Maybe I'm just not "smart" enough to get it, but...

[BobDamage]

Short story and existential dilemma that maybe you can help me with:

Maybe I'm just not "smart" enough to get it, but... a friend swears to me I need to be crypto mining; Ethereum specifically. Coin mining is the thing to be doing, he says! All I need to do is spend what amounts to a ton of fiat on a bunch of GPUs, mining rigs, electricity, and attempts to cool your house back down as well. Good crypto is a storehouse for value for when fiat goes belly up. You WILL make profit at some point soon, he swears.

Ok. Interest piqued. I start researching crypto and end up finding lots of "nerdy" and amazing Amanda B Johnson, DASH Evangelist, who states that she lives off DASH (instead of fiat), and that the intent of DASH is not to be held onto like gold, but to be used as easily and as often as fiat and perhaps even replace centralized fiat. Sounds really good! DASH is also mineable, so I could in theory exchange my GPU time, electricity, et al, for mining DASH, which appears to have a good conversion rate with fiat. This could be good, since it is taking over the world and all! So, I start looking into mining.

I buy a pair of RX480's and EthOS to get started on old equipment because fiat is in short supply, but I take a risk. Averaging 52MH/s. Add a couple of lines here and there in the config.local and mining in approximately 10 minutes! OK, that part was easy. So, what can I do to mine DASH, which seems like a better thing according to all the hype. I went into exile and spent days perusing the DASH forums and scrolling the webs to figure it out and join the domination!

Aaaand, THAT was a depressing couple of days. Most all mining info is from 2014, all dated and not very intuitive. I'm a hardware guy, not a programmer. There seems to be very little usable info about mining except that miners exist somewhere and they've all updated to 12.1, but it appears it's ONLY A WALLET. I can buy, sell and trade DASH, but EARNING it?? Looks like a bunch of nope. I see that ASIC miners are disallowed, but also that GPU mining DASH is dead and ASICs are the only way to go to be "profitable". WHAT?? According to Amanda B, DASH is meant to be easy to use by even non-techy people and intends to eventually do away with wallets and all the confusing hub-bub that "normal" people don't understand. Ok, but I find myself agape at the lack of current mining info. Has nothing really changed since 2014? No real optimizations or specialized software geared to mine DASH for non-programmer types? I found this software called MinerGate which appears to allow both CPU and GPU mining and it WORKS WITH DASH!! Oh wait. DASH and Dashcoin are not the same thing, apparently. Shit. I mean, it seems crypto creators can set up and code for a whole network of currency to "mine", but can't likewise make a piece of software that makes mining NOT such a pain in the ass to do for the sake of supporting and legitimizing their "currency"? So what's the point? 400+ competing crypto currencies that *might* turn into something or die while I spent fiat to mine it? Existential, indeed.

So, mining DASH is a PIA to a point where I can't "work" for DASH via GPU time and real world costs, it's not really accepted for exchange by many places useful to me and if I want to get some DASH, the "real way" is to exchange fiat for it?? This makes the concept seem pretty pointless in the real world. Like some team winning a world championship, which is great, but hasn't changed anything in the real world. It's like being a laborer hired to work as a physician and getting paid in pink bunkadoos that are not exchangeable for things necessary to life or being in the middle of the ocean selling salt water. That doesn't sound like a "replacement" for fiat *or* a worthwhile engagement for this specific crypto. Maybe I'm just not getting it. Or maybe DASH wants it to be harder to earn, adopt and use for some reason I am unable to fathom?

I really wanted to join the revolution. I was jazzed by the DASH mission and wanted to mine it because I'd like to see that dream happen. However, I find that it's so much of a headache that I just don't see a viable reason to care about it and will have be content to "earn" the easy to mine Ethereum during the winters unless I move to Antarctica. So, is Ethereum and the "ease of mining" in EthOS really just a set up for Dummies to make it more used and "relevant"? Or am I just not "smart" enough to get why I should mine DASH and how to get mining working without command line headaches? What am I missing here? Anyone?

