rpietila Altcoin Observer

[aminorex]

as happened before when Luke-jr attacked some random alt with an ASIC farm.

It's funny because he posted about it and denies it completely, while everyone else says he did.

I thought that I read him denying using eligius hashing to attack the altcoin but acknowledging he used his own ASIC farm or something similar. I think he wanted to avoid people thinking he stole their hash from the pool.

I used to think it was an evil act:  Destroying someone else's value.

But now I think the bulk of the larceny in crypto is scamcoins, and I would support BCX, Luke-jr, anyone attacking scamcoins, to stop the harm they do.  I'm of course still concerned about the target selection process, always a touchy subject in warfare.

[1715265660]

1715265660

[1715265660]

1715265660

[1715265660]

1715265660

[TooDumbForBitcoin]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.

Re #2

Speaking for myself only, and note my name - when I get free coins on poloniex (via giveaway, trivia contest, etc), I sell them immediately if they have any aggregate value above, say, .005 BTC.  The exception would be if I had overwhelming evidence that the coin was rising in value.

[smooth]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

2. Not having a high cost structure would reduce, not increase the incentive to sell. The people who are most motivated to sell quickly are those with high operating costs (electricity, cloud mining, etc.). So this argument about botnet behavior is illogical in addition to unproven.

Re #2

Speaking for myself only, and note my name - when I get free coins on poloniex (via giveaway, trivia contest, etc), I sell them immediately if they have any aggregate value above, say, .005 BTC.  The exception would be if I had overwhelming evidence that the coin was rising in value.

That's quite different from running a botnet. A botnet might not have a direct operating cost but you still have to put time and some money into it. Whatever you get out of a botnet, you worked for it.

I general I agree with rpietilla though. There is likely to be little difference in selling behavior as a function of operating cost. Small differences are possible but not that important.

[rpietila]

Speaking for myself only, and note my name - when I get free coins on poloniex (via giveaway, trivia contest, etc), I sell them immediately if they have any aggregate value above, say, .005 BTC.  The exception would be if I had overwhelming evidence that the coin was rising in value.

That does not contradict my point at all.

I hold a few currencies, let's say USD, EUR, silver, gold, BTC and XMR. If anyone gave me a freebie in any of these, I would keep it and not search to convert it until in the next rebalancing.

If the freebie was in any of the other currencies, I would seek to convert it to some of the ones mentioned, to ease accounting.

Even if it was in the list, if it was large in sum, I would have to do the rebalancing sooner, converting some of it to the other currencies.

If it is very large, even if it was BTC, I would sell a part of it to keep a balance in my currency/metal/RE/project portfolio.

So the point remains. What coins you regard fit for investing, is a different set than what you might receive as freebies (even if counting botnet gains as "freebies" is disingenious, since mining a coin with your stolen resource is a clear business decision, it is just not an investment decision).

I have received genuine freebies such as 35,000 XRP last year, and the day I received it, I sold them for BTC.

To make giving freebies a good way to increase the popularity of a coin, you have to make a very good scheme, and nobody has succeeded so far. I am trying with personal circular donations here. That the giveaway is happening only via trusted personal relations instead of an open application, is a step in an uncharted territory, after all the charted territory has been proven to not work

[Globb0]

Interesting, but can it work with a coin, cascading a large amount down branches.

Is there a risk someone undesireable creeps in somewhere and intercepts a big chunk of the overall coin? if they are high enough in the chain it could be the same kind of impact as a scam dev running off. The person who might do that doesnt care about their honour.

Fair play for supporting people and trying something different.

Phil

[AnonyMint]

I haven't had time to follow the discussions that have transpired since I was regularly posting in the thread last week. I don't have time to jump back into this thread, but I wanted to know if there has been any additional discussion or does any one have any comments now on the fact that Ethereum's IPO is approaching $15 million??

Is that the largest amount of capital that has been pledged to an unlaunched altcoin?

Does anyone think that figure might be fake, i.e. using the funds to buy from themselves again and again?

Does anyone think it is only our individual investor community, or has Peter Thiel brought the institutional investors in (e.g. other venture capital, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc)? Would they want to buy at lower prices in an angel investment earlier?

