Nurturing AlternaCoins

[Nachtwind]

There are probably about 7 running and 2 probably have dropped out this year (geistgeld and liquidcoin?).  Due to the numbers none have them gained any traction, the numbers weaken them.  If there were only 1 or 2 like namecoin and microcash, they would be a lot more powerful.  The secret is out cryptocurrencies work.  People are going to try to get in on the ground floor and start new coins.  It seems you are offering request for help in the main coin, bitcoin.  Maybe you can ask them directly for help.

that doesnt exist lol

It will be released on the 10th!

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[crazy_rabbit]

When I tell people I work on Bitcoin full-time, a somewhat common reaction is "Really?  I thought Bitcoin was finished, what do you work on?"

I spend half my development time working on new stuff (or testing new stuff that other people have submitted), but the other half I spend trying to anticipate problems or reacting to problems that are reported. That work tends to be unseen, partly because we want to keep problems quiet while we fix them and partly because quietly anticipating/fixing problems minimizes the 'lulz' that attackers might enjoy if every single-node-DoS attack caused us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off.

Anyway, good developers are hard to find, and one of the reasons I'm not thrilled by all of the AlternaCoins is because I'd rather a good developer help make Bitcoin better rather than spend their time with the busy-work of cross-porting the latest Bitcoin fixes to some other codebase. I would guess that some of the developers of the alternative chains underestimated the amount of work it takes to nurture them and keep them healthy. Maybe that will change when Bitcoin is truly mature and has dealt with another year or two or six of attacks and scaling issues...

I truly don't mean this to sound like a threat, but I think some of the blockchains that have been chugging along running on an ancient forked version of the Bitcoin codebase will be attacked; pretty soon we'll be fully disclosing the denial-of-service bugs that prompted the 0.6.2/0.6.3 releases, and it is highly likely somebody will decide to play with exploit code on a vulnerable chain.

I wish people would find more constructive things to do with their time, but I wish I could fly and never get old like Peter Pan, too.

To be honest Gavin, I think it's a question of Ownership. Bitcoin hit GPU mining before it hit mainstream- and thus those who weren't early adopters feel left out. Sentimental? Yes, but not irrelevant. If the cost to entry is a serious GPU farm, many casual people who would over time get seriously committed if they had a chance, are lost. Bitcoin is great for all the reasons we all know, but for ordinary people (especially those not fond of math) selling them on bitcoin is like selling them a piece of the moon.

One could make the argument that if the wave of individuals who got involved in alternacoins like LTC (thanks to Bitcoins PR) is greater then the original Bitcoin early adopter crew, there is a chance that in the long run a Larger AlternaCoin community might make a more viable concurrent currency system.

By day I'm a reasonably well known fashion photographer- hardly the kind of guy you would expect to get involved. But here I am, and I'm mining LTC because I can. I also have an incentive to spend the summer learning to program so I can build apps that use LTC to raise the value of the LTC I've already mined. Hopefully LTC remains somewhat viable for people to mine long enough to get an even larger group of invested new-early adopters.

We all like bitcoin- no doubt about it, but for me to have to go through a still very lengthy (bank transfer to exchange) or costly (bitInstant is not cheap) process to get bitcoins just to turn around and buy things I could buy anyway with a credit card- doesn't rock my boat in quite the same way.

I understand the why/how of Bitcoin, but I think a sense of ownership that coins like LTC still offer is very powerful.

Imagine this- The United States was conquered al'la Manifest Destiny in many ways thanks to the free opportunity of ownership that the "west" offered. Gold rush or land rush, the idea was to distribute potential wealth as widely as possible so that you suddenly had a great number of people invested in the idea of "America". I lived and studied in great depth and many years in the former Communist states and a key principle in converting Communists countries to Capitalist societies was redistribution of wealth. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it got people invested in a sense of ownership in a free society.

Coins are quite the same. They need to be distributed as widely as possible to ensure a user base of support- the primary mechanism of this is mining. BTC is already relatively elite to mine, but I think it's questionable if it grew it's user base large enough prior to becoming relatively elite.