 

[UdjinM6]

Mining moved to a more professional level so to say, there are lots of ASICs now, you simply can't compete with them on GPU since mid 2016 already. You can earn Dash and not buy it by providing another service, mining is not the only one which is paid by network - I'm talking about submitting proposals to Governance/Treasury. Figure out how you can add some value to network in other ways and submit your pre-proposal for discussion.

 

[TanteStefana]

You also can't compete against the big boys who buy those ASICs in bulk, not just cheaper but first. They reap the rewards of cornering the massive amounts of hash they add to the system, and only the second round of ASICs are sold to the rest of us. I couldn't even earn half my dash back off an ASIC, and I went into it knowing this would likely happen. Yet, I'm still shocked at how little I was able to recover. If you can't make your money back in 3 months, you'll never make it back, even in years. This is because the hash rate goes up so fast.

So if I may suggest, you'll do way better just buying the coin, unless that puts you in danger. If you absolutely have to buy an ASIC, use fiat. AT least then you can measure your return in fiat instead of the Dash or BTC you spent on it (like me)

There are other coins out there that are still hashing on cpus or gpus, you might look into those

 

[BobDamage]

I totally understand what you guys are saying. I won't lie, though. DASH has the mission I agree with most and nobody else seems to have the same mission (execution of such being a whole other topic of discussion). However, while the "money" may be out of centralized, banker hands and able to be manipulated, it still remains in the hands of those with the huge advantages in terms of money and equipment and the results are now able to be manipulated which defeats the proposed idea of crypto in the first place. I somewhat gasp to hear myself say this, but I'd like to see a coin with the same or similar mission, but with safeguards/caps in place that don't make acquiring and using it impossible for "the little guy", economically speaking, to participate with an equal level. I know this may come across as a little socialist, and I almost hate hearing the words in my mind (as IMO capitalism = good; unfettered capitalism with no earning caps = bad for the 99%), but having built-in controls that limit coin creation and value (slow money principles) to something that is far more accessible to the mainstream would certainly encourage more participation and acceptance overall. IE: virtually everyone has a computer these days, but can't necessarily the afford the expense of ASICs or volumes of GPUs, which quickly pull it out of mainstream hands and centralize it once again. Limiting mining to CPU with daily creation caps across the populace, for example, would ensure an equality across the board that more "outsiders" can at least get in the game and make meaningful contributions consistently, slow the rate of value growth to keep those with excessive "funding" from being able to centralize in that manner, yet ensure steady and consistent growth because of the sheer number of players that are involved. ASICs, in my mind, are the equivalent of performance enhancing drugs for athletes. Sure, you already have a natural physical advantage over most regular people, but are also using banned substances (cheating) to gain an even greater foothold over those likewise physically superior and shutting out everyone else from even playing this game of pickup football in the park. You will never see a "regular Joe" in the Olympics because they simply can't compete; but, the Olympics is not intended to be mainstream either. In the same breath, it seems DASH (and others) caters to, and rewards, athletes who *do* use performance enhancers in a market that everyone should be able to get into, according to their mission. CPU/GPU "work" is certainly not physical and non-athletes certainly won't win a gold medal with an average system, but you also won't see anybody even trying to train and travel the world for the equivalent of a penny a month. If the reward/incentive isn't there, neither are the players and frankly, if you want "your thing" to become used in the mainstream, the mainstream has to be able to be involved in a meaningful way. It is this simple thing that so many overlook and Henry Ford seemed to get right (once upon a time ago). Pay your people enough that they can afford the products they manufacture and you will always be able to sell them to a built-in audience and beyond. But then again, he also said "It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning." That revolution was supposed to be crypto. Now that I've read #2, Ethereum, is part of the Etnerprise Ethereum Alliance, now in league with JP Morgan, BNY Mellon, BP, UBS Global and many other centralized power players with regards to money, something about all this seems fishier to me than the 7 seas....

 

[Cofresí]

We have had some discussions about mining in the past, e.g. https://www.dash.org/forum/threads/...ppy-happy-dream-of-decentralised-mining.3038/ . Just talk, but interesting talk.

