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Topic: Spin-offs: bootstrap an altcoin with a btc-blockchain-based initial distribution - page 23. (Read 53596 times)

Peter R

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Quote from: Brangdon on April 10, 2014, 06:56:29 PM

I'm not yet sure I do want aethereum to be a viable crypto-currency. I'm still thinking about it.

I think a lot of us feel this way about alt coins in general, Brandon. And I think Daniel was right when he wrote about their coming demise.

I personally feel that the complexity in NxT, Ethereum, Ripple, etc will just cause problems and headaches. We haven't even scratched the surface of what we can do with the bitcoin scripting language yet. But my proposal is a non-threatening way to allow alt-coin innovation and experimentation. It takes power away from people pumping their new coins for a quick buck, if they do not actually believe in the coins long-term prospects.

I believe I've shown that if anyone has a truly innovative idea it is in both their best interest and the best interest of the community as a whole to apply the distribution method described in the OP. It will sink or swim based on its own merits.

Bitcoin helps align the incentives of the individual with what is best for the community.

Brangdon

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Quote from: cypherdoc on April 10, 2014, 05:45:00 PM

no, it's not a fork.

I don't really agree, but this is mostly a quibble about terminology and what is meant by a "fork", so it's probably not worth pursuing.

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 05:46:03 PM

In the very unlikely event that there was an unrelenting 51% attack that rendered the bitcoin network unuseable, would you prefer migrate to a network that uses the current blockchain, or a network that uses a copy that is 1 year old?

I believe the economic majority would migrate to a new network built from the most accurate and current version of the blockchain of the coin with the largest market cap.

Here I am nit-picking at a rather minor element of the proposal, so this may also not be worth pursuing. (But it's more substantive than terminology.)

Do you mean from the largest market cap, or to the largest market cap? The latter makes more sense to me. For fairness I'd prefer the network based on the most recent known good block-chain, and for greed I'd prefer the network that gave my coins the largest real-world value. If there were two candidate alt-coins, and one launched just before I bought a house and one after, then I might prefer the older one because it would give me more coins.

I do think a block-chain that is years old is probably not recent enough.

Quote from: cypherdoc on April 10, 2014, 05:45:00 PM

if aethereum lasted that long it would have proven itself as a viable cryptocurrency contributor, which is what we all want.

Well, merely "lasting" doesn't mean that, but if it is the most successful alt-coin then presumably it would be.

I'm not yet sure I do want aethereum to be a viable crypto-currency. I'm still thinking about it.

cypherdoc

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Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:37:48 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on April 10, 2014, 05:35:25 PM

Quote from: Adrian-x on April 10, 2014, 05:29:22 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

Quote from: Zarathustra on April 10, 2014, 04:37:56 AM

Therefore, someone's 10 Bitcoins will be cloned indefinitely into 10 aether1, aether2, ... , aether9999.
Isn't that inflationary?

I don't think this is inflationary in the usual sense because the value of any future altcoin using this model is already incorporated in the value of btc. Bitcoin becomes something of an inflation-indexed bond.

I find the logic of the proposal a bit lacking though. Once you spin off an altcoin, calling it A, from bitcoin, why does the next one spin off bitcoin and not off A?

it can, it probably will, you can also use A and the Bitcoin Blockchain to make bigger better A+Bitcoin

b/c Bitcoin will always have greater mining capacity and thus greater security. don't forget, A still has to prove itself and attract miners on it's own merit for long term survival.

Mining capacity is irrelevant to this proposal. Merged-mining with bitcoin can be done either way.

i don't think Peter's proposal involves merged mining. integrating that would be quite the headache and would require a massive PR effort to get the miners to agree.

the beauty of this proposal is it's simplicity, cheapness, and no risk implementation. it's basically just copying the open source altcoin code and distributing the altcoins via the Bitcoin blockchain percentages.

Adrian-x

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Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:37:48 PM

Quote from: cypherdoc on April 10, 2014, 05:35:25 PM

Quote from: Adrian-x on April 10, 2014, 05:29:22 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

Quote from: Zarathustra on April 10, 2014, 04:37:56 AM

Therefore, someone's 10 Bitcoins will be cloned indefinitely into 10 aether1, aether2, ... , aether9999.
Isn't that inflationary?

it can, it probably will, you can also use A and the Bitcoin Blockchain to make bigger better A+Bitcoin

b/c Bitcoin will always have greater mining capacity and thus greater security. don't forget, A still has to prove itself and attract miners on it's own merit for long term survival.

