rpietila Altcoin Observer

[canonsburg]

viacoin will fail

When you have a moment please tell us why. Without a rationale that just seems trollish.

I certainly don't mind if it does fail, but you have to give them credit for pushing the ball forward on tree chains (as well as putting open-ended contract protocols on a more secure, PoW, footing). That alone won't make it investable, but it sure is interesting.

People, don't get so defensive of the very extraordinary distinction of your betrothed that you can't admit some of the other girls have certain charms of their own. 

Seems like VIA is claiming to be what Bitcoin does not want to do. (Not what it can't do).

Anyways, it seems to be getting a reputation boost by hiring and associating with Peter Todd so I see Peter Todd as a major piece of the puzzle.  If Peter Todd decides to leave or has a breakdown in relationship with the VIA team, that could spell disaster for the coin.

[Este Nuno]

 If Peter Todd decides to leave or has a breakdown in relationship with the VIA team, that could spell disaster for the coin.

At this point the only relationship there seems to be is "they're paying me some money".

It is good though that they're attempting to put that ~$350,000 IPO money to some use though.

It's pretty amazing that people were willing to throw that much money at them though. Hopefully they put it to good use.

[Este Nuno]

everybody know that is not true, you can see a transaction on the blockchain immediately, what takes time are confirmations, so latency is not a real problem. Its really just my opinion but I dont see viacoin taking off, neither ethereum, not while most people cant even fully grasp bitcoin...

Well, the transaction is just broadcast but not actually on the blockchain yet, right? Isn't that the whole issue? There are a whole other category of doublespend attacks possible with 0 conf transactions. Which is why almost every Bitcoin service I use has me waiting for one or two confirmations first. Which is horrible when you are waiting over an hour. Even the average time of 10-20 minutes for 1-2 confirmations is pretty long.

For some transactions like buying a coffee 0 confs are fine. But since most services deem 1 confirmation acceptable for almost all normal transactions(which I feel is the right balance between security and convenience) having that confirmation come in less than a range of seconds to an hour is far better imo.

24 seconds is quite fast. Not sure how that will work out. But at this point I think it's pretty clear that 1-2 minute confirmations are superior despite the hash that gets wasted on orphans. The point being that ease of use should be a priority over mining efficiency.

[Wexlike]

The block headers are kept as a PoW record but all old transactions can be discarded.

I need my old transactions archived and verifiable, what do I do?

Keep using Bitcoin.  Or Monero, if you want privacy.

For everything else, there's Cryptonite.  That's why we're making so many of them.

And no, I don't have a problem with half of the 1.84 billion total being mined over the next 10 years.

The emission rate was revisited twice, and IMO they got it perfect for the intended use as the 'small bills and change' of the internet.

On the island of Libertopia we buy real estate with Bitcoin, lattes with Cryptonite, and party supplies with Monero.   

I would love to live on that island ! 

[Majormax]

everybody know that is not true, you can see a transaction on the blockchain immediately, what takes time are confirmations, so latency is not a real problem. Its really just my opinion but I dont see viacoin taking off, neither ethereum, not while most people cant even fully grasp bitcoin...

Well, the transaction is just broadcast but not actually on the blockchain yet, right? Isn't that the whole issue? There are a whole other category of doublespend attacks possible with 0 conf transactions. Which is why almost every Bitcoin service I use has me waiting for one or two confirmations first. Which is horrible when you are waiting over an hour. Even the average time of 10-20 minutes for 1-2 confirmations is pretty long.

For some transactions like buying a coffee 0 confs are fine. But since most services deem 1 confirmation acceptable for almost all normal transactions(which I feel is the right balance between security and convenience) having that confirmation come in less than a range of seconds to an hour is far better imo.

24 seconds is quite fast. Not sure how that will work out. But at this point I think it's pretty clear that 1-2 minute confirmations are superior despite the hash that gets wasted on orphans. The point being that ease of use should be a priority over mining efficiency.

Agree .

Like many here , I have made many types of transactions in BTC and dozens of different altcoins on a daily basis, as well as mining,  for more than a year, and overall would say that 1-2 minutes is a good compromise.

[dga]

Analysis of state of the art "botnet mining software" system:

http://malware.dontneedcoffee.com/2014/07/sky-share-evolution-mining-botnet-system.html

Still no CryptoNote-support, only does Scrypt and Quark.


---> All good until now. Yeah, yeah I know there maybe some small, amateur botnets that mine XMR. But the accusations that the professional botnet mining scene is big involved in XMR/CN-mining is still wrong and FUD.

