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Topic: rpietila Altcoin Observer - page 43. (Read 387491 times)

legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1030
Sine secretum non libertas
September 05, 2014, 01:11:12 PM
Scenarios 2-4 cannot negatively affect Boolberry or its investors, so they have no investor risk. It is implausible that there is any way for CZ to take money from more honest people using Boolberry, so scenario 5 is extremely unlikely. Oligarchy is just as centralized as monarchy.

Firstly, oligarchy is not as centralized as monarchy.  That's just wrong.  An oligarchy of all would be maximally decentralized.

I think scenarios 2-4 are an investor risk because it removes upside from the coin.  Adoption will be impeded.  In the extreme case, adoption goes backwards until the coin coins to zero.

If one person is in control of what code runs the network, they can certainly extract value from the network by takings.
dga
hero member
Activity: 737
Merit: 511
September 05, 2014, 12:57:55 PM

That sounds reasonable. My guess is that he wanted nothing to do with BCN and thus went out on his own. As time goes on, if BBR continues to grow I think it's safe to say that CZ will not remain the sole developer past a certain point. And if for whatever reason he resisted that and wanted to stay in control alone, I believe that would be the end of BBR.

My experience suggests that you're right - I submitted several patches to BBR for the miner and a few typo fixes, etc., and CZ accepted them rapidly and graciously.  I didn't get any weird vibe from him about not wanting to let others into the code -- in fact, quite the opposite.  For completeness, since this entire discussion just *reeks* of confirmation bias with everybody trying to find evidence that their decision was correct, that mirrors my experience with the XMR crew.  Both have been very happy to have help from outside.
legendary
Activity: 826
Merit: 1002
amarha
September 05, 2014, 12:41:13 PM

As a technical experiment, that's fine.  For timing speculation, okay.  In the competition for the natural monopoly of private liquidity, 0.00001% more risk on one side than on the other pre-determines the outcome.


When you put it in that context, doesn't the increasing uncertainty surrounding the code base and recent events pretty much disqualify both BBR and XMR from holding that title? At what point will you and other stakeholders decide your money is better spent recreating the technology from scratch?

I have (no?) idea what if anything BBR has to do with the bytecoin scheme.

I would put it more strongly:  Event though it seems probable that CZ involved in cryptonote development, and hence in bytecoin development, there is nothing to link him directly with the pre-mine scam.  If CZ was involved early in development but not in the fraud, almost certainly he was at least aware of it, so perhaps the distinction is too fine.  If he was involved late, he could have been aware of it, but have no culpability in it.  The closeness of the association, however, still would damage the risk profile of BBR in the market's view.

Scenarios in order of increasing investor risk:

1) CZ had nothing to do with BCN, and is not AS.
2) CZ is AS but had nothing to do with BCN.
3) CZ was involved in BCN, but after the pre-mine.
4) CZ was involved in the fraud, but is reformed.  
5) CZ was involved in the fraud, and plans to exploit the next suitable opportunity to take money from more honest people.

In the best of these scenarios, BBR still suffers from the risks inherent in centralization of governance.  It just gets worse from there on.


That sounds reasonable. My guess is that he wanted nothing to do with BCN and thus went out on his own. As time goes on, if BBR continues to grow I think it's safe to say that CZ will not remain the sole developer past a certain point. And if for whatever reason he resisted that and wanted to stay in control alone, I believe that would be the end of BBR.
legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 1000
Yeah! I hate ShroomsKit!
September 05, 2014, 12:28:00 PM
Every time Nekomata posts here it is a shame for him and for everybody who decides to read his bullshit.
legendary
Activity: 826
Merit: 1002
amarha
September 05, 2014, 12:27:42 PM
2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all.

There is no credible evidence (i.e.  evidence not coming from them) that cryptonote and bytecoin are actually separate. The evidence from rethink-your-strategy would suggest otherwise. That evidence might be not totally definitive but the preponderance of the evidence definitely points in that direction (since there is no contradictory evidence at all)


What I meant to say was he could have been part of the CryptoNote team but refused to participate in the Bytecoin scam. I agree that it's likely the Bytecoin creator(s) were part of the the original CN team. Someone could have helped create the CN tech and be completely innocent too.


