All that happened was Coinotron had a small issue with his found block reporting. If you check those even blocks on the BlockExplorer you will see they are actually mined by trusted nodes and not Coinotron.

No major software project is 100% bug free, you could test for years and still not find every bug. Granted, the hashrate bugs in the mining portion of the client are embarrassing and should have been captured, but nobody's perfect!

"Proper" testing, in my opinion, ensures that core functionalities or "Minimum Marketable Features" are 100% working, and allows for some minor defects. You can learn about this approach on Wikipedia if you like:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_software_development#Lean_software_practices
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_testing

There's a balance to be struck between time spent testing and speed of updates, you're always going to have to trade one for the other.

You could spend 3 months testing each new version and release maybe 2-3 updates a year, or you can test enough to be satisfied the core functionality is working well and release new features quickly. I think SolidCoin is a project which benefits from the latter approach.


I think you have me confused with someone else. I don't hold any Bitcoins at all. Sold the majority at $8 when it was on the way down from $10, and transferred the last few I had into SolidCoins a few days ago. It's a dead currency with no future, makes no sense to hold it...


This wallet corruption was in one of the early private Betas, it never occurred in any version that was released to the public.

The point of private beta testing is to find bugs in untested features, this was one of them. The users who had their wallets corrupted knew the risks and had wallet backups, so you'll be pleased to know that there was no harm done.

I'm thrilled that you're all following the development of the SolidCoin client so closely, but if you really want to keep up to date with all the goings on in the fast-paced ever-changing world of SolidCoin I strongly recommend checking out the new SolidCoin Wiki: http://wiki.solidcoin.info/

Peace out, and thanks again as always for your continued interest in our little project

Just thought I'd mention the new SolidCoin Beta 7 is out now and working very nicely.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/38674765/beta/solidcoin-201b7.exe

 

Lol, from who? Show the transaction in blockexplorer?

I think what happened is Reaper was released which beat you to the bounty.

Reaper is already in it's 7th version, mtrlt is working hard on it and adding cool features every day:

http://zerosignalgame.com/reaper0.07src.zip
http://zerosignalgame.com/reaper0.07.zip (Win32 Binary)

We still need a Win64 version as well as binaries for Linux, so any compiling whizzkids out there please have a go...

Bring your geforce2mx's to the party  

It's not really that interesting. I talk to RS and mtrlt on IRC and they openly discuss this stuff. So erm, yeah.

1. I answered 1 in a previous reply.

2. Haha! Nice retort. Yes, a "no-trust-necessary" network is a nice ideal. However, you still have to trust Deepbit not to perform a 51% attack, trust Mt. Gox not to run away with your dollars, trust any retailers (if any existed) not to run away with your Bitcoin and trust your pool not to keep back some mined coins or merged mine without telling you. There is a lot of trust required to live and operate in the real world, even with Bitcoin, that's life I'm afraid... There is a slightly larger amount of trust required in SolidCoin, you're right, and it does differ from Bitcoin in that respect. Is that inherently a bad thing? I don't think so, you may disagree but everyone's entitled to an opinion.

If you want and need a "no-trust-neccessary" network: You already have one, it's called Bitcoin. Go use it to buy shit with, god knows nobody else is...

3. Sorry, but I don't recall saying that all of the new features brought by SolidCoin 2.0 were "amazing" or required an "amazing" programmer. Some of the smaller improvements like Multi-Wallet could and should have been introduced to the mainline Bitcoin client long ago as even a noob developer like Gavin should have been able to manage them. The fact is Bitcoin development is stagnant so you don't see any new features, "amazing" or otherwise.

I'm sorry to hear you don't like the GUI layout for the integrated miner, but do bear in mind that it was one improvement of many that were all developed in the space of 4 weeks. Now that the chain is up and running again RS is not under quite so much pressure to develop at incredible speed, so non-essential things like the GUI look and feel can be focussed on.

