved to freshcoin

We don't control what the mods do. Promoting another coin in someone else's thread a big no-no, though.

I grabbed your wallet, you have a metric ton of small inputs. I understand it's hard not being able to withdraw your 1.656924551683 XMR, so if you can pm me your address I will send you 1.656924551683 XMR from my wallet and I'll keep your wallet to withdraw the dust at a later stage when the tx fee has reduced.

All this fuss over 1.6 Monero of dust payments? As I understand it Bitcoin suffers from the same issue and before the min tx amount was introduced into Bitcoin dust payments clogged up Bitcoin too.

Anyways, I happy with all the progress being made. Thanks.

[parker928]

ok, no trust in this coin anymore
my message deleted:
A reply of yours, quoted below, was deleted by a Bitcoin Forum moderator. Posts are most frequently deleted because they are off-topic, though they can also be deleted for other reasons. In the future, please avoid posting things that need to be deleted.

this coin is full shit and dead now
i lost every fucking coin in my wallet!!
somebody else spent those, cant use them anymore.

move on, dont lose your time and money


i moved to freshcoin

[/quote]

maybe your post got deleted because it was completely useless, and likely untruthful.

"this coin is full of shit and dead now" - not going to waste key strokes responding to that
"i lost every fucking coin in my wallet someone spent those, can't use them anymore" - This is obviously your fault. You either gave your keys file and password to someone, or got hacked, likely with keylogger. This is by no means fault of xmr and could just as easily happened with any other currency.
"move on, don't lose your time and money" - awww, I would ask you to sell me your xmr, but someone already got them =)


Really though, I think you are lying.

[surfer43]

Monero Missives

4. We'd like to apologise for not finalise the GUI bounty - everyone has been a little scattered this week. We will resolve this in its entirety within the next 48 hours!

What hapenned?

[statdude]

Monero Missives

4. We'd like to apologise for not finalise the GUI bounty - everyone has been a little scattered this week. We will resolve this in its entirety within the next 48 hours!

What hapenned?

Check the bounty thread.

[RentaMouse]

All this fuss about botnets seems to assume that if they werent mining XMR then all the remaining miners would be holding 90% of their coins and so the price would go up. Of course it would be ideal if everyone else was holding onto their coins and the price spiked up, so I could then sell some of my holding for a nice profit, but the world doesnt work like that.

Assume that the price will reach equilibrium when 80-90% of coins mined each day are sold within 48hrs, for the price to rise it needs more investors willing to buy those coins.

[nioc]

Speaking of which 6k coins just got dumped.

[surfer43]

Speaking of which 6k coins just got dumped.

Over 15k adding MP dumps and Polo dumps in last 10 minutes...

[nioc]

Happens after every time I buy.  Sorry

[george888055]

Buy at 320K sat...

[smooth]

All this fuss about botnets seems to assume that if they werent mining XMR then all the remaining miners would be holding 90% of their coins and so the price would go up. Of course it would be ideal if everyone else was holding onto their coins and the price spiked up, so I could then sell some of my holding for a nice profit, but the world doesnt work like that.

Assume that the price will reach equilibrium when 80-90% of coins mined each day are sold within 48hrs, for the price to rise it needs more investors willing to buy those coins.

I agree with you. The important distinction is not really between botnets and anything else, it is between professional, commercial-scale miners, using whatever equipment they are using (including botnets) and everyone else (mostly small scale hobby miners or people who enable mining in the wallet because they are already running the wallet so they might as well).

All professional, commercial-scale miners will sell most of what they mine, and they will generally mine the most profitable coin or coins (at least, 100% of the truly professional ones will).

Even then, what matters is not so much whether the miners sell, it is the balance between buyers and sellers. If there are enough investors who would rather buy from professional miners than mine (often because it isn't their expertise or interest), the price will still go up. There is nothing wrong with specialization and therefore trade; it is part of any modern successful economy.

[mindless]

Hi, Fellow Miners,

At http://pool.cryptoescrow.eu we have some important news for you:

1) We have upgraded our server to a more powerful one - please
check if your miners are reconnected.