I think it's worth pointing out at least that 1) Sabelnikov was never found guilty of any wrong doing and Microsoft agreed that it was not him who ran the botnet. 2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all. Not only that, but if he was involved with CryptoNote, the act of creating BBR(with the new PoW) alone by himself would be strong statement that he disagreed with what Bytecoin did and wanted no part in any sort of scam.

Personally, I don't think it's likely CZ is a bad actor. Whoever he is. At worst it appears he could be a famous hacker responsible for writing some code that other people used in a malicious way(the botnet). I'm not going to defend that if that happened. But we don't know anything about that what happened in that situation and there's a whole range of possibilities, including being coerced in to writing code. We will likely never have sufficient information to make any sort of judgment either way.

So there is some risk with an anonymous developer, that is a constant. On the other hand with BBR you also seem to get someone who is an expert at dealing with what is becoming apparent is a very shaky code base. So there is some trade off there. I'm not making the argument that BBR is less risky with a single developer than XMR is with 7 or 8. But I do hope that anyone considering the situation will at least take the time to make a fair evaluation of CZ on what he's done so far.

edit: and that's not meant as a reply to aminorex specially since I know he knows all of this already, but anyone who is just looking in to this crazy CN world in general.

The evidence seems to point to CryptoNote and Bytecoin as part of the same scheme but were made to appear independent. (Note: the CryptoNote technology itself is impressive, but their ethics are apparent not)

The line of thinking is, in order to carry out the scam, Bytecoin was created and chosen to take the fall so that in the event that the whole thing crashed and burned (and it did), there would be separation between CryptoNote and Bytecoin. Thus Bytecoin can be seen as a malicious off-branch that independently developed the coin and the massive scam, but CryptoNote is the innocent provider of technology and watched on the sidelines as its brilliant technology was misused. But people were not convinced by either the Bytecoin scam or the CryptoNote independence.

Now not accusing BBR as a off-branch of the CN/BCN scam and coming for the same family but let's say that Zoidberg was involved in CryptoNote, why would his involvement, even if BBR does not look "scammy" be of concern?

Because that's how the scam was originally suppose to work. Create a scam hoping that it would work (Bytecoin), but when it failed, create a new "clean" coin to replace it (Bitmonero), while maintaining clean hands (CryptoNote independence).

But the community didn't buy that, and Monero was the result. BBR would be like Bitmonero, a "clean" coin designed to be "fair" after the scam but was controlled by the original "scammers".

But even if this were the case, it doesn't look to me like BBR fits in with this pattern at all. The fact that CZ deliberately chose a different PoW makes BBR the odd one out.
sr. member
Activity: 560
Merit: 250
"Trading Platform of The Future!"
September 05, 2014, 12:23:54 PM
I have (no?) idea what if anything BBR has to do with the bytecoin scheme.

I would put it more strongly:  Event though it seems probable that CZ involved in cryptonote development, and hence in bytecoin development, there is nothing to link him directly with the pre-mine scam.  If CZ was involved early in development but not in the fraud, almost certainly he was at least aware of it, so perhaps the distinction is too fine.  If he was involved late, he could have been aware of it, but have no culpability in it.  The closeness of the association, however, still would damage the risk profile of BBR in the market's view.

Scenarios in order of increasing investor risk:

1) CZ had nothing to do with BCN, and is not AS.
2) CZ is AS but had nothing to do with BCN.
3) CZ was involved in BCN, but after the pre-mine.
4) CZ was involved in the fraud, but is reformed. 
5) CZ was involved in the fraud, and plans to exploit the next suitable opportunity to take money from more honest people.

In the best of these scenarios, BBR still suffers from the risks inherent in centralization of governance.  It just gets worse from there on.


