Not to agree with trashman or detract from your general sentiment, but saying you allow constructive criticism as long as it is expressed in a non-criticizing way is a bit silly (criticism <-> criticize).
That’s just my critique.
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@ChristopherKing42 : As @memymo said, ad hominem, rude, or confrontational comments are not allowed here. (See the Code of Conduct for other things that are not allowed.) Criticism, if expressed in a constructive way, is allowed.
@loonix is wrong here. You are right, you could use the same parameters (as long as you are using the same zk-snark circuit). Also, comparing the forked code to the ‘original’ code via a simple diff would work to show that the only change to the code was the removal of the built in ‘pre-mine’.
It would work. The hardest part in actually pulling it off would be (as it is with any currency) the network effect. Getting people to use something other than a “brand name” product is non-trivial.
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Yes what @loonix said is clearly wrong.
A fork is very technically doable, and you are right that the main challenge is social acceptance. I am optimistic, and think that the significant interest in this thread is evidence that many people would prefer a coin without a hardcoded allegiance to a corporate entity.
Reading through this chat I find a few things disappointing:
- This technology can change the world yet as a newbie in the crypto world I’m see arguments raised that appear incredibly unrealustic.
- One thing stopping so many ideas materialising is the lack of funding - generally because new technology poses high risk. Yet you get people berating investors for getting a share if 10% of the spoils?
- In the real world when an investor puts cash into a yet unproven technology they get A LOT more than 10%. People that complaint about that in my view are not in touch with reality. They are obviously not investors themselves.
- An argument about how fair it is for early adopters being at an advantage - again totally not in touch with reality. So people prepared to put in the effort before it takes off should not be at an advantage???
- All if these points are based on the real world… risk reward.
Unfortunatly, there could be really bright minds with great ideas that will never take off because they focus on the “why should investors get so much money”…
I hope that some people wake up and smell the coffee. If investors feel something will not take off because if public centiment around them gettig paid… many could walk away.
And for the people who say “let them walk away… who needs them”… best of luck.
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I just ran some numbers through a spreadsheet, and it really isn’t that bad guys. This controversy is overblown. Worst/best case scenario: Zcash completely replaces gold (7.4 trillion market cap) - assuming each investor/ member of zcash team gets even split of the 10%, each would have made 26 billion dollars. Mark Zuckerberg’s net wort is 36 billion. I think that is a fair reward for creating something that completely replaces GOLD.
More realistically, depending on who you ask, assuming a 9 billion zcash market cap, with an even 10% split as before, each member would be worth 32 million. Maybe my numbers are off… someone can audit my spreadsheet and recommend improvements. goo.gl/fjOPN5
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Speaking for myself, I would prefer a cryptocoin network that has attracted the resources needed to develop and sustain it - and, as a result, actually exists.
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I just don’t get the Zcash using USA jurisdiction and registering in Delaware . They will get screwed once the clapdown happens
Run through a spreadsheet?! Cmon that is so funny I almost died laughing! Pure gold!
[img]//cdck-file-uploads-global.s3.dualstack.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/zcash/original/1X/8e227b95961f11997cb91bae4e82f6fd2c33e675.jpg[/img]
Yeah it is totally ridiculous to have such a company in the US. Look at the ethereum guys, they know why they are no US based company. And with ZCash the situation is even worse. What if they are forced to hand over the keys? What if they are forced to backdoor the whole thing? And don’t tell me to trust you or anyone, those times are over and exactly the opposite of what cryptocoins and crypto in gereral are about! There are so many things just wrong… The project HAS to be forked!
So do it already. It’s not as if you have any more toys to throw out of the pram.
Ok, I’ll bite.
Please explain a couple of points about your proposed Fork of Zcash.
How do you create a Fork of Zcash without a Trusted Setup? The entire Zerocash protocol hinges on a Trusted Setup to eliminate any backdoors. How are you going to convince me to trust you that your Fork of Zcash has eliminated the Backdoor and that you aren’t just making coins from thin air only to dump them later?
Say you have the technical savvy to create this Fork without a Trust Setup (which is currently impossible) sometime after Zcash has launched.
We will call your version Trashman.cash. You head out to the public and the Marketplace selling your Trashman.cash and exclaim “I’ve done it! I have created Trashman.cash and it no longer has a Founders Reward! I promise I didn’t leave in a Backdoor! You can Trust Me, I’m random guy from Internet!”
You still have the huge problem of convincing me to buy your coin because you don’t have a team of Programmers and Professors who are going to continue to support it and fix any problems that arise later. What happens if an attacker finds a loophole in Equihash algorithm letting him have an unfair advantage? How will you adjust or change the POW to keep mining fair? Trashman.cash will be hopelessly broken and you won’t know how to fix it. Nor will you care to fix it because you will have achieved your pump and dump and walked away with everyone’s hard earned money.
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When I first learned about cryptocurrencies I too had a knee jerk reaction about how premines are evil, but after more consideration I had to ask myself, “Why?”
Every product that you can name is 100% owned by the company that made it and then sold. There is never an expectation that their product be simply given away in whole or in part.
I understand that for a currency to be adopted it should be fungible and widely accepted, and that those goals can be achieved by giving away a large portion of the currency, but no one has ever bothered to ask if that’s actually the best way to do it.
Would it be “worse” if Z.Cash was 100% premined, and they acted as a market maker? Selling and buying the currency, valuing it all at say a billion dollars. I could see a lot of advantages to that approach. It guarantees funding for development, improves stability of the currency, avoids uncertainty in mining funding, and also avoids Ponzi Scheme effects; Where early adopters get a hugely disproportionate reward. (Tell me about how someone paid a 100$ electricity bill and therefore deserves a mansion a couple years later.)
