[Hybrid consensus algorithm]

After a long development process, we proudly announced that Zano is released and the main net is launched. Here is the short recap to showcase the project’s features, technical background, and much more, including a detailed explanation of Zano’s connection to our older project, Boolberry.





Website: https://zano.org
Twitter: https://twitter.com/zano_project
Medium: https://medium.com/@zano_project
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Zano/
Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/wE3rmYY
Github: https://github.com/hyle-team/zano





Zano is our new blockchain project, primarily aimed at e-commerce related applications. While developing Zano, we have taken our previous experience into account, therefore Zano inherits some of the older technological principles that proved to be effective (e.g. CryptoNote). However, some of the features are developed completely from scratch.





Hybrid consensus algorithm
One of the key features which brings next-level security to our network is the PoW/PoS hybrid consensus protocol. The network favors blockchain extensions where PoW and PoS based blocks alternate, therefore minimizing intrusion possibilities, such as eg. the 51% attack.
Efficient asynchronous core architecture
As scalability has always been an issue for older blockchain projects, we have put a lot of effort in the core of our project to make it as efficient as possible. As a result, we developed the asynchronous core architecture which allows for multiple transactions to be processed simultaneously.
Multiwallet user-friendly fancy interface
To make things easier for the network members, our user interface can now handle multiple wallets at the same time.
Optimized single-file wallet
Any wallet can now be accessed with just a single file, which can be opened and used in various operation systems. Additionally, the size of this file is significantly optimized.
Multisig
The multi-signature feature is an important improvement which is now fully integrated in all wallets, as well as in the core of our project.
Contracts & Peer-to-peer transactions
The P2P transactions are now simple and efficient because of multi-functional contracts. Also, a high level of security is provided by the “Consolidated transactions” feature.
Simplified Alias registration
Now getting an alias is as simple as regular transaction





Specifications https://docs.zano.org/docs/specifications





Whitepaper https://zano.org/downloads/zano_wp.pdf
Documentation https://docs.zano.org/





When Boolberry was initially launched, no pre-mineable coins were made available. We are aware all BBR supporters and coin holders were interested in the project the way it was at that time. So, to make sure the rules are fair for everyone, we decided to provide all BBR holders with an option to make their own choices in terms of swapping BBR for Zano.

However, the whole ecosystem of modern blockchain projects has massively changed over the past few years. Staying competitive progressively becomes more difficult, requiring highly qualified developers, software architects, marketing specialists, etc. Massive expertise in the field is crucial to provide the customers with a product that is efficient and easy to use for anyone.

We have invested a lot of time and effort into Zano, and user-friendliness was one of the main focus points. Switching to Zano is made easy for any Boolberry user, as BBR coins can be exchanged for exactly the same amount of Zano coins. However, the coinswap is not forced in any way, so Boolberry users can keep BBR if they prefer.





Is Zano a hardfork?
It is very important to understand that Zano is not a hardfork of Boolberry. The BBR blockchain with all the past transactions is not copied over to Zano. This is an entirely new project, with its’ own genesis block. In Zano, coins are partially reserved for pre-mining and BBR coinswap.

Why do we burn swapped coins?
We are convinced that hardforks (or cloneforks) like Bitcoin Cash and Bitcoin Gold, where the old blockchain is copied over, do not support the core idea of all cryptocurrencies. This is because hardforks like these create a vacuum that blurs the value of blockchain technology.
In Zano, we offer users an option to upgrade to a more innovative project, while the option to stay on Boolberry remains. The coinswap is executed in a way where the BBR coins that get converted to Zano no longer exist in Boolberry network.

How does coinswap work exactly?
From the user perspective, the coinswap is essentially making a transaction to a special Zano address, which always starts with the letter “Z”. We made the coinswap process as easy and transparent as possible to alleviate any potential confusion. Coinswap transactions can be executed via the normal GUI, simplewallet, or even directly from a coin exchange. In any case, the coinswap works just like a usual transaction.

From the technical perspective, coinswap is a special Boolberry transaction, which includes an encrypted Zano address in the encrypted extra data. This Zano address is where the converted coins are sent to. The actual output key of this transaction is zero, so after the coinswap the BBR coins are no longer possible to spend.  

What about Boolberry?
We will continue to maintain and support Boolberry, as well as copy a few minor features from Zano. For example, an updated GUI based on qtWebEngine, an optimized compact wallet, and more. Besides that, we will keep releasing new patches to minimize bugs and vulnerabilities, and generally keep developing Boolberry as a classic PoW project.

