Topic: Blackwave Labs: State of current altcurrency ecosystem and beyond (Read 1076 times)
The exchange userbase has grown a lot, it just needs time to grow organically.
November 24, 2014, 01:26:16 PM
I think that this exchange has not been promoted enough. It's incredible how good it works. People should try it.
November 22, 2014, 04:25:51 AM
Blackwave Labs recently finished beta testing a new cryptocurrency platform https://exco.in
Read more at: https://blackwavelabs.com
Blackwave Labs is proud to announce that beta testing for our innovative cryptocurrency platform, Excoin, has come to an end. We are now ready to officially launch our trading platform.
Over the course of our beta, the most prevalant question has been: "How will you determine which coins are traded on your market?" To preface our answer to this question, we would first state that we are advocates for cryptocurrency, altcryptocurrencies, open source software, and decentralization. However, to be very blunt, we are very disappointed with the current state of altcryptocurrency.
Many developers, investors, and enthusiasts appear to be misunderstanding a critical fact: A cryptocurrency is not defined by piece of software known as a wallet, a cryptocurrency is defined by a protocol.
Excoin will not be offering trading against every new fork that pops up, we will not be offering flavor of the week cryptocurrency. If you are looking to chase the next pump and dump coin you will have have to look somewhere else. To make this point absolutely clear, we do not think entering the top ten market cap for a few days qualifies a coin as innovative.
To qualify for trading on Excoin, coins must have made fundamental changes to the existing protocols, they must be open source, and their code must be actively developed. These changes to the protocol must not merely be mentioned on a roadmap but actively in development and peer reviewed.
This not only empowers developers who are actually focusing on cryptocurrency protocols, but also keeps the entire Excoin community safer since we are less prone to install a wallet with security issues.
The State of Altcryptocurrencies
Nearly all new cryptocurrency developers are either naive or are actively misleading their communities by marketing their wallet features as unique to their brand of cryptocurrency and associated blockchain.
These developers are ignoring the fact that their wallets' features could be applied to virtually any cryptocurrency fork because they are not making any changes to the protocol. Very few of these new wallet additions have affected the underlying protocol running the cryptocurrency, or the changes to the protocol could have been better achieved as an abstraction above the protocol.
What we are seeing in the cryptocurrency ecosystem is equivalent to developers forking the TCP/IP protocol every time a new website is created. We do not fork the TCP/IP protocol to make a new website, or fork BitTorrent to create a new client, and we do not need a new fork of the proof-of-stake protocol to make new wallet software.
The result of this behavior is a fracturing of the cryptocurrency community: Features that should have been open source and widely available across all cryptocurrency protocols are being used to create pump and dump coins with short lifespans and myopic goals.
A part of this trend has been the rise and subsequent fall of location based coins, which seem to also be actively dismissing one of the best benefits of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency, like the internet, has the opportunity to unite a global community. In recent years we have seen the adverse affects of the internet being made increasingly localized, with content providers locking up content and making our once world wide web into fractured country wide webs. The infamous black screen with the words "This video is not available in your country" and similar messages are now commonplace. Decentralized protocols allow us to circumvent these information blockades and take part in a global community—it would be counter-productive to voluntarily put up these blockades ourselves.
The most recent fad has been to make the claim that you need your own fork of the proof-of-stake protocol to run a decentralized and anonymous marketplace. Cryptocurrency investors are making noise trying to get others to buy into the idea that these coins are more than glorified wallets in order to benefit from a fraction of 1% of the drug trade that currently takes place using cryptocurrency. And despite this, underground marketplaces continue to use Bitcoin.
The result of these trends over the past year has led to stagnation in the underlying protocols that drive cryptocurrencies, while the quality of marketing material for flavor of the week coins, that are nothing more than wallets with unnecessary separate blockchains, has been improving.
We are looking forward and developing projects we feel addresses the issues we have seen.
Bits
Decentralized geolocal Blackcoin wallet
Bits (formerly Project BlackNode) is a custom wallet built on top of the existing Blackcoin protocol. Bits will focus on making Blackcoin simple enough for the technology-impaired to use cryptocurrency. You will be able to safely give cryptocurrency to your grandparents to buy goods in the real world without worrying about it being lost and unrecoverable.
