Bitcoin Forum

Alternate cryptocurrencies => Altcoin Discussion => Topic started by: forsetifox on June 05, 2013, 09:28:22 PM



Title: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: forsetifox on June 05, 2013, 09:28:22 PM
Why hasn't anyone done this yet? There's a ton out right now.


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: MaGNeT on June 05, 2013, 09:29:16 PM
Can't.


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: jbmiller10 on June 05, 2013, 09:31:01 PM
Can't.

Why?


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: dreamwatcher on June 05, 2013, 10:33:19 PM

From my understanding of merged mining (I am no expert),

For merged mining to work, the "aux" chain has to accept the parents chains POW hash (that meets the "aux" chains difficulty target) as proof of work and thus generate a hash (difficulty does not matter) for its chain, with the parents chain hash in the first transaction as the proof of work rather then the hash of the block itself.

So the "aux" chain has to be patched to act as an aux chain and the parent chain has to be patched to recognize the "aux" chains difficulty and pass any hashes that meet the "aux" chains target to the "aux" chain.

So, corporation among coin developers is needed, unless one forks both chains themselves, which would be difficult to do and get enough miner support.

There is also the issue of the difficulties with the new chains, if the parent chain difficulty drops below the "aux" chain difficulty, well I guess merged mining would stop until the parent chain difficulty surpassed the "aux" chain.



Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: noel on June 05, 2013, 10:58:52 PM

From my understanding of merged mining (I am no expert),

For merged mining to work, the "aux" chain has to accept the parents chains POW hash (that meets the "aux" chains difficulty target) as proof of work and thus generate a hash (difficulty does not matter) for its chain, with the parents chain hash in the first transaction as the proof of work rather then the hash of the block itself.

So the "aux" chain has to be patched to act as an aux chain and the parent chain has to be patched to recognize the "aux" chains difficulty and pass any hashes that meet the "aux" chains target to the "aux" chain.

So, corporation among coin developers is needed, unless one forks both chains themselves, which would be difficult to do and get enough miner support.

There is also the issue of the difficulties with the new chains, if the parent chain difficulty drops below the "aux" chain difficulty, well I guess merged mining would stop until the parent chain difficulty surpassed the "aux" chain.



Interesting thanks for the info


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: moody123 on June 06, 2013, 03:35:21 AM
So that explanation doesn't say it can't be done with Scrypt....


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: mebezac on June 06, 2013, 03:52:42 AM
It's being worked on, not sure what if any progress has been made. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221375.msg2334219#msg2334219


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: moody123 on June 06, 2013, 04:06:47 AM
It's being worked on, not sure what if any progress has been made. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=221375.msg2334219#msg2334219

Thanks for that link.


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: dreamwatcher on June 06, 2013, 04:07:30 AM
So that explanation doesn't say it can't be done with Scrypt....

It has nothing to do with sha-256 or scrypt.

The issue is not if it is technically viable, of course it is. The issue is either getting coin developers to agree and work with each other to set up merged mining, or fork one or two chains separate from the official coin development and hope you get enough miners on board to keep both forks alive.


Remember one chain has to accept the others chains POW as a valid POW on that chain and become the "aux" chain, and well you can kind of see where pride might get in the way.  :D :D


 
This is not to say I am against the idea, personally I think it might be helpful in strengthening the strongest of the new alt-coins. However, it is a long, tough hill to climb. With the alt-coin community split like it is today, I have a hard time seeing it happen.


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: moody123 on June 06, 2013, 04:16:05 AM
There's already a few coin developers willing to work together. Thanks for the info.


Title: Re: Merge mining scrypt coins.
Post by: mebezac on June 06, 2013, 04:22:19 AM
So that explanation doesn't say it can't be done with Scrypt....

It has nothing to do with sha-256 or scrypt.

The issue is not if it is technically viable, of course it is. The issue is either getting coin developers to agree and work with each other to set up merged mining, or fork one or two chains separate from the official coin development and hope you get enough miners on board to keep both forks alive.


Remember one chain has to accept the others chains POW as a valid POW on that chain and become the "aux" chain, and well you can kind of see where pride might get in the way.  :D :D


 
This is not to say I am against the idea, personally I think it might be helpful in strengthening the strongest of the new alt-coins. However, it is a long, tough hill to climb. With the alt-coin community split like it is today, I have a hard time seeing it happen.


So what's to stop an alt-coin dev from creating a coin and then creating a second coin that you can merge mine with that first coin? That wouldn't be hurting themselves and would give people incentive to mine their coins because they could get multiples of different coins with the same hashes. Also, how far could this go? Can you only merge mine one coin on top of the original coin, or could you simultaneously merge mine multiple coins on one main coin, or have a chain of coins merge mining themselves?