rpietila Altcoin Observer

[SlipperySlope]

1. The most used contracts must be put on ASICs to get scaling, because Moore's Law is ending (unless POET rescues it), i.e. they will force more centralization of mining not less.

Intel is working on it for a long time it seems from this 2009 article http://optics.org/article/40732 and they can throw billions at it so I am not too worried about that. Apparently we still have years before we start hitting limits even with current old-school technologies.

What's more - sillicon photonics is here, its the first step in this direction and should drop the costs of photonics considerably and drive the innovation further http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2345610/intel-primes-market-for-silicon-photonics-to-lift-data-centre-interconnect-speeds

Industrial miners will seek the least expensive power, cooling and labor. ASIC fabrication plants have the ability to continue scaling in spite of impending lithography limits by advancing to 3-dimensional monolithic circuits.  I expect that even small advances in hashing per watt will induce industrial miners to replaced their older rigs in less than a year, because of the relentless pace of difficulty increases in PoW coins.

As Tim Swanson well describes in his recent book, the marginal profit gained by miners when PoW coin prices increase is swiftly accommodated by an equal rise in the mining difficulty as competing miners add to their existing capacity.

I recall solo mining a couple of bitcoin blocks back in June 2010 after a popular tech blog brought Bitcoin coin to my attention. Within a few weeks, I shut down my quad core CPU miner as, on this forum, system administrators were bragging that they had installed bitcoind on hundreds, if not thousands, of computers at their workplaces. Difficulty soared back then, not because of any new mining tech, but rather because the capacity could be added and it was.

[SlipperySlope]

Here is the one-week resolution chart of Litecoin / Yuan as reported by the very liquid OKCoin exchange. The rightmost candle now has a technical shape that suggests indecision, and with relatively high volume indicates that the recent price capitulation has either ended or paused. As the resistance downtrend line from the November 2013 peak has not yet been convincingly pierced to the upside, conventional TA wisdom says the down trend from the peak has not yet reversed.

[Lauda]

Are you planning to make an update to this at all?
A lot of things have changed in regards to quite a number of coins.
You should also take another look at DRK.

[Melbustus]

...
Perhaps Satoshi believed back in 2009 that Bitcoin users would generate bitcoins on their own personal computers so that each user ran a full node, securing the network, and receiving appropriate remuneration by way of bitcoins mined. But, by 2011 in his last posts on this forum, Satoshi came to believe that industrial mining was the future, with the vast majority of non-generating users connected to a few centralized miners, e.g. the big pools that we have today, with the current 7000 Bitcoin volunteer full nodes unpaid, and mining few if any bitcoins.

Your implication that Satoshi originally thought industrial scale mining would never happen is false. Satoshi realized its inevitability right from the beginning:

At first, most users would run network nodes, but as the
network grows beyond a certain point, it would be left more and more to
specialists with server farms of specialized hardware.

http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography%40metzdowd.com/msg09964.html


Satoshi realized from the beginning that full-nodes and mining would converge to industrial-scale entities. He realized that this is an absolute inevitability of PoW blockchain consensus, and furthermore, that it doesn't destroy the value of such a system (since it will likely NOT centralize into a monopoly or oligopoly).

[JorgeStolfi]

Satoshi realized from the beginning that full-nodes and mining would converge to industrial-scale entities. [ ... ] it doesn't destroy the value of such a system (since it will likely NOT centralize into a monopoly or oligopoly).

Why is that certain? Didin't it almost happen already with Bitcoin?

[rpietila]

Are you planning to make an update to this at all?
A lot of things have changed in regards to quite a number of coins.
You should also take another look at DRK.

Please help me: how have the coins changed?

[cAPSLOCK]

Here is the one-week resolution chart of Litecoin / Yuan as reported by the very liquid OKCoin exchange. The rightmost candle now has a technical shape that suggests indecision, and with relatively high volume indicates that the recent price capitulation has either ended or paused. As the resistance downtrend line from the November 2013 peak has not yet been convincingly pierced to the upside, conventional TA wisdom says the down trend from the peak has not yet reversed.

My question at this juncture is where can I short Litecoin?

[Lauda]

Please help me: how have the coins changed?

I didn't mean that the coins have changed themselves in regards to their block rewards and similar things. What I meant was feature wise, some have new features that should be commented on and mentioned. Don't you think so?

[rpietila]

Please help me: how have the coins changed?

I didn't mean that the coins have changed themselves in regards to their block rewards and similar things. What I meant was feature wise, some have new features that should be commented on and mentioned. Don't you think so?

Well, I cannot reasonably support more than 2 coins without losing credibility. So the others don't interest me until either BTC or XMR bites the dust. If you want to educate others, please make an educated post!

[smoothie]

Monero to me appears to be a good alt to mine or purchase.

Its anonymous features do set it apart from other cryptocurrencies along with its clean slate.

Not sure how it will fit into any main stream type of usage given how it can be essentially untraceable in terms of who sent what to whom etc in any transaction. Please correct me here if I have not seen an outcome where it could be accepted in a main stream sense.

If it purely operates as a black market currency then perhaps it has its niche. Again please correct me here if I am not seeing this correctly from a regulatory standpoint and and economic standpoint.

Full Disclosure: I've bought some for myself. Not selling anytime soon (if at all).

[Este Nuno]

Please help me: how have the coins changed?

I didn't mean that the coins have changed themselves in regards to their block rewards and similar things. What I meant was feature wise, some have new features that should be commented on and mentioned. Don't you think so?

