Yeah, you couldn't pay me to mine altcoins. It seems to be a zero-sum game driven by speculation and lucky timing. People funnel money into one coin until a few people have all the money, and then the coin evaporates and they funnel money into the next one until someone else has all the money. I'll stick to bitcoin. Its value may be heavily influenced by supply and speculation but at least it has utility. How many of your altcoins can you actually trade for goods and services without first converting to bitcoin or dollars? How many of the coins existing now will you still be able to trade in a year? Six months?
Non-backdoored TRNG would be pretty sexy.
So would mining chips.
I've been there. They saw me coming I think, except I pulled the plug every step of the way... on myself.
I do not want to completely derail your thread here, but you are right on about alts being pump n dumps. I am not saying they are scams, and you didn't either I noticed. There are good communities working on good things in that space.
(If I can use the second most used word in any coin community "space", with the most loved being "transparency")
Unfortunately, even the hardworking good communities who do not have Devs named Phantom' or some equivalent shit name even those good communities with real devs who didn't blanket copy the bitcoin code, use some drop in copy and paste from a couple of other coins, those communities have bad actors on a large scale romping through them. Pump teams, groups, and individuals, wave riders...
Rule 1, if the Dev isn't willing to put their name and face on it there is a problem.
and B Run from premines and ninja launches where the devs buddies, friends, relatives, and hometown all have the rented hash and even private mines ready to go the second they do the "fair" launch. It is obvious when that happens. Some reference they are friends in forum posts and other relationship status details, say a reference to an older activity they performed.
3. Plan your exit and then execute it without delay. By the time most people know a coin is moving, it started being moved well before we knew. In this case I will say I, but I learned I is we in most situations. Therefore starting at a disadvantage.
It is the same type of cut throat corporate crap sidehack talks about where people do not care about quality, many times it is the exact opposite by becoming a brag fest relative to how badly someone was screwed, well, fucked actually, that is what happens.
Most of the time. Almost all of the time, with almost every single coin. Some are short, quick, pickup a few coin situations, and some are the longer, repeat offender type.
As the Gentleman said though, there are some good situations. I do not know how namecoin will evolve, peercoin, but they have been consistent. I did trade all of my namecoin, but I would hold them if I had them again.
I'd say, either you have to know something for a fact is going to happen, he happy with very little profit with a high potential for loss, or have read enough, looked at enough blockchain history and put a few resources you weren't going to miss anyway in a few different situations after you have seriously spent time learning the groups and continuously evaluating long periods of past performance alongside current trends.
You have to know the scene as well, which is probably the hardest of all.
If the people are new, strike one against someone who could be a spectacular programmer.
If someone in the coin's core support team, or the Dev and they happen to post a different opinion on an important social issue, they are treated as if they have aids and are trying to tongue kiss every person in the city. They are treated like scum and project validity is ignored because of usually something trivial.
I remember a couple of forums who had amazing techie group views. Mainly, if the topic is outside anything technically related, no one was interested. good techie forums where every class supported every class, not meaning financially, but to a degree yes, but more meaning Bitcoin versus another coin.
I think every one will agree there are coins which have features we would love to see in Bitcoin. We will not agree on exactly which features, but lets call out a couple of examples of common big sellers - anonymity and faster confirmations
(I better not hear about the block size or someone is getting cut) Anonymity and faster confirmations coming to Bitcoin are my big additions. I want it done as safely as anyone else would want. I want it to be accomplished without damaging bitcoin in any way and as a matter of fact when any entity in our "space" announces new "options" or "features" it is supposed to be done to add to a solid reputation of Research and Development.
Some of those coins exist, but they are very few. If anyone would like to discuss their experiences with alt coins feel free to PM me. I probably took it further off-topic than the bosses would like anyway, but I live in Bitcoinland, and it is my primary coin. I hope it always is and I will debate its merits against any current form of crypto-currency exchange, but I also know of other coins with features we want. For me it is about the technology and just to clarify, by technology I mean the whole enchilada of how the currency functions and utility it provides. Some coins are a natural product and accompany Bitcoin. Coins which could address things Bitcoin will be able to do but will not do for a long time. I think the biggest advantage for an Alternative coin is what we should name something different, like a sister coin, daughter would be more appropriate, but coins which support and encourage Bitcoin activity or satisfy a Bitcoin caveat. This is why merge mining makes sense to me. That is how we have the blockchain with a finite number of resource requirements but the ultimate, infinite blockchain.
There is / was talk that the coins which are merge mined will grow in more of a required role in the bitcoin landscape. (Landscape, 3rd most common word when discussing bitcoin next to space and transparent?)
Required by us, the bitcoiners, the community. We want more of our coin, there is obvious technology to provide whatever we want, and if an even bigger, maybe some better programmers step in a role of truly
merge-eing utility from the coins riding the same hash then we get nicer things for a very small percent of market-share.
I am happy to see the topic of another coin broached by some I would have assumed if queried were more strict bitcoiners. I am happy to see there is maybe more open-mindedness. It takes real dedication and talent to do some things correctly and sometimes you can add an open mind with a dash of doing something because it feels right and good Then mix it all together for what is called the flow.
Everyone knows what that is. We all have flows. When you are executing a particular task and you 'hit your stride', the magic happens, get in a rythm. When this occurs for a creative person, they create, really create, and of course it depends on what you are doing with that flow. Unfortunately most of us do not reach that state enough or in the correct circumstances, physical or mental conditions, etc. Programming is a natural occupation for flow, as is troubleshooting, bowling, playing in a band, composing, writing in general, and you can have a team of people hit their flow. (Don't think about it)
When you get the right person in a flow and the only limit is their imagination there are amazing bursts of exciting ideas, or ways to improve existing items. Einstein is someone who executed it through daydreams and taking long walks.
Bitcoin has a pretty good selection of these ideas sitting on a shelf in the back room being pulled, poked, prodded and tested by the kids. Some of these have been tested for our two examples of Anonymity and faster confirmations.
We aren't talking an unheard of amount of money to incorporate existing ideas. Anonymity and faster confirmations are already being done, and not done because that is the fun part, but maintained and truly tested, there is your hard work. There have been countless people trying to break each other's anonymity ideas, and the same with coins that have faster confirmation. This applies with difficulty, and almost any other variable Bitcoin has, and a whole lot more it does not.
I think it would be a great idea for someone to evaluate if they have enough CPU use to mine alts. I wish it was profitable for me to mine alts as well. I suppose I can wish in one hand...
Good Luck on your ALT mining, and if you do step in make sure you stay away from anyone named Bob. Sorry to all of the other Bob's but it is better this way.
