rpietila Altcoin Observer

[Majormax]

One way to make something popular is to offer something that people ogle and get jealous if others have it and they don't.

Humans hate to miss the party. Humans are social. This is the game of life.

I suspect the reason my CoolPage reached 300,000 to a million users in the first 3 years (multiply by 10 in today's internet), was because people visiting the websites created with it, saw the little sky blue background with golden font advertising button that was on every page that used the free version. At the time (1998 to 2001), possessing a custom designed webpage on Yahoo Geocities was a status symbol of being really cool and hip with the new technologies. And we offered them "drag + drop creation and one click publishing". Later 100s of editors followed suit but we were (ahem "I" the one-man company was) one of the first to offer that in 1998 in an ad-button supported freeware download. And I put a lot of effort into making the GUI really user friendly and even added point-and-click DHTML programming GUI. Technically CoolPage sucked. I was so embarrassed I stopped developing it.



The filipino artist modeled the Cool Page surfer dude on me, lol. But I designed the blue button and the custom font for CoolPage.


Edit: I wrote upthread that anonymity could be unwound for ring signatures if authorities can require you to reveal your private keys (a.k.a. passwords), i.e. allow you to have privacy to the public but not to the government. Astute readers surely smugly ignored me thinking that if the authorities already know your identity in order to require your passwords, then you don't have anonymity. Well this unstated rebuttal falls apart on several levels. One as I said, you revealing your password lowers the anonymity set for those who didn't reveal. Secondly, you may wish to report for tax purposes some funds you bring from the non-reported anonymous world back into the mainstream fiat world, so then the authorities may require you reveal your passwords so they can verify the tax basis you claim for your capital gains. As you know the rulings for example in the USA is that mining is income and the tax basis for capital gains starts at the time of the coinbase transaction.

I was too late. Our HTML editor few years later was not successful.

As you remember there are view keys designed to reveal transactions when needed. So the problem of alleged requirements to reveal private keys can be exaggerated.

Degree of anonymity is subjective. Very few people want full secrecy (ie off-grid), because to have a functioning society, there has to be government (read: civil protection) at some level. It can be Federal, State, County, Parish or Local, but human society is made of connected individuals.

All those levels of govt. are interested (and not interested) in various degrees according to their remits.

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[AnonyMint]

As for my marketing genius, see my CoolPage button blinking all over the past two pages of these threads (16 years after it was launched)! I didn't pay a single centavo to have my banner ad reposted by others. They did it spontaneously. (Quite embarrassing actually)

This is why it is insane for me to post here. Because I could waste all my time on the misunderstandings various flippant readers have, because they haven't read sufficiently. And you sir don't respect past performance (like most others here don't respect past performance).

Any other ideas of how to scale a crypto-currency to beyond 10 million users within 3 years or less from launch?

I find it quite distressing to see people flailing around wildly like this. You offer far too vague a problem statement to take seriously at face value, any significant effort to respond would be futile because its substance would simply disappear into the definitional chasms running through your sketchy landscape.

Progress in this area is most unlikely to happen without a lot more informed effort being devoted to characterising the users. The most generous phrase I can find to describe the current effort is "hopelessly amateur". It's generous because the ineptitude is an obvious consequence of the influence of a technical community that openly prides itself on its ignorance of psychology, sociology, semiotics, marketing and other disciplines of the “soft sciences”. If you really can't articulate the details of the key factors underlying Dogecoin's undeniable appeal to users then you shouldn't aspire to hold an opinion on the subject.

If you think that's a bit brutal, I can offer this adapted quote: “You really have no business creating your own cryptocurrency if you don't understand marketing well enough to figure out how to achieve large-scale adoption without somebody else's help.”

A moment's reflection should inform you that each of the cited examples (celeb endorsement, corporate adoption or government takeover) is merely a proxy for “just about anyone with a well-resourced and effective marketing function” (which, you may be astounded to learn, does not equate to “advertising”).

Cheers

Graham

Seems you failed to read a few posts:

One way to make something popular is to offer something that people ogle and get jealous if others have it and they don't.

Humans hate to miss the party. Humans are social. This is the game of life.

"Anonymint" develops his perfect coin and "jl777" markets the thing via SuperNet ..

From the little I've been of his discombobulated writing style, I don't think he could market his way out of a wet brown paper bag.

