Can't we mitigate this with merged mining?

Perhaps we can make a polite request that Bitmark is not added to any exchange before the community decides it's time.

What do you mean? Mining?

Burning electricity does not give value, you just waste resources and the money spent on mining could be used in a productive way. Value is not  "supposed", it is a value given my the market. You will not find a better measure than the market price.

Technically: Light and stable with a modern codebase, maturing features from the alternative currency sector which benefit users added on a faster timeline than bitcoin. Think of it more as standardization rather than innovation.

User focussed: Most development effort and innovation goes in to making bitmark as user friendly, and simple to integrate with, as possible.

Adoption: In line with being user focussed, all marketing and outreach will be to potential adopters, such as microtransaction marketplaces. The project is crafted in such a way that encourages all involved to focus on adoption.

Earned Value: no hype, no rush to get on exchanges, no ipo, premine, it's not a cash cow, it's a project to make a viable every day currency, any value will be earned.

Longevity: 0.250% (max) of the block reward goes to the bitmark development fund, supporting long term dedication to to the project, and future growth as value grows.

Distribution: A configuration which aims to ensure fair distribution whilst using proven PoW which has had substantial investment in hardware.

So, no hype or gimmicks, just a project which focusses on becoming a stable every day currency. Remember the days when the first bitcoins were gifted to each other, when buying a pizza was a milestone, when it was about developing a useful currency, when we asked how can we get x to use this, rather than what it it be worth tomorrow? this is about getting back to that ethos, whilst recognising the space has moved forward.

Project Status: We are close to releasing the first clone-able reference implementation (technically already complete), it's 90% of the bitmark foundation and serves as a modern, tested, codebase which other can fork and use to make their pump and dump clones. They're going to do it so we may as well ensure they're using safe tested code rather than copy and pastes of redundant code.

172.31.31.10

In the last few days, I have read all post, and have participated as much as I can.  Yet I can do more.  While I do consider myself a geeker, I do not know coding on the level that I would like. Having said that, by nature, I am an entrepreneur.  It is this nature that lead me to bitcoin and crypto currency in the first place.  Since the beginning of 2013, I no longer accept government fiat for my online product/service offers.  You might call me one of the crazy risk takers, yet I have chosen to be among the very few online merchants that is crypto only merchant.   It is slow, yet a greatly rewarding choice.  I do believe in this bitmark community and the concept at large.  In order to help the bitmark foundation, I propose to offer 20% of my online sells profits to the bitmark foundation, in the effort of support and future growth.  These transfer will occur on a monthly basis.  In all intent, consider this a funds raiser.  I am not a wealthy man, but I do have vision, and a positive outlook for the future of us all.  Here is the link to my site. http://jaysjerkyandgoodies.auctivacommerce.com/ 
I would appreciate any thoughts on my offer.  I have started a thread for the discussion.  https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/687410.new#new

Sincerely in support of Bitmark project

Jay

Bitmark QT, daemon, and cli for 32bit and 64bit versions of Linux, Windows, and Mac will be posted here tomorrow at the release time.

Nobody has early access, including the one confirmed pool (miningpool.co), I am unsure what time ethought plans to release Bitmark on this pool, I expect shortly after release.

We have already had a test run with a cross compiled pre-release and tested successfully on all platforms.

A Bitmark Foundation address for BTM donations will also be specified at release time.
For now the BTC donation address is 18rai2ichzUfXG6PVmUQLNPqBjtctnVRAD, all donations will be used according to the IPM proposal.

Thank you for your kind comments emdje, they are appreciated.

Tomorrow is historically a sad day marking the anniversary of the death of a loved one, I look forward to both being occupied and having something good to associate with this date instead.

I sincerely hope that the valuable discussion continues after the first release, for that is when we really get to work at making Bitmark what it intends to be.

This thread may get cluttered after tomorrow, we should discuss how and where to host future discussions of the quality so far.