[MZC] MazaCoin *National Currency of the Traditional Lakota Nation* | NEW THREAD

[arturius]

My apologies if I've overlooked a relevant post, but are the Lakota mining this coin or just crypto-enthusiasts ?

[guruvan]

My apologies if I've overlooked a relevant post, but are the Lakota mining this coin or just crypto-enthusiasts ?

This isn't quite as simple an issue as one might think. There are 2 questions here. 1) Is the Oglala Lakota Nation mining mazacoin. No. 2) Are any of the Oglala themselves mining. Unfortunately, again, no. But let's take a look at the real reasons.

For any type of government to become directly involved in the daily creation and distribution of a currency, there are many issues that need to be addressed. Legislation needs to be drafted, laws need to be enacted, and regulations need to be put into place. As you can imagine, this is no small task. The Mazacoin Development Team is in the process of building a legal team that will assist in all these matters. As we progress, we will see what the direct involvement of the Oglala Lakota Nation is with mazacoin.

We have to ask....what should that direct involvement be? How much do you want to see the direct involvement of any government in bitcoin? We feel the matter must be approached carefully to avoid outcomes like the one we may see developing in The State of New York.

We think it's much better if a cryptocurrency that is truly intended to effect change is a decentralized service provided by the community, and not one that is under any sort of control by a government. We do intend to form a council in such a way that tribal governments, who will become stakeholders, have some voice in the mazacoin, but they cannot be the only voice, or we will perpetuate and move problems that exist today.

Now, that brings us to the more important question (IMO). Are there any Oglala mining themselves. As of right now, unfortunately that answer is no again. This is primarily a function of money. Mining is not a poor man's game. Most of the Oglala are poor, and it's not an option for them to run out, buy some bitcoin, risk it on pre-ordered asics, and maybe be able to mine mazacoin. Even if this were possible, mining mazacoin is an investment in the future.

But, this does bring us to one of the important design considerations in mazacoin. Maza is a sha256 coin, and as such, it's design it to help older mining gear find new, profitable homes as it becomes to small to mine bitcoin in a meaningful way. We're starting to see the first generation of sha256 asics become much less profitable now. My own team is likely to repurpose our own 55nm gear as home heating units. We believe there are ways that we can use this shift in the mining market to put more gear on the reservations. Of course, this will take time to secure gear, and put distribution in place. We want to ensure that this is not any kind of a handout, but provides real skill building opportunities. The mazacoin development team is committed to putting mazacoin into the hands and control of the people it serves.

We also need to consider, in the specific case of the Oglala Lakota, reservations are often large, remote, and under-served by public utilities. Telecommunications and power can be less than ideal in many homes and businesses, and this definitely increases the challenges we see in bringing mining, and cryptocurrency in general, to the average reservation. Again, the Mazacoin Development Team is committed to finding solutions that bring cryptocurrency within the reach of even the most remote villages. We believe this is necessary even the the proper adoption of bitcoin, worldwide, and we intend to be leaders in making crypto serve every tribe. This is what is needed to make real change happen in this world. While mazacoin was created with the Oglala Lakota as our first Tribal Partner, we do not intend to stop there. We intend to make mazacoin the currency that supports bootstrapping a new inter-tribal economy.

We are committed to doing everything necessary to make this happen.

[brian_nguyen]

Does anyone hold the actual wallet to the pre-mined coins? When will they be distributed to the Lakota Nation?

[guruvan]

Does anyone hold the actual wallet to the pre-mined coins? When will they be distributed to the Lakota Nation?

After Anonymous Pirate left the development team, some of the premined coins were moved. We have accounted for a majority of this amount, and hold the wallets with these coins. There seems to be some confusion who much was actually premined and exactly which addresses it went to. It appears that there are some premined coins that are not accounted for as yet. Since this process is not yet complete, we have not released a full statement yet. Currently Payu, owlhooter, and I are in control of a minimum of 30,000,000 of these premined coins, which definitely represents the majority of the original amount, whatever this amount actually was. It is unknown at this time if Anonymous Pirate retains any keys to amounts we do not have in control. It does not appear that any amount of the premine has made its way to and through an exchange, thus, it appears to be intact. 

