While it can be possibly debated whether JPL is open source or not (Jelurida claims that it is open source), it doesn’t seem to satisfy the free software definition in regard to freedom 0: “the freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose”. In particular, article 12 of the JPL says:

Big change was implemented recently which changes method of measuring time in Ercoin from block height to timestamps. It comes from the fact that time between blocks is not enforced by consensus in Tendermint. Besides making data structures more natural and the usage simpler, it allows to abandon creating blocks every n seconds regardless of whether there are transactions present or not. If there are no transactions, blocks are created much rarer than when transactions are present. This reduces blockchain size without impacting confirmation time.

The browser wallet now supports timestamps, with some tools to display and edit them nicely in various contexts. The command line wallet has been obsoleted.

To make the feature of delaying block creation when there are no transactions actually possible, Tendermint needs to stop creating blocks if app hash changes. See issue #1909 for details.

Laboratorium EE has released a tool which visualizes initial burn offerings, featuring Blacknet and Ercoin (both BlackCoin-derived).

Laboratorium EE has released a tool which visualizes initial burn offerings, featuring Blacknet and Ercoin.

Laboratorium EE has released a tool which visualizes initial burn offerings, featuring Ercoin and Blacknet.

ercoin.tech has now SSL encryption and there is also a news feed. It is intended to be rather low volume and can be used in particular to watch for the announcement of burning period.

There are also syndication feeds on GitLab which can be used to track activity in repositories.

The browser wallet now supports eight currency units, based on decimal prefixes. The smallest possible unit is currently nanoercoin (nERN). An Ercoin node operates only on nanoercoins and treats it as a basic unit.

Two bounties have been already announced (listed on ercoin.tech, paid in BLK as Ercoin is not launched yet) and there may be more in the future. No plans to do an airdrop.

Ercoin now has a Twitter account: @ErcoinTech.

The browser wallet now supports changing format of binary serialization (affecting addresses, private keys and transactions) on the fly, offering four options:

• Base58
• Base64
• Hex
• Raw bytes

I agree. For now the priority is to have some logo and this one is not created by a professional. Since there is no ICO and no premine, hiring a designer will likely require a sponsor. Another option is to pay someone to only polish the existing design.

Ercoin now has a logo.

News

Locked accounts are now able to designate other addresses as validators. This change means that compromising validator’s key won’t necessarily mean loss of funds. While it results in a lower incentive to protect validators’ keys, it also results in a lower incentive to crack validators (as there will be little funds to steal). Locked accounts will still have an incentive to make validators secure, as compromised validators can lower the currency value.

This change also means that stakeholders will be able to easily delegate the duty of running a validator to other entity. This opens a possibility of validators being backed by multiple stakeholders.

As a next step, entropy of validators’ drawing was reduced. There are now 20 validator slots and randomness is only used to apportion fractional parts. For a discussion of random number generator and apportionment algorithm, see a related thread on erlang-questions.

Lock time was limited to three years in regard to drawing validators. The main purpose of taking lock time into account when drawing validators is to choose validators that prefer long time appreciation of currency value over short time fee profits. Three years seem sufficient for this purpose.

Tendermint was upgraded to 0.21.0 (this involves only changing port numbers).

I’ve released burnt-explorer 2.0.0. It now outputs more data (which may be helpful for statistics and visualisations) in standard CSV format. It is also possible to specify a custom blackcoind command.

An interesting dilemma. When asking the original question I had snapshot in mind as a method of Blacknet distribution, but whether it is snapshot or burning may be not that important in the considerations below.

If 1 blackcoin = 1 blacknet or 1 ercoin, then investors will have an opportunity to make a decision of how to divide funds between Ercoin and Blacknet. If 1 blackcoin = 1 blacknet and 1 ercoin, then investment preferences in this regard will not be reflected in the initial distribution and there will likely be a lot of trading after the launches to achieve state from the former case.

In the latter case, the fact that obtaining Ercoin via burning will also mean obtaining Blacknet and vice versa may mean that more people in total will hold both currencies, which may result in greater adoption. On the other hand, if people are not allowed to choose between the two currencies, then it may form an incentive to not purchase BlackCoin at all, wait until the launch of the currency they’re interested in and purchase it on an exchange. In particular it may therefore result in a lower value of BLK burnt/snapshotted and therefore lower perceived value of both currencies.

“Merged burning” (allowing the same burned BLKs to participate both in Blacknet and Ercoin distribution) may form an interesting marketing opportunity, but so may another alternatives.

Weighing the pros and cons above, I’m currently leaning toward 1 blackcoin = 1 blacknet or 1 ercoin.

This has not been decided yet. I’m reluctant to schedule distribution before launching a public testnet. Also it would be nice to have Tendermint (which serves as a consensus engine) version 1.0 released. I’d say that “this summer” is a rather optimistic, but not unrealistic estimation.


All ercoins are planned to be distributed via BlackCoin burning. The total money supply has not been determined yet, but it is more or less irrelevant — it’s just a number.

Sadly this is true; he announced the departure on Twitter.

This has not been decided yet. I’m reluctant to schedule distribution before launching a public testnet. Also it would be nice to have Tendermint (which serves as a consensus engine) version 1.0 released. I’d say that “this summer” is a rather optimistic, but not unrealistic estimation.

So there are now three cryptocurrencies either in existence, announced or in development, which are going to derive their blockchains from BlackCoin’s:

• BlackCoin itself.
• Blacknet, which is going to create initial distribution from BlackCoin’s blockchain snapshot.
• Ercoin, which I’m developing, and which is going to use BlackCoin burning to obtain initial distribution.

Thoughts?

Since Ercoin is going to be distributed via BlackCoin burning, it would be interesting to know the date of the blockchain snapshot for the purpose of BlackNet distribution. If it happens during the burning period, then the two will interfere.