human mineable and proof of play Altcoins

[keithersb]

human mineable and proof of play Altcoins

This topic is to motivate people to post definitions, comments, and questions about human-mineable and proof-of-play Altcoins. Plus in-game currencies that are not mined.

I deleted my original list, because of the excellent lists below.
Keep the posts coming.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

human mineable and proof of play Altcoins

This topic is to motivate people to post definitions, comments, and questions about human-mineable and proof-of-play Altcoins. Plus in-game currencies that are not mined.

A distinction should be made between coins that are actually human-mineable/PoP and coins that are not.

To my knowledge, only huntercoin and motocoin are actually human mine, and only moto has proof of play securing transactions.  (HUC uses an "ordered overlay" proof mechanism (a la namecoin) for mining but only uses traditional sha/scrypt PoW for securing transactions.)

In order for a coin to be human mineable, humans must be able to secure for themselves some new coinbase coins (not just a transfer of already-mined coins) by offering some mathematical proof to the network that they have earned claim to those coinbases.

In order for a coin to be proof-of-play the coin must not only be human mineable, but the proofs offered to claim those coinbases must also be the same proofs used to secure transaction history on the network.  (This is why HUC is not proof of play, but MOTO is!)

Offerings like hyper, flappy, etc are no different from traditional game currencies in these respects, and work very much like wow gold or riot points where some central authority holds and controls distribution of coins, with no proof mechanisms involved.  Further if your list is going to include any coins used as currency in any games, then your list really should include almost every coin including bitcoin.  You could go get some free bitcoin in Dragons Tale with just a few clicks right now, but this doesn't make bitcoin human mineable or proof of play at all!  You can go roll dice against a house edge on almost any altcoin around.  As such, I'd love to see a revised list (really two lists) of human mine and proof-of-play coins, but this list is so far not that list.

It seems that lately the concepts of human mining and proof of play are starting to get very popular, so it is going to become increasingly important to educate and raise awareness as to what these concepts actually mean, and why they are important and beneficial, so that people can avoid bogus claims. Just because you can go play some FPS or mini-MMO and someone might maybe send you some-or-other alt coins for doing so does not make the coin either human mineable or proof of play.

Be careful out there, folks.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

A list of Altcoins that are used in on-line games.

Hyper - Briefly claimed to be proof-of-play, but were honorable and retracted the claim once the distinction was clarified to them.  Not human mined or proof-of-play though they may be considering such elements for a future fork.

Black Dragon Coin - Has a coinbase bonus lottery with terminology themed to align with fantasy RPG terms, but is really just a random block reward structure.  Promises to produce games using the coin but so far has not materialized much.  Not human mined or proof-of-play.

Flappycoin - Also a coin themed with gaming terminology, with block reward lottery.  Used in a few dice type games.

Huntercoin - HUC - The original human mined coin.  Fork of namecoin with RTS rules instead of domain name related rules.  Not proof of play as all transactions are actually secured via sha/scrypt merge mining.

CScoin - Counterstrike themed coin with 5-day traditional PoW mining, followed by staking.  They claim they are working on the ability to bet on Counterstrike pvp games in the wallet, to materialize later this month.  However this would not be human mining as new coinbases are only created by stake now.  Will not be proof-of-play either, as the CS gameplay will not be authenticated in a proof structure, nor used to secure transactions.  (It is also likely that the CS servers brought up for bets will not be decentralized and will not be able to operate over any sort of authenticated data structure to provide a verification proof over the bet outcomes, so it seems highly likely that cheating on the bets will be possible.)

Piggy coin - Not sure how this made the list.  Traditional scrypt PoW alt aimed at kids.  No game related "anything" AFAICT.  Certainly no human mine or proof of play.

Battlecoin - The original "multipool coin" and loosely game themed.  Arguably the voting mechanism could be considered a "game" that indirectly attempts to claim coinbase transactions of other coins for their miners, but since this is still hash collision based mining I don't think we can reasonably call this human mining. Calling this proof of play would be a stretch, and require a very loose interpretation to qualify, but it does come closer than most other coins.

GameLeague - Staking coin which is working on porting an existing "for fiat pay to play" game to use the coin.  It is unclear what their status on this port is.  It appears that the game will run on centralized servers and use no proof mechanisms, making it neither human mined nor proof of play.

Motocoin - The only proof of play coin to date.  Intended to be human mined, several developers (myself among them) quickly devised effective bots that mostly overwhelmed human production, meaning it is only ostensibly human mine right now.  The moto community is working on planning changes to rectify this situation, and restore pragmatic human mining.  It remains proof-of-play, in any case, as network transactions are actually secured by proof of game play, despite that game being won primarily by bots.  (Some claim they can still mine by hand, but I'm skeptical.  If they are doing so they certainly are not doing it with a stock reference wallet!)

Zandagort - Wut?  This is not actually a coin, but a game related to HYPER.  I'd consider this a duplicate entry of hyper.

SurvivorCoin - Working on a game inside the wallet client.  This game was originally intended to be an MMO style, but has now been reduced in scope to just a single player game.  It appears that the game has nothing to do with the coin itself, so far, and has no blockchain interaction.  This would be like putting tetris on a tab in the bitcoin client, and calling bitcoin "integrated with a game."  While semantically true, it is somewhat meaningless until the game actually has some interaction with the coin.  There is no indication that they intend to try for either human mining or proof-of-play.

