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.
Contents
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
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
This is as intended
It will all even out and work well
Have faith in the wisdom of crowds
Does Bitcoin have an official chat?
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.
the only thing official is the code and website.
The roadmap and white paper is an implementation that a group of devs supports --
Yes -- but KYC/ AML isn't part of the protocol
Ravencoin will allow easy creation of assets such as tokens
Anyone can post a new ANN
There's no "core" really
you seem to think I have some special powers -- it's your coin as much as it is mjne.
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
I choose to support this project because it's decentralized
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.
Anyone can create these tools
There is no central authority over Bitcoin comms It's impossible
Ravencoin is YOUR coin. It is the people's coin. A real open source and decentralized project.
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.
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.
The wisdom of this crowd is stronger than any 100 people
Together we can do amazing things. Wish not for leaders or control. Instead make the changes you want and ask for help.
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.
Tuesday will be a Roadmap and an expanded paper based on a combo of the original Medium article and the roadmap
there are drawbacks to a decentralized system like this -- but advantages as well. No one does or should have control
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
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
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
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
I was a stockbroker for almost 20 years so have been interested in securities tokens since I came into Bitcoin 6 years ago
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
Many exciting areas
SEC regs are misunderstood by almost everyone in the space
Things like lawyers will be the market not part of the protocol
Ravencoin opens up not just new doors to securities but entirely new types of aligning interests. For example co-ops
Ravencoin will enable users to issue STOs
Not a smart contract but native to the protocol
Sure real estate or any asset anyone wants To issue
Game currency. Securities.
Also unique assets
yes with any offering issuers will still need a legal team and offering management (not from the protocol but the market)
not a SDK but native abilities within the protocol itself
So user will be able to issue: 100,000 token shares of Janes Startup
17 Platinum Swords of Power
1 Mona Lisa Token
Etc
that's exactly something my company is working on Chainstone Labs plans to be one of the first users of Ravencoin
You won't get dividends for holding rvn It will be paid by token issuers to token holders
Rvn willl be burned for users to issue or name tokens
The assets will be on the rvn chain
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
Right holders have to trust each issuer if they claim there is an asset backing it
No no Only for physical assets
Real world
Virtual items like digital currency, utility and game currency or items would stay digital
Providers of legal and KYC services willl be able to easily integrate with rvn
Ravencoin doesn't compete with Polymath - it's a separate type of thing
Poly has said they are chain agnostic so can use rvn
Unlike Eth, Ravencoin was specifically built for the purpose of issuing tokens
Using RSK solidly Ravencoin will be able to do everything Eth can do
the published policy is to change the algo to break asics if they are created
no asics DECREASE security because they increase centralization
Asics make mining less distributed
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
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
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
<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
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
