rpietila Altcoin Observer

[nioc]

Using wolf's hash rate and current parameters, I get marginal cost of 0.00653, which corresponds more closely to current market clearing at 0.007

After reading this and looking at the action I moved my last buy order from 0.0064242 to 0.00653 and I was the lowest buy filled except for a small order at 0.00652253

It quickly went back to 0.007 where it is now.

Thank you for the calculation and also canonsburg for the accurate inputs.

[aminorex]

The whole business seems to be playing out like the history of btc on fast forward, but I imagine it only seems that way because we are processing the earliest and smallest manias.  The time between the last two ramps was about 5 days. It will be interesting to see if the same time scale repeats.

My recurring thought lately has been that u.s. laws on proceeds of crime and the transparent block chain essentially doom btc fungibility in the world's largest "free" crypto market, and cryptonote offers the perfect hedge against this failure mode.

[Its About Sharing]

The whole business seems to be playing out like the history of btc on fast forward, but I imagine it only seems that way because we are processing the earliest and smallest manias.  The time between the last two ramps was about 5 days. It will be interesting to see if the same time scale repeats.

My recurring thought lately has been that u.s. laws on proceeds of crime and the transparent block chain essentially doom btc fungibility in the world's largest "free" crypto market, and cryptonote offers the perfect hedge against this failure mode.

Perhaps as an underground currency (XMR) where governments try to squash anonymous-ness. But, who is going to use a potentially "illegal" currency in mass? I imagine in countries with serious economic problems, which actually might eventually be the same countries that are doing the squashing!

My "worry" though is both that the networks and price will suffer due to governments. I understand that this area (Crypto) is just getting started so even an "illegal" currency would probably have more value than a legal state owned one...

IAS

[ShroomsKit_Disgrace]

Is anyone expecting a (small) pump on LTC?

Months of smooth downtrend, it is becoming annoying!

[saddambitcoin]

Is anyone expecting a (small) pump on LTC?

Months of smooth downtrend, it is becoming annoying!

take a look at the LTC charts from April-November 2013. nice smooth downtrend to 0.01 BTC/LTC, with some spikes everytime MT tweeted about adding LTC on Gox.

I would expect LTC to go lower this time as well, it seems undecided at this point.

Also the smart money is in Monero.

[rpietila]

Is anyone expecting a (small) pump on LTC?

Not really. Even though LTC is by a good margin the coin #2 atm, there is no niche for it in the grand scheme of things, so the fall will be from high, and smart money is positioning away from it accordingly.

[drawingthesun]

The whole business seems to be playing out like the history of btc on fast forward, but I imagine it only seems that way because we are processing the earliest and smallest manias.  The time between the last two ramps was about 5 days. It will be interesting to see if the same time scale repeats.

My recurring thought lately has been that u.s. laws on proceeds of crime and the transparent block chain essentially doom btc fungibility in the world's largest "free" crypto market, and cryptonote offers the perfect hedge against this failure mode.

Perhaps as an underground currency (XMR) where governments try to squash anonymous-ness. But, who is going to use a potentially "illegal" currency in mass? I imagine in countries with serious economic problems, which actually might eventually be the same countries that are doing the squashing!

My "worry" though is both that the networks and price will suffer due to governments. I understand that this area (Crypto) is just getting started so even an "illegal" currency would probably have more value than a legal state owned one...

IAS

I'm not convinced about CryptoNote overtaking Bitcoin anytime soon, although being number two is seemingly a likely scenario now.

The thing that Bitcoin offers to the world is effortless transaction into any other crypto currency. As long as Bitcoin exists so does the wider CryptoCoin economy.

The only way to stop this is too ban the entire thing (hint: Bitcoin), which I see being impossible due to the fact that any action that deprives a nation of a major economic market is going to ruin that countries economy in no time. (think 10 years where Crypto is being used everywhere)

[dnaleor]

I think governments will eventually understand that banning crypto is impossible and they will even support coins with a transparant ledger. Monero and other anonymous coins will be used for illegal activities and by people who want to keep their finances hidden.

Essentially: monero could be the new "crypto anarchist coin" and bitcoin will be the "clean crypto coin".

[GreekBitcoin]

I think goverbnments will eventually understand that banning crypto is impossible and they will even support coins with a transparant ledger. Monero and other anonymous coins will be used for illegal activities and by people who want to keep their finances hidden.