On a positive note, the development team is planning for Solidcoin to have a much improved integrated miner in a future version which will include hybrid GPU & CPU Mining all within the client! Pretty exciting stuff I think you'll agree and another world first

4. Ok, well you kind of just have to trust me on this one, it was an error. I'm really not sure what the project would have to gain by everyone thinking they had a lower hashrate than they really did? Certainly this was an embarrassing oversight for a coder of RealSolid's high caliber. You seem have a problem with the word and the concept of trust, so I doubt there's anything I can really say to make you believe that this wasn't a massive conspiracy to erm... trick people somehow?  

5. Sometimes people.. you know... talk to one another, share ideas and feelings and genuinely make a connection with one another. I know you'd rather live in a world where that didn't happen but we are in fact humans, not robots. RealSolid has chosen a few core supporters that he believes to be loyal to the project and given the trusted nodes to them. They have earned the trust of the project leader. So far it has been working perfectly.

Eventually, the fake coin trusted nodes will be replaced by genuine SolidCoin Millionaires. Will someone with a million real SolidCoins in a wallet wish to use their position as a Trusted Node to destroy the chain and make their million coins worth less (or indeed worthless)? Well we don't know that for sure, but we're banking on a universal human constant holding true here: Greed.

Greed is why the hackers restrict their attacks to alt chains. They own a lot of Bitcoins so, although they easily could, they don't attack Bitcoin directly and devalue their own asset (although they do stupidly attack the pools as "punishment" for adopting merged mining which is indirectly attacking Bitcoin itself ).

Someone with a large asset will typically do everything reasonable to protect it, and we expect that someone with that many coins will naturally want to run a trusted node to keep the network fast and secure and protect the value of their own coins, even though it is of no benefit to them directly.

1+2. Boring. This has been hashed out again and again. The source will be open soon and then we can finally stop talking about this. (yeah right  )

3. I'm glad you know about the 51% protection, it's one of the most important features of SolidCoin and something that no other coin has. I'm pleased you're paying such close attention to our little project But a scam? Care to back up that opinion with any evidence? Who is being scammed exactly?

Bitcoin had an integrated miner back in the CPU mining days, but it was removed when GPU mining came along and made CPU mining irrelevant, which was never Satoshi's plan, he never wanted coins to be exclusively mined by a select few with expensive GPU hardware. Solidcoin addresses this issue with aplomb.

Yes the "old idea" of faster confirmations has been taken into the next generation with SolidCoin, 6 confirms can take as little as 3 minutes. Nobody can claim to have invented the idea that faster = better, but everyone agrees that sending Bitcoins to someone and then having to wait 2-3 hours in some cases for the standard 6 confirms is much, much too slow.

4. Everyone makes mistakes my friend, even our dear leader. The reason SolidCoin 1.04 was discontinued has been discussed many times on these forums but I'll summarise the key events for you nonetheless:

- Solidcoin starts to gain significant traction, Bitcoin holders get VERY worried.
- RS starts issuing bounties for supporters to spread an article via social media about SolidCoin being "Ready for the Bitcoin Collapse", Bitcoin Holders get real mad.
- Artforz / BTCEX / some other trolls start to spam the chain with thousands of tiny transactions, effectively shutting down the chain with massive blocks
- RS codes and releases a hasty patch in a few hours which fixes the issue (1.03), but in doing so prevents large withdrawals from the exchanges
- RS codes and releases another patch which fixes the withdrawal issue (1.04)
- Solidcoin 1 back up and running and perfectly stable, but there is a chunk of very large blocks in the blockchain which bloats the database and slows down initial chain downloads, not ideal.
- BTCEX demonstrates a Bitcoin timewarp hack on GeistGeld and rewrites a portion of the GeistGeld blockchain.
- BTXEX issues a direct threat against SolidCoin, effectively stating that he will use this and other exploits present in Bitcoin to take down Solidcoin. At this time, Solidcoin 1.04 still has most of the Bitcoin code intact, so these threats were very credible.
- RS issues an request to exchanges, pools and users of SolidCoin to stop making any transactions after a certain block, as the chain is being shut down to prevent any damage from these attacks, and will be back soon with better attack protection, hopefully within 2 weeks.
- The vast majority of the users, pools and exchanges voluntarily comply and the chain is effectively "Stopped", while 2.0 is developed.
- 4 weeks later the world's most secure CryptoCurrency, Solidcoin 2.0, is launched.