You should also consider that Evan has specifically designed X11 to be hard to be implement in ASICs, with the intent to give a head start to CPU/GPU miners, exactly for the reasons of better distribution you mention. It worked well. For more than two years. If heavy centralisation of ASICs ever becomes a problem for DASH in the future, collateralised mining is being mentioned as a solution.

If you can come up with a better algo that precludes ASIC or even ties mining to only CPU, go ahead and make a governance proposal to change X11 to X-whatever to the masternodes. As a MNO I would give it some consideration in the light of better accessibility for the "regular Joe". But imho, a huge problem in a CPU only mining world would be the big invitation for hackers to create botnet mining farms of unsuspecting mining slave CPUs. It has happened before with Bitcoin. How could you prevent this from happening?

 

[BobDamage]

That is a great thread and thank you for presenting it!! I haven't finished reading it all yet, but along the way, it occurs to me that there is an awful lot of thought put into extravagant ways to do this, much of which is over my head. Again, I'm no programmer or rocket scientist, but it seems to me a philosophically simpler solution is to eliminate the pool mining, identify and verify each owner (while keeping owners coin transactions encrypted as is- so we know who you are, but not where you spend), identify and register each mining rig (which must be linked to each owner, possibly via wallet where only individuals can register but not businesses, groups or gov'ts), and scale the difficulty/payout to be be inversely proportional to computational ability of an owner. In short, no anonymous owners or mining rigs whereas more computing power linked to any given owner has diminishing returns based on increases in computational power. The control would be the "base model" 6 GPU mining rig and returns/payouts diminish proportionally with hashrate increases over the control so that a pool would have less reward than a solo and moot the point of their existence.

This would eliminate the possibility of 51% attacks, would enable "the little guy" to more easily build up to the control base even though many can simply start there, and drive down the desirability of "cheating" as there is no profit in it. Will finish reading the thread and return.

 

[lynx]

So, you want to take a disruptive privacy-centric cryptocoin and identify and register the people that run it? So that you can join the revolution?

 

[Cofresí]

So, you want to take a disruptive privacy-centric cryptocoin and identify and register the people that run it? So that you can join the revolution?

I don't think that this is quite what BoBDamage meant, lynx. I guess that when he says identify and register a wallet to a miner he means something like binding a local hot masternode to a remote cold masternode using a throwaway private key. You could use the same technique to bind a miner to a wallet. In fact when you think about the "planned" collateralised mining, that is certainly a way it could be done without too much privacy concerns.

...scale the difficulty/payout to be be inversely proportional to computational ability of an owner. In short, no anonymous owners or mining rigs whereas more computing power linked to any given owner has diminishing returns based on increases in computational power. The control would be the "base model" 6 GPU mining rig and returns/payouts diminish proportionally with hashrate increases over the control so that a pool would have less reward than a solo and moot the point of their existence.

This would eliminate the possibility of 51% attacks, would enable "the little guy" to more easily build up to the control base even though many can simply start there...

interesting idea. Inverse mining. Sort of reduce cpu to the min to max out your profits? Or define an very low optimal hashrate bandwidth window where you will be more likely rewarded? Problem is: afaik POW can only be based on a race who finds a hash with a certain difficulty more quickly than others. What you are suggesting is exactly the opposite: POL (proof of laziness), who will find the right hash last? That's obviously absurd, but I like the sound of "inverse mining". Will give it some more thought. To ensure easy global distribution it would be quite nice for a coin that desires world dominance to be minable on cheap cellphones. Although once Dash has interest bearing accounts the problem of distribution will probably solve itself quite elegantly by people's need to securely save their earnings and mining will once and for all be relegated to just securing the blockchain.

... and drive down the desirability of "cheating" as there is no profit in it.

here you lost me completely. How could there be no profit in it? There must be incentives for people to start mining, so there must be profit. Once there is profit, you will have the problems of cheating, hackers, botnets, mafia etc...

 

[BobDamage]

I don't think that this is quite what BoBDamage meant, lynx. I guess that when he says identify and register a wallet to a miner he means something like binding a local hot masternode to a remote cold masternode using a throwaway private key. You could use the same technique to bind a miner to a wallet. In fact when you think about the "planned" collateralised mining, that is certainly a way it could be done without too much privacy concerns.

