In case any of you missed this posting from early October last year that Toknormal referenced with a link a couple of pages back, here it is reproduced in full. Well worth reading:
Darkcoin is technologically and psychologically flawed. There is space next to a Bitcoin for a mainstream anonymous coin. However the only way such an anonymous coin can succeed is by making the libertarian argument...
I think you've made the right points but picked the wrong coin.
The "Libertarian argument" is nothing to do with labels or brands. Nor does it need to be "NSA" proof. The "Libertarian argument" centres around privacy being a core prerequisite to financial freedom. If you're going to cite that as your criteria then a practical level of anonymity is all that's required. Despite that, the technological approach now being implemented on the Darkcoin network goes way beyond a "practical level of anonymity" and, as other posters have pointed out, is already getting endorsements by 3rd party auditors.
The other reason that DRK supports the "Libertarian argument" with greater fidelity than its competitors is due to its 2-tier approach. By pursuing this route instead of an integrated one like cryptonote which puts BOTH the commercial AND technological interfaces right out on a limb, Darkcoin is addressing the mainstream economy - not the "dark" economy. It has planted its commercial interface square in the centre of Bitcoin's world while freeing its second tier up to provide an anonymity service for that mainstream economy.
The elegance of design in making those two layers independent is Darkcoin's real strength - the anonymity layer isn't "welded" into the blockchain technology as it is with most of its competitors, thereby giving them the clumsiest transmission mechanism around because they've got to do everything in realtime at the point of transaction. A bit like going out to hunt every single time you get hungry instead of going once and keeping the animals in a pen for when your ready to eat.
In my opinion this is a far greater flaw by an order of magnitude than anything you've cited about Darkcoin.