We are in the process of establishing a legal Foundation and Trust from which to distribute these premined coins. At this time, given the current MZC/BTC market, and lack of convenient MZC/USD markets, we feel it would be inappropriate to distribute these coins in the immediate future. Given past history of settlements, lump sum gifts, and per capita payments in so many tribes, we would like to ensure that this distribution provides more than just a single month's expenses to recipients. We would like to see, instead, mazacoin distributions be used to build an economic base that provides real opportunities to prosper.

We also note that there have been some potentially conflicting statements made in the past regarding the nature of the distribution of the premine: how much to go to people, businesses, and whether it would all go just to the Oglala Lakota Nation. Because of the nature of people, politicians, and governments when faced with financial windfalls, we feel that it's in everyone's best interest to have a properly established Trust, and not begin any sort of distribution until that time. Again, we also feel that because the market price of MZC is currently so low, we should take the time necessary to put the Trust in place, and allow our legal team to assist us in the proper distribution of the coin.

Once we have accounted for all of the premined coins, we will move the entire amounts to multisig. addresses under control of the Trust that is to be created. Once this is complete, we can begin to consider the proper distribution of the coins in a way that will usher in a new era of prosperity through proof of work, and start to end the cycle of poverty through welfare.

[brian_nguyen]

Does anyone hold the actual wallet to the pre-mined coins? When will they be distributed to the Lakota Nation?

After Anonymous Pirate left the development team, some of the premined coins were moved. We have accounted for a majority of this amount, and hold the wallets with these coins. There seems to be some confusion who much was actually premined and exactly which addresses it went to. It appears that there are some premined coins that are not accounted for as yet. Since this process is not yet complete, we have not released a full statement yet. Currently Payu, owlhooter, and I are in control of a minimum of 30,000,000 of these premined coins, which definitely represents the majority of the original amount, whatever this amount actually was. It is unknown at this time if Anonymous Pirate retains any keys to amounts we do not have in control. It does not appear that any amount of the premine has made its way to and through an exchange, thus, it appears to be intact. 

We are in the process of establishing a legal Foundation and Trust from which to distribute these premined coins. At this time, given the current MZC/BTC market, and lack of convenient MZC/USD markets, we feel it would be inappropriate to distribute these coins in the immediate future. Given past history of settlements, lump sum gifts, and per capita payments in so many tribes, we would like to ensure that this distribution provides more than just a single month's expenses to recipients. We would like to see, instead, mazacoin distributions be used to build an economic base that provides real opportunities to prosper.

We also note that there have been some potentially conflicting statements made in the past regarding the nature of the distribution of the premine: how much to go to people, businesses, and whether it would all go just to the Oglala Lakota Nation. Because of the nature of people, politicians, and governments when faced with financial windfalls, we feel that it's in everyone's best interest to have a properly established Trust, and not begin any sort of distribution until that time. Again, we also feel that because the market price of MZC is currently so low, we should take the time necessary to put the Trust in place, and allow our legal team to assist us in the proper distribution of the coin.

Once we have accounted for all of the premined coins, we will move the entire amounts to multisig. addresses under control of the Trust that is to be created. Once this is complete, we can begin to consider the proper distribution of the coins in a way that will usher in a new era of prosperity through proof of work, and start to end the cycle of poverty through welfare.

Glad to hear that most of them are intact. Why not move them to a wallet to prevent whomever has the private key get a hold of them and move them again when you get the rest of them? It will also be beneficial to have the addresses on OP. Do we have a richlist somewhere?

[Alphi]

Glad to hear that most of them are intact. Why not move them to a wallet to prevent whomever has the private key get a hold of them and move them again when you get the rest of them? It will also be beneficial to have the addresses on OP. Do we have a richlist somewhere?

because moving such large amounts of coins and storing them in one place is very risky.
its better that they get the legal trust and multisig sorted out first before moving any of the coins.

