rpietila Altcoin Observer

[iCEBREAKER]

Zynga first approached Counterparty, but it is much too slow so that approach failed.  VIA/XCH has 24 second blocks, and so is perfect for poker.

What do you mean, why would confirmation times being faster be important especially for poker?

This is my question too.

Let me XPOST that for you:

There's a lot of discussion about how the Zynga poker application would work with VIA/XCH on this thread.  I figure I can give an educated opinion on the matter.  While this is my opinion, keep in mind it's very speculative as there is little information about what Zynga is doing other than a phone message screenshot and a prior post in the Counterparty thread.  However, given my background, I figure my opinion could help shed some light on the matter.

First, I played poker professionally from 2001 until 2010.  I had reasonable success in poker (won a WSOP bracelet, had my own character in a video game, and had a monthly column in a major poker publication).  Through almost a decade of playing full time, I gained a deep understanding of the mechanics of the game, casino motivations, and gambling in general.  Oddly enough, I quit playing poker professionally in 2010 to help start a social gaming company called Unveil Games (Initially funded by a handful of name poker pros).  We created a game called TrafficKing where we knocked off Farmville (a Zynga game), keeping the same game mechanics but essentially reskinning it so that it would be appealing to the male demographic on Facebook.  In the process, we closely studied all of Zynga's succesful games, in an effort to find the most effective viral loops.  The game we created was both incredibly comical and fun to play, but unfortunately Facebook changed some of their newsfeed policies which adversely affected small developers like ourselves.  We eventually shut the company down in 2012, which is around the time I found crypto. 

As far as what I think Zynga's plans are, I'm suspecting that Zynga is going to be building a poker application where pot/hand settlement occurs on the VIA blockchain.  Unless my understanding of crypto is flawed, Viacoin is actually the only vehicle where I can see this happening.  On average online poker hands take about 1 min to play out.  Having hand/pot settlement on the Bitcoin blockchain just wouldn't be feasible given Bitcoin has 10 min confirmations (which is consistent with what was said in the screenshot about "the most key aspect being speed").  VIA on the otherhand has 24 second confirmations, which could work.  So a player would play out a poker hand within a Zynga client, and upon completion of the hand it is recorded on the blockchain and settlement occurs in about 24 seconds (likely before the completion of the next hand).   

Also, in a post by TechGen in the Counterparty thread about a week ago, he/she mentions a big social gaming company plans to use VIA / XCH and that the company even planned to issue shares through platform as well.  I personally don't see this happening or if it does it will be a long time from now given the regulatory hurdles an event like this would present the company.  However what would be amazing is if Zynga managed some sort of rewards program through Zynga coins issued on Clearinghouse.  It's designed for something like that, allowing easy distributions back to players that hold Zynga chips based upon the overall revenue generation of the game.  Now that would be interesting.

 Funny, given my background in gambling, social gaming and crypto (specifically with VIA and XCH), I should be reaching out to Zynga to try and help them in any way that I can to get this project off the ground.  And if it doesn't materialize, hell, I'm thinking I should try and get a team together and build it. 

[illodin]

As far as what I think Zynga's plans are, I'm suspecting that Zynga is going to be building a poker application where pot/hand settlement occurs on the VIA blockchain.  Unless my understanding of crypto is flawed, Viacoin is actually the only vehicle where I can see this happening.  On average online poker hands take about 1 min to play out.  Having hand/pot settlement on the Bitcoin blockchain just wouldn't be feasible given Bitcoin has 10 min confirmations (which is consistent with what was said in the screenshot about "the most key aspect being speed").  VIA on the otherhand has 24 second confirmations, which could work.  So a player would play out a poker hand within a Zynga client, and upon completion of the hand it is recorded on the blockchain and settlement occurs in about 24 seconds (likely before the completion of the next hand).   

Ok... but every time people commit money to the pot, i.e. they limp in preflop, someone raises, they call.. same thing on flop turn and river, that's an awful lot of transactions you need to confirm within one hand that's gonna last maybe 1 minute. If the confirmations were 2 seconds then I could see it working. Or am I missing something, maybe they don't worry about double spends?