Bits is the project that led to Blackwave Labs, not the other way around. Excoin and and Onyx serve two primary purposes: First, to bring stable, secure, and high quality services to Blackcoin, allowing it to flourish as a currency. Second, to fund the decentralized, open source wallet software that we have been developing.
To lead by example, and to prove the points we made above about wallet software, Bits will be an abstraction layer that sits on top of Blackcoin, or effectively any other cryptocurrency designed from the Bitcoin spec code. Bits will be compatible with the Satoshi wallet or other wallet software—users will be able to send and receive Blackcoins to and from any Blackcoin address.
Bits does not require a fork, it will not require its own blockchain. It will utilize the positive features of the proof-of-stake protocol and reap the very important benefits of receiving security improvements, checkpointing updates, and advances to proof-of-stake from Blackcoin developers while Blackwave Labs expands the features of the wallet.
Decentralized Address Resolution
Bits provides a way to associate a cryptocurrency address to an email address or other identifier stored in a secure decentralized database. Transferring money through Bits will only require you to know the recipient's identifier without needing to have previously contacted them.
Address resolution will work similar to domain names. A user will be able to register an identifier to a public address for a set time period, with the option to revoke the association upon request.
Multi-signature Storage
Bits is built around the concept of multi-signature wallets, which enables users to safely store and recover coins. The wallets are encrypted and backed up across trusted peers, or optionally in decentralized storage. In the event your device is lost or destroyed, select trusted personal contacts will be able to recover the encrypted wallet, and if your password is forgotten, your chosen family members or friends will together be able to decrypt the wallet.
Smart Contracts
Create secure contracts locally or with users around the world. Using Bits users can establish algorithmically self-enforceable contracts between two or more people to safely trade goods or services without the need for centralized services.
Geolocal Storefronts
Bits will make Blackcoin into the world's first decentralized geolocal cryptocurrency. Users are empowered to easily buy and sell goods in their local community using Blackcoin.
Using Bits, merchants will be able to create pop-up storefronts visible to users in their area. Customers can choose to search inventories of stores in their area and pay for goods or services with Blackcoin ahead of time, with or without a smart contract, or walk into a store to browse and shop in person like they could with cash. Blackcoin features 10 second transaction intervals and as it reaches greater distribution secure confirmation can happen as quickly or quicker than a credit card.
Decentralized encrypted geolocal chat will allow customers and merchants to communicate throughout the entire process.
Geolocal Exchange
Bits facilitates the negotiations and is capable of matching trades between cryptocurrency and national currencies. Users can search locally or world wide for trades that can be completed in person or through smart contracts.
In person exchange will allow quick payments facilliated by the incredible transaction speeds offered by Blackcoin. Tips, donation, and purchases will be easy and securely made to anyone in the geolocal area or worldwide.
Quorum Sensing
Bits is capable of detecting other Bits users in a geolocal area based on pre-existing trust relationships and user privacy settings. Upon reaching specific population density thresholds new features are enabled.
When two or more users are within range:
When three or more users are within range:
When ten or more users are within range:
Users will have many tools available to facilitate organization of large groups of people:
Mesh Networking
Bits is built on top of mesh networking tools that allow users to participate in trades, discussions, and voting—even in the absence of internet access—given enough users are within range.
Full Featured API
The Bits API will allow users to build plugins that leverage the Bits framework and quorum sensing tools for modular, expanded functionality.
While other cryptocurrency wallets have been following recent trends primarily focused around the idea of creating anonymous decentralized internet markets, Bits will instead empower Blackcoin to be seamlessly and safely usable in everyday life.
We want to work towards a future where the powerful effects of decentralized economics are felt on the street, at your local farmers market or coffee shop, and cryptocurrency can easily and safely be accepted by local businesses without reliance on a centralized service. Together as a community we can decide to value improvements to the underlying protocols that power our cryptocurrency, and stop supporting wallets built around unnecessary forks and redundant blockchains. Together we can support real advancements, open source wallets, and projects that benefit cryptocurrency as a whole.