[guruvan]

At this time, no accounted funds appear to be in any jeopardy of being moved without the approval of myself, owlhooter, and Payu. As such,to avoid additional confusion we will move them when we have finished this process. We will finish this process and publish our findings, addresses, and other information as needed, soon. Again, we'd rather not add any confusion to the issue by providing information which is later discovered to be incorrect.

Is there a rich list anywhere?

The dev team doesn't publish a rich list anywhere. Mazacha.in, a product of my own organization, also does not publish such a list.

Mazacoin is here to help close the gap between rich and poor, so it feels inappropriate to spend our energy on finding out who fits into those categories. The data is available to all in the mazachain, and we encourage mazacoin holders and supporters, and related businesses to data-mine the mazachain to find the transactions and addresses that interest them.

[Alphi]

But, this does bring us to one of the important design considerations in mazacoin. Maza is a sha256 coin, and as such, it's design it to help older mining gear find new, profitable homes as it becomes to small to mine bitcoin in a meaningful way. We're starting to see the first generation of sha256 asics become much less profitable now. My own team is likely to repurpose our own 55nm gear as home heating units. We believe there are ways that we can use this shift in the mining market to put more gear on the reservations. Of course, this will take time to secure gear, and put distribution in place. We want to ensure that this is not any kind of a handout, but provides real skill building opportunities. The mazacoin development team is committed to putting mazacoin into the hands and control of the people it serves.

I am a longtime supporter of Mazacoin and I want to see more of the indigenous peoples around the world take direct action to lift themselves out of poverty.
I have been collecting theses coins for many months and I do not care if I don't get rich from it.. Just as long as I see it improve the lives of the lakota peoples.

with that being said.. the above statement seems to have been not very well thought out.

I have a generation 1 Butterfly labs ASIC miner.. it still works fine, I did mine MZC for a short time but currently I do not use it for mining because it simply isn't profitable anymore.. not even to mine smaller coins like MZC.

The idea of using old ASICs as space heaters seems like a great one and I tried to use mine to heat up my room this winter... the problem was that it creates way too much noise for it to be practical.

so the reality faced by the idea of using gen1 (or 2) ASICs as space heaters is:

A) the ROI is virtually non existent. you are unlikely to ever get your money back from mining Sha256 even if you buy cheap secondhand asics. so it is more economical just buy the coins outright.

B) asic draw too much electricity and create too much noise for them to be a practical means of heating up a room/small house.


I think that if Mazacoin remains sha256 it will always be vulnerable to multipool and 51% abuses.. much more so than coins of a similar size that are not sha256 based.

[guruvan]

I'm not sure you've thought about the costs and noise associated with cheap space heaters.

When I compare the amount of heat generated by an antminer S1, drawing under 500W, and the about provided by a quiet alternative, an oil radiator, at 1500W....A great many of the space heaters you'll see used in economically disadvantaged homes are ancient radiant heaters that consume 1500W constantly, and are loud as hell. The miner puts out many many more BTUs per hr per watt. I do not have the specific data, but I can assure you it takes less wattage to heat our homes.  

If you consider the amount of $ spent to heat the home, you'll see that the mining gear need not be "profitable" to achieve a net gain for all the parties involved. It only needs to come to a near break-even point to be successful in my own eyes. If you're trying to achieve ROI in a space heater, I believe that you're not trying to solve the correct problem. Remember, you're a miner trying to make a profit mining.

the problem to solve, truly is to heat a home in a financially more efficient way. If there's a reduction of the home users' power bill because the miner recoups some of the cost of generating heat by generating coin, is that not the actual ROI?