That he is getting any air play seems to indicate how weak the current altcoin scene is.

I'm not sure in what sense you mean "maximizing transactions."

I mean it from many different scopes, even including how to get the coin into spenders' hands at wide scale.

My 0.01% - 0.03% guesstimate was 600,000 to 1.8 million based on world population of 6 billion.

Dogecoin (why don't they pronounce it "doggiecoin" or "dog-ecoin" ) claims 100,000 users yet the mcap is only $43 million. Apparently it is the copper-zinc penny coin (feel good marketing, donations, cute dogs) and Litecoin is the current silver to Bitcoin's gold.

Dogecoin did well because socialism is peaking, so "share the altruism" is a widespread value (goes hand-in-hand with the "open source", "save the whales and penguins and polar bears", etc) and it got more money into more spenders hands, thus increasing the velocity of money which thus increases the value of the coin (see V in the Quantity Theory of Money). Dogecoin fatal mistake was apparently the radically fast mining reward halving schedule.

Some where I wrote a post about Beanie Babies and Doggiecoin. Fads fade quickly. Currency should not.

just read this article: http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/salaries-paid-in-bitcoin-a-growing-trend-in-canada-1.2752441

then switched over to the comments, let me summarize em here.

The_Voice:
"The solution is simple: Just don't work for any company that wants to use "bitcoin" to escape its financial obligations to pay an employee in real dollars."

Noharass
"When Bitcoin goes bust, I hope the Canadian government does not bail these people out of their financial mess."

Jordan
"I wouldn;t do anything more than virtual work for such virtual money..."

nexxtep54
"Any savvy techie with the proper software and code can make his own coin and steal yours. No thanks."

Abdul Rahman Hussein
"why take bitcoin? bitcoins are shit, in my opinion.
It is based on the what people believe on it value and it is electronic.
which means that when blackout or hacker can wipe your wallet clean. The chance of that happen is more likely, than hyperinflation or economic collapse. Also Canadian dollar are backed up by gold reserve and protect by the government as a legal tender. Bitcoin has none.Also , big bank spend huge loads on internet security and bitcoin has none."

norain
"Dont go boo hooing to the goverment when you wake up with a empty screen one day. You have to be crazy to accept this rubbish. Like any ponzi scam it will come down. You wait some hacker is working on this as we speak. Your going to be sorry for messing with this junk and thats what you own is junk. what a waste of hard work. It really should be named bite coin because thats what its going to do bite you !"

sachmo
"Bitcoin started by an unknown in 2009 and people are buying into it. I think there is going to be a lot people either very broke or very disappointed in the end. Someone is making money here and it probably isn't the average Joe."

.... sums up how 'Average Joe' thinks... and why Bitcoin (and even worse Altcoins) never truly went to mainstream acceptance within 5 years and most likely never ever will

~CfA~

Yup. And the bolded one is spot on. Any one designing a crypto-currency better understand who the target market is.

[AnonyMint]

Where can I read the resumes of the Monero developers? I see only 37 year old Frenchman David Latapie's Linkedin, which frankly isn't that impressive for a client programs programmer (at least not what I can see without logging in). Appears he is more of a business development or corporate/enterprise processes guy.

[darkota]

Degree of anonymity is subjective. Very few people want full secrecy (ie off-grid), because to have a functioning society, there has to be government (read: civil protection) at some level. It can be Federal, State, County, Parish or Local, but human society is made of connected individuals.

All those levels of govt. are interested (and not interested) in various degrees according to their remits.

The privacy is not for gov, its for the people, gov should be as transparent as possible and people's stuff as private as possible, this is the ideal society.

I myself, do not want full secrecy in the sense that no one, even myself, can see my transaction history when it comes to transmitting money. Have you not seen the bombings that threaten cities worldwide? From the boston bombing that claimed a few lives, to ISIS taking over bases in the middle east?

Full secrecy would allow child molesters, terrorist organizations, violent racial groups, gangs, corrupt governments(north korea), etc to grow even more without anyone being able to take them down, especially when it comes to transmitting money..

That's why I do not support Zerocash. WIth Ring Signatures you can have full anonymity and still be Legal(so you're transaction history is still known by you incase of anything), while zerocash doesnt have such things.

