Peercoin's potential

I wanted to share my view on Peercoin’s potential, and like to know your guys’ opinion on it.

There is a lot going on in cryptoland, smart contract are being created and hacked, new economies are rising and falling.
But in the end the only one that succeeded in so far is Bitcoin (IMO).
Several altcoins are trying to reinvent the blockchain and thereby introduce security vulnerabilities.
The core of bitcoin is what shouldn’t be changed. The bitcoin script system hasn’t been used to it’s full potential yet and altcoins are already reinventing it.

Peercoin sits in the perfect position. It didn’t change the core working principles of bitcoin, but it fixed the major flaws it has:

[ul][li]Inflation (operational cost)[/li]
[li]Centralization[/li][/ul]

The first flaw is quite clear and very well understood.
However, about the second flaw there has been lot’s of debate especially around checkpointing.
I believe decentralization is the major selling point for peercoin.
[member=30983]peerchemist[/member] 's Peerbox made our network extremely strong and decentralized due to the large number of full nodes running today.
And still we build upon the proven script system that is built by bitcoin.

Counterparty has proven that much can be done by just using the bitcoin chain with it’s standard transaction types.
However they are unable to use the script system to it’s full potential, because without mining blocks yourself, you can’t get these in the chain.
Here lies a huge potential for PeerAssets and PeerKeeper!
Not only are we simplifying the whole XCP architecture, we are able to get non-standard transactions in the chain and push the chain to a new level without compromising the security of the standard transactions!

This is why I believe Peercoin will eventually grow to become a major player again.

Let’s show the world what we can do!
Join the discussion, support the projects under development and start spreading the word!

Peercoin can easily be explained as “Bitcoin done right”. When I say Bitcoin here I say it as a public blockchain, and a coin for value storage. Not as a “settlement network” in what it is turning now.

However now when Bitcoin is starting to change with sidechains as proposed by Blockstream and lightning network by the same company I wonder should Peercoin keep following the same road or should it try to run it’s own path with it’s own technology and appropriate changes to blockchain technology?

I believe this is not a question about what peercoin should do.
Bitcoin didn’t take any action on this either, it was blockstream and others.

Peercoin, just like bitcoin, should not move at all.
The question where we as the community should invest in, to grow the peercoin ecosystem around the current chain.

We would like to see [member=79]Sunny King[/member] to participate in this discussion,This is peer’s way where to go

As I know, almost nobody likes to make big changes to Peercoin.

I like peercoin. Thanks for working on/with it :slight_smile:

I always thought that Peercoin would succeed, if Bitcoin failed. It would be great to see it make it on it’s own and that’s probably also possible. The way to make it work on it’s on is, I believe, to Peercoin interface as much as possible with as much as possible. Why? Because it’s all about the network effect. The more things Peercoin interface with, the greater the network effect.

So, what are the low hanging fruits?

  1. We should interface first with the things that requires the least changes to Peercoin.
  2. Then interface with the best risk/effort to reward stuff.

Probably we should make it easy for people to join in, in this effort. Maybe create a sorted list of stuff we want to interface with.

There are already good tools for this: peer4commit and this forum.

???

EDIT: Let’s say we create this really, really smart thing tech thing that Bitcoin can then just copy+paste. No, let’s do it the otherway around. Let other project spend resources on developing lightning network etc,. Better to spend time doing stuff that can not be copy+pasted.

staying close to bitcoin would make it easier to merge sigwit once it is ready.
This is one that solves the malleability which is a must fix in my view.
In addition, the version byte is cool to

My understanding is that there is still a lot of deeply entrenched, fundamental opposition to proof-of-stake. That’s a big barrier to overcome. Even if that happens, there are plenty of PoS coins out there. Yes, Peercoin was the first implementation, but that does not guarantee widespread adoption (eg. we had Friendster, then MySpace, before Facebook hit paydirt).

I noticed that NXT has seen a big runup in market cap in recent days.