Scenarios 2-4 cannot negatively affect Boolberry or its investors, so they have no investor risk. It is implausible that there is any way for CZ to take money from more honest people using Boolberry, so scenario 5 is extremely unlikely. Oligarchy is just as centralized as monarchy.
full member
Activity: 133
Merit: 100
September 05, 2014, 12:15:19 PM

I think it's worth pointing out at least that 1) Sabelnikov was never found guilty of any wrong doing and Microsoft agreed that it was not him who ran the botnet. 2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all. Not only that, but if he was involved with CryptoNote, the act of creating BBR(with the new PoW) alone by himself would be strong statement that he disagreed with what Bytecoin did and wanted no part in any sort of scam.

Personally, I don't think it's likely CZ is a bad actor. Whoever he is. At worst it appears he could be a famous hacker responsible for writing some code that other people used in a malicious way(the botnet). I'm not going to defend that if that happened. But we don't know anything about that what happened in that situation and there's a whole range of possibilities, including being coerced in to writing code. We will likely never have sufficient information to make any sort of judgment either way.

So there is some risk with an anonymous developer, that is a constant. On the other hand with BBR you also seem to get someone who is an expert at dealing with what is becoming apparent is a very shaky code base. So there is some trade off there. I'm not making the argument that BBR is less risky with a single developer than XMR is with 7 or 8. But I do hope that anyone considering the situation will at least take the time to make a fair evaluation of CZ on what he's done so far.

edit: and that's not meant as a reply to aminorex specially since I know he knows all of this already, but anyone who is just looking in to this crazy CN world in general.

The evidence seems to point to CryptoNote and Bytecoin as part of the same scheme but were made to appear independent. (Note: the CryptoNote technology itself is impressive, but their ethics are apparent not)

The line of thinking is, in order to carry out the scam, Bytecoin was created and chosen to take the fall so that in the event that the whole thing crashed and burned (and it did), there would be separation between CryptoNote and Bytecoin. Thus Bytecoin can be seen as a malicious off-branch that independently developed the coin and the massive scam, but CryptoNote is the innocent provider of technology and watched on the sidelines as its brilliant technology was misused. But people were not convinced by either the Bytecoin scam or the CryptoNote independence.

Now not accusing BBR as a off-branch of the CN/BCN scam and coming for the same family but let's say that Zoidberg was involved in CryptoNote, why would his involvement, even if BBR does not look "scammy" be of concern?

Because that's how the scam was originally suppose to work. Create a scam hoping that it would work (Bytecoin), but when it failed, create a new "clean" coin to replace it (Bitmonero), while maintaining clean hands (CryptoNote independence).

But the community didn't buy that, and Monero was the result. BBR would be like Bitmonero, a "clean" coin designed to be "fair" after the scam but was controlled by the original "scammers".
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1030
Sine secretum non libertas
September 05, 2014, 11:55:57 AM
I have (no?) idea what if anything BBR has to do with the bytecoin scheme.

I would put it more strongly:  Event though it seems probable that CZ involved in cryptonote development, and hence in bytecoin development, there is nothing to link him directly with the pre-mine scam.  If CZ was involved early in development but not in the fraud, almost certainly he was at least aware of it, so perhaps the distinction is too fine.  If he was involved late, he could have been aware of it, but have no culpability in it.  The closeness of the association, however, still would damage the risk profile of BBR in the market's view.

Scenarios in order of increasing investor risk:

1) CZ had nothing to do with BCN, and is not AS.
2) CZ is AS but had nothing to do with BCN.
3) CZ was involved in BCN, but after the pre-mine.
4) CZ was involved in the fraud, but is reformed. 
5) CZ was involved in the fraud, and plans to exploit the next suitable opportunity to take money from more honest people.

In the best of these scenarios, BBR still suffers from the risks inherent in centralization of governance.  It just gets worse from there on.
legendary
Activity: 2968
Merit: 1198
September 05, 2014, 11:39:03 AM
I consider the association with the botnet to be far less eggregious than association with the bytecoin pre-mine, personally.  That is the more likely of the two adverse identifications which have been hypothesized.