An alt Coin like LTC has an opportunity to build on BTC's success and gather a wider user base while (hopefully) keeping mining an option for more users, longer.

In the end, I think it's not about the coin- it's about the IDEA of bitcoin. If one succeeds more or less then another it's somewhat irrelevant- if any of them succede it's a victory for the philosophy. That's more important no?

 

[smoothie]

When I tell people I work on Bitcoin full-time, a somewhat common reaction is "Really?  I thought Bitcoin was finished, what do you work on?"

I spend half my development time working on new stuff (or testing new stuff that other people have submitted), but the other half I spend trying to anticipate problems or reacting to problems that are reported. That work tends to be unseen, partly because we want to keep problems quiet while we fix them and partly because quietly anticipating/fixing problems minimizes the 'lulz' that attackers might enjoy if every single-node-DoS attack caused us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off.

Anyway, good developers are hard to find, and one of the reasons I'm not thrilled by all of the AlternaCoins is because I'd rather a good developer help make Bitcoin better rather than spend their time with the busy-work of cross-porting the latest Bitcoin fixes to some other codebase. I would guess that some of the developers of the alternative chains underestimated the amount of work it takes to nurture them and keep them healthy. Maybe that will change when Bitcoin is truly mature and has dealt with another year or two or six of attacks and scaling issues...

I truly don't mean this to sound like a threat, but I think some of the blockchains that have been chugging along running on an ancient forked version of the Bitcoin codebase will be attacked; pretty soon we'll be fully disclosing the denial-of-service bugs that prompted the 0.6.2/0.6.3 releases, and it is highly likely somebody will decide to play with exploit code on a vulnerable chain.

I wish people would find more constructive things to do with their time, but I wish I could fly and never get old like Peter Pan, too.

To be honest Gavin, I think it's a question of Ownership. Bitcoin hit GPU mining before it hit mainstream- and thus those who weren't early adopters feel left out. Sentimental? Yes, but not irrelevant. If the cost to entry is a serious GPU farm, many casual people who would over time get seriously committed if they had a chance, are lost. Bitcoin is great for all the reasons we all know, but for ordinary people (especially those not fond of math) selling them on bitcoin is like selling them a piece of the moon.

One could make the argument that if the wave of individuals who got involved in alternacoins like LTC (thanks to Bitcoins PR) is greater then the original Bitcoin early adopter crew, there is a chance that in the long run a Larger AlternaCoin community might make a more viable concurrent currency system.

By day I'm a reasonably well known fashion photographer- hardly the kind of guy you would expect to get involved. But here I am, and I'm mining LTC because I can. I also have an incentive to spend the summer learning to program so I can build apps that use LTC to raise the value of the LTC I've already mined. Hopefully LTC remains somewhat viable for people to mine long enough to get an even larger group of invested new-early adopters.

We all like bitcoin- no doubt about it, but for me to have to go through a still very lengthy (bank transfer to exchange) or costly (bitInstant is not cheap) process to get bitcoins just to turn around and buy things I could buy anyway with a credit card- doesn't rock my boat in quite the same way.

I understand the why/how of Bitcoin, but I think a sense of ownership that coins like LTC still offer is very powerful.

Imagine this- The United States was conquered al'la Manifest Destiny in many ways thanks to the free opportunity of ownership that the "west" offered. Gold rush or land rush, the idea was to distribute potential wealth as widely as possible so that you suddenly had a great number of people invested in the idea of "America". I lived and studied in great depth and many years in the former Communist states and a key principle in converting Communists countries to Capitalist societies was redistribution of wealth. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it got people invested in a sense of ownership in a free society.

Coins are quite the same. They need to be distributed as widely as possible to ensure a user base of support- the primary mechanism of this is mining. BTC is already relatively elite to mine, but I think it's questionable if it grew it's user base large enough prior to becoming relatively elite.

An alt Coin like LTC has an opportunity to build on BTC's success and gather a wider user base while (hopefully) keeping mining an option for more users, longer.

