[DASH/XDN/XMR/SDC] Comparison between the most known anonymous coins (MUST READ)

[othe]

Cryptnote uses 2 systems, dual stealth addresses AND ringsignatures.

Nothing is centralized, the only centralized shit is a masternode system.
Breaking Ringsignatures, is that a joke? They are pretty damn well proven.

Dashcoin uses Cryptonote too, but you guys already found out anyway.

"In fact the way that the Darkcoin network is architected means that you're mixing transaction has hundreds of layers of redundancy behind it. "

No its not, adding more and more ducttape to your house doesn't make it tornado-proof. Your anonymity set doesn't really grow...

In addition to that, the coin supply is pre-emptively anonymised, so at the point of transaction you're just doing a regular Joe bitcoin payment from one address to the other.

Congratulations, you just lowered your anonymity.

There's another monetary property ticked: visibility and accountability. No nuclear-secret paranoia, it's all out in the open just anonymous - exactly as true cash should opera

Accountability is way better and easier with Cryptonote, all you need is a single Viewkey.

Like true cash, without ducttape.

[Joshuar]

You DRK folks have nothing to say against arguments because you have 0 objectivity, you're just blind fanboys who fell in love with an overated coin... Every coin mentionned in this thread is in fact better than Dash tbh

I'll give you that Cryptonote is an interesting technology and - at least as far as cryptography goes - can be more secure than a single round in a mixer. But I don't think it's very well suited to supporting anonymity or fungibility in cryptocurrencies.

The problem is that while it might be very secure in terms of 'hiding' a transaction, cryptonote puts all its eggs in one basket - a totally centralised solution. Break the cryptonote algo and you've rendered the entire money supply useless with subsequent collapse of the whole financial system based around that currency.

That might be only a theoretical threat, but the fact that it's architectured in that centralised way creates a huge potential single point of failure that hangs over the currency forever.

On the other hand, the way that DRK/DASH has approached fungibility is far more of a monetary oriented solution.

You manage to de-anonymise a single transaction ? So what ? You need to reproduce the effort iteratively a million times to even begin to threaten the money supply because each transaction has to be separately solved on a case by case basis. It's the very *absence* of a systematic cryptographical approach that keeps the coin supply secure as a whole and stops that crack from propagating.

Further, all the comparisons you get on these threads between the security of "cryptography" and the security of "mixing" are totally unrealistic because they compare a single cryptographically secured transaction with a single mixing transaction. In fact the way that the Darkcoin network is architected means that you're mixing transaction has hundreds of layers of redundancy behind it. You aren't transfering from a known source entity to a known payment entity and trying to hide it, your transferring from a mixed wallet to another mixed, anonymous wallet to another mixed, anonymous wallet....add infinitum.

In addition to that, the coin supply is pre-emptively anonymised, so at the point of transaction you're just doing a regular Joe bitcoin payment from one address to the other. There's another monetary property ticked: visibility and accountability. No nuclear-secret paranoia, it's all out in the open just anonymous - exactly as true cash should operate.

So I don't deny the cryptography fanclub their 'Concorde' against DRK's Boeing 747. I just think they're solving the wrong problem - messaging encryption instead of monetary fungibility and maximum adoption by way of supporting the legacy infrastructure.

Centralization:

Absolutely the opposite. Darkcoin's anonymity relies on an external source, masternodes. That is a huge weakness all by itself. Those masternodes must be hosted and online to support Dark's mixing. Since most of the masternodes are hosted on servers, that means the entire masternode network itself is centralized.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. That's like saying Bitcoin's blockchain is a centralized solution to decentralization. What sense does that even make? Cryptonotes/Monero's on chain anonymity is far more decentralized than off chain anonymity.

Use as a currency/ Fungibility:

Again in this, Cryptonote wins by a landslide. All cryptonote transactions have some degree of anonymity with 0 being the least, and an indefinitely high # being the best(You can mix with even 100+ people, far more than darkcoin can ever offer). Cryptonote, rather Monero specifically is one of the best cases of a cryptocoin that's actual like a currency. Bitcoiners hold, and while this may help increase the price in the shortterm, it damages the coin longterm as the coin turns into a commodity instead of a currency because users regard it as an investment(Hence the term HODL). Also Bitcoiners tend to lose their coins(Lost coins), which also adds to a decline in liquidity.