Essentially: monero could be the new "crypto anarchist coin" and bitcoin will be the "clean crypto coin".

Yep thats what i am thinking too. Bitcoin will be the well known well used one while monero will be the one supporting whatever is needed to buy-fund-trade anonymous. Not only illegal activities though.

I want to fund every "wikileaks" and pay every "porn site" and donating to whoever i like without anyone knowing...

[dga]

I think governments will eventually understand that banning crypto is impossible and they will even support coins with a transparant ledger. Monero and other anonymous coins will be used for illegal activities and by people who want to keep their finances hidden.

Essentially: monero could be the new "crypto anarchist coin" and bitcoin will be the "clean crypto coin".

Let's not forget that non-criminal/illicit activities benefit from privacy as well.  In completely ordinary ways that have nothing to do with law-breaking or anarchy.

Imagine:

- Matt, a 15 year old gay high school student, donates $100 to equality.org in support of overturning discriminatory policies at his school.  A local activist on the other side of the issue watches the blockchain carefully, and by correlating with other purchase, successfully "outs" several students who donated.

- Deborah uses bitcoin to pay for birth control pills.  Her staunchly conservative parents keep tabs on her wallet address without her knowing, and discover recurring payments to Planned Parenthood.

- Katy's boss (illegally, but without getting caught) pressures her employees to make donations to a particular political cause.  Because she pays her employees using Bitcoin, she contracts out to a service that monitors contributions from and spending by her employees.  Three days after contributing to an opposing cause, Katy is fired for "poor performance on the job."

There are good reasons to think that everyone might benefit from the safety provided by stronger anonymity in their transactions.  My boss and family have no idea if and when I donate money, pay for household services, shop at particular stores, pay for medical expenses, etc.  Why should they, without my express consent?

[bitebits]

Is anyone expecting a (small) pump on LTC?

Not really. Even though LTC is by a good margin the coin #2 atm, there is no niche for it in the grand scheme of things, so the fall will be from high, and smart money is positioning away from it accordingly.

I do think you are underestimating dumb money during/after a bitcoin rally. People that think they missed the BTC train, will just search for a second change. Currently by googling/media/etc, litecoin or dogecoin will be their obvious pick, not monero dark etc.

Secondly, the price per unit of litecoin/dogecoin is a niche by itself for the mass.

[rpietila]

Secondly, the price per unit of litecoin/dogecoin is a niche by itself for the mass.

True that  d'oh <facepalm>

[Its About Sharing]

The whole business seems to be playing out like the history of btc on fast forward, but I imagine it only seems that way because we are processing the earliest and smallest manias.  The time between the last two ramps was about 5 days. It will be interesting to see if the same time scale repeats.

My recurring thought lately has been that u.s. laws on proceeds of crime and the transparent block chain essentially doom btc fungibility in the world's largest "free" crypto market, and cryptonote offers the perfect hedge against this failure mode.

Perhaps as an underground currency (XMR) where governments try to squash anonymous-ness. But, who is going to use a potentially "illegal" currency in mass? I imagine in countries with serious economic problems, which actually might eventually be the same countries that are doing the squashing!

My "worry" though is both that the networks and price will suffer due to governments. I understand that this area (Crypto) is just getting started so even an "illegal" currency would probably have more value than a legal state owned one...

IAS

I'm not convinced about CryptoNote overtaking Bitcoin anytime soon, although being number two is seemingly a likely scenario now.

The thing that Bitcoin offers to the world is effortless transaction into any other crypto currency. As long as Bitcoin exists so does the wider CryptoCoin economy.

The only way to stop this is too ban the entire thing (hint: Bitcoin), which I see being impossible due to the fact that any action that deprives a nation of a major economic market is going to ruin that countries economy in no time. (think 10 years where Crypto is being used everywhere)

I wasn't implying (or even thinking) of XMR or the like overtaking BTC. I think that is near impossible barring a catastrophic failure.

Wall St. (and potentially governments) will get behind BTC and the open ledger. Will be a God-send for people as it relates for corporate and governmental transparency.
And wallets like darkwallet and the like will be used for individuals who for whatever reason want anonymity, or close to it.

But Monero takes it a step forward, it makes it damn near impossible to track, unless you are the NSA or a top notch security expert. And that is with current renditions!

