Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers • Hacker News Board

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#31

Post by nwh » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 10:55 PM UTC

ihuman wrote: post #27

nwh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weren't idiots? They accidentally hard forked their own currency without realising what they were doing by changing a transaction limit. The developers have no idea what's going on and it's readily apparent. http://4x.reddit.com/r/dogecoin/comments/1ufl1e/much_concern...

The same thing happened to bitcoin, though. http://bitcoin.org/en/alert/2013-03-11-chain-fork

No it did not. Bitcoin has trouble because there was a parameter in Berkeley DB that nobody thought would ever be hit (the number of locks associated with a particular table). They'd tested against this and believed the value to be enough, except that in very rare cases when values outside what they thought possible caused some nodes to reject a particular block. With a portion of the network seeing the block as invalid, the consensus was broken and the chain forked.

There were test cases, peer review and discussion about the potential problems. None of those occurred with dogecoin, who had a rabid developer changing values without understanding what they did.

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#32

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 10:57 PM UTC

hayksaakian wrote: post #29

ck2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the massive transaction that broke the chain and it forked or something else?

i think he's implying that since the large transaction was on an old version of the client, and caused the fork, that the Dogecoin devs are at fault.

[deleted]

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#33

Post by steveklabnik » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:00 PM UTC

willholloway wrote: post #3

Great article, but I disagree with one point. I do believe the value of one Doge will reach one dollar. A 100 billion market cap is just ~8 times that of Bitcoins. If Doge succeeds at its goal of being the tipping currency for the internet it will reach at least one dollar. Update: To expound on my point, I think Dogecoin solves the single biggest crisis the Internet has created, and that is "How do we compensate peo…

> This is coming from someone whose HN comment history has been very down on cryptocurrency. I now have the fanatic zeal of a convert.

This is exactly my story as well.

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#34

Post by steveklabnik » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

bitops wrote: post #6

You know most people don't want to believe that dogecoin is a real virtual currency. [EDIT: Apparently some people on HN have not seen 'Cool Runnings'.]

It's more that short posts that consist entirely of cultural references for the purpose of making a joke are downvoted.

Generally.

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#35

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:02 PM UTC

willholloway wrote: post #3

Great article, but I disagree with one point. I do believe the value of one Doge will reach one dollar. A 100 billion market cap is just ~8 times that of Bitcoins. If Doge succeeds at its goal of being the tipping currency for the internet it will reach at least one dollar. Update: To expound on my point, I think Dogecoin solves the single biggest crisis the Internet has created, and that is "How do we compensate peo…

[deleted]

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#36

Post by smtddr » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:03 PM UTC

oafitupa wrote: post #30

smtddr wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're all humans here... I think The Lotto is "absurd" but I still play it when it reaches those ridiculously high levels. Spending[1] $400 on CandyCrush is "absurd". The $999 iOS app "I'm rich" was "absurd". The idea such a thing as bitcoin, from an anonymous dev, somehow reaching $1,000 each is "absurd" .....but here we are. :) As much as I thought Dogecoin was ridiculous, I now know that I better go get some... ju…

"The idea such a thing as bitcoin, from an anonymous dev, somehow reaching $1,000 each is "absurd"" That's not absurd at all. Might be absurd to you if you are absurd though or not good at Math, like lots of other humans apparently are.

Heh, okay. So I take it you're a millionaire because when you first heard of bitcoin you were like "That's a great idea!!!" and minded/purchased millions of them. Or if you missed that train, you got onboard Litecoin when it was less than $5... or Namecoin when it was less than a dollar but shot up to $15 during November 2013....

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#37

Post by ck2 » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:04 PM UTC

nwh wrote: post #28

ck2 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the massive transaction that broke the chain and it forked or something else?

Yes. The author changed a value in an updated client that caused half of the network to see one chain as valid, and the other half to make scores of sub chains on the side. The value of the transaction was not the issue, but the developer not understanding how to maintain a consensus over hard forking changes.

If I am not mistaken, I think there was an emergency release because someone was flooding the blockchain with micro-transactions as an attack on dogecoin and they had to raise the transaction fee/minimum transfer.

Either with that or around that time they also had to do a patch to raise the transaction limit.

Both issues were hard to anticipate and I guess if you have to cause a fork, at least it happens while the chain was "young".

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#38

Post by Destitute » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:05 PM UTC

The fascinating thing about DOGECOIN, is the vast majority of the internet judge it purely based on its aesthetic and name. Take away the "DOGE" and it still has one of the most supportive, charitable, and active communities. All three of those are important to have a successful currency because that community grows.

People call it a joke or parody purely based on its name, and don't have the mental fortitude to think beyond the DOGE aesthetic which was intended as a spark to get the engine going.

DOGE could become the de-facto internet tipping protocol if they go that route.

Hell, they could even change the name and shut everyone up too... and then I wonder if people would still call it a joke currency or parody? Hmmm..

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#39

Post by dllthomas » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

willholloway wrote: post #3

Great article, but I disagree with one point. I do believe the value of one Doge will reach one dollar. A 100 billion market cap is just ~8 times that of Bitcoins. If Doge succeeds at its goal of being the tipping currency for the internet it will reach at least one dollar. Update: To expound on my point, I think Dogecoin solves the single biggest crisis the Internet has created, and that is "How do we compensate peo…

it would probably be a lot clearer if you spelled out "capitalization" instead of using "cap", in a context where there are also maximum values restricting things.

Re: Dogecoin and the Appeal of Small Numbers

#40

Post by petertodd » Wed, Jan 22, 2014, 11:16 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #37

nwh wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The author changed a value in an updated client that caused half of the network to see one chain as valid, and the other half to make scores of sub chains on the side. The value of the transaction was not the issue, but the developer not understanding how to maintain a consensus over hard forking changes.

If I am not mistaken, I think there was an emergency release because someone was flooding the blockchain with micro-transactions as an attack on dogecoin and they had to raise the transaction fee/minimum transfer. Either with that or around that time they also had to do a patch to raise the transaction limit. Both issues were hard to anticipate and I guess if you have to cause a fork, at least it happens while the ch…

There was nothing hard to anticipate about the dogecoin fork; literally hours after the commit making it possible was made I heard from Litecoin/Bitcoin developer Warren Togami among others that the Dogecoin devs were idiots who had just set themselves up for a fork. Similarly the micro-transactions flood was something people had predicted would happen well in advance.

To outsiders this stuff may seem mysterious and hard, but to people with real experience in this field it's easy to see that the Dogecoin team don't have a clue.