Read more about the ecosystem about our new upcoming projects: https://blackwavelabs.com
Why Blackcoin?
Since the launch of Blackcoin, we have seen a dramatic evolution in the cryptocurrency ecosystem—almost every coin since the launch of Blackcoin has been proof-of-stake.
The Blackcoin version of the proof of stake protocol allows for rapid transactions with practically insignificant energy use compared to that of the previous cryptocurrencies. The specifications make Blackcoin a highly versatile cryptocurrency. Blackcoin features 10 second transaction intervals and as it reaches greater distribution secure confirmation can happen as quickly or quicker than a credit card.
Yet despite the massive influx of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, Blackcoin developers appear to be the only ones who have actually worked on the proof-of-stake protocol. The developers of Blackcoin have made fundamental changes to the protocol in an effort to keep it secure and stable, and their commitment to improving proof-of-stake continues as they work towards a solution for another major hurdle: decentralized checkpointing.
Blackhole Economics
Our project originally started as a Blackcoin-centric exchange where every pairing would be against Blackcoin. We have since decided to expand our services to include Bitcoin exchanges, too. With help from the community we seek to create a positive feedback loop that puts constant buying pressure on a limited supply of coins.
We believe the increased volume and profit from the exchanges will provide more benefits to the Blackcoin community in the long run. We have already designed trading bots to liquidate our profits from other currencies and convert them to Blackcoin, the currency we hold our capital and profit in. By doing this we will be creating a positive feedback loop on the value of Blackcoin. The supply of Blackcoin (≈74,500,000) is limited to growth of approximately 1% per year, and the increased buying pressure from Excoin, along with the the incredibly successful BlackcoinMiningPool, will raise the value of Blackcoin as long as our exchange continues to operate.
Our profit from Blackcoin will be used to pay developers, artists, translators, and other staff for development of our in-progress Blackcoin projects.
Read more at: https://blackwavelabs.com
Blackwave Labs is proud to announce that beta testing for our innovative cryptocurrency platform, Excoin, has come to an end. We are now ready to officially launch our trading platform.
Over the course of our beta, the most prevalant question has been: "How will you determine which coins are traded on your market?" To preface our answer to this question, we would first state that we are advocates for cryptocurrency, altcryptocurrencies, open source software, and decentralization. However, to be very blunt, we are very disappointed with the current state of altcryptocurrency.
Many developers, investors, and enthusiasts appear to be misunderstanding a critical fact: A cryptocurrency is not defined by piece of software known as a wallet, a cryptocurrency is defined by a protocol.
Excoin will not be offering trading against every new fork that pops up, we will not be offering flavor of the week cryptocurrency. If you are looking to chase the next pump and dump coin you will have have to look somewhere else. To make this point absolutely clear, we do not think entering the top ten market cap for a few days qualifies a coin as innovative.
To qualify for trading on Excoin, coins must have made fundamental changes to the existing protocols, they must be open source, and their code must be actively developed. These changes to the protocol must not merely be mentioned on a roadmap but actively in development and peer reviewed.
This not only empowers developers who are actually focusing on cryptocurrency protocols, but also keeps the entire Excoin community safer since we are less prone to install a wallet with security issues.
The State of Altcryptocurrencies
Nearly all new cryptocurrency developers are either naive or are actively misleading their communities by marketing their wallet features as unique to their brand of cryptocurrency and associated blockchain.
These developers are ignoring the fact that their wallets' features could be applied to virtually any cryptocurrency fork because they are not making any changes to the protocol. Very few of these new wallet additions have affected the underlying protocol running the cryptocurrency, or the changes to the protocol could have been better achieved as an abstraction above the protocol.
What we are seeing in the cryptocurrency ecosystem is equivalent to developers forking the TCP/IP protocol every time a new website is created. We do not fork the TCP/IP protocol to make a new website, or fork BitTorrent to create a new client, and we do not need a new fork of the proof-of-stake protocol to make new wallet software.
