rpietila Altcoin Observer

[slapper]

Not sure how you got sucked into altcoins  

See the OP.

I did. Thanks, but I have more XMR than MOST people who post on this thread. Probably fewer than you, smooth and aminorex. But I am not convinced about any altcoin's future anymore besides LTC. Last 2 weeks have been an eye opener, especially the past 3 days.

[kbm]

I'm surprised this hasn't made it into this thread, being an alt observer thread.

The topic that was discussed is Vericoins hard-fork attempt to remedy the theft at mintpal:

As for VeriCoin hard forking as a result of this, that is pure centralization. Hard forks are not supposed to occur because of events like this despite how badly people may lose out on it, becuase if this goes through, what it essentially means is that the VeriCoin developers can fork VeriCoin for whatever reason they like.

Can a hardfork even be enforced without >51% consensus of those staking? I really don't know .. anyone care to fill me in please?

I'm asking if this can be stopped if simply not enough people download and run the new fork, and instead continue using the old one.

Edit: Actually I'd like to point out a serious flaw here. With a large theft, the consensus mechanism will now be flawed in that there will be a majorly disproportionate number of people staking the old fork (Due to the theft itself) compared to those trying to stake the new fork (as anyone in favor of the new fork will now have zero coins). This seems to be a massive security flaw in using centralized exchanges. That is, if 51% of stake is required to enforce the fork in the first place.

Well I'm sure if the hacker managed to withdraw the coins they hacked, and the amount of the coins hacked is greater than 51% of the current network stake, the hacker could just stake all the hacked coins and cause another fork as in this case the hacked coins would account for > 51% of the network stake.

In any case I'll be removing my coins from MintPal until they release a statement about how the coins were actually stolen/hacked in the first place.

I'm not saying the hacker needs 51%, I'm just saying that in the matter of an instant .. the consensus mechanism became flawed. The votes of potentially thousands of people literally just became one large vote, and it's totally opposite of what those (potentially) thousands of people would vote for in the first place. This goes for any amount of coins, be it 5, 10, or 20%. No matter the percentage, the coins are no longer in the hands of those that would have been otherwise able to vote for consensus.

Does anyone have any feedback on this .. do PoS coins establish a consensus mechanism that encourages large amounts of theft, or alternatively do they encourage decentralized exchanges for their survival?

[onemorebtc]

What is the sentiment about POS here?

Personally i think POS is deeply flawed and its just a matter of time (and money) until they all get washed away (because of the "nothing at stake"-problem and the logic flaw: "you cannot lock something with itself".

But i am very curious to here your opinions!

[illodin]

What is the sentiment about POS here?

PoS is evolving, PoS 2.0: http://www.blackcoin.co/blackcoin-pos-protocol-v2-whitepaper.pdf

[darkota]

What is the sentiment about POS here?

Personally i think POS is deeply flawed and its just a matter of time (and money) until they all get washed away (because of the "nothing at stake"-problem and the logic flaw: "you cannot lock something with itself".

But i am very curious to here your opinions!

PoW transitioning into PoS(or something similar to PoS without all the flaws) slowly over a number of years is the best Imo, it ensures a good distribution.

I'm not a fan of 100% PoS coins from the start at all....I'm also very worried over what exactly "backs" PoS coins. I've heard answers such as the network backs the value of PoS coins and such, but that doesnt fit well. PoW coins are backed by the resources(energy, time etc) required to make coins(excluding demand,supply etc)

[onemorebtc]

What is the sentiment about POS here?

Personally i think POS is deeply flawed and its just a matter of time (and money) until they all get washed away (because of the "nothing at stake"-problem and the logic flaw: "you cannot lock something with itself".

But i am very curious to here your opinions!

PoW transitioning into PoS slowly over a number of years(or something similar to PoS) is the best Imo, it ensures a good distribution.

I'm not a fan of 100% PoS coins from the start at all....I'm also very worried over what exactly "backs" PoS coins. I've heard answers such as the network backs the value of PoS coins and such, but that doesnt fit well. PoW coins are backed by the resources(energy, time) required to make coins(excluding demand,supply etc)

With a transation from PoW to PoS you could get a good distribution, but would not solve my security concerns (which i consider unsolveable, because it is not possible to fix a bug which is in ground-logic on layers you put on top. i think(!) the logic-bug in PoS is: secure something with itself.)

what could work is a hybrid: 1day PoW block with full balances and with 1min PoS blocks inbetween (this could also solve the blockchain bloat problem).

@illodinBut: thanks for the link. i'll dive into and see what to get out of it.
EDIT: i've read the paper and i am not convinced. where does time come from is still an open question which is not answered in the paper (image a attacker with a million vps all promoting false time). i still consider it insecure... if someone is willing to give me 51% of all existing BC i'd try ;p

[kbm]

I'm not a fan of 100% PoS coins from the start at all....I'm also very worried over what exactly "backs" PoS coins. I've heard answers such as the network backs the value of PoS coins and such, but that doesnt fit well. PoW coins are backed by the resources(energy, time etc) required to make coins(excluding demand,supply etc)

I am as well, large thefts of significant percentages of PoS coins not only give you tremendous value .. but also a disproportionate stake in consensus. IE: you obtain both value and control through theft of PoS coins, rather than just value as with PoW coins. I (or anyone really) don't really have the ability to seize (add: massive amounts of) physical hardware in an instant with a PoW.