In the end, I think it's not about the coin- it's about the IDEA of bitcoin. If one succeeds more or less then another it's somewhat irrelevant- if any of them succede it's a victory for the philosophy. That's more important no?

 

BRAVO! Well said. 

[Greedi]

When I tell people I work on Bitcoin full-time, a somewhat common reaction is "Really?  I thought Bitcoin was finished, what do you work on?"

I spend half my development time working on new stuff (or testing new stuff that other people have submitted), but the other half I spend trying to anticipate problems or reacting to problems that are reported. That work tends to be unseen, partly because we want to keep problems quiet while we fix them and partly because quietly anticipating/fixing problems minimizes the 'lulz' that attackers might enjoy if every single-node-DoS attack caused us to run around like chickens with our heads cut off.

Anyway, good developers are hard to find, and one of the reasons I'm not thrilled by all of the AlternaCoins is because I'd rather a good developer help make Bitcoin better rather than spend their time with the busy-work of cross-porting the latest Bitcoin fixes to some other codebase. I would guess that some of the developers of the alternative chains underestimated the amount of work it takes to nurture them and keep them healthy. Maybe that will change when Bitcoin is truly mature and has dealt with another year or two or six of attacks and scaling issues...

I truly don't mean this to sound like a threat, but I think some of the blockchains that have been chugging along running on an ancient forked version of the Bitcoin codebase will be attacked; pretty soon we'll be fully disclosing the denial-of-service bugs that prompted the 0.6.2/0.6.3 releases, and it is highly likely somebody will decide to play with exploit code on a vulnerable chain.

I wish people would find more constructive things to do with their time, but I wish I could fly and never get old like Peter Pan, too.

To be honest Gavin, I think it's a question of Ownership. Bitcoin hit GPU mining before it hit mainstream- and thus those who weren't early adopters feel left out. Sentimental? Yes, but not irrelevant. If the cost to entry is a serious GPU farm, many casual people who would over time get seriously committed if they had a chance, are lost. Bitcoin is great for all the reasons we all know, but for ordinary people (especially those not fond of math) selling them on bitcoin is like selling them a piece of the moon.

One could make the argument that if the wave of individuals who got involved in alternacoins like LTC (thanks to Bitcoins PR) is greater then the original Bitcoin early adopter crew, there is a chance that in the long run a Larger AlternaCoin community might make a more viable concurrent currency system.

By day I'm a reasonably well known fashion photographer- hardly the kind of guy you would expect to get involved. But here I am, and I'm mining LTC because I can. I also have an incentive to spend the summer learning to program so I can build apps that use LTC to raise the value of the LTC I've already mined. Hopefully LTC remains somewhat viable for people to mine long enough to get an even larger group of invested new-early adopters.

We all like bitcoin- no doubt about it, but for me to have to go through a still very lengthy (bank transfer to exchange) or costly (bitInstant is not cheap) process to get bitcoins just to turn around and buy things I could buy anyway with a credit card- doesn't rock my boat in quite the same way.

I understand the why/how of Bitcoin, but I think a sense of ownership that coins like LTC still offer is very powerful.

Imagine this- The United States was conquered al'la Manifest Destiny in many ways thanks to the free opportunity of ownership that the "west" offered. Gold rush or land rush, the idea was to distribute potential wealth as widely as possible so that you suddenly had a great number of people invested in the idea of "America". I lived and studied in great depth and many years in the former Communist states and a key principle in converting Communists countries to Capitalist societies was redistribution of wealth. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it got people invested in a sense of ownership in a free society.

Coins are quite the same. They need to be distributed as widely as possible to ensure a user base of support- the primary mechanism of this is mining. BTC is already relatively elite to mine, but I think it's questionable if it grew it's user base large enough prior to becoming relatively elite.

An alt Coin like LTC has an opportunity to build on BTC's success and gather a wider user base while (hopefully) keeping mining an option for more users, longer.