Badgercoin - Another "not sure how it made your list" coin.  They have some centralized dice-against-house-edge type games, but nothing integrated to the network.  "Just another alt" AFAICT.



I'd really love to be pointed at some other coins that are human mined, proof of play, both, or even something that is similar but uses some other/new/different proof mechanism.  However, none of these coins fit that criteria, as none of these coins (besides huc and moto) use anything but traditional work/stake proofs.

[MisO69]

A list of Altcoins that are used in on-line games.

Hyper - Briefly claimed to be proof-of-play, but were honorable and retracted the claim once the distinction was clarified to them.  Not human mined or proof-of-play though they may be considering such elements for a future fork.

Black Dragon Coin - Has a coinbase bonus lottery with terminology themed to align with fantasy RPG terms, but is really just a random block reward structure.  Promises to produce games using the coin but so far has not materialized much.  Not human mined or proof-of-play.

Flappycoin - Also a coin themed with gaming terminology, with block reward lottery.  Used in a few dice type games.

Huntercoin - HUC - The original human mined coin.  Fork of namecoin with RTS rules instead of domain name related rules.  Not proof of play as all transactions are actually secured via sha/scrypt merge mining.

CScoin - Counterstrike themed coin with 5-day traditional PoW mining, followed by staking.  They claim they are working on the ability to bet on Counterstrike pvp games in the wallet, to materialize later this month.  However this would not be human mining as new coinbases are only created by stake now.  Will not be proof-of-play either, as the CS gameplay will not be authenticated in a proof structure, nor used to secure transactions.  (It is also likely that the CS servers brought up for bets will not be decentralized and will not be able to operate over any sort of authenticated data structure to provide a verification proof over the bet outcomes, so it seems highly likely that cheating on the bets will be possible.)

Piggy coin - Not sure how this made the list.  Traditional scrypt PoW alt aimed at kids.  No game related "anything" AFAICT.  Certainly no human mine or proof of play.

Battlecoin - The original "multipool coin" and loosely game themed.  Arguably the voting mechanism could be considered a "game" that indirectly attempts to claim coinbase transactions of other coins for their miners, but since this is still hash collision based mining I don't think we can reasonably call this human mining. Calling this proof of play would be a stretch, and require a very loose interpretation to qualify, but it does come closer than most other coins.

GameLeague - Staking coin which is working on porting an existing "for fiat pay to play" game to use the coin.  It is unclear what their status on this port is.  It appears that the game will run on centralized servers and use no proof mechanisms, making it neither human mined nor proof of play.

Motocoin - The only proof of play coin to date.  Intended to be human mined, several developers (myself among them) quickly devised effective bots that mostly overwhelmed human production, meaning it is only ostensibly human mine right now.  The moto community is working on planning changes to rectify this situation, and restore pragmatic human mining.  It remains proof-of-play, in any case, as network transactions are actually secured by proof of game play, despite that game being won primarily by bots.  (Some claim they can still mine by hand, but I'm skeptical.  If they are doing so they certainly are not doing it with a stock reference wallet!)

Zandagort - Wut?  This is not actually a coin, but a game related to HYPER.  I'd consider this a duplicate entry of hyper.

SurvivorCoin - Working on a game inside the wallet client.  This game was originally intended to be an MMO style, but has now been reduced in scope to just a single player game.  It appears that the game has nothing to do with the coin itself, so far, and has no blockchain interaction.  This would be like putting tetris on a tab in the bitcoin client, and calling bitcoin "integrated with a game."  While semantically true, it is somewhat meaningless until the game actually has some interaction with the coin.  There is no indication that they intend to try for either human mining or proof-of-play.

Badgercoin - Another "not sure how it made your list" coin.  They have some centralized dice-against-house-edge type games, but nothing integrated to the network.  "Just another alt" AFAICT.


I'd really love to be pointed at some other coins that are human mined, proof of play, both, or even something that is similar but uses some other/new/different proof mechanism.  However, none of these coins fit that criteria, as none of these coins (besides huc and moto) use anything but traditional work/stake proofs.

How is Huntercoin not proof of play? 80% of the coins are gathered by hunters on a map while 20% are merge mined scrypt/sha256. The merge mining moves the blockchain along. Each block counts as a turn in the game. All moves, chat are recorded in each block. HUC is more advanced than MOTO and a million times more advanced that the other scam coins quoted a few posts above.

I suppose if your definition of proof of play is the entire blockchain is moved along by players completing the map. First one that completes it get the block and the reward. Then MOTO is the first proof of play.

Huntercoin is probably better defined as human mine-able, then MOTO is also in that same category. Confusing?

I think the future is incorporating block chains into games. Then players will have even more reasons to compete in tournaments. $$$$ it may become the next sport on TV.

[keithersb]

Post more!!! This is excellent!!!

[HunterMinerCrafter]

How is Huntercoin not proof of play? 80% of the coins are gathered by hunters on a map while 20% are merge mined scrypt/sha256. The merge mining moves the blockchain along. Each block counts as a turn in the game. All moves, chat are recorded in each block. HUC is more advanced than MOTO and a million times more advanced that the other scam coins quoted a few posts above.

