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Arscoin, our own custom cryptocurrency
- AndrewDucker 13y agoI love that you can use it to buy hats. Clearly they have bought into the Valve method of raking in (crypto-)cash!
- jmnicolas 13y agoArscoin ? I think they would have been better served with Technicoin or something like that ...
- izolate 13y agoDon't you want some arse coins?
- hackerboos 13y agoLet's get them all out the way: * Get your ars out! * Mining ars. * There's no liquidity in ars. * Where can I sell my ars?
- a3n 13y ago* Pulling coins our of our ars.
- al2o3cr 13y agoTwo words: "ass pennies". :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO1Q7F23DxM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO1Q7F23DxM
- gadders 13y agoAs opposed to Mt Gox, which was run by Arse Clowns.
- brudgers 13y agoWhy not "ArsTechnica Electronic Coin" or "Ars e-coin"? These could be used to purchase "ArsTechnica Electronic Hats" or "Ars e-hats" for avatars. Spend more coin, get a bigger hat. The biggest arsehat would have invested in acquiring the most arsecoin. Yes, I'm giving away my best startup idea so far today.
- zimpenfish 13y agoAs an English person, I would not use "Arscoin".
- maxerickson 13y agoAlternatively, they knew what they were doing.
- Aardwolf 13y agoMaybe it's for donkeys.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- higherpurpose 13y agoThis has been predicted by Ethereum's founder (and others, I'm sure). There will be millions of crypto-coins in the future. Any company could launch its own crypto-coin, as some sort of "shares" from the company, and a way to fund the company as some sort of mini-IPO. Think of it like Kickstarter for crowdfunding, but you'd actually own part of the company by buying their coins, and your coins will grow in value as the company's value grows. You could also easily sell those coins back into other currencies whenever you want. Of course, this would be much easier if all of these millions of coins would be built on top of a crypto-coin platform, where you could also have P2P exchanges that can exchange these currencies much more easily and securely than a centralized exchange can. Things could get easier still for doing this, if companies just become Decentralized Autonomous Organizations. That's basically what Ethereum is trying to achieve, among other things. http://www.coindesk.com/ethererum-launches-cryptocurrency-2-0-network/ http://www.coindesk.com/ethererum-launches-cryptocurrency-2-... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dpjN3Mwps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9dpjN3Mwps
- timje1 13y agoClearly the currency of the future will be crypto-currencies. I'll buy your hat for 150 crypto-currencies.
- jabgrabdthrow 13y agoGoing even further, a cryptocurrency could be like shares in a company which can earn profit by performing services that couldn't be done except by a distributed autonomous entity. The founder of Ethereum used to be a founder at Invictus, a company with several DACs in the pipeline (check out http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php http://invictus.io/bitsharesx.php). He was asked to resign for mysterious reasons.
- nly 13y ago> There will be millions of crypto-coins in the future This doesn't make sense. If everyone had their own altcoin, even if they all used Scrypt, nobody would be secure because a 50% attack on your personal blockchain would be trivial. Bitcoins security relies solely on it being one of few significant coins of its kind. In any case, Bitcoin is huge because its decentralised and nobody has to make decisions. If everyone had to decide what chains to trust then you may as well switch to a superior cryptographic protocol that allows you to mint your own coin without a blockchain. These exist, there's just no incentive for them inside the traditional banking system (too anonymous), or indeed on the inter-personal micro scale (too inconvenient). Coloured coins make sense, but that's not really the same thing.
- panarky 13y agoThe whole value proposition [of cryptocurrency] is the digital scarcity, and if you have a million of these things then you’ve devalued all of them. ... I say the more the merrier, the more people trying stuff. You can create these economies out of nothing! ... I will buy any coins I can get my hands on. I haven't seen much discussion of this topic. If you assume that Bitcoin and Litecoin have value, and that value is preserved through scarcity, what does it mean when anyone can clone it and create their own currency?
- terryjsmith 13y agoI imagine it's not much different than different real world currencies; they'll all become relative to one another through a common conversion rate (ie. USD). Plus somewhere in the middle someone will create a meta-cryptocurrency payment service and sign up vendors to accept any type of cryptocurrency while making a conversion fee.
- panarky 13y agoMaybe the value comes from the network of miners and users of the altcoin. If a new cryptocurrency becomes popular and steals miners and users from an old cryptocurrency, the value of the new coin will increase at the expense of the old coin. But if the new cryptocurrency brings in new miners and users, like Dogecoin has, then the value of both old and new can grow.