In the end, I think it's not about the coin- it's about the IDEA of bitcoin. If one succeeds more or less then another it's somewhat irrelevant- if any of them succede it's a victory for the philosophy. That's more important no?

 

+1

[Graet]

Rereading my original post, I should make clear: the people I really have issues with are the people who think it is more fun to try to destroy something than to help build it.  

It is a shame all of the Bitcoin developers don't agree with this.
Unfortunately I cannot legally copy and paste the freenode #litecoin IRC logs on this forum.

and when the Bitcoin devs have finished welcoming asics there will be plenty of people looking for alternaate uses for their cpus and gpus maybe a viable alternate coin would suit them.
Bitcoin is alienating many of the people that supported it for a long time by welcoming ASIC technology and driving out the small "hobby user"

my 2LTC worth

[Luke-Jr]

Litecoin is vulnerable to even CVE-2012-1910 which was disclosed back in March.
I've created a pull request to fix it, mostly as a test for the Litecoin maintainer(s).

Additionally, I've confirmed that CVE-2012-2459 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.2) and CVE-2012-3789 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.3) would both be trivial to port fixes to Litecoin once disclosed.

P.S. This is not an endorsement of Litecoin in any way. It is still a scamcoin, after all.

[smoothie]

Rereading my original post, I should make clear: the people I really have issues with are the people who think it is more fun to try to destroy something than to help build it.  

It is a shame all of the Bitcoin developers don't agree with this.
Unfortunately I cannot legally copy and paste the freenode #litecoin IRC logs on this forum.

and when the Bitcoin devs have finished welcoming asics there will be plenty of people looking for alternaate uses for their cpus and gpus maybe a viable alternate coin would suit them.
Bitcoin is alienating many of the people that supported it for a long time by welcoming ASIC technology and driving out the small "hobby user"

my 2LTC worth

Agreed. One person in particular would be Luke-jr from what I hear he has nothing better to do than to try to destroy something.

[smoothie]

Litecoin is vulnerable to even CVE-2012-1910 which was disclosed back in March.
I've created a pull request to fix it, mostly as a test for the Litecoin maintainer(s).

Additionally, I've confirmed that CVE-2012-2459 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.2) and CVE-2012-3789 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.3) would both be trivial to port fixes to Litecoin once disclosed.

P.S. This is not an endorsement of Litecoin in any way. It is still a scamcoin, after all.

How is it a scam coin? No one premined anything...

[smoothie]

Litecoin is vulnerable to even CVE-2012-1910 which was disclosed back in March.
I've created a pull request to fix it, mostly as a test for the Litecoin maintainer(s).

Additionally, I've confirmed that CVE-2012-2459 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.2) and CVE-2012-3789 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.3) would both be trivial to port fixes to Litecoin once disclosed.

P.S. This is not an endorsement of Litecoin in any way. It is still a scamcoin, after all.

How is it a scam coin? No one premined anything...

Translation of the Red: "I am heavily invested in bitcoins thus any other alternative to bitcoin as a digital currency is a "scam"".

[Luke-Jr]

Litecoin is vulnerable to even CVE-2012-1910 which was disclosed back in March.
I've created a pull request to fix it, mostly as a test for the Litecoin maintainer(s).

Additionally, I've confirmed that CVE-2012-2459 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.2) and CVE-2012-3789 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.3) would both be trivial to port fixes to Litecoin once disclosed.

P.S. This is not an endorsement of Litecoin in any way. It is still a scamcoin, after all.

How is it a scam coin? No one premined anything...

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

[smoothie]

Litecoin is vulnerable to even CVE-2012-1910 which was disclosed back in March.
I've created a pull request to fix it, mostly as a test for the Litecoin maintainer(s).

Additionally, I've confirmed that CVE-2012-2459 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.2) and CVE-2012-3789 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.3) would both be trivial to port fixes to Litecoin once disclosed.

P.S. This is not an endorsement of Litecoin in any way. It is still a scamcoin, after all.

How is it a scam coin? No one premined anything...

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

Perhaps you know the future better than the rest of us. You appear to know what will happen or will not happen.