However, with Darkcoin, it's 100x worse than Bitcoin's lack of use as a currency. Darkcoin's masternodes require 1000DRK. There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 2,000,000 (2million) darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity, which is essential for a currency. Couple that with users who "HODL" and users who lose darkcoins due to accidents etc, and you have a commodity, not a currency in the least.

Monero has a tail emission, so that helps account for issues such as lost coins or too many users "HODLING" instead of using it as it should be used, as a currency.

[P3RS3US]

You DRK folks have nothing to say against arguments because you have 0 objectivity, you're just blind fanboys who fell in love with an overated coin... Every coin mentionned in this thread is in fact better than Dash tbh

I'll give you that Cryptonote is an interesting technology and - at least as far as cryptography goes - can be more secure than a single round in a mixer. But I don't think it's very well suited to supporting anonymity or fungibility in cryptocurrencies.

The problem is that while it might be very secure in terms of 'hiding' a transaction, cryptonote puts all its eggs in one basket - a totally centralised solution. Break the cryptonote algo and you've rendered the entire money supply useless with subsequent collapse of the whole financial system based around that currency.

That might be only a theoretical threat, but the fact that it's architectured in that centralised way creates a huge potential single point of failure that hangs over the currency forever.

On the other hand, the way that DRK/DASH has approached fungibility is far more of a monetary oriented solution.

You manage to de-anonymise a single transaction ? So what ? You need to reproduce the effort iteratively a million times to even begin to threaten the money supply because each transaction has to be separately solved on a case by case basis. It's the very *absence* of a systematic cryptographical approach that keeps the coin supply secure as a whole and stops that crack from propagating.

Further, all the comparisons you get on these threads between the security of "cryptography" and the security of "mixing" are totally unrealistic because they compare a single cryptographically secured transaction with a single mixing transaction. In fact the way that the Darkcoin network is architected means that you're mixing transaction has hundreds of layers of redundancy behind it. You aren't transfering from a known source entity to a known payment entity and trying to hide it, your transferring from a mixed wallet to another mixed, anonymous wallet to another mixed, anonymous wallet....add infinitum.

In addition to that, the coin supply is pre-emptively anonymised, so at the point of transaction you're just doing a regular Joe bitcoin payment from one address to the other. There's another monetary property ticked: visibility and accountability. No nuclear-secret paranoia, it's all out in the open just anonymous - exactly as true cash should operate.

So I don't deny the cryptography fanclub their 'Concorde' against DRK's Boeing 747. I just think they're solving the wrong problem - messaging encryption instead of monetary fungibility and maximum adoption by way of supporting the legacy infrastructure.

Centralization:

Absolutely the opposite. Darkcoin's anonymity relies on an external source, masternodes. That is a huge weakness all by itself. Those masternodes must be hosted and online to support Dark's mixing. Since most of the masternodes are hosted on servers, that means the entire masternode network itself is centralized.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. That's like saying Bitcoin's blockchain is a centralized solution to decentralization. What sense does that even make? Cryptonotes/Monero's on chain anonymity is far more decentralized than off chain anonymity.

Use as a currency/ Fungibility:

Again in this, Cryptonote wins by a landslide. All cryptonote transactions have some degree of anonymity with 0 being the least, and an indefinitely high # being the best(You can mix with even 100+ people, far more than darkcoin can ever offer). Cryptonote, rather Monero specifically is one of the best cases of a cryptocoin that's actual like a currency. Bitcoiners hold, and while this may help increase the price in the shortterm, it damages the coin longterm as the coin turns into a commodity instead of a currency because users regard it as an investment(Hence the term HODL). Also Bitcoiners tend to lose their coins(Lost coins), which also adds to a decline in liquidity.

However, with Darkcoin, it's 100x worse than Bitcoin's lack of use as a currency. Darkcoin's masternodes require 1000DRK. There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity, which is essential for a currency. Couple that with users who "HODL" and users who lose darkcoins due to accidents etc, and you have a commodity, not a currency in the least.

