[ANN][VTR] vTorrent - Share with freedom | 2FA | HD | @Bittrex

[ik_do]

Looks like we have a new top wallet  

http://cryptoguru.tk/RichList/index.php?Currency=VTR

Never mind all that.

What's your view on pricing for VTR and bandwidth for BitTorrent files.

The bandwith and pricing should be flexible like ik_do said, it seems the most reasonable way forward.
That being said let's see what the devs come up with.

On top of it being flexible I think its important that it should also be obvious to any user--what are they paying for, what are they getting. Just putting a textbox with "bid price" isn't enough in this day and age and doesn't form a good standard in showing users they have the power to choose a price that actually makes sense than rather just looks good (i.e. why not 0.1899756 per KB rather than 0.1000000 per KB--the price doesn't need to be some preset/idealized value but rather something that is flexible in the users mind).

Its also worth noting that the price should be in accordance to scarcity of the torrent someone is after--if it has thousands of seeds then it should be worth a very base amount, if its a file several years old or in the initial phases of seeding then its value should be intrinsic in nature (i.e. it should be worth far more to a leecher and someone who wants to seed the file than any well-seeded file)

The pricing and mechanism should be focused upon delivering 100.00% of the file to paying leechers rather than copping out at 86% because no full copies are available via known seeds.

for instance the following imaginary examples (whereby 0.3/0.01/1 doesn't represent 1:1 to VTR but rather can be just used as a potential idea)
2000 MB torrent
600 seeders and 900 leechers (0.3 per KB)

2000 MB torrent
600 seeders and 32 leechers (0.01 per KB)

2000 MB torrent
2 seeders and 32 leechers (1 per KB)

It'd also be interesting to see a bidding market whereby different content has different bidding standards (i.e. files vs audio vs video vs programs vs etc) as well as the age of a torrent (i.e. is a torrent that is 6 years old worth more/less than the same content that is newer?)

For some content the age of the torrent is irrespective of its quality, whereas in other instances a poorly made/notated torrent is of less value than a well made/notated torrent)

Perhaps in summation there should be a few contributing factors to let a user know whether their bid for a file is acceptable or not (if that is indeed how the system will function)

[ik_do]

Also a question to vtorrent--how do seeders/leechers identify each other? Will they need to run a specific client etc?

[coins101]

@ik_do

I like the analysis you provide.  

Now the dev has given some clarification around the payment channels and relationship to torrent file sizes, any further views on pricing mechanisms?

The pricing mechanism should be flexible tbh, so that it is purely governed by supply/demand. I guess it'd be a good idea for the client to clearly show what the current "average" price of bandwidth is but I am mostly concerned with these few factors:

-ease of use (whereby eventually vTr is implemented in third party clients such as rTorrent etc)
-ease of search (I want it to be really really like P2P software of yesteryear so people can actually search for content EASILY--perhaps a ZeroNet implementation at some point would be really interesting)
-WoT (web of trust--how do we know what a user has posted is worthwhile, how do we know they are reputable etc? Even if its just a 5 star rating system, there has to be something eventually that allows people to know they're not going to be wasting their time in downloading a file)
-chatrooms (I want communal, encrypted chatrooms just like IRC--I want to see people to be discussing things in-client and not have to add other users via their public key or some bullshit which no one will likely use. I want Joe Nobody to install the program and instantly be able to chat with people in General #1 or similar. This is a key factor in getting people to USE the client. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've never seen IRC via blockchain.)
-adoption incentives (I want to see people using the client for what its intended and not just bagholding or whatever bullshit is currently accepted/practiced in the cryptospace; I want to see people saying "I have XYZ content and I am going to share this because within 10 minutes I know I'll get 10 downloads)

Now its impossible to imagine all these features coming in the client anytime soon (even with/without torrent implementation yet) but I would gladly support financially the development of these ideas.

I like flexible payments too. A market driven approach.

This could be a leader board of fees for any given file. This would, likely, drive down the price until some don't bother to seed.

The way transaction fees are calculated by some wallets is interesting also. That is based on a market drive approach, too.

I'm still keen on creating a race to be first to seed by giving extra incentives to first movers. Multi-level marketing pricing mechanism is such a bad ass idea. Those first to seed could earn a fortune, driving up demand for running VTR.

[ik_do]

@ik_do

I like the analysis you provide.  

Now the dev has given some clarification around the payment channels and relationship to torrent file sizes, any further views on pricing mechanisms?

The pricing mechanism should be flexible tbh, so that it is purely governed by supply/demand. I guess it'd be a good idea for the client to clearly show what the current "average" price of bandwidth is but I am mostly concerned with these few factors:

-ease of use (whereby eventually vTr is implemented in third party clients such as rTorrent etc)
-ease of search (I want it to be really really like P2P software of yesteryear so people can actually search for content EASILY--perhaps a ZeroNet implementation at some point would be really interesting)
-WoT (web of trust--how do we know what a user has posted is worthwhile, how do we know they are reputable etc? Even if its just a 5 star rating system, there has to be something eventually that allows people to know they're not going to be wasting their time in downloading a file)
-chatrooms (I want communal, encrypted chatrooms just like IRC--I want to see people to be discussing things in-client and not have to add other users via their public key or some bullshit which no one will likely use. I want Joe Nobody to install the program and instantly be able to chat with people in General #1 or similar. This is a key factor in getting people to USE the client. Correct me if I'm wrong but I've never seen IRC via blockchain.)
-adoption incentives (I want to see people using the client for what its intended and not just bagholding or whatever bullshit is currently accepted/practiced in the cryptospace; I want to see people saying "I have XYZ content and I am going to share this because within 10 minutes I know I'll get 10 downloads)

Now its impossible to imagine all these features coming in the client anytime soon (even with/without torrent implementation yet) but I would gladly support financially the development of these ideas.

