[XMR] Monero Speculation

[jehst]

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

Is it true?

Their pre-mine was allegedly due to an unintentional bug, but the result is the same. 1,625,000 Darkcoins were created between the times of 3:54 and 11:22 on January 19th, 2014 (the DRK launch date).  Currently, there are 4,986,507 darkcoins. Darkcoin advocates will brush this off and talk about how Satoshi has lots of bitcoin.

The darkcoin masternodes are, of course, more centralized than XMR's passive mixing system. Darkcoin advocates will be quick to talk about how expensive it would be to buy any significant number of nodes, yet I have not heard a sufficient response to the possibility that the NSA can infiltrate masternodes by secretly forcing Amazon or other cloud  computing service providers to grant them access.

I'm not sure what "lacking useful proofs of security" means.

[smoothie]

that reminds me of what I came here to ask:

aside from bots, who is accumulating? I would like to know because I want to be more aware of their motivations. My position size in XMR is adequate but I may be interested in acquiring more

I am accumulating because I actually seriously believe that XMR is the single best candidate for a global instant liquidity vehicle - world-wide cash.  That is a very extreme position, but it only requires a very small probability of accuracy over the very long run to make a substantial position compulsory.  Liquidity is a natural monopoly.  Network effects favor Bitcoin's continued dominance of the market for transparent liquidity, but the dark ledger niche remains to be filled.  XMR has a balance of features, technical and usability, which make it a better candidate than any other coin. 

Other reasonable candidates include DRK, zerocash/zerocoin implementations yet to be released, and alternate cryptonote species:

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

- ZC will always fail usability.  The cryptography is believed to be excellent, but is immature, untested.  The size of the chain, the cost of the proofs, will prevent it from acting like cash.  It is not very liquid for a liquidity vehicle.  It also has no working implementation.

- Other cryptonotes lack the community, the social capital, as well as the liquidity leadership possessed by XMR, limited though that liquidity may be at the moment (a problem likely to be fixed in the usual way, by price).

By elimination, XMR, embryonic though it admittedly is, appears to be the most fit to rescue the human liberty to transact, and potentially the liberty to retain one's earnings indefinitely, without being subject to dilution, extortion or theft.

Even if we completely discount the extreme end-state as absurdly unlikely, the failure modes are very favorable to holders.  When the three critical elements are in place technically - namely, DB, UI, and multisig - it is hard to see why the bulk of vulnerable transactions currently conducted on the open ledger would not move to the private ledger, starting with those most vulnerable ones which are suited to the prevailing liquidity levels at the time.  On the basis of the history of bitcoin alone, a minimum upside target 200x the current trading price seems compelling, on the basis of dark net markets alone (when amplified by the inevitable speculative excess which will accompany such uptake). 

The real threats to XMRs future prosperity are unknown unknowns.  Any suggestions as to vulnerabilities to technical, economic, political risks which mitigate the brilliance of XMRs future prospects are enthusiastically solicited.

Similarly to BTC, I consider the core team to be the greatest single vulnerability, as its subversion or corruption by forces inimical to the interests of XMR holders would be devastating, but as core teams go, it is much more diverse, dispersed, and network-connected to the broader XMR community than are the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency development groups.   As XMR accumulates market cap, and entrepreneurs find niches for building enterprises which fill out the XMR economy, enhanced funding prospects should make it more feasible to expand and enhance these confidence-encouraging features of the team.

 

One thing I noticed about the core developers of Bitcoin is they all had 0 problem making their real life names and faces known. They are public figures with nothing to hide.

Is this true with XMR developers? I'm not saying that XMR can't be successful unless this happens but I would say that XMR has all of the good elements that Litecoin had to make it as successful as it has been.

[dEBRUYNE]

that reminds me of what I came here to ask:

aside from bots, who is accumulating? I would like to know because I want to be more aware of their motivations. My position size in XMR is adequate but I may be interested in acquiring more

I am accumulating because I actually seriously believe that XMR is the single best candidate for a global instant liquidity vehicle - world-wide cash.  That is a very extreme position, but it only requires a very small probability of accuracy over the very long run to make a substantial position compulsory.  Liquidity is a natural monopoly.  Network effects favor Bitcoin's continued dominance of the market for transparent liquidity, but the dark ledger niche remains to be filled.  XMR has a balance of features, technical and usability, which make it a better candidate than any other coin.  

Other reasonable candidates include DRK, zerocash/zerocoin implementations yet to be released, and alternate cryptonote species:

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

- ZC will always fail usability.  The cryptography is believed to be excellent, but is immature, untested.  The size of the chain, the cost of the proofs, will prevent it from acting like cash.  It is not very liquid for a liquidity vehicle.  It also has no working implementation.

