rpietila Altcoin Observer

[kbm]

Anonymity has spent the past two days tearing apart Monero. Check out his posts on their thread.

I'd consider it more of a high quality analysis offering intellectual feedback. This is from a person who has personally pissed off major intellectual powerhouses such as Martin Armstrong to the point where many of his blog posts reflect their personal conversations. Such feedback is valuable beyond compare to simple marketing hype which could be the major focus of the thread rather than a spurred intellectual debate. Would you rather that instead?

[coins101]

Anonymity has spent the past two days tearing apart Monero. Check out his posts on their thread.

Your lies are outstanding... He talked about I2P and protecting against the NSA....Which he wouldnt even bother to do in Darkcoin's thread because anyone with $ can buy up all the masternodes and unravel darkcoins "anonymity", or simply DDOS all the masternodes..

Everyone will get a chance to vet the Darkcoin code. They can try to break it and see what happens to mixed coins and if they stand up to anonymity claims.  They can do that before using Darkcoin.

RC4 is due out soon. Once a code audit is made by third parties, it will go open source.

You can spread as much FUD as you like, which you evidently do a lot, but until the final implementation is out there and under attack, you are talking nonsense.

Did you know in the latest upgrade that all coins are going to be mixed, even those in your wallet? People will be sending out pre-mixed anonymous coins. CoinJoin, yes, but not as everyone thinks they know it.

Open source crypto is open. Anyone can attempt to break it. When they do, then you can post facts and not FUD.

If there was no financial barrier to running master nodes, anyone could set-up hundreds of them. Then you would claim, anyone can set-up a node and so there is no anonymity.
 
I think the most valid point you make is the name, Dark. It does give the impression of being linked to illicit activities. But that is the problem that Bitcoin still faces.

Perhaps you should petition the Bitcoin Foundation to change the name of Bitcoin to reduce the public perception on its use to assist illegal activities.

From my part, being called Darkcoin over the medium term is a positive thing. Porn and gambling helped internet adoption and the cross-over to mainstream uses. Sometimes, illicit roots are helpful.

I wont bother waiting for your reply. You post nonsense before waiting for facts to appear. I will leave you to bask in your own perception of glory and point scoring.

If you spent a little more time trying to grow crypto in general and interject constructive critisim, I might waste a little more time on your posts.

[Brilliantrocket]

Anonymity has spent the past two days tearing apart Monero. Check out his posts on their thread.

I'd consider it more of a high quality analysis offering intellectual feedback. This is from a person who has personally pissed off major intellectual powerhouses such as Martin Armstrong to the point where many of his blog posts reflect their personal conversations. Such feedback is valuable beyond compare to simple marketing hype which could be the major focus of the thread rather than a spurred intellectual debate. Would you rather that instead?

It looks like he mainly pointed out that I2P will not stop entities like the NSA. So it isn't really truly anonymous, then is it? Competitors will have enough "anonymity" for the people who want privacy, but for whom being NSA proof is not really a concern. I see those people as Darkcoin's target market. Monero will not dominate this market, and yet it also won't be able to get the "NSA proof" market. So what good is it? Who will use Monero? It's an incomplete solution looking for a problem.

[darkota]

Anonymity has spent the past two days tearing apart Monero. Check out his posts on their thread.

I'd consider it more of a high quality analysis offering intellectual feedback. This is from a person who has personally pissed off major intellectual powerhouses such as Martin Armstrong to the point where many of his blog posts reflect their personal conversations. Such feedback is valuable beyond compare to simple marketing hype which could be the major focus of the thread rather than a spurred intellectual debate. Would you rather that instead?

It looks like he mainly pointed out that I2P will not stop entities like the NSA. So it isn't really truly anonymous, then is it? Competitors will have enough "anonymity" for the people who want privacy, but for whom being NSA proof is not really a concern. I see those people as Darkcoin's target market. Monero will not dominate this market, and yet it also won't be able to get the "NSA proof" market. So what good is it? Who will use Monero?

You're not making any sense...

Darkcoin so far does not have any complete working "anonymity", it's forked and failed twice trying to give masternode payments, there is no I2P work being done, and it only offers trivial coinjoin mixing. Masternodes can always be DDOSed to be taken off line, effectively destroying darkcoins "anonymity", or they can be centralized by one person or group.

Darkcoin is about the Last coin, anyone in their right mind would go for when they want privacy/anonymity.

Literally..any cryptonote coin, even ducknote, is better than Darkcoin, simply because they already have anonymous sending, Built in, while Darkcoin doesnt.

Not to mention, there is No cryptocurrency that is NSA proof right now, None, not even Bitcoin.

[othe]

Anonymity has spent the past two days tearing apart Monero. Check out his posts on their thread.

