I am voting no on all charity-only proposals, including those tied to a challenge.
Pre-proposal: DASH PrivateSend De-Anonymization Contest
- Thread starter DashDude
- Start date
DashDude
Active member
@GrandMasterDash , do you have a good idea for a different incentive to get well known judges to participate or to increase the PR value of the proposal? We don't have to use a charitable contribution, but I am struggling with other ideas...
I wasn't knocking the underlying idea of a prize fund. And I'm not that keen on generating the money before it's been cracked, if ever.
Why don't we just submit a 5 dash proposal pledge...
"We the Dash DAO hereby declare a $1 MILLION DOLLAR PRIZE to any entity successfully cracking Dash's PrivateSend according to the following rules..".
If we can pledge a 2MB block increase and be held to it a year later, then we can uphold this pledge also.
DashDude
Active member
That's one way to do it. I'm looking for something more viral, though. Something that will get traction outside of the "DASH echochamber."
True, but the proposal could be raised a little to pay for press releases etc.
Okay, unlikely, but what if PrivateSend is compromised in some way.. a viral campaign to crack it would be met with an equal force of shame. Sure, go for the growing prize fund idea or something else, but why the money has to be created first?
I like the idea of a well publicized and substantial prize for anyone who can break a private-send transaction.
If the prize money just sits there and sits there, we can use that for tremendous PR. However, we also state up front that in the unlikely event they can break a private-send transaction, they have to reveal the methods used so that we can improve private-send.
If you pitch the contest properly, it's a win/win.
In the unlikely event someone breaks it, we fix that and then immediately double the bounty.
I don't care if we generate the money before or after. It is somewhat problematic who holds the money and who certifies the transaction is broken or not.
If the prize money just sits there and sits there, we can use that for tremendous PR. However, we also state up front that in the unlikely event they can break a private-send transaction, they have to reveal the methods used so that we can improve private-send.
If you pitch the contest properly, it's a win/win.
In the unlikely event someone breaks it, we fix that and then immediately double the bounty.
I don't care if we generate the money before or after. It is somewhat problematic who holds the money and who certifies the transaction is broken or not.
DashDude
Active member
Following feedback from the community, I have modified the proposal as follows:
To move to a formal proposal I'd need clarity on the following:
- Changed contest prize to start at 125 DASH and then increase quarterly by 125 DASH up to a max of 500 DASH to make the contest more newsworthy throughout the year
- Changed contest duration to 12 months
- Removed contest prize funding from proposal. Prize will be requested only if it is needed to pay a winner.
To move to a formal proposal I'd need clarity on the following:
- Need confirmation from the core team that any known PrivateSend vulnerability has been addressed and that we are as certain as we can be that the PrivateSend contest transaction will NOT be de-anonymized. @AndyDark or @UdjinM6 can you weigh in? If this proposal is funded can you serve on the DASH core technical opinion team (if it ever becomes necessary)?
- Need permission for me to use the email [email protected] for the contest. @kot who needs to approve? We can use an unofficial email if necessary, but this seems more professional.
- Need multi-sig escrow signers. @kot had volunteered on a previous proposal. Need two more. Suggestions?
I really like the idea and encourage you to push ahead with it, a few points of potential improvement though.
Why should this expire at all? Why not have an ongoing bounty for anyone who de-anonymizes private-send? You would have to set it up in a way that the judges, reviewers and contest admin can be changed over time and when there are upgrades to private send you will have to do a new transaction. But if this is a good idea for the next 12 months it also a good idea for the 12 months after that and so on.
Also I think if private-send is found to be breakable, fixing it and doubling the prize is a great idea.
Non-dash people (who are the target market) would argue
This is not just to placate the haters. Media would be much more likely to report on a $100,000 contest than a 500 dash contest. Remember you trying to get this to go outside of our echochamber and people only care about 500 dash inside our echo chamber.
Why should this expire at all? Why not have an ongoing bounty for anyone who de-anonymizes private-send? You would have to set it up in a way that the judges, reviewers and contest admin can be changed over time and when there are upgrades to private send you will have to do a new transaction. But if this is a good idea for the next 12 months it also a good idea for the 12 months after that and so on.