-----Correct! Establishing who people are (to bind wallets and miners to specific owners) vs what they do (all transactions remain private as the system already does). It's no different than having a driver's license for ID for the purposes of establishing that you meet certain criteria (to purchase beer, be accountable for establishing or breaking a contract, etc) but no actual link to where or how you spend your "cash".

interesting idea. Inverse mining. Sort of reduce cpu to the min to max out your profits? Or define an very low optimal hashrate bandwidth window where you will be more likely rewarded? Problem is: afaik POW can only be based on a race who finds a hash with a certain difficulty more quickly than others. What you are suggesting is exactly the opposite: POL (proof of laziness), who will find the right hash last? That's obviously absurd, but I like the sound of "inverse mining". Will give it some more thought. To ensure easy global distribution it would be quite nice for a coin that desires world dominance to be minable on cheap cellphones. Although once Dash has interest bearing accounts the problem of distribution will probably solve itself quite elegantly by people's need to securely save their earnings and mining will once and for all be relegated to just securing the blockchain.

-----The race is still on to be the first to solve (verify) the blocks. The system would be such that share preference be given to those who have not yet met the control rig criteria (such as existing job preference to veterans or affirmative action), but there is a specific point where that would cease (or quota met) and, once you have an ID, you can't get any other ID (such as 1 person trying to get 2 licenses at DMV as two different people). Mining on cellphones could also be feasible, however the reward structure would only be large enough to assist in helping starting miners get to the level of the control (of a 6 card rig) and limited to a certain number of coins, equivalent to the approximate median price of said control rig. Once that specific volume of coin has been mined using lesser sources (so that this reward structure could not be abused by "professional miners"), no further rewards can be accrued on lesser devices and a control rig has to be registered to the owner's wallet in order to receive further rewards (enforcing the concept of personal responsibility IE- if the coin is spent for things other than the control rig, the control rig must then come out of pocket if you want to continue participation and rewards via mining). Once a user has upgraded to the control, it would be possible to gather more mining rigs similar or identical to the control, however the diminishing returns curve would be to "break even" at say 5 control rigs (EG: 100% payouts up to control +1, 75% on the 3rd, 50% on the 4th, 25% on 5th, 0% at 6 or similar fashion) with the idea that more processing power thrown at the equations would not increase the payouts in a linear fashion and thus rewards would be best limited to the control range of 2 rigs and evening the playing field. It would still be profitable at 5 rigs more so than 2 control rigs (ignoring other variables for the sake of argument that would fine tune the calculations), but also de-incentivize cheating as cheating would "cost" more than simply mining at the break even point. No "uber rich" or "uber poor" players and everyone with an operating rig stands equal chance to earn. He who shall not work, shall not eat.

here you lost me completely. How could there be no profit in it? There must be incentives for people to start mining, so there must be profit. Once there is profit, you will have the problems of cheating, hackers, botnets, mafia etc...

