The Fenton Files

This page aims to capture some of the thoughts from Bruce Fenton and some of the core devs about RavenCoin, it's purpose and future. It's not comprehensive, just some of the interesting comments spotted on the community chats.

Discord 1 refers to the original discord which has since been deleted by it's owner. Discord 2 refers to the 2nd discord that was set up by the community. Links on community page.

26 May 2018 - Discord 2

<name> polymath should definitely put their services on the Ravencoin network

It’s not hard - they can use solidity through RSK which would make the whole polymath platform work on Raven

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<name> right now suppose it cost $90 million to do a 51% attack on ravencoin— that means it’s not cost effective to attack

However if Apple issued a token for all their stock on the Ravencoin network then that’s worth $500 billion —- so now it becomes worth it for someone to spend that $90 million to attack the network so they can double spend Apple

Does that clarify?

So we have to hope that value if the token and economics and all mining aligned to give enough security

As the network grows it’s of course more secure and the ratios are not as much a problem

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<name> first step is to figure out what a 51% attack would cost Next is to figure value of assets on the network

Once it passes a certain point (like Bitcoin) a 51% attack becomes so logically challenging that the value doesn’t matter as much

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I’d say deflationary when looking at long term supply

It’s identical to Bitcoin so whatever people say Bitcoin is — which is usually referred to as deflationary

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<name> tZero and raven are separate / this isn’t corporate project but the goal and mission has a lot of synergies so it would be natural to have the projects work together If raven is successful then it will be a part of a lot of major exchanges

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Optimism is great but these types of projects are experimental and many things can cause them to fail

ICOs, scams and centralized projects have a strong motivation to blow smoke and make it seem they will definitely succeed - doesn’t mean they will <name> for sure - but that seems slightly different

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Any SEC questions are better directed to the company site

Same for specifics on the token offering

I’m a board member not a company exec -/ I can speak about the big picture mission, goal the team etc on tZero

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If your wondering if raven will be listed on tZero crytpo or the asset layer will be used for securities tokens which trade on the exchange - both are very likely

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<name> “utility” tokens are typically centralized closed source scam coins and ICOs which use the word “utility” to pretend they have use so they are not a security

Ravencoin is an open source decentralized coin without an ICO which is definitely not a security so doesn’t need to pretend it has utility — but actually does have utility and use

The chain is extremely strong - the code is ridiculously secure and the asset layer adds real, not pretend use cases <name> the security of raven is better than Eth and it can handle scaling better - the protocol also allows voting and basic one way messaging and lots of other features described in the white paper

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If so it won’t be raven for sure - that’s not the purpose

Raven is extremely likely to trade on tZero and so are raven tokens

<name> people who say “this can be done with a database” are absolutely wrong on this topic and frankly don’t know what on earth they are talking about - it can’t be done on a dbase— I’ve made tons of videos explaining this

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<name> think of it like Kraken — it’s an exchange with lots of tokens — difference with tZero is that they will be securities tokens

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There might be some regulatory issues going direct but plan is to have usd / fiat as well as crypto - worse case (I think) it will be two separate sections of the exchange (like grad and Coinbase)

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If people are wondering if tZero will support and list raven:

The ceo is a raven holder

I’m a board member

Tron’s an advisor

The owner of tZero is the largest raven supporter

A majority of employees own and support raven

The missions are exactly aligned

... so yes, there is a good chance it will be listed

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It doesn’t work that way — this isn’t a corporate project — there is a separation.

