Not having a GUI until now was a stroke of genius, because once the GUI comes out - so will the clone-eros.

Why do you think Bitcoin has literally over 1000 clones? Because it was bone easy to clone it. With open source software you can't stop this.

We all know that most of these clones are fly-by-night operations designed to pump and dump. The real trick is to create a robust enough ecosystem and engine to keep you afloat in a sea of copy/paste jobs with more glitz than sense.

As well, this is why it was genius not to have a GUI until now. We already have damaged and irreputable Cryptonote-Frankenjobs mucking things up. Imagine how many more there would be if Monero could be cloned by someone with minimal programming experience?

I predict two things must occur given this:

• A sharp price rise (and subsequent rise in hash rate) must/should accompany the release of the GUI & release edition in order to secure the network vs. any fly-by-night upstarts. I think this will happen organically as a consequence of group dynamics and game theory.

• Down the road, there will inevitably be a shiny upstart with slicker marketing forked from Monero. Even as our network is finding rapid success, bordering on mainstream, this new coin-of-the-hour will ascend like a supernova and for a moment even make the Monero faithful question their network. It happened with Dogecoin, and it will happen again. Perhaps not in the exact same way, but the principle will be the same.

edit: I am aware of the Cryptonote coin generator online, but that will hardly give you a product even remotely as functional as Monero is at the present.