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

[ray88]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

how?

As I understand sidechains, you can essentially utilize all of the functionality of an alt while remaining on the bitcoin blockchain. This therefore removes the need for any alt, including Monero.

but it would make it so centralized...

[aminorex]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

how?

As I understand sidechains, you can essentially utilize all of the functionality of an alt while remaining on the bitcoin blockchain. This therefore removes the need for any alt, including Monero.

i see. it is done by hand-waving.

it is a familiar technique, which accomplishes much - but it does not accomplish what you suggest.

[lebing]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

how?

As I understand sidechains, you can essentially utilize all of the functionality of an alt while remaining on the bitcoin blockchain. This therefore removes the need for any alt, including Monero.

i see. it is done by hand-waving.

it is a familiar technique, which accomplishes much - but it does not accomplish what you suggest.

Expecting a serious response to a serious question, but I get trolled. If you are looking to instill confidence in Monero this is not the way to go about it.

[Come-In-Behind]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

how?

As I understand sidechains, you can essentially utilize all of the functionality of an alt while remaining on the bitcoin blockchain. This therefore removes the need for any alt, including Monero.

i see. it is done by hand-waving.

it is a familiar technique, which accomplishes much - but it does not accomplish what you suggest.

Expecting a serious response to a serious question, but I get trolled. If you are looking to instill confidence in Monero this is not the way to go about it.

Side-Chains wouldnt matter. You can already build entire currencies ontop the Bitcoin protocol. All side chains do, as another user suggests, is create a monopoly within Bitcoin, and would stop future innovation in cryptocurrencies. That's why I believe side chains wouldn't be popular, people buy alts for a reason, and that's either for p/d, or the belief that their altcoin will eventually overthrow Bitcoin one day given it improves upon Bitcoins many faults.

[lebing]

Side-Chains wouldnt matter. You can already build entire currencies ontop the Bitcoin protocol. All side chains do, as another user suggests, is create a monopoly within Bitcoin, and would stop future innovation in cryptocurrencies. That's why I believe side chains wouldn't be popular, people buy alts for a reason, and that's either for p/d, or the belief that their altcoin will eventually overthrow Bitcoin one day given it improves upon Bitcoins many faults.

You can already build entire currencies ontop the Bitcoin protocol

-- Currently, no you cannot do that. In order to change something you would need a fork.

All side chains do, as another user suggests, is create a monopoly within Bitcoin, and would stop future innovation in cryptocurrencies.

-- Side chains allow for all of the innovation of an alt while remaining within the blockchain, so the only thing that is monopolized is the finite number of bitcoins (which is a defining feature of crypto imo). The innovation can still happen just as it would in a pure alt.

[Come-In-Behind]

Side-Chains wouldnt matter. You can already build entire currencies ontop the Bitcoin protocol. All side chains do, as another user suggests, is create a monopoly within Bitcoin, and would stop future innovation in cryptocurrencies. That's why I believe side chains wouldn't be popular, people buy alts for a reason, and that's either for p/d, or the belief that their altcoin will eventually overthrow Bitcoin one day given it improves upon Bitcoins many faults.

You can already build entire currencies ontop the Bitcoin protocol

-- Currently, no you cannot do that. In order to change something you would need a fork.

All side chains do, as another user suggests, is create a monopoly within Bitcoin, and would stop future innovation in cryptocurrencies.

-- Side chains allow for all of the innovation of an alt while remaining within the blockchain, so the only thing that is monopolized is the finite number of bitcoins (which is a defining feature of crypto imo). The innovation can still happen just as it would in a pure alt.

Ah you're right about, Currently, no you cannot do that. In order to change something you would need a fork. I was really referring to coins like Counterparty that use the Bitcoin blockchain.

I need to read up more on side chains, but going by your defintiion, I don't see any incentive at all to add side chains to Bitcoin, there would be no incentive to develop the chain(altcoin). And, I believe altcoins are made to improve upon Bitcoin itself or even outdo Bitcoin eventually, so Bitcoin having a sidechain doesnt seem like a threat...

[smooth]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

I think the answer is no. First of all it is questionable whether you would really want to hold wealth long term on a sidechain. The security assumptions (even when it comes to things like network hash rate, but in other more fundamental respects as well) are questionable. It is more plausible you might want to use services or features on a side chain by moving your bitcoins there and then, relatively quickly, moving them back to the more secure main chain. For example, this might be be used for mixing, by moving your coins to a sidechain with ring signatures, transacting and then moving them back.