- ry0ohki 13y agoValue comes through scarcity but more importantly willingness to accept the currency for goods and services. Anyone can make a currency out of shells and beads, but it will only have real value when more people will accept it as payment.
- valtron 13y agoThe creation of a new coin has no bearing on the scarcity of another. Scarcity is just one requirement for something to act as a currency; another would be that it can be exchanged for goods and services (read: other things that people value, and for which they want things that they also value).
- jemeshsu 13y agoWill there be a CaaS (Cryptocurrency as a service)? To allow anyone to create their own branded altcoin.
- r721 13y agohttp://coingen.io/ http://coingen.io/
- gchfjfjfj 13y agoI am not sure that an Arse-coin sounds that cool, rather it hits a bum note, has a whiff of suspicion, people might get wind of it, and what happens if it gets wiped (out)?
- KHPatel 13y agoThank you for this.
- brudgers 13y agoCryptoCurrency as a replacement for internet karma points and JesusBucks given away at Wednesday night Methodist Youth Fellowship meetings. When my hairdresser has their own CryptoCurrency how shall I maintain my faith that bitcoin has a value these others don't?
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ivanca 13y agoThat would be pretty much like asking why the dollar as value while the others don't. For example the Botswana pula is a real currency, but is pretty much useless -for you- because is not the one they use where you live.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- skriticos2 13y agoI guess it's the same as with paintings. Bitcoin is like a Picasso. There are just so many and you have to pay a lot of money to get one. On the other hand, if you go to the next university and visit the art classes, you'll find enough talented people who'll sell you their own pictures for a lot less. It's a demand thing.
- brudgers 13y agoMy neighbour two doors down is a regionally known full time professional painter hustling between teaching and shows and creating works that start at a few thousand dollars and sell at those prices. But a few years ago the artist's agent brought an offer that was too good to refuse - license some works to a high end retailer for Giclee prints. It provides a real base income that pays the mortgage and the heat and the water bill. http://www.gicleeprint.net/pricing.asp?servcat=2&medid=11 http://www.gicleeprint.net/pricing.asp?servcat=2&medid=11
- noonespecial 13y agoSoon there will be a "make your own crypturrency" kit and every little retailer will offer them like giftcards. It's almost like the rise of money all over again, expect this time instead of nationstates, it will be large multinational corporations likely to dominate. What's the Target/Walmart rate today on the forex? I'd be surprised if Paypal (or the people likely to kill them) aren't secretly chewing on this as we speak.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoIt's already been done. See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7004681 ;).
- hughes 13y agoThat's precisely what the article was talking about[0]. [0] http://www.coingen.io/ http://www.coingen.io/
- wlesieutre 13y agoNot sure that's a good idea, as it lets people create their own giftcards by mining coins. If a company make a cryptocurrency that isn't accepted anywhere else, they essentially end up giving away free stuff. Getting paid for a good or service with USD is useful because you can spend it to cover your expenses. If Overstock made OverstockCoins instead of accepting bitcoins, how do they pay their suppliers? I guess that's more or less what Ars is doing, but I don't see how it makes any sense.
- saalweachter 13y agoI guess the real question for me would be, why does target need a distributed, public ledger? Target is one entity, who trusts themselves. A private ledger works just fine for their gift cards.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- smacktoward 13y ago
- eik3_de 13y agoOk so let's launch HNcoin
- whyenot 13y ago“The whole point is that we’re not a quick scam," Nathan Gudmunson, the chairman of the Worldcoin Foundation, told Ars. "Our coin is clearly not that, and we’re trying to build up a payment system around it. ...well that didn't turn out too well. Gudmunson and several other (now former) Worldcoin Foundation board members started an exchange/payment system called Scharmbeck. Scharmbeck took large amount of investor money by selling "fee shares." Scharmbeck shut down shortly after. Gudmunson and several other members were removed from the Worldcoin Foundation board, the cryptocurrency collapsed and has never recovered. Investors holding Scharmbeck "fee shares" will likely never see a return and have lost almost all of their initial investments
- bruceb 13y agoBreaking News: 300 Arscoins just stolen. Film at 11.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- ThomPete 13y agoSo in the end each of us will have our own crypto-currency who's value is determined by how popular we are.
