Template talk:Infobox cryptocurrency/Archive 1

Archive 1

Issuing authority field and title

For bitcoin and similar cryptocurrencies it makes sense to use "Issuance" as the title and describe how the cryptocurrency is being issued. For ripple, the issuing authority is Ripple Labs, there are other currencies that work in a similar way. That is why it makes sense to accomodate for all alternatives, and why I reverted these to WP:STATUSQUO. Laurencedeclan, take this as a warning that your approach to revert everything you dislike as many times as you see fit without obtaining consensus is not the proper approach. @Kjerish:, could you, please, add your opinion on this? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 07:44, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: Agree. Ripple was one of the testcases chosen specifically because its chain isn't just another digital cash. I also did consider putting "genesis" instead but I didn't because I thought it might be less precise. — Kjerish (talk) 07:49, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I agree with you, that's why I don't understand why you reverted my changes. The field title should say "Issuance" and the material should say "Ripple Labs". Please explain your changes. Laurencedeclan (talk) 08:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I think that in case of ripple, the title should actually be "Issuing authority" and the content should be "Ripple Labs", since Ripple Labs is the issuing authority in this case. In general, "Issuance" may not fit all possible uses, that is why it is best to allow for the title to be specified. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:54, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

What about "Issued by"? That would work in both scenarios. Laurencedeclan (talk) 09:12, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

• Disagree There may be other situations, and "Issued by" already isn't optimal for bitcoin—for bitcoin it is much more informative to claim that the issuance is decentralized and done as a block reward than to just claim that "bitcoin is issued by miners". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:30, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Laurencedeclan: @Ladislav Mecir: I think we should lean on the side of modularity (2 fields) with some default if the _title has not been filled. — Kjerish (talk) 20:28, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Yes, agreed, two fields are more modular. Default title can be defined too. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:00, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

It looks like your preference would be better implemented via two fields. Whether the issuance is decentralised or not, and how the currency is issued, are two separate matters. In the case of Ripple, it is "Issued by" Ripple Labs, and in the case of bitcoin, it is "Issued by" block reward. A simple yes-or-no field for "Decentralized" could be added, instead of the bitcoin article saying "Issuance: decentralized (block reward)". Laurencedeclan (talk) 07:33, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I could see situations where decentralization is simply a matter of degree. It's tough to put in a binary format — Kjerish (talk) 12:40, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Valuation

I am wondering if it is prudent to have a valuation in the template, or if it is possible to use a data feed to update the value? Without a data feed, is the data often not up to date? What the standard for say NASDAQ or NYSE listed equities? However, that said I think the new infobox is a great addition. Thanks Jtbobwaysf (talk) 10:41, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi, you expressed my worries. I really do not know whether the values that can become obsolete the very moment they are written should be present in the box. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 11:01, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Jtbobwaysf:@Ladislav Mecir: Yeah I wasn't sure about this. I don't actually know how those feed things work, but that would be an ideal solution. The question now is whether or not to remove it from the infobox or just remove it from the article and change the filling procedure with a feed later. — Kjerish (talk) 12:43, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I too dont know how the feeds work. Let's see if Ladislav has a suggestion. Jtbobwaysf (talk) 12:47, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I am sorry, I do not know how to do it either. Is there any documentation how it can be done? Ladislav Mecir (talk) 14:13, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: It looks like the way it is now might be how it is usually handled — Kjerish (talk) 21:11, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

From the infobox in Apple inc.:

US$229.234 billion

From the infobox in Bill Gates:

US$91.1 billion (January 2018)

AFAIK there is no such thing as a data feed for market cap, etc. Those corporation articles appear to be updated manually. The closest thing I can think of is pulling the price from Wikidata, but that would require a bot to update it over there. If you want the green arrow the template is {{increase}}. Laurencedeclan (talk) 01:22, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Administration

@Ladislav Mecir: why did you revert my change here [1] without an explanation? As I said in the edit summary, the section talks about proof-of-work and timestamping, so "Administration" is not the correct title. Laurencedeclan (talk) 07:50, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Laurencedeclan: - I did it because:

• the "Administration" title is the status quo
• the corresponding section explains how the currency is administered
• The "Technicals" title is too vague—anything could be dismissed as "technicals" Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:02, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Bulletpoint #1 is not an argument. #2 is incorrect, as the section contains the date the ledger was created, information on its hash function, and a link to a block explorer. I agree on #3, but it is better than "Administration", as that is simply incorrect and does not describe the content of the section. Laurencedeclan (talk) 08:07, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Then, how about calling this box section "Ledger"? It seems that all informations are related - start, timestamping, issuance, explorer. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:52, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, that's much better. I'm not sure if "Supply limit" fits but it doesn't really matter. Laurencedeclan (talk) 01:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, it is your message that inspired me, thank you. Regarding the supply - that is a subtopic of issuance, informing the reader how much can be issued. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:06, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Ledger start

Since Kjerish mentioned this issue above, I want to discuss it here. As far as I am concerned, I prefer "Ledger start", for a similar reason as Kjerish seems to do. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:19, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

"Start" feels likes an ambiguous term whereas "genesis" clearly means the point (in time) at which something (the ledger) came into being. Perhaps "Ledger beginning" or "Ledger creation" would be better? Laurencedeclan (talk) 08:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