- Other cryptonotes lack the community, the social capital, as well as the liquidity leadership possessed by XMR, limited though that liquidity may be at the moment (a problem likely to be fixed in the usual way, by price).

By elimination, XMR, embryonic though it admittedly is, appears to be the most fit to rescue the human liberty to transact, and potentially the liberty to retain one's earnings indefinitely, without being subject to dilution, extortion or theft.

Even if we completely discount the extreme end-state as absurdly unlikely, the failure modes are very favorable to holders.  When the three critical elements are in place technically - namely, DB, UI, and multisig - it is hard to see why the bulk of vulnerable transactions currently conducted on the open ledger would not move to the private ledger, starting with those most vulnerable ones which are suited to the prevailing liquidity levels at the time.  On the basis of the history of bitcoin alone, a minimum upside target 200x the current trading price seems compelling, on the basis of dark net markets alone (when amplified by the inevitable speculative excess which will accompany such uptake).  

The real threats to XMRs future prosperity are unknown unknowns.  Any suggestions as to vulnerabilities to technical, economic, political risks which mitigate the brilliance of XMRs future prospects are enthusiastically solicited.

Similarly to BTC, I consider the core team to be the greatest single vulnerability, as its subversion or corruption by forces inimical to the interests of XMR holders would be devastating, but as core teams go, it is much more diverse, dispersed, and network-connected to the broader XMR community than are the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency development groups.   As XMR accumulates market cap, and entrepreneurs find niches for building enterprises which fill out the XMR economy, enhanced funding prospects should make it more feasible to expand and enhance these confidence-encouraging features of the team.

 

One thing I noticed about the core developers of Bitcoin is they all had 0 problem making their real life names and faces known. They are public figures with nothing to hide.

Is this true with XMR developers? I'm not saying that XMR can't be successful unless this happens but I would say that XMR has all of the good elements that Litecoin had to make it as successful as it has been.

Atleast for David Latapie and fluffypony this is true, unfortunately I don't know the other devs stance on this subject. Maybe they can state about it themselves here?

[whocares]

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

Is it true?

Who's that person ? Please tell us.

[bitcoinmining]

What's the ending point of this dumping phase guys, what do you think?

[Jungian]

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

Is it true?

Who's that person ? Please tell us.

Evan holds the most coins.

[Brilliantrocket]

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

Is it true?

Who's that person ? Please tell us.

Evan holds the most coins.

Why do people feel it's ok to make outrageous claims without providing any evidence? How far did you have to stick your fist up your ass to pull that sort of nonsense out?

[TrueCryptonaire]

The biggest bullish signal for long term in XMR is the quality of the community.
The quality of the community (early bitcoiners and well-connected people) is something which makes the coin succesful in the long run.
Sure we have volatility for short haul but the true BagHodlers^tm are for long haul and will become rich if this succeeds (the odds for success is surprisingly high in this case).

[thelonecrouton]

The darkcoin masternodes are, of course, more centralized than XMR's passive mixing system. Darkcoin advocates will be quick to talk about how expensive it would be to buy any significant number of nodes, yet I have not heard a sufficient response to the possibility that the NSA can infiltrate masternodes by secretly forcing Amazon or other cloud  computing service providers to grant them access.

This is a concern.

A question though: For a trivial cost I could be running 10000 instances of bitmonerod. Or 100000. What mischief (if any) might someone perpetrate upon XMR by running the majority of wallets connected at any given time?

[smoothie]

That was one reason I liked XMR ....there was no premine.

Premine is essentially getting something for nothing.

[smoothie]

I can see the price coming back to test 0.0015 and maybe lower...better to take its time on the rise then to rocket straight up.

[dEBRUYNE]

I can see the price coming back to test 0.0015 and maybe lower...better to take its time on the rise then to rocket straight up.

Indeed, a little pullback is important. Going higher will also result in a deeper correction, which could burn more people. The most important thing for me is that the long downtrend (since end of august) is broken.

[lyth0s]

that reminds me of what I came here to ask:

aside from bots, who is accumulating? I would like to know because I want to be more aware of their motivations. My position size in XMR is adequate but I may be interested in acquiring more

I am accumulating because I actually seriously believe that XMR is the single best candidate for a global instant liquidity vehicle - world-wide cash.  That is a very extreme position, but it only requires a very small probability of accuracy over the very long run to make a substantial position compulsory.  Liquidity is a natural monopoly.  Network effects favor Bitcoin's continued dominance of the market for transparent liquidity, but the dark ledger niche remains to be filled.  XMR has a balance of features, technical and usability, which make it a better candidate than any other coin. 