Precisely what you said, it is the hash collision PoW that moves the chain along, not gameplay solutions.  "Human mining" means a formal proof establishes conformance to rules for coinbase claim.  A proof-of-play further uses the proofs to secure transaction depth.

Huntercoin does not use the human mining proofs as signatures on transaction depth, it uses traditional hash collision.  As such it is proving energy spend based work being performed, not cognitive process work being performed.  (N.B. The human mining proofs in HUC do prove cognitive process, they are just used in an overlay to prove coinbase rights, instead of proving all transaction depth validity itself.  Also, it should be noted that cognitive process is not a thing exclusive to humans.  BGB's bots are, indeed, crude cognitive processors.  My moto bots are even more crude cognitive processors.)

In MOTO, cognitive process provides both the proof of right to claim a coin base and proof over transaction depth, both.

I suppose if your definition of proof of play is the entire blockchain is moved along by players completing the map. First one that completes it get the block and the reward. Then MOTO is the first proof of play.

Exactly.  Proof-of-play is an alternative security threshold mechanism.  Human mining is an alternative transaction processing rule mechanism, specifically dealing with coin base maturation process. (For example there is a rule that if you die and drop your coin base on the ground before it matures you don't get it at that general's address.  Motocoin's rules on maturation are very very simple.  HUC's are rather complex, so I tend to agree that HUC is, overall, more "advanced" with regard to human mining.  This human mining thing will be a very fun spectrum for the world to explore!)

Huntercoin is probably better defined as human mine-able, then MOTO is also in that same category. Confusing?

Yup.  Proof-of-play is one subset of human mining, it seems. 

I think the future is incorporating block chains into games.

The more likely future is in incorporating games into block chains. 

Then players will have even more reasons to compete in tournaments.

^^ THIS ^^

$$$$ it may become the next sport on TV.

TV is dead now, I'd guess.  Who needs TV when you have DHT internets?  Otherwise I'd say "spot on." 

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Post more!!! This is excellent!!!

It makes me happy to see someone so interested in these concepts.  Now I want to dig up some of my old notes on how to do self-modifying block chain based games.  ("MUD server" if you please.)  There is no reason the "rules" governing human mining and/or proof-of-play couldn't be made mutable by consensus.

[profitofthegods]

Human mining through games is an interesting idea, but ultimately for me it comes down to this: is the game fun? For example, I looked at Huntercoin before and liked the idea, but never got into it because the game just didn't look like much fun.

My favourite is HYPER, because the focus seems to be more on the game rather than the algorithm, and on integrating crypto currency into games in general rather than the technical details of how a crypto currency works under the hood - which isn't all that interesting to me as a non-programmer.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Human mining through games is an interesting idea, but ultimately for me it comes down to this: is the game fun? For example, I looked at Huntercoin before and liked the idea, but never got into it because the game just didn't look like much fun.

One funny thing I have noticed during the time with both HUC and MOTO is that the amount of fun to the game varies relative to the ecosystem and "meta game" around it.  HUC's game dynamics are even indirectly sensitive to market rates, and I imagine over time we will see similar with MOTO.

If you focus on the meta-game both games become a LOT more enjoyable.  (funny how many old school bitcoiners actually play MTG/modo, heh)

My favourite is HYPER, because the focus seems to be more on the game rather than the algorithm, and on integrating crypto currency into games

Again, the important point is the (very serious) distinction between integrating a currency into a game (something that has been around for as long as games have, hence the cliches of "monopoly money" etc.) and integrating a game into a currency.  If you go deep enough into the math and philosophy buried between the lines in the satoshi whitepaper, you find that the whole "magic" of the thing is actually the coupling of a solution to the byzantine generals problem for consensus around "double spend" with a particular presentation of an abstracted iterated prisoner's dilemma, an extended form of which is sometimes now referred to as the "miner's dilemma" problem.  The fact that the "IPD" (formally, a game) is at the core of the security of the mining process is awesome and is very central to the reasons that human mining can even exist.

Just putting a currency into a game doesn't accomplish much of value.  If you believe it does, you should be buying as much Everquest money as you can get your hands on, and most rational people would probably not be doing this.

in general rather than the technical details of how a crypto currency works under the hood - which isn't all that interesting to me as a non-programmer.

However, despite being uninteresting, it is most important to you as a non-programmer particularly!  As the HYPER games are centralized and offer up no proof structures, users have no way to know what is really going on within the system.  (Since you are not a developer you can't even really do some system analysis to try to asses it, and since the systems are "closed" you can't even hope some third party has been able to do any such assessment!  Yikes!  Further just because something is "open source" doesn't really solve these problems these days either, unfortunately.)  There is no way in any of these other offerings, so far, that anyone can verify that the operators of the game servers are not simply "cheating" on their social contract and actually giving some large portion of the coins back to themselves, family, friends, cronies, etc.  With human mining in a blockchain, everyone must offer up proof to the network that they have actually earned their winnings by, you know, winning.

With a human mined currency, there is (to some probabilistic measure) no cheating, in the same way that in bitcoin there is no "cheating" on spending transactions.  This is huge, particularly since (some form or another of) money is also on the line in these games, in most cases.

