I didn't comment at the time, because I currently do not have sufficient time to be part of it. But it is a very good idea. I am willing to contribute on an ad-hoc basis. My ZS holdings are very small, but I can possibly help write things up or? Let me know what you need, if it's in my power I'll do it.

On the issue of dev's being accountable to the holders of the coin, I think that is true. It does not contradict what I said earlier, and I didn't mean to imply that it's alright for a dev to simply walk away. My point was more that if THAT kills the coin, then it was dead already. If it, on the other hand, inspires the community to run with it on their own, and he comes back, then all is well. It's open source, and belongs to those who hold it. Cryptogir can't stop any of us from developing it's ecosphere, even if he had the inclination. More likely He'd back it, because, well, that's where it needs to go. He might be flaky, but he's not stupid.

discussing when and where to put the fork in. Thunder is testing the release to make sure nothing important was missed. I think (don't hold me to it) that the first release will simply be a fix, with the new UI and such coming a bit later. But yes, on the test fork all appeared to work correctly and quickly. There may need to be some more tweaking down the road a bit once the staking is moving correctly, but it won't be major.

That being said, the fix is a hard fork and will be a mandatory upgrade. Thundertoe will have the details very soon.

Oh, no stake weight will be lost. Obviously, given the halted POS chain, we all lost some compounding, but no stake weight. Call it nature's method of inflation control

wasn't my intent, I'll revisit this in a bit. Got called away, but this is an interesting discussion.

Thanks, Jc, my turn at the mic.

You have indeed nailed the symptom, but not the proximate cause. I want to delve into that a bit. First, let me say that I think from a functional point of view, ZS is one of the very best alternatives to Bitcoin that has come down the pike. From an implementation point of view, it has been a rollercoaster, and may yet ultimately be a fail. I disagree with your final assesment. I do not disagree overall.

Cryptogir, whatever his faults, is a good programmer. He made a good product. That product needed marketing, adoption, marketing, some uses and cases for use, and marketing. Did I mention that it needed marketing?

The problem, ladies, gentlemen, and you over there in the corner, does not lie with Cryptogir. Yes, him being gone for 18 days without a peep to anyone is troublesome. A good case can be made for it being irresponsible. A slightly worse case can be made for it being reprehensible. But he is not the problem.

The problem is hardly unique to Zimstake. It's incredibly widespread, and not just in the little microcosm of digital currency. The problem is centralization. Not so much the fact of it as the lack of understanding of it's pervasiveness in both thought and action.

What sets Bitcoin apart from all the others? Price? Adoption? What?

Decentralization. It's development teams stayed on long enough to make sure that it was owned by a wide variety of diverse people with diverse ideas and goals who had a personal need to make it work. More failed than succeeded, but what those who have succeeded realized is the true nature of a DECENTRALIZED, OPEN SOURCE currency or payment system. Most of the afficianados of the various coins do NOT realize this. I hear and see it in almost every alt thread. "When is the dev gonna step up and do x".

Why the fuck should he? You've identified the problem, or a problem, what the hell is stopping YOU from implementing it? Copyright? Please.

You want a coin to succeed past the initial development phase, then YOU, right there in the mirror, buck up! Do you expect your life to be handed to you? If so, you're in for a lot of disappointment at best, and an ingnominous death at worst. If you had an idea for a business, and went about capitalizing it, would you expect to just sit back and wait for someone to realize it for you? They won't. They might pick up the ball you fumbled and run with it, but they sure as hell aren't going to do it FOR YOU. This rant is not aimed specifically at Zimstake, nor is it the first time I've said it. This is a problem across the spectrum of the digital currency world. We have one crowd always developing new coins, new algorithms, new something. But with no direction, no idea why they're doing it, no clue what to do with it. There are literally hundreds of alt coins, many with very innovative (and largely useless) features. Most, from a purely technical standpoint, are better than bitcoin. Yet bitcoin reigns supreme. Not because it was the first decentralized digital currency, it wasn't. Not because it is better in any sense, it isn't. But because it is perceived differently. Bitcoin people do NOT expect Satoshi Nakamoto to pop out of a hole and fix the problems. They expect a whole plethora of people to do things with bitcoin as a monetary instrument.

Altcoin people, with a few shining exceptions, do not think this way. They want something done FOR them. They do not push for retail adoption. They do not push for widespread awareness. They form into little bickering bands of "my coin is better than your coin" but do nothing to make it so.

