[XCR] Crypti | Dapps | Sidechains | Dapp Store | OPEN SOURCE | 100% own code | DPoS

[MalReynolds]

In essence, the network would weed itself out in this manner naturally. Once it grew to a certain number of merchants, who were running their own nodes / implementation, whether it be through ATMs, Point of Sale terminals, etc, the network would start to adjust itself based on the RoI. People would only run a node and forge so long as it was profitable. We see this in Bitcoin mining.

Early adoption would be from individual users who would be supporting the network and forging, but over time it would adapt to be run by those who weren't concerned with RoI due to the declining rewards as more nodes enter the network and limit the amount of blocks each node forges. This, as you said, leads you to assume it would be vendors running a Point of Sale terminal. I had already considered the possibility and likelihood that this would eventually occur organically, but the initial adoption and user base is an important aspect of building and making Crypti successful in my mind.

Fundamentally speaking, if you are going to eliminate PoT and build the network irrespective and unconcerned with user base issues, why not just build a centralized network internally and then build it out through PoS terminals to vendors without ever involving any form of community in the actual running of the nodes? At that point all you would need is a strong web wallet with multi-sig, 3 factor auth on transfers, and added features such as a merchant directory and built in promotions, etc. You could focus the majority of your development around merchant outreach and the web wallet.

You still run into the same issue with early adoption. Merchants won't sign up if no one is there to spend it and users won't sign up if they get nothing in return. Chicken / Egg.

GreXX,  I think all of you guys are doing exactly the right thing under pressure of initial failure, with getting outside review and keeping your commitment to reaching your final stated goal.  Just keep going as you are.  If there's a way out of this mess, I believe you will find it.

You and I are on exactly the same wavelength in a lot of ways, particularly based on your most recent posts.  You "get" what I am trying to propose about focusing the emphasis in XCR from forging to vendors.  So I am going back and quoting this earlier comment of yours to discuss some of the other aspects that still need airing.

Say you do get PoT to work.  From your comments above, even in your own mind you know and acknowledge that economics of XCR rewards will eventually turn against forgers anyway.  You know this and are promoting PoT and trying to draw in forgers as initial supporters of your network by offering them rewards anyway.  This isn't dishonest, in my opinion; every other coin before XCR has done exactly the same thing.  But there are two factors at work here that everybody needs to understand.

First factor, you're gonna disillusion and disappoint most initial XCR supporters later on when they learn the economical truth of XCR forging.  I saw this over and over and over at NXT.  Newbies would show up because they heard they could forge NXT on a $35 Raspberry Pi and didn't have to spend $2000 like they would on a Bitcoin ASIC miner.  They were very excited at this innovation by NXT!  Thank you NXT!  Then they would discover with their small of NXT they parked on their forging board, they were only going to forge one block per year.  How can this be? they would ask.  Soon they come to understand  whales dominate forging in a PoS system by parking / hoarding large amounts of NXT on their forging node.  Most newbies would leave in disappointment at this point.  The few that were left would buy bigger stakes of NXT for their forging board and eventually forge a few blocks.  Hey, they would say, these forging fees are ridiculously low!!!  I'm not making enough to pay for this RPi board, and CERTAINLY not enough to keep running a cloud server with its bandwidth costs.  I'm outta here.

This is the key problem with a "fixed coin supply / forging fee" system - the forging fees don't pay enough for running a network node.  NXT still doesn't acknowledge the seriousness of this problem even though they set up an "infrastructure committee" specifically to look at issues like that.  PoT is an attempt by XCR to deal with the whale domination problem of a PoS system like NXT.  It is a good and noble attempt that may very well solve the PoS whale / hoarding problem.  However, PoT DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF REWARDING A FORGER IN A SUFFICENT, SUSTAINABLE AND SCALABLE MANNER - IT IS ONLY A "NON-SIMPLE" METHOD TO SELECT WHO FORGES A BLOCK NEXT.  Why wait for disillusioned forgers to solve it for you later by "weeding themselves out naturally"?  Why not try to solve that problem YOURSELVES, NOW by going to a vendor oriented network from the start?

