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

[smooth]

this is terrible, by this logic, they can bring the price down to 1 Satoshi

Not really, it doesn't effect the amount of Monero being mined per day.

Exactly right

I suppose most of the botnet operators would sell their Monero as soon as they receive it though, which could cause problems. Really it shouldn't be a problem if their are enough people buying. However due to the very high emission rate (the amount of coins mined per day set by the network), there selling pressure is starting to out weight the buying pressure causing the price to decrease a bit.

why do you think botnet owners would sell immediatly?
i think the opposit is true: a normal miner has to cover costs: he has to sell. a botnet owner get them nearly for free (just a little risk and maybe some cost to buy the botnet in the first lace)

It is interesting that you have people saying botnets are more likely to sell right away and people saying that botnets are less likely to sell right away for the exact same reason.

In reality I don't think anyone has a clue when any particular botnet operator will sell, and I very much doubt they all do the exact same thing. I also don't think anyone really has a clue how much of the mining is done by botnets. Anyone can mine and it is impossible to know who is mining or why. That is by design in a decentralized network. If we tried to pick and choose who can or should mine that would be contrary to the entire premise.

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[smooth]

is there a way largest manufacturers of anti-virus software to work with Monero developers to prevent this Botnet

They can detect miners but that can actually be a negative because it causes legitimate users to have their miners get flagged by AV too, which scares them off and disscourages them from mining.

This for me is a big hole in each operating system - Linux, Apple, Windows and ...
they must have a mechanism to automatically prevent Botnet,
otherwise they are Botnet

I would guess that 99% of botnet computers are Windows, although some have been found on devices such as routers, printers, etc. Those are often even less secure that Windows.

If the world hasn't figured out how to prevent botnets by now, the Monero developers aren't going to be the ones who solve this problem either. We're pretty busy working on the coin itself, you know.

[silencesilence]

in that case Monero should be done CPU- NOT friendly coin

[smooth]

in that case Monero should be done CPU- NOT friendly coin

So your belief is that mining should be inaccessible to regular people who have computers but don't have specialized GPU mining rigs or ASICs?

[silencesilence]

in that case Monero should be done CPU- NOT friendly coin

So your belief is that mining should be inaccessible to regular people who have computers but don't have specialized GPU mining rigs or ASICs?

rather, as much as possible people to be able to to mining with their computers, but bot net raises the difficulty and all ordinary miners quit anyway

[smooth]

in that case Monero should be done CPU- NOT friendly coin

So your belief is that mining should be inaccessible to regular people who have computers but don't have specialized GPU mining rigs or ASICs?

rather, as much as possible people to be able to to mining with their computers, but bot net raises the difficulty and all ordinary miners quit anyway

I haven't quit.

Professional miners may well quit. I won't miss them.

[silencesilence]

before 2 and a half years - Bitcoin Botnet

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/p2p-botnets-the-bigger-they-come-the-faster-they-fall/

[smooth]

before 2 and a half years - Bitcoin Botnet

http://arstechnica.com/business/2012/03/p2p-botnets-the-bigger-they-come-the-faster-they-fall/

Every single major coin has been mined by botnets. Even at times ones that are pretty CPU-unfriendly. Recently a botnet was discovered mining DOGE.

[freebud]

What services would benefit from anonymous transactions?

Practically speaking, how useful is Monero exactly? There are hardly any services that accept Monero, making it basically worthless as a currency. what's the point of a currency if you can't buy anything with it?

How concerned are people about privacy and anonymity? Just because we are supposed to be concerned, doesn't mean we will/are concerned.

Other cryptocurrencies boast anonymity too, what sets Monero apart from the crowd exactly?

Does Monero have a future? Or will it soon die like most cryptocurrencies?

How much value does Monero really have?

I bought into this coin because so many people have convinced themselves and me that this is the next best thing, and I wanted to profit from it. The lowering price is obviously not profitable to me, and now I'm starting to have doubts about this coin.

From a recent poll:
Most Americans Concerned About Financial Privacy The survey also discovered that nearly 3 in 4 (71%) Americans are most concerned about online privacy when they are accessing their bank account or financial data..
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20140729006077/en/71-Americans-Care-Deeply-Online-Privacy-Privacy

[aminorex]

I think the large majority of people would be content with the psuedo anonymity that Bitcoin provides. Especially when using Bitcoin is just easier.

Bitcoin is the absolute antithesis of privacy.  If you use bitcoin, your transactions are known and tracked.

