delete

[cornfeedhobo]

Meanwhile, the exchanges are see large volumes at low prices.

If this isn't market manipulation, I don't know what is.

Look at BCX's post history https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=29445;sa=showPosts

He has never pulled off a TW attack. He has only made claims about them, but admits he "never got to wear the badge" https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=546338.msg5961485#msg5961485

Everything he has done has been FUD with no proof. Never has he demonstrated any coin killing capabilities.

Other notable failures:
Failed to attack namecoin:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=43465.0
Failed to attack litecoin:     https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=94912.0

Someone has even gone so far as to create a petition to have him arrested https://www.change.org/p/bitcoinexpress-have-him-arrested

your a noob and know shit all obviously because i seen him kill coins before..
it may have been some time since it happened but it did happen LOL

Yet another post lacking in proof but claiming a lot. Proof or it didn't happen.

[smooth]

For me a ban means no coins can transact, i.e. it is legal action that requires an unknown justification. Rather blacklisting would be a different legal action that has established justifications already in AML, KYC laws, etc.

Okay difference of terminology then. I have been referring to a "ban" as a ban on anonymity, and a ban on anonymity as being a effective ban on a coin that has as its primary merit anonymity. Sure there are unblacklisted coins being mined, by why would anyone even want them?

We agree that if a ban on anonymity is imposed and is actually effective, then there will be no anonymity. To me that is fairly obvious and uninteresting.

[TheFascistMind]

For the most part I think the cheerleaders, shills, manipulators, etc. (on all sides) are mostly wasting their time and the current result is about the same as it would be without them

How sexy are ring signatures?

I've never seen one in the wild.

Did anyone explain how they are going to take over the world?

Litecoin was mined like hell because all the GPU miners such as BCX were escaping Bitcoin as it went ASIC.

A coin needs something to drive that inrush of participation.

Even if we had 100X more oxygen, talking won't do a damn thing.

[NewLiberty]

The universe has no edge

Yes, it is a very dull place, mostly.

No edge is a fair bet.

[black_jesus]

For me a ban means no coins can transact, i.e. it is legal action that requires an unknown justification. Rather blacklisting would be a different legal action that has established justifications already in AML, KYC laws, etc.

Okay difference of terminology then. I have been referring to a "ban" as a ban on anonymity, and a ban on anonymity as being a effective ban on a coin that has as its primary merit anonymity. Sure there are unblacklisted coins being mined, by why would anyone even want them?

We agree that if a ban on anonymity is imposed and is actually effective, then there will be no anonymity. To me that is fairly obvious and uninteresting.

And if no one would want to mine the unblacklisted coins, wouldn't pools emerge that don't enforce the blacklist, either because they are in a jurisdiction that doesn't force them to, or they can otherwise evade any requirement to blacklist?  It seems like a ban on anonymity would have to be more than just a blacklist if that's the case.

[NewLiberty]

Disagree. Blacklisting entire anonymity sets is legally and politically plausible (but I don't know how realistic any delisting is, certainly if mining is centralized it is much more realistic), and the anonymity set can't increase once blacklisted without culpability on the part of the users. Well at least for ring signatures. Thanks for helping me (re-)discover a key qualitative distinction which is very negative on ring signatures.

That ring signatures make blacklisting more useless or difficult, may be negative or positive depending on one's views on fungibility and blacklisting.

[smooth]

Litecoin was mined like hell because all the GPU miners such as BCX were escaping Bitcoin as it went ASIC.

Mining like hell doesn't drive the price up, all it does is drive the difficulty up where everyone is losing money, and this is of course unsustainable.

People need to want to buy and hold the coin in order to drive the price up. Even just driving it up enough where increased mining becomes sustainable.

That likely happened with Litecoin because of people did not like how things were going with Bitcoin and ASICs and centralization, and possibly other things people didn't/don't like about Bitcoin. Maybe how it has started to become corporate, BCF antics, hacks and scams and bad PR, etc.?

Monero (and to be fair Darkcoin, even if I think it is inferior) has gained the following it has because people do not like how things are going with Bitcoin in terms of privacy and fungibility. There has been too much talk about blacklisting/whitelisting, too many papers showing successful blockchain analysis, reports about Coinbase banning people because they send Bitcoins to a poker site, etc.

[TheFascistMind]

For me a ban means no coins can transact, i.e. it is legal action that requires an unknown justification. Rather blacklisting would be a different legal action that has established justifications already in AML, KYC laws, etc.

Okay difference of terminology then. I have been referring to a "ban" as a ban on anonymity, and a ban on anonymity as being a effective ban on a coin that has as its primary merit anonymity. Sure there are unblacklisted coins being mined, by why would anyone even want them?

I did not say anything about the value and price of the coin after such an action. I was distinguishing between a ban on transacting (which seems to be legally more difficult) and a blacklisting (which seems to follow more easily from admirality law, AML, KYC, etc) which is effectively a ban on ring signatures.

We agree that if a ban on anonymity is imposed and is actually effective, then there will be no anonymity. To me that is fairly obvious and uninteresting.

