If that is truly there case, then we need to change the name. It is earlier enough we still could. If being a dark coin is going to be such a challenge to get mass adoption, what is the point of calling it darkcoin?
Well, I argued for a name change some time ago, but the idea didn't have enough support -- basically the official line is that the name will not change. The Darkcoin brand actually does a decent job of filling the "underground" niche, but I have always felt it will prevent the coin from gaining widespread adoption. Of course, that's just an opinion, and time will tell. IMO the best that can be achieved given the circumstances is to mitigate the effects of the stigma by carefully thought out branding & marketing.
Put the effort into DarkSend branding.
That's where the money is.
While I agree DarkSend is the secret sauce. What's going to happen
if when someone clones Evans work and comes up with a much better name, marketing and branding strategy? Poof goes the market share.
I believe this coin has enough inivation to give bitcoin a run for it's money, what I don't understand is why Evan is pigeonholing his work.
Just state that Darkcoin will keep Darksend as closed source until it reaches 100$ and has a mean over 100$ for 1-2 months.
I don't think that will work. People will not trust a non open source solution.
I agree. Look how Darkcoin was pulled from The Armory because it wasn't open source. If it's not open source there's is too much trust involved and in my opinion it almost definitely wouldn't get to $100.
I think the wheels are in motion. Darkcoin is to stay as the name and soon the logo will be chosen so the real marketing can begin. There is already an established base of supporters which could be larger, of course, but is nothing to sneeze at. The price has been quite stable in the last couple of weeks despite Bitcoin having a tough time.
This was the plan of attack not long ago:
1.) Beta V4, V5... - Large changes that require everyone to upgrade to use DarkSend
2.) Beyond this point, DarkSend is ready for real use and will be available in binary form (closed source still)
3.) Release Candidates - RC1, RC2, etc - I'll be taking bug reports, but these are smaller changes and none of them should require everyone to update
4.) First stable release - I think this stage should also be closed source until we're sure everything is perfect
5.) Public audits, where the closed source is shared with someone who people trust to review DarkSend (I'm not sure who that would be yet)
6.) After all audits pass and we have a real product, opensource
Interest should be drummed up once the logo is decided on, then turned up a notch leading into each of the key stages listed above. I think once it's open source plenty of people will jump on board but if it's enough publicity beforehand, there will be a lot of people wanting to get in before it actually becomes open (hopefully not
too many specualtors).
(One step forward, one step back.)