I agree with you and I would add that the bytecoin scheme is far more than just a premine. There is deception on top of deception with a side helping of deception. If you want to call out something that is absolute poison when it comes to finance and fraud risk you could hardly come up with a better example. I have idea what if anything BBR has to do with the bytecoin scheme.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1000
September 05, 2014, 11:34:49 AM
You did not check my posts deep enough!
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6444427

I have x10 XMR than I have BBR, you will never afford to buy so many idiot...

and you should probably dump them all for BBR.
Only dumb dump you dumb!
legendary
Activity: 2968
Merit: 1198
September 05, 2014, 11:33:46 AM
2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all.

There is no credible evidence (i.e.  evidence not coming from them) that cryptonote and bytecoin are actually separate. The evidence from rethink-your-strategy would suggest otherwise. That evidence might be not totally definitive but the preponderance of the evidence definitely points in that direction (since there is no contradictory evidence at all)
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1030
Sine secretum non libertas
September 05, 2014, 11:27:37 AM
I think it's worth pointing out at least that 1) Sabelnikov was never found guilty of any wrong doing and Microsoft agreed that it was not him who ran the botnet. 2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all. Not only that, but if he was involved with CryptoNote, the act of creating BBR(with the new PoW) alone by himself would be strong statement that he disagreed with what Bytecoin did and wanted no part in any sort of scam.

All of which is missing the forest for the trees.  It's risk and uncertainty which is simply incompatible with the most ambitious goals of a private liquidity instrument.  I have nothing against Andrey Sabelnikov.  I admit that I do have something against the perpetrators of the bytecoin scheme, but I am in favor of a generous allowance of rehabilitation.  The market would not price a currency offered by a known fraudster at the same level as one offered by a supportive network of persons who generally lack this distinction.  That means that an adverse identity revelation would impoverish investors.  At the same time, a favorable identity revelation would be a boon to investors.  As a speculative instrument, that is an opportunity.  It's poison for a reserve currency.

Quote
Personally, I don't think it's likely CZ is a bad actor. Whoever he is. At worst it appears he could be a famous hacker responsible for writing some code that other people used in a malicious way(the botnet).

I consider the association with the botnet to be far less eggregious than association with the bytecoin pre-mine, personally.  That is the more likely of the two adverse identifications which have been hypothesized.

Quote
So there is some risk with an anonymous developer, that is a constant.

As a technical experiment, that's fine.  For timing speculation, okay.  In the competition for the natural monopoly of private liquidity, 0.00001% more risk on one side than on the other pre-determines the outcome.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1000
September 05, 2014, 11:25:57 AM

Sometimes more is worse...

hahaha man look at your post history, you are already balls deep on BBR that your comment just illustrate your hatred for XMR, how about you follow your own words and stops the FUD, you won't unpersuade anyone from their XMRs

Can everybody please stop trolling/promoting trolling?

The BBR threads should stay focused on BBR progress - the XMR on XMR!

We need to raise the level (bar? not sure for the term) here guys, else no one will take us seriously...

(I also own XMR but my help is not needed that much if at all there because very competent and serious people are actively involved).

Now can we discuss on how to develop some nice ecosystem around BBR?

BBR as coin is legit one thing that partially ruined it was the gpu dev that milked it for months and dumped almost everything at whatever the price was (his own words), but one thing I'm not doing is saying how good an anonymous dev is in this scammy environment, only because I have no idea WHO he is and what are his plans Smiley
You did not check my posts deep enough!
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.6444427

I have x10 XMR than I have BBR, you will never afford to buy so many idiot...
full member
Activity: 135
Merit: 100
September 05, 2014, 11:14:45 AM
Do we still have fund managers here managing XMR for their clients? Are you planning any exit strategy for them in the wake of consistent exploits/attacks on XMR mainnet? I know it is much easier to still speculate in XMR with own money, but is there any concern for other people's monies yet?
legendary
Activity: 1204
Merit: 1002
Gresham's Lawyer
September 05, 2014, 11:09:37 AM
Sometimes more is worse...
Sometimes, just rarely.
One is a single point of failure though.
legendary
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1000
September 05, 2014, 11:01:14 AM
(BBR) was drifting down around .00015 for a looooong time.  All of a sudden, starting last week (August 28th), volume on Polo is wayyyyyy up and the price is up to .001.