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

[smoothie]

Litecoin is vulnerable to even CVE-2012-1910 which was disclosed back in March.
I've created a pull request to fix it, mostly as a test for the Litecoin maintainer(s).

Additionally, I've confirmed that CVE-2012-2459 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.2) and CVE-2012-3789 (fixed in Bitcoin 0.6.3) would both be trivial to port fixes to Litecoin once disclosed.

P.S. This is not an endorsement of Litecoin in any way. It is still a scamcoin, after all.

How is it a scam coin? No one premined anything...

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Litecoin#Criticism

Perhaps you know the future better than the rest of us. You appear to know what will happen or will not happen.

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

I love this quote: "This is not the case for Bitcoin, since it has significant potential to become a long-term currency and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

So then when bitcoin say goes to $100 or even $1000 and then the price drops to say $20 then if someone got in at $1000....as the quote says "and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

LOL

See my statement is hypothetical and in the future which neither of us know. So same as the statement that litecoin is a scam and will fail is a future statement which has not transpired to date.

[Luke-Jr]

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

No, Bitcoin did not have a preexisting currency with all the same features to compete with. Nor does Bitcoin have the growth-paralyzing proof-of-work known as scrypt.

So then when bitcoin say goes to $100 or even $1000 and then the price drops to say $20 then if someone got in at $1000....as the quote says "and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

What basis is there to expect that will happen? (I already presented my case for why Litecoin is almost guaranteed to fail)

[smoothie]

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

No, Bitcoin did not have a preexisting currency with all the same features to compete with. Nor does Bitcoin have the growth-paralyzing proof-of-work known as scrypt.

So then when bitcoin say goes to $100 or even $1000 and then the price drops to say $20 then if someone got in at $1000....as the quote says "and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

What basis is there to expect that will happen? (I already presented my case for why Litecoin is almost guaranteed to fail)

bro you must have missed the last rally to $32/btc and back to $2?

LOL that's why!

It's called SPECULATION. Google it.

[crazy_rabbit]

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

No, Bitcoin did not have a preexisting currency with all the same features to compete with. Nor does Bitcoin have the growth-paralyzing proof-of-work known as scrypt.

So then when bitcoin say goes to $100 or even $1000 and then the price drops to say $20 then if someone got in at $1000....as the quote says "and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

What basis is there to expect that will happen? (I already presented my case for why Litecoin is almost guaranteed to fail)

But Luke, it doesn't really matter if Litecoin is a slightly tweaked copy of Bitcoin. No one criticizes small countries for printing their own currencies even when there are already other currencies out there. No one complains when this countries small currency isn't as counterfeit proof as the American Dollar (or what-have-you). Bitcoin and Litecoin are sovereign unto themselves as the group of people who believe/invest in them.

As for growth paralyzing, let me use an analogy that I suspect may one day come back to haunt me but I think a fair number of adults will understand:

The Penis.

A large number of men will tell you they worry about size, and by this they generally mean length. It's all about the Inches, the CM, "how long is the dong".

But a vast number of women will tell you it's about the girth- not the length. And indeed longer isn't always better- with longer sometimes just being too long if not wide enough.

How does this relate to Bitcoin/Litecoin? Well bitcoin is big as in long (hashing power), (and about to get a whole lot bigger/longer with ASIC) but it's not necessarily big as in wide (girth). If litecoin can be wide (IE: wide user base) even if it's not so long (hashing power) and this hashing power doesn't grow so fast, it still has a good chance of being a 'perfect fit'.

So, hopefully this makes a nice analogy without getting deleted as inappropriate.

[organofcorti]

Ah, the Bitcoin Penis Analogy. I was waiting for that. Finally I can print bumper stickers that say "Bitcoin: mine it til it Hertz!". Or "My blockchain is longer than yours". Or "Is that a Bitcoin Wallet USB key in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?".

Sorry about OT. It just had to be said.