I'd consider it more of a high quality analysis offering intellectual feedback. This is from a person who has personally pissed off major intellectual powerhouses such as Martin Armstrong to the point where many of his blog posts reflect their personal conversations. Such feedback is valuable beyond compare to simple marketing hype which could be the major focus of the thread rather than a spurred intellectual debate. Would you rather that instead?

It looks like he mainly pointed out that I2P will not stop entities like the NSA. So it isn't really truly anonymous, then is it? Competitors will have enough "anonymity" for the people who want privacy, but for whom being NSA proof is not really a concern. I see those people as Darkcoin's target market. Monero will not dominate this market, and yet it also won't be able to get the "NSA proof" market. So what good is it? Who will use Monero? It's an incomplete solution looking for a problem.

Here's a good post from Andytoshi: https://crypto.stackexchange.com/questions/18091/is-there-any-true-anonymous-cryptocurrencies/18096#18096

It clearly points out how much potential Cryptonote based currency has and how we can and will improve it.

This is a very promising direction, and these signatures are feasible to verify by ordinary computers (though they are more difficult, so scaling will be worse than Bitcoin's), but there are some serious limitations. Fortunately, all are fixable.

But what he also clearly points out is:

And by the way, Darkcoin does not provide anonymity. They attached a (broken) implementation of CoinJoin to the ordinary Bitcoin client, and at least initially released it as a closed-source software. I haven't looked into Anoncoin, but the best advice I have for folks looking into altcoins is to assume they are uninteresting (and probably dangerously broken) until someone has demonstrated a concrete technical innovation.

[kbm]

It looks like he mainly pointed out that I2P will not stop entities like the NSA. So it isn't really truly anonymous, then is it?

Nobody has made this claim. The developers can be quoted as saying this is not their current objective; however, such a system will allow protection from all but an ideal adversary. There's more danger in that at this current moment in time .. not sure why you're making this point? It's anonymous in the sense that you'll (as in literally you) never know what I did unless you have buckets of money and resources. The benefit here is that I can now browse the internet freely and pay for things without worrying about whether or not some anonymous nerd is gonna nab my bank account .. which is also within the same scope of the NSA itself if I'm not mistaken.

Competitors will have enough "anonymity" for the people who want privacy, but for whom being NSA proof is not really a concern. I see those people as Darkcoin's target market. Monero will not dominate this market

We all see these people as being the target market of anonymous and private currency solutions. No horse in this race is so far ahead that there is no form of logic that can overcome anything in particular from assuming the lead. If you would like my views relating to centralized transaction processing, consult my post here. It's somewhere in the middle of the list. In short, it has no real defenses against an ideal adversary, proven by the persistence of bank runs.

and yet it also won't be able to get the "NSA proof" market. So what good is it? Who will use Monero? It's an incomplete solution looking for a problem.

The NSA proof market is still available to anyone who wishes to claim it. The rest of the questions are marketing related .. as they're not specific to Monero in particular. With your last point, Darkcoin should be way ahead of even fiat by now .. right? Because it's a complete solution right?

[Brilliantrocket]

The NSA proof market is still available to anyone who wishes to claim it. The rest of the questions are marketing related .. as they're not specific to Monero in particular. With your last point, Darkcoin should be way ahead of even fiat by now .. right? Because it's a complete solution right?

I'm not saying that Darkcoin is a complete solution; I already acknowledged that such a solution won't be possible until the advent of open source hardware. What it will do, is provide privacy through a more practical platform (Bitcoin API compatibility, Uses Bitcoin codebase, No bloat issues, Works on 32 bit OS, among others).  I know that some of these, like the 32 bit OS issue, can be fixed, but there are many such issues that will continue to soak up development time for years to come.

[kbm]

I'm not saying that Darkcoin is a complete solution; I already acknowledged that such a solution won't be possible until the advent of open source hardware. What it will do, is provide privacy through a more practical platform (Bitcoin API compatibility, Uses Bitcoin codebase, No bloat issues, Works on 32 bit OS, among others).  I know that some of these, like the 32 bit OS issue, can be fixed, but there are many such issues that will continue to soak up development time for years to come.

Yes, bitcoin and litecoin developers have put an enormous amount of time and work into building a fantastic transaction system suitable for use by the general populace; however, there are many fundamental flaws that are still lacking that are in that list I linked you .. not all of which are being addressed either at all or correctly with regard to an ideal adversary. The systems in place are practical, provided everyone follows the rules. In a decentralized hierarchy, these rules must be implemented in programming code rather than integrated into any form of trusted human intent .. rules that protocols such as CryptoNote hold in extremely high regard .. to the point where an immature release was necessary to present a potential solution to very apparent problems that would have otherwise lead to an unfortunate inevitable spiral of catastrophic proportions .. lawlessness is a dangerous ground to stake my money on.