Second factor, forgers would be only a tiny part of a mature Crypti ecosystem.  Most people who would use a "simple, fast and scalable coin for commerce" are USERS interested in buying a candybar or a song or an EBay win and not running a node.  They will not care about PoT, or forging, or accumulating coins from running Crypti software.  The only software they are interested in running is a smartphone app that allows them to access coins in a Crypti wallet, and that's an app that doesn't require them to type in a 35 character Ed25519 password every time, either.  Instead of trying to work on PoT now and spare the feelings of a few hundred initial investors / forgers now (who will "weed themselves out naturally" later anyway), maybe try to focus on a user app that will thrill hundreds of thousands of new users a year from now?

So, forgers are not going to find a happy place in a fully mature Crypti ecosystem where users dominate.  Most of those future end users haven't even heard of Crypti yet and in years to come will not care at all about the heroic history of how you finally managed to successfully implement PoT...or not.  So if the whole point of perfecting PoT up front is to draw in forgers initially as pioneer node runners for the embryonic Crypti network only to cast them aside later when the mature network has nodes only run by vendors, then isn't a viable Plan B no-PoT path one that gets those vendors to set the initial nodes up in the first place?  As I've said, a node that lets them process Bitcoin now as a hook and Crypti later as another feature?

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[imd1]

So, forgers are not going to find a happy place in a fully mature Crypti ecosystem where users dominate.  Most of those future end users haven't even heard of Crypti yet and in years to come will not care at all about the heroic history of how you finally managed to successfully implement PoT...or not.  So if the whole point of perfecting PoT up front is to draw in forgers initially as pioneer node runners for the embryonic Crypti network only to cast them aside later when the mature network has nodes only run by vendors, then isn't a viable Plan B no-PoT path one that gets those vendors to set the initial nodes up in the first place?  As I've said, a node that lets them process Bitcoin now as a hook and Crypti later as another feature?

what Mal is suggesting makes sense, looking forward to GreXX's view on this..

[karmacoma24]

CryptiKit Update - Simple & easy Crypti node deployment and management.

Hello Everyone , New release tag for CryptiKit.

Please download here: https://github.com/karmacoma/cryptikit/releases/tag/v1.6.3

If you don't know about CryptiKit and what it can do already, please read here:
- https://github.com/karmacoma/cryptikit/blob/v1.6.3/README.md


Changelog

• Reporting when nodes are being synchronised
• Optionally adding passphrase to remote server when starting to forge
• Stating more clearly when forging has been successfully enabled or disabled

For more information see:
https://github.com/karmacoma/cryptikit/blob/v1.6.3/README.md#typical-usage


Cheers, Karmacoma24.

[starik69]

The internal master nodes would keep a ledger of who is authorized and added to the network as well as what subnet they exist and are allowed to communicate with.

OMG!  Nice decentralization concept

[thelittlemanbtc]

lol i tryed getting someone here to buy at 750 instead someone dumped on me  
from 2600 to 600..... hahha just me n my trading skills first coin i say i would hold  
can only laugh at myself but if someone can put up a 1.5 btc wall at 750 since i have some urgent things i have too pay will appreciate it...


best of luck to rest of you guys.. i think i tcan probably go to 300 before something happends  

[jari76]

lol i tryed getting someone here to buy at 750 instead someone dumped on me 
from 2600 to 600..... hahha just me n my trading skills first coin i say i would hold 
can only laugh at myself but if someone can put up a 1.5 btc wall at 750 since i have some urgent things i have too pay will appreciate it...


best of luck to rest of you guys.. i think i tcan probably go to 300 before something happends 

i'm very sorry,but that's not how a market works buying from you at 750 would mean a 20% loss against buying at the current highest buy order right now.

[GreXX]

The internal master nodes would keep a ledger of who is authorized and added to the network as well as what subnet they exist and are allowed to communicate with.

OMG!  Nice decentralization concept

Who said it was a decentralization concept?