[drawingthesun]

That's why I do not support Zerocash. WIth Ring Signatures you can have full anonymity and still be Legal(so you're transaction history is still known by you incase of anything), while zerocash doesnt have such things.

This, plus questionable mathematics and the israeli government involvement and accumulator issues makes Zerocash a no go.

[rpietila]

"I wouldn;t do anything more than virtual work for such virtual money..."

Yup. And the bolded one is spot on. Any one designing a crypto-currency better understand who the target market is.

It is possible that there will indeed be a govmoney, which is used to buy things that government produces extracts from the economy, such as taxes, sickness industry, public brainwash (sorry the official names are healthcare and education, but they are so far from the actual meaning in a full 1984esque style that I just cannot restrict myself... ).

Then the free people want to use their free money to store their savings and transact between them. Monero is such a money. If it never grows bigger, it can still function between the limited number of users, who are not in it for getting rich anyway.

Bitcoin is in-between.

I have always thought that it is a "failure" for crypto to fail to become the money of the governed public. But as for me, I take a small free currency over a huge controlled one any day.

[SlipperySlope]

Litecoin prices are still well constrained by the bubble collapse resistance trendline. This is the one-week resolution chart from BTC-e vs the dollar. If the price pattern over the last four weeks is a damped oscillation, then prices should converge near the present level of $4.7. At that level, prices reach the trendline again in the second week of October.

[aminorex]

aminorex was being mean, so I diffused the conflict with some humor.   

That's funny.  I thought I was being nice and you were being mean.

[nakaone]

the whole fuckin cryptoscene is in the bearished mode since at least 12 months - a look at the speculation subforum is reading like capitulation


regarding xmrs price what really interests me is at which point we find a new low. I have a feeling but let us see

[come-from-down-under]

Where can I read the resumes of the Monero developers? I see only 37 year old Frenchman David Latapie's Linkedin, which frankly isn't that impressive for a client programs programmer (at least not what I can see without logging in). Appears he is more of a business development or corporate/enterprise processes guy.

Résumé de David Latapie

They say success is a three-pronged story: "want", "can", "needed".

What I want to do in my work life is "IT", "management", "English language" and "innovation". I can do them and they are definitely needed.

I don't know...the résumé seemed pretty impressive to me. Microsoft office skills,  Ability to read and write english, AND "innovation"!

They are needed and we have just the man for the job-  He can do not just one but all three!

David, I've a gold star waiting for you to collect at the front of the class..you certainly earned it.

 http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/284/0/0/gold_star_sticker_icon_by_angelishi-d6q2z6w.gif


Actually I bet he can make a mean cup of tea too, but probably wanted to stay modest.

I suspect the rest of the core-teams résumés are just as brilliant.

But seriously now -- We are in safe hands with Monero developers, they are some of the brightest minds in the altcoin sphere today, they have a great vision on where to take this project and it's the most exciting thing since bitcoin itself. I'd appreciate if we saw less of FUDsters like you making snarky comments.


~CfdU~

[rpietila]

Where can I read the resumes of the Monero developers? I see only 37 year old Frenchman David Latapie's Linkedin, which frankly isn't that impressive for a client programs programmer (at least not what I can see without logging in). Appears he is more of a business development or corporate/enterprise processes guy.

Résumé de David Latapie

They say success is a three-pronged story: "want", "can", "needed".

What I want to do in my work life is "IT", "management", "English language" and "innovation". I can do them and they are definitely needed.

I don't know...the résumé seemed pretty impressive to me. Microsoft office skills,  Ability to read and write english, AND "innovation"!


David, I've a gold star waiting for you to collect at the front of the class.

 

They are needed and we have just the man for the job-  He can do not just one but all three!

I bet he can make a mean cup of tea too, but probably wanted to stay modest.

I suspect the rest of the core-teams résumés are just as brilliant.

But seriously now -- We are in safe hands with Monero developers, they are some of the brightest minds in the altcoin sphere today, they have a great vision on where to take this project and it's the most exciting thing since bitcoin itself. I'd appreciate if we saw less of FUDsters like you making snarky comments.


~CfdU~

I was thinking if it is too invasive to reply, but then I realized that this is my thread, and you are the stranger, so it is definitely OK.

I was thinking if it is too early to tell that we are having a closer cooperation with David, who will be situated in my castle, but then I realized that he has already disclosed it in his CV, so it is definitely OK.