In particular, beyond just what would normally be considered "cheating" having a human mined currency offers an additional protection that is very important.  In the same way that bitcoin offers some protections from some entity deciding to produce more/less of the currency, impacting holders' economic state, these human mined games offer a solution to a common problem in online gaming of item rarity! 

Since there is no central authority, there's no one who can suddenly decide to produce an abundance of some rare game piece impacting the game dynamic without the majority of the participants in the player base agreeing to the rule change by mining on the new rules' fork.  As an aside, this is where HUC and MOTO really differ!  In HUC it is the hash collision miners (read: pools) who get to decide whether or not to adopt a rules change on the network, with their "voting influence" on the matter being proportional to their hashing strength (read: asic count and process node) where in MOTO it is the skilled players (read: currently just possibly savant humans and the most clever of the bot operators, but ostensibly the most skillful players in general) who get to make the decisions with their voting influence being relative to their ability to produce winning solutions to the game challenge.

In centralized games, business profitability often dictates a decision to intentionally trash in game economics and this happens regularly and consistently as any experienced MMO player can attest to.  When you throw "real money economies" into this centralized equation, bad things happen - particularly with even the slightest slip-ups on the part of the item issuing central authority.  (Diablo 3 auction house, I'm looking at you buddy.  We waited YEAR AFTER YEAR.  )

These two little experiments, HUC and MOTO, really represent a phenomenal shift in the future of gaming, IMO!

[keithersb]

I started a topic about "An altcoin that can be mined on a SmartPhone's CPU" and I think both topics have something in common  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=550995.0

[profitofthegods]

Just putting a currency into a game doesn't accomplish much of value.  If you believe it does, you should be buying as much Everquest money as you can get your hands on, and most rational people would probably not be doing this.

Its not the same - you can't hold Everquest money in an independent wallet, transfer it onto other games, freely exchange it for other currencies, earn it through PoS.

As the HYPER games are centralized and offer up no proof structures, users have no way to know what is really going on within the system.  (Since you are not a developer you can't even really do some system analysis to try to asses it, and since the systems are "closed" you can't even hope some third party has been able to do any such assessment!  Yikes!  Further just because something is "open source" doesn't really solve these problems these days either, unfortunately.)  There is no way in any of these other offerings, so far, that anyone can verify that the operators of the game servers are not simply "cheating" on their social contract and actually giving some large portion of the coins back to themselves, family, friends, cronies, etc.  With human mining in a blockchain, everyone must offer up proof to the network that they have actually earned their winnings by, you know, winning.

With a human mined currency, there is (to some probabilistic measure) no cheating, in the same way that in bitcoin there is no "cheating" on spending transactions.  This is huge, particularly since (some form or another of) money is also on the line in these games, in most cases.

Like you said yourself, you things like HYPER aren't generated in the game - they are generated like any other PoS crypto and the fairness can be checked just as you would with any other crypto, so your statement here is a straw man argument - you're inventing a problem just to look good knocking it down. The only way to cheat within the games its integrated into that I can think of would be to actually change your balance, which is something I think I would notice.

These two little experiments, HUC and MOTO, really represent a phenomenal shift in the future of gaming, IMO!

Perhaps, they are certainly a great innovation for cryptos, my main point is that for that phenomenal shift to happen - to appeal to people like me who aren't programmers with a serious interest in how the code works - the main thing is simply how much fun the game is. If someone can make a proper PoP game which fulfills the definition here AND is great fun to play then you will be right, but I don't personally think that is the case yet.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Its not the same - you can't hold Everquest money in an independent wallet, transfer it onto other games, freely exchange it for other currencies, earn it through PoS.

Perhaps you would prefer the example be secondlife lindens or entropia ped, then, which can be freely moved (EDIT: really exchanged) in and out of the game world(s)?

In any case, none of these aspects require any new technology or new alt coin, people have been using bitcoin in these contexts just fine for years. (You can even "stake BTC" in certain Dragons Tale games and earn interest while you sleep!)  What do any of these other alt currencies really bring to the table in these respects?

Like you said yourself, you things like HYPER aren't generated in the game - they are generated like any other PoS crypto and the fairness can be checked just as you would with any other crypto, so your statement here is a straw man argument - you're inventing a problem just to look good knocking it down. The only way to cheat within the games its integrated into that I can think of would be to actually change your balance, which is something I think I would notice.

You mistook me.  Yes, the staking of the currency is provably fair, like any PoS currency, but this has nothing to do with human mining or proof of play.

When I say you cannot verify that cheating is not occurring, I'm referring to cheating by the issuer, not the players/holders.  With HYPER you have no way to know that the developers are not actually keeping a significant portion of their millions of premine coins for themselves while claiming to be giving them away in their hosted games.  You can play some counterstrike and get gifted a few coins, but this is just a giveaway (nothing innovative about this) and not even a traceable one.  I wouldn't be surprised one bit if well over half of the coin "reserved for the giveaway" on many of these coins is never actually given away.  This is a problem.

Perhaps, they are certainly a great innovation for cryptos, my main point is that for that phenomenal shift to happen - to appeal to people like me who aren't programmers with a serious interest in how the code works - the main thing is simply how much fun the game is. If someone can make a proper PoP game which fulfills the definition here AND is great fun to play then you will be right, but I don't personally think that is the case yet.

