Topic: Thoughts on Zcash? - page 61. (Read 123361 times)

zooko & ian, I hope as astute marketers you will understand for every person who makes the effort to complain there may be 100 others who agree with vlad and Trashman but don't make the effort to give you feedback. And I hope you understand that (despite ostensibly English not being vlad's native language) he is communicating to you that the ideology in the market of Bitcoin is that it is a community investment in bettering our world and that there shall not exist centralized parasites, not the Federal Reserve central bank nor investors. Again Zooko, I advise you give your investors a % of the corporation and you can raise funding for the corporation and service corporate needs for your technology. Simultaneously you could launch a general use Zcash that is targeted to the Bitcoin market and that community's ideological sentiments, which can be orthogonal to your efforts to apply your technologies to corporate markets (or even somewhat integrated but not integrated from the funding perspective), and such could also serve to demonstrate that your company is the expert on this technology which can drive the funding of the corporation by venture capital investment (probably coming from the corporations that want you to invest in applying your technology to OpenLedger or other projects applicable to corporate needs).

I think Ethereum has shown that the Bitcoin community stands ready to buy into an ICO to the tune of $millions if you can demonstrate a superstar team of developers and clearly communicate your strategy for the Zcash ecosystem, so that speculators are enthused about the potential ROI. And then these speculators become cheerleaders for Zcash doing your PR for you at a viral scale that you can't do otherwise.

For as long as the speculators can see the lion's share of the ICO money is going to fund the develpoers, then the community that supported Ethereum will not likely complain (even though there will be some others who will complain if the launch isn't a "fair" launch of debasement, but I've explained that it is silly to give that $ away to the electric and hardware companies who have no vested interested in Zcash's development).

Also it seems to me that if you can show ICO funds have been stored in specific BTC addresses which are then maintained for the duration that the funds have not yet been spent on development, then you can effectively show that the funds were not used to purchase Zcash coins and thus the community will know your group is not controlling a large share of the coins.

An ICO presents some legal issues w.r.t. to the SEC regulations if you allow US investors to purchase. For this, you really need to consult an attorney. IANAL.

Edit: and if you are going to do an ICO, I urge you to do asap, because one theory is we are going into another liquidity contagion downturn worse than 2008 which may start as soon as May or maybe as late as 2017. It is quite possible that the altcoin market will go comatose. You would thus be advised to get funding now asap and not take coins from mining over an extended period of time. To be stable developers, you should not also be speculators. Remember that! I learned that the hard way in the past.

An ICO sold into the free market would be preferrable, so that you founders take your cash and the coins are widely distributed, so that no one has to fear that the insiders will dump their coins.

Problem is that is impossible to prove whether you purchased the ICO from yourselves jacking up the price (even you can take out a loan to do this). Similarly it is impossible to know if you've taken cash or coins from an ICO.

So it seems this problem has no good solution. You've opted instead to take the coins over a longer period of time via mining, perhaps to convince investors/speculators that you can't dump the coins early. Also this enables you to get coins at (hopefully) higher prices in the future. Problem is that afaics (IANAL) this will force all miners to register as Money Services Businesses with FinCEN to avoid being an illegal money transmitter since the miners are transfering value to a third party. Also this puts your company in danger of being classified a controlling entity w.r.t. to Howey test which requires you to register all the investment securities (i.e. the coins) with the SEC. We have asked you (in your AMA and also on this forum) to respond to this legal issue and have received no response yet.

I have suggested that instead you focus on receiving investment in your company as experts on this technology. And target working with Open Ledger and others who are attempting to make block chains for the corporate market. Because the big win for Zcash is not for the masses, but for enabling privacy for corporations using public block chains (because firewalled block chains are not secure and they ameloriate the reason to use a block chain). The use of anonymity by the masses is fraught with meta-data issues that are basically insoluble. Anonymity is mostly a technological dead-end for the masses. The coin that will be marketed to the masses (I am working on that) will be focused on microtransactions and instant transactoins, scaling, and mass adoption markets in social networking. That is not, can not, and should not be the focus of your work. You could still release a Zcash for everyone, and make it a fair distribution where everyone can mine, same as Monero did. However, it is sort of silly to waste all that investment on electricity (one of the distribution, technological, and marketing issues I am attempting to solve with my work). And still the coin will be distributed to those with the most mining chops who invest the most in electricity and leasing hardware. So again I suggest perhaps you just do a public ICO if you can manage the legal issues.

Another factor to bear in mind is that the sober reality that crypto currency just doesn't work may eventually come to pass. It is much better to take some of your return on investment asap just to hedge your speculative bets. Do not delude yourself into thinking this is a sure bet, even though you have great technological progress.

Seriously you need some better marketing advice. You have the technological capabilities, the business chops, but who on your team has been a VP in marketing at a major software company? Try consulting for example Steve Guttman or someone who can help you not make a huge blunder in your marketing strategy (which impacts the decisions about R&D and the funding model).

So you mean the Socialism vision for the future where we all collect unemployment insurance payments while we code open source. 