But this ends up being a lot like using a Bitcoin mixer, with many of the same issues such as simultaneity. For example, imagine you are making a donation to some controversial organization and you want to delink the bitcoins you are donating.

So you go ahead and move your coins to a ring-sig sidechain, move them around a few times, and then move them back. Unless other people are doing this at the same time, when you move your coins back to the main chain, you will get the same coins back that you started with.

Alternately, perhaps the organization wants to be all anonymous and stuff, so it publishes an address on the sidechain, and you donate to them there. They then withdraw the coins back to the main chain, and they get the exact Bitcoins you sent to the side chain.

Obviously if there are a few other people doing the transfers at the same time, there is a degree of mixing, but it is fairly limited.

I don't think a side chain with a specialized purpose can achieve the same degree of anonymity as a coin designed for that purpose, where the entire chain is being mixed and remixed continually. That is an emperical question though. It is possible that a Bitcoin side chain could get more usage and greater trust of its security for long term holdings than Monero will have. More usage would address the mixing issue to a some extent and trust in the security would address the need to constantly move coins back and forth (though there still may be a loss of network effect here). None of this is clear at all.

I also think it is possible the market may simply reject the notion of adopting the Bitcoin currency for everything. It will be an interesting experiment to decouple new features from using a different currency. We may well find that the reason for altcoins is not the features!

[mmortal03]

you know monero is undervalued if

lol. What happened to CannabisCoin since last week? I no longer see it on the list.

Great to see that we're above BitShares PTS now: https://coinmarketcap.com/all/views/all/

And we're now only behind Namecoin, which has 2.5 times our market cap.

[lebing]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

I think the answer is no. First of all it is questionable whether you would really want to hold wealth long term on a sidechain. The security assumptions (even when it comes to things like network hash rate, but in other more fundamental respects as well) are questionable. It is more plausible you might want to use services or features on a side chain by moving your bitcoins there and then, relatively quickly, moving them back to the more secure main chain. For example, this might be be used for mixing, by moving your coins to a sidechain with ring signatures, transacting and then moving them back.

But this ends up being a lot like using a Bitcoin mixer, with many of the same issues such as simultaneity. For example, imagine you are making a donation to some controversial organization and you want to delink the bitcoins you are donating.

So you go ahead and move your coins to a ring-sig sidechain, move them around a few times, and then move them back. Unless other people are doing this at the same time, when you move your coins back to the main chain, you will get the same coins back that you started with.

Alternately, perhaps the organization wants to be all anonymous and stuff, so it publishes an address on the sidechain, and you donate to them there. They then withdraw the coins back to the main chain, and they get the exact Bitcoins you sent to the side chain.

Obviously if there are a few other people doing the transfers at the same time, there is a degree of mixing, but it is fairly limited.

I don't think a side chain with a specialized purpose can achieve the same degree of anonymity as a coin designed for that purpose, where the entire chain is being mixed and remixed continually. That is an emperical question though. It is possible that a Bitcoin side chain could get more usage and greater trust of its security for long term holdings than Monero will have. More usage would address the mixing issue to a some extent and trust in the security would address the need to constantly move coins back and forth (though there still may be a loss of network effect here). None of this is clear at all.

I also think it is possible the market may simply reject the notion of adopting the Bitcoin currency for everything. It will be an interesting experiment to decouple new features from using a different currency. We may well find that the reason for altcoins is not the features!

Thanks Smooth for a proper answer. I have to say though that there are a lot of assumptions and far too many maybes in there for me. Best of luck to you, Risto and the rest of the team.

[mafostedu]

Could somebody please help me to resolve this issue ?
I was out of town & away from my home PC so I didn't updated my blockchain for almost 3 months,
Last week when I came back I downloaded the latest wallet from the OP & also the blockchain (2.3 GB .bin file) from the link provided in the OP.