Finally, you must also consider, this is but one method of repurposing older gear. There are many more that I'm currently aware of. We are not limited to single ideas on how to improve the network while improving people's lives. Nor are we limited by the short-sightedness of unrealistic expectations of instantaneous ROI that is so prevalent in the cryptomarketplace. Instant ROI simply isn't real in the long term, and is currently a function of novelty and adoption rate. The idea that you can buy miners today, and profit tomorrow is fading quickly. Please note the endless series of scams, scamcoins, and so on that point to frustration with the length of time that it takes to achieve ROI mining. In most businesses it takes 2-3yrs to start realizing a profit. Miners expect a profit in 60days. This is not sustainable.

As for "51% abuses" - in reality one need not have 51% of a network to attack it. In practice, the primary "attack" performed against most blockchains is one that even bitcoin is still susceptible to, and that is "selfish mining" - there are various ideas on how to solve that problem, and the Mazacoin Development Team is actively working on the issue. Selfish mining only needs 25% of the network to be effective, and we see this in bitcoin everyday.

It's my opinion that the majority of algorithms in use today have the same issues as sha256. Each has grown, CPU-only coins are GPU, with FPGAs on the way, and soon to follow will be asics for the most profitable algorithms. Certainly mazacoin will need to grow and adapt, but there is not a reason to change the sha256 algorithm to deter attackers, or selfish miners - these problems are present in each algorithm, and each PoW scheme devised at this time. Multi-algorithms simply increase the challenge to would be attackers and selfish miners, but don't solve the fundamental issues.

[Alphi]

I'm not sure you've thought about the costs and noise associated with cheap space heaters.

When I compare the amount of heat generated by an antminer S1, drawing under 500W, and the about provided by a quiet alternative, an oil radiator, at 1500W....A great many of the space heaters you'll see used in economically disadvantaged homes are ancient radiant heaters that consume 1500W constantly, and are loud as hell. The miner puts out many many more BTUs per hr per watt. I do not have the specific data, but I can assure you it takes less wattage to heat our homes.  

If you consider the amount of $ spent to heat the home, you'll see that the mining gear need not be "profitable" to achieve a net gain for all the parties involved. It only needs to come to a near break-even point to be successful in my own eyes. If you're trying to achieve ROI in a space heater, I believe that you're not trying to solve the correct problem. Remember, you're a miner trying to make a profit mining.

the problem to solve, truly is to heat a home in a financially more efficient way. If there's a reduction of the home users' power bill because the miner recoups some of the cost of generating heat by generating coin, is that not the actual ROI?

Finally, you must also consider, this is but one method of repurposing older gear. There are many more that I'm currently aware of. We are not limited to single ideas on how to improve the network while improving people's lives. Nor are we limited by the short-sightedness of unrealistic expectations of instantaneous ROI that is so prevalent in the cryptomarketplace. Instant ROI simply isn't real in the long term, and is currently a function of novelty and adoption rate. The idea that you can buy miners today, and profit tomorrow is fading quickly. Please note the endless series of scams, scamcoins, and so on that point to frustration with the length of time that it takes to achieve ROI mining. In most businesses it takes 2-3yrs to start realizing a profit. Miners expect a profit in 60days. This is not sustainable.

As for "51% abuses" - in reality one need not have 51% of a network to attack it. In practice, the primary "attack" performed against most blockchains is one that even bitcoin is still susceptible to, and that is "selfish mining" - there are various ideas on how to solve that problem, and the Mazacoin Development Team is actively working on the issue. Selfish mining only needs 25% of the network to be effective, and we see this in bitcoin everyday.

It's my opinion that the majority of algorithms in use today have the same issues as sha256. Each has grown, CPU-only coins are GPU, with FPGAs on the way, and soon to follow will be asics for the most profitable algorithms. Certainly mazacoin will need to grow and adapt, but there is not a reason to change the sha256 algorithm to deter attackers, or selfish miners - these problems are present in each algorithm, and each PoW scheme devised at this time. Multi-algorithms simply increase the challenge to would be attackers and selfish miners, but don't solve the fundamental issues.