Raven is it’s own open source project

People involved wear overlapping but also separate and distinct hats

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No it’s perfect

I hope to issue assets on Raven

Securities tokens

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The people supporting the open source project of Ravencoin support a protocol which allows secure and easy creation of tokens — that’s it. It’s more than pow vs pos — it’s about what the best platform is

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Not sure yet - probably strong - I love Monero and fluffy is a good friend and also supports rvn - I’m of the mind that any good quality project is welcome — securities alone is a $10 trillion market

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It’s a race multiple projects can win — there is room for a dozen projects like raven or Eth

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It’s not so much about a currency — but what platform makes it work And whichever ones work sort of become defacto currencies

23 May 2018 - Discord 2

Clearly there is huge overlap of interest, mission and people who support tZero and who support Ravencoin — its a natural fit and convos around tZero and raven often overlap I’m on the board of tZero, Tron is an advisor and pretty much the whole management holds raven including the chair and overstock who owns one of the largest holdings

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Yes so expect a big change on GitHub in 2 weeks The code so far will be released in alpha version After further coding and work it will be ready to deploy on test Net within 2-3 months

this will Place the fully functional and live asset layer after that

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The alpha of asset layer code will be published for early review within two weeks

20 May 2018 - Discord 2

There is no official “raven team” this is open source and anyone can develop anything on it

There’s no “official” group who can or would reach out to corporations and it wouldn’t make sense to do so in the name of an open source idea

The way Ravencoin works is much better than a centralized ICO : anyone can build anything on it — so someone reading now can decide to make a business that helps companies list - advisors could help companies list on Raven like they do with Eth etc — its much stronger that way and more likely to lead to wider use

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I think exchanges will increasingly add tokens and once they are regulated will add securities tokens - it’s likely going to be too large a market to ignore

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Tokens should be able to be issued on Raven in 6 months and what happens after this is up to the markets and the community

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Well there are no promises — looking at it as an investment is very risky

11 May 2018 - Twitter

Honary twitter post - Replacing a ledger with a better one

6 May 2018 - Telegram

(Talking about fair launch)

Bruce Fenton: That’s false — the network had 4500 miners by the time of the BitcoinTalk announcement

This whole idea that something is only fair once it’s posted on every forum on the Internet is preposterous -/ this is open source and a community effort — anyone who wanted to post on Bitcoin Talk could - I personally didn’t post because I wasn’t aware of the Ann section and find BitcoinTalk in general to be a very low quality forum

The accusations that this was somehow shady are doubly preposterous to anyone who actually understands math.

There were 70 miners within a day and 1200 within 4 days or so —- if you claim that me or anyone else purposely delayed the announcement in one stupid forum for financial gain that’s utterly ludicrous.

Work out the numbers: less than 1/3 of a percent of the coins were mined in that period — do you really think that me and the devs and Patrick Byrne and all the other people who put years of time and millions of dollars into this sat on the sidelines plotting so we could get a mining advantage on 9 days worth of coins worth less than $2k at the time?

This about it it. Follow the money and motivation

It’s a stupid accusation

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Bruce Fenton: It wasn’t fair to non English speakers either

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Bruce Fenton: Or people without computers

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Bruce Fenton: The launch was announced MONTHS ahead of time - posted on medium, posted on twitter — announced at four major public events and posted publicly

THIS is why it grew so fast — obviously if 4500 people mined then that means far more than that found out about it

5 May 2018 - Discord 2

The road ahead

2 May 2018 - Discord 2

Do you think we could raise a 1 million RVN bounty for someone to get RSK / Solidity working on the Ravencoin chain?

It would be a great complement to the upcoming code changes

27 Apr 2018 - Telegram

Bruce Fenton: One benefit to exchanges is that Ravencoin is not a security — its one of the very few fairly mined coins with no ICO.

27 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Money isn’t a problem for this project - it’s well funded

20 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

(Talking about a Twitter live stream)

I used Bitcoin (and Counterparty) as an example because it’s simple and lets people learn without being distracted by other issues.

For people to believe in Ravencoin they first have to believe that this is possible. This demo shows that you can indeed tokenize a security.

Using Bitcoin eliminates many objections from Bitcoin maximalists. If I did the demo with Rvn then people likely go off topic on the algo or assume raven itself is an ICO or something like that.

This way it’s simple and proves the basic concept.

Once people get that securities CAN be tokenized then we can educate them about why this specific solution might work and what advantages and disadvantages it has.

Ravencoin is based partly on Counterparty and uses the codebase of Bitcoin — will add more features and eliminate some of the drawbacks Counterparty has.