2) We have lowered minimum payout from 0.5XMR to 0.2XMR, because of
requests we received from you.

3) Claymore GPU miners were updated to version 5. If you are mining
on a GPU this will give you a significant increase in hashrate.
50% increase on 6xxx cards with "-a 3" mode
Check BCT talk thread: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=638915.0
Download link: https://mega.co.nz/#F!e4JVEAIJ!l1iF4z10fMyJzY5-LnyC2A


If you are not mining with us now, quick connection code:

Code:

minerd -a cryptonight -o stratum+tcp://pool.cryptoescrow.eu:5555 -u YOUR-WALLET-ADDRESS -p x

[Bitsaurus]

So it looks like there has been a good amount of coin dumping today across several exchanges.  Either some profit taking or the botnet owner is taking funds when he can.

[Rias]

Your estimates are incorrect, by a wide margin.

I have no idea why the difficulty of XMR is so much higher than BCN (and others), but it is. Apparently people want to mine XMR because they like the mascot or something, because it has nothing to do with relative profitability, monetary costs, opportunity costs, or any other economic considerations.

I actually consider this healthy for XMR, as commercial miners (whether they are using a botnet or any other equipment -- in case it is not clear I consider a botnet to be just another form of mining gear) motivated by immediate economics are more likely to sell, while miners who do so for non-economics reasons might be mining and holding, or just mining without really thinking about economics. Apparently XMR has a lot of these.

Provide your estimates then, since I can't see a mistake in mine.

Do you really think that a botnet is just a mining gear? And rape is just a form of sex, right? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that botnet owners don't hold the coins they've mined as there are risks associated with the waiting game and you might have used your botnet for other purposes instead.

And I'm not trying to troll, but do you operate a botnet yourself?

Regardless of our having fun with theory, I have first hand knowledge that two botnet operators are mining XMR as we speak. So whether or not you or I think it is profitable is a moot point.

Happen to know how fast those are?

No, but I guess I could ask one of them. The other one I haven't talked to for a while.

Could you also ask why botnet owners choose XMR over BCN (as it seems we're off the route with smooth)?

[smooth]

Provide your estimates then, since I can't see a mistake in mine.

I have exact calculations I'd rather not post but I'll do a back of an envelope here.

BCN block reward in coins is about 6400 times the XMR reward. The value of XMR is about 40000 times BCN. Combined these make the BCN reward worth about 16% of the XMR reward. The difficulty of XMR is about 10.5 times the difficulty of BCN. So by these numbers if you do 1/10.5 as much work you can get about 1/6 of the reward. Better to mine BCN. 

This ignores other second order factors such as orphan rate, etc.

Do you really think that a botnet is just a mining gear? And rape is just a form of sex, right? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that botnet owners don't hold the coins they've mined as there are risks associated with the waiting game and you might have used your botnet for other purposes instead.

From the point of view of the rest of the network, it gets the job done and is indistinguishable from any other gear. If I owned a computer that was botted, I'd sure have a grievance, but no one else can really tell the difference. BTC or LTC do not suffer from being heavily mined on botnets at times (even currently to some extent in the case of LTC).

Your rape analogy is a bit strained, but to strain it further, if a rape occurs and a child is born, do you continue to associate the child with the rape? Coins are coins, and where they come from doesn't really matter to anyone else. That's what fungibility is all about.

Coins generated are either sold by the miner (almost always in the case of large scale professional miners) or held (sometimes by small scale miners and occasionally by large investors who have their own mining operations). That is the distincton that matters in terms of economics, and even that one doesn't always matter (if there are investors who prefer to buy than mine), as I explained earlier.

And I'm not trying to troll, but do you operate a botnet yourself?

No.

[smooth]

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that botnet owners don't hold the coins they've mined as there are risks associated with the waiting game and you might have used your botnet for other purposes instead.

Who knows. It seems that a coin with built in strong privacy and fast growing adoption (at least for an altcoin) might well be something a botnet owner would very much like to use to store wealth or to otherwise conduct business. I might even speculate they prefer to mine XMR over BCN despite the worse immediate economics because they prefer to store wealth in XMR (and trading via an exchange might increase exposure).  But I have no idea really.