[steelhouse]

"I lived and studied in great depth and many years in the former Communist states and a key principle in converting Communists countries to Capitalist societies was redistribution of wealth. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it got people invested in a sense of ownership in a free society. "

That is the definition of communism or socialism.  Capitalism you get to keep your labor or returns of capital and pay taxes as a choice mainly for protection or to enforce law.

"Since the aforementioned reasons mean Litecoin has no future potential, it effectively functions as a pyramid scheme, rewarding those who get in sooner at the expense of those who adopt it just before it finally fails (and are left with nothing). This is not the case for Bitcoin, since it has significant potential to become a long-term currency and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it. "

Although probably a correct statement, but they think it will last forever thus not a ponzi scheme.  Same can be said about BTC regarding blockchain size.

[crazy_rabbit]

"I lived and studied in great depth and many years in the former Communist states and a key principle in converting Communists countries to Capitalist societies was redistribution of wealth. It wasn't perfect by a long shot, but it got people invested in a sense of ownership in a free society. "

That is the definition of communism or socialism.  Capitalism you get to keep your labor or returns of capital and pay taxes as a choice mainly for protection or to enforce law.

Yes, but your forgetting that when going from a communist or socialist state to a capitalist free market society, it is the state that is initially in possession of all wealth- thus it is necessary to redistribute the wealth AWAY from the centralized state and disburse it private individuals. 

Redistribution of wealth works in many different ways depending on the situation. In capitalist societies for example, an estate tax is a form of redistribution of wealth as it takes (hopefully a large) chunk of a dead persons estate as taxes, and the government then spends that money elsewhere  (hopefully on things like education).
Rich people like to avoid the estate tax and thus frequently donate away most of their wealth prior to their death, which is also a form of redistribution. Grandkids hate it, but it's a pretty fantastic mechanism when you think about it.

[interlagos]

Considering 4x block rate and 1mb block size limit Litecoin will be capable of handling 4x more transactions than Bitcoin before hard fork is required. With current Bitcoin blocks approaching 256kb it can only grow 4x before it would hit that limit.

It's better to spend time on scalability of Bitcoin than attacking other chains.
At some point Litecoin might serve as a backup chain while Bitcoin will be choking on 1mb 10min blocks.

EDIT: this post isn't meant to ignite Bitcoin/Litecoin flame war and is not directed at anyone personally.
Just an observation of facts about two chains that might make a difference in the future.

[interlagos]

So those "criticisms" could have been made when bitcoin was only 8 months old eh? What's the difference? Bitcoin was vulnerable then and who knows what may happen in the future to change the status quo of digital currencies.

No, Bitcoin did not have a preexisting currency with all the same features to compete with. Nor does Bitcoin have the growth-paralyzing proof-of-work known as scrypt.

So then when bitcoin say goes to $100 or even $1000 and then the price drops to say $20 then if someone got in at $1000....as the quote says "and continually be beneficial to adopters no matter when they begin using it."

What basis is there to expect that will happen? (I already presented my case for why Litecoin is almost guaranteed to fail)

But Luke, it doesn't really matter if Litecoin is a slightly tweaked copy of Bitcoin. No one criticizes small countries for printing their own currencies even when there are already other currencies out there. No one complains when this countries small currency isn't as counterfeit proof as the American Dollar (or what-have-you). Bitcoin and Litecoin are sovereign unto themselves as the group of people who believe/invest in them.
...

I prefer to compare crypto-currencies to chemical elements we discover.
We first discovered Bitcoin. We studied its properties, figured out it was stable and found a good number of ways we could use it in our lives. Some of us said "Bitcoin works for me, I will use it and I don't need anything else", while others kept searching for new elements.

As time went by, through the series of experiments (Tenebrix, GeistGeld, Fairbrix, Liquidcoin) which were all unstable isotopes and decayed quickly, we then discovered Litecoin. It turned out to be quite stable even though it wasn't obvious at a time. We now know that it has certain characteristics different from Bitcoin that might make a difference in the future. Thus some of us decided to use it as well.

I believe in the future there will still be search for new elements, there will still be experiments and I'm sure there will be new stable elements we haven't even thought of yet!