Is Tauchain Agoras in Good Hands?

in #cryptocurrency6 years ago (edited)

tauagoras.png

Tauchain is a profound project that has taken years of deep research and development. Some of the smartest people I've known on this platform highly recommended it, which is why it has been making me do a few things I've not been doing for a while now:-

  1. Studying academic materials to understand the project (please check out @dana-edward's brief on it)
  2. Logging into IRC to see what has been going on for the past couple of years.

So one of the first things I noticed in #idni's IRC channel is a cool-looking username "naturalog". While I'm pretty sure it just means natural logarithm, could it be natural OG instead? The natural, original gangsta? In casual parlance of course. Turns out, that's Ohad Asor's (the founder) nickname. What a smooth operator. That username is like wordplay: a mathematician with street cred. Too bad that Steem username is already taken.

The Natural OG

Reading through the logs I soon realised that I can trust his words. Why? Other than his experience, I think it's because I'm somewhat the same in nature. Not that I'm a genius with great knowledge and expertise like he is, but I do appreciate stuff like language, semantics, logic, and such. They're the kind of subjects which I think helps shape clear communication. It shows throughout his replies in the logs.

Many might not know it, but everything I say or type usually takes quite some time because I do try to be careful with words. Sometimes I even spend minutes to decide whether or not to say "could" instead of "would", amongst all of the other nuances in communication. Because, what else do we really have between us other than words? This is why writing is almost sacred to me.

The ability to question oneself and question one's choice of words are part of our learning process. Why do we really say what we say, or think what we think? Can't speak for everyone, but I expect introspective, lifelong learners to be more trustworthy when it comes to dealing with complex subjects. Plus, the obvious elements of the project seems to speak more about substance than hype:-

  • The founder, Ohad Asor is a logician, mathematician, programmer, and computer scientist. To add, he attended university at the age of 13 and have about 30 years of experience with programming and mathematics. While I like to think of myself as a jack of all trades, master of none, Ohad Asor is like a master of all trades. From the chatlogs, he admits that he's still always learning and there are signs that actual research is being done on so many levels, so I quite like that.

  • Tauchain / Idni Agoras has been operating with a bare-minimum website during its research phase. The specifications of the platform are mostly done now as far as I know, so the team is currently working to update the website. This move is quite the opposite of today's crypto and ICO websites that are packed with buzzwords, marketing powerpoints, and squiggly mesh-network animations in the background to add some hundred millions to their perceived value.

  • The complete whitepaper is not even out yet after a couple of years. I take this as a good sign of proper research to get things right on the fundamental level from the start. It would be foolish to think anyone can figure out these things in record time and be certain about it. Not with a project like Tauchain. The passage of time is required even for founders to figure out the potentials and limitations of their vision. For an overall view of the upcoming whitepaper (which will be more of an engineering plan), check out the latest blog: http://www.idni.org/blog/the-new-tau.

  • Only 3% of tokens are reserved for the team. I think it's a great decision for proper budgeting and development instead of asking bullshit amounts upfront that would most likely be wasted mainly on marketing. Google certainly did not spend millions and billions when it first started as a simple search engine. Great technology will speak for itself.

So all things considered, the project is unlikely to be a scam. If you search through the ~28 megabytes worth of IRC chatlogs, you will even find three ultra-rare instances of Ohad Asor aka naturalog mentioning "before it was cool". Look at the image below. Knowing his history and experience, I think it's safe to conclude that this dude is a certified OG. The natural OG. Total man crush! I might even ask him for some dating tips once he's done with the bulk of the development.

naturalog.png

If those points above are not enough street cred to establish an OG status, check out this section of the chat log below:-

10:39 < Liaomiao> you must know a lot about blockchain architecture if you came up with some of the ideas behind graphene
10:40 < naturalog> i didnt come up with graphene i only explained to him a generic way to have faster datastructures than he had
10:40 < naturalog> boost interprocess memory-mapped-file containers
10:40 < naturalog> which as far as i remember that's what they use
10:40 < naturalog> http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_65_1/doc/html/interprocess.html
10:41 < Liaomiao> i see, well i guess if that's one of the reasons why graphene is so fast, tau blokchain is in good hands :)
10:41 < naturalog> my handwritten datatsructures will be x10 faster at least
10:41 < naturalog> im writing fast sw since people around were in highschool if born even

Just good to know that he might have had some influence in the creation of Graphene, Dan Larimer's creation for Bitshares that subsequently shaped both the inner-workings of Steem and EOS. Impressive indeed. It's a good sign for Tauchain / Idni Agoras. In contrast, I was still riding rollercoasters all day high on sweet carbonated drinks in Disneyland during the same age when Ohad Asor was already grinding like an OG, writing production-level software.

