The 15min StoryBoard
1. - Introduction - (0.5 min)
2. - Brief History - (1 min)
3. - What is DRK - (1 min)
4. - Why Privacy is important (1.5 min)
5. - Evan Interview and/or statement - (2 min)
6. - What are MN's and why are they important - (2 min)
7. - Latest features and Release info - (3 min)
8. - What is InstantX and how it will Change Crypto - (2 min)
9. - Brief closing statement from Evan - (1.5 min)
10. - Conclusion - (0.5 min)
Exactly 15 mins
Let us know what you think - this is just a start
1. - Introduction - (0.5 min)
Darkcoin is a crypto currency based off of the more famous Bitcoin. For those familiar with Bitcoin, Darkcoin is built upon Bitcoin’s foundation and therefore it is easy to modify existing programs built for Bitcoin to service merchants, exchanges, wallets, etc... The new technology the Darkcoin developers have created has been built upon this foundation.
2. - Brief History - (1 min)
It has become increasingly clear to many that the current monetary system the world functions under is corrupt, unsustainable and so grossly manipulated by governments that it has caused the world economy extreme volatility. Many people have tried since the 1960s to create a monetary system that was not corruptible nor subject to counterfeiting. Many inventions from the past, going back to cryptography’s beginnings in WWII have contributed to the eventual creation of Bitcoin, but it was not until Satoshi Nakamoto combined cryptography, with a system of “mining”to create new coins, and a ledger called the blockchain that a true crypto currency was finally created. As the miners mine the coins, they are also verifying the blockchains integrity. If the blockchain is manipulated by someone, and more than 50% of the other miners disagree with the changes, then their input will be rejected. In this way, the blockchain is kept safe from false coins being introduced to the system or from coins being spent twice.
3. - What is DRK - (1 min)
Despite Bitcoin being so amazingly useful and secure, there has come to light a major issue. Privacy. Once a person spends their coins somewhere, that person’s identity can be attached to their account, and from there, one can trace all the coins in that person’s wallet since they were acquired and see where they were spent or how many coins are in their wallet or wallets. Especially with new services that can be used online, it is trivial to look inside of a person’s wallet and see what they’ve spent their money on. Even multiple accounts or wallets that belong to one person can be determined with relative certainty via analysis.
4. - Why Privacy is important (1.5 min)
Why is privacy important? In the United States of America, the right to privacy is spelled out in all 4 of the first 4 amendments to our constitution. It was obviously the first thing the founding fathers realized they missed when writing the constitution. Unlike other amendments that didn’t survive the test of time, these amendments have never been repealed. They make up our most basic freedoms. Glenn Greenwald recently did a TED talk entitled “Why privacy matters”. At it’s root, people do not act freely if they feel they are being watched. From pursuing your passion of collecting light bulbs, to enjoying that chocolate cake, if the powers that be looked down upon these perfectly legal activities, would you indulge in those activites freely when you know they could be recorded? You have nothing to hide! Or do you?
5. - Evan Interview and/or statement - (2 min)
Who are you and why did you become interested in crypto currency?
When did you realize you should make yet another alt coin?
Did you expect your alt coin to become so successful?
What do you see as the future of Darkcoin?
6. - What are MN's and why are they important - (2 min)
Masternodes are regular wallets, usually run as a basic command line daemon rather than the graphical interface most people use, but not always. They process DarkSend transactions. DarkSend is the name of the technology that obfuscates coins, making them fungible, or interchangeable and without individual identity like cash. What makes these nodes or wallets different is that they have access to and have put on hold, 1000 coins as collateral. This allows them to function at another level where they are entered onto a Masternode list and, if randomly chosen by the network via a voting system, this wallet will host the mixing process which obfuscates the history behind the coins.
