General Operations & Actions Testimonial (GOAT statement - June 2017) (announcements)

submitted ago by PuttItOut

General Summary

It’s been about a month since the last GOAT statement (1) so it’s time for another one and we have some exciting things to share and some challenges to mention.

I have not gotten back to all the emails Voat has received so if you haven’t heard back from me please note you are on the list.

.NET Core Port (Cross Platform Voat)

We’ve been pushing very hard on porting Voat to .NET Core, as this will give us the most opportunity to cut costs and get more hands and help from the development community.

Today we have major news:

Voat has been successfully ported to .NET Core! (2)

Today’s commit took care of the last few failing unit tests. What originally was estimated at three months of work was accomplished in less than a month.

What a great day for this milestone to take place as today is my 3 year anniversary since I registered and then shortly afterwards started “working” for Voat. (3)

Anyways, it’s official, the upcoming version of Voat can be run on an entirely open source solution.

Unit Test Runs Using Various Configurations

Voat Core Port - Sql Server on Memory Cache

Voat Core Port - Sql Server on Redis Cache

Voat Core Port - PostgreSql on Memory Cache

Voat Core Port - PostgreSql on Redis Cache

The next step is to get Voat running a preview build so we can start having users test what works and what needs fixed. This should happen this week sometime. Please pay attention to v/voatdev for updates on this.

Finances

Revenue: 2017-05-22 – 2017-06-19

Store Revenue: $2,628.00 USD

Expenses: 5/1/2017 – 5/31/2017

Hosting: $7,005.23 USD

Monthly Misc: $200.00 USD

Yearly Misc: $105.00 USD

Please note that I did not scale down Voat’s hardware as I previously stated because at the time of that announcement reddit’s r/The_Donald was rumbling with discontentment and I couldn’t justify doing it during a potential growth opportunity (4). After this awkward advance and retreat, I still held off because Voat’s primary webserver CPU during peak times is maxed out.

While all my attention has been put into the .NET Core port, I will be spending this week figuring out where to cut costs in the short run.

Processor Shut Down (Why BitCoin Matters)

Voat’s primary credit card processor has decided, for reasons unknown, to discontinue their relationship with Voat. While they did claim that it was due to “risk”, I can only speculate as to the reasons. This means I will have to spend time looking for another processor which brings up all my memories of what PayPal did to Voat. On July 14th 2017 they will stop processing our store orders.

And thus, I am going to make a proclamation that each of you as Goats need to be educated on digital currency such as BitCoin. Decentralized currency such as BitCoin shifts the power structure from large conglomerates to you as an individual. It will increasingly become more and more important as our society moves to an entirely cashless model.

Bitcoin and related technologies provide a financial freedom that we should all embrace and exercise as much as Freedom of Speech.

All merchandising is put back on hold until we regroup from this setback.

Footnotes

  1. I will get on a regular schedule after this month by posting a GOAT statement on the 1st (or closest business day after) starting next month. First GOAT Statement if you missed it.

  2. This means all the unit tests are passing which is a close indicator that the majority of the code is correctly running and reliable. There are still functional issues and bugs, mostly with the UI, that need to be tested and fixed.

  3. Thank you everyone for the well-wishing on this day. I posted a comment about this earlier here: https://voat.co/v/OneTruePutt/1943481/9567603

  4. I want to apologize for asking you Goats to be nice to the new kids. While I don’t agree with scaring the hell out of new people to Voat, I also see why it’s important to not compromise on the values we hold. So, for those that I upset, I do apologize.

Canary

https://voat.co/v/announcements/1330806

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go1dfish ago

/v/Bitcoin is willing to help anyone who needs an introduction to the wonderful world of cryptocurrency in whatever form.

Bitcoin is kind of expensive to send for typical donations amounts at the moment @puttitout you may want to setup ethereum/litecoin addresses as well to help mitigate this.

Edit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JceL50sL1fA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEQ2nPSL5-0

Other related subs:

ahab_with_piggyback ago

I have been a bit busy with work projects (construction and out of town work) but I want to add in that as spokesman but not yet mod of /v/Ethereum we totally stand behind Voat and with our brother subs in the cryptocurrency community. I am happy to devote any free time I have to making sure any Goats need help understanding this medium of exchange with Ether and also if you have any questions @puttitout I am happy to answer as best I can.

go1dfish ago

Been noticing and upvoting your contributions to /v/ethereum and glad to see more crypto interested Goats.

