rpietila Altcoin Observer

[coins101]

Crikey, popped out for a glass or two of Amarone and come back to a little tussle about which coin has the least problems.

Holding a bag or BitMonero and Darkcoin means that I've tried to keep up with both, but mostly involved with DRK because I could see the value of its Bitcoin codebase - which Peter Todd is recommending for BitMonero.

The three things they have in common are dedicated devs that know what they are doing, their communities and a focus on privacy.

Darkcoin will without doubt come under attack, just as BitMonero is currently under attack. How you deal with those attacks is probably just as important as trying to prevent them happening. Both camps seem up to the job.

Honestly - the common target should be Litecoin and being number two to Bitcoin, not who is going to be the 10th place contender.

[AlexGR]

The entire DRK instamine cost less than 50 BTC for two weeks after the launch.

I'm talking about amount of coins, which is what matters to the distribution of a coin. If you convert them to BTC then you have a BTC potential distribution issue and also a potential coin distribution issue with whoever you sold them told (or not, it depends).

Don't conflate the two.

Initial distribution would only be a problem in a world where markets do not exist. When the markets take over, distribution is sorted out according to demand.

The assumption made is that initial distribution is somehow frozen into eternity when it is not. People buy, people sell, coins change hands. Miners also sell because that's what they do. They mine and sell for profit. Again, coins change hands. And when pumps happen (let alone with multi-million USD volumes per day), that's even more coins that change hands. This has a tremendous effect on distribution.

[coins101]

The entire DRK instamine cost less than 50 BTC for two weeks after the launch.

I'm talking about amount of coins, which is what matters to the distribution of a coin. If you convert them to BTC then you have a BTC potential distribution issue and also a potential coin distribution issue with whoever you sold them told (or not, it depends).

Don't conflate the two.

Initial distribution would only be a problem in a world where markets do not exist. When the markets take over, distribution is sorted out according to demand.

The assumption made is that initial distribution is somehow frozen into eternity when it is not. People buy, people sell, coins change hands. Miners also sell because that's what they do. They mine and sell for profit. Again, coins change hands. And when pumps happen (let alone with multi-million USD volumes per day), that's even more coins that change hands. This has a tremendous effect on distribution.

I think that is where I came into this discussion....

snip....

snip...

Many $millions have changed hands since January, what is left are people working hard to deliver a working privacy solution based on bitcoin codebase. 

snip...

[smooth]

The entire DRK instamine cost less than 50 BTC for two weeks after the launch.

I'm talking about amount of coins, which is what matters to the distribution of a coin. If you convert them to BTC then you have a BTC potential distribution issue and also a potential coin distribution issue with whoever you sold them told (or not, it depends).

Don't conflate the two.

Initial distribution would only be a problem in a world where markets do not exist. When the markets take over, distribution is sorted out according to demand.

No it is still a problem when markets aren't liquid, people aren't rational, or people don't pay attention. You are assuming markets are infinitely liquid and everyone (or most) participates rationally. But if those aren't true and you end up with a bad distribution, you still have it.

If someone starts with 80% of the coins when they aren't worth much, puts them away somewhere and they go up in value, then one day you have someone owning 80% of the coins later when it does matter (and when it is probably even harder to trade in such volume). This may also be an issue in coin markets which can move very fast before anyone even realizes what they're worth or thinks much about it.

[coins101]

The entire DRK instamine cost less than 50 BTC for two weeks after the launch.

I'm talking about amount of coins, which is what matters to the distribution of a coin. If you convert them to BTC then you have a BTC potential distribution issue and also a potential coin distribution issue with whoever you sold them told (or not, it depends).

Don't conflate the two.

Initial distribution would only be a problem in a world where markets do not exist. When the markets take over, distribution is sorted out according to demand.

No it is still a problem when markets aren't liquid or people don't pay attention. You are assuming markets are infinitely liquid and everyone (or most) participate.

If someone starts with 80% of the coins when they aren't worth much, puts them away somewhere and they go up in value, then one day you have someone owning 80% of the coins later when it does matter (and when it is probably even harder to trade in such volume). This may also be an issue in coin markets which can move very fast before anyone even realize what they're worth.