I agree with icebubble and thethundergames. Peercoin is a drop-o=in replacement of bitcoin, except for the POW-specific parts. The problem with peercoin is that it has not been updated to recent bitcoin releases. Fixing it all by Sunny seems to be very hard. Peercoin need experienced devs submitting pull requests.

I think Peercoin compliments any transactional coin, for day-to-day LARGE transactions as a store of wealth.

The problem with cryptocurrency today, is that there is very little cross-coin cooperation.

THINK: You can change your Euros into U.S. Dollars quite easily. In many countries, you can spend the local national currency “or” the equivalent of U.S. Dollars. This is cross-fiat cooperation. Value recognized.

THINK: You can have some gold, and travel to anywhere in the world where gold is acknowledged, and convert it into the local currency equivalent too.

THINK: Peercoin isn’t a replacement for Bitcoin. It is a complimentary side chain for store of wealth, like gold.

Huh? How would that work?

Let’s say that Peercoin is agreed to be worth 50x Bitcoin.

There could be a merging / conversion, where all Bitcoins were converted to Peercoin as a store of wealth.

Bitcoin (or any other suitable cryptocoin) would then act as the daily transactional currency. Money could flow in/out of Peercoin and Bitcoin based on this…

All large transactions >50 bitcoins would be handled on the peercoin chain.

All small transactions <50 bitcoins would be handled on the bitcoin chain.

Got $25,000 worth to transfer? Send it via Peercoin. It’s faster. (Our blocks won’t be as busy)

Got to buy a $2.50 coffee? Buy it with Bitcoin. It’s faster (their blocks no longer compete with large money transfers)

Its hard to explain these things, because as humans, our minds start darting in all the reasons why something couldn’t work.

I know… I know… market determines the price. However, this is an example of how things might work (but I don’t see how they can yet).

But if Peercoin and Bitcoin were built at the same time by Satoshi, and released with these concepts in mind, I bet you that from block 1 of ppc, and 1 block one of btc, this could have worked very nicely.

Where we’ll see this in 10 years is yet to be known by any one. None of us are holding a crystal ball.

[quote=“ppcman, post:11, topic:3964”]Got $25,000 worth to transfer? Send it via Peercoin. It’s faster. (Our blocks won’t be as busy)

Got to buy a $2.50 coffee? Buy it with Bitcoin. It’s faster (their blocks no longer compete with large money transfers)[/quote]

As I recall, Primecoin was/is intended to fill the “Bitcoin” role in the above scenario. ;D

[quote=“learnmore, post:12, topic:3964”][quote=“ppcman, post:11, topic:3964”]Got $25,000 worth to transfer? Send it via Peercoin. It’s faster. (Our blocks won’t be as busy)

Got to buy a $2.50 coffee? Buy it with Bitcoin. It’s faster (their blocks no longer compete with large money transfers)[/quote]

As I recall, Primecoin was/is intended to fill the “Bitcoin” role in the above scenario. ;D[/quote]

You’re right! It could have, still might, or, that Primecoin technology might be used for some thing else in the future.

All we can do is create these tools, and if they are good, find ways to use them. :slight_smile: They will get acknowledged and when the world is tired of chasing the coin-of-the-day, these older chains might get pretty attractive.

Indeed, probably a momentous task.

I think that Sunny King has a day job too. Perhaps even a family?! ::slight_smile:

I can see why he’s focusing on protecting it against exploits and weaknesses. It’s up to the community to help out with the rest.

I’ve just been reading how to run blockstream’s elements alpha.
https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements/blob/alpha/alpha-README.md

This is totally unusable, just like Peershares (I’m trying stir up the hornet’s nest here >:D)!

This is a great opportunity! We could make it work with the peercoin chain and put a nice interface on it.
What do you guys think?

[quote=“hrobeers, post:15, topic:3964”]I’ve just been reading how to run blockstream’s elements alpha.
https://github.com/ElementsProject/elements/blob/alpha/alpha-README.md

This is totally unusable, just like Peershares (I’m trying stir up the hornet’s nest here >:D)!