- fennecfoxen 13y ago> The dollar is said to be "elastic," as the Fed can increase or decrease the money supply at any given time essentially by telling the Bureau of Engraving and Printing to simply print more money using fancy moneymaking machines and crazy-complicated inks and textiles. Or they could just tell them to conduct open-market operations and buy an existing US Treasury bond from the lowest bidder on the open market. Which is what they really do to manipulate the supply. (To say nothing of banks creating money with loans...)
- penguindev 13y agoDon't you hate it when people conflate money with credit. That's why all the bitcoin fans can never win; even if bitcoin was the world reserve currency (similar to how gold still is today - held by central banks), it would mean jack shit because everyone would use fractional reserve lending and credit, like we've done for ages, with the booms and busts and skimming that go with it. So IMHO nothing will ever change.
- bradleysmith 13y agoit would mean a distributed work-based hashing process would be the determinant of money supply of the world reserve currency. The world reserve currency is the US dollar. Even if a central bank holds gold as a store of value, they price it and their own currency in the US dollar. If any commodity was to be labeled a de-facto 'world currency' it would be petroleum, as it is a commodity that everyone MUST purchase in some fashion. The monetary supply of the US dollar is determined by the Fed, which has no oversight from or obligation to the countries which that monetary supply affects. It's clear moral hazard, on a global scale. people would still use fractional reserve lending, and credit. But, no one sovereignty would be in control of the supply of the the medium of exchange they used. I'm not arguing it would improve anything, but it would certainly be different.
- penguindev 13y agoWe already had, in essence, a 'proof of work' system with gold. Gold supply increases by only a percent or two per year, and it is highly resource / energy intensive. And note that many central banks, including US, China, Russia, have and /or are even adding to their gold reserves. (Ben Bernanke says it's for 'tradition' - cough, cough, eye roll, cough) But as JP Morgan said, "gold is money. everything else is credit." Banks don't care about the underlying reserve money as long as they control the credit, which gets used as if it were money. >but it would certainly be different. I don't see how. And even if it were, the powers that be like things just the way they are.
- fromdoon 13y agoI have always wondered that why we cannot make intangibles like happiness, emotions as a currency. Even though they are more often than not treated as the real wealth a person can have, we have never ever been able to count these intangibles and store them. Of course this seems to be an absurd idea at first. But, lets try to think about it, doesn't matter how ridiculous or implausible this might sound. My mind goes back to the movie "In Time", where time was treated as currency, something on which your life depended, literally. Can't the smartest people on this planet, think of some thing absolutely fascinating, that may let us, mortal people gather our happiness and maybe able to trade it. Consider for example that someone who helps people out, people who may not have enough money, but who have the intention to bless that person. Can't that person count/take the blessings and become rich in process. If this is possible, their might a big motivation for everyone to do good, help people out, get their genuine blessings ... I know this all sounds really crazy!! Just wanted to dish my thoughts out :)
- ttctciyf 13y agoI think we need a thin client on your Google Glass that feeds your personal interactions continuously to an AI engine in the cloud. Having established that you were the recipient of a well-merited compliment that significantly pleased you, the identity of the complimenter, and the fact that your benefactor is HappyCoin(tm)-enabled, the engine would automatically calculate the exact monetary value of your happiness and create a microtransaction as payment, which you would then hopefully approve while still uplifted.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- waterlesscloud 13y agoThere's a Bruce Sterling story, "Maneki Neko", that's always fascinated me as model for a potential future. In it, a master computer tells people to perform certain actions it knows will fulfill other people's needs. The more you put in, the more you're eligible to get out. It is, in essence, a gift economy organized by the cloud. It's the sort of idea that seems tantalizingly plausible with smartphones and the cloud, but is hard to actually put into practice. It's definitely the kind of thing that could drive a host of startup ideas, though. Here's the full story online: http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/maneki-neko/ http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/maneki-neko/
- middus 13y agoOff topic: as someone who grew up learning British English, ars[e]coin is a very unfortunate name.
- bradleysmith 13y agoThis was my first understanding, glancing at it on the news list. I was half-hoping for a lewd dogecoin.
- gwern 13y agoWhat makes you think that wasn't partially intended? :)
- ww520 13y agoThey should have started with crypto penny with that kind of name.
- Kabacaru 13y agoI'm holding out for Kriegerands.
- ck2 13y agoIt's a shame they cannot figure out how to make a SETIcoin or folding@home coin, where you earn based on how much data you process for the cause. Would be better than just burning electrons for scrypt.
