Thread Intro:
So, Itsik and others have asked me to write an article for letstalkbitcoin or such...I don't know that site too well. This is my home. Plus, publishing instills a "what should i do" sense of anxiety. Instead, I'll ramble on in some posts here and someone else can base or edit a full article on this...
I've been in crypto for over a year. IRL, a mechanical systems licensing regulatory engineer...no economics training besides budgeting, but control volumes, systems, politics, and legalese combined with self-taught anarcho-capitalism. My posts go on forever, and sometimes people miss the point...combined, these are meant to form the basis for a working philosophy / novel...we'll see. A friend calls them "Shaggy Dog Stories":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaggy_dog_storyI'll call them "Uncle Max's Fun-time Chat-a-longs". First is based on Adam's great paper, specifically the paragraph:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=1854.msg21206#msg21206Everybody Plays by the Rules, Even The Creator
Just like Bitcoin, DACs and DACPs are consensus driven, rules-based systems. To be part of the system is to follow the rules, so there can be no pre-mining, no individuals with privileged status at all. Privilege is the antithesis of efficiency, and these structures seek efficiency above all things.
My thoughts in response:
I, Operator: The DAO of Trading
For all intents and purposes, bitcoin is a commercial failure and has only risen on the waves of being the first popular cryptocurrency. But the real value is not BTC/USD, but in the unrecognized potential of distrubuted accounting system technology in general - i.e., the altcoins.
There is "what a coin does" and "what a coin is used" for. There is also "who uses the coin". Bitcoin is just a general system of account - who transferred what to who. We use it for financial value transmission...but it doesn't "do" much else, besides control the money supply. Namecoin was the first "functional" altcoin. All this is the software, or "DAC" realm.
The DACP realm - Adam describes as "a sense of permanence"...which is close. I'd say more an evolving "objective truth" sense to it. That's "what it the coin is (intended to be) used for" - bitcoin is value transmission, so is LTC and FTC on a faster scale. NMC and XPM are intended for something else by their users - promote uncensored DNS and prime number search. Beyond just the "network code" of the DAC, there's the "network objective" - the goal of its users.
In the example of Protoshares, their DACP starts with their SCSL license - 10% of future spinoffs. It's community goal is more value - profitz. For MMC, it starts with the Manifesto - 5% for elected nonprofit charities and community projects. Sure, one affects future stock price, but which is easier for accounting / commercial separation of transactions?
No one seems to care about anything about a coin besides ticker...but not all are equal. BTC was a...mistake. Meant as, probably, a demo concept and not even proof of concept...Grand success for crypto, but time to move on...How do we do that?
BTC's value grew over time...it started from nothing, really - just volunteer labor. Pretty much all coins start with some value injection nowadays - labor, private capital...or "premining". In what I would call "headless" coins - it's the intangible developer and community labor. In DACs, it's an IPO, initial project funding, blockchain spinoff / dividend / etc. A 100% premined coin is called a "private corporation"...or, "my wallet".
So, skip the premine stuff. Yes, an initial distortion, but important part is how it was used, not where it came from / etc...Let's move on.
Back to DACP - it starts with a "mission statement" that the community uses to guide its general operations. In a corporation - this is the departments and procedures / etc. But neither the DAC nor DACP are...people. So how can they be an economic system?
The last part of the system, what is missing from adam's paper - is the user. At various levels - developer, miner, merchant, trader, consumer, outsider. I call this the operator of the corporation - who it markets to - the Distributed Autonomous Operator.
That is, essentially, all of us in various degrees. Anyone doing this for a while has performed in each role. Anyone trying commercially has to balance all roles. MMC has done a pretty good job classifying the different "professional" roles that each of us play...although their descriptions are kind of sparse.
But, I think we've also created a new discipline. Professionally, we have to balance a number of existing disciplines. But, just like in other sciences like math and physics, the rules change as you approach limits - i.e., distributed economic system management. Each DAO performs many different tasks, in many disciplines, with many different demands begging to be the most profitable...ADHD with 20 part-time jobs...
So, for a DAO / DACP to be successful...it has to "engage" it's DAOs... Each coin is a pachinko machine with flashing lights and whistles trying to attract new money from passers-by...including the MMC officers and their employees / etc. Everyone is free and autonomous with no repercussions - you have to beg, trust, and hope in the markets and the person on the other end of the transaction...
I believe that, in the end, every cryptocurrency transaction should come down to a peer-to-peer transfer between trusted individuals. Not all...just the system or chain of transfers. That's the only way to safely exchange funds in such a wild west system. I've lost funds so many ways...the only times I've gotten them back was face-to-face, or from good people with good community reps.
Which brings me to the MMC officer positions as an example of a "trust schema" in a coin system...but first - systems.
Talking systems will drive you crazy. I was mechanical systems, not general "systems engineering" more common in IT / software (b/c of more complex supplier / client webs). But, everything is related, and word meanings change everywhere depending on who you are or what system you are in...you sound crazy to everyone. But, every Supersystem has a System with Subsystems and all are Super/subsystems of others / etc... "Safety" in one department means "under budget" in another department, etc... So, you need to think in basic units / building blocks and extend up to full macro-network.
Anyways, MMC Officers as part of DACP - the election process is much more than a "free coinz" scramble that it was in the beginning. That was ugly, but needed, kinda like any IPO. I do regret that it "spoiled" some interest in voting. You'd think CMO would make a website with simple "make a blockchain poll" features, but...only so much time.
Another sidenote: I loathe the "community development" and "paid development" terms...we're an elected development team trying to support and build a community. It's not a "give us your code / money", it should be a "give us your idea and we'll help you build it" - an MMC Academy...
Aside from personal politics, voting in a general coding sense is the first thing you need for an altchain - "I am different". Namecoin / etc, are forks in the code. MMC 2.0, BTS, etc are both code forks, and "funding forks". I can make a similar spin-off / fork by voting within the MMC addresses to form a "closed" network. Can also use voting for basic selection and rank algorithms - user preferences, blockchain cookies, community ratings, etc.
But in politics, it focuses the DACP. It's an evolving "what is this coin used for" by the example set by the officers. I'd prefer it to be more evolving, and treated as "running / funding programs" vs. people - even if it's the same person's programs...think of them as terms.
But, it's better than BTC - money laundering, drugs, etc...all that can be done in the shadows of the "unlicensed" non-DACP-approved MMC network. But, we also have the approved / licensed uses supported by the officers (and those who follow / run / support the elections).
So, there you have it:
DAC / DACP / DAO
Client software, user license and community practices, community of users.
Any questions?