5. OK I have to concede this one to you. The trusted node token coins could theoretically be used on the network by changing the code in more than half of the clients and more than half of the trusted nodes, yes. I guess how much you believe in SolidCoin depends on how likely / possible you think that scenario is. Personally, I would say it's theoretically possible but highly improbable.

Yes that is/was a real path on mtrlt's PC but you didn't download anything from it. It was just a path accidentally left in the initial build of reaper.

If you really did have the encrypted source code or any of the other bullshit why would you not post it on RapidShare as well for all to see?

You can tell your imaginary "guys" working on decrypting the imaginary source code you don't have to stand down, as we are expecting the full source very soon.

Any more lies you'd like to try on everyone?

I've numbered your points to make them easier to respond to, hope you don't mind

1. In this instance, yes. The initial release was closed source for many good reasons. Open source is coming very soon, watch this space!

2. Nope. But when the source comes out you can run a comparison with the Bitcoin code to see the incredible amount of work that RS has put in so far into making SolidCoin "Best in Class" for CrpytoCurrency!

3. Features like multi-wallet, 51% protection, integrated miner in the client, faster confirmations and so much more!

4. Proper testing as in Private beta followed by public beta followed by a full public release which happened at a scheduled, pre-announced time. You obviously haven't spent much time developing software or IT projects, no matter how much testing you do there are always defects in the live code, especially the first release. Good testing just tries to ensure that none of them are "show stoppers"

5. No, absolutely not. And just to clarify, the people who do have the trusted nodes were not given 1.2 million SC, they were given 1.2 million dead token coins which cannot ever be spent on the network. You will be able to verify this later when the source makes its grand debut appearance

Completely untrue, but then most of what you say turns out to be completely untrue so I trust that the other people reading this thread (those that aren't your multiple personalities anyway) won't believe any of that.

I can't prove that I didn't get a GPU mining client before anyone else (very hard to prove something that didn't happen), but some file you fabricated and stuck on Rapidshare is hardly proof of anything now is it? So it's my word against yours, and your track record for truth-telling isn't exactly stellar.

I will say this though, I sold the one single powerful GPU I bought for Bitcoin mining some time ago when the price crashed down from $8 to under $5 within the space of a couple of weeks. It had the stench of death about it so I sold up all my coins and got out. This was long before the SolidCoin chain re-opened. So, even if I did have this non-existant early GPU miner you're on about I would not have been able to do anything with it.

Nicely put.

SolidCoin isn't better than Bitcoin because it is going up in value faster than Bitcoin did, or because thousands of people mined it from the start instead of a handful, or even because it's gaining hashrate and users while Bitcoin is losing them.

These are all things that people like to fixate on but they aren't the real reasons why it's better.

It's better because of the approach that RealSolid is taking with the development. Adding new features that are actually useful, doing proper testing before releases, making plans to promote SolidCoin in the future, and so on.

A lot of people don't like him, I guess because he says bad things about Bitcoin and I guess because he always thinks he knows best? But I think he's a real cool guy who really seems to know what he's doing.

I guess you're right, the source isn't quite available to everyone yet but it is coming.

You can take a look at the reaper source code though to get a sneak peak at some of it! Yay!

I have no intention of running anything linked by you, but I can assure you that this, whatever it is, was never given out by Realsolid.

