I think we need to do a bit of rebranding when it comes to Peercoin and Primecoin. I feel like both of the coins complement each other nicely. I feel like the Peercoin has neglecting Primecoin, when it needs to be paying attention to it. I think we need to start the discussion the Peercoin + Primecoin is the complete cryptocurrency solution. You use Peercoin as your secure savings earning “interest” as do proof-of-stake. You use Primecoin as your “spending” currency, with its quick confirms. As it is inflationary, its behaves more like the fiat we are used to.
Rather than say Peercoin is the bronze to Bitcoin’s gold, we should say that Peercoin + Primecoin is a replacement for Bitcoin and Litecoin. Peercoin is ASIC friendly, and Primecoin is more resistant than ever. Using better than, vs. value added I think we can push ourselves past Litecoin in terms of marketcap. Note that if we just brought up Primecoin to our same marketcap each XPM would go from $1.50 to $15.
What I Want to See Done:
Some Internal Discussion on How We Can Do Branding
We Need to Do Swarms and Pushes Every Weekend for Both Cryptocurrencies
I honestly don’t really know that much about Primecoin besides the fact that it searches for prime numbers and it uses PoW. You’re probably right though. We have been neglecting it.
Sell me XPM. I know it’s very fast. I know it is currently CPU only. I know it’s PoW mechanism is… neat. What else? It seems like it could be a good duo for PPC, but not anymore than any other successful PoW crypto.
Sell me XPM. I know it’s very fast. I know it is currently CPU only. I know it’s PoW mechanism is… neat. What else? It seems like it could be a good duo for PPC, but not anymore than any other successful PoW crypto.[/quote]Same boat here, struggling to understand the value and purpose of Primecoin over say Worldcoin even though some smarts have been applied. I actually added this to my questions for SK. I’m hoping there is some overarching strategy where these two coins somehow complement each other in one wallet.
I think he put both out there, to see how the market would adopt and make use of each one over time. There was a lot of noise that SHA256 wouldn’t last, would get cracked, was too ASIC friendly, etc.
So Primecoin comes along, and uses Prime numbers. Not ASIC friendly, brings proof-of-work to a new dimension, and creates something that could be useful to math science (prime numbers).
They were both experiments. It’s obvious that Peercoin (who trailed behind XPM on the markets) came out ahead, and is favored by the majority out of the two coins.
XPM still is a valid project and we’ll see where that goes. Never say never, maybe XPM and Peercoin will be merged at some point. Who really knows? If SHA256 gets cracked or shown to be unsuitable, watch how fast Peercoin switches to prime number proof-of-work.
Either way, I understand why Sunny created both coins, and why they both exist. It also didn’t hurt to break a few World Records on prime numbrs with primecoin either.
I hope both projects survive. If I had to choose 1 over the other, I’d stick with Peercoin though. But no one is asking anyone to choose.
I can see that they both started as experiments and starting a lot of experiments and look what survives is a commonly applied technique in many sectors. So from an adoption perspective (and dare I say marketcap?) Peercoin seems to be the stronger network.
@ppcman, it would be interesting to hear why you would still chose Peercoin, if you had to. Is that because of the adoption rate and availability of software and services. Is just purely speculatative or is it about a belief in the strength of the network model?
I hope that I would get some more information based on your answers about how Primecoin could be better positioned, merged or just being a niche.
Let me repost/paraphrase something that I wrote on reddit before.
Sunny created Primecoin to challenge the Bitcoin/Litecoin duopoly (SHA256/Scrypt). So far, it has failed to achieve its goals, partly due to weak branding. IMO, the main selling point should be it’s ASIC-hostile hashing algorithm, multi-use mining gear and unique scarcity model. Primecoin should be advertised based on the same arguments as Litecoin. In many ways, it is superior to Litecoin as it has faster confirmation speed, smoother difficulty adjustment and less deflation. Unfortunately, these facts are not well-know by many.
The Primecoin algorithm is ASIC/FPGA hostile, and even GPU mining is not economically viable at the moment. While it is possible to create specialized mining equipment, it is far more difficult and expensive to develop chips for high speed modular arithmetics. In contrast to SHA-256/Scrypt mining, those chips would also be multi-use and could be applied for other purposes after the next generation hits the market.
Meanwhile, the advent of Scrypt FGPA’s will disenfranchise many miners and further reduce Litecoin popularity. Primecoin could become more attractive again. It’s scarcity model is quite unique and makes it one of the “fairest” coins to mine. The total Primecoin supply is expected to follow an asymptotic curve – as computers get faster the difficulty goes up and the minting rate goes down. Most likely the total money supply will be between 50 million and 1 billion (ballpark figure = 500 million), with a bias towards the middle of that range. This is good news for new miners, as even late adopters have almost equal chance to earn coins (!)
