Re: ❢❢❢ The value proposition of each coin: BTC, DOGE, LTC, DRK, PPC, XRP, NXT, etc.
Ah I see what this conversation is. You're talking about the extended object-oriented instruction set of the optimised non-volatile adapter. We should consider synergies between the fully-configurable discrete structure and the assimilated dedicated hardware of the right-sized eco-centric framework.
I think I'll let you answer you own point on that one....
Your flowery words don't change the fact that Darkcoin is a laughing stock among serious cryptographers.
First of all, a "cryptographer" is an academic who invents cryptographic algorithms and publishes papers such as this guy on who's work Darkoin is based, not a cryptocurrency linux geek fanboy of one coin or another. As far as "laughing stocks" go I suspect your referring to the latter.
Secondly, someday the market may buy some of these hypothetical vulnerabilities that you've posed. But it's looking less likely by the month because, luckily for it, the market is in a position to "have its cake and eat it" and as such basically regards Monero as a backup policy for DRK. There just isn't enough mileage in any of your criticisms to justify a huge disinvestment and recapitalisation in another crypto currency asset.
In particular most of your case (as you yourself point out) rests on the competing approaches of anonymity vs cryptography.
For me, tossing a sand grain into the desert and shaking the entire desert up a few times is far more preferable to putting the sand grain in a box and locking it with a key. Yes, the sand grain is potentially still visible, the difference is it's never recognisable again. In other words, if we talk in terms of the monetary properties needed to make a currency work, Darkcoin makes *fungibility* the priority over detectability. That's the right way around from a monetary perspective which is why IMO it has most of the cap.
Also, in this regard, Darkcoin's mixing redundancy very much IS an advantage and the painting analogy very much DOES apply. The more times you tumble the desert sand the more anonymous it becomes and fungibility, not "running from the NSA", is the whole reason we're in this game.
Your other remarks revolve around geeky point scoring over the relative merits of masternodes and security. We'll see how that pans out because once again, the two tier architecture creates so many options for future proofing that I would not like to bet against it with my money. A cryptonote coin is basically no more than a cryptographic algo. That's it. There's no diversity or dimensionality to the concept that can support feature growth, performance enhancements, security enhancements, compatibility evolution or nurture community involvement the way the 2-tier approach does.
In that context, describing the architecture as "broken" is a bit desperate.