Wednesday 28 June 2017

zakaj on decred


this struck me as very important, what he is saying you need to judge the teams and technology and if you do this, cryptocurrency investment will be targeted and not random !
"So, to an experienced eye that can judge where Decred should really be positioned considering the tech and the team behind it, it's easy to see it should be valued at least 10x higher than it is now."

20 comments:

  1. It should be targeted based off the most wealthy oligarchs who are playing tricks to regulate, hence ETH will beat BTC.

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  2. I feel very stupid. I lost 10,000 SONM from dice gambling... That's ~690-750 USD I lost. It was my first time gambling, and I feel utterly retarded, devastated, and stupid. I feel so stupid and depressed.

    I also got panicked and traded a lot of cryptos at a loss and had serious talk with wife. I am dropping this. I was impulsive and retarded, and I need a real stable source of income to have peace of mind. I am laying off Internet for some time to focus on studies and go back to school for a better major than Neuroscience, which job market recommends.

    After 5000 USD investment, here's what I ultimately settled with, and I don't want to look at them in order to avoid stress:

    5000 USD Investment

    Bancor (BNT) – 1000

    Sonm (SNM) – ~3500 (had 10,000 before losing it at gambling, went and got some more)

    Aircoin (AIR) – ~10 million

    Aragon (ANT) – 119

    ---

    I thought it would be useful as reference for you. Be sure you plan ahead well. I never had experience in stock before this, and I shouldn't have been enticed by the dice game on the website.

    I apologize, Zakaj. I just don't have experience in this stuff and became too stressed when getting involved in it. Hopefully, I can make enough to compensate for my losses in investing.

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    Replies
    1. that's informative thanks sepehr, its all good experience though it mightn't feel like it !

      how actually did you hold the cryptocurrencies and swap them ?

      there's analytic graphing tools that can be a considerable help and there's bound to be hedge funds playing that have enough money to "pull" the market !

      well i'm really interested in how to hold the money and exchange it, zakaj has suggested https://www.exodus.io/

      regarding future education, just be careful, a lot of students get into debt for job worthless degrees !

      don't write off cryptocurrencies, as zakaj suggests, slowly build knowledge !

      why not get your wife more involved with that side of things, women are known to be more sensibly cautious in business matters !

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    2. My number one advice is to put 2-FA on your email and each of the exchanges you sign up on. Basically, you install either Google Authenticator or Authy on android phone, Iphone, or tablet and scan a barcode. I personally recommend Authy. Each time you log in then, you must check the software which has numbers change every ~45 seconds. This greatly increases security by 100-fold.

      Also, make your passwords very complex:
      https://theintercept.com/2015/03/26/passphrases-can-memorize-attackers-cant-guess/

      Do not save your passwords on notepad. Write them down.

      You want the passwords to be entropic, and that article provides a hyperlink to another article that gives words from dice throw. Read the article in full. You want at least 5 entropic 'words' or more.

      You want to really buff up the security of everything relating to crypto.

      My second advice, is to use either Coinbase or Bitquick.co to get Bitcoin. Be sure you add 2-FA on Coinbase also!

      My recommendation for Bitcoin wallet is Electrum. If you use Bitquick.co, you give them the address of the wallet (in receive) and make a direct deposit to a bank, you picked, and they send the Bitcoin to your wallet after you take a photo of the receipt. After receiving Bitcoin, you then send the Bitcoin to the exchange.

      My recommended exchange is Bittrex. You then exchange Bitcoin for other crypto you think will appreciate in value on Bittrex. It is actually intuitive and now is a very good time to buy due to a dip. The market keeps crashing and then exponentially growing. Now's the time to buy. This is very time-sensitive and quite stressful. Buy low, sell high.

      Now, a word of advice, avoid all gambling. There are sites that offer you to increase Bitcoin with dice gambling. Avoid this AT ALL COSTS. Most people are smart enough to know this, but I was not. I was doing fine before making such a retarded decisions, and now I know never to gamble or visit a casino... It may seem enticing to win 1000 dollars worth of BTC at first, but you can also lose it all too. Avoid such things at all costs. Invest in things you strongly believe will grow in value, so that way you don't lose much, if at all (just marginal amounts from fees from transactions).

      I think it's fine to leave your crypto on exchange if you do 2-FA and make a very entropic password. Hell, you can go 20 'words', if you want, by using the article given.

      Zakaj is very intelligent, but I personally think Ethereum-based coins will grow. Granted, you could diversify into both Bitcoin-based and Ethereum-based coins. Litecoin will have MIT back it soon, so it will most likely increase in large numbers. Bancor is also good because Israel is taking immense interest in it.

      I advise avoiding "shitcoins" like Dogecoin. Those are made for novelty. Though there are some very young coins with potential on Yobit, another exchange, that can hit it big -- but more risk is there.

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    5. I trimmed 2 posts and joined them into a single one (they were repetitive):


      This was a more balanced post from Sepehr ... it seems the "manic" phase has passed and you sobered up, as it were. It's unfortunate that you decide to live crypto now - because actually, NOW you are in the right mindset for investing... as Andrew suggested, it was a learning phase, even if it doesn't seem like that (and perhaps precisely because it doesn't).

