Another cryptocurrency similar to BitCoin | Hacker News Reader

Another cryptocurrency similar to BitCoin

solidcoin.info

9 pointsotoburb12 comments

This doesn't seem like much of an improvement over Bitcoin. The main problem with Bitcoin as I see it is its inflation curve and fixed maximum circulation. This has a pyramid scheme-like effect where early adopters are disproportionately favoured, so that the accusation can be made that these systems are set up simply as a way of enriching their founders.

This is by design. I'm not sure early adopters are favored at all because their "investments" will gradually lose value as the number of Bitcoins increases. If anything it's the opposite, as I understand it.

I've read varying opinions on the matter but it seems that the idea of a fixed currency that inflates at a predictable rate was a design decision meant to keep Bitcoin usable for certain kinds of transactions, i.e. exchanging money between currencies at low rates or giving money to your friend or favorite cause without an intermediary such as a bank. It isn't meant to wholly replace the dollar or euro or yen as far as I can tell.

They only lose money if the number of bitcoins increases more than the demand for bitcoins. So far, the exact opposite has been the case, and the coins' value has increased by several orders of magnitude.

Bitcoins will max out at about three times their current number. If they were to scale to, say, VISA size, they would be far more valuable than today.

are stock options enriching early startup employees a pyramid scheme?

It opened 2 seconds ago and youre already angry at early adopters ?

Denial of service by malicious pool owners is not an issue AFAIK. Pool owners are encouraged to package outstanding transactions in a mined block to claim the associated transaction fees. The only reason a pool owner would deny service is if the transaction has no fee -- which is generally spam.

The real problem with bitcoin if anything is transaction scaling. With each transaction broadcast and saved by every node, it's questionable if the network could (or would be willing) to tolerate the load equal to, say, the Visa network.

  du -hs .bitcoin/
  870M    .bitcoin/

Scaling is exactly the reason I failed to buy bitcoins a year ago.

However, here's an argument that they could in fact scale up to VISA levels: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability

How much time do I have to dedicate to solo mine any solidcoin with Radeon HD 6850 ?

UPDATE:

Seems like few hours are sufficient.

Seriously? The market can barely support one of these, much less multiple.

Seriously? If there's one thing this particular market needs, it's competition.

I look at these extra chains as more like experiments, iterating on different ideas that are too dangerous to try on the actual bitcoin chain. At some point someone will hit on some good ideas and they might be fed back into bitcoin, or form the basis of a better currency.

fixed transaction fees? you've just crippled your entire operation from day one. your currency will never rise beyond a value where the transaction fees make sense.

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