Well, I cannot reasonably support more than 2 coins without losing credibility. So the others don't interest me until either BTC or XMR bites the dust. If you want to educate others, please make an educated post!

Why do you think supporting more than two coins is less credible? Isn't it rational to assume different probabilities for different coins growing in market share over time? And that some of them might easily be a profitable investment over time? That seems to me like someone saying I'm only going to hold GOOG and APPL and nothing else.

Even if you believe that the probability of BTC and XMR reaching sky high market caps is extremely high, and much higher than any other currency, what makes you think it's an all or nothing situation? Right now we can see an extremely varied market with all sorts of new technologies covering different niches and different markets. Storj wants to replace Dropbox, Bitshares wants to service the business sector, and many more.

I'm not saying that any of these new currencies are necessarily going to succeed and gain 100mm+ market caps, but it's certainly possible and the probability is more than 0% I would think. All I'm saying is that as an investor why limit your portfolio?

[smooth]

Please help me: how have the coins changed?

I didn't mean that the coins have changed themselves in regards to their block rewards and similar things. What I meant was feature wise, some have new features that should be commented on and mentioned. Don't you think so?

Well, I cannot reasonably support more than 2 coins without losing credibility. So the others don't interest me until either BTC or XMR bites the dust. If you want to educate others, please make an educated post!

Why do you think supporting more than two coins is less credible? Isn't it rational to assume different probabilities for different coins growing in market share over time? And that some of them might easily be a profitable investment over time? That seems to me like someone saying I'm only going to hold GOOG and APPL and nothing else.

Even if you believe that the probability of BTC and XMR reaching sky high market caps is extremely high, and much higher than any other currency, what makes you think it's an all or nothing situation? Right now we can see an extremely varied market with all sorts of new technologies covering different niches and different markets. Storj wants to replace Dropbox, Bitshares wants to service the business sector, and many more.

I'm not saying that any of these new currencies are necessarily going to succeed and gain 100mm+ market caps, but it's certainly possible and the probability is more than 0% I would think. All I'm saying is that as an investor why limit your portfolio?

The app coins such as Storj, Maidsafe, Ethereum, etc. are definitely a big new phenomenon (new if you ignore NMC I guess) and somewhat distinct from either the transparent block chain or anonymous block chain niches. They're certainly controversial and I have no idea whether they are viable long term, but worth a closer look perhaps.

[rpietila]

Why do you think supporting more than two coins is less credible? Isn't it rational to assume different probabilities for different coins growing in market share over time? And that some of them might easily be a profitable investment over time? That seems to me like someone saying I'm only going to hold GOOG and APPL and nothing else.

Even if you believe that the probability of BTC and XMR reaching sky high market caps is extremely high, and much higher than any other currency, what makes you think it's an all or nothing situation? Right now we can see an extremely varied market with all sorts of new technologies covering different niches and different markets. Storj wants to replace Dropbox, Bitshares wants to service the business sector, and many more.

I'm not saying that any of these new currencies are necessarily going to succeed and gain 100mm+ market caps, but it's certainly possible and the probability is more than 0% I would think. All I'm saying is that as an investor why limit your portfolio?

Good post. Perhaps I am still disregarding the blockchain-technology based ventures, based on my prejudice that they are not functional as "coins", that is value storage and transfer. In this market the network effects will ensure that not many can prosper, and I believe that BTC and XMR are the winners. Lazy as I am, still waiting for you to promote the non-coin startups so that I might be convinced  

[saddambitcoin]

Full Disclosure: I've bought some for myself. Not selling anytime soon (if at all).

welcome to the club, smoothie! we could certainly use your skills putting down the anti-monero trolls here. LOL

please feel free to join the Monero Community Hall of Fame and support the devs! https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700400

[SlipperySlope]

Here is the coinmarketcap.com list of crypto-currencies sorted by 24-transaction volume. There is certainly no surprise that bitcoin and litecoin have the first two places. It is interesting that BitsharesX and BitcoinDark have rallied this week when others were weaker.  Supply figures with an asterisk indicate that the coin cannot be mined, i.e. not proof-of-work. Interesting too, how many of these are ranking higher this month.

[Lohoris]

(I would have argued that the war was the waste of resources, not gold mining, but nobody asked my opinion..)

In an utopic world, yes.
But if you are attacked, you are at war, it's not like you can have a choice.

[Jungian]

What's the deal with XC? I hear a lot about it, but is it all hot air?

Anyone have a rundown on it?

[Triffin]

What's the deal with XC? I hear a lot about it, but is it all hot air?

Anyone have a rundown on it?

Everything you need to know is in the OP ..

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=630547.0

Well presented, dev has credentials, delivering on their timeline .. 

Triff ..

[2dogs]

My question at this juncture is where can I short Litecoin?

Bitfinex

[drawingthesun]

Supply figures with an asterisk indicate that the coin cannot be mined, i.e. not proof-of-work. Interesting too, how many of these are ranking higher this month.

What I am seeing is that a large proportion of well renowned experts in Crypto are starting to talk about PoW being a failure and that there must be another way. The Bitshares people, James from Nxt and BitcoinDark, Vitalik and even your idea suggests the future lay in PoS in some form.

The only people supporting PoW at the moment with large credibility are the Bitcoin core developers.

Anyone care to explain if things like dPoS are really the future, or is PoW still the most secure way to run a decentralized network?