Bitmark

[Este Nuno]

A 'one click' download, easy to use brain wallet ..
( Use the NXT wallet as your template )
Which still needs a security step from within the wallet to authorize a withdrawal of coins ..

Mass adoption = simple functional idiot proof wallet

Triff ..

I agree that something like this is important for user adoption. I have recently taken a look at the NXT wallet and the feature that jumped out at me the most is the deterministic seed you use which is similar to Electrum.

Personally I think that having an option to have a wallet which can be backed up simply by writing down a seed as opposed to having to physically backup encrypted wallet.dat files is a very nice feature. Perhaps in the future someone from the community can look into forking Electrum or even the NXT wallet(although the NXT wallet is still very rough around the edges I think). Electrum for Bitmark would be nice and probably is a realistic option down the road.

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[DarkhorseofNxt]

A 'one click' download, easy to use brain wallet ..
( Use the NXT wallet as your template )
Which still needs a security step from within the wallet to authorize a withdrawal of coins ..

Mass adoption = simple functional idiot proof wallet

Triff ..

I agree that something like this is important for user adoption. I have recently taken a look at the NXT wallet and the feature that jumped out at me the most is the deterministic seed you use which is similar to Electrum.

Personally I think that having an option to have a wallet which can be backed up simply by writing down a seed as opposed to having to physically backup encrypted wallet.dat files is a very nice feature. Perhaps in the future someone from the community can look into forking Electrum or even the NXT wallet(although the NXT wallet is still very rough around the edges I think). Electrum for Bitmark would be nice and probably is a realistic option down the road.

Wait for Nxt wallet 2.0

[coinsolidation]

Electrum for Bitmark would be nice and probably is a realistic option down the road.

That is one of my main priorities, also potentially bitmarkj so that Hive and Multibit are possible. Electrum is first choice however.

Part of the development of the new (additional) API, a primary area of functionality and innovation if you will, is to create an html based wallet, with the notion being that it should be hosted on a website, or locally, and the ability to specify any bitmark node as a data provider. This should provide both an accessible alternative interface, and a base for others to further improve what the end user sees.

[vlight]

• IPO: no, it conflicts with the natural growth principal of Bitmark and will create an expectation or rush to acquire unnatural value.

BitShares AGS has the best distribution model, imho.

[coinsolidation]

Initial Difficulty

based on a network hashrate of: 50MH/s diff 1.4, 100mh/s: diff 2.8
working: (1.4*2^32/120 = 50,107,951) and (2.8*2^32/120 = 100,215,903)
reasoning: the first 720 blocks should require a reasonable amount of expenditure to generate before the diff changes.

From much earlier in the project, but we need to define this now.

What should we use as a starting difficulty for the first day of mining?

Suggestions can take the form of hashrate or difficulty.

A small update, a dedicated server has now been acquired for the project.

[coinsolidation]

From PM.

Out of curiosity, would it ever be possible to convert Bitmark to Proof of Stake in the future? Just theoretically of course. And assuming there was a PoS method that was 100% tested and satisfied all the current objections ect. I don't think PoS is ready yet, but it seems that at some point in the future it might be able to take PoW's place as the most secure method.

Yes, technically there is no reason why this couldn't happen. Part of the rationale of a shorter block reward schedule is to allow for this in the future, say in 10-15 years.

I have one social issue regarding switching to PoS, and that is that I feel a premature switch to PoS creates a wealthy elite of first adopters, as has happened recently many times with the craze to switch to PoS, but this will be less of an issue as the block reward schedule progresses, reducing to a non issue by the time it's zero.

It is still early days for everything crypto currency related, we'll see which features mature and prove to be valuable. The good thing about Alternative Currencies is that you have multiple different approaches to each problem, there will often be a winner, and where there is no clear winner standardising could step in to create a balance.

[deepcoreotc]

Thank you for your suggestions.

Funded development: One principal of the bitmark project is that any value associated with BTM should have been earned rather than predetermined or artificially inflated. It stands to reason that if development is good and the project is focused, then the BTM acquired by myself privately, and the BTM in the development fund, will have enough value to hire or buy whatever is needed as the project progresses. I really appreciate that this is of concern to many of you, it shows that you too want a stable long term coin.

Innovations: The other principal of the bitmark project is to use what is proven, mature it, and be relatively stable. Coin based innovation is for other projects, we have a proven groundwork ready, and we will work hard to extend this with a new API and focus on ease of adoption.

I really respect and love innovation, following it closely including green mining, but it is not for this project, as innovations are proven in alternative currencies, and if they offer beneficial utility to users, then they will be adopted in the future.

As an example, I am commenting in another thread for another coin which launched on BTER today, with more than 80 BTC invested so far, and 5000 expected! In the thread we are discussing rudimentary simple design decisions and things which have been done incorrectly, really basic stuff like having https on a web wallet,  how to store a long passphrase without cookies, and how to use public key cryptography (on which crypto coins are built!). Bitmark is not that kind of project.