I'm an agnostic in all the altcoin cults. I think one day an altcoin will displace bitcoin. It might be one that already exists. But when it happens, it will not be the developers who make it happen. If they are determined, they may indeed be a part of the process, and some are trying. But until YOU start to trade WITH YOUR COIN for goods and services, it will NEVER be more than a novelty. But so long as the sole purpose is to get bitcoin on an exchange, you are BY DEFAULT conceding victory to bitcoin.

Look at what Sync is doing. It's development culture has been a roller coaster and a train wreck. But they formed a foundation to make something of it, and they have indeed made something of it. It is valued more than BTC at this point. 2 months ago it had nearly died.

This is pervasive in modern culture! We all think in terms of "we" rather than "I", and we expect this vague thing called "society" to fix our ills. But this is not a real or realistic expectation. Society is just a word. Without context, it has no meaning, and in most cases the context leaves the individual the role of easily replaced, disposable part. If that's what you want, go die happy. For those of us who actually think the human race has a future AS HUMANS, the social paradigm needs to be discarded and the idea of individual responsibility needs to be again paramount. We need to think as I. I will do X today because it benefits ME and harms no other. I will do X today with that person because it works to our mutual advantage, but I will remain sovereign in myself. If the advantage does not work out, I will have the right and DUTY to terminate or modify the association, and they too have this understanding, right, and duty.

Zimstake isn't dead because of Cryptogir. If he was it's only raison d'etat, then it never lived.

Thanks, press, this was the part I didn't understand. I was under the impression that 1000 was the max any one block could produce, not 960K per day total network. That make much more sense.

But it leads to another technical question: If the subsidy IS reached, what happens next? Does the chain stop, do we produce zero subsidy blocks? Something else?

Glad I'm not alone on this. All it really tells me is that some people don't know how to use coin control advantageously. Block explorers are vital. Richlist? Meh.

No, I'm not. Those who've followed this since the beginning know the story. I think the old thread is still on the forum. They offered me a miner to review, and allay some suspicions. I took the free hardware, and it was decent. One board has since blown, and just four days ago, the power supply died, but I ran the thing for that whole time. It was based on the Technobit HEX16B. Kind of rough assembly, but overall a very decent machine. AMT was cordial towards me, but as I said at the time, I felt (and feel) that they used me to further their sales without being able to deliver on it. I washed my hands of the mess a long time ago, but it's like a loose tooth. You just can't leave it alone. I've continued to watch.

I do NOT believe they got into this with bad intent. I also think they were way too cocky. The Bitmine debacle cannot be laid at their feet. But their behaviour since has been, well, terrible. I am glad that they are at least making an attempt to set things somewhat aright, but I think they are going about it wrong. Unfortunately, at this point, there is no good end to this mess. I hope the majority of their customers do get their machines, but at this point I wonder if they will be worth much.

I can say from experience that at this time all these miners are good for is alt coins. But those can be quite profitable. But frankly, anything under about 10 TH is pretty well pointless in BTC, and those are still far too expensive.

Both connect via a wall wart. I have them both running through one instance of cgminer. The Gridseed puts out a steady 360KH, whereas the blizzard varies from 1.2 all the way up to 1.8. The spikes are short and frequent. I'm not monitoring it close enough to know for sure, but I'm thinking it's average is closer to 1.4. It's kind of annoying how much it jumps, but the spikes are almost always upwards. It's a good product. The gridseed, aside from it's low hashpower, is a GREAT product. I recommend both with little reservation. There are ways to tune them, and I suspect if you knew what you were doing you could get the zeus stabilized, and possibly at a higher hashrate. I don't yet know how to do that. There are adapters available to run them off of a standard PSU, but I've not used them. So I have no opinion.

I would if I could. He seems to have dropped off the web.

Main donation addy in the OP? If so, I'll put my stakes in over the next few days to get you some staggered blocks.

It's not a lot. I haven't got a lot. But the coin stakes often and easy, even without coin control. (I'm running the daemon).

True, but I don't think it would necessarily play out in bankruptcy court. It may, but it's more likely a criminal matter.

I can help with the change address. It's what's left over after you combine or split a block, and calculate fees. If you want, you can set a custom change address in coin control, and it will always put change there. I don't know if it will automatically combine the blocks, but it will always go to the same address. If you don't do this, it will just dynamically create a new change address whenever the client finds it necessary.

I've never seen any of my blocks, large or small, go past 12 days. Usually stakes right at 9, so I don't know how ideal 1600 really is. It does guarantee you'll never hit the subsidy cap, though.

When is in flux. As soon as the problem is solved. It is being actively pursued. Where will be right here in this thread I'm (peripherally) in the development circle. The reason for the lack of regular updates is that there were some personal issues that one of the coders had to deal with. Resolved, now. thing ought to move apace. I remain a guinea pig for their test builds, and I remain a cheerleader for this coin.