Monero has a tail emission, so that helps account for issues such as lost coins or too many users "HODLING" instead of using it as it should be used, as a currency.

Fascinating.

Altho u make no mention I feel obliged to point out…
Shadow has a CryptNote layer on a BTC fork (there are two diff tokens existing side-by-side: they can be destroyed to create it's opposite. The Shadow tokens (SDT) are not visible on the blcokchain. SDC are. The system permits SDC>SDC, SDC>SDT, SDT>SDT, SDT>SDC )

Whilst it suffers the disadvantages (or conversely neither since u can switch states) of BTC and XMR (since it is essentially both)
It also has the advantages of both BTC and XMR (since it is essentially both)

Good read. Thx again.

[paratox]

Centralization:

Absolutely the opposite. Darkcoin's anonymity relies on an external source, masternodes. That is a huge weakness all by itself. Those masternodes must be hosted and online to support Dark's mixing. Since most of the masternodes are hosted on servers, that means the entire masternode network itself is centralized.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. That's like saying Bitcoin's blockchain is a centralized solution to decentralization. What sense does that even make? Cryptonotes/Monero's on chain anonymity is far more decentralized than off chain anonymity.

Use as a currency/ Fungibility:

Again in this, Cryptonote wins by a landslide. All cryptonote transactions have some degree of anonymity with 0 being the least, and an indefinitely high # being the best(You can mix with even 100+ people, far more than darkcoin can ever offer). Cryptonote, rather Monero specifically is one of the best cases of a cryptocoin that's actual like a currency. Bitcoiners hold, and while this may help increase the price in the shortterm, it damages the coin longterm as the coin turns into a commodity instead of a currency because users regard it as an investment(Hence the term HODL). Also Bitcoiners tend to lose their coins(Lost coins), which also adds to a decline in liquidity.

However, with Darkcoin, it's 100x worse than Bitcoin's lack of use as a currency. Darkcoin's masternodes require 1000DRK. There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity, which is essential for a currency. Couple that with users who "HODL" and users who lose darkcoins due to accidents etc, and you have a commodity, not a currency in the least.

Monero has a tail emission, so that helps account for issues such as lost coins or too many users "HODLING" instead of using it as it should be used, as a currency.

It's actually over 2.000.000 darkcoins, more like 2.300.000 which are taken out because of the masternodes..  Considering there are only 5.210.377 DRK in existence right now and between ca. 600.000 and 1.000.000 were instamined from evan, there may be only 2.000.000-2.400.000 DRK on the market (IF evan is still holding them)

[Joshuar]

Centralization:

Absolutely the opposite. Darkcoin's anonymity relies on an external source, masternodes. That is a huge weakness all by itself. Those masternodes must be hosted and online to support Dark's mixing. Since most of the masternodes are hosted on servers, that means the entire masternode network itself is centralized.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. That's like saying Bitcoin's blockchain is a centralized solution to decentralization. What sense does that even make? Cryptonotes/Monero's on chain anonymity is far more decentralized than off chain anonymity.

Use as a currency/ Fungibility:

Again in this, Cryptonote wins by a landslide. All cryptonote transactions have some degree of anonymity with 0 being the least, and an indefinitely high # being the best(You can mix with even 100+ people, far more than darkcoin can ever offer). Cryptonote, rather Monero specifically is one of the best cases of a cryptocoin that's actual like a currency. Bitcoiners hold, and while this may help increase the price in the shortterm, it damages the coin longterm as the coin turns into a commodity instead of a currency because users regard it as an investment(Hence the term HODL). Also Bitcoiners tend to lose their coins(Lost coins), which also adds to a decline in liquidity.

However, with Darkcoin, it's 100x worse than Bitcoin's lack of use as a currency. Darkcoin's masternodes require 1000DRK. There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity, which is essential for a currency. Couple that with users who "HODL" and users who lose darkcoins due to accidents etc, and you have a commodity, not a currency in the least.

Monero has a tail emission, so that helps account for issues such as lost coins or too many users "HODLING" instead of using it as it should be used, as a currency.