I certainly have considered all of this.

ill give you some basic examples to add some light to my previous statements.


say for example that you buy a cheap off the shelf miner for a few hundred dollars.
at current difficulty and prices you will likely earn less than 1$ worth of MZC a day for running it 24 hours a day.
your cost in electricity is likely to be a couple of dollars.
this means that currently, older generation miners have a negative ROI..
ie. the coins cost more to produce in electricity than they are currently worth.

this problem only gets worse over time so by the next cold season the very same mining hardware will be able to produce much less MZC (only a few cents worth)

so you can compare an asic unit which may cost a few hundred dollars to a convection heater which can cost less than $100 and it is easy to see that the convection heater is the more economically sound decision.

lets not forget that of all the energy sources (fire, solar thermal, electricity, gas) electricity is the LEAST efficient way to heat a home.
 

now as for 51% attacks, multi-pool raids etc.. I don't think you understand that it is much cheaper to hire enough hashing power to attack a sha256 coin that isn't bitcoin than it is to attack say scrypt or X11 coin. so yes you can claim that all small coins are susceptible to attack and but coins that have a flood of cheap ASICs on the market are much easier and cheaper to attack. thus Sha256 is much easier to attack than Scrypt and Scrypt is much easier to attack than X11 simply because the hardware required is much cheaper to hire or purchase. Not only that, but given the relative size of Bitcoin vs MZC it is by far much easer to redirect a mining pool with enough hash to crush small sha256 coin than it is to do so against any other algo. This is why there are no new Sha256 coins being released these days and it is also why most scrypt coins that were released recently are suffering badly.

these are just the simple facts of the market place as it stands today.. so please don't say that algorithm has nothing to do with it.. it only demonstrates that you do not understand how such attacks are carried out.

the one thing I would agree with you about is that switching algo is just kicking the can down the road. it is just pushing the problem away for a year or two at best but at least it gives you some breathing room to grow a coin before it becomes an easy target.

right now MZC is a very easy target...  for me 51% attacks are nothing more than a way to frighten children who do not understand what can can't cant be done with a 51% attack.. but they are enough to do damage to a coins reputation and price such that it becomes harder to use the coins held in a trust for development work. so the threat of attacks of any kind should be taken seriously....

I think you are right though the focus should be more on establishing the trust, the legal framework and securing those premined coins. I was just pointing out that at some point in the not too distant future network security will become the big issue of the day.

[museack]

I'd also like to add that although the Oglala may not be mining Mazacoins themselves, ShastaFarEye has dedicated a portion of our mining hardware towards the task.  To date, we've mined around a half million Mazacoins to a Tribal Trust address that owlhooter provided, with more mined every hour.  When the legal framework is put into place, these coins will be added to the trust that is created.

If you're mining Mazacoins, we encourage you to come mine at prospectors.shastafareye.net to help support this effort.  

[Raek]

They may not be mining, but there are some Oglala investors who have been buying mazacoin, they aren't all poor.   With the new block rewards, the price is fairly stable even with a low amount of trades on the exchanges.  However, it is still a long term investment as it will take quite a while for the development team to implement its proposals.  This is something new so its success is not guaranteed.  keep this in mind should you choose to purchase mazacoin.  Also, I'm sure guruvan would appreciate any assistance that would speed up this process.

[parker928]

did this get revived or something?

[museack]

Free Mazacoins!!

Head over to mazacoin.altcoinfaucet.net to get your free Mazacoins! Stop by daily to get moar maza.  I've funded the faucet with 50k MZC, so feel free to pour yourself a cup every day. 

[guruvan]

did this get revived or something?

Revived is an interesting word. It implies that mazacoin was dead at some point. No. But, the Team needed to transition from Anonymous Pirate leading it to the current team you see, and the Tribes (in particular the Oglala) needed some time to absorb and comprehend more about mazacoin before Mazacoin receives more mainstream press so that they're more able to handle the amount of energy coming at them from the crypto-sphere.