Mining capacity is irrelevant to this proposal. Merged-mining with bitcoin can be done either way.

sure but that limits innovation, new innovation in mining sachems are necessary as well (the attitude that I don't care much for a new altcoin that is controlled by the big ASIC hogs of today, is a legitimate market force)

Peter R

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Quote from: Brangdon on April 10, 2014, 05:33:41 PM

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 02:28:04 PM

Another useful property of this technique is that it makes the bitcoin blockchain robust to 51% attacks.

That's mainly helpful if there isn't much growth in the user base between the fork and the attack.

cypherdoc

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Quote from: Brangdon on April 10, 2014, 05:33:41 PM

Quote from: Peter R on April 09, 2014, 08:45:31 PM

æthereum is functionally identical to Ethereum, but rather than purchasing ether with bitcoins, you can freely claim your share of æther by signing an æthereum address with your bitcoin private keys.

That's basically what happens when Bitcoin forks, isn't it? After the fork there are two block-chains, and people who owned coins before the fork now own coins in both block-chains. The alt-coin is a more radical fork than the Bitcoin community would normally consider, but conceptually it's still a fork of Bitcoin.

no, it's not a fork. a true Bitcoin fork that went on for more than a few days to weeks would kill Bitcoin as it would be an indication that Bitcoin has failed as a concept. this is why we had the mad scramble to fix the 0.7 to 0.8 (#'s?) early last year. the whole system was at risk of going up in smoke if it had persisted.

this proposal let's the independent altcoin work on it's own totally separate from Bitcoin except for the distribution.

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 02:28:04 PM

Another useful property of this technique is that it makes the bitcoin blockchain robust to 51% attacks.

In the very unlikely event that the bitcoin network came under an unrelenting 51% attack, people would simply use the most promising clone. Since users have the same slice of that pie too (unless they traded), there is no need to "panic trade into litecoin," for instance.

That's mainly helpful if there isn't much growth in the user base between the fork and the attack. If æthereum launches, and, say, 2 years goes by, during which Bitcoin sees a 10-fold increase in users, and then the attack happens, 90% of Bitcoin users will be holding no addresses that they can turn into æthereum coins.

(Numbers picked for simplicity. I expect and hope to see exponential growth in the Bitcoin user base over the next several years. Even if it's 4x in 5 years rather than 10x in 2 years, the benefit of what you say here will fade.)

if aethereum lasted that long it would have proven itself as a viable cryptocurrency contributor, which is what we all want. after 2 or so years of success, it's likely many Bitcoiners who did not receive free aether will have bought into aethereum on the free market along with many newbies to the space.

railzand

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Lux e tenebris

http://vid.ly/7h6w6m

Some of the devs and researchers were looking for pretty much just this at PrincetonBTC

Nxtblg

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Quote from: michellj on April 10, 2014, 06:43:40 AM

As a close follower of Ethereum, although I agree that that team have done us all a great service in outlining the potential that exists in that wide space of Crypto 2.0 - I have increasing doubts about the way they are going about realizing their vision. I was at a couple of Ethereum meetups in London recently which just gave me the impression that despite their great ideas they as a team are disorganized and indecisive (eg they keep on moving their IPO goalposts).

Thanks for confirming my suspicions. I've already dropped a snark or two about Etherium turning teamwork into committee work...nice to hear a witness.

Adrian-x

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Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:18:35 PM

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 05:15:28 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

I find the logic of the proposal a bit lacking though. Once you spin off an altcoin, calling it A, from bitcoin, why does the next one spin off bitcoin and not off A?

The premise is that to maximize the chance for adoption, the alt should always spin off the blockchain with the highest market cap at the time of launch. Cryptocurrency users get automatically piggybacked to the most liquid and valuable network (which I expect to remain "bitcoin as is" for the foreseeable future).

I dunno, why not spin off all of them? That's the largest market cap, right?

sure all 350 of them may be a little heavy, but why not pick the top 3.

smooth

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Quote from: cypherdoc on April 10, 2014, 05:35:25 PM

Quote from: Adrian-x on April 10, 2014, 05:29:22 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

Quote from: Zarathustra on April 10, 2014, 04:37:56 AM

Therefore, someone's 10 Bitcoins will be cloned indefinitely into 10 aether1, aether2, ... , aether9999.
Isn't that inflationary?

it can, it probably will, you can also use A and the Bitcoin Blockchain to make bigger better A+Bitcoin

b/c Bitcoin will always have greater mining capacity and thus greater security. don't forget, A still has to prove itself and attract miners on it's own merit for long term survival.

Mining capacity is irrelevant to this proposal. Merged-mining with bitcoin can be done either way.

smooth

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Quote from: Adrian-x on April 10, 2014, 05:22:41 PM

But as cypherdoc pointed out this idea in the free market will be like a hammer to the scamcoins, alts will compete on innovation to succeed not cheap memes.