It's actually over 2.000.000 darkcoins, more like 2.300.000 which are taken out because of the masternodes..  Considering there are only 5.210.377 DRK in existence right now and between ca. 600.000 and 1.000.000 were instamined from evan, there may be only 2.000.000-2.400.000 DRK on the market (IF evan is still holding them)

Oh, you're right. That makes it considerably worse. DRK was essentially made to be a commodity then, like coal.

[bbreconomy]

please add BBR to your comparison chart. It should be noted that for CryptoNote based coins a minimum mixin should be used for each transaction. BBR requires this while it is optional for other CryptoNote coins:

http://www.slideshare.net/boolberry/boolberry-solves-cryptonoteflaws-37055246?next_slideshow=1

Lately it seems anon coins are in the mind of everyone so let's awnser questions.

Updated with a fairer and more objective summary

Do not forget to check out the websites delevering plenty of informations about the many projects going on.

Keep in mind that this is not a fud post. Just an exhaustive summary.

ShadowCash

Official website : http://shadow.cash/
The forum : http://shadowtalk.org/
The wiki : http://shadowcash.info/
The IRC channel : kiwiirc.com/client/irc.freenode.net/#shadowcash

Monero

Website: getmonero.org
Official Forum: forum.getmonero.org
Wiki : https://getmonero.org/knowledge-base/moneropedia

Darkcoin

Official Website
Official Forums
Darkcoin Wiki

DarkNote

Roadmap and strategy explanation
http://darknote.cc
http://darknotetalk.org

[/quote

[toknormal]

Nothing is centralized, the only centralized shit is a masternode system.

How are masternodes 'centralised' ? They are just regular nodes performing an enhanced role. Any 'node' can perform a masternode function and there's not even a question of recourse to any central authority when setting one up - you just fire up your daemon, point it at a collateral address and thats it. I think what your alluding to is the fact that the mixing process bounces off a few nodes before it returns to your wallet but calling that 'centralised' is stretching it a bit. It isn't much different from the steps that lead to bits of a transaction ending up in change addresses in a regular QT wallet.

Like I said in the last post, attaining extreme levels of encryption just isn't the objective when it comes to money (at least IMO). Who gives a f*ck if your transactions are encrypted to kingdom come when you can't access half the service infrastructure in the industry because you had to build your own railway as well as the train since it had the wrong gauge.

Cryptonote fell at the very first hurdle on this one because they couldn't even get the most basic infrastructure of all - a useable wallet - off the ground. It was "farmed out to third parties" due to lack of development capacity.

Anonymity isn't just the money. Although I accept that cryptonote - as an encryption system - is a nice solution and notionally bullet proof, there's not much point in travelling by concorde for 50 miles when you've got to walk the next 10. The number of ways that a transaction can be 'de-anonymised' by means other than simply looking at the blockchain is immense (like simply 'buying something'   )

There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity

Liquidity isn't a question of how many coins are in circulation numerically, it's a question of how much monetary value there is across the entire coin supply. The coin with the most 'liquidity' is therefore the one with the highest marketcap, not the 'most coins'. Emission curves don't have jack to say about liquidity unless the valuation is there to support it.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while.

You like using that word 'centralisation'. Thats one of the reasons I always find these assertions you guys make about Darkcoin so unconvincing. Call it 'centralisation' if you like, but service oriented networks are everywhere because there's not much you can do without them and anyway, in Darkcoin the client server relationship is mutual, just like in any other cryptocurrency. A 2-tier (or dual role) network where the nodes are diversified in function has nothing to do with the term "decentralisation" as commonly used in cryptocurrencies to mean lack of a central liquidity issuing authority.

[Joshuar]

Nothing is centralized, the only centralized shit is a masternode system.

How are masternodes 'centralised' ? They are just regular nodes performing an enhanced role. Any 'node' can perform a masternode function and there's not even a question of recourse to any central authority when setting one up - you just fire up your daemon, point it at a collateral address and thats it. I think what your alluding to is the fact that the mixing process bounces off a few nodes before it returns to your wallet but calling that 'centralised' is stretching it a bit. It isn't much different from the steps that lead to bits of a transaction ending up in change addresses in a regular QT wallet.

