If someone is serious, they want to release something that wins in the market. So they want to do a market survey, then address the results of the market survey, as I am doing.
You are correct, but the problem is all we have are elaborate schemes like zerocoin. It's a very complicated thing to do and we don't have a clear proposal for how it can merged with this mini-blockchain concept.
I think you are missing my point. Let me try to explain.
Zerocoin and CoinJoin are decentralized ways of mixing who owns the coins. The objective was that you could mix up your identity with a bunch of other people, so no one knows who owns which coins. The problem I pointed out yesterday, is that this depends on those others not screwing up their anonymity, because if they inadvertently reveal their identity on the mixed coins, then they also reveal your identity, because only you remain unidentified, so clearly the remaining coin from the mix is you.
Thus they are unreliable and unhelpful. So just forget them entirely. Zerocoin is more complex than CoinJoin, but that is irrelevant to my point, which is that all coin mixers (including centralized ones such a tumblr websites) are unhelpful.
Because not only does the trust of plausible deniability fall apart for the reason I gave above, yet also coins coming out the mixer are tainted with the possibility of being mixed with illegal activity, thus eventually society will reject all coin mixers.
Also the decentralized ones are subject to DoS, and the centralized ones can steal all your money.
So after all that, they just are not helpful.
But coin mixers are not the only aspect of anonymity. We need the mix-nets that anonymize our IP address. But the problem is that if the mix-net is optional for the coin, then everyone who uses it is tainted, as well as being at disadvantage when trying to win the PoW (since speed to broadcast is a factor) as well more DoS issues if running a mix-net.
So it either has to be standard in the coin, or we will never have anonymity.
I am not willing to abandon anonymity FOREVER. Are you?
We only get one chance to release an altcoin. The window of opportunity is rapidly closing.
Please consider if you want to demotivate me and others who might want to produce a serious altcoin that can address the major issues. I am serious.
We already have example mix-nets that work, e.g. Tor and I2P. Yet they are not designed to resist timing attacks. Thus we could tweak their design and then make it standard. We don't have to entirely reinvent the wheel from scratch.
That is why I think it's ok if we skip over the anonymity part, because if some one needs extra anonymity they can always use other software to mask their IP or what ever. I took a look at that survey thread you did a few hours ago and it looks like the demand for a scaled blockchain has now outmatched the demand for increase anonymity.
No they can not. I think you are missing the point I am making that if it is not integrated, then those who use it will be tainted by those who don't.
Do you understand the issue of taint?
The point is some of society will readily bend over for the government and ask where would you like to insert it. They will then taint those who want to protect their privacy. Meaning that those who try to protect their privacy will be grouped by association with those who are attempting illegal activities.
Anonymity has to be standard in the coin, else you never will have it (in the long-run as the socialism ramps up its regulation of decentralized coins).