[XMR] Monero Speculation

[ArticMine]

I do not agree with the TrueCryptonaire sig:

"In the long run XMR has good chances to gain higher marketcap than btc."

BTC can scale off-chain and Monero doesn't, nor through SPV type implementations.  At that point, there is no point in using Monero over BTC.  It's true, Monero market cap can be much higher than now, even in the billions, but if it was, Bitcoin would probably be in the trillions.

It's possible Monero or Zcash will occupy some type of niche market, but the anon wars of incrementalism would have to end first, and I'm not really seeing how that's going to happen.  You would need to subscribe to four ideas for Monero to really do something:

1)  Smooth's claim that currency is the killer app of the blockchain (likely plausible)
2)  Anonymity is a mandatory feature set of that app (less plausible)
3)  Governments would not make the anon currency extremely difficult to use while allowing BTC instead, crippling the anon currency market cap
4)  The need to believe on-chain anonymity would be useful in a clearing/settlement network.

If your key feature is not utilized in the likely evolution of the network, you're relegated back to the niche market.  That niche market could be worth billions of dollars though, so I guess it's all relative.  BTC on the other hand could go to trillions as a settlement layer.  There's just not an overwhelming need to make Bitcoin obsolete and switch when both coins operate roughly the same in the end game.  Ring signatures will likely block many further on-chain scaling options to boot.  So yea, it could be valuable, but likely not a threat to Bitcoin.

Bitcoin cannot scale, until the fixed blocksize issue is fixed. Off-chain solutions in Bitcoin will also require massive increases in the blocksize. Monero has a currently working solution for main chain scaling by using adaptive blocksize limits and a tail emission.  As for SPV implementations they serve to allow for the use of Bitcoin on devices with limited capabilities such as certain mobile devices. SPV does not solve the fundamental issue with Bitcoin scaling in any meaningful way.  https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Thin_Client_Security

[hitchingAride]

Thinking from a midterm perspective ideally I want the upcoming bitcoin halving to do nothing maybe even crash bitcoins price this would be great for alt coins especially monero in my opinion. This may be confirmation bias but I think the halving will be anti climatic. Think if halving was really going to cause the price to go up, why isn't it up now this news is known to nearly everyone in the bitcoin community. I don't believe the market is perfectly efficient but when nearly everyone is already aware how will their be this massive doubling pump. When the bitcoin halving comes around I think almost anything could happen, but my best interest might be biasing me since my holdings are all xmr and im hoping for a crash or stable price. If I did have bitcoin I would be buying xmr now, since the volumes back up with xmr, we still have good momentum and each peak so far is showing higher volume. I am a momentum trader and of all the altcoins monero shows all the technicals and even good fundamentals so im still super bullish.

[r0ach]

Bitcoin cannot scale, until the fixed blocksize issue is fixed.

There is no fixed block size issue because by most people's estimations, something like the relay network is required for over 500k-ish blocks.  Because there is currently no alternative to the relay network that isn't opt-in, this just makes it a cartel creation type of tool to exclude various adversaries from interacting with the network at all.

What do you expect, Monero is just gonna scale to 100mb blocks with no side effects?  Monero does not solve Bitcoin scalability issues.  There really is no huge scalability problem in the first place.  I estimate around 8MB blocks is what is needed to have $10kish transactions and higher valid for on-chain use as a major world currency.  That's just within capability of catching mainstream consumer support.

[smooth]

There is no fixed block size issue because by most people's estimations, something like the relay network is required for over 500k-ish blocks.  Because there is currently no alternative to the relay network that isn't opt-in, this just makes it a cartel creation type of tool to exclude various adversaries from interacting with the network at all.

Thin blocks are a reasonable ad-hoc alternative to the relay network. It is a bit less efficient but only by a small factor (and probably not even that if further optimized). Works just fine for Monero too.

Monero also doesn't suffer from many of the script-related scaling bottlenecks in Bitcoin (or worse Ethereum), because it isn't trying to programmable money or a world computer and is focused on doing one thing and doing it well (A pays B). That said, Monero will probably have some sort of programmability at some point, when it is understood how to add this programability as an optional enhancement over the optimized base function in a scalable and suitably-private manner. (The recent update on Ring Multisig being one small step in that direction.)

[ArticMine]

Bitcoin cannot scale, until the fixed blocksize issue is fixed.

There is no fixed block size issue because by most people's estimations, something like the relay network is required for over 500k-ish blocks.  Because there is currently no alternative to the relay network that isn't opt-in, this just makes it a cartel creation type of tool to exclude various adversaries from interacting with the network at all.

What do you expect, Monero is just gonna scale to 100mb blocks with no side effects?  Monero does not solve Bitcoin scalability issues.  There really is no huge scalability problem in the first place.  I estimate around 8MB blocks is what is needed to have $10kish transactions and higher valid for on-chain use as a major world currency.  That's just within capability of catching mainstream consumer support.

I see crypto currencies today are where credit cards were 60 years ago. I am sure many people in 1956 could not envision a credit card network processing 10s of thousands of transactions per second using punched cards and tabulating machines. They designed credit card and payment card business models around high value transactions where the retailer had very large margins. The dominant Credit Card networks of the day were Diner's Club and American Express.  Who are the dominant Credit Card networks today?

Bitcoin is heading with the above model to becoming the Diner's Club of crypto currency, while Monero at least has a chance of becoming the VISA of crypto currency.

By the way 10K USD and above is the kind of money where the existing banking system actually starts to become very competitive when it comes to transferring money internationally.

[GingerAle]

Bitcoin cannot scale, until the fixed blocksize issue is fixed.