What caused this?

edit: Supernet, maybe?  If so, where can I short the fucker?

My take:  Risk is poison.  BBR is controlled by a lone anonymous actor, possibly Andrey Sabelnikov, probably a member of the team that produced the bytecoin scam.  In contrast, the XMR team includes several well-known persons, some of whom identify by legal names openly.  BBR just has a lot more risk baked in.  The market priced the caps at a 32:1 ratio as a result (and ended up oversold due to momentum).  This made hedging XMR with BBR cheap.  That, and CZ's well-deserved reputation for development, kept attention on BBR.  (Also the bytecoin gang's sockpuppet theatre raging against XMR kept using it as a foil, which drew attention.)  SuperNET was all it needed to pump.  Regardless of James' intentions he certainly seems to be surrounded by a cloud of PnDers.  Now the hedge is no longer attractive, and only momentum and the pump keep price flying here.

I won't comment on how to short SuperNET.  Look at its components.  I have a lot of skepticism of SuperNET myself, but it's based on circumstantial factors rather than substantive ones.  I find it difficult to locate the substance.  Something about the copy always makes my mind rebel if I try to read it.  It's like trying to look into your foveal blind spot.  I probably have too much training in "legacy" finance to understand it properly.  I'm too old, and I'll die soon, so that innovators can sail smoothly over the rainbow to crypto-valhalla without my trollish philistinism to harsh their mellow.

To short BBR, you need to find someone who will loan it to you.  The interest rate will probably be exhorbitant.  When I shorted I did fairly well but paid out a large chunk as interest.  My short performance was degrading rapidly at the end, which means I was taking increasing risk, so I lost interest.  Also I think I was making volatility worse, rather than better, at the end, which is bad for BBR, so I knew it was time to stop.  Good mean-reversion strategy performance should result in lower volatility in the underlying.  If it is doing the opposite, you're doing it wrong - or you're trading momentum.  I may do again, but not until I have more clarity on the fundamental and technical situation in BBR - which may never happen since it is just not very interesting to me. I want to buy future reserve currency, stack it high, and hold it long.  Anything else is just a distraction.
 



I think it's worth pointing out at least that 1) Sabelnikov was never found guilty of any wrong doing and Microsoft agreed that it was not him who ran the botnet. 2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all. Not only that, but if he was involved with CryptoNote, the act of creating BBR(with the new PoW) alone by himself would be strong statement that he disagreed with what Bytecoin did and wanted no part in any sort of scam.

Personally, I don't think it's likely CZ is a bad actor. Whoever he is. At worst it appears he could be a famous hacker responsible for writing some code that other people used in a malicious way(the botnet). I'm not going to defend that if that happened. But we don't know anything about that what happened in that situation and there's a whole range of possibilities, including being coerced in to writing code. We will likely never have sufficient information to make any sort of judgment either way.

So there is some risk with an anonymous developer, that is a constant. On the other hand with BBR you also seem to get someone who is an expert at dealing with what is becoming apparent is a very shaky code base. So there is some trade off there. I'm not making the argument that BBR is less risky with a single developer than XMR is with 7 or 8. But I do hope that anyone considering the situation will at least take the time to make a fair evaluation of CZ on what he's done so far.
Sometimes more is worse...
legendary
Activity: 826
Merit: 1002
amarha
September 05, 2014, 10:58:31 AM
(BBR) was drifting down around .00015 for a looooong time.  All of a sudden, starting last week (August 28th), volume on Polo is wayyyyyy up and the price is up to .001.

What caused this?

edit: Supernet, maybe?  If so, where can I short the fucker?

