I want to keep it as close as possible to the real core software. The hash power will be extremely low, so the difficulty level should mean that electricity costs for mining should be fairly low as well. The blockchain will be fairly small. It could be kept small by having a long block interval, say an hour or two, but I'll take advice on that.

Well this is as much for my education as well. I've still got a lot to learn.

It looks as if this project may be viable. I've got an offer of support from a legendary. There are going to be some problems, as there may not be a lot of nodes, and most of those will only be part time. It may be that we only guarantee peer connections in a couple of windows. The other alternative is for me to run a node on a server.

I want to emphasise that you won't make any money from this project, and you won't have to pay anything either. The coins will have no commercial value, and there are no plans to trade them outside the project.

They delete my posts in mining, so I've got the whole section on ignore. Besides, it's more about running a node and managing a wallet, than about mining. It's just that you can't maintain the blockchain without miners. I understand your point about trading, but one can always pretend to trade to get some experience without any risk ( or profit).

The entry cost for anything to do with Bitcoin has become extremely high. It's not just the price of the coins, but the cost of downloading the blockchain, and the purchase of mining rigs that may never become profitable. I would like to create an alternative that involves minimal costs ( ie. none for most members ).

I propose that we create a 'play' coin that uses the core software, but a different port and transaction identity. We can start a new blockchain, so there is no download overhead associated with it, apart from the software of course. We could use old mining software, so mining experiments would not require the purchase of an ASIC processor. The coins would have no value, so we could experiment with exchange and trading between members. No investment would be required, so it could be useful for new members of the crypto community. To prevent abuse, participation should be restricted to active members of the Bitcoin Talk forum.

I am happy to provide the domain name and hosting required for this project. What do you think of the idea?

A lot of great ideas are spawned in chill-out threads. It's the sycophantic spamming that is annoying, and it is never original.

I was going to suggest using ftp if it is a multi-user network, but jackg beat me to it. I use an external SSD to move nodes between computers.

I'm thinking ot trying to use a remote blockchain as the base for a new pruned node, and I hoped that this would avoid the need to download the whole chain. Is there a way to do this?

I think it is great example for the justification of keeping merits away from the TwitBook underworld here.

An Altcoin is a coin other than Bitcoin.

The real question is what is the difference between a token and a coin.

I think the answer is a bit subjective, but this is my understanding. A token is a unit of exchange associated with a blockchain project. It can have many other functions associated with it other than a simple exchange. A coin is a token with limited functionality, generally limited to a simple payment unit.

It sounds like the title of a film about the EU dark angel and a sex offender (British prison slang for nonce ), but these are specific terms used in the construction of the blockchain. I'll award merits to posters providing a simple description of either or both words.

Describe a Merkle tree or Merkle root, or the Nonce in a Bitcoin blockchain

As always, no plagiarism or cut and paste answers. Also you are free to correct any posted misconceptions.

You need to be creful using techical analysis for speculative decisions. It is obvious that the market is being manipulated at the moment, and technical analysis tends to be self-fulfilling on many occasions. This means that TA is a great tool for the manipulators to use to amplify their actions.

I wrote an article for my merit source blog -

https://talkmerit.com/the-source/index.php/articles/the-bitcoin-talk-merit-system

One of the downsides of the merit system is that many members see it as a payment for posting. As a result of this, they tend to write posts in the expectation of being rewarded for their efforts. You should enjoy the interaction and information exchange in the Bitcoin Talk forum, and not look on membership as a career choice.

We've tried to help people to improve their posting skills on Fit to Talk . There is even a thread there about the eye of a needle quote that is attributed to Jesus.
https://fittotalk.com/english-talk/index.php?topic=48.0

Well that wasn't quite what I was after, but I gave you a merit for it anyway.

I don't know what the answer is to this thread moving. I've had a few threads moved to TwitBook spam boards that I have on ignore. My solution was to host a domain, and then I can post the information there, and link to it from Bitcoin Talk.

I'll post some links, and then comment afterwards.

https://www.compumark.com/blog/getting-right-happens-brand-name-country/ - Iceland vs. the Supermrket chain
https://dnattorney.com/monaco-no-you-cant-trademark-a-country-name/ - Barcelona and Monaco lost their claims for domain names.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. I wonder why they didn't use the WIPO procedure. It will also be interesting to see if they claim damages from the registrar. I own English.gold, and as far as I know, there are no problems with my ownership of that name.

My quick impression of your posts is that they are basic and general. This means the the topics have been covered many times in the past. One great help for me was to run a full node, and to experiment with it.  It was easier then though, and the blockchain was under 60Gb if I remember correctly. I have been toying with the idea of offering a shared blockchain for new members to use to start a pruned node, but my hosting provider only uses SSDs, and it would be too expensive for me to offer as a freeby. Maybe a trusted member could offer blockchains on SD cards to help people to start a node.

Here is another chance to earn some merits for telling us your understanding of bitcoin topics. To give newer members a chance, the first 10 replies are restricted to newbies and juniors, after that the thread is open to all ranks. The topic can be quite complex, so I'll award merits for good basic description, more detailed explanations of selected transport elements, and more for a good technical overview. Elements include the mempool and UTXOs for example. No plagiarism or copy posting is allowed of course.

Please explain your understanding of the process that takes a bitcoin transaction from an entry in a spender's wallet, to an entry in a receiver's wallet

I have always said that crypto is international, and so is bitcoin Talk. It is useful for us to know what is going on in various countries. For example, it would be good if there was a discussion about the proposed TurkCoin, and it was available for English speakers to read. One of the reasons I started Fit to Talk English was to try to bring these discussions to the English boards on Bitcoin Talk. Because it offers no benefits to Twitbook spammers, it seems to be under-utilised.

I don't agree with that. There is no shortage of merits to award, but there is a shortage of meritable posts. There is also a problem finding them.

Merits are constantly being generated. Every award of a merit creates a half-child. The marriage of two half-children allows for the award of an sMerit, which gives birth to another half-child. This means that every source merit created effectively provides two sMerits for the community. Upon consideration of this, you will realise that half of the sMerits are available for the better members of the community to award, and not just for merit sources. If we can keep merits away from the Twitbook bounty spammers, then there will be more sMerit available for decent posts made by genuine members of the forum.