Fact is that serious R&D open source is driven by corporate sponsorship. Non-serious open source (a.k.a. copycoins) are driven by mining the speculators.

Zcash's team has the technical skills being the inventors of the math and technology. They will be able to make tweaks and insights that hobbiest coders won't be able to make. Those expert cryptographers and mathematicians who might be at the same level of comprehension and knowledge, will also not work for free.

Besides as I explained in my other posts on this forum, "fair" mining by debasement just hands the invested money to the electric and hardware companies, who have no vested interest whatsoever to improve the Zcash technology.

Bitcoin is a supposed solution to a monopolization problem.  Even if Bitcoin worked flawlessly, what I just talked about above is the real monopolization gorilla in the room that dwarfs it.  Like I said, even with a perfectly functioning Bitcoin that scales to infinity, it would be worthless if you're unable to opt out of a monolithic civilization at all.

Smooth seems to imply that all of civilization needs to be vertically integrated for maximum efficiency, and it doesn't matter if all the oceans are empty, food is entirely synthetic in a complex chain of labor custody, and every inch of land is covered with concrete.

Why are you on a technology forum? I think you want the Cave Man Hasn't Discovered Fire discussion and doesn't have a suitable weapon to fend off lions.

It was actually a more complex idea than that.  As long as there's abundant sea life and natural wild life (which in the context of humans are basically...resources), then you have the ability to "opt-out" of whatever system tyrannical humans establish.  Smooth seems to imply that all of civilization needs to be vertically integrated for maximum efficiency, and it doesn't matter if all the oceans are empty, food is entirely synthetic in a complex chain of labor custody, and every inch of land is covered with concrete.  In that instance, there is no opting out of anything, and you are in fact a permanent slave.

Outcomes like this are more likely to occur the higher both population and/or technology increases, and claiming anyone who identifies this fact is a "Malthusian" is ridiculous.  You will eventually not be able to opt out of anything, which is why people like Ted Kaczynski are not actually crazy.

r0ach stated he is concerned about an insufficient supply of suitable farmland, and the information I linked to pointed out that we can grow food at 10X or more higher densities (on a yield basis) and without pesticides. Note this can be done at scale so not every person has to do it.

Your algorithm for sameness (DRM by blockchain) will not work because for starters one simply modifies the copyrighted work ever so slightly so as to not trigger the algorithm; however in order to sell the algorithm you did have to concede my point that intellectual property rights enforcement inevitably leads to an Orwellian super state and environmental degradation.

Edit: The fact that this algorithm does not work does not mean that there may not be a market for this technology starting of course with the MPAA.

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Note I had also stated an algorithm for sameness (i.e. algorithmically detecting infringement, and if invented) and a blockchain of who is first to claim ownership, could in theory replace the need for the State to enforce copyright. I also suggested having the decentralize file system respect an ownership signature that resolves to an active URL, so the blame can be placed on a URL that can be served the copyright infringement case. If the URL goes down, the decentralized file system revokes the files.

Absent the algorithmic solution I have proposed, the Orwellian state is unavoidable and so pursuing decentralized file storage (without the aforementioned blame feature) is a fool's direction. Ideology aside, because reality is paramount.


You have not proved that. You are not omniscient. You are injecting your ideological delusion into a claim without proof. I explained above how intellectual property is compatible with freedom and decentralization if we invent the necessary algorithms to replace the role of the State.


Representative democracy will forever be an insoluble lie.


Non-sequitor.


Wrong as explained above. Also it is ludicrous to assert that only electronics are causing environmental degradation. And please unconflate that environment degradation is an orthogonal issue to (the erroneous but alleged) AGW (allegedly caused by greenhouse gases).


Incorrect. You are not omniscient.

In theory the aforementioned algorithm can run and be verified in zero knowledge with zk-snarks.

This misses the crux of the problem. Why would we grow food in our basements if we do not need to? The biggest problem with hunger today is not lack of food production but massive food waste and poor food distribution. The choice here is not between depleted oceans and starving people, the real choice is between depleted oceans and not wasting food.

Your comments about me being a Malthusian relates to me pointing out the massive waste of perfectly good electronics, most of which are produced in China, in order to satisfy the DRM wants of organizations such as the MPAA.

The link between attempts at intellectual property protection and ewaste, become clear when one finds out that one has to buy a whole set of new electronics just to support the new DRM for 4K Video, just as people had to replace their electronics just to support the previous DRM for HD video. Buy the way the new 4K video DRM has already been cracked, http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/hackers-pirate-netflixs-4k-streams-for-the-first-time/ so now we throw out our electronics and buy yet again a new set?

If we stop this needless waste we can have both the pristine forest and the SUVs, with both sides of the "tree hugger" debate in harmony.

Another example: Of course distributed storage is incompatible with preventing copyright infringement. It really does not matter if the distributed storage consists of a crypto currency based or solution or people storing the information on 5.25in floppy diskettes and sharing the diskettes with each other via sneakernet! Don't copy that floppy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=up863eQKGUI The only way to prevent all copyright infringement is to create an Orwellian super state where every bit of information is closely controlled by big brother and every digital device behaves like the Telescreens in 1984.  By the way current devices such as Apple's IOS devices and Microsoft's ARM (Windows RT/Mobile) devices meet all the surveillance and control specifications of the Telescreens in 1984. They are also somewhat effective at "protecting intellectual property".