Also I think if private-send is found to be breakable, fixing it and doubling the prize is a great idea.
Non-dash people (who are the target market) would argue
- Good cryptographers could break private send but won't bother because they dont want a dash prize anyway.
- if private-send anonymity is broken the value of dash will plummet so a prize denominated in dash would be worthless.
This is not just to placate the haters. Media would be much more likely to report on a $100,000 contest than a 500 dash contest. Remember you trying to get this to go outside of our echochamber and people only care about 500 dash inside our echo chamber.
DashDude
Active member
Good questions, @Bitedge . Will try to address them below.
Why should this expire at all? - A year from now DASH and the crypto world will be much different, Evolution will be out and we'll probably have other features we want to promote. Other coins are working on privacy features, etc. If this still makes sense next year we can launch a new version, perhaps with some different angles for better PR. Finally, I think limited time offers tend to "pull" better and have better PR value.
If private-send anonymity is broken the value of dash will plummet so a prize denominated in dash would be worthless. - I doubt it would plummet that far, but is a good point nonetheless. I had always intended to market the contest as 500 DASH along with the ~$100,000 USD equivalent.
The way to defeat these arguments and make a more robust and marketable campaign would be to make the prize $100,000 (approx 500 dash at today's value and a nice round figure) worth of the winners prefered crypto, like bitcoin or etherium. The prize would still be generated in dash through a treasury payout but the contest admin would just shapeshift the dash to the winners preferred currency before paying it out. - Good suggestion. I will modify accordingly.
Why should this expire at all? - A year from now DASH and the crypto world will be much different, Evolution will be out and we'll probably have other features we want to promote. Other coins are working on privacy features, etc. If this still makes sense next year we can launch a new version, perhaps with some different angles for better PR. Finally, I think limited time offers tend to "pull" better and have better PR value.
If private-send anonymity is broken the value of dash will plummet so a prize denominated in dash would be worthless. - I doubt it would plummet that far, but is a good point nonetheless. I had always intended to market the contest as 500 DASH along with the ~$100,000 USD equivalent.
The way to defeat these arguments and make a more robust and marketable campaign would be to make the prize $100,000 (approx 500 dash at today's value and a nice round figure) worth of the winners prefered crypto, like bitcoin or etherium. The prize would still be generated in dash through a treasury payout but the contest admin would just shapeshift the dash to the winners preferred currency before paying it out. - Good suggestion. I will modify accordingly.
camosoul
Well-known member
Eh... I get it. and normally I'm all for this sort of thing...
but
Haven't those assholes from XMR been all about how useless DS is, how easily they can deanonymize it, etc.
Isn't knocking DASH down and pumping their one-trick-pony shitcoin a reward in itself?
Oh, that never happened? Over two years later? Still nothing?
Oh, well, in that case, I'll vote for it. It's probably just because the incentive isn't large enough. I bet if we offer money the XMR jeniuses will find it worth doing.
And just in case nobody noticed. [/sarc]
but
Haven't those assholes from XMR been all about how useless DS is, how easily they can deanonymize it, etc.
Isn't knocking DASH down and pumping their one-trick-pony shitcoin a reward in itself?
Oh, that never happened? Over two years later? Still nothing?
Oh, well, in that case, I'll vote for it. It's probably just because the incentive isn't large enough. I bet if we offer money the XMR jeniuses will find it worth doing.
Yeah, that.
And just in case nobody noticed. [/sarc]
IIRC, the argument against PrivateSend was based on dash being hosted on VPNs...
Anyway, monero lost all credibility a long time ago.
I'm now thinking we're getting this all wrong. I've been reflecting on what Evan and others have been saying about PoS vs PoW, and also his comments about SegWit. It seems to me, the greater prize is breaking coins using PoS / SegWit. I mean, if we could break nem's DPoS, that would be a huge blow to many other PoS coins. And if we could fuck up bitcoin's SegWit, woah, I can't even begin to imagine the prize for doing that. So it seems to me, while the odds of breaking bitcon's SegWit is low, the opportunity should not be missed given the enormous potential prize.