What I was getting at is that governments might try to make it extremely difficult (attacking networks anonymously via their Agencies) using the anonymous coins. But we
all know how that worked out regarding Napster,... enter Torrent. We actually have the MPAA and Music industry in large part for inspiring BTC.
Governments may also make the fully anonymous coins illegal by doing one of their typical false flag attacks. I'm an XMR holder so my point is one of pondering and not
a criticism. Overall their fight, if they choose to try, will probably be short lived as a lot is happening right now:

As these disruptive technologies are not limited to Bitcoin. It is happening everywhere.
There are water treatment systems that will change the world (See Slingshot if you are curious). This will weaken some of the corrupt banking systems conditions on their loans. (Water will be abundant. I also imagine with BTC, gold might even become less valuable, but time will tell.)
There are "lab on chip" technologies to analyze illnesses. These are just around the corner.
The list goes on. And all of these disruptive technologies are going to have an effect on governmental systems, especially the corruptive influence within and via corporations, individuals, etc.
When you add disruption to the monies systems of the world, oh boy. Enjoy the show to come.

[aminorex]

I wasn't implying (or even thinking) of XMR or the like overtaking BTC. I think that is near impossible barring a catastrophic failure.

But catastrophe is not intrinsically unlikely.  A fungibility catastrophe seems almost inevitable, although, it does depend on the political decisions of prosecutors.

[nakaone]

how long do the chooo-chooo fishes usually need to unload their altcoins when it hits a new exchange?


was wondering if it is a good time for buying back some xmr, or do they need 2-3 days?


i was buying at 0.0004, 0.001 - selling parts at 0.005 buying back in the 0.0018-0.003 range - sold a part in the 0.009-0.0099 range. not entirely sure if we see 0.005 again

[TsuyokuNaritai]

This seems a likely place to find smart people willing to defend Monero. Can anyone here give good answers or rebuttals to the points below? I'd rather avoid asking in the main XMR thread in case noobs there might be alarmed against the coin before waiting for good counterarguments. Thanks.

Darkota, since you want so much to talk about Monero, let's talk.

Pretend I am a millionaire and want to invest in Monero.

Please answer me the following:

a) Who made Monero and why? What was their vision?
b) What had the Monero team done for privacy, before copying the Bytecoin code?
c) Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier?
d) Can Monero scale?
e) Is Monero's PoW futureproof, for providing almost 90% of its coins in just 4 years? Why would someone invest in such a curve?
f) Why would I put my money on something with 2% daily inflation? As a currency, does it fulfill one of the basic criteria - that being an adequate store of value?
g) What is the cost to render the blockchain DOA for someone who wants to kill Monero, in terms of Bitcoins? Can a kid, a hacker, a government spend 10 BTCs and make the blockchain so bloated that it doesn't even load the wallet - killing my multi-million investment?
h) Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? If it is the later, how exactly is it so anonymous, and how can you vouch for the IP obfuscation network that it will be using? Is there an IP obfuscation network that is 100% reliable for anonymity purposes? As far as I am aware, there is none.
i) Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? The specs of Boolberry are superior and the dev is seemingly doing more work on his own than the Monero devs. Remember I am a buyer and I don't care about who mines what so I don't care about CPU and GPU miners.
k) What happens if the Bytecoin guys (who made the code) discover a flaw, patch it in their own coin and then kill the clones by exploiting the flaw? If they are really underground hackers that hate the Monero copycats, isn't that a real possibility?
l) What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original?
m) What assurances do I have that the codebase is solid? For all I know it's totally untested in public use, being public for 2 or 3 months. Even the boolberry dev openly declares it to be untested.
n) Is it usable by average joe?
o) Is it usable by companies and businesses?

I can ask you questions about Monero all day long if you are so inclined to advertise Monero in the DRK thread.

This one gets bookmarked.

The best pieces are actually all around the BCN and MRO threads with all the unbelieveable problems people encounter every day. If I made a list of these perls, we'd be laughing all the way to the DRKbank - but at least they are trying... heh...

For example, a while ago Mintpal added Monero and ...money isn't moving around in the chain:

Adaptive block sizing means right now it's hard to get money around in XMR chain because it is saturated. However, over the next hour the blockchain will expand its blocksize and this will be less of an issue. Please wait for your tx to be included in the blockchain.

Saturation... "Please wait for your tx"... Yep... That will scale well for prime-time use...

Darkota are you still with us?

