Topic: [XMR] Monero - A secure, private, untraceable cryptocurrency - page 1258. (Read 4670643 times)

No one involved is working on XMR full-time. (All devs are working part-time as they cannot make a living purely off XMR.) Essentially, XMR is a multi-million dollar project with no one working full-time. At least one dev is working on a coin other than XMR at the same time.

Due to XMR's fair distribution (which is a major strength), the devs do not own a significant amount of XMR (perhaps fewer than 50,000 XMR collectively) which means that they are inadequately funded. Even if a significant increase in value occurs and they earn 10x their investment, they will still lack the means to work on XMR full-time.

- XMR seems to be funded by mainly one person, Risto Pietila, who spends the plurality of his waking hours developing the game Crypto Kingdom. Though Crypto Kingdom uses XMR to buy in-game currency, Crypto Kingdom lacks the mass appeal for it to ever be a driving force for XMR adoption.

- Devs were not part of the original CrypoNote team and are admittedly not as familiar with the codebase as the devs of other CryptoNote coins. They therefore experience challenges improving the codebase and making it maintainable.

- Blockchain Bloat. XMR's Ring-signatures are data intensive, and the XMR blockchain will be somewhere between 5-10 times the size of bitcoin's for an equivalent number of transactions. I don't consider this to be a significant weakness. Monero's blockchain will likely be much smaller than bitcoin's anyway.

I would personally love a (temptative) development road map. Doesn't need to be very precise, but I am sure the devs have some rough goals in terms of timing, and it would be very positive to know them.

Is this what you are looking for?

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/xmr-monero-community-faq-721045

This is a nice summary, that could form the basis of a sorely needed FAQ.

I've spent probably 40+ hours obsessively reading hundreds of pages regarding XMR here on [Suspicious link removed] forum, the CryptoNote white paper, nearly all of fluffypony, Risto Pietila, and others' posts. I've compiled and ran Monero. I am not an XMR or cryptocurrency expert, but my conclusions about XMR are as follows:

Strengths:

- Fair distribution. XMR's emission schedule and lack of pre-mine/instamine means that newcomers do not need to worry about buying into a coin where early adopters are solely interested in pumping and dumping, leaving the newcomers as bagholders. Someone acquiring XMR today and in the near future will get them at a cost within the same order of magnitude as early adopters.
- XMR, due to its fair distribution and good liquidity, is a strong candidate to occupy the #1 or #2 position in the privacy niche of the cryptocurrency market.
- XMR, due to its completely new codebase, different hashing algorithm, and good liquidity  is also a strong candidate to occupy the #1 or #2 position in what I call the "catastrophic hedge niche" of the crypto currency market. (If you would like to read more about my thoughts on XMR as a hedge, you can ready my post here:
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9679903 )
- A small proportion of funds in XMR will occupy these two important niches at once (neither of which can be adequately addressed by bitcoin). If we assume that these two niches together should account for 5% of the total cryptocurrency market cap, XMR seems to be an incredible expected value (EV) play at this level (1.5 mBTC:1 XMR)
- XMR devs, due to their small stakes in the coin and honest behavior thus far do not seem to be interested in pumping and dumping XMR. They are genuinely interested in the technology.
- XMR has drawn positive attention from many respected members of the bitcoin community, including Gregory Maxwell and many hero members.
- XMR has at least one (and probably several) wealthy backers, such as Mr. Pietila who will support the coin over the long haul.

Weaknesses:
Most of these are soft factors. Please do not take offense to any of this. I am not attacking anyone's lifestyle choices or means. These are simply the facts that I've gathered.