HUC and MOTO might not be the sorts of game you'd enjoy playing (personally I find HUC to be much more fun than MOTO) but they still represent the beginning of the paradigm change, and will "light the way" for the future.  I'm sure they will not be the last word in "proven" gaming, and I imagine that before long we'll have quite a selection of game genres running on blockchains.  Eventually I'm sure there will be games which you will enjoy.  (Have any particular suggestions?  Some folks are talking about putting together a new proof-of-play game or two...)

[profitofthegods]

What do any of these other alt currencies really bring to the table in these respects?

Three main things, at least for HYPER which is what I know about. 1) Game developer can hold the coins in hosted wallets whilst the player is using them in game, which means PoS helps to pay for game development. 2) Developing an in-game marketplace with virtual corporations and even in-game exchanges is something I like. Yes of course this can be done with other currencies and has been done in Second Life for a long time - which is also great! HYPER is planning to allow you to use Bitcoin and Devcoins in the game as well as HYPER - so nothing unique technologically about HYPER in this respect, just sounds cool what they want to do. 3) Buying coins in a project like this is sort of like buying shares in the game - I like the sound of the game they want to make, and if it is successful people will buy the coin to use in the game and the price will rise. Coins as a kind of virtual share is quite a common thing now, and I think it works.

You mistook me.  Yes, the staking of the currency is provably fair, like any PoS currency, but this has nothing to do with human mining or proof of play.

When I say you cannot verify that cheating is not occurring, I'm referring to cheating by the issuer, not the players/holders.  With HYPER you have no way to know that the developers are not actually keeping a significant portion of their millions of premine coins for themselves while claiming to be giving them away in their hosted games.  You can play some counterstrike and get gifted a few coins, but this is just a giveaway (nothing innovative about this) and not even a traceable one.  I wouldn't be surprised one bit if well over half of the coin "reserved for the giveaway" on many of these coins is never actually given away.  This is a problem.

oh, yes I see. You are right about this. But you can't develop a decent game without having money to pay for it.

HUC and MOTO might not be the sorts of game you'd enjoy playing (personally I find HUC to be much more fun than MOTO) but they still represent the beginning of the paradigm change, and will "light the way" for the future.  I'm sure they will not be the last word in "proven" gaming, and I imagine that before long we'll have quite a selection of game genres running on blockchains.  Eventually I'm sure there will be games which you will enjoy.  (Have any particular suggestions?  Some folks are talking about putting together a new proof-of-play game or two...)

I hope so

The only idea which has occured to me is the gamification of certain roles or actions within a coin's community, some of which may be provable (Proof of Tweet anyone? lol). That could be actions which improve or promote the coin, or the coin could be associated with an established community with its own goals. If the proof of play thing is more about providing human proof than about providing human play then perhaps moving away from a video game and more towards a purer kind of 'meta game' would work better. Btw, anything you have to say about the nature of the meta game in relation to HUC would be interesting to me.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Three main things, at least for HYPER which is what I know about. 1) Game developer can hold the coins in hosted wallets whilst the player is using them in game, which means PoS helps to pay for game development.

Or, in other words, the dev gets to stake all the premine coins that he may or may not actually give away like he says he will, and get more coins?  I'm not sure how this is any advantage...  Further, my understanding with HYPER is that they are not actually running any game they have developed, just things like CS servers.  They promise to develop a game, I guess, but this is about as good to me as their promise that they won't just keep most of the premine for themselves.  How can I trust any of this?

2) Developing an in-game marketplace with virtual corporations and even in-game exchanges is something I like. Yes of course this can be done with other currencies and has been done in Second Life for a long time - which is also great! HYPER is planning to allow you to use Bitcoin and Devcoins in the game as well as HYPER - so nothing unique technologically about HYPER in this respect, just sounds cool what they want to do.

Sure, it sounds cool because this is all they want out of it, sounding cool to make their (potentially empty) promises sound even better.  My really big concern here, though, is if they really believe in these technologies why would they not be building decentralized exchanges instead?  How do we know they aren't just building an exchange for them to cheat on as well?  (Front run, trade phantom assets, etc.)

3) Buying coins in a project like this is sort of like buying shares in the game - I like the sound of the game they want to make, and if it is successful people will buy the coin to use in the game and the price will rise. Coins as a kind of virtual share is quite a common thing now, and I think it works.

I certainly wouldn't invest in some company where all they are really doing so far is running a few game servers.  I definitely wouldn't invest in this company if it appeared that the initial share distribution might be unfair, and in which no transparency in that distribution is offered.  I wouldn't invest in a company that claims to be using technologies like proof-of-play that they actually are not, even if they claim innocent confusion on the matter, simply because it leaves the cases as either they don't understand the underlying technologies or they were lying about their confusion.

I wouldn't invest in HYPER.

But that's just me, maybe we have different criteria for speculative ventures.

oh, yes I see. You are right about this. But you can't develop a decent game without having money to pay for it.

Plenty of decent indy games are out there.  There are also plenty of *legitimate* and traceable investments to be made in commercial game ventures that are actually producing code and demos instead of spending their time running some bizarre giveaway systems.  But again, maybe this just comes down to some very different criteria for assessing an investment.  Personally "we might maybe give away some coins if you play game on our servers" is not enough to draw my capital to the project.