But my overriding point is that to protect anonymity and fungibility, mining needs to be impervious to control by the State. If that isn't possible, then I wouldn't waste my time on anonymity.

[TheFascistMind]

Mining like hell doesn't drive the price up

We had this discussion already a month or two ago. I think we've had this discussion more than once.

I suggest you ask BCX about how mining at a loss for many months paid off for him with BTC ($3 to $1200) and LTC (<$1 to $30).

Why not just buy the LTC? Because I think he already had the mining rigs. Sunk costs are free.

Also because exchanges are not convenient for everyone (5 ids, a blood sample, etc).

[smooth]

But my overriding point is that to protect anonymity and fungibility, mining needs to be impervious to control by the State. If that isn't possible, then I wouldn't waste my time on anonymity.

Unless one does not agree with your model of what is or is not definitely going to happen in the future with mining and the State. I say definitely because even though you may turn out to be right that the hammer comes down and we all live under an effective globalist totalitarian regime that controls mining (and lot else), if you aren't right then work on technology that is useful in other scenarios is still worthwhile.

[smooth]

Mining like hell doesn't drive the price up

We had this discussion already a month or two ago. I think we've had this discussion more than once.

It is important to understand that there needs to be some reason to demand the coin. Mining alone isn't it.

Perhaps it isn't important to understand what that reason was for Litecoin, since that is more or less ancient history and Litecoin is well on its way to irrelevance. But I think it is pretty clear what are the reasons driving demand for leading enhanced-privacy coins today.

I suggest you ask BCX about how mining at a loss for many months paid off for him with BTC ($3 to $1200) and LTC (<$1 to $30).

Hindsight being 20/20 sure. I mined Bitcoin at very low prices too. I don't feel like I was a genius for doing it. I just did it because it was interesting and likewise in hindsight it paid off. Plenty of things I've done because they were interesting did not pay off.

[NewLiberty]

I never heard of dedicated and concerned developers that expected everything to be handed to them on a silver platter in completely polished form so they don't have to do any work.

Right.  That is the expectation of users, not developers.

That most us users don't even donate what might be a reasonable cost for software development is also shameful.

[coinsolidation]

That most us users don't even donate what might be a reasonable cost for software development is also shameful.

If only somebody would invent a way for users to crowd fund software with a single click, maybe whilst also giving reputation. That would help software development massively!

[TheFascistMind]

Well I hope the financial motivations can be worked out. And I agree that privacy enhancement work is an important feature to have in a coin. Just don't think anonymity by itself is convincing enough yet to drive the world into a coin. And there are too many competing anonymous coins, so it is dilutive and confusing. If you asked me today which anonymous coin to hold and to hide wealth in with surety, I would not be able to answer. It is not even clear to me from a technological standpoint. So how can it be clear to the n00bs.

[smooth]

And there are too many competing anonymous coins, so it is dilutive and confusing.

This almost seems like deliberate FUD

Right now DRK and XMR are the only ones getting any real attention. That is not a statement of merit about the others, just that they are so small and obscure, they can't really be confusing any noobs (BBR for example is #49 on coinmarketcap). Honestly even XMR is much less well known than DRK.

[TheFascistMind]

Right now DRK and XMR are the only ones getting any real attention.

Okay. But another way of looking at it is there are at least AnonCoin, CloakCoin, BBR, XMR, DRK, BTCD, Zerocash in the works, and none of those even get close to what LTC or DOGE achieved, so looks to me the wider community is still on the sidelines. So confusion I feel may be shared with others.

[TheFascistMind]

I just did it because it was interesting

Bingo!

[black_jesus]

And there are too many competing anonymous coins, so it is dilutive and confusing.

This almost seems like deliberate FUD

Right now DRK and XMR are the only ones getting any real attention. That is not a statement of merit about the others, just that they are so small and obscure, they can't really be confusing any noobs (BBR for example is #49 on coinmarketcap). Honestly even XMR is much less well known than DRK.

There's other in the top 20 of marketcap (XC, BTCD) that claim anonymity ... I have no idea whether their claims have any merit.

[smooth]

Right now DRK and XMR are the only ones getting any real attention.

Okay. But another way of looking at it is there are at least AnonCoin, CloakCoin, BBR, XMR, DRK, BTCD, Zerocash in the works, and none of those even get close to what LTC or DOGE achieved, so looks to me the wider community is still on the sidelines. So confusion I feel may be shared with others.

Zerocoin doesn't exist and BTCD has no anonymity (it is supposed to be based on teleport, which isn't implemented yet). AnonCoin is #29 and CloakCoin is #79.

I agree about some people waiting on the sidelines to see about Zerocash and that is certainly reasonable, but as for the others, I think you are a bit too close to this to recognize that almost literally no one is waiting on the sidelines to see if CloakCoin will dominate the segment.

[TheFascistMind]

I wrote that I think the majority of the community and world are not rushing to buy any of the anonymous coins yet.

If I can't figure out which is the technological superior, certainly the n00bs can't yet either.

IMO, we have months or a year or so to go before the technologies get fleshed out.