How does such a large initial market cap enable them and hinder them?

[AnonyMint]

Miners tend to keep whatever coins they think will increase in value, and sell when they see the coin going sideways or down.  Botnet owners have little of no overhead, so they just dump like mad.  There is absolutely no positive aspect to having botnets on your coin.

1. I would like to see actual evidence of this as opposed to people just stating it. Is there any?

Theory strongly says that it is irrelevant, given perfect markets (which in the case of Monero actually is true!).

People earn in what they happen to get, and save in what they want. If these two coins do not coincide, they make a conversion between earning and saving.

Risto I think you missed the point. Botnets have an order-of-magnitude or more lower costs, thus this lower cost basis means they can sell at lower prices, thus they drive the price of the coin down if they are too much of the float (which I theorize could impact the exponential share of the distribution and growth curve).

While the debasement rates are high, the price of the coin is modulated significantly by the cost of mining.

Thus for two reasons botnets are not a problem in the long-term, but they can destroyhurt a coin early on (when the long-term growth curve is being established and perhaps set in stone).

1. The difficulty eventually rises such that either the demand for botnets drives their prices up to parity with rented hardware or botnets fade as a significant % of the hashrate.

2. Debasement rates slow so the price of the coin is less modulated by the cost of mining.

[kingscrown]

@AnonyMint of course every system can be cheaten hence theres used "trust" system of friends giving to friends.
I like the idea of  rpietila as ineed almost 100% bounties always get dumped.

I got some cool bounties as i used to help many coins and never dumped [just out of respect to devs] but actually only like 5% of not dumping made me profit in future. Dumping right away was usualy the "best" thing to do.
Yet since im not in need of cash when i get free coins i keep tchem and not dump. If others start doing similar we may have better crypto-world

[aminorex]

I haven't had time to follow the discussions that have transpired since I was regularly posting in the thread last week. I don't have time to jump back into this thread, but I wanted to know if there has been any additional discussion or does any one have any comments now on the fact that Ethereum's IPO is approaching $15 million??

Not much here

Is that the largest amount of capital that has been pledged to an unlaunched altcoin?

By order of magnitude, I think.

Does anyone think that figure might be fake, i.e. using the funds to buy from themselves again and again?

I don't.  Their banking sponsors would demolish them very quickly.  

Does anyone think it is only our individual investor community, or has Peter Thiel brought the institutional investors in (e.g. other venture capital, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc)? Would they want to buy at lower prices in an angel investment earlier?

Rumor is that Goldman is in.  Also heard on the street that Evercore is in, and some swiss firms, I forget which.  Total rumors.  I have no inside info.  And yes, they would want a privileged position, and a pound of flesh.  That's how they roll.

How does such a large initial market cap enable them and hinder them?

My expectation: Just like any dot-com era VC funding scam.  They have created impossible expectations in the mindes of the money people who will end up controlling them.  They will run in different directions at once, chasing blue sky, have a series of management changes, blow a lot of money on tiki bars and conference splashes. The layoffs will start about the same time as the death march starts.  Goals will be scaled down ad hoc to things which are achievable but useless, do not match or integrate the vision.  Finally the last new management will be chop-shop, and pieces will get sold off to the highest bidder.

[AnonyMint]

Does anyone think it is only our individual investor community, or has Peter Thiel brought the institutional investors in (e.g. other venture capital, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, etc)? Would they want to buy at lower prices in an angel investment earlier?

Rumor is that Goldman is in.  Also heard on the street that Evercore is in, and some swiss firms, I forget which.  Total rumors.  I have no inside info.  And yes, they would want a privileged position, and a pound of flesh.  That's how they roll.

So the big money moving into the IPO might be the salesmanship these (backstabbing) firms could be laying on their "qualified investor" clients?

[AnonyMint]

How does such a large initial market cap enable them and hinder them?