The only idea which has occured to me is the gamification of certain roles or actions within a coin's community, some of which may be provable (Proof of Tweet anyone? lol).

Proof of tweet would rely on an assumption that twitter themselves won't cheat (or otherwise intervene) in some way.  Personally, this is not an assumption I'd be interesting in putting money behind.

Maybe we also have very different definitions of "proof" as well.

That could be actions which improve or promote the coin, or the coin could be associated with an established community with its own goals. If the proof of play thing is more about providing human proof than about providing human play then perhaps moving away from a video game and more towards a purer kind of 'meta game' would work better.

Sure, this would be a great form of human mining, but will be very difficult to pull off correctly.  There are a lot of (perhaps even counter-intuitive) constraints to be considered, and social factors to account for.

Btw, anything you have to say about the nature of the meta game in relation to HUC would be interesting to me.

Anything I would have to say would probably have been invalidated by the recent rules changes.... the whole meta-game just got rocked with the introduction of the new balancing mechanisms.

Short term my only advice would be not to use the reference client wallet to play.  Probably this will remain good/valid advice on many human-mine coins to come in the future, because community developer resources will probably often outnumber official developer resources on a long enough curve in any such project.   

[profitofthegods]

Or, in other words, the dev gets to stake all the premine coins that he may or may not actually give away like he says he will, and get more coins?  I'm not sure how this is any advantage...

I don't think the main thing in terms of people gaining coins by playing the game is getting freebies from the developer - its trading game resources with other players and beating them at the game. There are some giveaways to get things started, but I think that's more of a promo than the core of what they are offering. I think the lion's share of what's left of the pre-mine that hasn't already been given out in early bounties is intended for developing the MMO, not giving out as freebies. Also I hope that other game developers, aside from the HYPER dev, will make games which use this as their in-game currency.

Sure, it sounds cool because this is all they want out of it, sounding cool to make their (potentially empty) promises sound even better.  My really big concern here, though, is if they really believe in these technologies why would they not be building decentralized exchanges instead?  How do we know they aren't just building an exchange for them to cheat on as well?  (Front run, trade phantom assets, etc.)...

I certainly wouldn't invest in some company where all they are really doing so far is running a few game servers.  I definitely wouldn't invest in this company if it appeared that the initial share distribution might be unfair, and in which no transparency in that distribution is offered.  I wouldn't invest in a company that claims to be using technologies like proof-of-play that they actually are not, even if they claim innocent confusion on the matter, simply because it leaves the cases as either they don't understand the underlying technologies or they were lying about their confusion.

I wouldn't invest in HYPER.

But that's just me, maybe we have different criteria for speculative ventures.

You are certainly right that its a risk. I wouldn't put a lot of money on it, and I wouldn't be particularly suprised if I lost my money. But at the same time you have to take a risk sometimes, and the current price of the coins is cheap enough for me to not mind taking a small punt. Also I have recieved some freebies, which may have coloured my perceptions a little.

Proof of tweet would rely on an assumption that twitter themselves won't cheat (or otherwise intervene) in some way.  Personally, this is not an assumption I'd be interesting in putting money behind.

Maybe we also have very different definitions of "proof" as well.

I think you missed my lol. I didn't expect that to be taken seriously.

Sure, this would be a great form of human mining, but will be very difficult to pull off correctly.  There are a lot of (perhaps even counter-intuitive) constraints to be considered, and social factors to account for.

That's what I thought myself when the idea occured to me, don't know why I mentioned it really but you asked for ideas and I wanted to oblige.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

I don't think the main thing in terms of people gaining coins by playing the game is getting freebies from the developer - its trading game resources with other players and beating them at the game. There are some giveaways to get things started, but I think that's more of a promo than the core of what they are offering.

Both are entirely suspect, though!  In the same way that we have no way to know that they are actually distributing premine giveaway coins through their servers we have no way to know that our in-game activities are being fairly evaluated by their servers, and as such have no way to know that they are fairly redistributing our coin!  (Bolded to emphasize that the very crux of the matter is the distinction between an "us" and a "them" in the first place!  If there were no central "them" and the entire system/network was composed of "us" the question never arises at all - and herein lies the real value of human mining and proof-of-play systems!)  Since the servers are entirely under central control we have no way to really verify who is actually beating who, besides blind trust and faith in the server operators.  If I'm going to put blind trust and faith behind some central video game servers, I'm going with Blizzard or Riot and not some random alt-coin anons.  At least Blizzard doesn't have any direct incentive to run unfair servers, in fact much the opposite.  The HYPER guys have every reason to run unfair servers and no real reason or incentive not to.  Rationally speaking, why wouldn't "they" be scamming "us"?  Give them enough fiscal motivation (read: high enough spot price on their coin) and I'm certain that they would, even if they are behaving in an altruistic way today.  "Everyone has a price."  Dangle enough free money in front of them and they'll eventually take it and run.

Their newly revised plan (I'm sure they are watching this thread closely) appears to involve inviting an even more diverse group of people into the set known as "them."  This just makes it ever more likely that some subset of these servers will simply lie about their function and/or operation in order to unfairly distribute (and/or redistribute) coins straight into the pockets of the server operators.