- No one involved is working on XMR full-time. (All devs are working part-time as they cannot make a living purely off XMR.) Essentially, XMR is a multi-million dollar project with no one working full-time. At least one dev is working on a coin other than XMR at the same time.
- Due to XMR's fair distribution (which is a major strength), the devs do not own a significant amount of XMR (perhaps fewer than 50,000 XMR collectively) which means that they are inadequately funded. Even if a significant increase in value occurs and they earn 10x their investment, they will still lack the means to work on XMR full-time.
- XMR seems to be funded by mainly one person, Risto Pietila, who spends the plurality of his waking hours developing the game Crypto Kingdom. Though Crypto Kingdom uses XMR to buy in-game currency, Crypto Kingdom lacks the mass appeal for it to ever be a driving force for XMR adoption.
- Devs were not part of the original CrypoNote team and are admittedly not as familiar with the codebase as the devs of other CryptoNote coins. They therefore experience challenges improving the codebase and making it maintainable.
- Blockchain Bloat. XMR's Ring-signatures are data intensive, and the XMR blockchain will be somewhere between 5-10 times the size of bitcoin's for an equivalent number of transactions. I don't consider this to be a significant weakness. Monero's blockchain will likely be much smaller than bitcoin's anyway.

I will correct and update this list as necessary. Thank you for reading.

Well made gif! Protip though, you should upload to gyfcat in future, they optimise it as a .webm animation so it's much smoother and smaller (2mb vs 7mb). Not sure how easy it is to embed though.

https://gfycat.com/DelayedShabbyHoneybadger

It's certainly not a detailed technical differentiation, but here is a gif I just finished for sylviaplathlikestobake's art contest that compares btc, drk, and xmr: https://i.imgur.com/evtcybH.gif

Here is the link to the art contest, which is practically over at now (I'm a bit of a procrastinator plus I've been busy): https://forum.monero.cc/16/art/81/25-xmr-prize-for-the-best-monero-art-meme

Please let me know if you think there are any factual errors in the gif.

I was under the impression that several bitcoin core devs are developing full-time and drawing a salary on which they can live. Several altcoin developers raise money through IPOs and pre-mines, such as Ethereum's 25,000+ BTC "IPO," which allows them to work on their platform full-time.

EDIT: Hero member is a proxy for the the bitcoin "Old Guard." Some combination of experienced, moneyed, and technical individuals such as gmaxwell. I'm not talking about trolls.

I just have to address this one as the same "weakness" applies likewise to Bitcoin and altcoins. It's about the definition of "full-time". I think everyone agrees that having a full-time job doesn't mean that you are actually working on something full-time. Also, it doesn't matter if you are full-time into something or not, it's all about the quality of your work -- and, for Monero, the quality is pretty high, if not the highest among altcoins!

I've spent probably 40+ hours obsessively reading hundreds of pages regarding XMR here on bitcointalk.org in addition to every thread on reddit, every thread on monero.cc forum, the CryptoNote white paper, nearly all of fluffypony, Risto Pietila, and others' posts. I've compiled and ran Monero. I am not an XMR or cryptocurrency expert, but my conclusions about XMR are as follows:

Strengths:

...

Weaknesses:

- No one involved is working on XMR full-time. (All devs are working part-time as they cannot make a living purely off XMR.) Essentially, XMR is a multi-million dollar project with no one working full-time. At least one dev is working on a coin other than XMR at the same time.
...

I will correct and update this list as necessary. Thank you for reading.

Doing that, coin would lose hit value, as it would be mass mined and sold cheap.
Time: now, price: low. Adding more easyness to minning would not bring a good news. Not before value of it jumps like 20x from this price.
Then it could be reasonable to reduce it again.

This may be true for you, but others will take your place and some will do that ten fold. Time will foster the need for more miners and a higher price will make this more worth while.

Causing miners to leave to the point where nobody bothers anymore. Equilibriums

The view key has always been functional in that the blockchain has supported it. The web wallet has the only known implementation of code to use the view key, but anyone could do it.

It would be great if coders try to optimize the open source nvidia GPU miner. And keep the result open source.  

There is open source GPU mining, on nvidia, which is more power efficient than ATI anyway.

I doubt botnets are a threat at all. They are exactly what miners are supposed to be -- interested in making money, which encourages them to just mine honestly.

Can anyone remember him substantiating anything he has said about Monero. Sound and fury, signifying nothing?