There is no fixed block size issue because by most people's estimations, something like the relay network is required for over 500k-ish blocks.  Because there is currently no alternative to the relay network that isn't opt-in, this just makes it a cartel creation type of tool to exclude various adversaries from interacting with the network at all.

What do you expect, Monero is just gonna scale to 100mb blocks with no side effects?  Monero does not solve Bitcoin scalability issues.  There really is no huge scalability problem in the first place.  I estimate around 8MB blocks is what is needed to have $10kish transactions and higher valid for on-chain use as a major world currency.  That's just within capability of catching mainstream consumer support.

But the difference is that Monero doesn't artificially limit the scale for either political (is it a coffee chain or a remittance network?) or structural reasons (hard block limit needed for fees with a limited emission). The Monero code allows the system to grow "organically" with the technology.

Imagine - 5 years from now - Some whizzbang scientist finds a way to increase the bandwidth of the internet 100 fold within the existing architecture, and samsung has just released 5-dimensional SSDs that read/write at 5 TB / second.

Do you know which network would automatically scale to exist within this new hypernet? Monero.

[smooth]

Imagine - 5 years from now - Some whizzbang scientist finds a way to increase the bandwidth of the internet 100 fold within the existing architecture

I don't know that we need that. I recently got a postcard offering symmetric 3 gigabit internet service (expensive, but fractional service is competitive)

[r0ach]

Thin blocks are a reasonable ad-hoc alternative to the relay network.

In non-adversarial conditions, which doesn't apply to anyone attempting to exhibit cartel behavior.  Since you can't force people to propagate blocks, and the speed of light is a limiting constant, the bigger the blocks, it seems like the bigger the attack vector.

[smooth]

Thin blocks are a reasonable ad-hoc alternative to the relay network.

In non-adversarial conditions

I don't think so, and I've thought about it. There may be adversarial issues with the specific implementation in whatever Bitcoin forks are implementing it (I don't keep track). Of course, you can't entirely get around the possibility of isolation, but if you can manage to disseminate 500 KB blocks somehow (which you assumed), then you can disseminate suitably-compressed blocks of the same size.

[ArticMine]

...
In non-adversarial conditions, which doesn't apply to anyone attempting to exhibit cartel behavior.  Since you can't force people to propagate blocks, and the speed of light is a limiting constant, the bigger the blocks, it seems like the bigger the attack vector.

The speed of light is not the limiting constant here. The speed of electromagnetic energy traveling down a telegraph line in say 1856 is actually comparable to the speed light in a fiber optic cable today. The bandwidth is however very different.

Edit: The bandwidth of a carrier pigeon has increased conservatively by a factor of 10¹⁰ in the last 40 years. The speed at which the carrier pigeon flies has not changed.

[smfuser]

This coin is in all the wrong hands you can imagine.

In your view, who are these wrong hands and why do they own the coin?

[ArticMine]

This coin is in all the wrong hands you can imagine.

In your view, who are these wrong hands and why do they own the coin?

Actually the more interesting question is how does slapper know who owns what amount of XMR?

[explorer]

This coin is in all the wrong hands you can imagine.

In your view, who are these wrong hands and why do they own the coin?

Actually the more interesting question is how does slapper know who owns what amount of XMR?

  With so many lost in boating accidents, there are likely many discrepancies, despite his sly magic.

[newb4now]

This coin is in all the wrong hands you can imagine.

In your view, who are these wrong hands and why do they own the coin?

Actually the more interesting question is how does slapper know who owns what amount of XMR?

He obviously is psychic and found a way to match names with the addresses containing the largest balance on the Monero rich list:

http://moneroblocks.info/richlist

Is it true?  Of course not, but since when was truth a requirement for slapper making a claim?

[iCEBREAKER]

It takes three days for me to buy btc because coinbase is incompetent and has no customer service.

Kraken and Gemini are reputed to be more competent than Coinbank.

[jmpFCE2]

So , XMR was pumped just before the Block Reward Change and you expect people to jump in?

[jmpFCE2]

Can you explain how this earns Trust?

[dEBRUYNE]

So , XMR was pumped just before the Block Reward Change and you expect people to jump in?

The blockreward per minute remains the same. The blocktime went from 1 to 2 minutes and the blockreward was thus adjusted accordingly.

[RyanLiang]

So , XMR was pumped just before the Block Reward Change and you expect people to jump in?

The blockreward per minute remains the same. The blocktime went from 1 to 2 minutes and the blockreward was thus adjusted accordingly.

So there should be no effect in the total block reward per day. But the total block size will reduce.

[CryptoAddict]

Huge dump, and it hit 321 just as predicted by that guy who set up the betting. And within the very same day. It's all too suspicious. It never got below 321 so guess he is technically still "wrong". I accused him of pulling numbers out of his ass. Maybe his nostradamus-ass has more numbers for us? I won't complain this time. Forecast for this week? Lol

Kinda dangerous to hold a coin that is held by some whales who can move the markets with their moods and emotions. 

Indeed it is. I think majority here already knows XMR has some very big hands. On a positive note we have 1 whale less now (theoretically). I remember how the books looked and the single biggest buyorder to soak his dump was 10k~ish, some 5k's and rest "dust". This is not an accurate way to guess players but gives us some idea.

We can blame 2 years of exchange trading without a wallet. Most people store coins on exchange and result is whales can just peacefully swim around opening their mouths from time to time to take in some plankton(xmr). If people perhaps could actually store the coins themselves we would have a different scenario.
It's almost as if the wallet release has been kept on hold intentionally to let certain players load up easier. I truly hope this is not the case.