-----Per what I said just above your statement, diminishing returns would make more mining power pay off less to the point that you would be spending more on equipment and electricity than you would be rewarded; meaning past a certain point of processing power, it would cost you rather than reward you. To draw a parallel with fiat, anybody can get a job and earn dollars, so they can at least get in the game (AKA the economy), even if it is at reduced levels (say minimum wage). But also like fiat, one will generally strive to improve their financial situation by reinvesting their "profits" in themselves by getting more education and finding a better paying job in the same fashion that miners would be required to take their profits and reinvest up to the point that they meet the control. This is akin to getting a $30/hr job and not being allowed to simultaneously work the minimum wage job because it would be pointless. You *CAN* do it, but the loss of time for the amount of financial gain is ridiculous. Since you have earned the resources to move up, you MUST move up to at least the control rig in order to keep being rewarded. Thus, you are incentivized to, at minimum, meet the control standards and even continued upward movement, but de-incentivized to go past a certain point. Same as any object with mass attempting to reach the speed of light: the closer you get, the harder it is to get there and actually reaching it is impossible. I imagine and liken the concept to the poker game of capitalism where, if you can keep winning the pot every hand (through whatever means), it's only a matter of time before you control all the funds (the 1%) and there is nothing left for anyone else to even ante with. Obviously, the player who controls all the funds in existence enjoys that condition, but everyone else who wants/needs to play is SOL and easily controlled by the one player- which is not an optimal outcome overall. Look around RL and you'll see exactly what I mean regarding ruling class folks. An economy simply cannot exist sustainably in these conditions and will, at some point fail as it is still centralized; if not by banks or govt's who can manipulate its value directly, then by those who possess the vast majority of it limiting the ability of others to earn or use it. The logic is that human nature will always be such that being a 1%er is desirable, but for the sake of all people willing to "work" and the economy, 1% should not be attainable or there will be those who can't "afford" to survive, much less thrive. I think the same holds true here and this is an opportunity to improve on the failings of contemporary currency as fiat is broken by not having such caps and is entrenched to the point that it can't be saved as the 1% have the control and will not relinquish it (to their perceived detriment) for the sake of all. They can't seem to grasp why the chariot doesn't move without horses. I hope I didn't push this to the point of tl;dr. Did I miss anything in explaining my concept?

 

[GeauxSheaux]

Although once Dash has interest bearing accounts the problem of distribution will probably solve itself quite elegantly by people's need to securely save their earnings and mining will once and for all be relegated to just securing the blockchain.

Could you elaborate on this? It's very interesting to me.
@Cofresí

 

[Cofresí]

Did I miss anything in explaining my concept?

No, I don't think you missed anything and thanks for the detailed explanation. I understand your idea much better now. It is not bad, but imo would be overly complicated to implement and, more importantly, I'm afraid would conceptually never fit into cryptoland. No chance to get specific owners to tie their person to their wallets or miners. No offense, but the idea with the control rig sounds too much like something a naive government official trying to create govcoin could come up with. Don't vibe well with the ideals of permissionlessness and trustlessness of current cryptocurrency adopters . Our sometimes quite hilarious local pest @demo is studying ways to connect unique persons to masternodes with video calls and timestamps without compromising their anonymity in order to allow for a one man one vote like governance system. I don't advise you to engage with that hopeless yet lovable troll, because it would be a complete waste of your time, but if you are into that kind of stuff you can get more pertinent theoretical info of how such a thing might work in some of his countless posts. Just skip those on voting with numbers.

Could you elaborate on this? It's very interesting to me.

In one of his interviews with Amanda, Evan explained how Evolution could eventually offer interest bearing accounts, like a saving account, for common users that don't have the necessary 1000 DASH collateral for a masternode. I'm not smart enough to predict if this idea will work out as planned but if it does it is clear to me that it would be a killer app for DASH distribution in negative interest economies. Think about what will happen if interest on DASH were a mere 3.5% instead of 0% on average. On any duff you put into your Evo wallet. Attractive? It would be a way for the little man to earn himself some DASH anywhere in the world and would replace the now almost lost distributive function of mining. Anyway, it seems that with evolution and DAPI, ASIC miners will specialise even more to just provide entropy for POW producing only their hashes. Inclusion of transactions into the blockchain will be done by masternodes in the future. At least that's what I've heard

For me it seems clear that for a healthy growth of DASH as a currency two things are of paramount importance: 1. securing the blockchain. 2. distributing the coins to as many people as possible. How this is done exaclty doesn't matter to me. What matters is that it is done with the utmost efficiency and reliability. 'Nough said.

 

[lynx]

I understand your idea much better now. (...) No chance to get specific owners to tie their person to their wallets or miners.

Told ya.

Anyway, it seems that with evolution and DAPI, ASIC miners will specialise even more to just provide entropy for POW producing only their hashes. Inclusion of transactions into the blockchain will be done by masternodes in the future. At least that's what I've heard

Yes, I think this is the breakthrough that the quorum chain will enable!