16 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Potential Loss of private keys is a massive drawback of crypto -- but it's the same for Bitcoin or any digital asset -- people will need to have systems to secure keys or will want to trust 3rd parties to manage them for them

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asset creators will be able to control how many tokens are

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I'm not sure how much of a policy they have just that the whole company is very supportive of Ravencoin -- so lots of family and friends of Overstock and Medici are early and strong supporters

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Medici employees devs and allows employees to work on this

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Overstock owns Medici which I am on the board of

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Yes it's true the ceo of Overstock is a huge supporter -- no doubt about it.

15 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Biggest roadblocks is adoption and unforeseen technical hurdles - so biggest things a non dev can do is master the story and share it far and wide -- tell friends, tell devs, get people involved.

This can change the world -- people need to be freed ton control their own wealth and that means not just cash but stocks as well. This technology can do it.

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Some advantages of tokenized securities I just posted on twitter Anyone really interested in this project should definitely read up on how DTCC and Cede and co works

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Oskt/ medic / tZero is often misunderstood

Ostk owns Medici /- I am on the board of Medici --- Medici is a big supporter of this project

TZero is mutually acquainted but a separate thing -

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Ravencoin is Bitcoin but with commits approved based on preference of the blockchain serving as the rails for assets instead of cash or digital gold.

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Well no one should be anything but proud to be involved in this. There are very few projects which are fairly launched and fairly mined. We all got together and built something pretty cool very quickly

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The common question of why we need this is because we think this way might work - that's all really yes there will be a Ravencoin annual meeting Mid October

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A blockchain can change the way gaming works. This seems silly to people who focus on monetary aspects like Bitcoin --- but it's an entirely different thing. In game economies are real and have real value - these virtual items will have even more value if they become platform independent. This benefits the creators and sellers of these game assets as well -- one drawback is potential speculation -- game developers should note that adding liquidity adds profit speculators who can harm game dynamics (bots, farmers, for profit players) -- this could be dealt with several ways

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Crypto is a great equalizer. With a project like this anyone can participate and code is judged on merit alone.

I bet a lot of devs will end up being anon

12 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Idea: take the concepts from the paper and recent interviews w Tron etc and make them into a really well done PowerPoint / keynote

This would be open source and could be used by any community member to explain the project and concepts

First really key step is the text and outline to assure accuracy above all else.

Once that part is set and the text is good we can put it into a good format, add graphics and simple explanatory animations

Can also have a FAQ section

I'd be happy to help anyone on this -- we should be able to use a section of github to place the explanatory text so it can be edited and updated over time

12 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

It's possible that this community has built the largest and strongest decentralized network anyone has ever built in such a short time.

Does anyone know another which compares? In terms of miners, nodes & other community metrics we have grown very fast. Very few coins have a stronger network -- both Bitcoin and Eth took years to reach what you built in less than 100 days. All 100% organic with no marketing and no central control. It's incredible. The future is bright.

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No one can beat the power of an open source community.

8 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Ideally lots of companies and people will build on top of this protocol

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Partnerships have some challenges

There isn't a way to make partnerships between the idea called Ravencoin & any organization because there isn't any organization or person able to make a partnership or speak on behalf of Ravencoin or sign agreements etc.

It's a true open source project with no leaders or central control.

This makes things like partnerships impossible in the sense of how they are done by centralized coins.

Ravencoin dev is like Bitcoin: there is no way for "Bitcoin" to sign a partnership-- even Bitcoin Core (which isn't really a thing) can't sign anything.

In Ravencoin everyone owns it and everyone can act as an individual and sign what they want.

Ravencoin is a community project entirely built and controlled by the community the only "central" items are the name itself and all that represents is an idea that the community generally is behind.

The bad news with this structure is that it is weird, chaotic, hard to understand and hard to get used to... especially for people new to open source.

"No leaders" sounds like some sort of new age techno babble -- but it's true -- for a real decentralized open source project like this there really is no central structure that can enter into deals etc.

This type of structure is so unusual these days that most people who got into crypto within the last 2 years have never seen a real open source project.