I was thinking if it is too modest of a resume, telling only about English and Office skills, but then I realized that I also don't have much more to put on my resume, which I don't even have, and neither does the critic, so it is definitely OK.

[kbm]

I was thinking if it is too invasive to reply, but then I realized that this is my thread, and you are the stranger, so it is definitely OK.

I was thinking if it is too early to tell that we are having a closer cooperation with David, who will be situated in my castle, but then I realized that he has already disclosed it in his CV, so it is definitely OK.

I was thinking if it is too modest of a resume, telling only about English and Office skills, but then I realized that I also don't have much more to put on my resume, which I don't even have, and neither does the critic, so it is definitely OK.

Just another telemarketer, this one appears to be selling gold stars.

[Come-In-Behind]

Where can I read the resumes of the Monero developers? I see only 37 year old Frenchman David Latapie's Linkedin, which frankly isn't that impressive for a client programs programmer (at least not what I can see without logging in). Appears he is more of a business development or corporate/enterprise processes guy.

Résumé de David Latapie

They say success is a three-pronged story: "want", "can", "needed".

What I want to do in my work life is "IT", "management", "English language" and "innovation". I can do them and they are definitely needed.

I don't know...the résumé seemed pretty impressive to me. Microsoft office skills,  Ability to read and write english, AND "innovation",

They are needed and we have just the man for the job-  He can do not just one but all three!

I bet he can make a mean cup of tea too, but probably wanted to stay modest.

I suspect the rest of the core-teams résumés are just as brilliant.

~CfdU~

brilliance, reading and writing paves the way to success! good job he can do use microsoft skills, makes that 3!

I go now, I go in cave

~CiB~

[rdnkjdi]

I am curious about the Monero development.  I saw someone awhile back ask how many "full time developers" it had.  Until that question (which was never answered) I'd made the assumption that it was probably developed by people who had other jobs.

A - I know it's been answered here and there - but who on the IS involved in Monero development?

B - How many (or all) do we know the real life names?

C - Any idea the number of manhours per week put into it?

[come-from-down-under]

I was thinking if it is too invasive to reply, but then I realized that this is my thread, and you are the stranger, so it is definitely OK.

I was thinking if it is too early to tell that we are having a closer cooperation with David, who will be situated in my castle, but then I realized that he has already disclosed it in his CV, so it is definitely OK.

I was thinking if it is too modest of a resume, telling only about English and Office skills, but then I realized that I also don't have much more to put on my resume, which I don't even have, and neither does the critic, so it is definitely OK.

Of course, resumes aren't everything. (Mine is embarassingly sparse)

I'm sure David kept his intentionally brief. He wouldn't be on the core team if that was the limit of his capabilities. I trust Monero has picked the best men for the job.

I guess Malla would have vacancies for a tea-maid cum secretarial assistant (paid in Monero's, naturally) regardless  

by the time those XMR become worth their bytes in gold everyone of us in this thread shan't have a need for a CV however, because I can't anticipate needing to live the conventional 9-5 ratrace of the lower-middle class as the newly minted wealthy elite.

It's just a matter of buying and hodling, and we all need to start preperations.

[kbm]

I am curious about the Monero development.  I saw someone awhile back ask how many "full time developers" it had.  Until that question (which was never answered) I'd made the assumption that it was probably developed by people who had other jobs.

A - I know it's been answered here and there - but who on the IS involved in Monero development?

B - How many (or all) do we know the real life names?

C - Any idea the number of manhours per week put into it?

C - Just as a side point.  Sometimes it's a little tough to link past performance with future results when those with very good development credentials probably would prefer to NOT be tied to certain projects.  

1- It did get answered by smooth, look in his posts for the exact answer to the question (brilliantrocket's question I think?). Anyways -  tacotime, eizh, smooth, fluffypony, othe, davidlatapie, NoodleDoodle. There are a few other developers involved, not sure if they're part of this forum or not.

2 - at least two core members and i believe two developers on top of that.

3 - smooth answered this as well in that post you're gonna go look for. it sounded like it was more than a little but less than a lot. that amount of time from >7 people on development is a lot of man hours.