If you actually had logs of RealSolid mentioning this app in IRC or any kind of "secret" hashing tool for special RealSolid Club Members, you would be pasting them for all to see just as you pasted the "evidence" screencaps from the Official SolidCoin Forum in your original post.

So um... logs or it didn't happen.

Those of us who actually hang out on IRC and talk rather than just troll with multiple identities (who could I be talking about here? You = DeathAndTaxes maybe? ) know that not even the closest supporters of the project get any kind of special treatment from RS, so you are simply making stuff up once again.

These threads really are comedy gold. Thanks BTCEX, without you nobody would even be talking about SolidCoin!

Thanks also for mentioning the new GPU mining feature of Solidcoin 2. Yes, we do expect to soak up some of the GPU power leaving Bitcoin in its droves. All are welcome to come and mine SolidCoins, even you

You do raise a somewhat valid point though and a non-troll such as myself should take the time to explain the story so far in terms of the mining hashrate displayed in the client:

The SolidCoin 2.00 public beta showed a hashrate in the client, but Coinotron was showing a much lower rate in his stats. The "arrogant" Realsolid assumed that he was wrong and "corrected" the hash rate for 2.00 to more closely match what Coinotron was showing.

When mtrlt developed Reaper - the new SolidCoin GPU miner - using the now infamous SOURCE CODE given to him by Realsolid, OMG! - he had to create his own hashrate calc based on the SolidCoin source, which came out much higher than the rate shown in the official 2.00 client.

Realsolid knew they should be much closer, as he had designed his algo to be roughly equally effective on GPU and CPU, so he went back and examined 2.00 again in much closer detail. He found that the hashrate displayed was actually correct in the public beta, so changed it back for 2.01.

The issue is now corrected, you never lost any hashrate with your CPU mining, you have always been hashing at the higher rate.

So now you know.

Confusing, unfortunate and unnecessary, sure. But hey, nobody's perfect, not even our dear leader.

Wow, you look pretty silly right about now huh? 

All publicity is good publicity!

We'd much rather be hated than ignored.

Thanks for your continued interest and support

Or looked at from another angle, four lines that sum up why SolidCoin is successful?

I doubt it is a "botnet", rather someone with some money to burn at Amazon.

Either way, the supposed "crisis" of someone mining lots of SolidCoin while at the same time trying but failing to DDOS any of the pools is over. No harm done, project still going strong.

Thanks as always for your continued interest in SolidCoin, it's what keeps us motivated!

No, the diff drop is related to the fact that a large portion of mining power went offline.

Over the past few days you're right, someone with the miner id "8======D". We don't really know why, but they certainly seemed to have amassed quite a few coins, more than 100'000 at any rate.

Working theory is that it's someone who tried to 51% solidcoin and failed, so the only "attack" they could pull off was to legitimately mine Solidcoins. We didn't want to stop dickguy from mining, after all he was keeping the hash rate high and the coins flowing, and I doubt we could have even if we wanted to, even trolls are free to mine Solidcoin

We guess they got bored, or maybe their Amazon EC2 bill came in and they couldn't pay it so they got disconnected? Maybe their botnet wasn't actually a botnet but a group of paid volunteers whose paid time had come to an end? Who knows. What we do know is that they seem to have gone away... For now. If dickguy wants to come and invest more CPU power to Solidcoin we will welcome him back.

Hashrate drops dont bother us. Unlike pretty much every other coin, our difficulty retarget can easily handle a drop of 99% hashrate and the coin will keep going nicely, without a Namecoin-type scenario of waiting months for the next retarget.

Solidcoin now has a working GPU miner now which is working quite well, so as it happens the space left by the failed troll attempt can be filled by all those guys with multiple GPUs. Even Nvidia owners have a fair shot at getting some Solidcoin now. CPU remains the most efficient way to mine, but the extra power afforded by the GPU miner is also good.

Well, don't lose heart if it all fails to generate any income, that platform you build could be used in future for a better currency than BTC.