> Zerocoin was really the first of it's kind, that's where all of the hype comes from. The promise that Zerocoin offered initially was a lot stronger than anything around
Can you really say that Zerocoin was the first of its kind when it still doesn't actually exist? There is a crypto library that implements the blind accumulator but thats it. Not a usable system. Bytecoin and CoinJoins are things you can use today.
The anonymity offered by systems that exist is inherently better than that offered by ones that don't exist, I think. :) The Bytecoin anonymity is better than Zerocoin's too, even ignoring the whole existence part.
(FWIW, I (and others) were posting about CoinJoin a long time before Zerocoin was a twinkle in anyone's eye. But the suddenly popularity of Zerocoin made me realize that I needed to attach a compact and snazzy _name_ to the idea if I wanted people to pick it up and run with it. Doing so appears to have been a pretty massive success. ... I worry a lot about people paying too much intention on someday-ware and as a result not going out and building things that we can use sooner than someday.)
> As someone who's been working on cryptocurrencies, I think that most of the Internet of Tomorrow is going to be driven by a set of cryptocurrencies that all do different things, following some of the primary principals of Unix
Well, what do I know. ::shrugs::
To me "driven by a set of cryptocurrencies that all do different things" doesn't sound like unix it sounds like saying that "in the future computer communications will be enabled by orthogonal networks that each do different things".
I think currencies just like communications networks benefit from Metcalf's law... So it seems silly to me to artificially divide up the world into separate currencies just to get different transaction features. It's technically unnecessary. There is, I think, an argument for dividing things up for different economic approaches— e.g. freicoin's inflationary currency— but for transactional purposes, it just isn't necessary. You can have one cryptocurrency being used on many different transaction networks (including decentralized ones). And I think that if in the future these things continue to be used at all, we'll find ways to not create artificial friction where it can be avoided.
>sounds like saying that "in the future computer communications will be enabled by orthogonal networks that each do different things".
Well, if you consider ntp to be one network, and the dns system to be a separate network, and the CA system to be a separate network, that statement seems to hold pretty well to today's internet. I'm not sure if you were disagreeing with my statement.
>So it seems silly to me to artificially divide up the world into separate currencies just to get different transaction features.
Just as you can have one cryptocurrency being used on many transaction networks, you can have one transaction network that uses many cryptocurrencies. Just like the ntp/dns analogy, just because Bitcoin and Ethereum are separate systems doesn't mean that I can't actively use each for what it's most useful for. Each can still benefit from the users of the other.
Can you really say that Zerocoin was the first of its kind when it still doesn't actually exist? There is a crypto library that implements the blind accumulator but thats it. Not a usable system. Bytecoin and CoinJoins are things you can use today.
The anonymity offered by systems that exist is inherently better than that offered by ones that don't exist, I think. :) The Bytecoin anonymity is better than Zerocoin's too, even ignoring the whole existence part.
(FWIW, I (and others) were posting about CoinJoin a long time before Zerocoin was a twinkle in anyone's eye. But the suddenly popularity of Zerocoin made me realize that I needed to attach a compact and snazzy _name_ to the idea if I wanted people to pick it up and run with it. Doing so appears to have been a pretty massive success. ... I worry a lot about people paying too much intention on someday-ware and as a result not going out and building things that we can use sooner than someday.)
> As someone who's been working on cryptocurrencies, I think that most of the Internet of Tomorrow is going to be driven by a set of cryptocurrencies that all do different things, following some of the primary principals of Unix
Well, what do I know. ::shrugs::
To me "driven by a set of cryptocurrencies that all do different things" doesn't sound like unix it sounds like saying that "in the future computer communications will be enabled by orthogonal networks that each do different things".
I think currencies just like communications networks benefit from Metcalf's law... So it seems silly to me to artificially divide up the world into separate currencies just to get different transaction features. It's technically unnecessary. There is, I think, an argument for dividing things up for different economic approaches— e.g. freicoin's inflationary currency— but for transactional purposes, it just isn't necessary. You can have one cryptocurrency being used on many different transaction networks (including decentralized ones). And I think that if in the future these things continue to be used at all, we'll find ways to not create artificial friction where it can be avoided.