rpietila Altcoin Observer

[iCEBREAKER]

Are you going to continue trolling?

I just explained that the issue of altcoin adoption in the developing world is threatened. And if an altcoin is going to compete it needs to be very proactive now on generating income for the developing world people, because they are not investors in crypto-currency. They are workers and earners of income.

This is a very relevant discussion about altcoin demographics.

You are just trolling.

Your category mistakes are becoming embarrassing as their frequency increses; stop calling disagreement "trolling."

Cyber-fiat, whether Canadian or Ecuadorian, is not an altcoin any more than commodity-backed MPESA credits.

[devphp]

Do you think the average person really cares about such things, or is going to become educated on such matters in our lifetime?

The average person cares about price rise. When supply of a useful commodity is predictable and cannot be increased at a whim, the price tends to rise. That's when an average person takes a notice and wants to take part in the action. The side effect of this is he can learn about supply, inflation and other stuff.

[AnonyMint]

I see three categories right now as an altcoin investor:
PoS coins
Anonymous coins
2.0 coins

Would you categorize it further down?

Decentralized Transaction coins which might also be Anonymous and 2.0 but I hope not PileOfShit.

[AnonyMint]

Crypto currencies function by no decree. They are decentrally produced.

Bitcoin is centrally produced for mining (Ghash.io + any other pool have > 50% of hashrate) and protocol development.

With the coming ETFs and other offchain entities, I posit it will soon by top-controlled for investment and transactions too.

Raise your hindquarters in the air for some Butthurt.

[AnonyMint]

You might do better to using timing to separate your rhetoric from your reason.

Of course you are correct, but I don't have time and these guys are pissing me for wasting my time. So I am trying to blow out this discussion because I need an excuse to leave. Otherwise I can't get any work done wasting my time on guys who call me a tinfoil hat and they have errors in their thought processes left and right.

what's a jackbook?

New Apple laptop, I think.

Hahaha, and cashmere padded wallssecurity on the jailgarden too.

[devphp]

To make my point more clear. I don't think Bitcoin can be a store of value longer than the next 5 years, probably even less than that. This will be a transition period to crypto 2.0 technologies, where Bitcoins work as seed capital to develop those crypto 2.0 technologies (IPOs to distribute stock, development costs, etc), decentralized companies and a full-fledged economy based on those. This stage already started last November. By the end of this transition stage Bitcoins will stop appreciating, because a) it will have used its full potential and being just a store of value and a money transfer mechanism would not be good enough; and b) yes, it will be fully centralized by then, with all the inconveniences that centralization causes.

[AnonyMint]

...Bitcoins work as seed capital to develop those crypto 2.0...

And that is what I am posting about.

[devphp]

...Bitcoins work as seed capital to develop those crypto 2.0...

And that is what I am posting about.

Well, I am talking about decentralized crypto 2.0 technologies.
You're posting about some digital fiat by Ecuador and other developing nations.
Other than that, we seem to agree that Bitcoin won't last too long.

[AnonyMint]

The side effect of this is he can learn about supply, inflation and other stuff.

You don't know marketing. Never do you market to the highest hanging fruit first where you have teach them.

And you surely don't have enough time, even if you did have the $trillion budget for it.

Well, I am talking about decentralized crypto 2.0 technologies.
You're posting about some digital fiat by Ecuador and other developing nations.
Other than that, we seem to agree that Bitcoin won't last too long.

After all I wrote you still don't see the interconnection.

[drawingthesun]

Crypto currencies function by no decree. They are decentrally produced.

Bitcoin is centrally produced for mining (Ghash.io + any other pool have > 50% of hashrate) and protocol development.

With the coming ETFs and other offchain entities, it will soon by top-controlled for investment and transactions too.

Raise your hindquarters in the air for some Butthurt.

The ETF doesn't really matter though, financial instruments will be constructed of any worthwhile asset, you can never stop that.

Offchain solutions are the real problem, if Gavin and Co are incorrect in their analysis that technological progress will eventually lead to a network that is as fast as VISA/MASTERCARD/PayPal, then offchain payment processors will become the only way Bitcoin hits the masses. If this happens it will make room for a competitor that is natively as fast as VISA without needing to sell its soul to the devil. (payment processors)

This comes down to your confidence in the words of the Bitcoin core team. I see that you believe that they will be proven wrong and Bitcoin will not scale.

I agree and disagree. I believed in a concept I call the greed incentive, that a software will become extremely well designed and capable if all the participants of that software are going to be rewarded beyond their wildest expectations with the continued success of that software.