After that when I ran bitmonerod.exe my blockchain was still  about 40-45 days behind so, left it overnight running & in the morning it was done with synchronization.
But then when I run simplewallet.exe, it gives me a weird message,

2014-Oct-23 11:04:45.414355 bitmonero wallet v0.8.8.4-771b531
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.208800 Loaded wallet keys file, with public address: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.208800 file not found: xmr, starting with empty blockchain
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.208800 Opened wallet: -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.599823 Starting refresh...
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.681828 Failed to invoke http request to  http://localhost:18081/getblocks.bin, wrong response code: 500
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.681828 ERROR ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282 !r. THROW EXCEPTION: error::no_connection_to_daemon
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.703829 ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282:struct tools::error::no_connection_to_daemon: no connection to daemon, request = getblocks.bin
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.709829 Another try pull_blocks (try_count=0)...
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.749831 Failed to invoke http request to  http://localhost:18081/getblocks.bin, wrong response code: 500
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.750831 ERROR ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282 !r. THROW EXCEPTION: error::no_connection_to_daemon
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.750831 ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282:struct tools::error::no_connection_to_daemon: no connection to daemon, request = getblocks.bin
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.750831 Another try pull_blocks (try_count=1)...
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.771833 Failed to invoke http request to  http://localhost:18081/getblocks.bin, wrong response code: 500
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.771833 ERROR ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282 !r. THROW EXCEPTION: error::no_connection_to_daemon
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.772833 ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282:struct tools::error::no_connection_to_daemon: no connection to daemon, request = getblocks.bin
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.772833 Another try pull_blocks (try_count=2)...
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.794834 Failed to invoke http request to  http://localhost:18081/getblocks.bin, wrong response code: 500
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.794834 ERROR ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282 !r. THROW EXCEPTION: error::no_connection_to_daemon
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.794834 ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:282:struct tools::error::no_connection_to_daemon: no connection to daemon, request = getblocks.bin
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.794834 ERROR ..\..\src\wallet\wallet2.cpp:358 pull_blocks failed, try_count=3
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.803834 Error: refresh failed: no connection to daemon. Please, make sure daemon is running. Blocks received: 0

At the same time bitmonerod.log reads the following,

2014-Oct-23 11:02:31.377688 [P2P1][188.2.54.196:18080 OUT]Sync data returned unknown top block: 272598 -> 272778 [180 blocks (0 days) behind]
SYNCHRONIZATION started
2014-Oct-23 11:03:24.909750 [P2P3][85.69.78.14:18080 OUT] SYNCHRONIZED OK
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.646826 [RPC0]ERROR c:\users\ric_000\desktop\bitmonero\src\rpc\core_rpc_server.h:68 Failed to on_get_blocks()
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.710829 [RPC0]ERROR c:\users\ric_000\desktop\bitmonero\src\rpc\core_rpc_server.h:68 Failed to on_get_blocks()
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.750831 [RPC1]ERROR c:\users\ric_000\desktop\bitmonero\src\rpc\core_rpc_server.h:68 Failed to on_get_blocks()
2014-Oct-23 11:04:53.772833 [RPC0]ERROR c:\users\ric_000\desktop\bitmonero\src\rpc\core_rpc_server.h:68 Failed to on_get_blocks()

[smooth]

I have to say though that there are a lot of assumptions and far too many maybes in there for me. Best of luck to you, Risto and the rest of the team.

On which side of the argument? I would say both.

The experiment continues.

[smooth]

you know monero is undervalued if

lol. What happened to CannabisCoin since last week? I no longer see it on the list.

Take a look down at #33.

It is fascinating to me how many flash-in-the-pan coins that were at one time right around our market cap or a bit higher have come and gone since the start of this project.

[mmortal03]

Is the viewkey currently stored in the wallet.bin file, or is it only generated from the private key on the fly? The reason I ask is, if it is the former, then I assume that simplewallet could easily be programmed to run in watch-only (view-only) mode, operating as such whenever the user tries to load their wallet.bin file without their wallet.bin.keys file being present. This could make running an offline wallet configuration VERY easy.  One could simply generate their wallet with simplewallet on an offline machine, then copy over just the wallet.bin file WITHOUT the wallet.bin.keys file to an online machine, and then load that into simplewallet. Would there be any security or privacy concerns to having it operate this way?

[burnbabyburn71]

Monero may not be a pump and dump coin, but there is certainly a lot of dumping going on, and the price is starting to suffer.

[drawingthesun]

Monero may not be a pump and dump coin, but there is certainly a lot of dumping going on, and the price is starting to suffer.