Do you have any ethereum wallet recommendations for linux?

ahab_with_piggyback ago

You are going to balk at this but linux is actually not a system that I use very much (I like Mac - I know some people are going to hate but it works for me). So that being said I am not familiar with linux based wallets.

Here is the latest in Ether wallets from an article that was written 3 weeks ago on the subject: https://themerkle.com/top-5-ethereum-wallets/ some of those might support linux. I just use the official one from the Ether project called MIST.

go1dfish ago

You'd be surprised. I don't just mod /v/apple my daily driver is a trash can Mac Pro.

That being the case, what's a good Mac wallet?

I recently set up an old box specifically for hardened cryptocurrency use: https://voat.co/v/Linux/1941568

ahab_with_piggyback ago

I forget you have your fingers in alot of pies to be honest with my new job and move I dont keep up on things like I should. Wallets I like primarily are MIST. Here is a quote from the article I mentioned that pretty much sums it all up.

Mist

In some cases, there is nothing better than using the official Ethereum wallet known as Mist. This particular solution has seen a lot of upgrades over the past few years, and can be trusted at all times. Mist is also a wallet client that supports multisignature addresses, which can be quite convenient for advanced users. It does require you to download the entire Ethereum blockchain, though, which can be a bit of an issue for people using computers with less free hard disk space. Overall, Mist is a convenient wallet that offers everything users would need.

go1dfish ago

Do you do anything with ethereum tokens and smart contracts or are you more of a holder?

As a mac user you might really like https://exodus.io it's my preferred wallet at the moment.

ahab_with_piggyback ago

Well full disclosure I have closed my position in Ether at the moment. I believe in the technology and still embrace the use of the coins I just don't hold any right now. I can't speak to smart contracts as I have not used them there was a huge fuss about one smart contract that went unresolved due to system problems and costing an exchange 14 million dollars to cover the damage. I plan to buy back into Ether soon and I will look at updating my system but I am sort of waiting for Ether mania to settle down right now.

go1dfish ago

Fair enough, I sold some today as well but still holding and back into BTC a bit in hopes that the scaling issues have finally been resolved.

I am worried that ether may be too hot right now and might take a dip if bitcoin regains its footing.

My biggest stake is actually in decred.

https://docs.decred.org

ahab_with_piggyback ago

I have never heard of decred... and to be fair if we're honest crypto currency is the future for sure. But, right now we are in a bubble so hard once speculation evaporates (like the dotcom crash). I think we will see a lower volitility and a better use for this medium of exchange. It's just too early to tell right now.

go1dfish ago

Totally, I'm convinced one or more cryptocurrencies will be as dominant as the dollar is now, but its a matter of how long it takes and which one(s) win.

The volatility is because the winner will be ridiculously valuable and the losers will go to near zero.

Decred is pretty low key right now, and my holdings are large because I got in on the initial airdrop and forgot about it. I put some ether gains into it as well though as I think it has solid potential.

Good devs, real problem and a good idea. And the problem they are solving (distributed governance) will allow for better development on other fronts as well I think (like privacy/fungibility)

ahab_with_piggyback ago

That was so well thoughtout and written, I honestly don't have any other response than I agree. I don't know much about Decred but to the rest of your points you are 100 percent on the money.

glugglug ago

I wouldn't trust Ethereum, at all. It's hyper-inflative by design, and was most likely created by big banks as a way to devalue the digital currency market so badly that it scares people away.

0xFEEDFACE ago

As far as I know the only part that's inflative "by design" is the mining DAG size, partly to motivate miners to eventually support switching to a different/better system. The problem being few (none?) of these cryptocurrencies can currently scale to the processing capacity needed for global credit card systems or stock trading. The solutions are in development, and ETH is basically ensuring there will be a somewhat gentle and consistent push to move on and not just flail indecisively like Bitcoin. It is a risk point, but I expect if the development doesn't go well there will be an alternative push to defuse/delay the time bomb instead.

Would love to hear the specifics about your concerns though!

draegspir ago

This is far from the truth! Please do some research (both OP and readers) on Ethereum to understand why it's such a big deal. In short, the Ethereum network is going to be the next internet that is completely decentralized. Imagine websites and app stores that the government CANNOT take down.