The fundamental reality here is that protection of intellectual property is at a very basic level incompatible with both:

1) A free and democratic society where people enjoy personal freedoms and civil liberties

2) A clean and sustainable environment.

Edit 1: In order to protect "intellectual property" effectively, the Orwellian super state would also have to destroy the world natural environments and replace them with wastelands of discarded electronics.

Edit 2: Anonymous crypto currency such as Z.cash or its competitors will make enforcement of "intellectual property rights" even harder than it is today. So one may as well accept reality and change business models that belong in the 19th century rather than try to fight technological change.

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Ah we have ArticMine the Malthusian who apparently religiously (irrationally) subscribes to the fable tale fraud of AGW and r0ach the Mathusian who doesn't appear to be aware that we can grow more food in our basements than we need:
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I feel this is one of those Smooth moments questioning what the definition of "is" is.

If literally all food is synthetic, that indicates it's become entangled into an increasingly complex chain of specialization of labor, so even if you worked in that industry, you would probably not be able to produce it yourself.  That would be an extreme far left viewpoint where individuals are all required to fully integrate with the state to exist at all or you just instantly die.  As I tried to tell the Anonymizer, technology solely for the sake of technology is useless because it's not a net gain, it creates a dependency to enslave you at the same time.

The ability to become self sufficient, even if you don't exercise it, is far better than piling on endless amounts of unneeded complications into people's lives to entrap them.  Am I the only one that doesn't think Ted Kaczynski was completely insane?

The ability to become self sufficient, even if you don't exercise it, is far better than piling on endless amounts of unneeded complications into people's lives to entrap them.  Am I the only one that doesn't think Ted Kaczynski was completely insane?

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I don't see a quantitative gain in the quality of life or quality of people between gains in technology from the 1980's to now.  People are just more disconnected from reality, and technology-wise, all we really got out of it is bigger TVs, the first stages of technological unemployment through automation, and infrastructure to create bigger, more powerful government.  

And just ask the Amish about whether it is still possible to live the simple life if that is what you want.

I think it's more to do with the fact I don't see a quantitative gain in the quality of life or quality of people between gains in technology from the 1980's to now.  People are just more disconnected from reality, and technology-wise, all we really got out of it is bigger TVs, the first stages of technological unemployment through automation, and infrastructure to create bigger, more powerful government.  We don't even have electric cars yet (that don't catch on fire and explode).  Ok, we got the internet, but for most people, the internet is just a giant entertainment box time waster to occupy all your free time.

For quality of life, first you needed a high school diploma to survive, then you needed a bachelor's degree.  Next you'll need a master's degree, then a few years later, you'll either need to have a PhD or inherit money or you'll be living like some type of peasant in a mud hut.  For most people, things will probably be getting a lot worse over time.  If you're going to have an increasing population with accelerating technological unemployment at the same time, that really just makes no sense and would force full blown, top down controlled socialism or constant civil war.

I have to say on this point your logic is atrocious. If we have synthetic hamburgers and synthetic fish, then it indeed does not matter from the point of view of Malthusian population limits with respect to food that the majority of life in the ocean is wiped out.  It may matter for other reasons, but you haven't stated them.

Spoken like a true Malthusian tree hugger who hates man-made fish ponds (especially those that recycle chicken dung as the fish food).

Sorry r0ach I can't listen to your marketing advice any more because you are one of those guys who is fighting the future.

I interpret MA says the danger of a Dark Age is if people like myself don't go innovate to enable the people to express their political will economically.

My point-by-point rebuttal to NobleSir:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ethtrader/comments/42rvm3/truth_about_ethereum_is_being_banned_at/czefpyb

We are waiting for a forthcoming blog post from Zcash for their perspective on this comparison.

I will give you the benefit of the doubt, as I was talking more about scaling the existing American style diet rather than everyone growing fungus or soylent green in the basement.  I guess it's possible we will also stop eating real meat and only grow synthetic meat, but I think no matter what technology does, if population stays the same or increases, we will probably do things like wipe out a majority of life in the ocean for example, and you can't just ignore that because we now have synthetic hamburgers and synthetic fish to replace them.

Ah we have ArticMine the Malthusian who apparently religiously (irrationally) subscribes to the fable tale fraud of AGW and r0ach the Mathusian who doesn't appear to be aware that we can grow more food in our basements than we need:

I am not sure if I understand correctly what is required for such operation on logistic level, but isn't it one of the main problems with facilitating such payment schemes - and I think smooth pointed this out in one of the discussions you had with him - that the fans need to buy/obtain the digital currency in the first place.

I would imagine to facilitate the FIAT-crypto exchange you need a serious centralized operation that complies with money laundering and other financial, data protection, etc. regulations. Ideally, the exchange should be a very easy one click process, otherwise the fans won't bother with the micro-payments.