[celestio]

This seems a likely place to find smart people willing to defend Monero. Can anyone here give good answers or rebuttals to the points below? I'd rather avoid asking in the main XMR thread in case noobs there might be alarmed against the coin before waiting for good counterarguments. Thanks.

Darkota, since you want so much to talk about Monero, let's talk.

Pretend I am a millionaire and want to invest in Monero.

Please answer me the following:

a) Who made Monero and why? What was their vision?
b) What had the Monero team done for privacy, before copying the Bytecoin code?
c) Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier?
d) Can Monero scale?
e) Is Monero's PoW futureproof, for providing almost 90% of its coins in just 4 years? Why would someone invest in such a curve?
f) Why would I put my money on something with 2% daily inflation? As a currency, does it fulfill one of the basic criteria - that being an adequate store of value?
g) What is the cost to render the blockchain DOA for someone who wants to kill Monero, in terms of Bitcoins? Can a kid, a hacker, a government spend 10 BTCs and make the blockchain so bloated that it doesn't even load the wallet - killing my multi-million investment?
h) Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? If it is the later, how exactly is it so anonymous, and how can you vouch for the IP obfuscation network that it will be using? Is there an IP obfuscation network that is 100% reliable for anonymity purposes? As far as I am aware, there is none.
i) Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? The specs of Boolberry are superior and the dev is seemingly doing more work on his own than the Monero devs. Remember I am a buyer and I don't care about who mines what so I don't care about CPU and GPU miners.
k) What happens if the Bytecoin guys (who made the code) discover a flaw, patch it in their own coin and then kill the clones by exploiting the flaw? If they are really underground hackers that hate the Monero copycats, isn't that a real possibility?
l) What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original?
m) What assurances do I have that the codebase is solid? For all I know it's totally untested in public use, being public for 2 or 3 months. Even the boolberry dev openly declares it to be untested.
n) Is it usable by average joe?
o) Is it usable by companies and businesses?

I can ask you questions about Monero all day long if you are so inclined to advertise Monero in the DRK thread.

This one gets bookmarked.

The best pieces are actually all around the BCN and MRO threads with all the unbelieveable problems people encounter every day. If I made a list of these perls, we'd be laughing all the way to the DRKbank - but at least they are trying... heh...

For example, a while ago Mintpal added Monero and ...money isn't moving around in the chain:

Adaptive block sizing means right now it's hard to get money around in XMR chain because it is saturated. However, over the next hour the blockchain will expand its blocksize and this will be less of an issue. Please wait for your tx to be included in the blockchain.

Saturation... "Please wait for your tx"... Yep... That will scale well for prime-time use...

Darkota are you still with us?

I decided to answer most of the "questions" AlexGR had, we can ask the same for Darkcoin and get a Very very different answer..but I won't get into that.


Is Monero futureproof? Yes, it is realistic in the sense that the coins will have been mined in a decent sized timeframe, after all 4-5 years is quite some time in the "Crypto World"(Look at 2010 to 2014) and a lot can happen between then, whether it be innovation, new/better algorithms, PoS, who knows, but it's sure better than Bitcoin's 100 year+ timeframe..which is frankly very unrealistic

Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? Monero is anonymous itself through the use of Ring Signatures, with Ring Signatures you don't need a 2nd party to obscure your transactions through mixing like Darkcoin's coinjoin for ex. I'm not sure what AlexGR means or if he's just trolling with this question...but IP obfuscation is relatively I2P, of which the Monero Devs have already begun working on creating a C++ version for Monero. Monero with Ring Signatures alone offers the best anonymity for a crypto coin, I2P would be an extra boost of anonymity.

Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? Boolberry has had an instamine, where at one point, people were making 7,000 Boolberry per day per person, now that's been reduced to 1,000-2,000 Boolberry per day, person since the difficulty increases. Boolberry uses Wild Keccak algorithm(which has a private gpu miner) instead Cryptonote(Monero's algorithm) .

What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original? Monero's codebase has been changed & improved drastically from Bytecoin's, along with improvements in mining and pool software to stop dust transactions etc etc

Is it usable by average joe? Monero atm is not usable by the average joe because of its command line style wallet, and it lacks a GUI wallet atm.

Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier? Bytecoin was found out and made open by a Bitcointalk user in March of 2014, Bitmonero was forked from Bytecoin's codebase after, then it's name was changed to Monero and the dev team was also changed. It's a pure coincidence that Bytecoin was found & Bitmonero/Monero made when Darkcoin started making it's "appearance"

What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original? Bytecoin was first released in 2012 and has been mined steadily by a group of users since then, amounting to over 85% of the coin being mined by that group of users, before it was made public on Bitcointalk. Therefore, that can be considered a 85% premine. Monero has had no instamine as only 7% of it's total coin supply has been mined to date or premine as it was released on Bitcointalk freely, and no hard forks were made to change or reduce block rewards like we've seen in other coins...

It is usable by companies and businesses? Monero is usable by companies and businesses, many things have been and are being improved, such as dust transactions to stop Blockchain bloating, optimized miners, and many other fixes(See the Monero Missives in the Announcement Thread). As many know, large amounts of private companies refuse to use Bitcoin because of it's overly extreme transparency where everything is recorded in the Blockchain forever. They may favor Monero simply because it has the ability to send Both anonymous and regular transactions through the use of Ring Signatures, making it the ideal currency for Private Companies/those who value privacy.

[mvidetto]

This seems a likely place to find smart people willing to defend Monero. Can anyone here give good answers or rebuttals to the points below? I'd rather avoid asking in the main XMR thread in case noobs there might be alarmed against the coin before waiting for good counterarguments. Thanks.

Darkota, since you want so much to talk about Monero, let's talk.

Pretend I am a millionaire and want to invest in Monero.

Please answer me the following:

a) Who made Monero and why? What was their vision?
b) What had the Monero team done for privacy, before copying the Bytecoin code?
c) Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier?
d) Can Monero scale?
e) Is Monero's PoW futureproof, for providing almost 90% of its coins in just 4 years? Why would someone invest in such a curve?
f) Why would I put my money on something with 2% daily inflation? As a currency, does it fulfill one of the basic criteria - that being an adequate store of value?
g) What is the cost to render the blockchain DOA for someone who wants to kill Monero, in terms of Bitcoins? Can a kid, a hacker, a government spend 10 BTCs and make the blockchain so bloated that it doesn't even load the wallet - killing my multi-million investment?
h) Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? If it is the later, how exactly is it so anonymous, and how can you vouch for the IP obfuscation network that it will be using? Is there an IP obfuscation network that is 100% reliable for anonymity purposes? As far as I am aware, there is none.
i) Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? The specs of Boolberry are superior and the dev is seemingly doing more work on his own than the Monero devs. Remember I am a buyer and I don't care about who mines what so I don't care about CPU and GPU miners.
k) What happens if the Bytecoin guys (who made the code) discover a flaw, patch it in their own coin and then kill the clones by exploiting the flaw? If they are really underground hackers that hate the Monero copycats, isn't that a real possibility?
l) What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original?
m) What assurances do I have that the codebase is solid? For all I know it's totally untested in public use, being public for 2 or 3 months. Even the boolberry dev openly declares it to be untested.
n) Is it usable by average joe?
o) Is it usable by companies and businesses?

I can ask you questions about Monero all day long if you are so inclined to advertise Monero in the DRK thread.

This one gets bookmarked.

The best pieces are actually all around the BCN and MRO threads with all the unbelieveable problems people encounter every day. If I made a list of these perls, we'd be laughing all the way to the DRKbank - but at least they are trying... heh...

For example, a while ago Mintpal added Monero and ...money isn't moving around in the chain:

Adaptive block sizing means right now it's hard to get money around in XMR chain because it is saturated. However, over the next hour the blockchain will expand its blocksize and this will be less of an issue. Please wait for your tx to be included in the blockchain.

Saturation... "Please wait for your tx"... Yep... That will scale well for prime-time use...

Darkota are you still with us?

I decided to answer most of the "questions" AlexGR had, we can ask the same for Darkcoin and get a Very very different answer..but I won't get into that.


Is Monero futureproof? Yes, it is realistic in the sense that the coins will have been mined in a decent sized timeframe, after all 4-5 years is quite some time in the "Crypto World"(Look at 2010 to 2014) and a lot can happen between then, whether it be innovation, new/better algorithms, PoS, who knows, but it's sure better than Bitcoin's 100 year+ timeframe..which is frankly very unrealistic

Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? Monero is anonymous itself through the use of Ring Signatures, with Ring Signatures you don't need a 2nd party to obscure your transactions through mixing like Darkcoin's coinjoin for ex. I'm not sure what AlexGR means or if he's just trolling with this question...but IP obfuscation is relatively I2P, of which the Monero Devs have already begun working on creating a C++ version for Monero. Monero with Ring Signatures alone offers the best anonymity for a crypto coin, I2P would be an extra boost of anonymity.

Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? Boolberry has had a severe instamine, where at one point, people were making 7,000 Boolberry or 14 BTC per day with the Private Gpu Miner they had, since Boolberry uses Wild Keccak algorithm(which has a private gpu miner) over Cryptonote.

What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original? Monero's codebase has been changed & improved drastically from Bytecoin's, along with improvements in mining and pool software to stop dust transactions etc etc

Is it usable by average joe? Monero atm is not usable by the average joe because of its command line style wallet, and it lacks a GUI wallet atm.

Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier? Bytecoin was found out and made open by a Bitcointalk user in March of 2014, Bitmonero was forked from Bytecoin's codebase after, then it's name was changed to Monero and the dev team was also changed. It's a pure coincidence that Bytecoin was found & Bitmonero/Monero made when Darkcoin started making it's "appearance"

What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original? Bytecoin was first released in 2012 and has been mined steadily by a group of users since then, amounting to over 85% of the coin being mined by that group of users, before it was made public on Bitcointalk. Therefore, that can be considered a 85% premine. Monero has had no instamine as only 7% of it's total coin supply has been mined to date or premine as it was released on Bitcointalk freely, and no hard forks were made to change or reduce block rewards like we've seen in other coins...

It is usable by companies and businesses? Monero is usable by companies and businesses, many things have been and are being improved, such as dust transactions to stop Blockchain bloating, optimized miners, and many other fixes(See the Monero Missives in the Announcement Thread). As many know, large amounts of private companies refuse to use Bitcoin because of it's overly extreme transparency where everything is recorded in the Blockchain forever. They may favor Monero simply because it has the ability to send Both anonymous and regular transactions through the use of Ring Signatures, making it the ideal currency for Private Companies/those who value privacy.

For BBR they are working on public stratum for GPU and there is a bounty out.  He was at one point making 7k BBR but that was at much lower prices, since the difficulty increases he only makes about 1-2k a day.  Considering how ~5% of total coins have been mined and he doesn't hold many, I wouldn't consider it an instamine. 

[celestio]

This seems a likely place to find smart people willing to defend Monero. Can anyone here give good answers or rebuttals to the points below? I'd rather avoid asking in the main XMR thread in case noobs there might be alarmed against the coin before waiting for good counterarguments. Thanks.

Darkota, since you want so much to talk about Monero, let's talk.

Pretend I am a millionaire and want to invest in Monero.

Please answer me the following:

a) Who made Monero and why? What was their vision?
b) What had the Monero team done for privacy, before copying the Bytecoin code?
c) Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier?
d) Can Monero scale?
e) Is Monero's PoW futureproof, for providing almost 90% of its coins in just 4 years? Why would someone invest in such a curve?
f) Why would I put my money on something with 2% daily inflation? As a currency, does it fulfill one of the basic criteria - that being an adequate store of value?
g) What is the cost to render the blockchain DOA for someone who wants to kill Monero, in terms of Bitcoins? Can a kid, a hacker, a government spend 10 BTCs and make the blockchain so bloated that it doesn't even load the wallet - killing my multi-million investment?
h) Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? If it is the later, how exactly is it so anonymous, and how can you vouch for the IP obfuscation network that it will be using? Is there an IP obfuscation network that is 100% reliable for anonymity purposes? As far as I am aware, there is none.
i) Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? The specs of Boolberry are superior and the dev is seemingly doing more work on his own than the Monero devs. Remember I am a buyer and I don't care about who mines what so I don't care about CPU and GPU miners.
k) What happens if the Bytecoin guys (who made the code) discover a flaw, patch it in their own coin and then kill the clones by exploiting the flaw? If they are really underground hackers that hate the Monero copycats, isn't that a real possibility?
l) What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original?
m) What assurances do I have that the codebase is solid? For all I know it's totally untested in public use, being public for 2 or 3 months. Even the boolberry dev openly declares it to be untested.
n) Is it usable by average joe?
o) Is it usable by companies and businesses?

