Update will be released around 7PM UTC time this Friday. (2PM Eastern / 11AM Pacific)
Here is what we would like to accomplish with the upcoming update:

1) Change block difficulty re-target to 1 minute to resist multi-pool mining & dumps to help steadily build the price.
2) Add transaction message support.
3) Update to latest version of Bitcoin/Litecoin client.
4) Reduce the block reward by 0.5% every 7 days starting at 8000 DGB.

Gravity Well vs Re-Target
From our research we can not see what if any advantage the gravity well would offer over simply changing the re-target time to 1 minute. In fact, the gravity well would actually allow for more coins to be mined for a few minutes after a dramatic instant hash increase when compared to changing the difficulty re-target to 1 minute. The gravity well implementation would complicate things for us and cause issues with our Android wallet. Since both achieve the same desired result (ending multi-pool driven hash swings & coin dumps). We would like to travel down the path of least resistance.

Built in Wallet Update Feature
Xploited had the best answer to this. Isn't the point of a crypto currency to avoid centralization? By implementing a single location that all wallets can update from we are also implementing a single point of failure to the network that could potentially be taken over by an attacker who could cripple the network. We want to make sure DigiByte will remain strong and resilient to attacks.

Block Reward Increase
The idea of producing most of the coins right away and entering the deflation stage as soon as possible is very interesting to think about. However, at this point we feel there are several reasons why we should not go this route. Had we talked about this before we launched it might be a different story, but not now that we are way beyond launch.

It would be very unethical and unprofessional of us to increase the block reward. This would cause an immediate decrease in price and as such it would be very discourteous to current investors. Some of which have invested several thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin into DigiByte.

Another reason for not mining all the coins right away is mining itself. Mining keeps a coins network strong. In order to keep miners mining, they need coins to mine. Just look at Quark, many miners have jumped ship and the threat of a 51% attack from bot nets continues to increase. Miners should and do deserve to be incentived well into the future.

Block Reward Decrease
We are not looking to do anything dramatic here. Instead we are looking for a solution that will benefit everyone. Miners, current investors and future investors.

We will reduce the block reward by 0.5% every 7 days.  This gives DigiByte over 20 years of profitable mining. A nice half percent decrease is much easier for people to calculate and for us to market. Reductions will occur on Fridays to give a slight psychological boost going into weekend trading.

Examples: Two Fridays from now the first reduction will occur. It will go from 8000 DGB to 7960DGB
Week: 1 Reward: 7960
Week: 2 Reward: 7920.2
Week: 3 Reward: 7880.599
Week: 4 Reward: 7841.196005

We will NOT be implementing an auto update feature for this very reason.

We apologize for this, please post which ones you would like added here and we will get them up right away.

Make sure to follow DigiByte on Twitter and like us on Facebook!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DigiByteCoin

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/digibytecoin

What is your DGB address? You are the luck one that made the 1st post on page #300!

We are having a discussion on IRC about the block reward and DigiByte updates if anyone would like to join in! http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=#digibytecoin

So just to clarify, we would like to reduce the block reward 0.5% every week (ever 7 days or 10107 blocks). We would start this at the current 8000 DGB block reward 1 week after updating the DGB wallet.

This will benefit everyone as DigiBytes will become hard to to mine each and every week.

After running through several equations with the options we listed it appears that a block reward reduction of about 0.5% every week is the sweet spot. Actual numbers varied from .3% - .5%. We think 0.5% will be much easier to explain to people for marketing purposes.

0.4 % is about 20 years time.

This is a 26% reduction every year.

This would be more fair to miners. They would have more coins to mine over the next 5 years. Secondly, each week the coins they mined the week before would be slightly more valuable at a predictable rate.

We are not aware of any private pools that have that much hash mining DGB. It is most likely a multi-pool.

Yes, everyone would benefit here. This would lead to a slow gradual rise as DigiBytes would become just a little bit harder to come by each week. We are just working on the optimum weekly percentage decrease calculations.

We wanted to share our thoughts with everyone on the upcoming DigiByte update we are working on.

Here is what we would like to accomplish with the upcoming update:

1) Change block difficulty re-target to 1 minute to resist multi-pool mining & dumps to help steadily build the price.
2) Add more checkpoints, super-nodes and seeders.
3) Update to latest version of Bitcoin/Litecoin client.
4) Reduce the block reward by a certain percentage each week for either; 10, 15, or 20 years.

