I will not get to deep into defending all of the points relating to its launch since everyone can look into it themselves, the information is out there. I thought this post by AlexGR was actually rather relevant and reflects my sentiment well on the matter. I suggest that for anyone that does want to know more to read that thread, the discussion in there is rather interesting, I do not see the point in rehashing that entire discussion in here.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=999886.msg10856237#msg10856237
I disagree with you about Dash being 'fair'.
It is true there was no literal premine in the sense of coins magically appearing in the genesis block.
That is good, we can agree that there was no premine for Dash.
However, the developer stated that the coin would be not be launched within hours, told people who where waiting for the launch to go to sleep, and then launched it a few hours later.
I can agree that the launch was not ideal, however this is not that unusual for such an obscure and experimental coin at the time. This is something that I think is important to keep in mind.
The developer also withheld the information about what features were planned for coin.
This is not accurate, not knowing what the coin would become is not the same as withholding information, this is again a characteristic of such a small altcoin project. Dash has grown rather organically over the years as it has continued to gain support, and I think based on the merits of its technology as well.
So while, theoretically, anyone could mine it, no one (unless possessing non-public information) had any particular reason to do so, and some of the people who wanted to mine it anyway were misled into not doing so during the critical period.
I suppose that I can agree that this is somewhat of a dilemma, this is also true for most small cryptocurrencies that later become much larger, Bitcoin is also an example of this, Satoshi mined more then a million Bitcoins because other people did not know about it or believed in it, is that unfair?
I can't agree that any of that is 'fair'.
I would break down the original list slightly differently by the way. Some premines could be called 'fair' if the nature of the premine is fully disclosed up front (all of the above premined coins except BCN I believe). One may or may not want to get involved with coins with a premine of course, but with clear and complete disclosure I see no inherent 'unfairness'. (Ethereum, BTW, has both a premine and a presale.)
I'd note as a potential conflict of interest that I'm involved with Monero and some may see Dash as competing with Dash. Nevertheless, there are other coins that some may see as competing with Monero (for example Zcash) where I see no deceptive conduct or 'unfairness' even though they may have various forms of presale/premine/devtax. As long as everything is clearly disclosed, then anything can be fair (which doesn't necessarily make it a good investment of course).
I think you have identified a valid problem with the term "fair" in my opening post. It is actually highly subjective, for example I see as Ethereum as being relativly fair whereas I do not consider that to be the case with Zcash. Another example might how one person might consider capitalism fair while another might consider socialism more fair. It is clear that we can not use this term in this regard because of its highly subjective nature, I think
@Zangelbert Bingledack also in part pointed this out.
Therefore we should think of better terms, I will remove fair and replace it with "transparent" for now until we come up with some better terms. Thank you
@smooth for helping me to come to this realization.
Since he didn't note it, I will add that the OP acknowledges his own conflict with respect to Dash in the linked post (but not here): "Now regarding this controversy in the past of Dash which I thoroughly investigated before I invested into the project myself".
Not sure what the point of this is considering that you have a stronger conflict of interests now that you know that I am invested in both projects. I have the admit the constant attacks on other anonymous cryptocurrencies by some members of the Monero community not to mention their involvement in the blocksize debate, has left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I know that these are individuals that do not represent Monero and are not even necessarily reflective of the wider community, I have met many good people that are Monero supporters as well, the technology after all is very good. If you could, just tell IceBreaker to tone down his rhetoric a bit, he is making you guys look bad.
To Zangelbert Bingledack, who commented on the linked thread about shadiness and innovation not going together that is not really correct. BCN was highly innovative but extremely shady. Dash is innovative in the sense that it has introduced a series of new features and is also shady. So while there indeed have been many, many shady non-innovative coins, being innovative is no guarantee of legitimacy. There are people who are willing to do real development work but not content with a 'fair' share of the rewards, they want a little (or a lot) extra on the side.
You are falsely implying that there was foul play in the early history of Dash, I know that you are generalizing but it should be clear to most people what you are doing here. The truth is that we do not know if there was any foul play or corrupt practices in those early days, the circumstances certainly would have allowed for that or it could have just been a genuine mistake. I suppose that is an important point for me to make, I think it is a great project today and it is certainly not a scam. The technology is very good, with a great community and good distribution. I think it is a good investment, just like Monero is as well.
Bitcoin NO PREMINE or PRESALE.
Ethereum Transparent PRESALE and PREMINE
Ripple PREMINED
Litecoin NO PREMINE or PRESALE. NO INNOVATION.
Dogecoin NO PREMINE or PRESALE. NO INNOVATION.
Dash NO PREMINE or PRESALE.
MaidSafeCoin Transparent PRESALE
BitShares Transparent PRESALE
Factom Transparent PRESALE
Peercoin NO PREMINE or PRESALE.
Stellar PREMINED
Nxt Transparent PRESALE
VPNCoin ???
Emercoin NO PREMINE or PRESALE.
YbCoin ???
Bytecoin PREMINED SCAM
Monero NO PREMINE or PRESALE.
Namecoin NO PREMINE or PRESALE.