When being mixed, the mixing of the coins and the connection to the past of the coins is never recorded into the blockchain. In this way, although the identity of a coin is verified going in, what comes out is a coin of equal value that has a new identity, but you cannot tell which of the 3 coins (of the same value) got which new identity. It is possible for a rogue Masternode to record what happened, however, if the user chooses to mix the coins a multiple number of times, it becomes more and more impossible for any entity to follow the coins. Even if they hold 90% of the Masternode network, which is in itself an improbability due to the cost of making the nodes (1000 coins for each node) and how gaining enough nodes to control the network would inflate the price of the coins exponentially. This is a well thought out balancing act that can be adjusted over time if need be.
7. - Latest features and Release info - (3 min)
With DarkSend now functioning as intended, the Darkcoin team is now focusing on instant transactions. This new technology is being called instantX.
There have been many other proposals for the Masternode network. It could possibly be used as a TOR-like network which, with the masternode network being decentralized and secure, can be far more secure than current options for accessing the internet anonymously. (see why is privacy important above).
Another issue that Masternodes may solve is creating a fully decentralized exchange, so that exchange failures, frauds and thefts can be a thing of the past. Current ideas include using exchange businesses to do the actually matching up of sells and buys, while the masternodes process the transfers that never leave the control of the wallet owner until the moment of exchange. This would use something like a multi-signature wallet.
Others have expressed interest in having Masternodes host a decentralized marketplace, and a p2p private messaging system is also enthusiastically being awaited.
It is becoming apparent that this masternode network Darkcoin created, due to it’s decentralization and security in redundancy, presents endless possibilities for future growth in the crypto coin environment.
8. - What is InstantX and how it will Change Crypto - (2 min)
InstantX? What is it? The developers are now giving the Masternodes the tools to verify, beyond doubt, that a transaction is valid, which only takes a handful of seconds, instead of waiting for miners to find a block, which takes an average of 2.5 minutes. If any transaction should turn out to be unverifiable, the transaction will be held until it can be verified by the mining process which acts as a backup. This should only be a rare occurrence. If this process proves to be extremely reliable, there is a possibility that finding mining blocks might be extended to only once an hour or a few per day, reducing the size of the blockchain, and keeping blockchain bloat under control.
The bloated blockchain is always a problem, because wallets are required to download and store what becomes a massive file. Currently, the Bitcoin blockchain is closing in on 24 gigabytes. That’s a lot of hard drive space every single wallet user must maintain. Otherwise, a user must rely on a single blockchain host and a specialty wallet. This is usually fine, however it creates centralization and a possible point of failure.
Masternodes, on the other hand, could also host the blockchain for lightweight wallets. And being a part of a large network whose blockchains are constantly being checked, does not create a single point of failure. So once again, longer block times equals a smaller blockchain and masternode network can keep the blockchain decentralized while serving it up to lightweight wallet holders without possibility of compromise.
9. - Brief closing statement from Evan - (1.5 min)
Whatever he would like to say.
10. - Conclusion - (0.5 min)
Since the early, reckless beginnings of Darkcoin, Evan Duffield’s passion for finance and programming has pushed it to the extreme forefront of alternate crypto currencies. In fact, no other coin currently functions in the realm of privacy as securely and as well as Darkcoin. The coin’s functionality and code have already been peer reviewed by Kristov Atlas, who’s few concerns have been addressed and corrected already and nearly all the kinks that required hard forks (probably the most hard forks of any coin) are in almost Darkcoin’s past now. Not only that, but the technology also created by Evan Duffield of the “spork” or soft-fork, has made forking the code much safer for the network.
You can expect Darkcoin to continue on it’s sprint as the most innovative coin around, and the possibilities truly are endless. It may take a miracle for anyone to catch up with this team, and the Darkcoin team intends to keep that lead for the foreseeable future.
This is from me, not my hubbie, and if it doesn't fit in the format for the show, we can always use it for something else (that is if you like it) Of course it probably needs editing, but it's a start and maybe some of this can be used for this project. Of corse it's based off of MB's foundation.
I've got to see if I can get my hubbie to concentrate on this a little. He's much better at writing something that is entertaining, but he also could use what I wrote (though he'll slaughter my delivery) for info mining...