Other reasonable candidates include DRK, zerocash/zerocoin implementations yet to be released, and alternate cryptonote species:

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

- ZC will always fail usability.  The cryptography is believed to be excellent, but is immature, untested.  The size of the chain, the cost of the proofs, will prevent it from acting like cash.  It is not very liquid for a liquidity vehicle.  It also has no working implementation.

- Other cryptonotes lack the community, the social capital, as well as the liquidity leadership possessed by XMR, limited though that liquidity may be at the moment (a problem likely to be fixed in the usual way, by price).

By elimination, XMR, embryonic though it admittedly is, appears to be the most fit to rescue the human liberty to transact, and potentially the liberty to retain one's earnings indefinitely, without being subject to dilution, extortion or theft.

Even if we completely discount the extreme end-state as absurdly unlikely, the failure modes are very favorable to holders.  When the three critical elements are in place technically - namely, DB, UI, and multisig - it is hard to see why the bulk of vulnerable transactions currently conducted on the open ledger would not move to the private ledger, starting with those most vulnerable ones which are suited to the prevailing liquidity levels at the time.  On the basis of the history of bitcoin alone, a minimum upside target 200x the current trading price seems compelling, on the basis of dark net markets alone (when amplified by the inevitable speculative excess which will accompany such uptake). 

The real threats to XMRs future prosperity are unknown unknowns.  Any suggestions as to vulnerabilities to technical, economic, political risks which mitigate the brilliance of XMRs future prospects are enthusiastically solicited.

Similarly to BTC, I consider the core team to be the greatest single vulnerability, as its subversion or corruption by forces inimical to the interests of XMR holders would be devastating, but as core teams go, it is much more diverse, dispersed, and network-connected to the broader XMR community than are the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency development groups.   As XMR accumulates market cap, and entrepreneurs find niches for building enterprises which fill out the XMR economy, enhanced funding prospects should make it more feasible to expand and enhance these confidence-encouraging features of the team.

 

I am also accumulating. Thankfully aminorex could state the many reasons why, much better than I would have.

[Jungian]

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

Is it true?

Who's that person ? Please tell us.

Evan holds the most coins.

Why do people feel it's ok to make outrageous claims without providing any evidence? How far did you have to stick your fist up your ass to pull that sort of nonsense out?

It is well known that 2 million coins (or about 50% of the current supply) were instamined in the first 24 hours. http://wiki.darkcoin.eu/wiki/FAQ#Was_Darkcoin_Instamined.3F

~2mn coins were issued in the first 48 hours due to problems with the difficulty readjustment. That represents approximately 10-15% of the total money supply that will ever be issued.

Ofc the inventor and first miner holds a huge portion of these. Or are you saying he instamined and dumped right away?

[rpietila]

It is hard to say for certain, but it seems to me that the christmas present perhaps was the 0.00194.

After all, it's +113% essentially in one week!

Now the 2nd fibonacci level I'd be seeking is in about 0.00130. Half retracement is 0.00142 and 1st order is 0.00155.

So unless (and that's a big IF for sure) others frontrun, I'll be buying around those prices in a few days or 2 weeks at most.

I think I predicted a resistance around 0.002 and even if not, there it is. At most I can see 0.00220 by tuesday and then a pullback. There are always people who want to cash out after a sharp rise, and others who question the viability of buying after a doubling.

Happy trading!  

[lyth0s]

It is hard to say for certain, but it seems to me that the christmas present perhaps was the 0.00194.

After all, it's +113% essentially in one week!

Now the 2nd fibonacci level I'd be seeking is in about 0.00130. Half retracement is 0.00142 and 1st order is 0.00155.

So unless (and that's a big IF for sure) others frontrun, I'll be buying around those prices in a few days or 2 weeks at most.

I think I predicted a resistance around 0.002 and even if not, there it is. At most I can see 0.00220 by tuesday and then a pullback. There are always people who want to cash out after a sharp rise, and others who question the viability of buying after a doubling.

Happy trading!  

Hmmm... with that being said I wanted to accumulate another 700 XMR "soon". Would you suggest I wait a couple of days to 2 weeks to see if we go back down to 0.0011-0.0014 area? Or buy now so I don't have to buy when > 0.002?

[rpietila]

It is hard to say for certain, but it seems to me that the christmas present perhaps was the 0.00194.

After all, it's +113% essentially in one week!

Now the 2nd fibonacci level I'd be seeking is in about 0.00130. Half retracement is 0.00142 and 1st order is 0.00155.

So unless (and that's a big IF for sure) others frontrun, I'll be buying around those prices in a few days or 2 weeks at most.

I think I predicted a resistance around 0.002 and even if not, there it is. At most I can see 0.00220 by tuesday and then a pullback. There are always people who want to cash out after a sharp rise, and others who question the viability of buying after a doubling.

Happy trading!  