My take:  Risk is poison.  BBR is controlled by a lone anonymous actor, possibly Andrey Sabelnikov, probably a member of the team that produced the bytecoin scam.  In contrast, the XMR team includes several well-known persons, some of whom identify by legal names openly.  BBR just has a lot more risk baked in.  The market priced the caps at a 32:1 ratio as a result (and ended up oversold due to momentum).  This made hedging XMR with BBR cheap.  That, and CZ's well-deserved reputation for development, kept attention on BBR.  (Also the bytecoin gang's sockpuppet theatre raging against XMR kept using it as a foil, which drew attention.)  SuperNET was all it needed to pump.  Regardless of James' intentions he certainly seems to be surrounded by a cloud of PnDers.  Now the hedge is no longer attractive, and only momentum and the pump keep price flying here.

I won't comment on how to short SuperNET.  Look at its components.  I have a lot of skepticism of SuperNET myself, but it's based on circumstantial factors rather than substantive ones.  I find it difficult to locate the substance.  Something about the copy always makes my mind rebel if I try to read it.  It's like trying to look into your foveal blind spot.  I probably have too much training in "legacy" finance to understand it properly.  I'm too old, and I'll die soon, so that innovators can sail smoothly over the rainbow to crypto-valhalla without my trollish philistinism to harsh their mellow.

To short BBR, you need to find someone who will loan it to you.  The interest rate will probably be exhorbitant.  When I shorted I did fairly well but paid out a large chunk as interest.  My short performance was degrading rapidly at the end, which means I was taking increasing risk, so I lost interest.  Also I think I was making volatility worse, rather than better, at the end, which is bad for BBR, so I knew it was time to stop.  Good mean-reversion strategy performance should result in lower volatility in the underlying.  If it is doing the opposite, you're doing it wrong - or you're trading momentum.  I may do again, but not until I have more clarity on the fundamental and technical situation in BBR - which may never happen since it is just not very interesting to me. I want to buy future reserve currency, stack it high, and hold it long.  Anything else is just a distraction.
 



I think it's worth pointing out at least that 1) Sabelnikov was never found guilty of any wrong doing and Microsoft agreed that it was not him who ran the botnet. 2) Even if CZ was part of the original CryptoNote team, there's no indication that he was involved with Bytecoin at all. Not only that, but if he was involved with CryptoNote, the act of creating BBR(with the new PoW) alone by himself would be strong statement that he disagreed with what Bytecoin did and wanted no part in any sort of scam.

Personally, I don't think it's likely CZ is a bad actor. Whoever he is. At worst it appears he could be a famous hacker responsible for writing some code that other people used in a malicious way(the botnet). I'm not going to defend that if that happened. But we don't know anything about that what happened in that situation and there's a whole range of possibilities, including being coerced in to writing code. We will likely never have sufficient information to make any sort of judgment either way.

So there is some risk with an anonymous developer, that is a constant. On the other hand with BBR you also seem to get someone who is an expert at dealing with what is becoming apparent is a very shaky code base. So there is some trade off there. I'm not making the argument that BBR is less risky with a single developer than XMR is with 7 or 8. But I do hope that anyone considering the situation will at least take the time to make a fair evaluation of CZ on what he's done so far.

edit: and that's not meant as a reply to aminorex specially since I know he knows all of this already, but anyone who is just looking in to this crazy CN world in general.
legendary
Activity: 1256
Merit: 1009
September 05, 2014, 10:55:50 AM
How can we keep up w how many BTC's raised for supernetcoin?  I'm curious now ...
legendary
Activity: 952
Merit: 1000
Yeah! I hate ShroomsKit!
September 05, 2014, 10:41:25 AM
A truly precious gem from the Poloniex trollbox, regarding SuperNET:

"think it as part investment part donation"

I do, sir, I do.


Donation? to who?  Cheesy
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1030
Sine secretum non libertas
September 05, 2014, 10:36:40 AM
A truly precious gem from the Poloniex trollbox, regarding SuperNET:

"think it as part investment part donation"

I do, sir, I do.
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