3 - sometimes, all people want to do is link past performance with future results. This is why there is a major trend for developers to use sock puppets to manage their various coins. The developers that have decided to contribute to Monero have chosen not to go that route. Whether or not you choose to link past performance to future results is generally a matter of speculation (at least it is to me) .. unless there was some massive error or major achievement in a developers past. Taking that into account, we either have some of the worst criminals or nobel prize laureates developing these coins.

[jmw74]

"I wouldn;t do anything more than virtual work for such virtual money..."

Yup. And the bolded one is spot on. Any one designing a crypto-currency better understand who the target market is.

It is possible that there will indeed be a govmoney, which is used to buy things that government produces extracts from the economy, such as taxes, sickness industry, public brainwash (sorry the official names are healthcare and education, but they are so far from the actual meaning in a full 1984esque style that I just cannot restrict myself... ).

The government has no motive to create its own cryptocurrency.  The whole point of cryptocurrency is that it is neutral.  If the government controls a currency then it cannot be neutral, it has no value over existing currencies.  If government doesn't control it, they have no interest, they might as well use an existing one.

People think bitcoin is about cheap, instant payments.  That is purely incidental.  Bitcoin is about neutrality, that no participant is granted any special powers.

If you want cheap and fast, there's many other trusted 3rd parties who will send money for you.  If you want to send payment online without some authority making political judgments about it, then you use cryptocurrency, there are no alternatives.

Crypto can try to woo the public with cheap and instant, that's great, but eventually trusted 3rd parties destroy that market.  Centralized issuers can do it cheaper and faster.  Most people today don't particularly care for neutrality, as long as they aren't targetted by the authorities they have no reason to care.

Cryptocurrency's real market is those who wish to conduct business without interference from authorities (that includes governments, banks, paypal, visa, etc).

[aminorex]

Where can I read the resumes of the Monero developers? I see only 37 year old Frenchman David Latapie's Linkedin, which frankly isn't that impressive for a client programs programmer (at least not what I can see without logging in). Appears he is more of a business development or corporate/enterprise processes guy.

David isn't a developer.  He does b2b, pr type stuff.  The core team has a variety of skills and roles represented.  You'll find lots of stuff missing from XMR.  It's very much a work in progress.  But the plan is achievable, modest, and well-thought out, and the steps executed are timely, rational, and done well, so I'm pretty happy with it.  It has more boots on the ground than any of the bags of promises and horse manure that it competes with.


 

[gjhiggins]

Seems you failed to read a few posts

Thanks for responding. Just to avoid any misperceptions, I did read those posts. They, and the “past performance” to which you refer informed my criticism. Your summary of Dogecoin's appeal highlights the amateur approach I was referencing.

I don't intend to be offensive, merely precise. I use the term “amateur” as a precise description. An experienced professional would be able to bring to bear a rich set of modelling / analytic tools and a specialist domain terminology.

I can assure you that when conducting a re-branding exercise for, e.g. an instantly-recognisable high street FMCG product, your typical int'l bluechip won't make a single move until they've first invested at least an upper-end six-figure sum in the market research / development iterative loop (qualitative and quantitative) and got back an extensive raft of results and trial serializations.

I'm pointedly ignoring the proffered media-selected informal voxpops because I just can't bring myself to believe that anyone would be hard-pressed enough to cite them as actual insights, so they must be trolling.


Cheers

Graham

[Este Nuno]

Seems you failed to read a few posts

Thanks for responding. Just to avoid any misperceptions, I did read those posts. They, and the “past performance” to which you refer informed my criticism. Your summary of Dogecoin's appeal highlights the amateur approach I was referencing.

I don't intend to be offensive, merely precise. I use the term “amateur” as a precise description. An experienced professional would be able to bring to bear a rich set of modelling / analytic tools and a specialist domain terminology.

I can assure you that when conducting a re-branding exercise for, e.g. an instantly-recognisable high street FMCG product, your typical int'l bluechip won't make a single move until they've first invested at least an upper-end six-figure sum in the market research / development iterative loop (qualitative and quantitative) and got back an extensive raft of results and trial serializations.

I'm pointedly ignoring the proffered media-selected informal voxpops because I just can't bring myself to believe that anyone would be hard-pressed enough to cite them as actual insights, so they must be trolling.


Cheers

Graham

I've always thought that any sufficiently funded team of professionals could blow Bitcoin out of the water in a short period of time. I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet to be honest. Probably still too niche.