[5000Bitcoins]

So, forgers are not going to find a happy place in a fully mature Crypti ecosystem where users dominate.  Most of those future end users haven't even heard of Crypti yet and in years to come will not care at all about the heroic history of how you finally managed to successfully implement PoT...or not.  So if the whole point of perfecting PoT up front is to draw in forgers initially as pioneer node runners for the embryonic Crypti network only to cast them aside later when the mature network has nodes only run by vendors, then isn't a viable Plan B no-PoT path one that gets those vendors to set the initial nodes up in the first place?  As I've said, a node that lets them process Bitcoin now as a hook and Crypti later as another feature?

what Mal is suggesting makes sense, looking forward to GreXX's view on this..

Hmm I agree too.

I don't really know in depth tech, I just know I don't care for PoT nearly as much as Custom chains or partnerships.

I know Crypti team maybe spent hours on working a solution to PoT, maybe they missed that the best would be no PoT.
Tough pill to swallow if so would be the case but I agree with Mal.. it makes sense from what I could understand.

That being said what Bitseed was working on is already in motion, but perhaps it could work as to forge other coins (?) and buy XCR similar to a multipool?
So that those who want to forge XCR has other ways, I am not sure if this is possible at all maybe someone else can shed some light on that haha.
Would be cool with 0% fees given that we're going for commerce powerhouse here, also it would be a insanely good pitch to merchants.
Could really open up to huge potential deals outside of crypto.

I look forward too what Grexx has to say on this, truth be told I did not really know what he was doing at start, but clearly knows his shit.
Maybe set up a teampage on the next webpage with everyones positions

[GreXX]

So, forgers are not going to find a happy place in a fully mature Crypti ecosystem where users dominate.  Most of those future end users haven't even heard of Crypti yet and in years to come will not care at all about the heroic history of how you finally managed to successfully implement PoT...or not.  So if the whole point of perfecting PoT up front is to draw in forgers initially as pioneer node runners for the embryonic Crypti network only to cast them aside later when the mature network has nodes only run by vendors, then isn't a viable Plan B no-PoT path one that gets those vendors to set the initial nodes up in the first place?  As I've said, a node that lets them process Bitcoin now as a hook and Crypti later as another feature?

So there are two possible ways to build this out and make it work. In one, we have the merchants running point-of-sale terminals acting as nodes to extend the network through pre-defined hardware that we either donate or subsidize for the merchant. This allows us to control what hardware is running the network, get merchants on board by demoing the hardware and setting it up for them, and makes the network scalable in an easy and straightforward way.

There is a secondary way to do it in which individual users continue to be the sole forgers on the network. In this method, we would build a payment processing system like BitPay that we would make available as a point-of-sale application for android and iPad that could be run from cheap android tablets and allow merchants to accept XCR without actually running any hardware on the network. This version requires PoT motivation for individual users to run nodes, is much more difficult to manage and scale, and has a different set of complications. It would however, build a core community of those users running nodes. This was the original system we had decided to build. Our troubles and hurdles in building it are already very public and I think you understand exactly what happened.

In the second method, if you don't require forgers to compete with established merchant nodes, you don't end up cannibalizing your user run nodes. That doesn't really matter in the long run because you will always still hit a saturation point at which new nodes become unprofitable. Depending on network volume, price valuation, and number of nodes, you still end up with the same problem as you mentioned. In this sense, I think you are right, there is no way for you to allow new users to come on board and earn XCR in any worthwhile amount without self saturating in a "forging" type system.

I think our goal in the user run network wasn't to allow everyone to set one up, start forging, and get rich, but rather to ensure that there was enough motivation to build a core team of "networkers" who would be running the network and scaling it as the price and volume went up. I acknowledge that everyone won't be able to play this game, but the number could be high enough to meet the size of the enthusiast marketplace when we get the transaction volume and price up. I don't think we can properly predict or do analysis right now on exactly what those numbers will look like because we have no idea what the valuation could eventually be or how much interest there will be in running a node. If you have ideas on how to do a predictive model and come up with potential numbers I would be interested in seeing what the breaking points would be at certain volume / valuation levels (in regards to how many nodes the network could support profitably).

At the end of the day I agree with you that doing this project right may require thinking outside the box and bucking the trend. It may also require making the hard choice to go against what would probably be the communities wishes (i.e. that they still run the network) and just focusing on merchants and building a better payments system. We often say (or at least, I do) that our goal isn't to dethrone Bitcoin or NXT, but rather that our competition is Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, or Stripe. To compete against these guys we need low transaction fees, but we also need a simple, fast, and secure (plus stable) network. This needs to be our primary motivating factor.

