rpietila Altcoin Observer

[aminorex]

But if this were true, why have they dumped so low?

I do not agree with this. The price is not "low" or "high."

It is low relative to cost.  When mining margins go negative, it is going to have repercussions on the behaviour of rational actors.  More so if they have short discounting horizons, of course, but all rational actors.

[smooth]

But if this were true, why have they dumped so low?

I do not agree with this. The price is not "low" or "high."

It is low relative to cost.

This is not really true. Work out actual costs. If you are using EC2 prices to measure cost you are doing it (very) wrong.

Furthermore, if it were true, it would not have a causal relationship to price. It would affect difficulty (difficulty would drop because current mining costs are too high). But there is no causal link between difficulty and price. The adjustment algorithm serves as an (almost) one-way impenetrable wall that isolates the trading (price) side of the market from any influence from the mining side (but not vice versa).

[aminorex]

But if this were true, why have they dumped so low?

I do not agree with this. The price is not "low" or "high."

It is low relative to cost.

This is not really true. Work out actual costs. If you are using EC2 prices to measure cost you are doing it (very) wrong.

I am not using EC2.  EC2 ceased to be a factor long, long ago.  What I am doing is taking in to account the opportunity cost of not mining a more profitable coin.  I can't see any other approach as corresponding to rational actors.

[smooth]

But if this were true, why have they dumped so low?

I do not agree with this. The price is not "low" or "high."

It is low relative to cost.

This is not really true. Work out actual costs. If you are using EC2 prices to measure cost you are doing it (very) wrong.

I am not using EC2.  EC2 ceased to be a factor long, long ago.  What I am doing is taking in to account the opportunity cost of not mining a more profitable coin.  I can't see any other approach as corresponding to rational actors.

Oh, on that I agree. As long as people are mining a less profitable coin instead of a more profitable one, they are enthusiasts almost by definition. Professional economically-motivated miners optimize, and that means choosing the best opportunities.

Do see my edit above though. This still has no direct influence on price because of the way the difficulty-adjustment algorithm serves as a one-way wall separating the two sides of the market.

There is an indirect influence, in the sense that "enthusiasts" are likely to be investors, since they are "enthusiastic" about the coin. They'd likely feel the same way even if they weren't mining though, they'd just buy instead (in fact at present it seems a fair number are doing both).

[rpietila]

Especially since they could sell the shitcoin and then buy double the amount of XMR with the proceeds!

Self-moderation: mentioning shitcoins in the thread is PROHIBITED.

[smooth]

dga made a good case, but I am completely unconvinced, because he didn't address my point:  When some actors are not acting in a rationally self-interested manner, the economy is dramatically different.  If the majority of miners are not acting in a rationally self-interested manner, it will be an economy from Mars, totally alien.

Well its an empirical point as well, showing that in fact changes in price do not follow from changes in difficulty (but the reverse does occur). This was measured for bitcoin, but I can't believe that bitcoin has any shortage of not-entirely-rational enthusiasts. In fact almost the entire public bitcoin mining market is non-economic and has been for years.

Unfortunately, since I can't find the actual evidence for this, the point is greatly weakened.

[aminorex]

Anyhow, I can't find a way to even put error bars around my estimate of the supply rate, so it doesn't really do me any good, even if my causal logic is perfect.  

I'm putting out some feelers looking for better data.

[aminorex]

you might want to pull some asks.  this thing looks like it has some legs. 

i really need to get a monkey on this thing.

[kbm]

you might want to pull some asks.  this thing looks like it has some legs. 

i really need to get a monkey on this thing.

Fervent scramble through uncategorized and completely unorganized notes started, then I'm going to start all over again by first firing up the GPU's and noting how much power they're using these days

Extremely high potential adoption saturation levels just might again be achieved over an incremental time period .. but that's gonna require checking everything again from scratch.

[giveBTCpls]

Especially since they could sell the shitcoin and then buy double the amount of XMR with the proceeds!

Self-moderation: mentioning shitcoins in the thread is PROHIBITED.

How do we stablish the definition of shitcoin tho? Is DRK a shitcoin due its instamine incident?

[TeeBone]

DRK sellers rotating into MRO=moon ? 

[Sebastien256]

DRK sellers rotating into MRO=moon ?  

I think it is a good time to buy XMR...

[Melbustus]

How do we stablish the definition of shitcoin tho?

Any coin that meets any of the below criteria easily makes the cut:

1) The coin is a clone/tweak of bitcoin.
2) The coin uses centralized checkpointing, "backing"/pegs, etc. Anything centralized.
3) The coin was pre-mined.
4) The coin was ninja-mined.
5) The coin was insta-mined.


...many more easy-to-spot criteria, I'm sure.

[smooth]

How do we stablish the definition of shitcoin tho?

Any coin that meets any of the below criteria easily makes the cut:

1) The coin is a clone/tweak of bitcoin.
2) The coin uses centralized checkpointing, "backing"/pegs, etc. Anything centralized.
3) The coin was pre-mined.
4) The coin was ninja-mined.
5) The coin was insta-mined.


...many more easy-to-spot criteria, I'm sure.

6. PoS
7. IPO
8. Extremely fast emission schedule
9. Developer hailed as genius despite few if any previous accomplishments
10. False, fraudulent, or unverifiable back story
11. (Likely bought or purpose-created) sock puppet accounts hyping the coin or trolling competitors

None of these are definitive, but a pretty good point system could probably be created that would be quite accurate.