- tromp 13y agoWhile they haven't yet figured out how to make a proof-of-work do useful work, one can make a relatively low-power one that mostly (95%) substitutes memory latency for computation, as in my https://github.com/tromp/cuckoo https://github.com/tromp/cuckoo
- sitkack 13y agoIf I were smarter, I would make a folding@home encryption algorithm so that when the NSA is breaking our https encrypted cat photos, they would be curing cancer. Afaik, they have over half the super computer power in the world and always have. Think about that, integrate under that curve, hell of a lot of wasted flops.
- Dn_Ab 13y agoYou know what would be totally awesome? A cryptocoin whose core workings are derived from Charity. A coin based on Charity† would offer stronger safety guarantees for complex contracts than any other existing or proposed coin (certainly more than Ethereum). Especially if extended to implicitly capture complexity. †If you understand the multiple levels on which that statement works - especially on a site named after a fixed point combinator - then I think you will agree I deserve to feel as clever as I did when I wrote it =D.
- makmanalp 13y agoCould you elaborate a bit? This sounds promising but I'm having trouble understanding how it would work. You need to donate to charity to verify a transaction?
- waterlesscloud 13y agoI have no idea what he means, but there's an interesting crypto called Devcoin that allocates 90% of the mined coins to selected open source developers. It's sort of a charity coin, in a sense. Opens up other possibilities, certainly. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Devcoin https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Devcoin
- sliverstorm 13y agoIt seems to me like he's talking in manager speek/buzzwords. I'm entirely unconvinced he has even the slightest idea how it would work.
- silentOpen 13y agoCharity is an experimental FP language. < http://pll.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/charity1/www/home.html http://pll.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/charity1/www/home.html >
- kingmanaz 13y agoA cryptocurrency whose hashing was somehow based on protein folding (i.e. Folding@Home) would be comparatively simple to pitch to laymen. Q: "Where does 'curecoin' come from?" A: "From people who research new medicines. Those who perform the most research for new drugs are occasionally awarded new 'curecoins'. Those coins are eventually spent into the economy." Etc.
- chaseideas 13y agoSpeaking of altcoins/cryptocurrency… Has anyone heard much about MazaCoin? It just became the official currency for the Lakota nation. Wanted to hear what fellow HN'ers think about this. http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/5/5469510/native-americans-assert-their-independence-through-cryptocurrency-mazacoin http://www.theverge.com/2014/3/5/5469510/native-americans-as... Out of all the altcoins, seems like this one has strong real-world application and brings a lot of value to these Indian tribes. Similar to what Bitcoin has done in other nations that lack a strong national currency. MazaCoin is also the "official national currency" of a Sovereign Nation, so it can't "technically" be outlawed. Huge step forward for crypto currencies? Outright scam? What do you guys think? Thoughts on this coin in specific? Altcoins/cryptocurrency in general?
- flatline 13y agoFor now it's just another altcoin (zetacoin clone) that is riding the same speculative trend as auroracoin has been for the last couple weeks. If it is actually officially recognized by the tribe and if it starts getting used more like a real currency on tribal lands, it stands a chance at establishing a more stable value and breaking new ground as a cryptocurrency. I figure this is at least several years off and is highly speculative in itself. The coin additionally still has the problem that all the others do, and most of them will end up in the hands of cryptocurrency speculators and not indians, which would seem to cast a rather uncertain future on the coin. That being said, I bought some and am mining some, I think it's cool.
- iancarroll 13y agoI'm mining this right now on a linode VPS with around 10khashs. It's nothing at all but hey, why not
- herokusaki 13y agoIsn't that against the TOS?
- iancarroll 13y agoYou saw nothing.
- pbharrin 13y ago"if you look at Bitcoin and you see the contributor list, it’s a dozen people writing a majority of the code. If you lower the barrier to entry and allow people to experiment, you bring more people to develop it in the space." So true, the biggest complaint from the Bitcoin core devs is that there are few people contributing. Especially when there are heavily funded companies relying on this code.
- mschuster91 13y agoDoes everyone and their dog(e) have to start his/her own cryptocurrency?! I wonder when we'll see such inventions as MaruCoin, GrumpyCoin or, for what it's worth, FlappyCoin. Such currency. Much chaos. Very wow. edit: please, do not start these altcoins, we've got too much of 'em already...
- lukifer 13y agoWe've had FlappyCoin for weeks now: http://reddit.com/r/flappycoin http://reddit.com/r/flappycoin