Upon observing a tan-colored sheep in a field, a tourist turns to his wife and excitedly exclaims:  "I told you there were no black sheep in Scottland!"

[bangersdad]

I am mining XCN.  I think the coin is probably temporary, definitely over-priced, but the tech is good.

I am starting to look at VIA because I hear it will be a treechain testbed, and because it intends to serve as a 2.0 platform with PoW.

Viacoin hires Peter Todd as Scientific Advisor

https://twitter.com/viacoin/status/494874526753513473?refsrc=email

[digicoin]

Guys, what do you think about Cryptonite? Paper-wise, this coin is excellent for micro-transactions

[aminorex]

Furthermore Bitcoin is just too slow for these kinds of applications with 10 minute confirmation times which are
often much longer (up to 1 hour). For decentralized exchange or shopping, that latency is simply not viable.
Viacoin is blazingly fast, utilizing block targets of 24 seconds, it is 25 times faster than Bitcoin.

everybody know that is not true, you can see a transaction on the blockchain immediately, what takes time are confirmations, so latency is not a real problem. Its really just my opinion but I dont see viacoin taking off, neither ethereum, not while most people cant even fully grasp bitcoin...

Just to be clear: Nekomata was not quoting me in this instance. I agree strongly with his point about xn times and confirmations.

[r0ach]

On the island of Libertopia we buy real estate with Bitcoin, lattes with Cryptonite, and party supplies with Monero.   Cool

Where do you get your electricity?

How do you get there without roads

[rpietila]

On the island of Libertopia we buy real estate with Bitcoin, lattes with Cryptonite, and party supplies with Monero.   Cool

Where do you get your electricity?

How do you get there without roads

One possible way to see how electricity, heating, food etc. can be produced locally, is to observe the rise of Malla Castle.

I am just having a project of the main building completely direct wood heated. During the heat wave (34C) I realized that inside it kept 24C. Many things actually can be produced without government

[iCEBREAKER]

On the island of Libertopia we buy real estate with Bitcoin, lattes with Cryptonite, and party supplies with Monero.   Cool

Where do you get your electricity?

How do you get there without roads

It's an island, so roads don't really work for entrance/egress.  There are harbors/docks for boats/ships and airports for planes.  Roads on the island are maintained by tolls and memberships.  Freight is moved by Taggart Transcontinental railroads.

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Roads on the island are maintained by tolls and memberships

Tolls or trolls?

[iCEBREAKER]

Guys, what do you think about Cryptonite? Paper-wise, this coin is excellent for micro-transactions

Cryptonite is awesome.  It is the third leg in the Bitcoin (security), Monero (privacy), and Cryptonite (scalability) stool:

Opinions on Cryptonite, the first coin implementing mini-blockchain? Whitepaper here.

Interesting that someone is trying to create something new for a change, but I feel like the PoW algo selection will make it BCN2 or BBR2 as there is/will be a private mining group with GPU miners whereas there's no hope of mining with a high-end desktop CPU. Maybe this won't be an issue as only half of the coins will be mined within the first 10 years, and you can't really mine with a 1 video card desktop anything anyway these days? Another coin forking from Cryptonite with an established PoW algo and miners and pools ready at launch could steal its thunder though, similar to BCN vs XMR.

Who happens to mine these fungible coins is irrelevant.  If other people want them, they simply buy them from those who specialize in optimizing and running miners, or trading.

Cryptonite is a Very Big Deal, representing the third great innovation in cryptocash (minichains) after Bitcoin's blockchain and CryptoNote's ring signatures.  Vertcoin's private addresses come close to making the list, in a distant fourth place.  Proof-of-work may have been a candidate for fifth, but is made obsolete by minichains, so it loses to Primecoin's cool/trippy factor.

Forget those other trash coins.  All that matter right now are Bitcoin, Monero, and Cryptonite. 

(Litecoin is also valuable as a hot-swappable replacement in case Bitcoin breaks, ditto Namecoin and DNS.)

It's fascinating how Monero and Cryptonite are fundamentally incompatible and splitting Bitcoin into private Monero and public Cryptonite niches, like a speciation event!

Economically it makes perfect sense to remove Bitcoin's blockchain bloat to be more efficient for public transactions, while simultaneously putting other bloat to work by ensuring privacy for Monero.

As I finish this post CN is nearing an ATH.  Nice. 

Now just wait until all the kids realize they've been conned by their closed source and/or kludgey CLOAK/DARK/BLACK/XC FailCoins.  See ya'll on the moon...

Any other opinions on cryptonite?