I have to run for now but I would love to continue the discussion. I value this type of exchange.

[Wulfcastle]

So, forgers are not going to find a happy place in a fully mature Crypti ecosystem where users dominate.  Most of those future end users haven't even heard of Crypti yet and in years to come will not care at all about the heroic history of how you finally managed to successfully implement PoT...or not.  So if the whole point of perfecting PoT up front is to draw in forgers initially as pioneer node runners for the embryonic Crypti network only to cast them aside later when the mature network has nodes only run by vendors, then isn't a viable Plan B no-PoT path one that gets those vendors to set the initial nodes up in the first place?  As I've said, a node that lets them process Bitcoin now as a hook and Crypti later as another feature?

So there are two possible ways to build this out and make it work. In one, we have the merchants running point-of-sale terminals acting as nodes to extend the network through pre-defined hardware that we either donate or subsidize for the merchant. This allows us to control what hardware is running the network, get merchants on board by demoing the hardware and setting it up for them, and makes the network scalable in an easy and straightforward way.

The problem with this, is that no one will buy point-of-sale terminals. There is not a single merchant that currently uses Crypti, the number of nodes will be so low anyone with enough funds at their disposal could buy a few nodes and fork the network. By doing this you will be placing a major bet on merchants to come through and run their nodes, but I guarantee you if you go down this road there will be no coming back. At this stage there is frankly no merchant who will choose to run a Crypti node, when they don't even accept Crypti in the first place.

Secondly this essentially is locking down the network to merchants only as since they would be the only nodes on the network, they would be the ones controlling the network. In a way it is kind of centralizing the network to merchants only (even though nodes are split up amongst merchants). Imagine if Bitcoin nodes could only be run by exchanges, how different Bitcoin would be. One of the fundamentals of Bitcoin is that anyone can download Bitcoin core and immediately become a full part of the network. With the hardware based merchant model you are using, the wallet we would be accessing would only be the front-end of the network. The whole model seems a lot like a server-client model, essentially merchants with nodes would be the "back-end" of the network and our wallets would be the front-end. In my opinion, that seems like taking a step (if not a few) backwards from Bitcoin.

Thirdly, hardware itself is not fully reliable. Depending on what you are putting together to a form a point-of-sale terminal, you could run into a whole load of hardware issues, software issues, defective hardware etc. You would need dedicated customer support for the merchants who can't set up their nodes (and trust me there will be those merchants), for returns, and for general help. The amount of funds and manpower needed to setup such an operation would be very high. You would be looking somewhere around $50 000 just to start up (without extra costs), that's already 1/7th of your IPO funds gone. Again going back to my second point, you've now established Crypti as a business and not a decentralized crypto-currency.

You've centralized Crypti by :

  1. Providing only 1 way for merchants to run nodes (Through pre-defined hardware bought from the Crypti Team).
  2. Only allowing merchants to run nodes.

Crypti would no longer be an open platform, but rather a locked down platform. Now going back to my first point, take a look at Bitcoin core (downloadable software based wallet) and Trezor (a purchasable hardware-based wallet). Bitcoin core has had probably 5-6 Million downloads, whereas Trezor has had probably 2000 purchases. I realize that it may not be the best comparison, but the fundamentals still remain the same.

With Bitcoin core (a node on the Bitcoin network), I can download and set it up within 5 minutes (granted the blockchain will take about a day to download), whereas with Trezor I would likely have to wait 2-3 weeks for shipping, then if it is DOA, or is defective, that's another 2-3 weeks to ship it back, plus another months delay to receive a new one. When you make Crypti nodes as point-of-sale terminals you are going down the "Trezor" road I described above, and when there are problems, and there will be, you will be losing potential nodes faster than Auroracoins' mega price dropped. Becuase who is going to wait a possible 2 months just to run a Crypti node?

Instead of going the hardware route with point-of-sale terminals limited to merchants only, rather just leave the nodes as they currently are, downloadable and software-based which anyone can setup and use. Going the hardware route will be the death of Crypti.