I think the lion's share of what's left of the pre-mine that hasn't already been given out in early bounties is intended for developing the MMO, not giving out as freebies.

This just begs the question.  At some point they "run out of" premine for their game server giveaways (read: decide to stop giving away) inevitably.  In other words, the one real function they are actually performing so far, running some "promoted" game servers, is evidently unsustainable.  In a sense, they are simply doomed to eventually revert to being "just another alt" on their current course, no?

Also I hope that other game developers, aside from the HYPER dev, will make games which use this as their in-game currency.

Sure, but this is now stepping far outside the context of this thread.  Probably those other game devs would just use BTC anyway, no?  What incentive does a third party have to use HYPER over BTC or any other given flavor-of-the-week coin?

You are certainly right that its a risk. I wouldn't put a lot of money on it, and I wouldn't be particularly suprised if I lost my money. But at the same time you have to take a risk sometimes, and the current price of the coins is cheap enough for me to not mind taking a small punt. Also I have recieved some freebies, which may have coloured my perceptions a little.

So far all HYPER does to differentiate itself is running some off-the-shelf game servers, writing some brief fantasy plot, and drawing some pictures - all three things my 8 year old cousin does for fun.  I wouldn't expect much return out of a single 8-year-old's efforts, so why should speculators expect any return on HYPER?  A crypto-currency can not function without speculative investment, this is well understood.

I think you missed my lol. I didn't expect that to be taken seriously.

I take anything claiming to be a proof very very seriously, as that is the sole function of proofs - to be taken seriously.  If you can't take a proof seriously (literally as seriously as you could possibly take a thing) then it isn't a very sound proof.

That's what I thought myself when the idea occured to me, don't know why I mentioned it really but you asked for ideas and I wanted to oblige.

I was more asking for ideas of what games would be particularly good to have proven with a block-chain.

[profitofthegods]

Both are entirely suspect, though!  In the same way that we have no way to know that they are actually distributing premine giveaway coins through their servers we have no way to know that our in-game activities are being fairly evaluated by their servers, and as such have no way to know that they are fairly redistributing our coin!  (Bolded to emphasize that the very crux of the matter is the distinction between an "us" and a "them" in the first place!  If there were no central "them" and the entire system/network was composed of "us" the question never arises at all - and herein lies the real value of human mining and proof-of-play systems!)  

Firstly I'm not doubting that human mining and proof-of-play systems have this real value, and I perhaps shouldn't have even started talking about HYPER here because it isn't PoP and now you are really in attack mode because of this, but somebody else mentioned HYPER earlier in the thread and I just thought I'd add that I like it because the focus is on the game itself, and that the reason I haven't used PoP games like HUC is because the focus is on the proof and not the play, which doesn't look fun enough for me to want to spend my valuable time doing it.

I am not trying to claim that HYPER is superior to HunterCoin or that their method is superior to proof of play, I am just expressing my opinion, and I think you would do better to spend your energy on presenting a positive case for HunterCoin rather than just criticizing HYPER and my personal preferences.

Secondly it seems like it would be quite clear when trading that if you spend X you get Y. I suppose they could play the game themselves and give themselves lots of extra items and resources to sell - but that would flood the market and crash the price, and in any case they would probably be selling items in-game to people who wanted them anyway so why bother?

You are right that some trust is required, and I know that amongst some crypto devs eliminating trust is a core belief. I see that in many cases eliminating the need for trust is a really good thing, but personally I'm not a zealot about it - I actually don't mind trusting people sometimes (this is one of the reasons why I've mostly been interested in Ripple up to now, because it codifies and constrains trust relationships rather than seeking to eliminate them).

This just begs the question.  At some point they "run out of" premine for their game server giveaways (read: decide to stop giving away) inevitably.  In other words, the one real function they are actually performing so far, running some "promoted" game servers, is evidently unsustainable.  In a sense, they are simply doomed to eventually revert to being "just another alt" on their current course, no?

I refer you to my previous statements about PoS generated coins being used to fund games.

Sure, but this is now stepping far outside the context of this thread.  Probably those other game devs would just use BTC anyway, no?  What incentive does a third party have to use HYPER over BTC or any other given flavor-of-the-week coin?

Bounties, community of gamers to appeal to.

So far all HYPER does to differentiate itself is running some off-the-shelf game servers, writing some brief fantasy plot, and drawing some pictures - all three things my 8 year old cousin does for fun.  I wouldn't expect much return out of a single 8-year-old's efforts, so why should speculators expect any return on HYPER?  A crypto-currency can not function without speculative investment, this is well understood.

Speculative investment is speculative.

I take anything claiming to be a proof very very seriously, as that is the sole function of proofs - to be taken seriously.  If you can't take a proof seriously (literally as seriously as you could possibly take a thing) then it isn't a very sound proof.

I think perhaps games developers should be subjected to a proof of play algorithm, lol.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Firstly I'm not doubting that human mining and proof-of-play systems have this real value, and I perhaps shouldn't have even started talking about HYPER here because it isn't PoP and now you are really in attack mode because of this, but somebody else mentioned HYPER earlier in the thread and I just thought I'd add that I like it because the focus is on the game itself, and that the reason I haven't used PoP games like HUC is because the focus is on the proof and not the play, which doesn't look fun enough for me to want to spend my valuable time doing it.