[darkota]

The NSA proof market is still available to anyone who wishes to claim it. The rest of the questions are marketing related .. as they're not specific to Monero in particular. With your last point, Darkcoin should be way ahead of even fiat by now .. right? Because it's a complete solution right?

I'm not saying that Darkcoin is a complete solution; I already acknowledged that such a solution won't be possible until the advent of open source hardware. What it will do, is provide privacy through a more practical platform (Bitcoin API compatibility, Uses Bitcoin codebase, No bloat issues, Works on 32 bit OS, among others).  I know that some of these, like the 32 bit OS issue, can be fixed, but there are many such issues that will continue to soak up development time for years to come.

And that's the exact reason why coins based under Bitcoin, no matter how "innovative", will never make it in the longrun. Because Bitcoin/Litecoin etc, can all incorporate what Darkcoin already has, into their own coin easily once it's open sourced + the other 101 problems DRK has.

That's why the only alt-coins to take seriously/will have a future are coins that Bitcoin CANT copy/doesn't use the Bitcoin codebase. Like Monero, soon to be Etherium, etc.

[slapper]

This botnet talk is really big exaggerated. There is not a single Malware-Report by AV/IT-Sec guys, about an XMR mining botnet.
Every new variation of malware is tracked and documented very closely, e.g. a report from yesterday is here http://blog.malcovery.com/blog/breaking-gameover-zeus-returns?utm_campaign=Gameover+Zeus+Return or just see http://malware.dontneedcoffee.com/ (+ blog roll) every new development in botting is documented and known
There is no announcement or advertisement for about an new mining/mining-modules/mining-plugin for Monero/CryptoNote (for the major botnet frameworks/software systems) on any major (russian) botnet/cybercrime forum. Not even an discussion thread or postings.
--> there is no big botnet mining
---> Hello FUDder!!!?s

Most botnets are on Win XP 32 bits machine, the hashrate delivered is incredibly low.

All cryptos have botnet, XMR is no exeption but it is wrong to think most of the hashrate is from botnets.

Now that the price** is lower, they are probably on an other crypto anyway.

**profitability

Dogecoin Synology NAS botnet was discovered only after a few months in operation.

Hacker Builds Massive Dogecoin Mining Operation With Synology NAS Boxes

Botnets relying on Win32 XP machines was 5 years ago. Because you are not familiar with botnet types and reach doesn't make them non-existent. Do the simple math in the meantime. Add up hashrates of all known XMR pools and compare it to the net hash rate.

News about XMR botnets will not surface unless they are done making huge profits going well over several months from now. I suspect Wolf0 knows at least a couple of these ops but respect his privacy if he chooses not to indulge in this discussion.

The LAST thing this discussion about botnets in XMR is FUD. It is not a problem per se. Just be thankful that this might be the source of cheap XMR and an explanation of current valuation.

[smooth]

Do the simple math in the meantime. Add up hashrates of all known XMR pools and compare it to the net hash rate.

The difference does not equal botnets, only potential botnets. In addition, there are both private pools and solo miners, both of which I know to exist on a significant scale. We don't even know the number of end users who simply solo mine on their computers using the wallet. Obviously they are individually small scale, but we have no idea how many of them there are. People mention doing this on the Monero thread regularly, but the vast majority of such people will never post.

Let me be clear, I believe there are botnets mining XMR, although I don't think its the most profitable opportunity for botnets (even among coin mining), so their scope is likely somewhat limited. However, the above calculation is of no use in measuring them.

[aminorex]

Let me be clear, I believe there are botnets mining XMR, although I don't think its the most profitable opportunity for botnets (even among coin mining), so their scope is likely somewhat limited. However, the above calculation is of no use in measuring them.

Why would anyone mine XMR for profit now when you can mine QuazarCoin, cash it in, and buy 30% more XMR than you can get from mining?
For that matter, Vertcoin should get you about 100% better return (GPU basis).

The only rational reason to mine XMR now is because you want to help build the network - or you are just too lazy to switch coins.  A botnet operator won't be lazy.  Evil maybe, but not lazy.

Can anyone make a rational argument against this claim:  The current hash power is almost 100% enthusiasts, who mine because of confidence, support for XMR.  (They are not  likely to be sellers.)

[slapper]

Do the simple math in the meantime. Add up hashrates of all known XMR pools and compare it to the net hash rate.

The difference does not equal botnets, only potential botnets. In addition, there are both private pools and solo miners, both of which I know to exist on a significant scale. We don't even know the number of end users who simply solo mine on their computers using the wallet. Obviously they are individually small scale, but we have no idea how many of them there are. People mention doing this on the Monero thread regularly, but the vast majority of such people will never post.

Let me be clear, I believe there are botnets mining XMR, although I don't think its the most profitable opportunity for botnets (even among coin mining), so their scope is likely somewhat limited. However, the above calculation is of no use in measuring them.