I realise bitcoin's market cap is already the biggest prize fund going, but if SegWit is so bad that dash dare not touch it, and if SegWit does indeed lead to more centralization, then that there is the target to bring it down.
I am strongly suggesting this proposal take this two-pronged approach, with a very aggressive prize fund for breaking or debunking other cryptos.
I realise bitcoin's market cap is already the biggest prize fund going, but if SegWit is so bad that dash dare not touch it, and if SegWit does indeed lead to more centralization, then that there is the target to bring it down.
I am strongly suggesting this proposal take this two-pronged approach, with a very aggressive prize fund for breaking or debunking other cryptos.
I have no interest in attacking other coins. There are plenty of people out there that are going to do that from other communities. I want to be the classy community.
I don't even view Bitcoin as a competitor to Dash. Dash is going to replace money to actually buy stuff. And replace banks and paypal and help people in 3rd world countries that either have predatory banking, or no banking services at all.
Bitcoin wrote off all those use cases by failing to scale rapidly to keep transaction costs in the pennies range, not the dollars range. They're just handing that to us on a silver platter. And the potential market is so very huge, the top 20 cryptos could all go up 10x in value and still not put much of a dent in the world economy.
How many people in total have done anything meaningful in all the cryptocurrencies put together? I bet it's less than 150,000. I'm more interested in the other 7 billion. Let's market our advantages to them rather than engage in shouting matches with other coins.
Talking smack has a way of coming back to bite you. I will respectfully correct people if they spread misinformation about Dash, but otherwise we're just going to keep our head down and keep chugging to victory.
I understand and I'm not suggesting we engage in a shouting match. I am saying we should definitely play both sides from a technical point of view. Sure, find vulnerabilities in our own system, but also in our competitors... bitcoin / bitcoin cash / nem are our competitor... you don't have to agree with their philosophies / technical merits, you simply have to accept that they are potentially winning mind share. That 7 billion you talk about may be happy enough with a relatively centralized system using SegWit. WeChat is proof positive of the kind of compromises people are willing to accept... breaking WeChat would be a huge prize for crypto.
It's like this.. the odds on winning the lottery are very small, but the only guarantee you have is, not playing will give you zero chance of winning. And, of course, you should not waste too much playing the lottery.. but logic tells you, you MUST play because staying in the game is the most important part, the only way you could possibly win.
If there are weaknesses in other coins, they will be found. I don't have to expend energy and resources to do that. And if we did actively find a weakness, we're going to look like Monero just trying to hurt other coins instead of fixing their own crap.
But Dash has a strategy to actively find/fix/replace any weaknesses. And the new PR team/company will undoubtedly use that fact.
Just wait till the new Radiolab ads go live, we should see a nice bump. I'm guessing that alone will bring us to #8 on Coinmarketcap.
But when properly functional Evolution comes out, and we start spending real money on coordinated social media advertising, you won't have to worry about NEM any more.
But Dash has a strategy to actively find/fix/replace any weaknesses. And the new PR team/company will undoubtedly use that fact.
Just wait till the new Radiolab ads go live, we should see a nice bump. I'm guessing that alone will bring us to #8 on Coinmarketcap.
But when properly functional Evolution comes out, and we start spending real money on coordinated social media advertising, you won't have to worry about NEM any more.
camosoul
Well-known member
DASH: Cryptocurrency for grown-ups.
It sounds like smacktalk, but it's really not... Grown-ups have seen the Bitclones, and they don't take it seriously.
stan.distortion
Well-known member
-1 to looking for weaknesses in other coins too, other open source projects related to Dash might make sense though:
https://blog.trezor.io/addressing-concerns-about-trezor-firmware-1-5-2-4c1f766034c7
https://blog.trezor.io/addressing-concerns-about-trezor-firmware-1-5-2-4c1f766034c7
I have no objection to looking at what other projects in the cryptosphere are up to. It would be foolish not to. I very much object to having a highly publicized contest (with a big reward) to find problems and weaknesses in other coins/projects. And if we do find issues, the way it's supposed to work with white hat people is to alert them to the problem and give them an opportunity to fix it. But not some big PR witch hunt. That just makes us look petty.