Ease of use is just a small matter of software development.

[aminorex]

What services would benefit from anonymous transactions?...

How concerned are people about privacy and anonymity? ...

Other cryptocurrencies boast anonymity too, what sets Monero apart from the crowd exactly?

How much value does Monero really have?

All transactions should be private unless disclosing them is of benefit to the transacting parties, e.g. when it is required by law or as evidence of a transfer of real property.

Parties with wealth are concerned.  The concerns of the 99% have no substantive impact on long-term clearing rates.

Cryptonote coins have provable privacy qualifications, modulo implementation defect.  No other currently existing crypto has that.

The value question will cost you.

[iCEBREAKER]

Anything less than 3 years to measure success just wastes your time and gives bad results

I disagree.  It might have taken bitcoin years before it had any value but the landscape has changed.  Three years to measure success is ridiculous.  Cryptocurrencies are no longer just some geeky experiment like bitcoin was when it started.  The foundation has been poured.  Those building on that foundation will need to move quickly or get left behind.  Bitcoins history is just that.  To be successful going forward, a cryptocurrency will need to rapidly deploy features people want, create an infrastructure that will support it, and users willing to adopt it.  If a currency doesn't accomplish those things it will go nowhere.

I think one of the reasons for the exodus out of altcoins is that people have been speculating on the next bitcoin.  It's become apparent to many that the majority of all altcoins are just quick schemes to make money.  They all promise this and that, new features coming, etc...  None of the promises have come true.  None of the altcoins have succeeded in gaining any significant adoption and most likely none of them will.

If any cryptocurrency wants to be around in three years then it needs to offer something people want and it needs to offer it now.  If it doesn't it won't be around in three years, monero included.

Telling people it might take three years is like shooting yourself in the foot.  People aren't going to do that.  They are already losing patience
 as proven by the recent selling.  People want results now.  That's just a fact of life.      

rpietila is correct.  It is not surprising that he hails from an extreme northern cold-climate culture which has developed heroic standards for delayed gratification.

Large, long-lived complex systems like elephants and humans have extensive gestation and pre-adolsescent growth periods.

Monero hasn't even been born yet and is still a fetus.  Its price is based on ultrasound readings, not direct observation.

We are in the 650 day process of growing a wise crypto-elephant, not a 30 day rush job to pop out a vapid scamcoin chipmunk.

When Monero is finally delivered, it will have well developed advantageous features (GUI/DB/webwallet) which will allow it to survive in the wild:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-18507515

It would be nice if all the impatient bedwetting toddlers would make good on their threats to sell their Monero and leave.

But they won't, because despite all their noisy threats and temper tantrums, they want to be where the cool older kids are.

For better or worse, we just have to put up with the little parasites' incessant demands for instant gratification.   

[Globb0]

what about the occasional captcha type thing? that would stop bot nets

[onemorebtc]

what about the occasional captcha type thing? that would stop bot nets

you mean a mining-algo which uses captchas?

sounds like a fun experiment - but please: not for monero

EDIT: maybe huntercoin is for you..

[shojayxt]

Anything less than 3 years to measure success just wastes your time and gives bad results

I disagree.  It might have taken bitcoin years before it had any value but the landscape has changed.  Three years to measure success is ridiculous.  Cryptocurrencies are no longer just some geeky experiment like bitcoin was when it started.  The foundation has been poured.  Those building on that foundation will need to move quickly or get left behind.  Bitcoins history is just that.  To be successful going forward, a cryptocurrency will need to rapidly deploy features people want, create an infrastructure that will support it, and users willing to adopt it.  If a currency doesn't accomplish those things it will go nowhere.

I think one of the reasons for the exodus out of altcoins is that people have been speculating on the next bitcoin.  It's become apparent to many that the majority of all altcoins are just quick schemes to make money.  They all promise this and that, new features coming, etc...  None of the promises have come true.  None of the altcoins have succeeded in gaining any significant adoption and most likely none of them will.

If any cryptocurrency wants to be around in three years then it needs to offer something people want and it needs to offer it now.  If it doesn't it won't be around in three years, monero included.

Telling people it might take three years is like shooting yourself in the foot.  People aren't going to do that.  They are already losing patience
 as proven by the recent selling.  People want results now.  That's just a fact of life.      

rpietila is correct.  It is not surprising that he hails from an extreme northern cold-climate culture which has developed heroic standards for delayed gratification.