The good news is that this structure enables everyone an equal playing field in building. No one is working to enrich some select group who received awards or raised money. Everyone who wants to participate can in whatever way they want

7 Apr 2018 - Telegram

Tron: Two more devs added to the team this week. One more next week.

5 Apr 2018 - Telegram

Bruce Fenton: The scheduled hard fork upgrade will be around 7-8 months from now -- depends how long coding and testing take and how many people contribute to development and testing. This hard fork will make the code changes which will allow the issuance of tokens

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Bruce Fenton: This project is open source so there is no one to pay for any marketing type of services. If you read the papers and believe in the project then you can build businesses on this or drive your own economic interests

5 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

It's great for people who want to do more -- if you are a hard working C++ dev you could end up having a massive effect on the code.

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Someone asked if Ravencoin could "support ___effort"

The answer to every one of these questions is the same -- no because "Ravencoin" is not a centralized entity able to issue press releases or sign agreements or "support" anything --- it's just the name of the idea and code that a community is mining, developing or discussing. Individual people are all that can act in a decentralized open source system -- nothing is fully decentralized but this is the aim we strive for. Ravencoin has no ability to support actions or do anything because it's not an entity -- it's the name of an idea and code that the miners, developers and other community members generally agree on the purpose and structure of. That sounds unusual or idealistic or phony to many - I get it, but it's actually the best way to develop

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The main code is on a great track -- one huge area of opportunity is getting volunteer devs to work on second layer projects

RSK would be an awesome on LN another These don't need permission from anyone for someone to work on -/ devs can all communicate

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We need RSK & Solidity devs -- that capability can be worked on alongside the planned upgrade fork -- it would add a lot of capabilities to this protocol

4 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Ravencoin's only marketing department is the community-- competing against a sea of scamcoins & ICOs w/ billions in ad budgets we are in an open source canoe canoe together.

The protocol can't do press releases or similar BS --however it IS great to get the word out on what the tech & science is.

There isn't anything to sell- imho it's a big mistake to discuss price so early which is why I never do.

But it DOES make a lot of sense to share this info and explain it to people- more people will learn about it & contribute.

The metrics of this are entirely different from something like an ICO- with Ravencoin we don't share info to sell something but we can share for the sake of computer science.

The white paper isn't a marketing document designed to get money from people it's an actual real white paper: a technical scientific document open for peer review. The purpose of the document is to create discussion, generate criticism; identify security & functionality holes and to invite contributors. That's it. There is zero mention of price. Imho this is a much better way to build great tech. If you build great tech it may have value.

The diversity & strength of the community & dev is a good example of how open source can be more effective than corporate projects.

This protocol & idea is worth sharing -- there's such a sea of scams and ICOs out there that a "white paper" seems like a sales document because the term has been stolen by scammers to be used for marketing documents. That's not ideal -- it reduces discussion of a technical computer science paper

Perhaps one thing we can do is share the concepts in this paper and the main bullet points / ideas behind it -- this identifies a lot of use cases:

Game tokens for items you can move from game to game, securities tokens with dividends, message services etc etc -- all of this is new tech creating new possibilities & solutions.

Sharing ideas gets even more great community members & contributors

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so the devs are a combination of people - most are in Utah because Medici a while back allowed employees to work on open source & this project became popularly locally in SLC -- so Tron Black @Tron (who came up with most of the tech ideas), Jesse Empey @RavencoinDev and @cade are in SLC -- most of the mining devs tend to live around NH because that's where we did the first meetups & announcements

4 Apr 2018 - Telegram

Bruce Fenton: This project is open source so there is no one to pay for any marketing type of services. If you read the papers and believe in the project then you can build businesses on this or drive your own economic interests

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Bruce Fenton: The scheduled hard fork upgrade will be around 7-8 months from now -- depends how long coding and testing take and how many people contribute to development and testing.

This hard fork will make the code changes which will allow the issuance of tokens

4 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

@everyone Volunteers wanted: Volunteer to serve as liaison to exchanges. Ravencoin is receiving a LOT of requests and interest from exchanges. Unfortunately most request that an "official" representative contact them. Since this is decentralized and open source there is no official and there is no one "authorized" to deal with exchanges.

