Given the number of posters in the STH Aeon Mining Pool Beta Access thread, it seems that there is a high level of interest and enthusiasm amongst readers for the venture. So far however, discussions regarding the Aeon pool have been centred around purely technical aspects - how to create a wallet, set up Docker etc. What is missing is any sort of questioning as to whether or not mining Aeon is the best use of our combined computing power.
Let me start the ball rolling by throwing out a few points for discussion. Please note that I am making this up as I go along, and so some of these points may be contradictory. I would encourage you all to tear my arguments apart, as what I am looking for is to hear some alternative points of view.
First, there is a difference between using something as a store of value, and using it as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies have yet to see widespread adoption as a medium of exchange - at least for goods that may be possessed legally. An analagous situation would be stamp collecting. Stamps can be collected in the hope that they increase in value, or they can be attached to an envelope and used to send a letter. At present, Aeon has no practical purpose.
I recently had a conversation with someone purporting to be from the Aeon blockchain development team, and took the opportunity to ask them if Aeon was intended to be a solution to an existing problem, or a solution looking for a problem. I was unsurprised to find that the answer was the later.
I will say that the one thing that seems to be in Aeon's favour relative to other cryptocurrencies is that it has been specifically designed to run on mobile devices, which is a point of difference that I did not pay much attention to at first. If someone from AliExpress for example decides that Aeon is the ideal medium for payment due to its ability to allow customers to undertake transactions on a tablet or smartphone safely and securely however, then hold onto your hat.
Personally I cannot see this situation arising for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the supply of Aeon is limited. There can only be a certain number of AEON, and once they have all been mined, thats it. This makes Aeon more akin to gold than US Dollars, insofar that the supply is limited - you cannot just print more gold. Secondly, I find it hard to imagine a world where Aeon (or any other cryptocurrency for that matter) can exist in and of itself. There will always be a need to exhange it to/from fiat, but this may simply be a failure of imagination on my part.
How about using Aeon simply as a store of value then? Well, given that it has no intrinsic value, one AEON is worth precisely what someone is willing to pay for it. The whole thing is a confidence scam in which we are all willingly complicit. That is not to say that fortunes cannot be made along the way of course - just look at the history of Bitcoin.
Whilst cryptocurrencies remain unregulated, all of the techniques for manipulating markets that would be illegal if applied to share markets are able to be used with impunity. Pump and dump, front running - it is the wild west out there at the moment. It is well within the capacity of the STH readership to shift the Aeon market - all it would take is one of the STH heavy hitters who currently run one of @Patrick's Monero images on their cloud infrastructure during off-peak periods to turn their attention to Aeon and the network hash rate could easily increase by an order of magnitude.
Anyhow, enough rambling. Let me know what you think.
Let me start the ball rolling by throwing out a few points for discussion. Please note that I am making this up as I go along, and so some of these points may be contradictory. I would encourage you all to tear my arguments apart, as what I am looking for is to hear some alternative points of view.
First, there is a difference between using something as a store of value, and using it as a medium of exchange. Cryptocurrencies have yet to see widespread adoption as a medium of exchange - at least for goods that may be possessed legally. An analagous situation would be stamp collecting. Stamps can be collected in the hope that they increase in value, or they can be attached to an envelope and used to send a letter. At present, Aeon has no practical purpose.
I recently had a conversation with someone purporting to be from the Aeon blockchain development team, and took the opportunity to ask them if Aeon was intended to be a solution to an existing problem, or a solution looking for a problem. I was unsurprised to find that the answer was the later.
I will say that the one thing that seems to be in Aeon's favour relative to other cryptocurrencies is that it has been specifically designed to run on mobile devices, which is a point of difference that I did not pay much attention to at first. If someone from AliExpress for example decides that Aeon is the ideal medium for payment due to its ability to allow customers to undertake transactions on a tablet or smartphone safely and securely however, then hold onto your hat.
Personally I cannot see this situation arising for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the supply of Aeon is limited. There can only be a certain number of AEON, and once they have all been mined, thats it. This makes Aeon more akin to gold than US Dollars, insofar that the supply is limited - you cannot just print more gold. Secondly, I find it hard to imagine a world where Aeon (or any other cryptocurrency for that matter) can exist in and of itself. There will always be a need to exhange it to/from fiat, but this may simply be a failure of imagination on my part.
How about using Aeon simply as a store of value then? Well, given that it has no intrinsic value, one AEON is worth precisely what someone is willing to pay for it. The whole thing is a confidence scam in which we are all willingly complicit. That is not to say that fortunes cannot be made along the way of course - just look at the history of Bitcoin.
Whilst cryptocurrencies remain unregulated, all of the techniques for manipulating markets that would be illegal if applied to share markets are able to be used with impunity. Pump and dump, front running - it is the wild west out there at the moment. It is well within the capacity of the STH readership to shift the Aeon market - all it would take is one of the STH heavy hitters who currently run one of @Patrick's Monero images on their cloud infrastructure during off-peak periods to turn their attention to Aeon and the network hash rate could easily increase by an order of magnitude.
Anyhow, enough rambling. Let me know what you think.