The result of this behavior is a fracturing of the cryptocurrency community: Features that should have been open source and widely available across all cryptocurrency protocols are being used to create pump and dump coins with short lifespans and myopic goals.
A part of this trend has been the rise and subsequent fall of location based coins, which seem to also be actively dismissing one of the best benefits of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency, like the internet, has the opportunity to unite a global community. In recent years we have seen the adverse affects of the internet being made increasingly localized, with content providers locking up content and making our once world wide web into fractured country wide webs. The infamous black screen with the words "This video is not available in your country" and similar messages are now commonplace. Decentralized protocols allow us to circumvent these information blockades and take part in a global community—it would be counter-productive to voluntarily put up these blockades ourselves.
The most recent fad has been to make the claim that you need your own fork of the proof-of-stake protocol to run a decentralized and anonymous marketplace. Cryptocurrency investors are making noise trying to get others to buy into the idea that these coins are more than glorified wallets in order to benefit from a fraction of 1% of the drug trade that currently takes place using cryptocurrency. And despite this, underground marketplaces continue to use Bitcoin.
The result of these trends over the past year has led to stagnation in the underlying protocols that drive cryptocurrencies, while the quality of marketing material for flavor of the week coins, that are nothing more than wallets with unnecessary separate blockchains, has been improving.
We are looking forward and developing projects we feel addresses the issues we have seen.
Bits
Decentralized geolocal Blackcoin wallet
Bits (formerly Project BlackNode) is a custom wallet built on top of the existing Blackcoin protocol. Bits will focus on making Blackcoin simple enough for the technology-impaired to use cryptocurrency. You will be able to safely give cryptocurrency to your grandparents to buy goods in the real world without worrying about it being lost and unrecoverable.
Bits is the project that led to Blackwave Labs, not the other way around. Excoin and and Onyx serve two primary purposes: First, to bring stable, secure, and high quality services to Blackcoin, allowing it to flourish as a currency. Second, to fund the decentralized, open source wallet software that we have been developing.
To lead by example, and to prove the points we made above about wallet software, Bits will be an abstraction layer that sits on top of Blackcoin, or effectively any other cryptocurrency designed from the Bitcoin spec code. Bits will be compatible with the Satoshi wallet or other wallet software—users will be able to send and receive Blackcoins to and from any Blackcoin address.
Bits does not require a fork, it will not require its own blockchain. It will utilize the positive features of the proof-of-stake protocol and reap the very important benefits of receiving security improvements, checkpointing updates, and advances to proof-of-stake from Blackcoin developers while Blackwave Labs expands the features of the wallet.
Decentralized Address Resolution
Bits provides a way to associate a cryptocurrency address to an email address or other identifier stored in a secure decentralized database. Transferring money through Bits will only require you to know the recipient's identifier without needing to have previously contacted them.
Address resolution will work similar to domain names. A user will be able to register an identifier to a public address for a set time period, with the option to revoke the association upon request.
Multi-signature Storage
Bits is built around the concept of multi-signature wallets, which enables users to safely store and recover coins. The wallets are encrypted and backed up across trusted peers, or optionally in decentralized storage. In the event your device is lost or destroyed, select trusted personal contacts will be able to recover the encrypted wallet, and if your password is forgotten, your chosen family members or friends will together be able to decrypt the wallet.
Smart Contracts
Create secure contracts locally or with users around the world. Using Bits users can establish algorithmically self-enforceable contracts between two or more people to safely trade goods or services without the need for centralized services.
Geolocal Storefronts
Bits will make Blackcoin into the world's first decentralized geolocal cryptocurrency. Users are empowered to easily buy and sell goods in their local community using Blackcoin.
Using Bits, merchants will be able to create pop-up storefronts visible to users in their area. Customers can choose to search inventories of stores in their area and pay for goods or services with Blackcoin ahead of time, with or without a smart contract, or walk into a store to browse and shop in person like they could with cash. Blackcoin features 10 second transaction intervals and as it reaches greater distribution secure confirmation can happen as quickly or quicker than a credit card.
Decentralized encrypted geolocal chat will allow customers and merchants to communicate throughout the entire process.