Conclusion

So it would seem like my investigation into the heart of Tauchain has quickly turned me into a huge admirer and fan of the project. It has never happened to me before to this extent, but I certainly don't mind given the project's scope and the main developer's character. It's at least a much better story than elevating irrational loonies and sensationalists with no appreciation of well-founded knowledge, which unfortunately is all too common in society these days. If anything would make the world a better place, it would be intellectual curiosity, not intellectual dishonesty.

For now, I'm quite happy to have found the natural OG who has been working quietly behind the scenes. So far it seems to me that it could very well be the next big thing other than Steem communities and SMTs. I'll be posting more about the project in time. As always, thanks for reading.


Resources

Website - http://www.idni.org
Github - https://github.com/IDNI/tau
Telegram - https://t.me/tauchain
Reddit (with FAQ) - https://www.reddit.com/r/tauchain/
Coinmarketcap entry - https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/agoras-tokens/


Here's an hour-long interview with Ohad Asor that you might want to check out.


Not to be taken as financial advice.

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caught this before my bot was going to give you a lousy 5% vote

if Ohad were any smarter he could levitate objects with his mind - it looks like that's exactly what he's trying to do in the thumbnail of that video

Lol thanks! Btw, scaling discussion would be as magical as levitation :) I remember a long time ago when we talked about this and I mentioned that I wasn't sold on his presentation / talk. Funny that has turned around!

just following the chat between him and dana over the last hour, and you can tell he's something else

It's all quite technical and I don't understand much of it, but it really appears that he's on the precipice of something truly big

I just remember dealing with yacc/gcc back in uni. Looks like the earley parser is doing wonders. Still wondering how it fits into TML interpreting itself that way lol.

The Earley Parser is almost magical in what it does. Beautiful actually. Ohad made a very good choice strategically in that parser.

In my own case because I express some controversial ideas on the topic of gun control, I have found out that discussions typically tend to be echo chambers. People who have a certain ideology do not care about facts or logic or the statistics in many cases. If we had an ability to discuss politics over Tau it could actually produce some progress which we seemingly can't have discussing politics over Facebook or even Steem.

Productive discussion, that being a political discussion which produces some useful idea, is almost impossible to have over Facebook. Facebook algorithms tend to group people with those who share similar views to such an extent that serious discussion becomes impossible. This is fine for cheer leading but not good if you really want to expand the Overton Window as they say.

Tangentially, I try not to have political opinions anymore. I do my best to stick to morality. My conclusion has become that politics act on morality to warp it and allow moral people to do immoral things. It is a trap to becoming a bad person to discuss things in a political way when simple morals won't lead you astray. That isn't to say that statistics and statistical arguments can't inform your morals.

Logical order.
Tau solves issues, the market is again reinforced.
Visionary experience along with mathematical knowledge.

Better look for investments.

The crypto currency got embraced by a big majority of people last year in July and by the end of the year, BTC had touched its highest price. Now in last 2 months there has been some much new entries from coins that an average person can't differentiate a valuable coin from shit coin. Your guides have been a great help. I still remember your post on RaiBlocks where you had done a great comparison of Raiblocks with STEEM. This is another guide that I really liked and I am exploring it more. Great post.

Thanks! There are plenty of layers in the cryptoscene right now. I think trafalgar's first post on Tauchain explains the scene pretty well (in the beginning of the post): https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@trafalgar/what-is-tau-my-only-other-crypto-investment

This would be great help. Thank You!

If anything would make the world a better place, it would be intellectual curiosity, not intellectual dishonesty.