This looks too much hard-wired for bitcoin. Other cryptocurrencies exist and should use the box too. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:58, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Laurencedeclan: @Ladislav Mecir: I think "first block" is the most general, as it applies to blockchains that distribute objects other than ledgers. We can mention genesis block somewhere in the field contents itself. — Kjerish (talk) 20:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Hi, Kjerish. "First block" does not look general enough. For example, bitcoin has got a genesis block (3 January 2009) and a block #1 (9 January 2009), which could be rightly called "the first block". Some other ledgers may not even have blocks. That is why I think that "Ledger start" is as general as it gets. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:36, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

As to the "blockchains that distribute objects other than ledgers" - this looks off topic to me—the box is meant to describe cryptocurrencies, not blockchains. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 06:39, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Ladislav Mecir: I agree, only because of indexing confusion. Cryptocurrencies can also have multiple ledgers. — Kjerish (talk) 07:18, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

"Genesis" does not apply just to blockchains. It means the beginning of something. Laurencedeclan (talk) 07:28, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

@Laurencedeclan: I know what Genesis means, that's not my point of contention — Kjerish (talk) 12:39, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

With the ledger start fields, is there a reason we need five of them? If there was another notable point (e.g. when the fork occurred) it could be kept in the same field. Laurencedeclan (talk) 01:32, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I originally tried to keep the dates in one field. The problem is that it looks ugly. I tried several format improvements like parenthesized age, but all results were unsatisfactory. Of course, the use of the additional fields is optional. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:18, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Implementation(s)

Moving the discussion Laurencedeclan started to this place. I do agree with him that it makes sense to have a field able to mention the implementation name (or the names of implementations in case there are several). Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:23, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

@Laurencedeclan: @Ladislav Mecir: So in the case of something like Bitcoin Cash, multiple development teams/repositories may be mentioned within the same field. Really shouldn't be cross-currency though since there are probably coins with 10+ children by now. — Kjerish (talk) 20:24, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Agreed with "shouldn't be cross-currency". Other than that, implementation name(s) should be available. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 21:03, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

On the topic of this section, I'm wondering whether the software specific information is really on-topic. The reader doesn't care that one implementation is coded in C++, or what license this one specific implementation is under. This is more relevant on dedicated pages (for example, Bitcoin Core). Should this be removed, or left in and just removed from articles where it isn't necessary? Laurencedeclan (talk) 08:12, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Agree with: "The reader doesn't care that one implementation is coded in C++, or what license this one specific implementation is under." In the same vein, I do not think the information on operating system is important enough to be included in the box. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:45, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

I removed the information from the bitcoin article, but left the implementation and version parameters. Do you think the GitHub link is significant enough to be kept? Laurencedeclan (talk) 01:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I think that the GitHub link can be removed, for example from the Bitcoin article box. Note that it was SourceForge where the code was stored first, which is mentioned in history of bitcoin. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 08:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Niche

@Ladislav Mecir: @Laurencedeclan: What about a field that describes a coin's niche or really short description? Bitcoin would be something like "digital gold" or "the first cryptocurrency" or something like that. Here's an example. — Kjerish (talk) 01:29, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

I prefer to present more reliable informations than this "description in four words or less". Ladislav Mecir (talk) 09:21, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

"hash_function" => "mining_algorithm"?

The term hash_function is extremely vague (most cryptocurrencies use multiple hash functions)... is it supposed to mean "Proof Of Work algorithm" (which may not be a simple hash algorithm as in the case of Monero)? Given that it seems to have taken on this meaning in cryptocurrency articles, should we consider updating it to a more accurate label like mining_algorithm or pow_algorithm? – JonathanCross (talk) 22:44, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Consensus mechanism

"Timestamping scheme" should be changed back to "Consensus mechanism". Not all cryptos use timestamping in their consensus algorithm, e.g. Nano doesn't use a universal timestamp in the protocol because each node sees transactions at different times. Spellcast (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

Proposal to remove some fields

I think we should remove the following fields

• circulating_supply =
• total_supply =
• exchange_rate =
• market_cap =

Cryptocurrencies are volatile and there is nothing encyclopedic in these fields. They are prone to vandalism and spamming. We should get rid of them. Thoughts? Jytdog (talk) 00:53, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

I think that there is absolutely no reason why to remove the circulating_supply or the total_supply fields. They make sense especially for cryptocurrencies for which these values don't change. Regarding the exchange_rate or market_cap fields, they are subject to change, but I do not think that suffices as a reason why to remove them. I think that cryptocurrency articles are subject to vandalism and spamming in general. That is not a reason why to delete them, however. Ladislav Mecir (talk) 05:10, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

The supply should definitely stay. But I don't mind removing the exchange rate and market cap. We don't even list the share price of companies in the stock market. The more unstable a field, the more it's justified that it shouldn't exist as a field. Given the high volatility in crypto, having a field that needs perpetual updates that can change drastically within a day isn't a desirable property for an infobox. Spellcast (talk) 23:49, 19 December 2020 (UTC)

I agree that exchange rate should be removed (or possibly replaced with a fixed exchange rate property for stablecoins), but I think that market cap should stay, because it's important context for a cryptocurrency. It's more important information for a cryptocurrency than it is for a company (whose infoboxes don't list market cap, because it is volatile, but have information from RS quarterly reports). I would be willing to write a bot to update circulating supply and market cap from RS, maybe once a week? That would make them much more reliable fields than they are now. Roll 3d6 (talk) 21:31, 22 October 2021 (UTC)