 

[BobDamage]

No, I don't think you missed anything and thanks for the detailed explanation. I understand your idea much better now. It is not bad, but imo would be overly complicated to implement and, more importantly, I'm afraid would conceptually never fit into cryptoland. No chance to get specific owners to tie their person to their wallets or miners. No offense, but the idea with the control rig sounds too much like something a naive government official trying to create govcoin could come up with. Don't vibe well with the ideals of permissionlessness and trustlessness of current cryptocurrency adopters . Our sometimes quite hilarious local pest @demo is studying ways to connect unique persons to masternodes with video calls and timestamps without compromising their anonymity in order to allow for a one man one vote like governance system. I don't advise you to engage with that hopeless yet lovable troll, because it would be a complete waste of your time, but if you are into that kind of stuff you can get more pertinent theoretical info of how such a thing might work in some of his countless posts. Just skip those on voting with numbers.

I understand what you're saying. Maybe it *is* naive in a way, however I haven't come up with a better idea that falls in line with the "mission" of CC. It is simply not possible to have total anonymity *and* responsibility simultaneously. It's the same logic as "Every citizen has to prove they have healthcare", but does not require anyone to prove they are citizens. Complete conflict. If someone steals money from your banking accounts, do you want to know who the thief is? Or would you chalk up losing your life savings as an "Oh, well" for the sake of protecting the thief's anonymity? Or, if each dollar you own were suddenly worth 25% of its value from yesterday, would you want to know why it costs triple to buy the same things and who is responsible? I would certainly want to know who did it and prosecute or take my revenge and nobody's anonymity is worth a substantial personal loss to me. If I steal the stuff, I deserve to suffer the consequences. If my stuff is stolen, I deserve to know who did it and make sure they are punished.

Total anonymity is not smart because one can "cheat" and no one will be aware of said "cheating" nor who is doing it. They will only know it has quickly become much less profitable/valuable with no way to understand why, possibly to then abandon the currency for one that *is* profitable. Identity Anonymity is to everyone's detriment, except those who plan to do evil. To quote evil Joseph Stalin: "It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." Who are the vote counters in fiat? Central banks. Who for crypto? Those who have resources to virtually monopolize the creation of it and own enough of it to control the flow. Who would that be? Don't know. Their identity is anonymous. How do we stop them? Don't know. Their identity is anonymous.

However, transactional anonymity makes perfect sense because it's no one's business where or how you spend your "money" or even how much you have. However, if power/currency is consolidated without Identity Transparency of some sort, then any "individual" could easily be a giant "mining" corporation or gov't player with vast resources who now has motive and no one would be the wiser. What if, for example, the US Gov't decided to secretly allocate a large sum of taxpayer dollars to the purchase of a giant, million square foot currency mining operation in Utah. How will you be protected from having your efforts made pointless while still having to pay part of the cost of taking that profitability away from you (via taxes or other) and, if you can get your hands on coins, it is only tiny fractions of a coin at best? How would you even know why it isn't profitable any longer and what would you do? I just don't see how Identity Anonymity is useful when it opens the doors to total currency violation and manipulation without fear of consequence: the very thing crypto is supposed to be against. So, it seems we have a significant root conflict conceptually and in practice.

Like chewing toothpicks instead of smoking a cigarette, this currently only trades the "habit" of manipulation internally to external manipulation of currency by those able to get it and control the flow of it- to the exclusion of all others. It also seems an unusual proposition to exchange fiat for crypto when crypto looks down its nose at fiat as being "worthless", yet you can buy crypto of "worth" by trading something worthless for it? Sounds a lot like snake oil which creates a need to keep fiat in use, rather than replace it completely which, again, is a fundamental flaw. Additionally, those without fiat are likewise unable to participate in getting mining gear or buying crypto outright so, in effect, crypto still has all the same flaws as fiat with the only difference being that the "creators" of money lose control of direct currency manipulation while the "owners" of money still control and manipulate its availability and use to others. That doesn't sound like decentralization to me. It sounds like fiat, despite all of its problems, remains superior because a person can work and still earn fiat (even if it's odd jobs or day labor) whereas the same is not true for crypto as the system is designed currently. I'm all ears for something less naive because, I'll be honest, there's a LOT to learn about crypto and I am by no means a master. Regardless, it appears that any strong crypto is an exclusionary currency where only those with copious "worthless" fiat can participate in any meaningful way. We hear about poverty stricken folks in other countries earning the equivalent to a dollar a day as if that's a horrible thing. But then looking at the nickel (or less) a day of mining whatever decent crypto is out there, that seems way worse by comparison. Naive it may be, but having a defined starting point and cap to create a range in which everything must work prevents "one" from having "all" and ensures sustainability of the system. The only exchange required is that you must prove you are a citizen for the sake of the whole system without sacrificing transactional anonymity. If there is a better way, I'd love to hear it. Until then, I see zero difference, functionally, between crypto and fiat as far as I can tell. I spend fiat to get a car and gas to go to a job to earn more fiat, and I spend fiat to buy gear and electricity to mine or fiat to directly buy coins that may or may not become anything valuable in fiat. :/