You are mostly talking hypothetically now. It doesn't add anything.

The number one Darkcoin wallet has a significant proportion of the entire coins in circulation. He purchased every single coin on the open market.  The huge amount of money that was being transacted has distributed the coins.  Quite a few of the top wallets show reasonably recent purchases.

Those that are long-term holders, well a great deal of them are working on the project for free - I suspect many have had to sell coins to pay for living expenses and the like.

As was pointed out, this is all with the backdrop of Satoshi and his pile of coins.

[AlexGR]

The entire DRK instamine cost less than 50 BTC for two weeks after the launch.

I'm talking about amount of coins, which is what matters to the distribution of a coin. If you convert them to BTC then you have a BTC potential distribution issue and also a potential coin distribution issue with whoever you sold them told (or not, it depends).

Don't conflate the two.

Initial distribution would only be a problem in a world where markets do not exist. When the markets take over, distribution is sorted out according to demand.

No it is still a problem when markets aren't liquid or people don't pay attention. You are assuming markets are infinitely liquid and everyone (or most) participate.

We are talking about DRK here so I'm not assuming anything. I know DRK's price / volume and ascent from when it was 0.000025 (jan-early feb), to 0.00008, to 0.00018, to 0.0005, to 0.002, to 0.001 (after the 300 btc ccex hack that was turned to DRK then dumped to poloniex etc), to 0.0011-0.0016 for months, to 0.028 with the pump.

If someone starts with 80% of the coins when they aren't worth much, puts them away somewhere and they go up in value, then one day you have someone owning 80% of the coins later when it does matter (and when it is probably even harder to trade in such volume). This may also be an issue in coin markets which can move very fast before anyone even realize what they're worth.

If there's such an imbalance that renders a coin DOA, like Bytecoin for example, the market simply reflects the price and marketcap accordingly.

[smooth]

The entire DRK instamine cost less than 50 BTC for two weeks after the launch.

I'm talking about amount of coins, which is what matters to the distribution of a coin. If you convert them to BTC then you have a BTC potential distribution issue and also a potential coin distribution issue with whoever you sold them told (or not, it depends).

Don't conflate the two.

Initial distribution would only be a problem in a world where markets do not exist. When the markets take over, distribution is sorted out according to demand.

No it is still a problem when markets aren't liquid or people don't pay attention. You are assuming markets are infinitely liquid and everyone (or most) participate.

We are talking about DRK here so I'm not assuming anything. I know DRK's price / volume and ascent from when it was 0.000025 (jan-early feb), to 0.00008, to 0.00018, to 0.0005, to 0.002, to 0.001 (after the 300 btc ccex hack that was turned to DRK then dumped to poloniex etc), to 0.0011-0.0016 for months, to 0.028 with the pump.

You know all those things. What you don't know is the effect of the instamine because the counterfactual is unknowable.

[AlexGR]

You know all those things. What you don't know is the effect of the instamine because the counterfactual is unknowable.

Well, I do know this: A large list of coins that wanted to "save humanity" from the "scam" that DRK is, used it as an excuse to actually scam their investors of their BTCs. From large and known coins down to ...Honorcoin.

The planet is now in a better shape than before

At least investors -after several months of scams- now know who can develop anonymity and who can't.

[Wexlike]

Why are you defending a monster instamine like dark ?

[rdnkjdi]

No it is still a problem when markets aren't liquid, people aren't rational, or people don't pay attention. You are assuming markets are infinitely liquid and everyone (or most) participates rationally. But if those aren't true and you end up with a bad distribution, you still have it.

As a wall observer (not owner) it has been interesting to watch XMR's consistent volume climb.  DRK's volume is much different.  

[coins101]

Why are you defending a monster instamine like dark ?

Actually, 2.5 million coins are spread around the top 100 wallets and nearly all of them have activity within the last 4 months - DRK was launched in January.

