mimblewimble team mailing list archive

[Rhett Creighton <rhett@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi MimbleWimblers,

I'd like to suggest a different approach.  Rather than launch with zero
supply, MimbleWimble should start as a chain split of Bitcoin.  I
understand that the address scheme is different, but there are several ways
to solve this.  One way is to store all Bitcoin addresses with a non-zero
balance in a genesis block and treat these addresses similar to the way
other currencies have used "pre-sale" wallets.

Optionally, if we didn't want to worry about maintaining this prewallet
state over a long time, there could be a short time window where people
must sign a message to claim their MimbleWimble coins.  After bootstrapping
the initial supply, the blockchain could start running as a pure
MimbleWimble implementation and nodes could even choose to prune the
initial bitcoin bootstrapping blocks.

Then as far as branding and messaging goes, we could take a page out of
Bitcoin Cash's book.  Honestly, I wouldn't mind calling this chain
Bitcoin2.0 or something like that.

People of course would still be free to use legacy Bitcoin.  Bitcoin2.0
might only start with 10% of the market cap of Bitcoin Legacy.

I can understand the urge to create a "pure" chain implementation, but I
think that we have moved past the days where that's necessary for a project
like this, and honestly, it could set back the potential of MimbleWimble by
several years.

As an investor, I am very excited about the technology in MimbleWimble.
However, if it starts with zero supply then I'm in a really tough spot of
trying to figure out where to buy in.  After 6 months, the coin still has a
200% yearly inflation rate.  After 1 year, it's at 100% yearly inflation.
Will demand outpace that?  Maybe, but it's a much tougher spot to be in
than if supply was bootstrapped off of the Bitcoin blockchain.

Additionally, I don't think it's a stretch to think of MimbleWimble as
Bitcoin 2.0 technology.  It has many of the same goals as the original
Bitcoin with advancements that weren't available at the time and a much
nicer codebase.

-Rhett

On Wed, Sep 6, 2017 at 12:22 AM, Ignotus Peverell <
igno.peverell@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We're getting closer and closer to a testnet [1] and it may be a good idea
> to start thinking of outward communication. We want to have enough time to
> prepare so when the time comes, we don't get confused with the thousands of
> other projects in this noisy space, and have a chance to voice our
> strengths and differences. Messaging can also take time to refine. Now, as
> I know words like "narratives" (yeastplume used it first, not me :P) can
> make some developers' eyes glaze over, I'll start with something more fun
> and friendly: naming [2].
>
> We need names for a few things:
>
>    1. Our blockchain type. I'm happy to keep using MimbleWimble here. I
>    know that technically, the Grin blockchain will have quite a bit more than
>    just what's in the Jedusor white paper, but I think at a high level it's a
>    good approximation. Some people are also already familiar with it and heard
>    the name.
>    2. Our implementation. I'm not unhappy with grin but I'm not opposed
>    to renaming if too many folks are strongly against it.
>    3. Our coin. We have nothing so far here so we need to find a name. My
>    first inclination would be to accept propositions for names as replies to
>    this email, and then run a poll online. Sounds good as a process? We likely
>    need another name for smallest denominations too.
>
> To draw a parallel, in the Ethereum world 1) is Ethereum, 2) is Parity or
> geth, 3) is Ether/Wei.
>
>
> Now for the messaging and narratives. In my experience (which is a lot
> more shallow in that domain), we want to outline our strengths and
> differences to formulate a value proposition. From there we can distill
> messages of various lengths, adapted to different support (one-liner title,
> one paragraph article intro, full website, etc). And ideally, we'd have
> opportunities to try these messages in various environments to see how they
> work and incrementally improve them.
>
> So I'll start with a mixed bag of strengths and differences in no
> particular order and maybe we can figure out a way to go from there. If
> some people have more experience in how to go about this and a good process
> to get there, by all means please chime in.
>
>    - Strong anonymity provided by obfuscating amounts, sources and
>    destinations and removing data over time.
>    - Great scalability as most blockchain data gets removed, without
>    compromising security (the magic part).
>    - A diverse community of developers and cryptographers (no control
>    from a single entity).
>    - A brand new, clean (relatively) and modern blockchain implementation
>    with few fundamental primitives.
>    - A Harry Potter theme that, while quirky, has personality (obviously,
>    I may be biased).
>    - No ICO, pre-mine or funny business. We may still need to find a way
>    to get funding but hopefully it'll be reasonable and in line with other
>    funded open source projects/foundations.
>    - The person who started the project has a cool name and uses
>    parentheses a little too much (it's a side effect of the cloak).
>
> For others involved in this project, I'd love to hear what it means to you
> as well.
>
> - Igno
>
> [1] I know it's taking some time but I decided to include the UTXO sum
> tree in that milestone, which created a bit more work than I expected.
> [2] Throwing a Wikipedia article your way: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
> True_name#In_cryptography
>
> --
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