I like flexible payments too. A market driven approach.

This could be a leader board of fees for any given file. This would, likely, drive down the price until some don't bother to seed.

The way transaction fees are calculated by some wallets is interesting also. That is based on a market drive approach, too.

I'm still keen on creating a race to be first to seed by giving extra incentives to first movers. Multi-level marketing pricing mechanism is such a bad ass idea. Those first to seed could earn a fortune, driving up demand for running VTR.

Yes first movers are important but its also important to mention that there exists many hundreds of thousands of perfect torrent files out there which are impecibly produced yet lack enough seeds--I suppose these are the last movers?

What is the cost/incentive to the end user to try and make these hard to find torrents available?

[coins101]

....

What is the cost/incentive to the end user to try and make these hard to find torrents available?

Ratings?

Also, I keep finding myself going back to the multi-level marketing fees sharing approach. I think I need to get some fresh air. Stuck in a loop with that idea.

[ik_do]

....

What is the cost/incentive to the end user to try and make these hard to find torrents available?

Ratings?

Also, I keep finding myself going back to the multi-level marketing fees sharing approach. I think I need to get some fresh air. Stuck in a loop with that idea.

Yes, ratings were something that Kazaa/Limewire used inefficiently back in the day; popular torrent sites also have "verified" users who are known to provide "good content".

I think another breakthrough may be to have the client able to ascertain information from its content; i.e. rather than relying upon the creator labeling something well it'd be nice to have some form of searching for a particular standard (i.e. 1080p MKV w/ English subtitles).

Though it's never possible to account for converted content it would be premiering to have a client that can search for actual content's information.

[coins101]

I'm not sure this is something for VTR to solve, but there are plenty of articles about finding torrents

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-torrent-search-engines.htm

[ik_do]

I'm not sure this is something for VTR to solve, but there are plenty of articles about finding torrents

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-torrent-search-engines.htm

The problem with most of these solutions is that they are the same as any other solution for this space i.e. vulnerable to takedown or interference.

ZeroNet (https://zeronet.io/) exists as the best example I can find of an uninterruptable torrent search engine thus far.

[coins101]

The issue with competitive pricing for bandwidth of the same files is it's a race to zero fees. You get to a point of not wanting to work for very little reward.

If I sell open source office software on eBay, the time and effort I put in to sourcing that piece of software is wasted because someone can just sit there and wait for me to sell something, buy it then under cut me. After a two weeks, I'm priced out of the thing I sourced because there are hundreds of people selling the same thing.

The race to zero discourages me from sourcing materials, and I'll do what everyone else does - wait for someone to seed, then copy, seed and earn what I can while the going is good.

Protected markets is what we need. The best way to create protected markets is to lock people out. So, what's needed is an efficiency ratio algorithm.

When seeding is too efficient, it's likely because there are too many seeders. What are they all earning? If its a really small figure, the market is saturated. Seeders that came in last need to be tapered off by reducing their fee income.

So, a fee taper algorithm. If you're first, you get some level of protection, so you are incentivised to be one of the early seeders.

Efficiency could also be monitored for regional inefficiencies. If all seeders are in China, but all the leechers are in the USA, that's not very efficient, but that needs to be measured on the basis of the quality of your bandwidth.

[ik_do]

The issue with competitive pricing for bandwidth of the same files is it's a race to zero fees. You get to a point of not wanting to work for very little reward.

If I sell open source office software on eBay, the time and effort I put in to sourcing that piece of software is wasted because someone can just sit there and wait for me to sell something, buy it then under cut me. After a two weeks, I'm priced out of the thing I sourced because there are hundreds of people selling the same thing.

The race to zero discourages me from sourcing materials, and I'll do what everyone else does - wait for someone to seed, then copy, seed and earn what I can while the going is good.

Protected markets is what we need. The best way to create protected markets is to lock people out. So, what's needed is an efficiency ratio algorithm.

When seeding is too efficient, it's likely because there are too many seeders. What are they all earning? If its a really small figure, the market is saturated. Seeders that came in last need to be tapered off by reducing their fee income.

So, a fee taper algorithm. If you're first, you get some level of protection, so you are incentivised to be one of the early seeders.

Efficiency could also be monitored for regional inefficiencies. If all seeders are in China, but all the leechers are in the USA, that's not very efficient, but that needs to be measured on the basis of the quality of your bandwidth.

I think once a torrent has reached a certain amount of seeders it becomes irrelevant when it comes to the "market".