Around another 1 million coins are held by ~900 to 1,000 decentralised and unknown master node operators to prove they are ready to provide a service to the network.

https://drk.mn/  or here http://drk.poolhash.org/

so 3.5 million coins of the 4.6m are spread quite well between those that purchased their coins and the remainder are spread over a 1-2 thousand wallets.

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/drk/#!rich

Quite evenly spread. Those at the top of the list can be seen purchasing coins relatively recently, or they are the exchanges.

[smooth]

Why are you defending a monster instamine like dark ?

Actually, 2.5 million coins are spread around the top 100 wallets and nearly all of them have activity within the last 4 months - DRK was launched in January.

Around another 1 million coins are held by master node operators to prove they are ready to provide a service to the network.

https://drk.mn/  or here http://drk.poolhash.org/

so 3.5 million coins are spread quite well between those that purchased their coins and the remainder are spread over a 1-2 thousand wallets.

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/drk/#!rich

Quite evenly spread. Those at the top of the list can be seen purchasing coins relatively recently, or they are the exchanges.

Who cares? There are plenty of other coins. Why pay attention to such a fuckup (i.e. either corrupt or incompetent, often impossible to tell from the outside especially when one masquerades as the other) coin anyway. The instamine was a mostly symptom, not the underlying problem.

I also don't accept that wallets being "active" means that anything is spread well, nor that wallet balances are spread out means much of anything.

Being accused of an instamine, even if I had nothing to do with it, the first thing I would do is spread my coins around to a much larger number of wallets. This exactly thing happened in XCN (although the mining wasn't really an instamine just likely advantages). Someone was accused on it based on a huge wallet, and next thing you know the wallet starts getting broken up. (Plus someone claims to have been that guy and says "oh i just used EC2 a lot" (which I have reason to believe was not the whole story) but really it could have been anyone with a bunch of coins saying that, worried that the mining scandal would hurt the value of their own holdings.)

Moving doesn't necessarily mean sold, and who cares anyway, the instamine is a fuckup either way. With 1000+ coins to choose from, why that one?

[Wexlike]

Why are you defending a monster instamine like dark ?

Actually, 2.5 million coins are spread around the top 100 wallets and nearly all of them have activity within the last 4 months - DRK was launched in January.

Around another 1 million coins are held by decentralised and unknown master node operators to prove they are ready to provide a service to the network.

https://drk.mn/  or here http://drk.poolhash.org/

so 3.5 million coins of the 4.6m are spread quite well between those that purchased their coins and the remainder are spread over a 1-2 thousand wallets.

https://chainz.cryptoid.info/drk/#!rich

Quite evenly spread. Those at the top of the list can be seen purchasing coins relatively recently, or they are the exchanges.

I don't care about this. What i am trying to say is:

Darkcoin instamine is shit.
Monero enhanced private miner is shit.
BBR private early gpu miner is shit.

Out of these 3 launches i still prefer monero.

[coins101]

Disgraceful attitudes. Absolutely disgraceful.

You are purposefully seeking confrontations with such inflammatory language.  Not even interested in looking at the details. Just interested in picking sides, picking a fight and trying to inflame to further a cause.

edit

It actually wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it wasn't this sort of attitude that has brought the current attacks on BitMonero. Having seen the tussle going on between the various Cryptonote camps, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

[Wexlike]

Uhhh, what ?

A look at your signature shows anyone that you can't have an objective point of view.

Here is no hate of any of us, just reasonable criticism.

[jwinterm]

Who cares? There are plenty of other coins. Why pay attention to such a fuckup (i.e. either corrupt or incompetent, often impossible to tell from the outside especially when one masquerades as the other) coin anyway. The instamine was a mostly symptom, not the underlying problem.

From what I've heard it was a fuckup due to incompetence/sloppiness, but that could just as well be a masquerade as you say. Half of all coins in 12 hours is just ridiculous though, practically worse than these 1 week PoW then switch to PoS coins.

[coins101]

Uhhh, what ?

A look at your signature shows anyone that you can't have an objective point of view.

Here is no hate of any of us, just reasonable criticism.