Like I said in the last post, attaining extreme levels of encryption just isn't the objective when it comes to money (at least IMO). Who gives a f*ck if your transactions are encrypted to kingdom come when you can't access half the service infrastructure in the industry because you had to build your own railway as well as the train since it had the wrong gauge.

Cryptonote fell at the very first hurdle on this one because they couldn't even get the most basic infrastructure of all - a useable wallet - off the ground. It was "farmed out to third parties" due to lack of development capacity.

Anonymity isn't just the money. Although I accept that cryptonote - as an encryption system - is a nice solution and notionally bullet proof, there's not much point in travelling by concorde for 50 miles when you've got to walk the next 10. The number of ways that a transaction can be 'de-anonymised' by means other than simply looking at the blockchain is immense (like simply 'buying something'   )

There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity

Liquidity isn't a question of how many coins are in circulation numerically, it's a question of how much monetary value there is across the entire coin supply. The coin with the most 'liquidity' is therefore the one with the highest marketcap, not the 'most coins'. Emission curves don't have jack to say about liquidity unless the valuation is there to support it.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while.

You like using that word 'centralisation'. Thats one of the reasons I always find these assertions you guys make about Darkcoin so unconvincing. Call it 'centralisation' if you like, but service oriented networks are everywhere because there's not much you can do without them and anyway, in Darkcoin the client server relationship is mutual, just like in any other cryptocurrency. A 2-tier (or dual role) network where the nodes are diversified in function has nothing to do with the term "decentralisation" as commonly used in cryptocurrencies to mean lack of a central liquidity issuing authority.

Masternodes are centralized because they are hosted on servers online, which are centralized. The large majority of masternode owners host their nodes on the internet, I'd say that's pretty centralized. The masternode concept is "trivial" in ways, as I'm sure Satoshi foresaw that there might be lack of incentives to use nodes, however disregarded implementing such a service because it adds more centralization to the coin, as well as more vectors of attack.

Concerning the lack of infrastructure around Cryptonote. That's actually a good thing, that means the market is new and ripe for potential business owners to be the leading companies/people in their field. Using the Bitcoin code to fork an altcoin means you're essentially making a clone of Bitcoin. Why use an altcoin that uses Bitcoin's codebase when you can use an altcoin that has entirely different code. It's like having a clone of Bitcoin compete against Bitcoin, it just isn't logical.

The "useable wallet" statement is false. If what you say is true, then that means any Bitcoin wallet besides the QT wallet is unusable and shows the incompetence of the Bitcoin devs? Really, especially when most Bitcoin users have multibit wallets installed? The success of a currency isn't only determined by the developers, but the community as well. Having extra, 3rd party wallets shows that others besides the devs are interested in the welfare of the currency, and that's a huge plus. Also, the approach the Monero devs are taking is similar to that of the Bitcoin devs, they are taking it the way it should be, carefully thought out and in a decentralized manner, unlike Darkcoin where a name change was made without even consulting the community first.

The definition of liquidity: The degree to which an asset or security can be bought or sold in the market without affecting the asset's price.

Masternodes taking coins out of circulation, in this case, over 2million DRK's are in Masternodes themselves, plus users holding coins, plus lost/instamined coins, means that it's liquidity is taking a huge hit. Liquidity is essential for a currency, and Darkcoin's masternode concept makes/will make DRK one of the most volatile cryptocoins in history. It's basically a commodity from the start.

[paratox]

Liquidity isn't a question of how many coins are in circulation numerically, it's a question of how much monetary value there is across the entire coin supply. The coin with the most 'liquidity' is therefore the one with the highest marketcap, not the 'most coins'. Emission curves don't have jack to say about liquidity unless the valuation is there to support it.

Yes the most liquid coin is the one with the highest marketcap, but the coins that are in circulation numerically are also important. If you have a coin with 101 tokens worth 100$ each(marketcap of 10.100 $) , but 100 of these are taken out of the ecosystem because of some service that locks them up, you only have a liquidity of 100$.

In case of DRK the 'liquidity' would be ca. 9.300.000$ right now if you don't count the coins which are locked up in masternodes.