We will earn value through hard work, technical maturity, utility, and by focusing on users and adoption.

We just need a little bit of help to get running, a minuscule amount in comparison to common IPOs.

Hopefully this is in no way dismissive, as I hope to foster discussion rather than discourage it. Each decision should be questioned, as no person is infallible.

+1*10^100   Awesome!!!

[cryptozim]

Initial Difficulty

based on a network hashrate of: 50MH/s diff 1.4, 100mh/s: diff 2.8
working: (1.4*2^32/120 = 50,107,951) and (2.8*2^32/120 = 100,215,903)
reasoning: the first 720 blocks should require a reasonable amount of expenditure to generate before the diff changes.

From much earlier in the project, but we need to define this now.

What should we use as a starting difficulty for the first day of mining?

Suggestions can take the form of hashrate or difficulty.

A small update, a dedicated server has now been acquired for the project.

Why not use a multiminer defense like DigiShield? This would protect both the initial mining, and keep the coin resistant to fluctuation in the future.

There is also a coin out there somewhere (I can't remember where right now, but I think it might be CoinShield) that limits rewards to miners that are just joining. Their rewards increase to the max the longer they mine. Sort of like a PPLNS style reward system.

[macbackfat]

1. Unless there is easy access to scrypt ASICs for everyone to rent I worry that one or two individuals who are in possession of those devices before the mass propagation of ASICs to the general public could dominate the hashing. They could use that hashing power for malicious purposes but I think it's more likely that they would just monopolize the mining and probably hoard the coins while waiting for the project to progress.

Or the opposite might happen.  So Bitmark gains a little traction and a massive sell whale floats on by and crushes the price of the coin.  How do you mitigate this?

One thing I have though about is that, at its core, this is a monetary vehicle and a digital one at that.  Why can't we toss around the idea of forming a foundation?  Dogecoin has a foundation but their philosophy is more altruistic than anything.  The idea is to form a "Bitmark Foundation" purely from the standpoint of protecting an asset.  How do we do that?  We do it in the same way companies do when they believe in the strength of their business, with a stock purchase, or in our case a Bitmark purchase.

When whales begin to dump, let's put our money where our mouths are, have the BMF initiate a purchase of the currency and hold it in a public address.  How do we fund this?  Through the community, of course!  The BMF would be formed of community members that pool their moneys and are entitled to a percentage of the publicly available funds.  This is just me talking from the lack of sleep but it makes sense to me.  I haven't seen any other coin do this but please correct me if I'm wrong.  Thoughts?

[coinsolidation]

Bitmark Foundation, certainly, it's how development on Bitmark will be funded in the future.

As for people hoarding and dumping, I accept this as natural, early adopters in successful technologies typically cash out some of their holdings, which in turn distributes the currency and creates one less whale. I view this as healthy, and would not want to have the market manipulated or "propped up" in any way.

Your point remains valid, and it is worth further thought and discussion.

Funding Update
We have now achieved the amount needed to launch the project, 0.6 BTC!

Thank you to all who donated, and to ethought and deepcoreotc the latest donors.

Any further donations will be used in line with this proposal: PROPOSAL: An alternative to IPO for PoW coins.
tl;dr: used to lease mining rigs, 5% of the generated bitmarks would go to a foundation, 95% distributed to donors.

[Este Nuno]

1. Unless there is easy access to scrypt ASICs for everyone to rent I worry that one or two individuals who are in possession of those devices before the mass propagation of ASICs to the general public could dominate the hashing. They could use that hashing power for malicious purposes but I think it's more likely that they would just monopolize the mining and probably hoard the coins while waiting for the project to progress.

Or the opposite might happen.  So Bitmark gains a little traction and a massive sell whale floats on by and crushes the price of the coin.  How do you mitigate this?

One thing I have though about is that, at its core, this is a monetary vehicle and a digital one at that.  Why can't we toss around the idea of forming a foundation?  Dogecoin has a foundation but their philosophy is more altruistic than anything.  The idea is to form a "Bitmark Foundation" purely from the standpoint of protecting an asset.  How do we do that?  We do it in the same way companies do when they believe in the strength of their business, with a stock purchase, or in our case a Bitmark purchase.

When whales begin to dump, let's put our money where our mouths are, have the BMF initiate a purchase of the currency and hold it in a public address.  How do we fund this?  Through the community, of course!  The BMF would be formed of community members that pool their moneys and are entitled to a percentage of the publicly available funds.  This is just me talking from the lack of sleep but it makes sense to me.  I haven't seen any other coin do this but please correct me if I'm wrong.  Thoughts?

I think for the most part that's going to be unavoidable. I think the intention is just to focus on the long term development of the infrastructure and community and ignore the short term price fluctuations that come with the territory.

A foundation might be a good idea at some point since development will need to be funded by donations in the long run it seems. I'm not sure if keeping money set aside to buy on large price dips is the best solution in the long run as if the price goes up as it is intended to all the money that's reserved gets left behind so to speak.

