Even if Bkcoin were open source, what makes you assume the currencies that use it for backing would be?
Firstly, open-source is a no-brainer given for a lot of things, and this one in particular.
Various things:
- 1) It would provide services which were hardened by the sum total of the crypto-currencies using the solution. Thus it does not become as much of a concern to have a 'just add water' userbase which can withstand vigorous 51% style attacks.
- 2) The reasons for 'investing' in a proposed crypto-currency solution would tend to be less about making the investors rich and thus more about other merits that the solution might promise. I would anticipate that holders of BKC would have a genuine interest in the science of economies more than simply a desire to enrich themselves (because, as I've documented, BKC is not very good at doing that.) Thus users can use BKC investor interest as a gauge of the value of the exchange crypto-currency. As I've documented, 'popularity' of an exchange crypto-currency is what keeps BKC investors from losing their shirts so they have a natural alliance with the users in some ways.
What mechanism would exist to ensure that such currencies were up to your standards? From what I can tell, nothing.
I've documented that the entire ownerbase of BKC would have the ability to vote about certain things, and one of them was whether to allow a slot for a newly proposed exchange crypto-currency. Some obvious scamcoin would be unlikely to make the cut.
I stress that it is a group decision of the BKC holders and not the developers. Just like Bitcoin, there is no 'my standards' so that is a mute question. This particular thing may not be a majority rules vote. It is, in fact, a threat to BKC holders to allow a promising new EC-C in. If that became a problem it might be more of a veto-power mechanism to make this particular decision.
What would happen if some scammer managed to get the necessary Bakcoin to start a currency, bootstrapped a small economy, and then raped it.
Sad day. Lessons would probably be learned about how to recognize and mitigate against such a thing in the future.
What prevents said scammer from absconding with the Bakcoin as well as parsiticly destroy his little fiefdom?
It would probably be somewhat rare that the entire BKC backing for an EC-C would be from one owner, and users might want to use that as a warning sign of a potential scam.
Really, I'm not seing what you're seeing; and since I'm far from ignorant about such matters despite your beliefs, I can hazard a guess that no one but you can see what yor're seeing.
That well could be. I am guessing that some people are picking up on some of it though. In fact, I'd be surprise if nobody had
already thought of more and better ways to address some of the issues just based on my descriptions here.
Beyond that, a well designed crypto-currency (and a lot of other things) will be pretty hardened against exploitation by 'insiders' by the definition of a good design if nothing else. Bitcoin is this way, and has set a high bar which will almost have to be followed by similar cryto-currencies which may come after. If they are going to be successful anyway. SolidCoin seemed, in the cursory glance I had at it, to have deviated significantly and was quite unsuccessful (by my definition which basically comes down to whether users found it useful or not.)
Again, what says that such currencies would be well designed, even if they
are both open source & designed by the well intended?
If they are well designed and implemented, and those who are qualified to evaluate them say they are, then 'that'. If they are not, then an analysis will reveal that as well...which is good. Welcome to open-source my friend.
And there wre many predictable reasons why Solidcoin failed so badly. Not the least of which was a lack of transparency.
And if you intended to have multiple altcoins that were very similar to bitcoin, why not use bitcoin? If it;s too big to be a peer, why would being a peer in a smaller pond be more secure than being an end user in the bitocoin ocean?
'very similar' leave a lot of wiggle-room which is or great interest to users. Some of these which come to mind include:
- mining style (mem vs. ops meaning can most users compete with pro miners.)
- cycle frequency (10 min? 60min? etc.)
- voting rights (if voting is implemented.)
- transaction fees.
- true user-level p2p or no.
- convertibility (if convertibility to backing store is a design feature...and there exists a backing store.)
etc, etc, etc. Most or all of these things have trade-offs. Having multiple experiments along different lines is very conducive to evolution toward design balances which work for the end-user.
Were I to have choices, I believe that I (and most users) would have the ability to:
- seperate the wheat from the chaff in terms determining if something is a scamcoin or not.
- choose several, if not many, different crypto-currencies for different uses depending on the needs I happened to have.
edit: fix quotes
Okay, but how would such features be implementd? And if you don't know how, how would Bakcoin contribute to their success in
quantifiable way? Seriously, I'm not trolling; I really want to know how you think that this could work. You're website is sparse on the details and thus far so have you been.
And I'm doing my best to answer clearly and concisely your specific questions. Both for you, and for others who may have some general interest or even better, be inspired to dream up other ways of addressing various things about crypto-currency ecosystems.