You're right, this isn't a thread about HYPER, but HYPER has become the canonical example of "how not to do it."  Understanding proof-of-play concepts isn't trivial, and often it is best to explain things by counter-example.

As for HUC, much of the development done by domob etc has been focused around game-play aspects.  If you haven't played HUC under the new rules I'd urge you to check it out, you may find it has become much more fun now.

I am not trying to claim that HYPER is superior to HunterCoin or that their method is superior to proof of play, I am just expressing my opinion, and I think you would do better to spend your energy on presenting a positive case for HunterCoin rather than just criticizing HYPER and my personal preferences.

I'm not criticizing either, I'm just trying to understand both.  I really see no appeal to HYPER and am a bit boggled by the fact that anyone would.    At best it is a misguided (probably even fatally flawed) endeavor and at worse it is an entirely unfair proposition.  Why exactly would anyone have a preference for it?  You've said things like the "focus" is on the game, but have not been able to explain what this means.  I can go think about a nintendo cartridge for hours, will you pay me for that too?  You've said it is about the games being fun, but the games involved are nothing to do with the coin.  CS and Minecraft are probably very fun games, but that has nothing to do with any crypto currency as far as I am aware.  I really just don't understand any of it!

Secondly it seems like it would be quite clear when trading that if you spend X you get Y.  I suppose they could play the game themselves and give themselves lots of extra items and resources to sell

The whole point is that they can do such things without ever playing the games themselves.  They can "win the game" without ever playing it in any sense, if they want to.  Worse, they can do so without anyone even having any opportunity to know it has happened!  Say what you will about trust, this ultimately comes down to simply being an irrational wager.  I don't understand why anyone would ever make such a bet, and send their money into such a server.

- but that would flood the market and crash the price, and in any case they would probably be selling items in-game to people who wanted them anyway so why bother?

Yes, precisely this.  People want the items so the server operators decide to flood the market simply because they can, at the expense of anyone who did something "silly" like investing time or money into obtaining the item while it was still rare.  This is precisely the concern.

You are right that some trust is required, and I know that amongst some crypto devs eliminating trust is a core belief. I see that in many cases eliminating the need for trust is a really good thing, but personally I'm not a zealot about it - I actually don't mind trusting people sometimes (this is one of the reasons why I've mostly been interested in Ripple up to now, because it codifies and constrains trust relationships rather than seeking to eliminate them).

No crypto-currency eliminates trust.  The idea is not to require unreasonable trust.  Trusting that some random anon on the internet will not cheat at a game to take your money doesn't sound like a reasonable extension of trust, to me.

Not to mention that when you send your money into those servers, you are trusting those anons not only to not cheat you, but also to keep your assets safe and secured while they reside at their servers.  We all know how well that tends to work out wrt cryptos.  If you think this behavior is also reasonable then you must have missed that whole story about that mtgox place, or any of the many other cases.

If you think this is all reasonable (even advisable) behavior, I'd like to invite you to come play on my brand new pvp-for-BTC counterstrike server.  I promise it doesn't cheat and bias in favor of certain players.  I promise it won't get hacked by some shadowy figure who may or may not actually just be me absconding.  I promise no harddrive will crash and lose all the wallet coins.  No really, just trust me.

I refer you to my previous statements about PoS generated coins being used to fund games.

This would have to assume that they retain enough coins to stake enough coins to do their giveaways only of staked coins.  Either way, you have a problem of eventual economic equilibrium in the distribution model, and it is unsustainable.  You can't have your cake and eat it too, here.  Either the devs hold onto the coins for staking and amass a relative fortune, or they give them away over a finite period and eventually run out.  It doesn't seem to me that there is an outcome that doesn't lead to an eventual meltdown.

Bounties, community of gamers to appeal to.

What bounties?  How does HYPER represent or establish any community of gamers?  (It seems to me that the gaming community is already established in any such model.)

Speculative investment is speculative.

This just avoids the question with, at best, an answer depending solely upon circular logic.  I ask what is purported to draw speculation, and you reply "speculation."  I'm starting to see a pattern to your catch 22 reasoning process.

What are you speculating as the potentiality by which this coin earns an ROI, other than "other speculators might speculate on it?"  This can't be held as the only reasoning for a speculative investment, as it is a truism for any asset.

I think perhaps games developers should be subjected to a proof of play algorithm, lol.

I don't even know what this means.

[keithersb]

I like the topic so-much, I wrote about it. Please check out my blog http://aweesomealtcoin.blogspot.com

[gatra]

HunterMinerCrafter, I agree with your explanations:

MOTO is the only true PoP, however I feel there has to be a distinction between HUC and the rest. After all, the game is actually embedded in the blockchain and it can be used to generate coins, even if the game itself doesn't secure the network. Maybe we can extend the definition of "mining" to any means of "creating coins", so in this case HUC could be "human mineable" but not "Proof of Play". Or we could make up another term, whatever, but it deserves a distinction.

I'd like to add that I'd bet that all PoP will eventually be mineable by bots, which would eventually outplay humans and make human-mining impossible or at least unprofitable. I like the concept and I think it can be useful to push the boundaries of AI, but don't expect to make money by playing, at least not in the long term.