All that said, Z.Cash is giving away nearly all of the currency… Why be so belligerent about it?
Ya there’s a small premine (Sort of… Founder’s Reward), and ya there’s a setup phase by people that have stake in doing it right. What do you think is being done wrong exactly and why?
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Zcash isn’t “giving away” anything. Miners take on risk and expend resources in order to process transactions and secure the network. They are rewarded with newly minted coins.
There are many ways to fund projects like this. Premining is one of the ways. I don’t agree with the premine decision, and I think it is going to be one of the primary reasons this currency doesn’t take off as well as it could if it were funded differently.
(FWIW, I still think it will be successful, but I don’t think it will inspire loyalty. People will use it because this is hands-down the best anonymity tech around. But the second there is a comparible alternative with no premine or American company beneath it, I anticipate the community leaving. I think this project is too “corporate” to inspire long term loyalty in this space. But let’s be honest, it’s currently the best game in town.)
Anyway, all that aside: that ship has sailed. That decision has been made. Complaining about it now isn’t productive and it won’t change anything.
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I wouldn’t describe the founder’s reward as a premine - there’s not going to be some anomalous block(s) in which a large amount of currency ‘pops’ into existence. It’s more like how Dash divides its block reward - and this division of the Zcash block reward will only persist until the first halvening.
Also, because money has changed hands, the founder’s reward isn’t money for nothing and that sets a reasonable expectation for what a zec will be worth.
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That’s an interesting observation wrt the valuation of zec. It should certainly be taken into account when attempting to model/predict zec price. We know that 20% of existing coins belong to founders and we know their minimum valuation of the coins. 
As for the “premine” comment, the founder’s reward is (roughly) equivalent to a premine/instamine. It’s slightly better in that the founders reward isn’t given to them all upfront – so they can’t dump a huge percentage of the currency on the market at once early on.
They’ll be incentivized to continue development on the project until they’ve at least recouped their initial investment; which may take longer with the founder’s reward payout schedule than it would with a textbook premine/instamine. That’s good for us as users (at least looking at the short/medium term).
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20% of the block reward during the first four years - which will be equivalent to 10% of all the zec that can be created.
It’s impossible to know until the genesis block is released but I’m not anticipating anything as short-sighted as a premine with Zcash.
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Sure it’s not a “premine”, an arbitrary amount of the currency isn’t given to the creators at the very beginning, but an arbitrary amount of the currency is given to the creators every time a block is mined.
I disagree fundamentally that the currency isn’t being given away just because it’s being filtered through miners for two reasons;
1.) The cryptocurrency Z-Cash is the product of entrepreneurs. Everything it does is the property of those that created it. It does not come ex-nihilo into the world, and therefore nothing it does or creates can be homesteaded. Since it is not homesteaded, it is given charitably from the creators of Z-Cash (which is not the miners).
2.) Miners are not selling a product. There is no economic calculation in mining. There are no customers, and there is no bidding process as long as they are funded through inflation.
A service can only be provided in three ways; Through market activity, theft, or charity. It goes without saying that it isn’t theft, and I’ve established it’s not a market activity, it is therefore charity.
We can argue until the cows come home about whether this is a pragmatic approach to currency distribution and bootstrapping, but I believe it’s important to accurately model what is actually happening here. “Mining” a cryptocurrency, like a raw material being homesteaded from the ground, is a fiction which I believe has damaged any conversation about other ways a cryptocurrency can be distributed and bootstrapped.
After all, as you can see in this very thread, just talking about a premine, or a founders reward, is thought of as stealing from the broader user-base, or stolen from the miners.
I believe that is a fundamental misunderstanding about not only Z Cash, but cryptocurrencies in general. Since a cryptocurrency is the product of their creator(s), it is entirely up to them how it gets distributed. Miners don’t have a fundamental right to it, nor do users. There is therefore nothing to be morally outraged about between a 100% to 0% premine. It is purely a entrepreneurial decision.
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Everything it does is the property of those that created it.
The functionality of Zcash (or any working cryptocurrency) is not merely expressed by a program (the product of its creators), a network established by willing participants is also needed. Ownership of the network is much less consolidated than ownership of the program.
Since it is not homesteaded, it is given charitably from the creators of Z-Cash
How can you be so sure that the creators of Zcash expect nothing in return? Even if that were the case, given that the functionality of Zcash is not only expressed by a program but also by a network, that functionality is not entirely the property of the program creators to give.
Miners are not selling a product.
I disagree. Miners are selling a product - they are also selling a service.
Rather than simply disagree with the following points, I’ll err on the side of caution and assume that we don’t share the same understanding of the words you’re using. Could you elaborate?
There is no economic calculation in mining.
Although, I’m not as inclined to think you have much wiggle room with these points…
There are no customers, and there is no bidding process as long as they are funded through inflation.
A service can only be provided in three ways; Through market activity, theft, or charity. It goes without saying that it isn’t theft, and I’ve established it’s not a market activity, it is therefore charity.
To summarise from above, I don’t think the situation with cryptocurrency is as black and white as that.
“Mining” a cryptocurrency, like a raw material being homesteaded from
the ground, is a fiction which I believe has damaged any conversation
about other ways a cryptocurrency can be distributed and bootstrapped.
Do you have a preferred alternative to mining and block rewards for the creation of currency? How better to secure the record of transactions?
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@Voluntary Yeah I agree with most of your points. All I am reading is accept zcash as it is and give me more money now and all that supported by false arguments!