Grab a cup of coffee and stand by. We got this, but it's slow going.

If it's Gmaxwell, he'll be polite in turning you down. But he'll still laugh. Self moderated threads have a disclaimer right at the top about that. If you don't want to be deleted, don't post in a self moderated thread. Starting your own is a button push.

Glad it worked out, and yeah, it's always good to have multiple backups of the wallet file I also recommend using dumpwallet and having a human readable backup. Just in case.

In regards to the bolded, no I do not. I just wasn't clear enough. I think that taking this bunch of scum to court, a real court of OUR peers, would be a great and marvelous spectacle. I just have less than zero faith in the existing systems, and I have seen the "calling the authorities" thing backfire so many times it's not even funny. It was a general statement, and I don't want to get into anarchic political theory in what's essentially a technical discussion. Suffice it to say I am sceptical of any legal action going anywhere. They'd likely just fold and declare bankruptcy. Not sure how that works in china, but in general it absolves them of personal responsibility once the assets are distributed. Screws practically everyone, and the courts generally distribute the assets to business entities and contractors FIRST, then, maybe, throw the end consumer a few scraps.

The ONLY reason I'm not in the same boat as the lot of you is that I didn't have the money at the time, and by the time I did, the writing was on the wall. I got lucky by means of poverty, and that doesn't often happen. My sympathies lie entirely with the customers.

Yeah, Collider, what are you thinking? Don't you realize *I* am the arbiter of good taste?

But hey, I can't say this guy has bad taste, because that would imply he has taste. He's not tasty.

It is somewhat relevant, though, that BTC has crashed rather heavily. Given what the machines are for. I don't see it as a long term trend, and I doubt that other serious miners do either. Cuz if you look at it, those coins being dumped are NOT just sitting there, and the buy support is immense. Long term, it's likely a speed bump. Short term, it might discourage some of the higher powered miners, dropping the diff or slowing it's rise down, and give you guys a better shot at positive ROI.

I've stayed out of the fray for some time, so I'm not going to comment on all the other shit going on. But this one, I think I can say something constructive.

Disclaimer, I do NOT know that what I'm about to say is right, so feel free to correct me where I'm wrong.

It's my understanding that these are innosilicon/dragon miners. If that's the case, then the firmware should be the same or very similar to the dragon and the lightning asic offerings, in which case it's available for download. It's basically a slightly modified version of cgminer. If that's the case, you can get the source from lightning asic, or from several places on this very forum and modify it to suit you. It should also be possible to run the modules direct, without the onboard controller, if you have a spare computer. This is far more flexible than the web interface (that's not a dig at AMT, it's true of every brand I've seen. I run my gridseed and zeusminer direct without a controller, and I can add as many pools as I want, not just three or four as in most web interfaces).

My advice to hobby miners: Learn linux. I have over the last few months. I shied away from the linux crowd for many years because of the elitist attitude. Ignore the attitude and listen to what they say (other than the bragging and condescension). For gaming, Windows is king. For EVERYTHING else, linux is better. I use ubuntu 14.04 exclusively now. Windows 8.1 straight sucks, but even 7 and XP, which I always liked, do not perform as well on ANY task I do as my linux install ON THE SAME MACHINES. And it has the added flexibility of being able to modify absolutely everything. That's not always good. In my learning curve, I have completely hosed to the point of not being bootable 9 installations. But the fixes and information are available, and google is your friend for that. I can't see mining on a windows machine ever again. Or writing. Or watching movies. Or listening to music.

AMT, I'm very glad to see you making this effort. I frankly thought you would have vanished or declared bankruptcy by now, given how things went. You did well by me, but not by a very large percentage of your customers. It's nice to see you attempting to make it right.

I've not done anything with ORB. I first heard of it a few days ago, and will look into it. Staking coins have become my main vehicle of investment. My main coin is TEK.

As I work with each of them that I am gathering, I'm taking notes. I'm hoping to have a pretty comprehensive guide written up in a few months with the strategies I've developed and/or researched in that time. Meanwhile, I know a little about a lot and a lot about a little. Coin control and it's permutations fascinate me.

So far, my experience with Sync has been that it stakes really fast and without much issue. I was surprised to find that it recombines the blocks. Never heard of that, not sure I like it. But for this coin, it makes sense. Larger blocks stake faster, and the coin being ultra rare, you don't need a lot of split.

Do any of you regularly trade there? I had massive problems with them when they were new. To be fair, they did fix it, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. Haven't been back since.