I am very surprised to see Monero doing so badly, however I see no news until next year that could reverse this trend.

The GUI is planned for 2015 correct? And the database work? Has any progress been made?

[silencesilence]

Monero may not be a pump and dump coin, but there is certainly a lot of dumping going on, and the price is starting to suffer.

the price is down from BOTs

see very small SELL orders

0.00249122   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249123   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249124   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249125   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249126   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249127   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249128   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249129   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249130   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249131   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249132   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249133   0.0666   0.00016592
0.00249134   76.0646   0.18950278
0.00249135   100.0666   0.24930092
0.00249136   20.0666   0.04999312
0.00249137   34.85445   0.08683533
0.00249138   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249139   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249140   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249141   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249142   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249143   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249144   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249145   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249146   100.0666   0.24931193
0.00249147   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249148   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249149   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249150   0.0666   0.00016593
0.00249250   0.0666   0.000166
0.00249350   0.0666   0.00016607
0.00249450   0.0666   0.00016613
0.00249550   0.0666   0.0001662
0.00249650   0.0666   0.00016627
0.00249660   0.1   0.00024966
0.00249750   0.0666   0.00016633

[drawingthesun]

Monero may not be a pump and dump coin, but there is certainly a lot of dumping going on, and the price is starting to suffer.

the price is down from BOTs

I'm not sure that explains everything, currently the sell side is 280k monero vs 40k monero on the buy side.

[drawingthesun]

In the wake of http://www.blockstream.com/ essentially making sidechains an inevitability - what is the point of holding XMR now? Wont all of the privacy Monero offers be available within the bitcoin blockchain?

how?

As I understand sidechains, you can essentially utilize all of the functionality of an alt while remaining on the bitcoin blockchain. This therefore removes the need for any alt, including Monero.

i see. it is done by hand-waving.

it is a familiar technique, which accomplishes much - but it does not accomplish what you suggest.

Expecting a serious response to a serious question, but I get trolled. If you are looking to instill confidence in Monero this is not the way to go about it.

The benefit of Monero is that all the users are apart of the anonymity set, not just the people on the side chain.

For the side chain to work best, many people would have to keep funds in the side chain for a period of time, the shorter, and the worse the overall anonymity of all users will be.

[NeuroticFish]

Monero may not be a pump and dump coin, but there is certainly a lot of dumping going on, and the price is starting to suffer.

I am very surprised to see Monero doing so badly, however I see no news until next year that could reverse this trend.

The GUI is planned for 2015 correct? And the database work? Has any progress been made?

I believe that you missed the last missive: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9271342#msg9271342
They are working on the database. It's indeed slower than my expectations, but hey! they are not many devs, not that well-paid, so I cannot complain.
I really hope that DB will be finished this year.

And about GUI wallet, I think that the currently existing (3rd party) GUI wallets are considered "good enough" for now. I cannot tell, as for me simplewallet is already good enough.

[smooth]

Monero may not be a pump and dump coin, but there is certainly a lot of dumping going on, and the price is starting to suffer.

I am very surprised to see Monero doing so badly, however I see no news until next year that could reverse this trend.

The GUI is planned for 2015 correct? And the database work? Has any progress been made?

I believe that you missed the last missive: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.msg9271342#msg9271342
They are working on the database. It's indeed slower than my expectations, but hey! they are not many devs, not that well-paid, so I cannot complain.
I really hope that DB will be finished this year.

And about GUI wallet, I think that the currently existing (3rd party) GUI wallets are considered "good enough" for now. I cannot tell, as for me simplewallet is already good enough.

It is my personal opinion that the best thing to do on the GUI front short term if you (not you personally but speaking to everyone) want to make a difference is to contribute to the existing GUIs. That could be as simple as careful testing and giving feedback, writing or editing "how to" guides for new users, building and releasing binaries and installers (it will help if you are a well-trusted), etc. or it could be actual (but in most cases relatively simple) programming to make some minor tweaks and improvements. Obviously everyone has different skills, but any of these skills will help make the GUIs more accessible to more users.

The core team GUI project is ambitious and groundbreaking but it won't be finished very soon. In my view it is more realistic to target that project as (very) improved "version 2" GUI rather than a primary solution when we already have GUIs that (at least mostly) work right now.