For every seller, there is generally a buyer. Who do you think was helping to buy those BitMonero coins that were dumped on Polo at the first opportunity?

[AlexGR]

Who cares? There are plenty of other coins. Why pay attention to such a fuckup (i.e. either corrupt or incompetent, often impossible to tell from the outside especially when one masquerades as the other) coin anyway. The instamine was a mostly symptom, not the underlying problem.

I care. Because contrary to your statement there aren't "plenty" of other anonymous coins that satisfy proper criteria of usability, inflation/store of value, PoW, scaling etc.

As for the incompetence charges, yes, it must be through all this incompetence that DRK placed anonymity on the map (prior to DRK there was no meaningful marketcap for the anonymous market) and why after months and months of "anonymity" scams, nobody brought to the table a serious alternative except the cryptonote/bytecoin devs through the ring sigs. XMR devs are apparently "highly competent" in just ripping off the codebase of BCN including all the bugs, intentionally crippled code and booby traps Awe-inspiring competence.

Anyway this conversation is highly counterproductive for the worth of my XMRs. You should realize that some of the XMR holders are into anonymity before XMR or BCN even appeared on the scene, because they actually see potential in the anonymous market in general as something that has actual value due to the inability of Bitcoin to cover this market segment. Poisoning the anonymous market by attacking everyone else for competitive reasons, will only lead to XMR getting attacked in return.

You can't claim incompetence for others without others highlighting the incompetence of XMR devs in multiple issues, or the fact that XMR in itself is just a clone that hasn't developed anything and is not the original.

You can't claim "fuckups" or "mistakes" when this has happened in the XMR.

You can't attack others (like BBR for instamining due to the GPU client) and pretend fairness when you have 100x miners on the loose for weeks.

You can't laugh about the forks of others, that happened when they tried to develop/innovate/upgrade the network functionality in new ways, and then be suddenly forked by an overflow exploit.

These stuff do tend to come and bite back.

[coins101]

man ppl are really butthurt about XMR, really weird talks about how Monero "deserved" the attacks and how it got shite "coming back at it".

lmao.

next time DRK blows up into another fork I'll remember to go personally laugh at the bagholders at expense of their instamined coin.

Also remember to post that others were trying to help the BitMonero bagholders, just at the point that everyone thought the Bitmonero attack was over, when in actual fact it had just started.

The forks are ongoing. No one is laughing.

So how did the attacker know both how to exploit AND have enough firepower to submit consecutive blocks?

Must be some mighty sophisticated malicious agents.

If I'm reading tacotime's analysis correctly, it's not clear that the *attacker* would have had to solve the second block(s) after finding the first one.  To wit:

If half the network accepted the block with TX_1 and TX_2 (block A, accepted by set 1),  and the other half had accepted TX_3 and TX_4 (block B, accepted by set 2),

then couldn't the attacker simply generate the corresponding *transactions*, and let some other miner(s) generate blocks that contained them?  The fork happened as soon as the nodes in the network had accepted conflicting sets of transactions.  Block A would not be accepted by nodes in set 2, because they had a double-spend and so those nodes would keep trying to mine their own block.  Those nodes in set 2 would only include TX_3 and TX_4 in a block they tried to mine, because TX_1 and TX_2 are invalid.

Correct.

edit: Though I will note that these tx had non-standard fees of 0.000000000001, which no mining node on the network would have included using any version of the reference code, so the attacker did for some reason mine the second block on both forks (to what end I'm not sure, maybe just to impress us).

How was he able to mine the next block?

Is Smooth correct, that there is another possible and non-obvious purpose here? I don't want to start a conspiracy chain of discussion, but you have just added another dimension which, in the context of the sophistication of the attack, might suggest something else is going on?

At this point, I'm starting to wonder if you are indeed one the group that incites others to attack the Bitmonero community just to get back at a few.

[smooth]

You can't claim "fuckups" or "mistakes" when this has happened in the XMR.

Of course I can.

Problems with XMR don't have any relationship to problems with DRK. Nice try though.

I fully expect others to hold us responsible for our handling of XMR. I do the same for DRK.