[karmacoma24]

So there are two possible ways to build this out and make it work. In one, we have the merchants running point-of-sale terminals acting as nodes to extend the network through pre-defined hardware that we either donate or subsidize for the merchant. This allows us to control what hardware is running the network, get merchants on board by demoing the hardware and setting it up for them, and makes the network scalable in an easy and straightforward way.

There is a secondary way to do it in which individual users continue to be the sole forgers on the network. In this method, we would build a payment processing system like BitPay that we would make available as a point-of-sale application for android and iPad that could be run from cheap android tablets and allow merchants to accept XCR without actually running any hardware on the network. This version requires PoT motivation for individual users to run nodes, is much more difficult to manage and scale, and has a different set of complications. It would however, build a core community of those users running nodes. This was the original system we had decided to build. Our troubles and hurdles in building it are already very public and I think you understand exactly what happened.

In the second method, if you don't require forgers to compete with established merchant nodes, you don't end up cannibalizing your user run nodes. That doesn't really matter in the long run because you will always still hit a saturation point at which new nodes become unprofitable. Depending on network volume, price valuation, and number of nodes, you still end up with the same problem as you mentioned. In this sense, I think you are right, there is no way for you to allow new users to come on board and earn XCR in any worthwhile amount without self saturating in a "forging" type system.

I think our goal in the user run network wasn't to allow everyone to set one up, start forging, and get rich, but rather to ensure that there was enough motivation to build a core team of "networkers" who would be running the network and scaling it as the price and volume went up. I acknowledge that everyone won't be able to play this game, but the number could be high enough to meet the size of the enthusiast marketplace when we get the transaction volume and price up. I don't think we can properly predict or do analysis right now on exactly what those numbers will look like because we have no idea what the valuation could eventually be or how much interest there will be in running a node. If you have ideas on how to do a predictive model and come up with potential numbers I would be interested in seeing what the breaking points would be at certain volume / valuation levels (in regards to how many nodes the network could support profitably).

At the end of the day I agree with you that doing this project right may require thinking outside the box and bucking the trend. It may also require making the hard choice to go against what would probably be the communities wishes (i.e. that they still run the network) and just focusing on merchants and building a better payments system. We often say (or at least, I do) that our goal isn't to dethrone Bitcoin or NXT, but rather that our competition is Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, or Stripe. To compete against these guys we need low transaction fees, but we also need a simple, fast, and secure (plus stable) network. This needs to be our primary motivating factor.

I have to run for now but I would love to continue the discussion. I value this type of exchange.

Hello GreXX,

As a committed member of the community I have been paying very close attention to the recent thread of conversation.

Since Crypti was officially launched I have fully embraced the Crypti's egalitarian concept of forging. Developing CryptiKit (https://github.com/karmacoma/cryptikit), was my way of helping my fellow crypti forgers to grow and support the network more efficiently.

So let me be clear, I am firmly against dropping PoT if at all possible. I say this as a potential merchant that would likely provide significant sales volume within the United Kingdom.

I want Crypti to be an inclusive community not an exclusive one!

I fully understand the crypto world is a high risk and unforgiving environment. I used to be a semi-professional cyclist so know how to deal with the pain of loosing and walking away with nothing. All I ask is that before you decide to make CryptiKit effectively defunct, please give me a heads up so I can stop grafting away for nothing.

Cheers, Karmacoma24.

[GreXX]

@Wulf @Karma @all

Please keep in mind that these discussions (as in my initial response to Wulf about this a while back) are in response to questions on a Plan B, C, or DEF for Crypti IF for some reason we are unable to get a working PoT system functioning in the way we already intended. We have not at any point slowed down or abandoned working towards the solution we originally proposed and as mentioned, are working with an outside consultant on some possible options as we speak.

What Mal is suggesting is that we make those secondary efforts our Plan A. I want to be completely 100% CLEAR here and state that The Crypti Foundation at has not, at any point, voted to make this change or progress with one of the possible secondary efforts to build a different form of Crypti. We ARE building background contingencies, but it is our full intention to continue developing the same solution we proposed from day 1. The conversation we are having here is about possible contingencies only at this point and is just an interesting conversation about possible innovations in the industry and ways to build out a network for a second generation currency.