I still believe in that concept, but I think that a more agile team willing to take risks has more chance of succeeding by implementing the changes needed. For some reason bitcoin has not been changing, it's too afraid.

I am hoping the Monero team realize that ideal of mine, that they will continue to push the technology.

I have faith that monero could be the beginnings of this perfect coin.

[AnonyMint]

The ETF doesn't really matter though, financial instruments will be constructed of any worthwhile asset, you can never stop that.

Perpetual debasement Whac-A-Mole.

Offchain solutions are the real problem, if Gavin and Co are incorrect in their analysis that technological progress will eventually lead to a network that is as fast as VISA/MASTERCARD/PayPal, then offchain payment processors will become the only way Bitcoin hits the masses. If this happens it will make room for a competitor that is natively as fast as VISA without needing to sell its soul to the devil. (payment processors)

It is clearly possible to design a crypto-currency that can scale way beyond VISA/MC/PayPal and remain decentralized for mining. Don't expect it from Bitcoin though.

But that is not what will prevent offchain from proliferating, although it is a first requirement. Offchain is used because it is more attractive, convenient, and easy for the user.

I believe there is a solution. But it is currently one of my secrets that I am not yet willing to share publicly.

I still believe in that concept, but I think that a more agile team willing to take risks has more chance of succeeding by implementing the changes needed. For some reason bitcoin has not been changing, it's too afraid.

Yup. And if I was Risto, I would have invested in at least a dozen startup altcoins, trying to find the one that could innovate and hit a homerun. Letting your capital sit in Bitcoin is such a waste of scarce time. But I don't fault him, because venture investment doesn't appear to be his forte.

At least he started this thread, and he did bring in more serious interest into altcoins. So I shouldn't downplay his role too much.

Risto you are not just laying down. You are also actively trying to find better solutions.

Risto trying to pick the winner reminds me of the government agencies trying to pick the winning technologies, e.g. China provided incentives to push into solar and now solar didn't pan out and going bankrupt.

I am hoping the Monero team realize that ideal of mine, that they will continue to push the technology.

I have faith that monero could be the beginnings of this perfect coin.

They might.

[AnonyMint]

...Chinese can invest...

If crypto-currencies will be for investment only, they are useless.

And you think 1.5 bln. people will just stand and watch in silence their savings in fiat fade away and at least some of those Chinese not try to do anything about it.

Why do you think there are ghost cities? They are dumping their money into all kinds of investments, not just Bitcoin.

And it doesn't have to function as currency at merchant level, peer-to-peer level is good enough.

For what reason? Taxes are low in China. Remittance is fast, cheap, and ubiquitous. Why avoid transacting in Yuan?

There is one reason. Games and social networking real-time person-to-person payments. And ditto in the lesser developing world.

But Bitcoin is traceable and it is illegal. Mainstream games and social networks will be pressured by the government to shut it down.

Monero is untraceable but can't handle micropayments volume.

See where I am headed with this... "Decentralized Transaction coins...".

[Este Nuno]

Do you think the average person really cares about such things, or is going to become educated on such matters in our lifetime?

The average person cares about price rise. When supply of a useful commodity is predictable and cannot be increased at a whim, the price tends to rise. That's when an average person takes a notice and wants to take part in the action. The side effect of this is he can learn about supply, inflation and other stuff.

If crypto 2.0 and beyond can continue to develop in a way that can be presented as simple and easy to use for the average person and also somehow communicate the economic facts in a way that the average person can understand, then perhaps. It's possible. But we have a long road ahead of us.

[JorgeStolfi]

I wonder if you have a point with Ecuador.  Suppose, in some possible world differing greatly from reported plans, that Ecuador's Central Bank clones Bitcoin Core and modifies it slightly so that the Central Bank is the sole mint which can mine the digital currency. Furthermore, in this possible world, Ecuador retires its dependence on the US dollar and mandates the new digital currency as legal tender.

I don't know what Ecuador intends to do actually.  perhaps they don't know either.

If I had to guess, it would probably be just that: a system for e-payments using some cryptocurrency techniques, with a currency controlled and backed by their Central Bank, perhaps pegged to the dollar, perhaps not, for use by their citizens.  

It is possible that it was not even their idea; rather, the bill may have been pu$hed trough congress by some company who expects to be contracted to implement the system.  This is often how the governments around here come up with technically innovative projects.

For example, here in Brazil the government recently spent a lot of money on a project to give useless toy-like laptops to K12 students (pushed by Intel, whose CEO visited Brazil for the purpose) and on another project to replace the paper ID cards by smartcards (apparently pushed by the same company that provided the smartcards for the Great UK ID-card fiasco).  