This is a great opportunity! We could make it work with the peercoin chain and put a nice interface on it.
What do you guys think?[/quote]

Oh and make sure to read about these cool features!
https://www.elementsproject.org/elements/confidential-transactions/
https://www.elementsproject.org/elements/schnorr-signatures/
https://www.elementsproject.org/elements/relative-lock-time/
https://www.elementsproject.org/elements/deterministic-pegs/
https://www.elementsproject.org/elements/opcodes/
https://www.elementsproject.org/elements/deterministic-pegs/

I believe that relative lock time would be exceedingly useful and open the doors to a variety of new applications such as escrow, payment channels, or bidirectional pegs. The problem with using nSequence and nLockTime concerning the Bitcoin Network is that it doesn’t force the miners to use the highest sequence number for a spending transaction so they may try to maximize profits and choose a lower sequence number transaction that contains the higher fee. Since Peercoin fees are burned would this be considered a non-issue?

Link to BIP 112: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0112.mediawiki

Confidential Transactions sounds incredible. It seems that it will enable the additional exchange of private memo data such as invoice numbers, refund addresses and more without any further increase in transaction size. Also, being able to keep the transaction amounts private while preserving the ability of the public network to verify that the ledger entries still add up is a huge step forward in my opinion.

It would be great to see Peercoin incorporate these :smiley:

Incorporating private transactions into PPC might be too much, too soon. There already is a coin making significant headway into that (Shadow) and intended for the underground stuff.

The best role for PPC might be exactly what it is now: a very secure and stable coin secured by PoW but still minable. “Digital gold” is a good way to describe it, and there will always be a role for gold. At the same time there is also a need for a coin for quick, small, and numerous transactions, and neither PPC nor BTC is that.

I’m no expert on blockchain tech but maybe there could be a sidechain or relative of PPC intended for that? Maybe with a 60 second or shorter confirmation time and transaction memos supported by the wallets. Then you’d have a CPU-optimized algorithm. The blockchain would be huge, but as long as there is a light wallet available you could have a non-destructive transaction fee plus a small mining reward and that would support a few thousand aficionados around the world willing to dedicate terabytes of storage and a CPU to securing the network.

I think you will find that it’s hard to stir about hot emotions here. Peercoin, for some weird reason, seems to attract emotionally stable people that have nothing against critique and seems to take the technology not so personally. It’s weird, but great.

Why do you find it totally unusable?

[quote=“Automatic Monkey, post:18, topic:3964”]Incorporating private transactions into PPC might be too much, too soon. There already is a coin making significant headway into that (Shadow) and intended for the underground stuff.

The best role for PPC might be exactly what it is now: a very secure and stable coin secured by PoW but still minable. “Digital gold” is a good way to describe it, and there will always be a role for gold. At the same time there is also a need for a coin for quick, small, and numerous transactions, and neither PPC nor BTC is that.

I’m no expert on blockchain tech but maybe there could be a sidechain or relative of PPC intended for that? Maybe with a 60 second or shorter confirmation time and transaction memos supported by the wallets. Then you’d have a CPU-optimized algorithm. The blockchain would be huge, but as long as there is a light wallet available you could have a non-destructive transaction fee plus a small mining reward and that would support a few thousand aficionados around the world willing to dedicate terabytes of storage and a CPU to securing the network.[/quote]

I agree. We don’t need to change the PPC protocol for this. I’m suggesting to make these blockstream products work on PPC.
As we are trying to be the BTC alternative, we might want to make this work as well.
But since we have more control over our chain, we might even make it better. Blockstream used some workaround to make some stuff work as the small patches would take to long to be merged into bitcoin.

Usability of elements alpha: Ok I was exaggerating a bit, but setting up the sidechain is very similar to running your own Peershares network (see next point).

Usability of Peershares: Did you ever ran your own chain? If you did, can you imaging less technical people to do this? Can you even imagine them just running the client you compiled? Do you know what an IT organization is required to distribute your binary client to all platforms?