I hope that clears up some possible confusion and relieves some of the worry that we will simply abandon forgers. Our goal right now is to find a solution to build the system that we said we would, build it, and then bring it to market.

Please Keep in mind that anything I say in regards to my thoughts or views on proposed solutions or systems here is only my view and comments and that the Crypti Foundation requires a majority vote of the Board members in order to make any changes, small or large, to the fundamental system. So even if I like the ideas here from time to time, or talk positively about them, it does not mean anything has changed.

We would have serious discussions here, initiated by us and probably with polls, before making any fundamental changes.

[Sparky_eMunie]

It is a good and noble attempt that may very well solve the PoS whale / hoarding problem.  However, PoT DOES NOT SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF REWARDING A FORGER IN A SUFFICENT, SUSTAINABLE AND SCALABLE MANNER - IT IS ONLY A "NON-SIMPLE" METHOD TO SELECT WHO FORGES A BLOCK NEXT.  Why wait for disillusioned forgers to solve it for you later by "weeding themselves out naturally"?  Why not try to solve that problem YOURSELVES, NOW by going to a vendor oriented network from the start?

Preach on brother! You are 100% right.

@Grexx

You should update the blog, even if there is only minor news.

[Litoshi]

Preach on brother! You are 100% right.

@Grexx

You should update the blog, even if there is only minor news.


GreXX is on a one week leave from his military job to visit his extended family in America's Favorite Vacation Destination...... North Dakota.

We should all be thankful that he has taken time from his family activities to respond to your questions, concerns, and worries.  

But, give the guy a little space.  You can jump in his stuff next week.... OKAY?

[MalReynolds]

We have not at any point slowed down or abandoned working towards the solution we originally proposed and as mentioned, are working with an outside consultant on some possible options as we speak....

I want to be completely 100% CLEAR here and state that The Crypti Foundation at has not, at any point, voted to make this change or progress with one of the possible secondary efforts to build a different form of Crypti. We ARE building background contingencies, but it is our full intention to continue developing the same solution we proposed from day 1. The conversation we are having here is about possible contingencies only at this point and is just an interesting conversation about possible innovations in the industry and ways to build out a network for a second generation currency.

I hope that clears up some possible confusion and relieves some of the worry that we will simply abandon forgers. Our goal right now is to find a solution to build the system that we said we would, build it, and then bring it to market.

Please Keep in mind that anything I say in regards to my thoughts or views on proposed solutions or systems here is only my view and comments and that the Crypti Foundation requires a majority vote of the Board members in order to make any changes, small or large, to the fundamental system. So even if I like the ideas here from time to time, or talk positively about them, it does not mean anything has changed.

We would have serious discussions here, initiated by us and probably with polls, before making any fundamental changes.

So while Crypti leadership continues with the PoT Plan A (as they should), let me discuss another critically important aspect of my blue-sky proposed Crypti Plan B.

The Plan B "no-PoT, vendor-oriented, random-selection, no-forging, zero-transaction-fee" system would make Crypti the ONLY legal cryptocoin in the United States and many other countries.

This would force ALL current Bitcoin vendors to buy into a Crypti system ASAP to cover their asses and have a viable fallback cryptocurrency if and when Bitcoin (and its clones) crashes upon being declared illegal.

Before you call me crazy, hear me out.   My logic is this.  

Bitcoin has been declared legal by the US FEDERAL government agencies of the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service.  

DOJ has said BTC (and by extension all cryptocurrencies) are a "legitimate financial instrument":  http://www.dailydot.com/news/bitcoin-department-of-justice-securities-exchange-commission/

IRS has said BTC (and by extension all cryptocurrencies) are "legal taxable property": http://www.irs.gov/uac/Newsroom/IRS-Virtual-Currency-Guidance

So far, so good.  But gaming / gambling law in the United States is handled by the STATES, not the FEDS, and the State Attorney Generals (AGs) have yet to rule on the legality of cryptocurrency mining / forging as a form of illegal gambling.  Which it is, once you truly understand how BTC mining (and even PoS forging) works.  The AGs don't understand this because nobody has made it clear yet to the State AGs how Bitcoin (and clones, and even NXT) is running an illegal lottery.