      I also agree with Andrew about getting wife involved. Like you, I, too was in a similar phase in the beginning, frantically searching for profits - and my wife was very critical of what I was doing at the time, however I felt like a rock star and unbeatable. Then I made some mistakes and lost a lot...

      And even though I'm still in crypto now, her attitude is totally different: because she sees how I invest, it's mostly research, and writing blog posts on forum posts... I trade (buy/sell) once a month only... with some exceptions. The rest is research and work.

      So now that she sees the attitude has changed, and that the net worth of my crypto-folio/assets is consistently rising, she's even contributing to the project by translating into Japanese. What your wife disliked about it was just the attitude; which resembled a gambler's obsession and eventually even ended with gambling.

      Now you've entered a kind of 'depressive' phase, but people tend to be more realistic when they're 'depressed'; here's a good 'map' of coins:

      Look at this:

      https://jonhq.com/looking-at-the-top-100-altcoins-by-the-problems-theyre-looking-to-solve/

      It could be useful, it looks at all top coins and tries to say what problem each is trying to solve.

      The only problem with that list though is that it doesn't give weight to each problem... obviously not all problems have the same weight... some problems are more serious than others. Governance is central, hence Decred. Also, BlockNet is lacking from that list.

      --- You may think "well screw this speculative crypto bubble stuff, let's get some real education and get a real job" --- well but isn't most education a bubble too these days? what will you study, CS? -- when you finish, in 5 years, a lot more work will be automated already. Yes, even a lot of CS jobs will be automated.

      Keep that in mind... automation will totally take over in 10 years or so, some say up to 50% of jobs. Being in crypto-currencies now is a great opportunity if the whole financial world moves to this, and it will...

      Look at this, things are getting very serious:

      http://www.coindesk.com/chinas-central-bank-opens-new-digital-currency-research-institute/

      One thing that occurred to me now is that one needs to be able to defend an investment in the form of a reasoned argument --- imagine you have a demonic, adversarial voice telling you in an accusing tone that you're making a mistake, and then try to demonstrate to that demonic voice that you're not. How will you prove that your investment is sound?

      You need this kind of "adversarial" thinking... I do this a lot ,almost every day, have been doing it for a year or more.

      I explored every scenario for why Decred could fail. I run this over in my head a lot. But even after running scenarios in my mind thousand times the result keeps being that this is the winning technology / architecture.

      Yes I do some work for Decred (documentation etc) - but to be honest, the moment I thought it's not a great project, I would sell it and buy something else. I'm not emotionally involved... as a rational being, I would reevaluate and go into Bitcoin or something else as soon as I discovered some flaw in Decred's model


      Maybe it will become clearer to people in August with the coming Bitcoin fiasco... in any case, 2018 will be a great year for DCR.

      Sepehr's advice about exchanges and 2FA is good.

      Exodus is an easy to use wallet to hold multiple coins.

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    6. So, following this logic; try to ask yourself: "Why did I invest in this 'SONM' --- did I read the whitepaper? who are the devs behind the project, what is their background, what is their roadmap? what are they doing that is different from other projects, say, GOLEM?" Then you must be careful not to fool yourself, because you're your own enemy in this, there's no advantage in fooling yourself. The people on that forum you browsed, /biz/ - they're all fooling themselves. Look at how many stories of losing all their money they post!

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    7. Ok, I am done thinking over this stuff. I like your post Zakaj. I have final words to Andrew:

      As you know there are two types of coins out there. Those that improve on BTC's lack of a single governing body, its decentralized pseudonymity, and those that improve upon ETH's dictatorship, where power is centralized to a few people deciding everything (which smart contracts ultimately tie into).

      If you support BTC's model, then I would invest a lot in DCR. Why? Because DCR has a built in voting mechanism on the block chain so hard fork voting is possible meaning it can evolve with community consensus. It is like a democratic version of BTC, I feel, and solves a crucial issue where it could never stagnate. It will grow to be the best in that field. So in the BTC model category, I feel investing in DCR and LTC to be the best options currently.

      However, if you feel ETH's model has the most potential, perhaps due to the nature of oligarchs always seeking to regulate or gain control, then look away from DCR. I recommend BNT and ETH. BNT is unique in that it is attempting to become the reserve currency for multiple ETH-based coins and attempts to be more user-friendly.

      So yes, there is a kind of battle occurring between these coins. Another way to rephrase this is this: Do you think the economy will head to Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) or remain relatively the same with its corporations? If you believe DAOs will become commonplace, then invest in DCR and LTC. If the latter, invest in ETH-based coins.

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    8. Another sensible post by Zephyr! Again, now you have the right mindset for this stuff.

      Look at how things went in our history... it starts with anarchy with 'local warlords' (Bitcoin) , then it moves to an 'dictatorship' or 'absolute monarchy' where one or a few have all power (Ripple, Ethereum, etc.) --- but ultimately the model that prevailed everywhere is the Republic (here it would be Decred). Because concentrated power is unstable.

