asciilifeform: the other thing, your alt may be 'honest', but plenty are not. say, quite soon governments will begin herding people (through guile or force) into national altcoins.
asciilifeform: live by the chumps, die by the chumps. who are fickle.
asciilifeform: whose 'no added value needed' proposition is 'just as good' as yours
asciilifeform: the trouble with chump harvesting, morals aside, is that there is always a new, slicker chump-harvesting artist coming to town.
asciilifeform: ThickAsThieves: good luck with the chump harvesting.
asciilifeform: 'a) repaint your black car. it should be blue. b) why should i ? a) blue is just as good as black b) wtf a) here, i'll sell you some paint b) what's the value to me a) it doesn't need added value, blue is better '
asciilifeform: then your real proposition is 'i ought to be Satoshi and will use the powers for Good'
asciilifeform: if there's added value ('i've an nsa-resistant work-function, here, look') we're all ears.
asciilifeform: just asking the question of where the added value is.
asciilifeform: this is more like getting all of the addicts to buy from one large dealer instead of quitting
asciilifeform: 'my ferrari' is one answer. but not an answer that will satisfy skeptics.
asciilifeform: take classic btc. it was a net gain in wealth, rather than simply a machine from moving money from one pocket to another, because it made new things possible. what new things does the altcoin-of-the-day make possible?
asciilifeform: 'if i hadn't picked his pocket, some other fellow would've.'
asciilifeform: would you happily part with gold, for instance, if you believe that 'gold standard' will make a comeback?
asciilifeform: then it is clear which coin the author regards as genuine and having a future.
asciilifeform: if it is being parcelled out in exchange for btc...
asciilifeform: whether a particular alt is 'trying to win over btc' can be determined by looking at what it is being traded for.
asciilifeform: 'fail to hang together, and you will hang separately'
asciilifeform: eventually, mining breakthrough, and people will regret having undermined the whole concept of blockchain by having a swarm of little chains
asciilifeform: someone should teach these folks about 'parallel construction.'
asciilifeform: soviet version of the joke: 'man buys a ticket, rips it up and walks - to spite the trolley conductor.'
asciilifeform: nubbins`: in exactly the same way that a junkyard full of bricks, roof tiles, etc. resembles a house.
asciilifeform: it depends on what the project is. if it's a lamecoin, it could be 10,000 schmucks. if it's a working TWINKLE, your name is shamir and they already know where you live.
asciilifeform: herbijudlestoids: what problem would you actually like to solve? that is, what is the portrait of the enemy? and what is to be protected?
asciilifeform: BingoBoingo: grenade sans pin with the spoon held down by the rug, if you like.
asciilifeform: standardized stego (e.g. 'let's all encode messages in the lowest color bit of lolcat photos) is about as useful as the practice of hiding your house key under the door mat.
asciilifeform: but it is by its very nature non-standardizable.
asciilifeform: steganography is an actual field, anyone for whom traffic analysis is more than an academic puzzle would do well to learn the basics;
asciilifeform: if X is hostile, then anything X knows, the enemy learns immediately.
asciilifeform: anyone who goes, 'i want crypto!' without some idea of the actual problem he is trying to solve, is in an advanced state of sin.
