Bitcoin

Out of context: Reply #381

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  • CableStudios0

    Late to Bitcoin?

    Try Quarkcoin - QRK

    https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/…

    A full disclaimer: I am not a member of the Quark dev team, nor am I officially related to quark in any capacity. I'm only very modestly invested in quark, no more than other cryptos and far, far less than Litecoin. Still, I believe in cryptopluralism, so I want to answer this nagging question of quark pre-mining.
    Much has been made in /r/bitcoin and other subreddits about the fact that 98% of Quarks that will exist have been mined and that mining will continue at a set rate of ~1 million Quark per annum (~0.5% rate of inflation). I want to address this issue to pointing out what it brings to the table.
    There are two big problems facing Bitcoin right now. First, ASIC-led mining cartels who are de facto centralizing the day-to-day operation of the bitcoin network. There are a number of academic papers that indicate severe structural flaws that existentially threaten the bitcoin network if the extent hashing pools collude in certain ways. Second, Bitcoin is a terrific store-of-value, but so far it's been an abysmal currency. BTC faces several barriers to widespread circulation as a currency; among them are the yield on holding (as proponents target 1k, 10k, 100k) and issues of divisibility (right now we're seeing a hap-dash adoption of the mBTC standard).
    Because of the 'buy or hold' paradox (which have a number of unwieldy solutions for merchants to avoid fluctuation risk), cryptocurrencies need an everyday spending coin and this is the niche that quark can fill. The 257m current circulation assures the commonness of quark, which in turn guarantees that quark can be exchanged/transacted without fear of future fluctuation. I personally don't believe that quark is severely undervalued; I feel as if a proper valuation would find itself squarely, stable-y within the $1-$5 range and stay there.
    Further, the 257m figure and the lack of future inflation (in any meaningful sense) means that Quark, once it finds its parity, won't be subject to the same sort of speculating and day-trading that are a mark of scarcer coins; you're not going to have a future glut of coins that drive the trading dynamo as speculators buy the coins that miners sell.
    The 1m per year inflation is a token prize that helps to maintain the hasing-network and transaction confirmation while making up for coin-loss. It's also directly positioned against allowing for the type of mining centralization that we see in Bitcoin, because the rewards are far fewer.
    A couple of other points:
    I have to say that Quark confirmation times are much, much faster than any other coin I've used. I'm actually surprised at how fast confirmation times are. When I traded for my first quarks, off of an exchange, I had six confirmations within two minutes and 92 by the ten minute mark. A crypto of speed is required for small-order brick-and-morter transactions. BTC is terrific for large purchases (say, a car) when it would be expected to sit around while the network confirmed the transaction, or for online commerce in which time doesn't matter all that much. But to be a POS solution in physical shops, a coin need to be fast.
    I also believe in crypto-pluralism. Nature abhors a vacuum and the market abhors a monopoly. I firmly believe that we'll see concurrent, competing virtual currencies when this technology meets mainstream adoption. In this current stage of market speculation, frictionless capital transfer between cryptos means that they can absorb each other's market fluctuations. For mainstream adoption, it's necessary to have multiple prominent cryptos that all employ different hashing algorithms; this is, perhaps, the unintended heart of Max Keiser's "BTC/LTC/Quark" comment. Bitcoin uses SHA-256, Litecoin uses Scrypt, and Quark is 6-factor. The difference goes beyond the fact that most cryptos are literally copies of SHA-256 or Scrypt coins and has everything to do with risk. The prominence of cryptos will bring with it sophisticated attempts at attack; imagine the market panic if it is ever found that one of the hasing algorithms has a severe flaw. A monopole economy would collapse, a dipole would see such a marked capital flow and restructuration as to severely damage confidence. Three or more differently-hashed cryptos distribute risk in an acceptable way.

    CableStudios 0Permalink
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