I couldn't agree more. It is very interesting news about crypto. As my interest in crypto has been steadily increasing, I understand now that the team behind any project is very important.

As always, a well-articulated piece of writing. Thank you for sharing.

Cheers

The initial team is important, but after that when it's open-source for anyone to work on (and sustain indefinitely, maybe), then the core team wouldn't be that important anymore. Thanks @papanog, appreciate that you dropped by.

Thank you for your kind reply.

Was thinking to buy some AGRS, but bittrex is not taking any request to open a new account at the moment.
Wonder how to buy it elsewhere.
Thanks again @kevinwong and BIG THANK YOU for continuously giving your support.

For now, I'm quite happy to have found the natural OG that has been working quietly behind the scenes.

Naturalog came to me as a suprise , to think that he has been able to acheive all these on low-key is wonderful and just like you rightly said, this is bound to be the next big thing asides steem for sure.

Total man crush! I might even ask him for some dating tips once he's done with the bulk of the development.

Hahahaha, you funny.

The complete whitepaper is not even out yet after a couple of years. I take this as a good sign of proper research to get things right on the fundamental level from the start

Certainly my thoughts exactly . This is the reason I don't want the SMT project rushed coz I think there is a bit of a rush and anxiety with trying to release it this year. Guess they should take a cue from Tauchain and take it gradually.

Not exactly "for sure", but I have hopes that it's likely to be a game-changer. Yeah, personally I'd like to see things out asap, but it's certainly important to get things right from the beginning. Blockchain projects can't afford too many modifications after the fact. But with Tau, it's possible, although the base has to be sufficiently well done.

It doesn't bother me that they don't have a white paper done yet. Anyone can put out a white paper that says anything. There are so many tokens out there, that it's much more efficient to research the team/people behind a project. For example, I don't feel the need to break down EOS's white paper. I know what Dan can do and I'll just listen to some interviews explaining the process. I want to know a person's track record and if they can deliver. Ohad Asor's project looks very promising.

All it means is Tau is still under the radar. Few people understand it. Many people think they can duplicate it. The truth is, the people lucky enough to understand it early are some of us here. It will be immediately clear how important Tau is, once TML is able to self interpret. Once that happens then TML can be used in a practical way and people will quickly find out how powerful it is not just as some sort of abstract concept but in a measurable way. By then though I expect the price of Agoras to be way up considering how limited the supply is.

Consider what TML can do, consider how important getting the formal language part right is, and then think about where this could go? What could Agoras do that you can't see on Steem, on EOS, on Cardano, on Tezos, on Ethereum?

The last I heard it was being delisted from shittrex, which only made me more excited about the project. I noticed it has jumped a bit since that collapse. Do we have any insight into why it is up 45+% since the delisting news? Did they find a new exchange?

The team is working on getting agrs listed on more exchanges. As for the price pump, could be anything! Maybe someone's cat clicked on buy :D

Now it pumped back up above $2!! Nooooooooo... I missed the boat. Had totally meant to pick up some on that Bittrex FUD. Ohad is one of these special ubermensch like VB, Hoskinson, Zuck, Gates, etc.

😂😂😂

I'm stopping by! I want to Thank You so VERY much for all of your support and sharing all of these PHENOMENAL posts and information! I am VERY interested in this project! Thank you VERY much for informing me on THE natural OG! To me, @kevinwong is THE natural OG! Thank you so VERY much for making the STEEMIT COMMUNITY SO GREAT! It truly pays to follow @kevinwong :-) Thanks Again! All the VERY best! I look forward to all of your next posts! I'm VERY proudly resteeming, commenting, upvoting and following! Your Devoted Boy! @extraterrestrial :-)

Check out the materials. Not saying to invest money, even putting time into understanding it is kinda life-changing tbh. Alpha rollout this year is going to be something, let's hope it works in practice :)

This guy seems very special. Normally, I don't compare humans because I believe each one of them is unique and can't have a photocopy yet on accomplishment side, this man has done great and you have conveyed this info in the right manner. Excellent post @kevinwong. I will go through the video later.

You're right, and I rarely do that comparison thing as well, although if I were to venture that society follows technology, I'd look for technologists that know what they're doing :)

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