It would make me very worried, but maybe it could be balanced with a PoW/PoS hybrid system?

[aminorex]

What is the sentiment about POS here?

PoS is evolving, PoS 2.0: http://www.blackcoin.co/blackcoin-pos-protocol-v2-whitepaper.pdf

Disappointing. I had hoped for something substantive, given the history of creativity by team black. 

[kbm]

What is the sentiment about POS here?

PoS is evolving, PoS 2.0: http://www.blackcoin.co/blackcoin-pos-protocol-v2-whitepaper.pdf

Disappointing. I had hoped for something substantive.

I have to agree here. It's a very light paper .. why was it even released? Some of the points there aren't even explained:

Unfortunately the concept of the Proof-of-Work(PoW) based system tends to lean towards eventual self-destruction

This is an example of how not to use citations. There's nothing explained about the statment, and it's not even his own words.

This seems like the result of a half-baked IRC conversation at this point, that's not a white paper it's a press release.

[illodin]

why was it even released?

Probably to inform people what changes they did to BlackCoin's PoS.

[kbm]

why was it even released?

Probably to inform people what changes they did to BlackCoin's PoS.

This was all that was really needed to make the changes known (admittedly they should have mentioned removing coin age in the summary..). It's barely more than a twitter post:

The proposed changes are intended to improve security in
BlackCoin’s PoS protocol and were made with optimization
in mind. With the new protocol possible attack vectors are
reduced to a minimum and the incentive to support the network
by having a full node running continuously is clearly increased.
This will allow BlackCoin and PoS to continue to scale for
mass adoption while plugging and mitigating potential risks.

I mean come on .. look at the last sentence and tell me that this isn't a marketing ad?

add: I'm sorry if this seems overly critical, blackcoin's done nothing to offend me and i'm not looking to bash it too hard. My point is that I've literally seen longer summaries on Hastelloy than this 'white paper'. The proposed solution is supposed to fix major technical flaws in PoS .. and maybe they have; however, I cannot point people to that paper and say "look how Blackcoin devs saved PoS!"

[cAPSLOCK]

I am sure everybody has heard the essential arguments by now; move on.

Yeas, please, amen and amen.

[InvestorPerson]

I'm sorry if this seems overly critical

nah you're right. blackcoin has been mostly hot air since the big dump but nothing to back up that talking

[slapper]

I am sure everybody has heard the essential arguments by now; move on.

Yeas, please, amen and amen.

It won't work. Trust me, just like the "discuss these 10 alts only" didn't work. The sentences will not be "XMR is cool, let's rally behind it". It will be "YYX coin sux. Suck on my XMR" making sure the mind conditioning of pissing off an entire breadth of crypto is attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, and ensuring XMR to never be a success.

[AlexGR]

The problem with a) promotion and b) pooping on other coins is this:

a) Promotion/marketing etc has a reverse-psychology effect to the prospective buyer (when altcoins are concerned). It's like, yeah you want me to buy your coin so that you can inflate your value and then dump on me. It also has the implied rationale that the prospective buyer is probably stupid for not recognizing the inherent value of said coin and that is why he needs to be "preached" upon and converted.

b) Pooping on other coins is like "I don't want to look at my own problems, so I have to discredit others". It implies lower self-value. If you have a vision to do something, you just do it. You don't even need to bother with others. If you are successful that's when others will bother with you.

DRK is this, BCN is that, XMR is this, BBR is that etc etc - all carry implications when said.

[nwfella]

I find it curious that Cryptsy doesn't even have MRO listed under their [Vote] section as a new potential trading pair.  Given MRO's current marketcap and the plethora of other crap-coins the Cryptsy supports anyway.

[darkota]

I find it curious that Cryptsy doesn't even have MRO listed under their [Vote] section as a new potential trading pair.  Given MRO's current marketcap and the plethora of other crap-coins the Cryptsy supports anyway.

Cryptsy's BitJohn has stated it costs a lot of $ to support the coins they already have. I think they find it easier and cheaper to just add bitcoin clones instead of adding in new software to accept cryptonotes.

Though Poloniex's above 1,000 BTC trading for monero on somedays would say otherwise about cheaper^

[kbm]

I find it curious that Cryptsy doesn't even have MRO listed under their [Vote] section as a new potential trading pair.  Given MRO's current marketcap and the plethora of other crap-coins the Cryptsy supports anyway.

Response received today regarding the 'please add XMR' ticket on their site:

My apologies, our development team will not contact you if it will be added or not. They will
consider the coin and see if it will meet the requirements. Then they will add the coin or not.
Once added they will announce it in the troll box so stay tuned there.

Thank you and have a great weekend!

So make of that what you'd like I guess.

[ejinte]

Execoin released electrum wallet with stealth today, how does that compare to Monoro?

Source: http://www.electrum-exe.org/stealth/

[onemorebtc]

Execoin released electrum wallet with stealth today, how does that compare to Monoro?

Source: http://www.electrum-exe.org/stealth/

sounds like coinjoin + modified electrum.
neat but how has this anything to do with execoin? any coin could use this?