By US Federal and State law, only US States can legally run lotteries.  An illegal lottery is defined as any non-State activity that exhibits ALL THREE elements  of prize, chance and consideration.  Google "lottery prize chance consideration" and you will come up with links like these :

http://www.marketingresources.com/pages/sweepstakes-101/38.php
http://www.dca.ca.gov/publications/legal_guides/u-2.shtml
http://www.frostbrowntodd.com/resources-1069.html
http://www.blankrome.com/index.cfm?contentID=37&itemID=2300

So let's talk about prize, chance and consideration in the context of PoW / PoS mining / forging.

Prize: In general, anything of value  provided to a "winner" of a lottery activity.  For Bitcoin, this is currently 25 bitcoins currently worth between $7.5K-$10K awarded every ten minutes.  Other PoW coins make similar awards differing only in their amount and timing, as determined by the rules of that coin.  For "fixed supply" coins like NXT, the "prize" is the forging fees awarded every blocktime.  If XCR implements PoT, it will have a forging fee prize.

Chance: In general, any factor that makes the selection of the prize winner to have an element of randomness (as opposed to, say, skill - being judged by a fair panel of experts to have the best essay, for example).  For Bitcoin and other PoW coins, this chance factor is determined by the nonce, difficulty factor and target.  

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Nonce
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Difficulty
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Target

For PoW Bitcoin, miners around the world compete against each other in an (illegal) lottery every ten minutes to win a prize of 25 bitcoins.  They are running mining rigs to create cryptographically encoded blocks recording for posterity all Bitcoin transactions occurring in the previous ten minutes.  Literally tens of thousands of mining rigs create literally thousands of millions of billions of trial blocks in the ten minute blocktime period.  Each of these trial blocks are different from one another because they all use a different nonce that is randomly selected by the mining rig as part of the calculation process for each trial block.  ANY ONE of these trial blocks could THEORETICALLY be added to the blockchain as the valid next block.    IN PRACTICE, trillions of these trial blocks are rejected until one is created by accident and by chance that has a required number of initial leading zeros specified by the current Bitcoin "difficulty factor".   This determines the "winning miner" who actually DOES get to add his block to the blockchain- and he is determined BY CHANCE.

Bitcoin is no different that a bunch of guys throwing dice in a back alley, only the "dice" are mining rigs and the "back alley" is the Internet.  Warehouses of ASIC mining rigs like this one is no different than an unlicensed basement casino : http://www.coindesk.com/inside-north-americas-8m-bitcoin-mining-operation/

PoS NXT uses something called "transparent forging" (too complicated to get into here) in selecting the forger who will add the next block to the block chain, and TF has a chance element, too.

If XCR implements PoT, it will choose between nodes that have been operational for identical lengths of time by using some kind of chance function.

Consideration: In general, anything that requires a participant to expend a monetary amount or significant effort to participate, and in particular something that benefits the operator of the lottery activity.  For any cryptocoin, this would be operation of computers by miners/forgers/vendors/users to calculate blocks during a blocktime, and in particular the addition by a "lottery winner" of a valid block to a blockchain.

Let me cut to the chase.  

If Crypti is successful in perfecting a Plan A - "PoT" system and awards forging fees to forgers in return for those forgers adding valid blocks to its blockchains, then (just like Bitcoin, NXT, and every single other PoW crapcoin out there)  CRYPTI WILL BE RUNNING AN ILLEGAL LOTTERY.  

If Crypti chooses to implement a Plan B - "no-PoT, vendor-oriented, random-selection, no-forging, zero-transaction-fee" system, then CRYPTI WILL NOT BE A LOTTERY AT ALL BECAUSE THERE IS NO PRIZE.  


The competitive advantages between these two situations is HUGE.  Plan A makes Crypti just like everybody else with little or no competitive advantage at all.  Plan B makes Crypti legal when everybody else including Bitcoin is illegal - and that is the ULTIMATE competitive advantage.