If someone from the community wants to volunteer to serve this role they can. Should be knowledgeable about tech/ dev and exchanges and able to help exchanges with tech issues, integration etc.

3 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Note on exchanges: since this project is open source there is no central party to speak with exchanges. ICOs and centralized corporate coins typically have marketers and others who serve this role.

Since this coin had no premine or set aside the economics are different as there is no insider looking to dump presale coins or something because they don't exist.

All exchange activity so far has been community driven. There is no official party with an authority to deal with exchanges-/ that doesn't mean no one has the power --- it means everyone has the power. This project belongs 100% to the community-- it was created by a community and remains that.

So anyone wishing to list this coin or do any other economic activity - go for it. The project literally belongs to you as much as anyone if you are reading this.

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Securities tokens with multiple share classes

Game items that can be removed from a game and printed onto a paper wallet

Activist tokens which can be divisible and with built in messaging - so you can split a coin in to 10 and give it to 10 friends who will all receive whatever message

The possibilities are endless

2 Apr 2018 - Discord 2

Discord channels, like other aspects of Ravencoin, don't have a centralized authority or controller.

ICOs, scam-coins and centralized corporate coins have controlled and managed chat channels run by paid marketing employees.

Ravencoin is different. It's not run by a central team or person who tells people what to say or so.

Anyone can set up a chat, there is no "official" anything other than the Git and website.

If a majority of the community prefers one admin / mod style they can migrate to any banned. If various groups from who have competing ideas or preferences then multiple groups can form.

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Many people are so used to centralized scam coins that they don't know what to think when they see a real open source coin.

The internet is messy. The opposite of control is chaos. So some chaos is inevitable. But it doesn't affect the protocol in any way.

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This is as intended

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It will all even out and work well

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Have faith in the wisdom of crowds

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Does Bitcoin have an official chat?

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It's hard to have no one in charge and seems chaotic to not have control. Many corporate coins have antiseptic and controlled chats which regularly censor criticism.

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the only thing official is the code and website.

The roadmap and white paper is an implementation that a group of devs supports --

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Yes -- but KYC/ AML isn't part of the protocol

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Ravencoin will allow easy creation of assets such as tokens

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Anyone can post a new ANN

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There's no "core" really

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you seem to think I have some special powers -- it's your coin as much as it is mjne.

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Well if so then that's even more reason to not do it. :smiley: the "core team" is anyone who wants to be.

This isn't hand waiving -- it's the structure of a real decentralized open source project.

There are no leaders or authorities. Only merit and individuals choosing who to follow and what code to run

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I choose to support this project because it's decentralized

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There are 1000 corporate coins who have very neat and clean comms channels: everyone agrees, a few people decide on a message and the people are fed a line.

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Anyone can create these tools

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There is no central authority over Bitcoin comms It's impossible

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Ravencoin is YOUR coin. It is the people's coin. A real open source and decentralized project.

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The decentralized nature enables this coin to do WAY more than a centralized corporate coin or ICO can do.

Look at the results!!

Look what you badasses have built in less than 3 months!

NO ONE can duplicate this. IBM has spent $4.5 billion on its internal blockchain and we beat them in EVERY metric that matters: better code, stronger network, bigger community etc etc.

Why? Because people can smell authenticity a mile a way. Then know that the hundreds of scam coins don't actually belong to them. This coin does.

Your efforts in Ravencoin are building what you wish - the strength of this project will not depend on 20 marketers or lawyers in some ivory tower office but the efforts of the thousands of people who've put in time, resources and sweat to build this this.

With this grassroots decentralization we have some drawbacks but overall massive advantages.

This is why we will prevail.

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We are likely the fastest growing network in history of crypto. We are also a top 10 of fairly mined coins in 3 months. Decentralization works.

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The wisdom of this crowd is stronger than any 100 people

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Together we can do amazing things. Wish not for leaders or control. Instead make the changes you want and ask for help.