Sure, private pools and solo miners exist and some who mine on multicore IBM pSeries and other powerful hardware. Most may not even be supplying to the market at the moment and are waiting for the right market economies to make profits. The point is going by the cost of renting EC2 Amazon instances may not provide an explanation for current valuation and I have seen that pop up a few times leading to questions like "why are they selling at a loss"; some have hardware resources available that doesn't cost them much and a majority could be clandestine mining operations on hardware we do not know yet. Perhaps the term "botnet" has a dubious and unexplainable stigma to it and the source of confusion when used in the context of XMR mining.

[saddambitcoin]

Cheap XMR to be had right now. I'm already holding a large bag of XMR but I'm tempted to slowly average some more in there.

[aminorex]

I would be very surprised if there were any EC2 instances leased for the sole purpose of XMR mining.  You would get at least 5x more XMR by purchasing it, for that cost.

[aminorex]

Cheap XMR to be had right now. I'm already holding a large bag of XMR but I'm tempted to slowly average some more in there.

I have basically stopped buying BTC now, and only buy XMR.  As long as my XMR is <50% the MTM value of my BTC, I keep increasing XMR.  Call back in a year and I'll tell you how that worked out for me;)

[smooth]

the cost of renting EC2 Amazon instances may not provide an explanation for current valuation.

EC2 always has been and always will be a very expensive (generally not competitive) way of doing mining, as has been explained multiple times by dga and myself. It is only workable during short periods of time when a coin is highly valued or fast growing, allowing miners to deploy a large number of instances very quickly and for a relatively short period of time.

[giveBTCpls]

Honestly what are the chances Monero can give similar returns as Bitcoin? lets be real. Of course big gains will happen with Monero, but to get any relevant gains mining with my shitty rig (Q6600 CPU and r7850 GPU) Im not sure about it, specially considering I can fry the thing in the summer. With my computer i would be aiming at like 0.2 MRO now..

What the hell do you expect with a 7-year old CPU? It won't mine very well and it won't do much of anything else very well either.

Also, as explained earlier, mining is a distraction. If you want to invest, just buy. If you don't, that's valid too. Whether or not your obsolete CPU mines efficiently or not is irrelevant to your investment decision, and it is certainly irrelevant to the future price.

It does everything I need very well. Even If I had an i5, I would still get jack shit. Mining is useless unless you rent servers or have several machines runing, thats all I was saying, you making a link between me mining or not having an impact on the price is what's irrelevant.

[dga]

Do the simple math in the meantime. Add up hashrates of all known XMR pools and compare it to the net hash rate.

The difference does not equal botnets, only potential botnets. In addition, there are both private pools and solo miners, both of which I know to exist on a significant scale. We don't even know the number of end users who simply solo mine on their computers using the wallet. Obviously they are individually small scale, but we have no idea how many of them there are. People mention doing this on the Monero thread regularly, but the vast majority of such people will never post.

Let me be clear, I believe there are botnets mining XMR, although I don't think its the most profitable opportunity for botnets (even among coin mining), so their scope is likely somewhat limited. However, the above calculation is of no use in measuring them.

Sure, private pools and solo miners exist and some who mine on multicore IBM pSeries and other powerful hardware. Most may not even be supplying to the market at the moment and are waiting for the right market economies to make profits. The point is going by the cost of renting EC2 Amazon instances may not provide an explanation for current valuation and I have seen that pop up a few times leading to questions like "why are they selling at a loss"; some have hardware resources available that doesn't cost them much and a majority could be clandestine mining operations on hardware we do not know yet. Perhaps the term "botnet" has a dubious and unexplainable stigma to it and the source of confusion when used in the context of XMR mining.

The *cost of mining* is never an explanation for the valuation of a coin, as we've noted many times.

Botnets are a part of why mining XMR may be less profitable for miners than it used to be.  So is increasing awareness of XMR by other competing miners.  Competition in mining drives the revenue from mining to nearly zero relative to the power cost.

[DogTheHunter]

Please take the discussion elsewhere if it does not concern the following coins. Thank you

From now on, only the following coins may be mentioned in the thread:

BTC
XMR
NXT
FLT
BBR
NEM
XCurrency
Maidsafe
Skycoin
Siacoin

Discussion of the other coins belongs to other threads.

Sure Alex.

A privacy focussed coin will rightfully take the place behind Bitcoin. The initial 50,000 Satoshi valuation of XMR when smooth opened XMR OTC thread was also due to DRK rising and people realizing the role of anon/priv currency. Folks had already spotted that in March, but some didn't jump on the DRK wagon due to the negative propaganda around it (not going to discuss those as they have been already ad nauseum).

@canonsburg

Also agree with your post. I was merely trying to lay down the rationale behind current valuation/trend.

Are they not related to the discussion at all?

Anon was not discussed until Darkwallet and darkcoin hit the headlines.