I believe there is a definite market for early adopters/seeders, but providing an incentive to older well-regarded torrents should be crucial.

As an end user I am always willing to pay money towards content which I am unable to obtain

The question is what is value of a person who is after content which is special yet not recent.

[coins101]

....
As an end user I am always willing to pay money towards content which I am unable to obtain

The question is what is value of a person who is after content which is special yet not recent.

Isn't that a question for BitTorrent?

Now there is a payment mechanism, buyer's need to advertise what they are looking for and how much they are willing to pay.

[ik_do]

....
As an end user I am always willing to pay money towards content which I am unable to obtain

The question is what is value of a person who is after content which is special yet not recent.

Isn't that a question for BitTorrent?

Now there is a payment mechanism, buyer's need to advertise what they are looking for and how much they are willing to pay.

For sure, it'll also be interesting to see if it's possible to only pay for specific files within a torrent--in this way very large torrents could be viable rather than the current system of having a separate torrent for each and every file. This would obviously only make sense for content that is more archival in nature and not current releases.

[coins101]

...If anybody have any suggestions or ideas about how we should reward the seeders, please PM me or reply in thread.
...

It's probably worth looking at what the market is doing in this area, then seeing which models look worth adopting.

Joystream is using the following approach:



* Anyone with spare bandwith can use JoyStream and earn Bitcoin, at what ever price they choose, in exchange for seeding to peers. If you have some rare content which no one else has, you are rewarded by being able to charge higher prices.

* JoyStream makes it possible to download and seek to any part of a large HD audio or video file by simply requesting and paying for it directly, which makes streaming work as well as on the web

* JoyStream rewards seeders for providing bandwidth with micropayments, and this leads to much higher download speeds on all content.

They seem to have download section for their latest alpha or beta release http://joystream.co/

So, in essence, they use payment channels to let downloaders pay uploaders using market decides the fees / charges based pricing.

This is like an auction pricing mechanism. Probably similar to the way transaction fees are handled by Bitcoin clients now.

This looks similar to what you have said:

in the beginning we will implement static piece size (most likely 512Kb pieces) and have user settable demand price per piece.

Well, let's go back to what the competition is doing.

If you look at their blurb, they say they are building a request and pay feature.

So let's do that, but also lets have a way to fix the race to zero fees. An efficiency seed algorithm will differnetiate VTR and make seeders want to seed on VTR and also create a race to be one of the early seeders.  This will drive demand from seeders and leechers

[ik_do]

Its also interesting to note that there haven't really been any updates from JoyStream in quite some time.

[ik_do]

Not sure if this was posted before? Its dated Oct 2.

https://twitter.com/Authy/status/782650608444637185

"Welcome to the family, @vTorrentCrypto"

Posted by official Authy account.

[ik_do]

Also has anyone got any insight on how we could get this listed on a Chinese exchange?

[leigh2k14]

Also has anyone got any insight on how we could get this listed on a Chinese exchange?

Cyberhacker has a Chinese crypto blog, he wrote in it about VTR not so long back. Maybe he could help out?

[ik_do]

Small bug report that is fairly inconsequential:

When staking my list of recent transactions on the overview page & transaction page never seems to update. The next time I reopen the wallet the new transactions are listed so staking works (I can tell because Windows puts a notification in the bottom corner everytime I get PoS) however in terms of display nothing happens.

Also in terms of the wallet I find it times out/lags a little and I'm using a very high-specced computer (i.e. 6 core/32GB RAM/GTX 1080/SSD/Windows 10.1). Perhaps it's Windows only that lags at this stage? I mean the wallet eventually recovers and doesn't actually crash or anything, but it doesn't look like its playing along as well as it could.

Understandably these are both low-priority issues but would be nice to see them addressed at some stage)

[ik_do]

Also has anyone got any insight on how we could get this listed on a Chinese exchange?

Cyberhacker has a Chinese crypto blog, he wrote in it about VTR not so long back. Maybe he could help out?

How can we get in touch with him?

I saw on BTC38.com we can request the coin to be listed and then pay some money for votes to try and get it up the list; it might be good coverage for the coin because people will see "torrent" and already know what the coin is about. I'm sure there are many potential investors who don't read the altcoin forum because of how full of shit it mostly is.

[leigh2k14]

Small bug report that is fairly inconsequential:

When staking my list of recent transactions on the overview page & transaction page never seems to update. The next time I reopen the wallet the new transactions are listed so staking works (I can tell because Windows puts a notification in the bottom corner everytime I get PoS) however in terms of display nothing happens.

Also in terms of the wallet I find it times out/lags a little and I'm using a very high-specced computer (i.e. 6 core/32GB RAM/GTX 1080/SSD/Windows 10.1). Perhaps it's Windows only that lags at this stage? I mean the wallet eventually recovers and doesn't actually crash or anything, but it doesn't look like its playing along as well as it could.

Understandably these are both low-priority issues but would be nice to see them addressed at some stage)

I have the same error, the transactions that are mined never show up in the transaction list (but they are added to the total) untill I load the wallet again, but transaction back and forth bittrex show up straight away.

Also cyberhacker is on BCT, he posted a few times on this thread.