My expectation: Just like any dot-com era VC funding scam.  They have created impossible expectations in the mindes of the money people who will end up controlling them.  They will run in different directions at once, chasing blue sky, have a series of management changes, blow a lot of money on tiki bars and conference splashes. The layoffs will start about the same time as the death march starts.  Goals will be scaled down ad hoc to things which are achievable but useless, do not match or integrate the vision.  Finally the last new management will be chop-shop, and pieces will get sold off to the highest bidder.

As with Facebook, if the dumb capital is left unchallenged for too long, it can find ways to use influence and size to take control of a market.

Looks to me that Friendster was paid off to kill itself. Filipinos dominated friendster 2006 to 2008ish, then Friendster started purposely making their system so slow that filipinos migrated to facebook.

P.S. it won't go unchallenged.

[rpietila]

My expectation: Just like any dot-com era VC funding scam.  They have created impossible expectations in the mindes of the money people who will end up controlling them.  They will run in different directions at once, chasing blue sky, have a series of management changes, blow a lot of money on tiki bars and conference splashes. The layoffs will start about the same time as the death march starts.  Goals will be scaled down ad hoc to things which are achievable but useless, do not match or integrate the vision.  Finally the last new management will be chop-shop, and pieces will get sold off to the highest bidder.

This has been seen before in many sectors. Take energy, for example. Medicine. Nuclear physics. Climate "science". What I mean is that the bright minds are harnessed to work together, towards some goal that is not achievable, not made achievable, is not important, or even true. This becomes the "only supported way" to work in that field. So real science, with the base in reality, is almost ground to a standstill. World has functioning water car - but the inventor is murdered instead of acclaimed. Great majority of medicines are useless and dangerous. Yet the alternative cures are suppressed. Climate hogwash still cannot be officially criticized, even though long ago it was proven to be a lie. Made up lie, for the purpose of legistlating more control and human rights violations. The list could go on and on.

What people need is a coin that is easy to use. You cannot, just cannot lose your keys no matter what. Still, they are very hard for thieves to steal. And it must be anonymous, because that is what Bitcoin is lacking. It does not need to have any features. Gold has attributes, but no features.

Ethereum is sucking talent to sit on fat cushions, to be fed by printing-money lords. People that could make a difference if they were not allured by monthly salary.

[iourzzz]

My expectation: Just like any dot-com era VC funding scam.  They have created impossible expectations in the mindes of the money people who will end up controlling them.  They will run in different directions at once, chasing blue sky, have a series of management changes, blow a lot of money on tiki bars and conference splashes. The layoffs will start about the same time as the death march starts.  Goals will be scaled down ad hoc to things which are achievable but useless, do not match or integrate the vision.  Finally the last new management will be chop-shop, and pieces will get sold off to the highest bidder.

This has been seen before in many sectors. Take energy, for example. Medicine. Nuclear physics. Climate "science". What I mean is that the bright minds are harnessed to work together, towards some goal that is not achievable, not made achievable, is not important, or even true. This becomes the "only supported way" to work in that field. So real science, with the base in reality, is almost ground to a standstill. World has functioning water car - but the inventor is murdered instead of acclaimed. Great majority of medicines are useless and dangerous. Yet the alternative cures are suppressed. Climate hogwash still cannot be officially criticized, even though long ago it was proven to be a lie. Made up lie, for the purpose of legistlating more control and human rights violations. The list could go on and on.

What people need is a coin that is easy to use. You cannot, just cannot lose your keys no matter what. Still, they are very hard for thieves to steal. And it must be anonymous, because that is what Bitcoin is lacking. It does not need to have any features. Gold has attributes, but no features.

Ethereum is sucking talent to sit on fat cushions, to be fed by printing-money lords. People that could make a difference if they were not allured by monthly salary.

Moreover they have potential competitors which already realized to some extent few of the declared features which also are going well in advance of the current regulatory environment and nobody can really predict its future utility for society. The ideas may sound revolutionary, but they are not mature yet.

And in addition to all of this, etherium seems to have no real obligations to ether holders even if their grand startup will ever succeed. The snake oil of the highest grade.

[AnonyMint]

Ethereum hasn't even worked out the key design issues. And I think they already made one (probably) fatal design choice. In theory they could back out of that choice—I'll be watching.