I have to admit that I share icebreakers point of view - that said, xcn is very young, buggy, quite expensive already. compared to other coins it offers something new which indeed has value and potential, but I also think that bitcoin can simply clone miniblockchains once they are proven (non-technical perspective). this is the beauty of xmr, there is quite a big niche which probably will never be filled by bitcoin.

[rpietila]

How about a 10-line summary on why cryptonite is good and why I should buy it?

[digicoin]

Bitfreak says it is not feasible for Bitcoin to implement Cryptonite's mini-blockchain. Is it correct technically and politically? Cryptonite sacrifices scripting features for mini-blockchain. Bitcoin can not do it, can it?

[illodin]

How about a 10-line summary on why cryptonite is good and why I should buy it?

And an estimate on when to buy would be appreciated as well. I would guess some time after public GPU miner or fully optimized CPU miner is released which forces private mining group to dump.

[iCEBREAKER]

How about a 10-line summary on why cryptonite is good and why I should buy it?

CHALLANGE EXCEPTED!

1) Hero Member BitFreak is project lead and provides active support in [ANN] thread
2) well planned R&D plus month-long testnet phases ensured fairly smooth launch
3) 100% open source available since testnet began
4) 0% premine

5) builds on proven standard BTC client with technology suggested by BTC core devs (gmaxwell)
6) mini-blockchain radically improves BTC scalability (Holy Grail of pruning)
7) mini-blockchain minimizes full node footprint to point of being able to run on smartphones (with more entropy/security than PoS or SPV)
innovative proof-of-work seems GPU and ASIC resistant
9) sane emission rate strikes excellent balance between rewarding/incentivizing early adopters and encouraging widespread distribution
10) reviewed positively by cypto-guru AnonyMint and immediately trading on bter (thanks to thorough testnet phase)

[rpietila]

How about a 10-line summary on why cryptonite is good and why I should buy it?

CHALLANGE EXCEPTED!

1) Hero Member BitFreak is project lead and provides active support in [ANN] thread
2) well planned R&D plus month-long testnet phases ensured fairly smooth launch
3) 100% open source available since testnet began
4) 0% premine

5) builds on proven standard BTC client with technology suggested by BTC core devs (gmaxwell)
6) mini-blockchain radically improves BTC scalability (Holy Grail of pruning)
7) mini-blockchain minimizes full node footprint to point of being able to run on smartphones (with more entropy/security than PoS or SPV)
innovative proof-of-work seems GPU and ASIC resistant
9) sane emission rate strikes excellent balance between rewarding/incentivizing early adopters and encouraging widespread distribution
10) reviewed positively by cypto-guru AnonyMint and immediately trading on bter (thanks to thorough testnet phase)

- How many devs? Who?
- When launched?
- How exactly is emission schedule?
- What algo?
- Quotes from AnonyMint posts?

[canonsburg]

How about a 10-line summary on why cryptonite is good and why I should buy it?

CHALLANGE EXCEPTED!

1) Hero Member BitFreak is project lead and provides active support in [ANN] thread
2) well planned R&D plus month-long testnet phases ensured fairly smooth launch
3) 100% open source available since testnet began
4) 0% premine

5) builds on proven standard BTC client with technology suggested by BTC core devs (gmaxwell)
6) mini-blockchain radically improves BTC scalability (Holy Grail of pruning)
7) mini-blockchain minimizes full node footprint to point of being able to run on smartphones (with more entropy/security than PoS or SPV)
innovative proof-of-work seems GPU and ASIC resistant
9) sane emission rate strikes excellent balance between rewarding/incentivizing early adopters and encouraging widespread distribution
10) reviewed positively by cypto-guru AnonyMint and immediately trading on bter (thanks to thorough testnet phase)

- How many devs? Who?
- When launched?
- How exactly is emission schedule?
- What algo?
- Quotes from AnonyMint posts?

I think there is only one real dev (name is catia : https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=340555)

Launched July 28.

Emission is 1.84 Billion total coins with half life of 10 years.

The algo is something called M7 (http://cryptonite.info/wiki/index.php?title=M7_PoW); chain of 7 popular hash functions (multiplied together) then final SHA-256 of everything.
Not really a "CPU only" since its not memory hard but the multiplication step, especially with large bit size is suppose to be hard for GPU to handle.

Although it's a neat coin with innovative concept, I think its massively overpriced.

But this coin isn't a "competitor" to XMR, since as AnonyMint mentioned, XCN and XMR are fundamentally incompatible, thus they are fill non-interesting niches.