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No one has any power that you don't also have. If you want something to happen don't wait for permission. You have it. Just do it.

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Tuesday will be a Roadmap and an expanded paper based on a combo of the original Medium article and the roadmap

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there are drawbacks to a decentralized system like this -- but advantages as well. No one does or should have control

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some advantages Ravencoin will have to token issuers over Eth:

- more secure chain

- more censorship resistant

- more decentralized

- simpler / more elegant

- native in the protocol

- will allow dividends

- will allow messaging

It's the next gen

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Ravencoin plans to integrate RSK --

Advantage is shorter block time and that it's native to the protocol -- but for smart contracts RSK will eneable solidity to work on the Ravencoin blockchain

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ASIC resistance and a wider and more fair distribution is another advantage of Ravencoin.

By this time period in Bitcoin's history the coin had less than a dozen miners. We have thousands This is one of the most widely distributed coins if not THE most

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the protocol won't be ready to issue tokens on for 7-8 months or so. But the network is already very strong and will have a lot of appeal Securities tokens are one of the key use cases and reasons Ravencoin was created

Securities tokens are my main focus

I think everything will be tokenized

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I was a stockbroker for almost 20 years so have been interested in securities tokens since I came into Bitcoin 6 years ago

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Especially interesting is small companies who can't now go public on old markets but will be able to using Ravencoin

And also conventional asset management

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Many exciting areas

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SEC regs are misunderstood by almost everyone in the space

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Things like lawyers will be the market not part of the protocol

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Ravencoin opens up not just new doors to securities but entirely new types of aligning interests. For example co-ops

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Ravencoin will enable users to issue STOs

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Not a smart contract but native to the protocol

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Sure real estate or any asset anyone wants To issue

Game currency. Securities.

Also unique assets

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yes with any offering issuers will still need a legal team and offering management (not from the protocol but the market)

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not a SDK but native abilities within the protocol itself

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So user will be able to issue: 100,000 token shares of Janes Startup

17 Platinum Swords of Power

1 Mona Lisa Token

Etc

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that's exactly something my company is working on Chainstone Labs plans to be one of the first users of Ravencoin

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You won't get dividends for holding rvn It will be paid by token issuers to token holders

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Rvn willl be burned for users to issue or name tokens

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The assets will be on the rvn chain

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The assets will be using Ravencoin chain as rails <name removed> I founded Atlantic Financial, a Registered Investment advisor and also own chainstone labs And Satoshi Roundtable

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Right holders have to trust each issuer if they claim there is an asset backing it

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No no Only for physical assets

Real world

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Virtual items like digital currency, utility and game currency or items would stay digital

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Providers of legal and KYC services willl be able to easily integrate with rvn

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Ravencoin doesn't compete with Polymath - it's a separate type of thing

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Poly has said they are chain agnostic so can use rvn

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Unlike Eth, Ravencoin was specifically built for the purpose of issuing tokens

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Using RSK solidly Ravencoin will be able to do everything Eth can do

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the published policy is to change the algo to break asics if they are created

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no asics DECREASE security because they increase centralization

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Asics make mining less distributed

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actually they make a 51% attack easier because asics tend to concentrate mining in the hands of a small number of giant miners with data centers

Bitcoin can be 51% attacked by compromising 4 people or so. Ravencoin you'd need to compromise an army of Ravens with their gpus

<name removed> users acquire rvn and use that to create assets or pay dividend

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once someone issues a token they can do what they want with it: give it away, sell it, run an ICO or STO, put it in a game or whatever they choose

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To be clear: the Ravencoin protocol will support RSK / solidity but ALSO have a native capability built in which makes it easier for many use cases

And has more capabilities like messaging and dividends

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<name removed> once someone issues a token they can do what they want with it: give it away, sell it, run an ICO or STO, put it in a game or whatever they choose

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To be clear: the Ravencoin protocol will support RSK / solidity but ALSO have a native capability built in which makes it easier for many use cases

And has more capabilities like messaging and dividends

Older Posts

Fenton Files: start - March 2018