1/ It's time to have a conversation about #Dogecoin.

If you're invested in $DOGE after @elonmusk's much endorsement (such wow), there are a couple of things that you should probably know๐Ÿ‘‡

2/ First, let's talk about network security (I'll try to keep it simple).

Unlike BTC, ETH, or really any other major network, Dogecoin does not have its own miners -- it currently relies on another network, Litecoin, to survive.

So how did this happen and what does it mean?
3/ Back in 2014, Dogecoin was at a tough spot. There weren't enough miners working on $DOGE and there was a real risk that its network would be attacked.

A network attack (like a "51% attack") would likely destroy Dogecoin, so its developers had to do something...
4/ Their solution was to adopt something called Auxiliary Proof of Work (AuxPoW); a way to merge Dogecoin mining with other similar networks.

Put simply, AuxPoW enables miners to work on multiple coins at the same time and reuse the same work.
5/ Back then, it was somewhat of a controversial solution. Some users were concerned that AuxPoW would put the future of $DOGE at the mercy of bigger miners.

While the change likely saved Dogecoin, the concern was valid: ~95% of Dogecoin mining today is done by Litecoin miners.
6/ This dependance carries some nasty security implications when DOGE has a market cap of nearly 10B USD.

When AuxPoW was adopted, not a lot of value was being settled on Dogecoin...

But in the month of January alone, Dogecoin settled the equivalent of over 8 billion USD ๐Ÿ‘€
7/ You see, the thing about AuxPoW is that it's a double edged sword...

While it protects both LTC and DOGE with the same work, it also makes it easier (and considerably cheaper) for an attacker to simultaneously take over both networks.
8/ Consider that the price of $DOGE is up 1200% YTD, while hashrate (a proxy for network security) grew a meek 15% YTD.

This ratio, coupled with the existence of AuxPoW, makes a 51% attack on LTC (and by extension DOGE) incredibly attractive since it would carry a high ROI.
9/ So how could this go down?

Here's a hypothetical attack:

1) Buy large quantities of DOGE+LTC

2) Deposit all of it in a major exchange

3) Trade DOGE+LTC for BTC

4) Withdraw BTC

5) Issue 51% attack on LTC that makes it so that deposit (2) never happened in either chain
10/ It's unfortunate, but DOGE and LTC will have to endure a dangerous period until more miners join in and make this attack harder to pull off

Although it's now 136% more profitable to merge mine LTC+DOGE, it'll take time for more miners to setup farms and bootstrap operations
11/ So what can be done?

The best thing to do is to increase transaction confirmations when receiving LTC or DOGE.

๐Ÿ‘‰The 20 confs exchanges and users are currently relying on is not enough๐Ÿ‘ˆ

A full day is what I'd personally require. That puts a ~2M USD cost floor on attacks.
12/ Does this only affect crypto exchanges?

No. Exchanges are primary targets, but if you've received a LTC/DOGE withdraw transaction from an exchange who is subsequently targeted, your withdraw might disappear after the attack takes place.
13/ Now let's talk a bit about maturity.

Is this the only problem affecting Dogecoin?

Such no... much no...

Dogecoin is a fork of Litecoin who hasn't seen much development in the past 4 years.

Networks like Bitcoin evolved and matured, while Dogecoin remained stagnant.
14/ We run 3 dogecoin nodes at @coinmetrics and we can see they're struggling to support all of this activity.

As of now, they're all on different heights and taking time to catch up to the tip of the chain.
15/ This lack of maturity and seriousness is fun, it's part of the meme..

But if a ten-billion-dollar-marketcap Dogecoin is your stepping stone into crypto, you have to be careful. Don't put your life savings in a meme.

More from Trading

๐‘๐ฎ๐ฅ๐ž๐ฌ ๐จ๐Ÿ ๐ˆ๐ง๐ฏ๐ž๐ฌ๐ญ๐ข๐ง๐  ๐“๐ก๐ซ๐ž๐š๐
The entire thread summarizes some important rules with respect to investing. Inspired by legendary traders,these will not only help you to grow wealth,but also make a smart investor. Hope you would like the thread & shower some love

Rule 1: Bulls, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered so chose your category wisely
Rule 2: It's OK to Pay the Taxes,Dont just wait for a 10% LTCG always. Sometimes you know it won't pay you
Rule 3: Don't Buy All at Once,Have patience market will give enough opportunities

Rule 4: Buy Damaged Stocks, Not Damaged Companies. Understand the diff b/w undervalued stocks and no value stocks. Everything cheap is not bargain,it could be trap.
Rule 5: Diversify to Control Risk,make sure you don't put everything into one stock,one sector or one asset class.

Rule 6: Do Your Stock Homework. You spend 5 hours to buy a cream on Amazon but research for 1 hr based on buying a stock on twitter! Well,do your homework.

Rule 7: No One Made a Dime by Panicking .Invest 2-10% and leave rest. If it falls,pain will be low,if moves,no FOMO haunt

Rule 8: Buy Best-of-Breed Companies,This doesnt mean you have to invest in the most expensive companies,all it means is you need to buy co.s with good earnings,promoters and sustainability
Rule 9: Defend Some Stocks, Not All
Rule 10: Bad Buys Won't Become Takeovers,STOP hoping

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1. IQ is one of the most heritable psychological traits โ€“ that is, individual differences in IQ are strongly associated with individual differences in genes (at least in fairly typical modern environments). https://t.co/3XxzW9bxLE


2. The heritability of IQ *increases* from childhood to adulthood. Meanwhile, the effect of the shared environment largely fades away. In other words, when it comes to IQ, nature becomes more important as we get older, nurture less.
https://t.co/UqtS1lpw3n


3. IQ scores have been increasing for the last century or so, a phenomenon known as the Flynn effect. https://t.co/sCZvCst3hw (N โ‰ˆ 4 million)

(Note that the Flynn effect shows that IQ isn't 100% genetic; it doesn't show that it's 100% environmental.)


4. IQ predicts many important real world outcomes.

For example, though far from perfect, IQ is the single-best predictor of job performance we have โ€“ much better than Emotional Intelligence, the Big Five, Grit, etc. https://t.co/rKUgKDAAVx https://t.co/DWbVI8QSU3


5. Higher IQ is associated with a lower risk of death from most causes, including cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease, most forms of cancer, homicide, suicide, and accident. https://t.co/PJjGNyeQRA (N = 728,160)