Geolocal Exchange
Bits facilitates the negotiations and is capable of matching trades between cryptocurrency and national currencies. Users can search locally or world wide for trades that can be completed in person or through smart contracts.
In person exchange will allow quick payments facilliated by the incredible transaction speeds offered by Blackcoin. Tips, donation, and purchases will be easy and securely made to anyone in the geolocal area or worldwide.
Quorum Sensing
Bits is capable of detecting other Bits users in a geolocal area based on pre-existing trust relationships and user privacy settings. Upon reaching specific population density thresholds new features are enabled.
When two or more users are within range:
- Private encrypted communication will be available.
- Form joint accounts with with one or more users.
When three or more users are within range:
- Private encrypted group chat will be available.
- Users can start a key signing party to create a circle of trust or expand existing webs of trust.
- Users can opt to send or receive encrypted one-to-many broadcasts if they are within a circle of trust.
When ten or more users are within range:
Users will have many tools available to facilitate organization of large groups of people:
- Tools for protestors or other large groups of people to safely and securely organize.
- Tools to raise funds and manage them transparently.
- Tools to issue digital tickets confirmable through NFC enabled devices or QR code.
- Tools to break up a Blackcoin and automatically send it to all participating users within a defined range or circle of trust to be used as ballots in a secure vote.
Mesh Networking
Bits is built on top of mesh networking tools that allow users to participate in trades, discussions, and voting—even in the absence of internet access—given enough users are within range.
Full Featured API
The Bits API will allow users to build plugins that leverage the Bits framework and quorum sensing tools for modular, expanded functionality.
While other cryptocurrency wallets have been following recent trends primarily focused around the idea of creating anonymous decentralized internet markets, Bits will instead empower Blackcoin to be seamlessly and safely usable in everyday life.
We want to work towards a future where the powerful effects of decentralized economics are felt on the street, at your local farmers market or coffee shop, and cryptocurrency can easily and safely be accepted by local businesses without reliance on a centralized service. Together as a community we can decide to value improvements to the underlying protocols that power our cryptocurrency, and stop supporting wallets built around unnecessary forks and redundant blockchains. Together we can support real advancements, open source wallets, and projects that benefit cryptocurrency as a whole.
Read more about the ecosystem about our new upcoming projects: https://blackwavelabs.com
Why Blackcoin?
Since the launch of Blackcoin, we have seen a dramatic evolution in the cryptocurrency ecosystem—almost every coin since the launch of Blackcoin has been proof-of-stake.
The Blackcoin version of the proof of stake protocol allows for rapid transactions with practically insignificant energy use compared to that of the previous cryptocurrencies. The specifications make Blackcoin a highly versatile cryptocurrency. Blackcoin features 10 second transaction intervals and as it reaches greater distribution secure confirmation can happen as quickly or quicker than a credit card.
Yet despite the massive influx of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, Blackcoin developers appear to be the only ones who have actually worked on the proof-of-stake protocol. The developers of Blackcoin have made fundamental changes to the protocol in an effort to keep it secure and stable, and their commitment to improving proof-of-stake continues as they work towards a solution for another major hurdle: decentralized checkpointing.
Blackhole Economics
Our project originally started as a Blackcoin-centric exchange where every pairing would be against Blackcoin. We have since decided to expand our services to include Bitcoin exchanges, too. With help from the community we seek to create a positive feedback loop that puts constant buying pressure on a limited supply of coins.
We believe the increased volume and profit from the exchanges will provide more benefits to the Blackcoin community in the long run. We have already designed trading bots to liquidate our profits from other currencies and convert them to Blackcoin, the currency we hold our capital and profit in. By doing this we will be creating a positive feedback loop on the value of Blackcoin. The supply of Blackcoin (≈74,500,000) is limited to growth of approximately 1% per year, and the increased buying pressure from Excoin, along with the the incredibly successful BlackcoinMiningPool, will raise the value of Blackcoin as long as our exchange continues to operate.
Our profit from Blackcoin will be used to pay developers, artists, translators, and other staff for development of our in-progress Blackcoin projects.
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