[P3RS3US]

Liquidity isn't a question of how many coins are in circulation numerically, it's a question of how much monetary value there is across the entire coin supply. The coin with the most 'liquidity' is therefore the one with the highest marketcap, not the 'most coins'. Emission curves don't have jack to say about liquidity unless the valuation is there to support it.

Yes the most liquid coin is the one with the highest marketcap, but the coins that are in circulation numerically are also important. If you have a coin with 101 tokens worth 100$ each(marketcap of 10.100 $) , but 100 of these are taken out of the ecosystem because of some service that locks them up, you only have a liquidity of 100$.

In case of DRK the 'liquidity' would be ca. 9.300.000$ right now if you don't count the coins which are locked up in masternodes.

Liquidity???

I thought we were takin' tech…

Forget Financials. This thread about Technicals.

[nsimmons]

Masternodes are centralized because they are hosted on servers online, which are centralized. The large majority of masternode owners host their nodes on the internet, I'd say that's pretty centralized.

Were else does a digital currency live?

You are an idiot. If it's on the internet its centralized. Where is this off planet distributed system you are alluding to?

[GTO911]

Masternodes are centralized because they are hosted on servers online, which are centralized. The large majority of masternode owners host their nodes on the internet, I'd say that's pretty centralized.

Were else does a digital currency live?

You are an idiot. If it's on the internet its centralized. Where is this off planet distributed system you are alluding to?

He meant that majority nodes are hosted on online services like amazon which is as centralized as it can be.

You are an idiot.

And you are a much better idiot

[stonehedge]

Liquidity isn't a question of how many coins are in circulation numerically, it's a question of how much monetary value there is across the entire coin supply. The coin with the most 'liquidity' is therefore the one with the highest marketcap, not the 'most coins'. Emission curves don't have jack to say about liquidity unless the valuation is there to support it.

Yes the most liquid coin is the one with the highest marketcap, but the coins that are in circulation numerically are also important. If you have a coin with 101 tokens worth 100$ each(marketcap of 10.100 $) , but 100 of these are taken out of the ecosystem because of some service that locks them up, you only have a liquidity of 100$.

In case of DRK the 'liquidity' would be ca. 9.300.000$ right now if you don't count the coins which are locked up in masternodes.

Liquidity???

I thought we were takin' tech…

Forget Financials. This thread about Technicals.

If this is about tech then why doesn't somebody go ahead and set Darkcoin to green for untraceable and unlinkable?  There is still no evidence that it is traceable or linkable.

[bitcreditscc]

Liquidity isn't a question of how many coins are in circulation numerically, it's a question of how much monetary value there is across the entire coin supply. The coin with the most 'liquidity' is therefore the one with the highest marketcap, not the 'most coins'. Emission curves don't have jack to say about liquidity unless the valuation is there to support it.

Yes the most liquid coin is the one with the highest marketcap, but the coins that are in circulation numerically are also important. If you have a coin with 101 tokens worth 100$ each(marketcap of 10.100 $) , but 100 of these are taken out of the ecosystem because of some service that locks them up, you only have a liquidity of 100$.

In case of DRK the 'liquidity' would be ca. 9.300.000$ right now if you don't count the coins which are locked up in masternodes.

Liquidity???

I thought we were takin' tech…

Forget Financials. This thread about Technicals.

If this is about tech then why doesn't somebody go ahead and set Darkcoin to green for untraceable and unlinkable?  There is still no evidence that it is traceable or linkable.

Because this is a not so subtle attempt at advertisement.

[toknormal]

Masternodes are centralized because they are hosted on servers online, which are centralized. The large majority of masternode owners host their nodes on the internet, I'd say that's pretty centralized.

No. They are categorically not 'centralised' because of that.

Your talking about hosting of particular instances of the daemon as opposed to the logical architecture of the network. This word 'centralized' gets jumped on as if it's the holy grail of everything - a hammer that turns everything else into a nail. Its use with regard to cryptocurrencies alludes to the logical interaction of each node with the rest of the network. The whole *point* of a decentralised architecture is that things like machine hosting of particular 'nodes' have no bearing on this.

All of crypto, including bitcoin, is inundated with cloud mining facilities - in fact they are positively *promoted* all over the place. Despite that, if you consult blockchain.info's metrics regarding mining 'centralisation', they're not remotely interested in who's hosting the mining nodes, rather what pools they are subscribed to.