Edit: I just noticed they deleted my comment is still stuck in moderation at the following blog, pointing out their math error wherein they assumed the distribution of PoW solutions is a uniform distribution rather than the Poisson distribution it is. It wasn't a fatal error to the point of that blog, but that they deleted my comment speaks volumes about their future.

if transit time is 12 seconds, then after a block is produced the network will be producing stales for 12 seconds before the block propagates, so we can assume an average of 12 / 600 = 0.02 stales per valid block or a stale rate of 1.97%. At 60 seconds per block, however, we get 12 / 60 = 0.2 stales per valid block or a stale rate of 16.67%. At 12 seconds per block, we get 12 / 12 = 1 stale per valid block, or a stale rate of 50%. ...

    so we can assume an average of 12 / 600 = 0.02 stales per valid block or a stale rate of 1.97%

I believe this is incorrect? You appear to be assuming uniform distribution of random solutions to the PoW, whereas it is Poisson distribution. The correct equation for orphan rate yields 63.2% for the 12 second block period and 12 second propagation (+ verification) delay.

[AnonyMint]

Botnets aren't as profitable to use for mining as if they are used for other nefarious activities, but that doesn't mean it isn't profitable and isn't popular to mine with them.

But there is way to design your GPU-resistant (initially no ASICs) PoW to make botnet mining much less profitable. And I am not referring to making the memory footprint larger than the average botnet system.

[aminorex]

give a man a fish and he eats for a day.
give a man a poisson distribution and he eats at a known average rate at times distributed independently of one another.

[dga]

8 ) innovative proof-of-work seems GPU and ASIC resistant

Let's just quietly remove that one from the list before the post looks foolish in a few months.  I haven't paid enough attention to the rest of the currency to comment, so I'll keep my mouth shut there.

I guarantee you:  This is not a "resistant" algorithm.  It has some speedbumps, and they're relatively nice speedbumps, but there's nothing harder in there than there is for designing custom hardware for attacking RSA or other large-number systems.

It's GPUable - again, with difficulty, and the speedbumps are enough to keep a run-of-the-mill developer out of it for a while - but someone like Claymore or C&C could take this one apart in a few weeks.

cf my posts in that thread:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=713538.msg8159131#msg8159131
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=713538.msg8159722#msg8159722

(I'm  not convinced this should be a major selling point in the first place, though, so perhaps it's better to find a good point to replace it.

That didn't take long.  GPU miner released before wolf0 and I could even start annoying people by talking about how much we'd sped up the CPU version.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=713538.msg8212829#msg8212829

[canonsburg]

8 ) innovative proof-of-work seems GPU and ASIC resistant

Let's just quietly remove that one from the list before the post looks foolish in a few months.  I haven't paid enough attention to the rest of the currency to comment, so I'll keep my mouth shut there.

I guarantee you:  This is not a "resistant" algorithm.  It has some speedbumps, and they're relatively nice speedbumps, but there's nothing harder in there than there is for designing custom hardware for attacking RSA or other large-number systems.

It's GPUable - again, with difficulty, and the speedbumps are enough to keep a run-of-the-mill developer out of it for a while - but someone like Claymore or C&C could take this one apart in a few weeks.

cf my posts in that thread:
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=713538.msg8159131#msg8159131
 https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=713538.msg8159722#msg8159722

(I'm  not convinced this should be a major selling point in the first place, though, so perhaps it's better to find a good point to replace it.

That didn't take long.  GPU miner released before wolf0 and I could even start annoying people by talking about how much we'd sped up the CPU version.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=713538.msg8212829#msg8212829

So how long until FPGA?

[coinsolidation]

give a man a fish and he eats for a day.
give a man a poisson distribution and he eats at a known average rate at times distributed independently of one another.

 

[BombaUcigasa]

give a man a fish and he eats for a day.
give a man a poisson distribution and he eats at a known average rate at times distributed independently of one another.

And one day he starves because he couldn't get any fish for a full month. Example: Bitcoin once had a 6h break between two blocks, I had a transaction in wait for 9 hours because of that. That's like the man not eating 36 days instead of eating every day.