[onemorebtc]

How do we stablish the definition of shitcoin tho?

Any coin that meets any of the below criteria easily makes the cut:

1) The coin is a clone/tweak of bitcoin.
2) The coin uses centralized checkpointing, "backing"/pegs, etc. Anything centralized.
3) The coin was pre-mined.
4) The coin was ninja-mined.
5) The coin was insta-mined.


...many more easy-to-spot criteria, I'm sure.

6. PoS
7. IPO
8. Extremely fast emission schedule
9. Developer hailed as genius despite few if any previous accomplishments
10. False, fraudulent, or unverifiable back story
11. (Likely bought or purpose-created) sock puppet accounts hyping the coin or trolling competitors

None of these are definitive, but a pretty good point system could probably be created that would be quite accurate.

that sounds really reasonable; thanks

[devphp]

6. PoS
7. IPO

Haha, that leaves nothing to discuss then.
You should only invest in Bitcoin and XMR, thread can be closed

[aminorex]

How do we stablish the definition of shitcoin tho?

Any coin that meets any of the below criteria easily makes the cut:

1) The coin is a clone/tweak of bitcoin.
2) The coin uses centralized checkpointing, "backing"/pegs, etc. Anything centralized.
3) The coin was pre-mined.
4) The coin was ninja-mined.
5) The coin was insta-mined.


...many more easy-to-spot criteria, I'm sure.

6. PoS
7. IPO
8. Extremely fast emission schedule
9. Developer hailed as genius despite few if any previous accomplishments
10. False, fraudulent, or unverifiable back story
11. (Likely bought or purpose-created) sock puppet accounts hyping the coin or trolling competitors

None of these are definitive, but a pretty good point system could probably be created that would be quite accurate.

Closed source,
Closed team,
Marketing budget > development budget
Airdrops/giveaways substantial to distribution
Changes in social contract to benefit a minority
Multilevel rewards
Issuance cliffs/stages
Lottery rewards
Crackpot cryptography claims

[smooth]

6. PoS
7. IPO

Haha, that leaves nothing to discuss then.
You should only invest in Bitcoin and XMR, thread can be closed

See post #1

[Shak]

6. PoS
7. IPO

Haha, that leaves nothing to discuss then.
You should only invest in Bitcoin and XMR, thread can be closed

basically, yes. at least this is the conclusion that i derived from observing the crypto-developement. as a bitcoin holder, i watched the altcoin market as the playground for people who missed btc in its early stages and now desperately trying to mimic the 1000x rise by developing one after another coin without any benefits when compared to bitcoin. its this desperate "but i want to get rich, too" attitude of the people in this subcategory of cryptos that kept me away for most of the time.

i agree to some extent to rptilia when he says, that xrm is the first coin that offers something really worthwhile and at the same time not beeing instamined or whatever scam-deployment of coins you invented. of course, i can't know if the better protocol will win against the other coins offering anonymity by various degrees, history has been full of cases where the non favourable protocol established itself as mainstream (vhs vs betamax anyone?). but i decided to invest some percent to gamble on the most promising horse instead of hoping to get rich quick by betting against all odds

[drawingthesun]

6. PoS
7. IPO

Haha, that leaves nothing to discuss then.
You should only invest in Bitcoin and XMR, thread can be closed

Actually this is most likely the case, you say this in jest but it's very close to the truth. You might be confused why many people in this thread are not willing to entertain second movers (BBR and LTC) and IPO's and POS. It's because many people in this thread come from Risto's school of thought and under normal circumstances would never invest into alternative coins in the first place. Almost every alternative coin, second mover clone coin with heavy reliance on silly changes to set themselves apart, and the scam IPO and POS rich get richer models are real turn offs, they are not being built with the next 50 years in mind.

However, many of these forward thinking and smart people have now seen a coin that could actually exist alongside Bitcoin and has real reason for its existence, Monero.

Like I have said many times, BBR is pointless, if BBR overtakes Monero I am back to Bitcoin for good as it sets an easy precedent for the next clone coin with small change to overtake BBR, and thus investing in any CryptoNote coin becomes impossible.

It's the same with Litecoin, if Litecoin overtakes Bitcoin in its current state then it's over, most of the money will leave CryptoCoins for good because the precedent is that a real investment can be destroyed by any clone that can market its small irrelevant changes well enough.

Monero is a first mover because the true first mover (Bytecoin) is a scam coin due to the 80% premine.

Ethereum, Monero, Bitcoin, are all first movers. This is why the Ethereum team are spending a long time getting their IPO right. They have made it so that most of the coins in the first 5 years will be mined coins, not IPO coins. Notice that they are not considering IPO and then POS, if they did a clone of Ethereum would then become the true first mover as Ethereum original would be tagged as a scam coin. The Ethereum team are being very careful not to mess the release up, if the market thinks the release is unfair, a clone will take over as primary candidate, like what happened with Bytecoin.

The coin release is as important as the technicals.

Bitcoin had the technicals and fair release.

Monero had the technicals and fair release.

Ethereum has the technicals and looking for the fairest release, if they screw up then they loss.

Also don't even mention Darkcoin, that is a scam through and through.