I think just letting supply and demand take it's course is the only realistic thing to do. But I've never seen your idea in action before so I'm just speculating here and I'm not sure what is actually the best thing for the coin. But I am a bit weary of trying to create somewhat artificial demand. Although if that money would be buying Bitmark anyway I guess it's not necessarily artificial demand.

[Androidicus]

consolidation and contributors;

I virtually stumbled on this thread, chose 'view all' and have just finished reading...

I am singularly impressed by your professionalism, holistic approach, philosophy, rationale, and pragmatic viewpoint - your outlook on Scrypt is alarmingly refreshing!

In short, I am very excited by Bitmark - I have mined many altcoins since Dec 13 in exactly the way you describe consolidation i.e. with nothing but perceived potential 'value' in the long term. I have missed out on several BTC worth of pump n dumps believing that one coin of true value would shine through...

++1 and will be following with great interest!

[deepcoreotc]

consolidation and contributors;

I virtually stumbled on this thread, chose 'view all' and have just finished reading...

I am singularly impressed by your professionalism, holistic approach, philosophy, rationale, and pragmatic viewpoint - your outlook on Scrypt is alarmingly refreshing!

In short, I am very excited by Bitmark - I have mined many altcoins since Dec 13 in exactly the way you describe consolidation i.e. with nothing but perceived potential 'value' in the long term. I have missed out on several BTC worth of pump n dumps believing that one coin of true value would shine through...

++1 and will be following with great interest!

Agreed, this is what has captured my interest as well. 

[coinsolidation]

I think the intention is just to focus on the long term development of the infrastructure and community and ignore the short term price fluctuations that come with the territory.

Exactly.

Androidicus and deepcoreotc, thank you for your kind words, they mean a lot to everyone involved I am sure.

I would also like to take the chance to thank you all, we have 10 pages of useful on topic discussion, many related other threads, a fully tested pre-release, and a funded project. That is a major achievement for everyone involved, in any setting, let alone the alt coin announcements section of bitcointalk.

We have the makings of a small Bitmark community, and I am already proud of it, of you.

Points to discuss

1. A starting difficulty?
There is a balance between being able to generate the genesis blocks within 24 hours on a standard computer so that we may launch on saturday, and not allowing the coin to be hashraped too badly on launch. I previously though 2.4 but we may never see a genesis block at that difficulty.
Perhaps we start with 1, which needs 35MH of hashing to hit the block targets.
The maximum difficulty jump is 4x per retarget, so the first retarget would max out at 4, or 170MH.
After that first retarget I am unconcerned.
Is difficulty 1 a fair start for a scrypt coin?

2. Domain name?
We can pick another later for branding purposes, but we do require an available name today.
The obvious bitmark.org is taken, perhaps projectbitmark is available, any suggestions?

3. What have I forgotten?

[schnötzel]

2. Domain Name:

projectbitmark 
why not bitmark.net,in,... (anybody versed here: https://www.namecheap.com/domains/registration/results.aspx?&domain=bitmark&tlds=com,net,org,us,biz,co,me,info,co.uk,tv,# ?)

3.Logo done?

[Androidicus]

2. Domain Name

bitmarkcoin.com .net .org all available

[coinsolidation]

projectbitmark 
why not bitmark.net,in,... (anybody versed here: https://www.namecheap.com/domains/registration/results.aspx?&domain=bitmark&tlds=com,net,org,us,biz,co,me,info,co.uk,tv,# ?)

3.Logo done?

2. Domain Name
bitmarkcoin.com .net .org all available

Are we okay with being a country specific top level domain? .in, .co
Others like org, net, and com are taken.
I really want to avoid the word coin, sorry. 
We can pick another for the website later, this is mainly for the first dns seeder.
Although it would be nice to find the right name first time.

The logo, or icon, is complete and available here https://github.com/project-bitmark/art-of-bitmark it is also in the client.
Logo with font "Bitmark" suffixed, buttons, and resources for use in media are not complete yet. This does not hold up development or going live.

[macbackfat]

Points to discuss

1. A starting difficulty?

2. Domain name?

3. What have I forgotten?

1.) I think your logic here is sound.  Nothing earth shattering, just a fair chance for all.  

2.) I was thinking of something with the .mk TLD but you have to be registered in Malaysia to get one... bummer.     Other than that, something like bitmark.cc (the CC being to crytpo currency... )

3.) How about talking to a list of pool owners that are reputable?  Let's not get any Tom/Dick/Jane kind of pool in here, let's get reputable ones.  You won't fend off the bit-players (pardon the pun) but at least having an "approved" list of pools will establish some sort of credibility / reputation.  The same should go for Exchanges.

[Androidicus]

bitmark.foundation

Is available!

Pool - Consider MineP.IT

I agree - quality pools...

[schnötzel]

or bitmark.bit (namecoin)