 

[stan.distortion]

You've obviously given the subject quite a lot of thought On the last points: Crypto can't replace fiat overnight, for a smooth transition from one to the other they first have to work side by side and fiat is a tightly closed shop. The way we communicate has changed enormously over the last few decades but when you take a look at how the communication of value has changed it's tiny in comparison and that's no accident, countless innovators have tried to move the pace forward but are forced out of that closed club, often with malice. The first step is to get through that door and that's an extremely slow process, new tech usually takes about ten to fifteen years from initial release to mainstream acceptance and crypto is following that pattern well, extremely well considering the field it disrupts.

On the first points, changing the way we communicate value often involves changing the way we think about it. When you choose who you do business with you're placing a value on them but fiat has no way of expressing that other that the result of that choice. Over the years many methods of expressing it within cryptocurrency systems have been discussed and some are in operation but they're entirely opt-in, it's an area that will gain ground eventually but it will take a while to see any clear direction on it. The Chinese central bank is actually working on something along those lines, the western media portrayed it as a draconian version of the credit rating system but (at least on paper) it's a kind of moral economy, well worth a look. It's not the first system of that kind, there are many examples throughout history with some lasting for centuries and a few still in use today but the mental leap between that kind of system and fiat isn't a small one!

 

[demo]

I understand what you're saying. Maybe it *is* naive in a way, however I haven't come up with a better idea that falls in line with the "mission" of CC. It is simply not possible to have total anonymity *and* responsibility simultaneously. It's the same logic as "Every citizen has to prove they have healthcare", but does not require anyone to prove they are citizens. Complete conflict. If someone steals money from your banking accounts, do you want to know who the thief is? Or would you chalk up losing your life savings as an "Oh, well" for the sake of protecting the thief's anonymity?

Your arguments do not apply in the digital world.
In the digital world everything can be reverted. If someone steals from your digital money account, and if the community decides that it was a theft, then everything can be reverted. The theft is just bits in a distributed database. It happened in the ethereum case.

Please try not to confuse in your arguments the real world with the digital one. In the digital world, and with the help of appropriate cryptoprotocols, it is possible to have total anonymity *and* responsibility simultaneously.

I am not planning to explain you now, but please study cryptographic protocols, and you will find the answers. You will discover there things that you currently strongly believe that they are impossible to happen. You have a lack of knowledge, thats why you think the way you think.

 

[jimbit]

I stopped reading at "Total anonymity is not smart because...""

 

[lynx]

@BobDamage
I assumed you had taken the time to what differentiate Dash from Bitcoin and other cryptos, but it doesn't seem to be the case. You are obsessed with mining, and haven't even once mentioned or recognized the elegance and balancing effect of collateralized masternodes, and showed no appreciation of how costly it would be for an adversary to manipulate the system.