Gravity Well vs Re-Target
From our research we can not see what if any advantage the gravity well would offer over simply changing the re-target time to 1 minute. In fact, the gravity well would actually allow for more coins to be mined for a few minutes after a dramatic instant hash increase when compared to changing the difficulty re-target to 1 minute. The gravity well implementation would complicate things for us and cause issues with our Android wallet. Since both achieve the same desired result (ending multi-pool driven hash swings & coin dumps). We would like to travel down the path of least resistance.

Built in Wallet Update Feature
Xploited had the best answer to this. Isn't the point of a crypto currency to avoid centralization? By implementing a single location that all wallets can update from we are also implementing a single point of failure to the network that could potentially be taken over by an attacker who could cripple the network. We want to make sure DigiByte will remain strong and resilient to attacks.

Block Reward Increase
The idea of producing most of the coins right away and entering the deflation stage as soon as possible is very interesting to think about. However, at this point we feel there are several reasons why we should not go this route. Had we talked about this before we launched it might be a different story, but not now that we are way beyond launch.

It would be very unethical and unprofessional of us to increase the block reward. This would cause an immediate decrease in price and as such it would be very discourteous to current investors. Some of which have invested several thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin into DigiByte.

Another reason for not mining all the coins right away is mining itself. Mining keeps a coins network strong. In order to keep miners mining, they need coins to mine. Just look at Quark, many miners have jumped ship and the threat of a 51% attack from bot nets continues to increase. Miners should and do deserve to be incentived well into the future.

Block Reward Decrease
We are not looking to do anything dramatic here. Instead we are looking for a solution that will benefit everyone. Miners, current investors and future investors. We are considering three potential options to change the block reward. These will a gradual block reward % reduction every 7 days.

Current amount of coins left to be mined: 20,400,000,000
Block Percentage Reduction Every: 10107.69230769231 Blocks (1 week)

Option 1:
20 Years: Block reward reduces every week by a small percentage so that the last coin is minted 20 years from now.
20x365x24x60= 10,512,000 Blocks
20 x 52 weeks= 1040 Weeks


20,400,000,000 DGB / 10,512,000 Blocks = 1940.64 DigiByte reward average per block over 20 years.


Option 2:
15 Years: Block reward reduces every week by a small percentage so that the last coin is minted 15 years from now.
15x365x24x60= 7,884,000 Blocks
15 x 52 weeks= 780 Weeks

20,400,000,000 DGB / 7,884,000 Blocks = 2587.52 DigiByte reward average per block over 15 years.


Option 3:
10 Years: Block reward reduces every week by a small percentage so that the last coin is minted 10 years from now.
10x365x24x60= 5,256,000 Blocks
10 x 52 weeks = 520 Weeks

20,400,000,000 DGB / 5,256,000 Blocks = 3881.28 DigiByte reward average per block over 10 years.

So what does everyone think? What is the best solution? How would you do things different?

Note: After running through several calculations it looks like 0.5% is the sweet spot for a weekly reduction. This gives DigiByte over 20 years of profitable mining. Explaining a 0.4143583% reduction would confuse many people. A nice half percent decrease is much easier for people to calculate and for us to market.

This is awesome! Thank you very much!

Markets cycle up and down. Now is a great time to buy. DigiByte has a very bright future ahead of it! Remember, Rome was not built in a day.

We are on track to accomplish some great things in 2014!

Bitcoin is moving back up in price.

+1 Now is an excellent time to buy DGB!

We understand everyone's concern with multi pools and the price. The price will rise over time. We will be updating the wallet with several new features as well as implementing anti multi-pool features. This will be a mandatory update. More info to come later this week!

Does anyone know which multipool just started mining DigiByte? This is the highest we have ever seen the hash rate jump to.

You are absolutely correct Torch. We are discussing several options. The gravity well is not as easy to implement as people think. Our Android wallet will experience several issues. The retarget time will be the way we probably go. 1-5 minutes probably.

Torch,

You have a very valid point. The more we research the issue and listen to very valuable opinions like this the more we realize something needs to be done. We want people to mine DigiByte becouse they beleive in and support it. Not so they can mine it, convert it to Litecoin at the end of the day and go back to playing call of duty while their basement mining farm pays their bills.

Look forward to an anouncement and solution to this next week! Thank you very much for the feedback, we will be implementing the best possible solution to this problem soon.

Exactly, why not mine all the DGB you can while it is easy? The only place DigiByte is going is up! Mining will only get harder!