Hmmm... with that being said I wanted to accumulate another 700 XMR "soon". Would you suggest I wait a couple of days to 2 weeks to see if we go back down to 0.0011-0.0014 area? Or buy now so I don't have to buy when > 0.002?

Depends about your personal circumstances. We are now at about today's WAP, but 23% higher than yesterday's.

I happen to not believe that there is a great risk for XMR to go permanently over 0.003 in one swoop, so in my thinking waiting would be preferential. Perhaps with a mental stop-loss at 0.00225 which I don't believe we'll assault the beginning week, but have been wrong before.

[smooth]

The darkcoin masternodes are, of course, more centralized than XMR's passive mixing system. Darkcoin advocates will be quick to talk about how expensive it would be to buy any significant number of nodes, yet I have not heard a sufficient response to the possibility that the NSA can infiltrate masternodes by secretly forcing Amazon or other cloud  computing service providers to grant them access.

This is a concern.

A question though: For a trivial cost I could be running 10000 instances of bitmonerod. Or 100000. What mischief (if any) might someone perpetrate upon XMR by running the majority of wallets connected at any given time?

Running 10000 instances of bitmonerod accomplishes nothing other than improving connectivity. If anything coin p2p networks have a problem with too few nodes, not too many.

Someone could potentially gain a majority (or even a very large minority) of the hash rate and interfere with mining (mostly an issue of potential double spend attacks), as with any PoW coin.

[aminorex]

It is entirely possible that some of my information about DRK is accurate only to a first approximation or else obsoleted by subsequent developments.  Anyone interested in DRK will be better served by investigating for themselves.  I find it hard to take it seriously, having once left it as soon as XMR became an option (biblical reference omitted, as being inflammatory), so don't rely on me to do your diligence on DRK.

[BldSwtTrs]

that reminds me of what I came here to ask:

aside from bots, who is accumulating? I would like to know because I want to be more aware of their motivations. My position size in XMR is adequate but I may be interested in acquiring more

I am accumulating because I actually seriously believe that XMR is the single best candidate for a global instant liquidity vehicle - world-wide cash.  That is a very extreme position, but it only requires a very small probability of accuracy over the very long run to make a substantial position compulsory.  Liquidity is a natural monopoly.  Network effects favor Bitcoin's continued dominance of the market for transparent liquidity, but the dark ledger niche remains to be filled.  XMR has a balance of features, technical and usability, which make it a better candidate than any other coin.  

Other reasonable candidates include DRK, zerocash/zerocoin implementations yet to be released, and alternate cryptonote species:

- DRK was pre-mine, is controlled by one person, and suffers from centralization, as well as lacking useful proofs of security.

- ZC will always fail usability.  The cryptography is believed to be excellent, but is immature, untested.  The size of the chain, the cost of the proofs, will prevent it from acting like cash.  It is not very liquid for a liquidity vehicle.  It also has no working implementation.

- Other cryptonotes lack the community, the social capital, as well as the liquidity leadership possessed by XMR, limited though that liquidity may be at the moment (a problem likely to be fixed in the usual way, by price).

By elimination, XMR, embryonic though it admittedly is, appears to be the most fit to rescue the human liberty to transact, and potentially the liberty to retain one's earnings indefinitely, without being subject to dilution, extortion or theft.

Even if we completely discount the extreme end-state as absurdly unlikely, the failure modes are very favorable to holders.  When the three critical elements are in place technically - namely, DB, UI, and multisig - it is hard to see why the bulk of vulnerable transactions currently conducted on the open ledger would not move to the private ledger, starting with those most vulnerable ones which are suited to the prevailing liquidity levels at the time.  On the basis of the history of bitcoin alone, a minimum upside target 200x the current trading price seems compelling, on the basis of dark net markets alone (when amplified by the inevitable speculative excess which will accompany such uptake).  

The real threats to XMRs future prosperity are unknown unknowns.  Any suggestions as to vulnerabilities to technical, economic, political risks which mitigate the brilliance of XMRs future prospects are enthusiastically solicited.

Similarly to BTC, I consider the core team to be the greatest single vulnerability, as its subversion or corruption by forces inimical to the interests of XMR holders would be devastating, but as core teams go, it is much more diverse, dispersed, and network-connected to the broader XMR community than are the overwhelming majority of cryptocurrency development groups.   As XMR accumulates market cap, and entrepreneurs find niches for building enterprises which fill out the XMR economy, enhanced funding prospects should make it more feasible to expand and enhance these confidence-encouraging features of the team.

I have another candidate for you: Safecoin.
It's the appcoin of the future MaidSafe the network and it will be anonymous (it will not run on a blockchain). So I guess if the MaidSafe network takes over the world then Safecoin can become the new worldwide cash.