Topic: [ANN] (QTUM) - A Scalable Smart Contract Platform w/ Proof of Stake - page 166. (Read 525459 times)

I have not looked at qtum's code.

We know the qtum founder and he is one of the largest investors in Skycoin from four years ago, before qtum or any of this. Some of the people around him are legendary scammers, but he is not a scammer.

I think Patricks role in the bitbay situation is exaggerated. I read through the arguments and it just sounds like drama.

Many of the people in the Bitcoin community are sociopaths. They often steal things or cause drama, then immediately blame it or scapegoat it on someone else. They are not even done stealing the money, before they go on campaign of moral indignation against the fall person.

I think Patrick was blamed for Bitbay because his personality makes him an easy victim for sociopaths and the human predators in the bitcoin community. There are people walking around, sizing people up and trying to determine whether they can manipulate someone, setup a scam, steal things and who is going to be gullible or a fall person.

If you knew the people involved, you would understand what the social dynamic is.

>Also how can you be so confident qtum is going to replace ETH based on it's tech when they haven't released code yet?

Ethereum is using an accounts model, like Ripple. Which is anti-blockchain and anti-privacy and very traceable. It is against the philosophy of Bitcoin.

All coins going forward will be on the UXTO model and it is best practice for blockchain. Moving turing complete smart contracts off of accounts model and onto UXTO is extremely important and that is what qtum appears to be doing.

We need to figure out how to do general computation on a UXTO model. Instead of being restrained to the Ripple/Ethereum accounts model.

I think they will get closer to the goal, but only get there part way
- thin client for smart contracts (major limitation for existing system)
- moving smart contracts onto UXTO (major milestone)

I do not know if qtum has succeeded, but they seem to be going in right direction. I talked to one of their technical leads and they were focused on "Getting it working with something we can do now" and then incremental improvement over time. So first implementing the Ethereum virtual machine on top of UXTO, then working out the research problems for a native turing complete UXTO language later.

I do not know if there is a way to full UXTO while still having "gas". I think you will need to get rid of the "gas". In the ethereum model to take full advantage. I do not know if qtum will be able to go far enough in doing that, but is heading in the correct direction.

Ethereum tries to be both a token and a computer.
- we started with pure tokens (Bitcoin)
- then we added a computer to the tokens (Ethereum)
- now we just trying to figure out how to build  pure computer on UXTO
- Then once we have the computer, the tokens or coins just become a program or entity running on this "distributed computer"

Bitcoin, Ethereum, qtum, byteballs, etc are just stepping stones. Towards a final solution. None of these will exist or be relevant in ten years. We are in an age of transition and I am looking at the projects that are getting closer to the goal, in a pure mathematical sense.

Even Skycoin is being ripped up and its foundations constantly rewritten when it is advantageous to do so. Bitcoin is static and relatively unchanging, while Ethereum has been able to get the community to accept constant small changes.

Skycoin is on a punctuated equilibrium model, where we do bug fixes and polishing, then completely rip up and rebuild the foundation as needed, then go back to bug fixes and polishing.

Right now, we are exploring new networking primitives and the advantage of immutable data structures, but are still on blockchain. Putting EVM on UXTO is heading towards immutable data structures from the perspective of computation, while we are heading towards immutable data structures from the path of consensus, networking and simplifying object synchronization protocols.

One of the pilots that is being spun out of that project is the distibuted, peer-to-peer social media platform built upon immutable data structures and peer-to-peer object replication. For this Skycoin chose a public key, cryptographic publisher/subscriber model and DAG immutable object tree. While Ethereum's project chose a Kadmelia DHT block storage model.

Ignoring the individuals and the drama, I am just looking at the "future direction" and who is heading in that direction.

>Also how can you be so confident qtum is going to replace ETH based on it's tech when they haven't released code yet?

I am not confident it will replace Ethereum. At the start, it will be equivalent to ethereum in terms of being able to run the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) on top of qtum with UXTO. Then they will do a native language.

It will depend on the implementation. I do not know if qtum has succeeded, but they seem to be going in right direction.

Similarly, Byteballs may fail or may not exist in ten years, but they are pioneering the first experiments into replacing the Blockchain with a DAG. Which we have been considering for several years now.

Similarly, Bitcoin was the first but people are getting used to the idea that it will not be the final or best cryptocurrency. That it was just the first generation and that we can build better and improve it substantially.