 

[Cofresí]

@BobDamage I relate to a lot of points in your thinking process, but @demo and @lynx hit the nail on the head. I think the problem is not that you are naive, far from it, but that you are still too ingrained in thinking in traditional socio-political-economic terms and lack some fundamental understanding of the crypto framework. Nothing wrong with that. 99% of celebrated economists probably fall in that category as well. Before thinking much more harder and deeper about crypto as you already have, please study the basics like 'Nakamoto concensus' and byzantine general's problem. It is the game theoretical aspects of crypto that are revolutionary and are solving the dilemma of self interested actors with the greater balance of the system as a whole. As you correctly explain, the crypto world needn't be necessarily 'better' in every way than the fiat world, but in its 8 years of existence the invention of Satoshi has proven that its theoretical basis, developed by geniuses like John Nash, actually do work for systems of value exchange which can be used in real life. It is exactly the contrast between selfish 'anonymous' actors and the community as a whole, which you so eloquently emphasize, which Satoshi's invention reconciles and renders irrelevant. Before trying to improve these new, yet far from perfect cryptographically ruled economies, by re-introducing exactly those traditional aspects of ordo-politics, which these systems overcome, I would recommend you study those new systems sufficiently to understand the principles that set them apart and make them revolutionary.

 

[BobDamage]

@BobDamage
I assumed you had taken the time to what differentiate Dash from Bitcoin and other cryptos, but it doesn't seem to be the case. You are obsessed with mining, and haven't even once mentioned or recognized the elegance and balancing effect of collateralized masternodes, and showed no appreciation of how costly it would be for an adversary to manipulate the system.

@lynx: Aaaand I had assumed you had actually read and comprehended words (like the topic of the thread) before talking smack; maybe even read the very first post or the times I mentioned that I am brand spanking new to crypto, but that doesn't seem to be the case. By appearances, you are obsessed with exalting yourself at the expense of others and haven't once mentioned anything useful or recognized the value of *not* presenting oneself as a pretentious douche. I imagine reading and actual comprehension is really hard for one is so full of hubris. If that is not your intent, you may wish to check yourself because that is what you are putting out there and I am simply reciprocating.

I work as a helpdesk for medical software, so I "get" frustration with the public. On the rare occasion I, too, look down my nose at some folks (who have genuinely earned it), I have the decency and maturity to obscure it and try, at minimum, to be respectful and helpful rather than disrespect them. No clients will ever know how much I loathe them for whatever reasons they have given me. However, I have no need to masturbate my ego or belittle others in order to make myself appear "better" to myself because I actually like me. If I had to venture a guess based on your responses, I would be forced to assume that you are one who would laugh at a fat jogger trying to better themselves rather than cheer them on to achieve their goal. It's a really, super petty attitude and sad that you think you're being "cool" when you're not. You could stand to take a few lessons from decent folks like, well, everybody that has posted here excepting yourself and jimbit, who failed at being able to read more words than he has fingers and suffers the same affliction. I recognize that, no matter how much I read or where, there are people who grasp it far better and can explain things far more simply without all the fuckery of self congratulations. You seemingly are incapable of being among them. Now, moving on to answer your assertion.

Why my obsession with mining? Because aside from buying coin with fiat, I am not aware of any of any other way to "earn" the coin legitimately. One reply has been that I should offer something of value like a virtual service. Ok, what do I offer online? As I've said, I'm no programmer or mathematician, I have no skillset that is useful in the virtual world nor tradeable virtual goods, nor do I know anybody who possesses or is willing to pay coin for nothing in return. Likewise, I'm not so wealthy that I can afford to get paid for time/work in something so volatile that may or may not have future value because that doesn't feed my family RIGHT NOW. Maybe you make $50k+ a year or maybe you don't have mouths to feed and maybe you don't have to work 3 jobs just to survive, maybe you get more than 4 hours of sleep and have all the time in the world to sift through lengthy articles paid by the word with little substance. I don't have such luxury. If you do, congrats and hopefully I can get there too. Like a day laborer, mining is something I *CAN* do easily with little risk and little babysitting. Now, if you have something useful to add that is helpful in getting my understanding better and closer to where I want/need to be, can offer another way to get coin that works with my needs and schedule and DOES put food on my table RIGHT NOW, I'm all ears. But you can keep the condescending shit responses to yourself, thanks.

 

[BobDamage]

I stopped reading at "Total anonymity is not smart because...""

"And that is why you fail." -Yoda