InfoTeddy ago

Any sources and/or arguments to back this up?

glugglug ago

As far as why it's hyper-inflative: Bitcoin is designed such that there are a finite number of bitcoins possible to mine, and as more are found the remaining ones become more computationally expensive to find. After that point if it becomes more popular, existing bitcoins need to be subdivided to make smaller transactions rather than decreasing the value of each country.

Ethereum, on the other hand, has an unlimited number of minable ethers, which don't get more computationally expensive as more are found. Since computing power follows Moore's law (doubling every 18 months), that means that even without more people actively trying to find new ethers, or hardware coming out optimized specifically to mine them, it will have a ~60% inflation rate. I know people think Moore's law is dead... They are wrong. Between AMD becoming competitive again and making Intel react, and the promise of memristive memory from HP and Samsung (which the specs of Intel's new 3D Xpoint suggest it might be using), it is back with a vengeance. In fact, if memristors live up to the HP announcements from 2012, we will be greatly exceeding that doubling every 18 months for the next decade or two.

As far as Ethereum being backed by banks: https://www.google.com/amp/amp.timeinc.net/fortune/2017/02/28/ethereum-jpmorgan-microsoft-alliance/%3Fsource%3Ddam

draegspir ago

Ethereum will have a finite cap once they switch from Proof-of-Work (the way Bitcoins are mined) to Proof-of-Stake, capping the number of coins to around 100 million. That is roughly x5 Bitcoin's total cap, but that will be a moot point since it will also end up as a deflationary asset.

Also, Ethereum is not only backed by banks, they are backed by many technology institutions as well such as Intel and Microsoft as seen on their main page. Many businesses running large in-house networks are seeing the upside of a blockchain-based network, and Ethereum seems to be the best model thus far. That's why even institutions such as banks are looking heavily into the technology because it saves them money.

Bitcoin is awesome and paved the road to blockchain technology, but I would also recommend you pay attention to Ethereum, because that may be the platform where the next truly decentralized Voat exists!

hels ago

I would prefer to mail puttitout $10 each month or $120 each year. Or maybe a bank transfer. I suppose I am just old school but I imagine it is easier for me to lose a few percent purchasing Swiss currency and mailing it to him or bank transfer to him rather than any crypto.

Pizzalawyer ago

I hear ya! What do you do when your only source of income is Social Security direct deposited into an old fashion bank account? I didnt understand 50% of the lingo that VOAT just used trying to explain this. It's kind of scary for us oldsters much as it was when paper currency was introduced as a substitute for coins - except I'm not that old!

SaneGoatiSwear ago

hey @puttitout i hope you get raped and murdered for what you've done to speech here on voat. you're a 2-bit spez wannabe takeover shill for militant criminal sjws.

puttitout has:

  • removed CCP manually from multiple users' accounts after claiming they never mess with users' CCP

  • promised to not ban more users until clarifications on the bans were made transparent. never made clarifications; has banned hundreds of accounts since that promise.

  • manipulated the userbase in a witch hunt against a user, lied to the userbase about that user, and took punative action against many users, without basis or cause, simply to silence dissent.

  • coded censorship - - hard censorship - - into voat

  • supported and protected criminals

  • again, and i can't stress this enough: repeatedly lied to the userbase, and repeatedly got caught lying to the userbase

source: my lowest rated comment has all the sources.

also,

megalist of censorship on voat: https://voat.co/v/whatever/1679838

CognitiveDissident5 ago

Me too

go1dfish ago

The only parts of crypto that have to be hard right now are the gateways to fiat because government demands it.

Once you have it, it's really quite simple and there are very easy use wallets now.

Securing large amounts can be more difficult, but most people wouldn't even attempt to store such large amounts of wealth in any other form on their own.

Cryptocurrency has the potential to be way more secure and easy to use than any other form of banking system currently known, but significant effort into making things easy to use hasn't happened until more recently.

hels ago

I entirely support your words. I have nothing to go against them but it sucked when my 1.08 bitcoins disappeared when instawallet went down.

Remember silkroad? Had 0.2 bitcoins in there too.

Those numbers are here and there but why trust crypto? I don't think you know that a government can completely censor or shut down the internet. I am curious why you think crypto is more secure and easy than any other form of banking system. Let's pretend that USA Walmart could not accept US currency in the United States. Tell me, what do you think would happen. So let's pretend that all any server that can be accessed in the world stopped processing bitcoin transactions.......