If we get Crypti lined up and ready to go as a no-forging / no-transaction fee service, then on one single day of our choosing we can throw down the gauntlet by emailing every US State AG (here they are: http://www.naag.org/current-attorneys-general.php ) demanding they enforce their State lottery laws against Bitcoin and shut down all Bitcoin miners in their State.  On that same day we email every Bitcoin journalist and vendor we can find saying that the king is dead, long live the king - Bitcoin just had a heart attack and Crypti is ready to take its place starting today.  Once we start this ball rolling, a decree from any one of 50+ State AGs could come at any time.  The FUD (fear uncertainty and doubt) factor alone would force everybody to grab a stake in Crypri ASAP just as insurance in case Bitcoin really DOES stumble and crash via a subsequent surprise press release from an AG declaring Bitcoin an illegal lottery.

I call this the nuclear option.  We nuke Bitcoin by going to war with it on day one, and we have the key advantage of being in the right while they are in the wrong. I agitated behind the scenes at NXT about setting their forging  fees to zero and using this approach to nuke and sink Bitcoin, allowing NXT to slipstream into the lead.  The NXT powers-that-be didn't even want to discuss this approach because they didn't want to rock the boat, much less start a war.

Round two.  Now I am at Crypti.  I say let's go big or go home....with Plan B.

[SomethingElse]

1. Without forging fees, how will you combat spam?  I have only talked to one developer that has said he can do this and his coin hasn't been released so there you go. 

2. The approach of putting it all on vendors and their hardware is in theory a sustainable model, and one I think is a good idea, just not from Crypti.  The problem is the bootstrap.  It would literally take a company like Apple or Google to release their iBits or Gbits to get mass amounts of retailers to update their hardware. 

Crypti doesn't have the money, power, or pull of Google or Apple, so trying to get vendors to install new hardware is a dream.  Your best bet would be to find some pre-existing hardware that would be compatible with Crypti and try to get a firmware update.  It couldn't be a hack because nobody is going to trust a third party changing the code in their POS terminal.  That is unwise.  Sooooo, that means talking directly to the manufacturer and good luck with that.  I'm not sure if you could even get somebody high up to even answer the phone. 

3. As Starik pointed out, then this system isn't decentralized which of course is not necessary, but it is, because it is an established cannon rule that whatever crypto win the alt wars be, it must be decentralized and open sourced.

4. There is some great theoretically ideas being tossed around here about how to solve many of the PoW problems that Bitcoin has plagued us with, but the answer just hasn't come yet. 

[Bitseed]

PoT + PoP is not a lottery since it is determined by the total amount of time a node has been running since its last forge or initial start plus the total amount of spends it has made. Chance may enter into it in the occasional event of a tie, and the runners up in that tie are still at or near the top of the queue to generate a block soon after the tie.

[imd1]

Some very interesting discussions going on here, good to see active and intellectual community involvement.

We've not heard about the new logo design from some time now - is it still being discussed or has been sidelined as we are finding a way for PoT implementation ?

Also would like to know about new web design. Not expecting quick updates on this as I understand GreXX is on leave for a week but wanted to
put this query out there.

[MalReynolds]

Stating presumptions as fact does NOT make them actual facts...  just saying...  

I welcome all challenging commentary by others that would show any of my presumptions to be incorrect.

[blue_wave]

Mal, these are some serious statements about attacking Bitcoin. I dont like that at all. I mean hurting Bitcoin means hurting everyone in Crypto and this is not a solution or proper way to start new currency or any project for that matter. If Crypti should overcome Bitcoin thats great, but intentionally trying to destroy Bitcoin – i wont be participating in that, thats for sure!

Anyway, I have to agree that making 0 transaction fee coin would be best. But making it more centralized in which only merchants supporting network isnt what will make Crypti spread around.
As SomethingElse said - how will you get vendors buy coinbox and start accepting Crypti? This can take years. 0 trans fees are great incentive for merchant but what is the incentive for buyer? A lot of people got into
Bitcoin because of mining – and thats a great way for adoption to spread. Crypti should do the same IMO. This system provably works esspecially if »ordinary« people could forge as it is with Crypti.

Maybe 0 fees would be long term solution but current focus should be to get as many people as possible on board.