Besides that, we already have cloud mining services in place (e.g. http://primecores.com/), which inevitability will be the final stage in the specialized-mining-chip-race. For example, KNCminer recently announced not to produce mining rigs for household use anymore, since non-industrial grade power supply is not sufficient.
Finally, we also need to better integrate Primecoin in the emerging Peercoin/Peershare ecosystem. This should be part of the branding: Peercoin for savings, Primecoin for spending.
A while ago I read in chat here that Primecoin was also designed to be a backbone currency, rather than a transactional currency. I didn’t understand this and never really looked into it. Is this wrong? Are they designed to fulfill the same role (Backbone Currency) or opposite roles? (Backbone vs Transactional)
My understanding is that they were designed to fill opposite roles.
PPC = Less bloated blockchain and Proof of Stake = energy use reduction
but the need for proof of work where small spammy transactions couldnt be ignored…
so sunny figured out a way to use the same PoW that needs to happen anyway to contribute to science
XPM = quick transactions, pure PoW, and the algorithm contributes to the search for prime numbers = energry multi-use
so together they represent a complete crypto solution for either reducing the amount of energy expended (PPC), or reusing that work for something else.
OP is absolutely right, XPM is kind of getting overlooked by the community, and we should be promoting it as something that works hand in hand with peercoin. I wish I could devote myself to this stuff.
[quote=“Ken”]I’m 100% PPC. I don’t like Primecoin because 1) it is POW, which even Sunny said likely will not last long-term 2) The public does NOT care that it searches for primes. 3) Wastes electricity (despite the ‘science’) 4) Was created as a market-share grab from Litecoin, but failed due to Litecoin’s network effect supremacy (Primecoin was simply too late).
My brutally honest opinion is that Primecoin distracts from a better crypto (PPC). I know that statement will garner me haters, but it’s how I feel and I think such honesty is ultimately useful for others reading this thread.[/quote]
I understand your point of view. I agree with you that PPC has a better chance of fulfilling it’s intended role than primecoin, simply because there are already so many established options for quick spammy currencies. PoS is certainly more innovative than the prime number finding. There’s even a PoS only spammy option out there (though far less developed).
I think Primecoin makes sense as a complement to Peercoin especially if energy conservation/multi-use is important in the future.
The question is whether the energy multi-use of primecoin is enough to justify switching currencies in the minds of the masses. Are there any other coins that do something other than proof work, when it proofs work?
I try to keep a few Primecoin on hand. I don’t have much crypto in general, but I’d say maybe 10% is in XPM.
I don’t know enough about these issues to help out with it, but I agree this would be a much better marketing angle than telling people it searches for prime numbers. Prime numbers might be interesting to scientific minded people, but not the masses. The marketing needs to be something that affects everyone, something that people should actually care about.
Are you saying here that the way its designed prevents centralization of mining through ASICs like what has happened to Bitcoin? This way everyone on their home computer can mine XPM and not just a couple people with expensive machinery. Now this would be something to talk about. Or, is it still possible to create ASICs for Primecoin? It’s just harder, so it hasn’t been done yet. This is something everyone would care about, as opposed to prime numbers. Everyone would be able to join in the mining.
I spread this thread around on the Peercoin and Primecoin subreddit. I actually think we should ask Sunny more questions on the relationship between Peercoin and Primecoin in the upcoming interview.
I’ve been asking a few questions from the perspective of someone new to Crypto - hoping to see more of Primecoin unravel into factual usable information.
The highlights we have uncovered or that are included:
* Cap on Primecoin some approximation of 50million to 1billion
* Primecoin is ASIC unfriendly/hostile making it a more 'fair coin'
* Primecoin deal with transactions at a much faster rate
- This point COULD be a great factor in 'real market' usage, but there doesn't seem to be any major vendor/merchant interests? (Would be nice to improve coin)
* Highly innovative - Primecoin seeks new Primes to help science - it may use energy, but it creates uses from that energy above Primecoin alone
* Primecoin is much less deflationary over Bitcoin
- This point gives new comers a fairly equal chance to buy without high rates
- This point also strengthens the fact that Primecoin's potential for day to day stability and usability are far improved over other coins.
* For the techies - Cloud mining potential
This is what we’ve brought to the surface on that thread thus far. Sebs - you’ve been helpful as hell in getting things to the surface on that side, so thank you.
I feel it is also necessary to have open source pool software with an open source miner for Primecoin. (jhPrimeMiner, at least recent versions are closed source and so is rapidprime. No pool’s source is available)
And there we have it. This is what people care about and should be marketed as such. I’m sure there are people that have already delved into these issues, but we would need to know how full proof this asic-resistant claim is before we put it out there with marketing. What is it exactly that Vertcoin and Primecoin do differently to make them asic-resistant and which coin is superior in that area and why. We need to know the answers to these questions if we want to go this route.