[bitcoinrocks]

As far as what I think Zynga's plans are, I'm suspecting that Zynga is going to be building a poker application where pot/hand settlement occurs on the VIA blockchain.  Unless my understanding of crypto is flawed, Viacoin is actually the only vehicle where I can see this happening.  On average online poker hands take about 1 min to play out.  Having hand/pot settlement on the Bitcoin blockchain just wouldn't be feasible given Bitcoin has 10 min confirmations (which is consistent with what was said in the screenshot about "the most key aspect being speed").  VIA on the otherhand has 24 second confirmations, which could work.  So a player would play out a poker hand within a Zynga client, and upon completion of the hand it is recorded on the blockchain and settlement occurs in about 24 seconds (likely before the completion of the next hand).   

Ok... but every time people commit money to the pot, i.e. they limp in preflop, someone raises, they call.. same thing on flop turn and river, that's an awful lot of transactions you need to confirm within one hand that's gonna last maybe 1 minute. If the confirmations were 2 seconds then I could see it working. Or am I missing something, maybe they don't worry about double spends?

Why can't poker players transfer BTC to Zynga ahead of time (with a 10 minute delay) and Zynga then keeps its own ledger in real time as the games progress.  Players could then cash out of Zynga whenever they want (with a 10 minute delay).  Just like poker chips really.  Maybe we're talking about massive bets here and people don't want Zynga holding that kind of money?  Does Zynga take massive bets?

[UnicornFarts]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846471.0

Anybody notice this?

[alani123]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846471.0

Anybody notice this?

Introducing the world's first implementation of ZeroCoin

That's a pretty big claim to make. I'm really suspicious about this, as long as it remains a claim, they haven't really proved anything to us. I would't trust the developers of this coin until they present solid evidence to back this claim.

[UnicornFarts]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846471.0

Anybody notice this?

Introducing the world's first implementation of ZeroCoin

That's a pretty big claim to make. I'm really suspicious about this, as long as it remains a claim, they haven't really proved anything to us. I would't trust the developers of this coin until they present solid evidence to back this claim.

I agree.  I don't know much about the developers but it sounds like they've been around.

You can never know - be interested to know what people say about the source.  I believe Vert was the first to introduce stealth addresses

[TheKoziTwo]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846471.0

Anybody notice this?

Introducing the world's first implementation of ZeroCoin

That's a pretty big claim to make. I'm really suspicious about this, as long as it remains a claim, they haven't really proved anything to us. I would't trust the developers of this coin until they present solid evidence to back this claim.

After failing twice he creates the third topic as a "moderated" one. Seems legit.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846378.msg9438594#msg9438594
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846435.msg9439379#msg9439379

[UnicornFarts]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846471.0

Anybody notice this?

Introducing the world's first implementation of ZeroCoin

That's a pretty big claim to make. I'm really suspicious about this, as long as it remains a claim, they haven't really proved anything to us. I would't trust the developers of this coin until they present solid evidence to back this claim.

After failing twice he creates the third topic as a "moderated" one. Seems legit.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846378.msg9438594#msg9438594
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846435.msg9439379#msg9439379

Interesting.  BanditryandLoot linked to the new one immediately.   At one point I thought he was anonymint.  Don't think so now ... but he's somebody

[00Smurf]

They are basing it off of zerocoin, which was abandoned for a reason. He hasn't answered any questions relating to it and keeps deleting mine about it.

[UnicornFarts]

They are basing it off of zerocoin, which was abandoned for a reason. He hasn't answered any questions relating to it and keeps deleting mine about it.

Yeah....

I had some hopes cuz vertcoin.  But I'm not holding my breath on this one.

[tacotime]

They are basing it off of zerocoin, which was abandoned for a reason. He hasn't answered any questions relating to it and keeps deleting mine about it.

ZeroCoin was already implemented on the AnonCoin testnet... but there's so many issues with that implementation that it'll never be useful, I think. The signatures/tx are 128kb (and hence need to be pruned from the blockchain very quickly), verification of a single tx is measured at around 4-10 seconds (making DDoS of nodes trivial), and the distributed accumulator setup was extremely suspect. This was more or less why ZeroCoin implementations have been dead in the water.

[UnicornFarts]

They are basing it off of zerocoin, which was abandoned for a reason. He hasn't answered any questions relating to it and keeps deleting mine about it.

ZeroCoin was already implemented on the AnonCoin testnet... but there's so many issues with that implementation that it'll never be useful, I think. The signatures/tx are 128kb (and hence need to be pruned from the blockchain very quickly), verification of a single tx is measured at around 4-10 seconds (making DDoS of nodes trivial), and the distributed accumulator setup was extremely suspect. This was more or less why ZeroCoin implementations have been dead in the water.