The free market has more of a sense of humor than you think. How much of GDP is represented by totally frivolous industries, or even harmful ones?

I don't think anyone can prejudge what works in the market. That's why you need a market, and central planning (i.e. anointing which coins have "real" innovation) doesn't work.

DOGE could "inexplicably" continue to grow on the strength of marketing and eventually eclipse BTC. It won't, but that doesn't mean it can't.

cypherdoc

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Quote from: Adrian-x on April 10, 2014, 05:29:22 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

Quote from: Zarathustra on April 10, 2014, 04:37:56 AM

Therefore, someone's 10 Bitcoins will be cloned indefinitely into 10 aether1, aether2, ... , aether9999.
Isn't that inflationary?

it can, it probably will, you can also use A and the Bitcoin Blockchain to make bigger better A+Bitcoin

b/c Bitcoin will always have greater mining capacity and thus greater security. don't forget, A still has to prove itself and attract miners on it's own merit for long term survival.

Brangdon

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Quote from: Peter R on April 09, 2014, 08:45:31 PM

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 02:28:04 PM

cypherdoc

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Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:18:35 PM

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 05:15:28 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

I find the logic of the proposal a bit lacking though. Once you spin off an altcoin, calling it A, from bitcoin, why does the next one spin off bitcoin and not off A?

I dunno, why not spin off all of them? That's the largest market cap, right?

eventually, if this concept works, the mere threat of a co-opt of the altcoin distribution by the Bitcoin blockchain mechanism will be enough to prevent scamcoins from even coming to market.

and then, if truly innovative coins/schemes come to market, they may decide to automatically include the Bitcoin blockchain distribution by default for survival thus further strengthening Bitcoin.

the real genius in Peter R's scheme is that b/c open source has now evolved to becoming best practice, this puts altcoin devs in a tough spot. they are forced to innovate for Bitcoin, not a scamcoin. this will unify the entire cryptocurrency space. and if they decide to be closed source, it's over for them from day 1.

Adrian-x

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Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

Quote from: Zarathustra on April 10, 2014, 04:37:56 AM

Therefore, someone's 10 Bitcoins will be cloned indefinitely into 10 aether1, aether2, ... , aether9999.
Isn't that inflationary?

it can, it probably will, you can also use A and the Bitcoin Blockchain to make bigger better A+Bitcoin

Peter R

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Merit: 1007

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:18:05 PM

I agree it discourages some useless coins (the ones motivated by a premine/IPO). I'm not convinced that it discourages all or even most useless coins. The other models (of useless coins) don't particularly seem affected.

LOL, what should we do about all the useless coins! Tongue

Adrian-x

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Quote from: YarkoL on April 10, 2014, 04:50:27 PM

I must be awfully dense, but it seems to me that this only applies to coins that have some technical innovation. Consequently an entire class of altcoins escapes the clutches of this framework.

As I said before, there are coins that have absolutely no technical merit, but they gain value from being aimed to specific community. For example, this one. If devs gain the trust of the communities that the coin is intended to serve, why would anyone in those communities switch over to the bitcoin-blockchain-based clone chain? Especially if there is no IPO (but there could be premine).

Inspired as you are by the arch-altcoin-hater Daniel Krawisz, I believe you see little worth in that kind of coins, yet we'll be seeing their number increase, but AFAIK your scheme cannot stamp them out.

But don't get me wrong. I think the idea itself is genius if not genial.

I was thinking the same thing, Coins that benefit from pre mine benefit the most with this method, but it can be used for any coin.

But as cypherdoc pointed out this idea in the free market will be like a hammer to the scamcoins, alts will compete on innovation to succeed not cheap memes.

Community coins will probably not use this method but be limited by the success of the supporting community.

smooth

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Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 05:15:28 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

I find the logic of the proposal a bit lacking though. Once you spin off an altcoin, calling it A, from bitcoin, why does the next one spin off bitcoin and not off A?

I dunno, why not spin off all of them? That's the largest market cap, right?

smooth

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Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 05:11:12 PM

Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:08:46 PM

Quote from: Peter R on April 10, 2014, 05:03:11 PM

Yes, this applies only to coins that may potentially represent a useful technical innovation.

Innovation is in the eye of the beholder, and which innovations turn out to be important is ultimately often only recognizable in hindsight. Not sure your distinction is really sound.

Like you said, the distinction can only be made with certainty in hindsight. The OP represents a market-based mechanism to value useful coins while facilitating the death of useless coins.

Peter R

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Quote from: smooth on April 10, 2014, 05:07:03 PM

I find the logic of the proposal a bit lacking though. Once you spin off an altcoin, calling it A, from bitcoin, why does the next one spin off bitcoin and not off A?