This is just another example of picking some random aspect of a network's demographic (not its logical architecture) and manically banding about straw men based on it simply to have something to shout about.

Now lets consider a couple of extreme cases - say, [1] - if a hosting company were to shutdown all the nodes it hosted and [2] - if it were to compromise (take control of) all the nodes it hosted.

Case [1] is a benign attack. The nodes can simply be resurrected elsewhere (because, being wallet daemons, they are logically decentralised). It's no different in that respect from shutting down a cloud mining array - in fact it's even more benign since the blockchain hashpower isn't affected. That is secured by the regular mining function just as in bitcoin.

Case [2] is impossible. The attacker needs the private keys to the masternode collateral account to gain control a masternode and they are held offline and have nothing to do with where the particular daemon happens to be hosted.

Even if you did have access to the actual machines hosting masternodes, so what ? All cryptocurrency architectures have to *assume* bad actor operations in every aspect of their design. With the next revision of node blinding, you won't even be able to learn anything from the logs and even if you did, all you'd do at the absolute theoretical worst is de-anonymise some random transactions between one anonymous part of the money supply and another.

There's no systematic vulnerability there.

[illodin]

Absolutely the opposite. Darkcoin's anonymity relies on an external source, masternodes. That is a huge weakness all by itself. Those masternodes must be hosted and online to support Dark's mixing. Since most of the masternodes are hosted on servers, that means the entire masternode network itself is centralized.

A network must be online in order for it to work as a network. And this a huge weakness? Bitcoin has nodes that must be hosted, otherwise you can't connect to it at all.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. That's like saying Bitcoin's blockchain is a centralized solution to decentralization. What sense does that even make? Cryptonotes/Monero's on chain anonymity is far more decentralized than off chain anonymity.

With on chain anonymity everything is in one database. Forever. With off chain anonymity no one has all the information.

You can mix with even 100+ people

How do you know those 100+ are actually different people? They could all be NSA.

However, with Darkcoin, it's 100x worse than Bitcoin's lack of use as a currency. Darkcoin's masternodes require 1000DRK. There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 2,000,000 (2million) darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity, which is essential for a currency.

1 Darkcoin is divisible by 100,000,000. They won't run out.

Daily volume for Monero: $ 49,562 (heavily centralized to Poloniex, insiders tossing coins from one pocket to another?)
Daily volume for Darkcoin: $ 178,984
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hour/

[dasource]

You DRK folks have nothing to say against arguments because you have 0 objectivity, you're just blind fanboys who fell in love with an overated coin... Every coin mentionned in this thread is in fact better than Dash tbh

I'll give you that Cryptonote is an interesting technology and - at least as far as cryptography goes - can be more secure than a single round in a mixer. But I don't think it's very well suited to supporting anonymity or fungibility in cryptocurrencies.

The problem is that while it might be very secure in terms of 'hiding' a transaction, cryptonote puts all its eggs in one basket - a totally centralised solution. Break the cryptonote algo and you've rendered the entire money supply useless with subsequent collapse of the whole financial system based around that currency.

<snip>

I read the first two paragraphs and got bored? Really where going down the route of "you are using cryptography to secure anonymous transactions and this is bad?" this is a ridiculous argument.
Why not go one further and start telling this to those who want to see Crypto fail, lets give them a heads-up that Satoshi was mad using cryptography to secure Bitcoin.

Firstly, if the cryptography is compromised the least of my worries is remaining anonymous; you would have alot of other things to worry about.
Secondly, there is something called "stealth address" oh and of-course if that cryptography is broken well then sir you have more more to worry about than remaining anonymous.
Thirdly, see 1 and 2 and oh yeah why not send a note to Satoshi about it whilst you are at it about how dumb his idea was of creating a cryptography secured digital currency.

[illodin]

Firstly, if the cryptography is compromised the least of my worries is remaining anonymous; you would have alot of other things to worry about.
Secondly, there is something called "stealth address" oh and of-course if that cryptography is broken well then sir you have more more to worry about than remaining anonymous.
Thirdly, see 1 and 2 and oh yeah why not send a note to Satoshi about it whilst you was as it about how dumb his idea was of creating a crypto currency.