We now feel freer to pour some more fuel on the fire, and see what mazacoin is really capable of doing

[guruvan]

They may not be mining, but there are some Oglala investors who have been buying mazacoin, they aren't all poor.   With the new block rewards, the price is fairly stable even with a low amount of trades on the exchanges.  However, it is still a long term investment as it will take quite a while for the development team to implement its proposals.  This is something new so its success is not guaranteed.  keep this in mind should you choose to purchase mazacoin.  Also, I'm sure guruvan would appreciate any assistance that would speed up this process.

Thanks Raek!

It does take a long time to coordinate and implement every aspect of what will make mazacoin successful. traders often feel (much like miners) that crypto is "instant-in-and-win" - somehow magically just producing 10X returns on gambles.

And, of course, not every Oglala is poor. Just like not every Californian is rich. In every group, we have rich, poor, and more. In even the most oppressed and disadvantaged groups we find people who find ways to break out of the cycles around them, and succeed, despite the odds being stacked against them. Our team needs to find more ways to reach these people and help them build on their success with mazacoin. This is what takes the most time - finding and reaching the people! (it's what's taken the most time in developing bitcoin)

The Mazacoin project is getting much more notice in the world than is evident here on Bitcontalk. While crypto-traders are easily shepherded from one coin to another, and leave coins to "die" - the rest of the world doesn't notice all of the new coins-of-the-day. They notice the coins that are making a difference. Mazacoin is recognized as THE leader in bringing indigenous people and cryptocurrencies together, and we're spending more time fielding questions from media, other coin projects, and other indigenous groups around the world, every day.

It takes much more than just the Development Team to make all this happen. It takes the entire mazatribe to work together. How can each of you help?

[guruvan]

Weekly Report posted for the mazatribe!

And...A highlight: Mazacoin and Payu Harris are the subjects of upcoming documentary from Bianca Consunji and Evan Engel of Mashable.com!! Preview was held in NYC this past Monday evening, and we're expecting it to be out by October sometime!

[RonMank]

They may not be mining, but there are some Oglala investors who have been buying mazacoin, they aren't all poor.   With the new block rewards, the price is fairly stable even with a low amount of trades on the exchanges.  However, it is still a long term investment as it will take quite a while for the development team to implement its proposals.  This is something new so its success is not guaranteed.  keep this in mind should you choose to purchase mazacoin.  Also, I'm sure guruvan would appreciate any assistance that would speed up this process.

Thanks Raek!

It does take a long time to coordinate and implement every aspect of what will make mazacoin successful. traders often feel (much like miners) that crypto is "instant-in-and-win" - somehow magically just producing 10X returns on gambles.

And, of course, not every Oglala is poor. Just like not every Californian is rich. In every group, we have rich, poor, and more. In even the most oppressed and disadvantaged groups we find people who find ways to break out of the cycles around them, and succeed, despite the odds being stacked against them. Our team needs to find more ways to reach these people and help them build on their success with mazacoin. This is what takes the most time - finding and reaching the people! (it's what's taken the most time in developing bitcoin)

The Mazacoin project is getting much more notice in the world than is evident here on Bitcontalk. While crypto-traders are easily shepherded from one coin to another, and leave coins to "die" - the rest of the world doesn't notice all of the new coins-of-the-day. They notice the coins that are making a difference. Mazacoin is recognized as THE leader in bringing indigenous people and cryptocurrencies together, and we're spending more time fielding questions from media, other coin projects, and other indigenous groups around the world, every day.

It takes much more than just the Development Team to make all this happen. It takes the entire mazatribe to work together. How can each of you help?

well stated!

The community should help.

[Raek]

Found this posted in dead thread so re-posting here:

Good News

MazaCoin (MZC) has been added to COMKORT EXCHANGE


https://comkort.com/market/trade/mzc_btc

https://comkort.com/market/trade/mzc_ltc

https://comkort.com/market/trade/mzc_doge

GOOD LUCK & HAPPY TRADING

[Mathgamain]

Empowering, where u?