Great summary.  I've never looked into it but kept meaning to.

Any summary on zero cash?

[FallingKnife]

Does anyone here care about inflation and the resiliency of community? If so, take a look at UNO.



Inflation matters.

[tacotime]

Any summary on zero cash?

ZeroCash is fast and has tx small enough to actually use in a normal blockchain, however the problem is trustless generation of the accumulator and circuit parameter files. Using a non-trustless (centralized) parameters generation, you're already looking at 8 GB for parameters alone. Although no reasonable proposal for trustless generation has come forward, my guess is that trustless parameter generation would result in an even larger file. If you use centralized parameters generation, it'll always be possible for the central party to secretly spend or generate as many coins as they'd like to without anyone ever knowing, so it's a big issue.

[dewdeded]

Using a non-trustless (centralized) parameters generation, you're already looking at 8 GB for parameters alone. Although no reasonable proposal for trustless generation has come forward, my guess is that trustless parameter generation would result in an even larger file. If you use centralized parameters generation, it'll always be possible for the central party to secretly spend or generate as many coins as they'd like to without anyone ever knowing, so it's a big issue.

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2014/10/26/nikka-digital-strongbox-crypto-as-service/
Maybe this new project could provide help with trustless parameter generation.

[minairia3]

Look at this:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846866.0

While you all are throwing math and charts around little Pandacoin looks like it has quietly become the first crypto with real world use.  Who would have guessed? LOL.   I'm a Panda supporter but had no idea it was being used for more than buying beef jerky or mugs, etc.

[equipoise]

I was donating my free CPU power on distributed computing projects like World Community Grid using Boinc about 7 years before I became interested in Bitcoin second half of 2013. I could think of many problems using for example biological research computational problems for proof of work (like who is giving the tasks - centralization, comparison between tasks difficulty - someone get easier tasks, ...) and I'm sure there were some good discussions on those problems. Is there any active research on it? Could someone point me to such discussions and/or research? It would be great if you could mine to secure the network and at the same time find solutions to science problems. There are a lot of NP-hard computational problems in science which are not expected to be efficiently solvable even on a quantum computer. If the people are payed to "mine" for the answers this could contribute to the science progress a lot and give the answers to many questions (to cure diseases, study global warming, ...). I would gladly give such a cryptocurrency my computing power. There is something wrong with this meaningless hashes used for mining and I hope a solution is possible to replace them with meaningful tasks instead. I just saw the Bitcoin Utopia Boinc project, but it's completely different - it is donating 90% of your mining income for science projects, take 10% fee (lol) and you don't get anything in return.

[TheUniporn]

Look at this:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846866.0

While you all are throwing math and charts around little Pandacoin looks like it has quietly become the first crypto with real world use.  Who would have guessed? LOL.   I'm a Panda supporter but had no idea it was being used for more than buying beef jerky or mugs, etc.

Who ever believes you/them, deserves to be scammed. I live there and I know it's not used.

[Cheesus]

Look at this:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846866.0

While you all are throwing math and charts around little Pandacoin looks like it has quietly become the first crypto with real world use.  Who would have guessed? LOL.   I'm a Panda supporter but had no idea it was being used for more than buying beef jerky or mugs, etc.

Who ever believes you/them, deserves to be scammed. I live there and I know it's not used.

That's actually not a strong argument. Everyone can say that he/she lives somewhere and claim that there is nothing.

I'm not any coin supporter, just saying

[turtoro]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=846471.0

Anybody notice this?

Introducing the world's first implementation of ZeroCoin

That's a pretty big claim to make. I'm really suspicious about this, as long as it remains a claim, they haven't really proved anything to us. I would't trust the developers of this coin until they present solid evidence to back this claim.

I agree.  I don't know much about the developers but it sounds like they've been around.

You can never know - be interested to know what people say about the source.  I believe Vert was the first to introduce stealth addresses

Yes. Poramin developed Vertcoin back in January. SX addresses were first implemented in Vert in the summer.

Also Poramin studied under Matthew Green (zerocoin project) at John Hopkins. So there is a connection in that regard. There was a debate early on within vert as to whether to go the anonymous route (zerocash) or  sx address route, with the latter winning out. So again, there is a connection.

The only thing in question is if that is indeed him or not (could be an impersonator), people are waiting for him to reply back under his established usernames. If it is indeed him then you can consider the claim credible. But people are skeptical that its him at this point.

Edit: He just confirmed its him under his established account.