I can ask you questions about Monero all day long if you are so inclined to advertise Monero in the DRK thread.

This one gets bookmarked.

The best pieces are actually all around the BCN and MRO threads with all the unbelieveable problems people encounter every day. If I made a list of these perls, we'd be laughing all the way to the DRKbank - but at least they are trying... heh...

For example, a while ago Mintpal added Monero and ...money isn't moving around in the chain:

Adaptive block sizing means right now it's hard to get money around in XMR chain because it is saturated. However, over the next hour the blockchain will expand its blocksize and this will be less of an issue. Please wait for your tx to be included in the blockchain.

Saturation... "Please wait for your tx"... Yep... That will scale well for prime-time use...

Darkota are you still with us?

I decided to answer most of the "questions" AlexGR had, we can ask the same for Darkcoin and get a Very very different answer..but I won't get into that.


Is Monero futureproof? Yes, it is realistic in the sense that the coins will have been mined in a decent sized timeframe, after all 4-5 years is quite some time in the "Crypto World"(Look at 2010 to 2014) and a lot can happen between then, whether it be innovation, new/better algorithms, PoS, who knows, but it's sure better than Bitcoin's 100 year+ timeframe..which is frankly very unrealistic

Is Monero anonymous in itself, or does it also need IP obfuscation to achieve anonymity? Monero is anonymous itself through the use of Ring Signatures, with Ring Signatures you don't need a 2nd party to obscure your transactions through mixing like Darkcoin's coinjoin for ex. I'm not sure what AlexGR means or if he's just trolling with this question...but IP obfuscation is relatively I2P, of which the Monero Devs have already begun working on creating a C++ version for Monero. Monero with Ring Signatures alone offers the best anonymity for a crypto coin, I2P would be an extra boost of anonymity.

Why should I pick Monero instead of Boolberry? Boolberry has had a severe instamine, where at one point, people were making 7,000 Boolberry or 14 BTC per day with the Private Gpu Miner they had, since Boolberry uses Wild Keccak algorithm(which has a private gpu miner) over Cryptonote.

What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original? Monero's codebase has been changed & improved drastically from Bytecoin's, along with improvements in mining and pool software to stop dust transactions etc etc

Is it usable by average joe? Monero atm is not usable by the average joe because of its command line style wallet, and it lacks a GUI wallet atm.

Are they really interested in anonymity, or did they try to cash out in the wake of DRK? Why did they make an anonymous coin in May - when DRK was already making a splash? If they were really interested in anonymity, why not earlier? Bytecoin was found out and made open by a Bitcointalk user in March of 2014, Bitmonero was forked from Bytecoin's codebase after, then it's name was changed to Monero and the dev team was also changed. It's a pure coincidence that Bytecoin was found & Bitmonero/Monero made when Darkcoin started making it's "appearance"

What is the advancement potential given that Monero is a clone and Bytecoin is the original? Bytecoin was first released in 2012 and has been mined steadily by a group of users since then, amounting to over 85% of the coin being mined by that group of users, before it was made public on Bitcointalk. Therefore, that can be considered a 85% premine. Monero has had no instamine as only 7% of it's total coin supply has been mined to date or premine as it was released on Bitcointalk freely, and no hard forks were made to change or reduce block rewards like we've seen in other coins...

It is usable by companies and businesses? Monero is usable by companies and businesses, many things have been and are being improved, such as dust transactions to stop Blockchain bloating, optimized miners, and many other fixes(See the Monero Missives in the Announcement Thread). As many know, large amounts of private companies refuse to use Bitcoin because of it's overly extreme transparency where everything is recorded in the Blockchain forever. They may favor Monero simply because it has the ability to send Both anonymous and regular transactions through the use of Ring Signatures, making it the ideal currency for Private Companies/those who value privacy.

For BBR they are working on public stratum for GPU and there is a bounty out.  He was at one point making 7k BBR but that was at much lower prices, since the difficulty increases he only makes about 1-2k a day.  Considering how ~5% of total coins have been mined and he doesn't hold many, I wouldn't consider it an instamine.  

Ok, I'll update that. It's still a instamine as we don't know the full amount of BBR that person has made/has, but we do know he's been making an overly unfair amount of coins per day compared to all other miners.

[mvidetto]

Yeah it's kinda disheartening, but zoidberg is working hard on the issue as well as many others.  It's so early in development there's bound to be a few flaws.