I appreciate that your reply to my post was made in a thoughtful and intelligent manner.   But I still do not believe that Darkcoin is the best solution for anonymity.  In fact, I question the logic in investing in a coin that could potentially be shut down by various governments because of the anonymity and potential for money laundering and financing terrorists, etc...  One of the reasons that Bitcoin has avoided those issues is because it isn't anonymous.

I am also somewhat confused regarding your statement about Darkcoin going mainstream.  No anonymous cryptocurrency will ever become mainstream where you will be able to use it as a form of payment for anything of significance.  How do you become mainstream when the concept of mainstream conflicts with the anonymity feature?  Mainstream would be like Bitcoin about to be listed as an ETF on NASDAQ.  That will never happen with an anonymous coin.

The vast majority of retailers, vendors, and businesses will never conduct financial transactions anonymously.  So if RC4 is a success like you say it will be where do I spend Darkcoins?  I can buy merchandise with Bitcoin already.  One of the reasons that Bitcoin is accepted by retailers like overstock.com is because it has an infrastructure that allows it to be accepted and processed in a way similar to a credit card transaction.  No entity is going to process payments for an anonymous coin where they are unable to track the transaction.  So that means you would need to send Darkcoin without anonymity.  I might just as well use Bitcoin.  It's already established as a form of payment.
  
I didn't just lose faith in your project, I have lost faith in the entire anonymous coin frenzy.  I think it's been more hype than anything.  Darkcoin, Monero, All the Darkcoin clones, Cryptonote clones.  Mostly just a fad.    

What people need is a coin with things like fast transactions and confirmations, clearing houses to process transactions and convert to fiat, mobile clients, and most importantly places that accept it.  Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that does all of these things, some better than others.

I wouldn't have cluttered up your thread with many of my posts if it wasn't for the personal attacks levied at anyone by a few pathetic members of the Darkcoin community that I'm sure you wish would tone down their rhetoric.  

One last thing.  It was the decision to tax the miners 20% to pay the masternode operators that changed my faith in Darkcoin.  That is unfair and blatantly favors those that have more than others.  Some individuals have posted they are running numerous masternodes.  Because they have thousands of coins they get to take 20% from someone that is likely not even breaking even mining Darkcoin.   You have people on here playing Tax man and going after pool operators as if they are criminals for not making masternode payments.  Some people even suggested DDOSing non-compliant pools.  You have all these anti-government types embracing Darkcoin while at the same time supporting the same kind of taxation that they are supposedly opposed to.      

He still has valid points, and I return to my earlier statement: anonymity has caveats. What we basically have here is the graphic that went up a few days ago, but Evan said, "Wait a minute! The funds are already anonymous after step one! Why do we need step two??"

There are still things that need addressed:
1. The client is going to attempt to re-denominate incoming funds; what flag is needed to stop my masternode from doing that to itself?
2. What if I need to send an amount larger than average? This can get messy.
3. What size and how many participants need to be involved in the anonymizing transaction to make it "good enough"? (again, it's the large holders that potentially want to spend a larger amount at once that causes the risk)
4. What about exchange wallets? Will they become a hot steaming mess of addresses due to their holding potentially huge amounts of coins? Is this acceptable? Something we want? Not relevant?

All I got for now.

Ok, agreed. We're just splitting up the masternode steps in time, which will make traceability that much harder (temporally speaking). We can do step 1 of Darksend+ to redenominate as soon I receive DRK. Then I'm prepared for step 2, which is the 'instant anonymous' transaction. Yep, I'm on board now.

Right.

Also, like I pointed out earlier, this means that Masternodes now have no direct involvement in the actual person to person transaction, so if someone decides to use Darkcoin to so something illegal, there is no reasonable grounds for Masternode owners to be held liable.

As always, consult your attorney etc. etc. because they can make a law for anything. But your logic does seem reasonable.

Another question though. I would be concerned about real time data analysis during step 2 of Darksend+. Can the re-denominated addresses be de-anonymized since their outputs would be spent at the same time? By that I mean not only would my addresses appear in the same block, but the broadcast of the transaction would group my addresses together in time. Is there a countermeasure that can be deployed for this?

Put another way, my group of re-denominated addresses appear at one time on the blockchain. A subset of them appear again as spent at a later time in the blockchain. Is that inconsequential?
 

That's my boy!  (er... Ok, technically not, but if I were his Mum, I'd be so proud!)  I'm sure she is too!  Good Job Evan!

How does DRK solve any problem for merchants and clients?  I have bought items from reputable merchants using Bitcoin. I didn't notice any problems.  In fact, every purchase I have made from overstock.com was flawless and immediate.  There isn't any problem that needs to be solved.    
 and as long as you pay taxes when you convert to fiat they
DRK does indeed solve BTC's traceability when it comes to money laundering and other nefarious purposes.  

The beauty of BTC not being anonymous is that it will be adopted by the mainstream and used for actual financial transaction.  I still have not heard where you will be able to spend DRK or even any reputable vendor embracing DRK as a payment method.  It likely won't happen because businesses are not going to put themselves in a position where they could potentially run into trouble with FinCEN.  In case you don't know, FinCEN "Financial Crimes Enforcement Network http://www.fincen.gov/ " mission is:
 
"FinCEN’s mission is to safeguard the financial system from illicit use and combat money laundering and promote national security through the collection, analysis, and dissemination of financial intelligence and strategic use of financial authorities."

I would hate to have my fortune tied up in an anonymous cryptocurrency that could be shut down at anytime by the United States Government using the Patriot Act and National Security as justification.  They find a Darkcoin wallet on a seized terrorist laptop and it's lights out for Darkcoin.  Any company hosting masternodes in the United States will comply with any order to shut down Darkcoin network traffic.  European governments would follow suit, most South American countries will do whatever the US tells them to do and the Chinese don't want any crytptocurrency.

What many fail to see is that the main selling point of Darkcoin could actually cause it's demise.  Do you actually think that the United States government is just going to allow people to send whatever they want to whoever they want?  Potentially funding terrorists or laundering money to avoid paying taxes?  Not gonna happen.  Congress would find bipartisan support to enact laws to prevent just that from happening.  

Isn't this MACD bad news generally ? NB: im terrible at TA.

The powers that be cannot shut down cryptocurrencies any faster than they can win the war on drugs. They will have to learn to play nice with cryptos, which is exactly why Bitcoin is being co-opted as we speak. Which is exactly why marijuana is being co-opted as we speak...