Large, long-lived complex systems like elephants and humans have extensive gestation and pre-adolsescent growth periods.

Monero hasn't even been born yet and is still a fetus.  Its price is based on ultrasound readings, not direct observation.

We are in the 650 day process of growing a wise crypto-elephant, not a 30 day rush job to pop out a vapid scamcoin chipmunk.

When Monero is finally delivered, it will have well developed advantageous features (GUI/DB/webwallet) which will allow it to survive in the wild:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-18507515

It would be nice if all the impatient bedwetting toddlers would make good on their threats to sell their Monero and leave.

But they won't, because despite all their noisy threats and temper tantrums, they want to be where the cool older kids are.

For better or worse, we just have to put up with the little parasites' incessant demands for instant gratification.   

I hope you're not directing that towards me because I haven't been throwing tantrums or making demands.  I am just stating what I believe to be the truth.  I also wonder why you would want people to leave when the best thing for Monero is MORE people adopting it and hanging onto it. 

If someone wants to whine and cry about the price they have every right to do so.  If you want to call them names and tell them to leave that's your right as well.  In the end however, a few large holders of this coin will never be enough for it to be successful.  So insulting and telling people to leave Monero is the worst thing you could do.  I saw this happen with Darkcoin where a few large holders became extremely arrogant and alienated a large portion of the people that wanted to support the coin.  I see this now happening with Monero where a few large holders think that the coin belongs to them and that others are deemed to be parasites for questioning their all knowing wisdom about things that nobody knows what the outcome will be.

It seems that a few people decided that they could take their wealth and just turn Monero into the next bitcoin.  The only way that will ever happen is by attracting supporters of this coin not alienating them.  Even then it's a long shot at best.  But best of luck with your method of attracting people to Monero.  Calling people parasites doesn't seem to be the best method however.

[iCEBREAKER]

I hope you're not directing that towards me because I haven't been throwing tantrums or making demands.  I am just stating what I believe to be the truth.  I also wonder why you would want people to leave when the best thing for Monero is MORE people adopting it and hanging onto it. 

If someone wants to whine and cry about the price they have every right to do so.  If you want to call them names and tell them to leave that's your right as well.  In the end however, a few large holders of this coin will never be enough for it to be successful.  So insulting and telling people to leave Monero is the worst thing you could do.  I saw this happen with Darkcoin where a few large holders became extremely arrogant and alienated a large portion of the people that wanted to support the coin.  I see this now happening with Monero where a few large holders think that the coin belongs to them and that others are deemed to be parasites for questioning their all knowing wisdom about things that nobody knows what the outcome will be.

It seems that a few people decided that they could take their wealth and just turn Monero into the next bitcoin.  The only way that will ever happen is by attracting supporters of this coin not alienating them.  Even then it's a long shot at best.  But best of luck with your method of attracting people to Monero.  Calling people parasites doesn't seem to be the best method however.

It was obviously directed at your FUD, most specifically these threats and ultimatums:

If any cryptocurrency wants to be around in three years then it needs to offer something people want and it needs to offer it now.  If it doesn't it won't be around in three years, monero included.

Telling people it might take three years is like shooting yourself in the foot.  People aren't going to do that.  They are already losing patience
 as proven by the recent selling.  People want results now.  That's just a fact of life.   

The sooner the impatient and panicky weak hands sell to patient and wiser hloders the better it is for Monero, for at least two reasons.
One, the strong hands tamp down volatility, invest in the dev team, and build out the platform.  Two, the weak panicky hands will have to buy back at a higher price, which rewards forbearance.

Your comparison of XMR to DRK is invalid because the former is 100% legit while the latter is a scamcoin (complete with MadoffNodes).

It seems I struck a nerve, as you chose to respond with yet more FUD, threats, and ultimatums.  The pump-and-dump crowd you speak on behalf of and defend do have a niche in the market ecosystem, as do parasites in biology (they increase host resilience and complexity).   

[smooth]

If you are mining XMR on a pool, please take a look at

backup-pool.com

and

cryptonotepool.org.uk

Both are smaller pools (good for decentralization!) that are donating their low 1% fee to the project donation address.

This is not meant to disparage any other pools, many of the other pools are great as well, but I know these guys have worked hard to support the project so we encourage you to support them as well.

More information about both is available on the OP: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=583449.0

[bclcjunkie]

i normally don't respond to trolls because these scamcoin pump and dump shills ain't worth my time, especially when they pretend to be asking shrink wrapped questions that actually carry own agenda... so i agree wholeheartedly with what iCEBREAKER said earlier as these are exactly my thoughts as well and applies to all paid or unpaid trolls...

