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Digital Currencies, Crypto-finance and Open Source (beyond Bitcoin)

38 points by bobds 15y ago

dublinclontarf 15y ago
Nice list.fairly accurate summaries.
orblivion 15y ago
Liberty Dollar is listed under "failed". As far as I've ever heard, it was just a private currency based on gold and silver, not a cryptocurrency or anything similar.
- bobds 15y ago
  I remember they were planning some sort of digital currency but it seems I've confused it with Liberty Reserve. I first got involved with e-gold and other digital currencies 6-7 years ago and with so many of them coming and going, I guess my memory is a little hazy on the area. Good catch.
  - bdhe 15y ago
    Wasn't it shut down by the F.B.I.? It be instructive to see if something similar can happen to a crypto-currency. Maybe it is not directly relevant, but still useful to keep around in the wiki.
    - orblivion 15y ago
      Not if it's distributed.
Astrohacker 15y ago
This is a nice list; I haven't heard of most of these before. I was wondering, due to all the recent press about bitcoin, if there are any competing currencies for bitcoin, and this article helps answer that question. However, all of the resources listed seem to solve different problems than bitcoin. Several of them enable the user to create their own currency rather than provide a single new one. None of the systems/protocols/programs listed have all of the following features that bitcoin has: 1) Decentralized and solves the double-spending problem without a central server 2) Automatic and controlled production of new coins 3) The rules are governed by the software running on a majority of the computing power, and thus the rules can change if the majority of the software changes So bitcoin is unique, but there these other tools may be complementary to bitcoin.
- rmc 15y ago
  Some of the attributes of BitCoin are viewed by some as flawed (e.g. fixed maximum number of BitCoins), so it's not surprising that other systems differ.
- narrator 15y ago
  4) you can backup your money and make it mathematically impossible to confiscate via encrypted wallets.
bobds 15y ago
If you'll allow me to pull a quote from the article, I think it would be interesting to discuss. Satoshi said this in the thread where he was introducting Bitcoin at the Cryptography mailing list: "I actually did this kind of backwards. I had to write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper. I think I will be able to release the code sooner than I could write a detailed spec." http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09980.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg099... By the way, if you only want to look at one or two projects, Open Transactions and Ripple are the most interesting imho.

38 points by bobds 15y ago

Nice list.fairly accurate summaries.

Liberty Dollar is listed under "failed". As far as I've ever heard, it was just a private currency based on gold and silver, not a cryptocurrency or anything similar.

bobds 15y ago
I remember they were planning some sort of digital currency but it seems I've confused it with Liberty Reserve. I first got involved with e-gold and other digital currencies 6-7 years ago and with so many of them coming and going, I guess my memory is a little hazy on the area. Good catch.
- bdhe 15y ago
  Wasn't it shut down by the F.B.I.? It be instructive to see if something similar can happen to a crypto-currency. Maybe it is not directly relevant, but still useful to keep around in the wiki.
  - orblivion 15y ago
    Not if it's distributed.

Astrohacker 15y ago

This is a nice list; I haven't heard of most of these before. I was wondering, due to all the recent press about bitcoin, if there are any competing currencies for bitcoin, and this article helps answer that question. However, all of the resources listed seem to solve different problems than bitcoin. Several of them enable the user to create their own currency rather than provide a single new one. None of the systems/protocols/programs listed have all of the following features that bitcoin has: 1) Decentralized and solves the double-spending problem without a central server 2) Automatic and controlled production of new coins 3) The rules are governed by the software running on a majority of the computing power, and thus the rules can change if the majority of the software changes So bitcoin is unique, but there these other tools may be complementary to bitcoin.

rmc 15y ago
Some of the attributes of BitCoin are viewed by some as flawed (e.g. fixed maximum number of BitCoins), so it's not surprising that other systems differ.
narrator 15y ago
4) you can backup your money and make it mathematically impossible to confiscate via encrypted wallets.

bobds 15y ago

If you'll allow me to pull a quote from the article, I think it would be interesting to discuss. Satoshi said this in the thread where he was introducting Bitcoin at the Cryptography mailing list: "I actually did this kind of backwards. I had to write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper. I think I will be able to release the code sooner than I could write a detailed spec." http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg09980.html http://www.mail-archive.com/cryptography@metzdowd.com/msg099... By the way, if you only want to look at one or two projects, Open Transactions and Ripple are the most interesting imho.