We know that internet is censored in a major country like China. We know that censorship is coming towards us, why crypto?

go1dfish ago

I went looking through old wallets the other day and saw a transaction of 10 BTC to MtGox, not sure what ever happened to that.

Almost everyone in early on the crypto space lost some, but almost everyone who stuck with it gained more than they lost as well.

I am curious why you think crypto is more secure and easy than any other form of banking system.

Because pretty much every banking system right now involves trust or shared secrets.

Clearest example:

You know your pin code, and you have to give the bank your pin code to authenticate yourself. This is not the case with cryptocurrency. Newer chipped/contactless payments also have similar features in this regard though as well as Apple Pay.

Beyond that, money in a bank always requires trusting that bank (or the US government in the case of FDIC insured deposits)

You can hold bitcoin without trusting anyone, and it is possible to transfer bitcoin to a completely unknown location, and even password protect/encrypt the private key. So you can get all the benefits of physical security with none of the downsides of internet access for coin you want to store long term, and this is what exchanges do with cold storage.

So let's pretend that all any server that can be accessed in the world stopped processing bitcoin transactions.......

Not sure what you mean by this, these servers are distributed they could be censored like china does but that censorship could be routed around through encryption like people currently route through the chinese firewall.

In a doomsday mass EMP event or something yes bitcoin becomes rather useless until communications are restored and there isn't a good way around that. Precious metals still have a place for that sort of doomsday scenario.

hels ago

Thank you for the response. It is why I love VOAT people can ask questions and get well thought-out explanations. I had fun on the dogecoin bandwagon when it hit it's peak but we all know what has happened now. So I have one other question for you, do you think bitcoin will be around as long as the internet is alive?

I agree completely that precious metals will always regain their value. After an EMP your gold is worth close to shit but as we regain power and revive into a normal society again it will continually increase in value. I really want to believe in something anonymous but I would put pretty good money on anyone who has over 100 bitcoins and lives in America, the Government knows who they are.

go1dfish ago

So I have one other question for you, do you think bitcoin will be around as long as the internet is alive?

This is an interesting question, I say it's very likely that it will be barring some catastrophic vulnerability that causes the whole thing to fail. Quantum computing is the most likely vector of this sort of doomsday IMO.

The bitcoin blockchain would at a minimum still be interesting as a museum piece for being the first if nothing else.

hels ago

I used bing and this is the first thing that came up when I searched 'Quantum Computing" (I had no clue what it is and am still confused) Quantum computing studies theoretical computation systems that make direct use of quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. Quantum computers are different from binary digital electronic computers based on transistors. Whereas common digital computing requires that the data be encoded into binary digits, each of which is always in one of two definite states, quantum computation uses quantum bits, which can be in superpositions of states. A quantum Turing machine is a theoretical model of such a computer, and is also known as the universal quantum computer. The field of quantum computing was initiated by the work of Paul Benioff and Yuri Manin in 1980, Richard Feynman in 1982, and David Deutsch in 1985. A quantum computer with spins as quantum bits was also formulated for use as a quantum space–time in 1968.

The funny thing is, I don't believe bitcoin would ever be in a museum. 1984 is mentioned time and time again. Why would the government allow museums to remember something so free?

I hate the pessimistic side of me. My instawallet bitcoin + .08 was lost, dogecoin never prospered, so why trust again? Sure, I should have held the bitcoin+ in something offline. I know that now. I was naive then and now non-trusting. I want to be proved wrong, I want crypto currency to beat the government and globalism. I just have a difficult time believing it will.

Again, I thank you for your thoughts as that is all I ask.

go1dfish ago

I want crypto currency to beat the government and globalism. I just have a difficult time believing it will.

I can understand this being a general pessimist myself.

It doesn't seem like there is any better approach, government is violence.

Cryptography is one thing that is resistant to violence, that seems very strong to me.

Dollars will absolutely go down in value, it's just a matter of by how much.

EngelbertHumperdinck ago

We should point out that all non-cash fiat transactions also rely on the internet. In the doomsday scenario you described, the funds in your bank account would also be inaccessible.

Soundguy21 ago

You mean brass and lead ?

go1dfish ago

Yeah I'd imagine brass and lead appreciate quite a bit in that doomsday scenario.