With my triple-layer tinfoil hat on, I would even guess is that the future EcuadorCoin is none other than brock Pierce's Realcoin (that is supposed to be pegged to the US dollar, which is Ecuador's official currency at present).

[devphp]

But Bitcoin is traceable and it is illegal.

People's perception of law in developing countries is not the same as perception of law in developed countries. If something is banned, it doesn't mean it'll stop happening, it'll just go underground, which is true for developed nations too, but to a lesser extent, as citizens are more law-abiding. Besides, they didn't ban Bitcoin in China to the point of putting people in jail for using it. It's not even banned.

If crypto 2.0 and beyond can continue to develop in a way that can be presented as simple and easy to use for the average person and also somehow communicate the economic facts in a way that the average person can understand, then perhaps. It's possible. But we have a long road ahead of us.

Well, the average person doesn't have to understand all the facts. They just need to know and understand how to use the platforms and see examples of use cases from others. One example is crowdfunding opportunities that decentralized exchanges present, which is especially attractive to small companies that can't do IPOs on traditional stock exchanges. One example we can observe now is the cryptomessenger, which will be released in the next few days. It got the funding through NXT AE, and if it gets to be successful, many other examples will follow. Yeah, it's a long road. Crypto is software, it has to innovate or die. There is no point sitting on Bitcoins waiting for them to grow to sky.

[AnonyMint]

I don't know what Ecuador intends to do actually.  perhaps they don't know either.

If I had to guess, it would probably be just that: a system for e-payments using some cryptocurrency techniques, with a currency controlled and backed by their Central Bank, perhaps pegged to the dollar, perhaps not, for use by their citizens.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/10/technology/bitcoin-jpmorgan/

The difference between digital banking accounts we have now and the digital currencies, is each citizen has to register for a wallet. One wallet for one citizen. Like your Social Security Number in the USA.

Your wallet can them be moved around to different banks.

Digital currencies is a code word for complete government tracking and total loss of bank privacy.  Your bank will still hold your balance, but every transaction gets cleared through government servers.

As Armstrong said, Ecuador is the trial run for what is coming to every country in the world after 2015.75 when the global economy turns down (which will provide the excuses and justifications for the changes along with the bailins and need to lockup every person's balances).

Bitcoin was planted to condition to world to "digital currencies".

We don't have much time remaining. We are dicking around.

[AnonyMint]

People's perception of law in developing countries is not the same as perception of law in developed countries. If something is banned, it doesn't mean it'll stop happening, it'll just go underground, which is true for developed nations too, but to a lesser extent, as citizens are more law-abiding. Besides, they didn't ban Bitcoin in China to the point of putting people in jail for using it. It's not even banned.

They lean on the corporations when use of any competing currency becomes popular. For example gaming currencies (e.g. QQQ) were squelched this way.

[devphp]

They lean on the corporations when use of any competing currency becomes popular. For example gaming currencies (e.g. QQQ) were squelched this way.

QQ tokens had limited use cases and were centralized, issued by QQ company. How do you squelch crypto 2.0? Throw people in jail for using it? Ban Internet? These are possibilities, of course. It's all high risk investment and wild west. We'll see how it unfolds.

[rpietila]

We don't have much time remaining. We are dicking around.

Please re-iterate your actionable plan for people who don't have a particular skillset and aren't particularly wealthy but belong to the middle class and are fortunate enough to read you.

[JorgeStolfi]

http://money.cnn.com/2013/12/10/technology/bitcoin-jpmorgan/

The difference between digital banking accounts we have now and the digital currencies, is each citizen has to register for a wallet. One wallet for one citizen. Like your Social Security Number in the USA.

Your wallet can them be moved around to different banks.

Digital currencies is a code word for complete government tracking and total loss of bank privacy.  Your bank will still hold your balance, but every transaction gets cleared through government servers.

As Armstrong said, Ecuador is the trial run for what is coming to every country in the world [...]

Quite possibly.  I don t think one has to invoke obscure conspiracies for that.  Financial privacy is already so cumbersome and costly to achieve that most people will rather just give up on it.  It is like trying to pay for rent and groceries with gold dust in order to avoid dealing with "evil fiat".

You obviously hope that Monero or some other cryptocoin will allow people to retain financial privacy without joining some savage tribe and subsisiting on berries and monkey meat.  Good luck with that.  Need I tell you that I am rather skeptical about the idea?