      By the way - even in Decred rich people have more power; this is OK. We don't want communism. Look at what happened with communism. In Decred, if I am rich, I have 100 or 1000 times more power than a normal plebeian. OK, but my power, even as a super-rich holder, is still like 0.01% of the whole network. It's still a drop in the Ocean. This creates equilibrium.

      BTW, ex (((Goldman Sachs))) employees already are trying to copy the idea of Decred, through this: https://www.tezos.com/

      They are fundraising and already raised over $100 million. It's quite insane... They even have a billionaire backing them, Tim Draper. So we know Decred has something great if these people are trying to copy it...

      But I don't worry. This is all vapor... it will be all over the news and raise millions for a few months... and then it will subside. It's like mud when you step into a river, first the mud is all over and the water is brownish, but then if you wait a bit, the mud falls to the bottom and the water clears.

      Once people's manic investing in this Decred copy called "Tezos" stops and they are disappointed and 'depressed', they will either abandon crypto or look for alternatives, and then they will realize they invested in a copy of something more original, and in the long term it will be good for Decred.

      I'm not cynical about society - I think that in the end, the tech wins, good ideas win; marketing only wins in the short term, but in the long term, the tech wins.

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    9. Because think about when crypto becomes user friendly for the common person?

      They won't even know they're using "crypto". They will have a super user friendly app, something like PayPal, and they won't even know that "Decred" is running it in the background... this is how it will be when it goes mainstream.

      Right now we're still in an early phase... now it's all speculation and investing and trying to anticipate the next move... but think more ahead when this is mainstream... nobody will care about any of this then.

      Some company will come and make an app that will make crypto go mainstream... and it will probably be chain-agnostic, meaning, it will use many chains simultaneously, it won't care... and when that happens, nobody will care about governance... this is only what WE early people care about... the consumer won't give a fuck.

      BUT - they will use the coin that will have the best features. Now ETH has some fundamental problems with the code. How many times it crashed already? How many times it was hacked?

      One of the greatest minds in crypto. The person who CREATED the project that BITCOIN WAS BASED ON. If you want to talk about a crypto authority or a person who IS PROBABLY SATOSHI NAKAMOTO, here is the man. He has degrees in math/cryptography, compsci, law and economy. Total genius, his name is Nick Szabo.

      When Ethereum people said "we will just delete the attacks coins" ... he replied to them:

      "Who is "we"? Programmers making legal and accounting decisions? Ethereum is headed for either a huge bureaucracy or disaster."

      Do you see the problem? The problem is that if a few people decide everything they will need a huge beaurocracy to decide upon which case what to do. This is exactly what will make Ethereum crash.

      So when widespread adoption comes, they will use whatever coin is 1) FASTEST; 2) has LOWEST FEEs; 3) most stable network, etc.

      They will only look at the pragmatic side. And form this side the sensible decisions will be Litecoin or Decred ,not Ethereum that was hacked already and crashed many times, and that was never even meant to be a currency. Plus, ETH will have infinite coins as it inflates indefinitely.

      I would narrow it down to LTC or DCR as you said --- but sooner or later, DCR's model will prevail. Even LTC's creator himself, Charlie Lee, is a fan of DCR. He actually created DCR (it was his idea initially, he wrote a theoretical paper upon which DCR was based). And he's one of the biggest holders of DCR, I can tell you :) Even LTC's creator is betting on DCR for the long term (this is a secret I will tell you here)

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    10. i deliver to a family with the last name Goldman, yes they're part of goldman sachs and it's the biggest house i deliver to .. they still tip three dollars

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    11. Is $3 a good tip? (We don't have tip culture here so I don't know)

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    12. below average


      imagine handing someone 2.5 euro as a payment and thank you for delivering something to your house

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    13. A Jewish boy walks up to his father and says "Papa, I need fifty dollars." The father says "forty dollars?! I don't have thirty dollars! What do you need twenty dollars for? Here's ten dollars." He hands the boy a five and says "split it with your brothers...and bring back the change."

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    14. https://cointelegraph.com/news/goldman-sachs-finally-recognizes-the-power-of-blockchain-technology

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    15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cycaD53Ly0

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    16. Very good dialogue/interview for understanding blockchain and for avoiding scams.

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    17. thanx for those links, charlie rose is particularly good, have repeated them in a new post above !

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    18. an3drew: thank you for the post! This Chris DeRose guy is pure gold - his channel (Bitcoin Uncensored) has a lot of interviews where he attacks/destroys bullshitters in the space: here's one for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaFnd0td_gg

      People say he is too aggressive but these are people selling bullshit and taking millions from people! There's a lot of videos like this from his channel, "Bitcoin Uncensored" --- he is a Bitcoin-only guy and doesn't like other alt coins, although I'm not sure how familiar he is with Decred

      It's funny his videos have like 500 views, while BULLSHIT has hundreds of thousands! I guess it's the same in every field ("spirituality" too), people are attracted to shit, like flies

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