Two new thoughts since I last posted:
1. The more anonymous the cryptocurrency, the more likely that the corrupt in the captured political systems of the world today are going to be hiding their money in the anonymous system as the hunt for wealth spreads as the socialism's bankruptcy reaches the end game. USA, Europe, China, India, etc are all run by powerful groups who are hiding money offshore. For example, it is well known (e.g. Michael Pettis wrote about this) that the Chinese taipans move their exports through tax havens such as Singapore (at least on paper) to hide profits offshore, which they then keep hidden offshore. Also Chinese politicians move their ill-gotten wealth offshore, e.g. their wife (or wives) and kid(s) live in the Western countries in expensive homes and attend private schools, etc..
So while an anonymous crytocurrency can help defeat the power government has over the individual, it can also enable the corrupt in the system to escape oversight from the government. I imagine that as this global debt crisis comes to an end game, the populace is going to prosecute ill-gotten wealth. We see pronouncements from the G20 headed this direction. This will cause the nations to cooperate to hunt down all wealth. It will be indiscriminate (because of the irrationality of socialism) and all wealth will suffer, ill-gotten or otherwise.
Thus, it is desirable to have an anonymous cryptocurrency, because if it makes nations impotent, then they won't be able to come together to form a world government to hunt down all wealth. And the ill-gotten wealth will be transferred to those who are early into that anonymous cryptocurrency (if someone creates it).
2. If someone creates a cryptocurrency where only CPUs can mine effectively (or at least ASICs and FPGAs have no significant advantage), then the return on mining investment will likely be negative. Meaning many people will mine at small economies-of-scale with their PC and not notice they are consuming more resources than they are generating in coin rewards for mining. The implication is that it will be that much more difficult for a cartel to take over mining, when they have to do it basically for free and compete against the billions of computers of the populace.
Regarding debasement, I tend to agree with you and I wonder why you do not speak more of a POS system. Essentially Peercoin and derivatives such as Novacoin and the like debase the currency by offering savers interest, though I believe it's closer to 1%. I really don't have a problem with this. It seems quite logical from a standpoint of how saving accounts appear for users with fiat and of course POS has other benefits as well.
I don't believe PoS systems are secure because my understanding is that the input entropy can be preimaged which selects which peer can decide which transactions are valid. Someone may eventually prove me wrong, yet for now I am operating under the expectation instead that PoS systems will be hacked if they ever become significantly valuable.
Also I believe the economics are collectivism, which rewards failure (laziness, lack of initiative, lack of ingenuity, etc). Paying someone just for letting money sit there. I prefer that miners must proactively manage their resources to help secure the network, e.g. PoW.
In short, I believe competition, not socialism, is the correct economic paradigm.
However, I don't think that POS interest addresses the issue of spending and demurrage addresses it in a way which I think people find too punitive. However, simply paying a small percentage in tax on spending which affects all people equally and supports the network is something which I think all people are quite comfortable with. Having a coinage limit which forces people to either spend or move money after some years will encourage use of the coins as currency but will in no way affect people of few means like demurrage would and would not inflate the economy like interest producing POS would.
I don't believe this will secure the network.
AnonyMint, we cannot count on ever growing GDPs
If we couldn't count it, we would still live at the very low standard of the Kings of yore, with high mortality from bacterial infections, slow transportation, communication by courier instead of by wireless, etc..
Sorry but the illogic of Malthusians annoys me. How can some people be so out-of-touch with reality and history? And they repeat incessantly the same (what I believe to be) nonsense.
If the GDP stops growing for decades, that means humans are on a trajectory to end their existence (or at least tempt existential threat into a 600 year Dark Age), i.e. declining populations and/or stopping the development of new technology.
and I assume that you are suggesting a method of debasement beyond the control of any governing body. An eternally inflating money supply only sounds marginally better than a deflating one.
It is essential. I believe the network can't be secured without. I provided all my logic.
A system like Bitcoin's set maximum along with incentives to spend and recycle coins would keep the system in near perfect equilibrium.
There is no such thing in our world as perfect equilibrium. I assume you are thinking of some state of non-change. There are dynamic oscillations around a median, but never you will find flatlines in the real world. And if you want to understand the math and physics for this, then you can read my blog. Flatline means a uniform distribution, which means no change, which means no competition, no contrast (black is only visible if you have gradations of white), no knowledge creation, and no life at all.
http://unheresy.com/The%20Universe.html#Matter_as_a_continuumhttp://unheresy.com/Information%20Is%20Alive.htmlAs far as mining pools centralizing coin minting, this is a different problem which I'd like to see addressed in such way as to make it more egalitarian. I'm unsure of how this can be done but it would surely be beneficial both in terms of fairness and avoiding a 50%+ attack.
Simple. Make so mining computers don't need to have the resources to deal with a multiple-GB blockchain (i.e. implement the Mini-blockchain), and eliminate the advantage of non-CPUs.
Competition can still reign, yet amongst computers with CPUs and reasonable resources, e.g. typical amount of DRAM.