That is a very common fallacy. Or maybe you just have nothing to hide?

When the cryptography securing on chain anonymity is broken, everything in there will be revealed. New algorithms will be implemented to secure everything else from future attacks like your coins so they can't be stolen, but what has been put into the chain will be there and can't be made anymore secure.

[dasource]

Firstly, if the cryptography is compromised the least of my worries is remaining anonymous; you would have alot of other things to worry about.
Secondly, there is something called "stealth address" oh and of-course if that cryptography is broken well then sir you have more more to worry about than remaining anonymous.
Thirdly, see 1 and 2 and oh yeah why not send a note to Satoshi about it whilst you was as it about how dumb his idea was of creating a crypto currency.

That is a very common fallacy. Or maybe you just have nothing to hide?

When the cryptography securing on chain anonymity is broken, everything in there will be revealed. New algorithms will be implemented to secure everything else from future attacks like your coins so they can't be stolen, but what has been put into the chain will be there and can't be made anymore secure.

You are missing the point again ... when you cannot find any weaknesses is the design of both CN/Shadow you have to resort to breaking the one thing which fundamentally makes crypto currencies secure.

But if you want to play this game lets play.

For arguments sake lets say ECDSA is broken ... so now for every address that has ever made a transaction we can derive the private key.
So as a average crypto user; I could simple import this private key into my wallet and reindex. Voila! I now have every transaction that address every made. Good luck with your dual network or whatever you call it as simple chain analysis will reveal all!

Now try doing that with a solution that uses ring sigs and stealth address. You have to break a single algo to deanonymize DRK and yet would have to break multiple to have the same effect on CN/Shadow.

^ see how your logic is flawed! just like the masternode design.

[Joshuar]

Absolutely the opposite. Darkcoin's anonymity relies on an external source, masternodes. That is a huge weakness all by itself. Those masternodes must be hosted and online to support Dark's mixing. Since most of the masternodes are hosted on servers, that means the entire masternode network itself is centralized.

A network must be online in order for it to work as a network. And this a huge weakness? Bitcoin has nodes that must be hosted, otherwise you can't connect to it at all.

Comparing on chain anonymity to centralization is the most absurd thing I've seen in a while. That's like saying Bitcoin's blockchain is a centralized solution to decentralization. What sense does that even make? Cryptonotes/Monero's on chain anonymity is far more decentralized than off chain anonymity.

With on chain anonymity everything is in one database. Forever. With off chain anonymity no one has all the information.

You can mix with even 100+ people

How do you know those 100+ are actually different people? They could all be NSA.

However, with Darkcoin, it's 100x worse than Bitcoin's lack of use as a currency. Darkcoin's masternodes require 1000DRK. There are over 2k masternodes, that's over 200,000 2,000,000 (2million) darkcoins taken out of the ecosystem alone in 1 year, not even mentioning darkcoin's instamine. This means that Darkcoin has/will have extremely poor liquidity, which is essential for a currency.

1 Darkcoin is divisible by 100,000,000. They won't run out.

Daily volume for Monero: $ 49,562 (heavily centralized to Poloniex, insiders tossing coins from one pocket to another?)
Daily volume for Darkcoin: $ 178,984
http://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/volume/24-hour/

"With on chain anonymity everything is in one database. Forever. With off chain anonymity no one has all the information."

Not true, you can see look at the blockchain and see the mixings happening and if you take the time and can unravel the "randomization", you might be able to identify the reciever and sender(Since it is coinjoin) . Cryptonote coins protect against blockchain anaylsis, unlike other coins(Darkcoin).

"How do you know those 100+ are actually different people? They could all be NSA."


That arguement could be used for any coin or any item online, including Bitcoin, Darkcoin, Google, Facebook, etc. Not very practical.

" 1 Darkcoin is divisible by 100,000,000. They won't run out."

That doesn't matter as all altcoins besides Bitcoin as of now have low prices per coin, making denominations almost irrelevant. That's why you need as much coins as you can to be on the markets, not locked up in masternodes taking liquidity away.


https://cryptonote.org/inside