I hope you're not directing that towards me because I haven't been throwing tantrums or making demands.  I am just stating what I believe to be the truth.  I also wonder why you would want people to leave when the best thing for Monero is MORE people adopting it and hanging onto it.  

If someone wants to whine and cry about the price they have every right to do so.  If you want to call them names and tell them to leave that's your right as well.  In the end however, a few large holders of this coin will never be enough for it to be successful.  So insulting and telling people to leave Monero is the worst thing you could do.  I saw this happen with Darkcoin where a few large holders became extremely arrogant and alienated a large portion of the people that wanted to support the coin.  I see this now happening with Monero where a few large holders think that the coin belongs to them and that others are deemed to be parasites for questioning their all knowing wisdom about things that nobody knows what the outcome will be.

It seems that a few people decided that they could take their wealth and just turn Monero into the next bitcoin.  The only way that will ever happen is by attracting supporters of this coin not alienating them.  Even then it's a long shot at best.  But best of luck with your method of attracting people to Monero.  Calling people parasites doesn't seem to be the best method however.

It was obviously directed at your FUD, most specifically these threats and ultimatums:

If any cryptocurrency wants to be around in three years then it needs to offer something people want and it needs to offer it now.  If it doesn't it won't be around in three years, monero included.

Telling people it might take three years is like shooting yourself in the foot.  People aren't going to do that.  They are already losing patience
 as proven by the recent selling.  People want results now.  That's just a fact of life.  

The sooner the impatient and panicky weak hands sell to patient and wiser hloders the better it is for Monero, for at least two reasons.
One, the strong hands tamp down volatility, invest in the dev team, and build out the platform.  Two, the weak panicky hands will have to buy back at a higher price, which rewards forbearance.

Your comparison of XMR to DRK is invalid because the former is 100% legit while the latter is a scamcoin (complete with MadoffNodes).

It seems I struck a nerve, as you chose to respond with yet more FUD, threats, and ultimatums.  The pump-and-dump crowd you speak on behalf of and defend do have a niche in the market ecosystem, as do parasites in biology (they increase host resilience and complexity).  

[nioc]

vapid scamcoin chipmunk

[xulescu]

Here is my take on the Botnet Argument. I generally agree with smooth and iCEBREAKER.

I believe botnets are healthy for Monero and represent a desirable balancing factor in the whole network security and coin distribution incentives debate.

The security argument is that botnets make the network antifragile. From the point of view of the network, there are more entities and more CPUs doing PoW. From the very beginning Monero attempted to be a CPU-only coin ("one CPU one vote") and largely managed to do so. It is currently at the point where (1) enthusiasts and benefactors can mine on their CPUs and GPUs (they never mine at profitability, they gain utility from securing the network at a loss), where (2) unsecured computers can mine for botnet operators with about 5-20x lower hash rate per unit, and where (3) professional mining enterprise is crowded out by the first two groups.

Botnets effectively externalize part of the network security to the owners of the unsecured computers. They gain by learning the hard way (and would have been infected by some botnet at some point anyway). The network gains by using their computers. The internet at large becomes more secure. The only party that is losing are the professional miners. They can't just throw more money at Monero to get even more money back. Thus all the network is mined by parties that are, financially, at a loss. I believe this is a very healthy place to be, because it doesn't encourage the race to the bottom ("mining wars") in the hands of a few professional miners (I'm not saying is stops the race, but doesn't further encourage it. It's a balancing factor). Moreover, botnets are not zero-cost either and, because of everyone's incentives to keep botnets away, they cannot scale as well as professional mining. Thus, the network is more decentralized than in their absence. A final point to make here is that whether botnets should or should not be stopped is a normative matter, and therefore subject to moral judgements. I think we should reason about incentives and not necessarily morals.

The coin distribution argument is that it doesn't matter who does the mining, since the emission rate is the same anyway. At the same time, it does matter who sells the mining output. This is a market that can be cornered; indeed, that's exactly what a pump and dump implies. Given that botnets decentralize the sellers of mining output compared to professional miners, the Monero emission is harder to corner and harder to pump and dump. This is also a healthy place to be.

TL;DR: Botnets make the network more secure and keep professional miners out. This way, the Monero emission market is harder to corner and harder to pump and dump. The downside is that the ride will be more painful. This is also a good thing.