What’s next?
Zano's roadmap (https://zano.org/roadmap.html) mention all major milestones that we are trying to achieve in this project.  





Developed by Hyle team
https://hyle.io/
https://github.com/hyle-team/





Mainnet announcement
https://medium.com/@zano_project/zano-mainnet-announcement-e0884eb94b93


Pool sources are ready, please visit #pool channel in discord if you'd like to host the mining pool for Zano

Hello!
I’m glad to announce our project, that we were working on last weeks and keep working on. This is CryptoNote-based currency with first anonymous PoS engine(that use PoW as well).
This is the part of big project (which have codename Louisd’or), that we do for my friends, so this is just technology announce and first rough implementation of CN-based PoS, and working network, this is more like proposal, so i shared this to get public review and feedback about PoS approach we gonna use.
The “Louisd’or” project itself have a wide feature list and have a lot of development ahead, so we have a great team of talented people who worked on this, and expect to release it in the middle of spring.
 
According to my experience in bitcointalk forum, here is a lot of people who like to criticize my work, especially from Monero clan, so you guys is welcome to fight!
We have about 4-5 BTC of bounties for people who gonna find bugs/flaws in design or implementation: most serious critical flaw gonna get 2 BTC, next less critical 1 BTC, next 0.5 BTC and so on.

Brief description link(mini-whitepaper): http://162.243.101.90/lui_share.pdf
Implementation: https://github.com/cryptobender/lui
Notice: Implementation does not completely reflect mini-whitepaper description, it still in development, so i often do some commits and restart test network every 2-3 days. Atm we have network that running about of couple of days and seems to be okay.

Feel free to post any questions and ideas here or to PM.

Zoidberg

[Technical details:]

This thread is started to support BBR pool-developers.
I'll help with techincal questions, expanding API or solving problems.

Why creating pool for BBR is a good idea ?
1. No doubt that a lot of people looking for pool for BBR.
2. You can offer alias registering service with pool, extra earning for each block. I'm personally ready to pay 5 BBR to pool for registering for me alias @obama(later i'll sell it to him)
3. Unlike other CryptoNote-family, BBR PoW hash is easy to check - less resources and less complicated backend (you don't need tho check only every hundredth share).

Technical details:
Now simpleminer is back, and several instances could work directly with daemon, as a clear example of shared work with blockchain-based scratchpad.
Hope this code let developers to organize pools for our project.
Notice: it's just a working example, it is not production code, and it's not optimized for trafic usage, so it's up to the pool developer.
Notice: At start simpleminer downloads whole scratchpad (it could be pretty big, estimate 90MB/year, at moment of writing this message it was about 2MB). Obviously pool client have to store this scratchpad somewhere on disk, to avoid traffic overhead.
To check work of simpleminer you need to run daemon as usual, and than start simpleminer:

Code:

simpleminer --login=anyname --pass=anypas --pool-addr=127.0.0.1:50102

50102 - rpc port for testnet, i recommend you to try there, since it is possible there to find a block pretty fast.

Goog luck!

[it's a smooth premine]

Hi folk.
This topic is finalization of this discussion https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=590520.0 about BB monetization, we've tried to find out any suitable model of donation-based support, and finally reached an impasse.
Since we have no more time to talks, after consideration with all interested parties, we've decided to give up the idea ​​managed income.
We are sorry if someone disappointed, but unfortunately any scheme that we proposed was proved as subject to cheating(see discussion).
As now described in announce, we(developers) reserve the percentage of emission(5%, or may be less) and this percentage will be smoothly emitted along with all coins.
In other words, as it called here - it's a smooth premine. Yes we going to do it.

And before you gonna vote, to be clear i remind my starter topic:

As i could see here, at this forum, profit of developers is very sensitive point. And to get success with some another new currency it is very important to find good approach to be received by community.
With all this chaos of bitcoin forks creating a new cryptocurrency is not associated with some real work. It's even more associated  with a joke now
CryptoNote is not a final product yet, it's just a bright technology in which we believe, and want to improve, but there a lot of work ahead (UI, services integration, cloud wallet etc).
Now take a look to altcoins: there are no success projects where the founders does not have a stake. Or you just don't know about  stake yet, don't be a naive.
If project starts without earning model - it started to be abandoned.
So, finally, our monetization model will be transparent and clear for all, but to be "fair" doesn't mean to be "moneyless".
In other words: we going to earn with this project.

[there are no success projects where the founders does not have a stake.]

Hello friends.
We'we decided to move monetization discussion of our project to this separate topiс.

Befor talk about subject i let to myself a little intruduction.
As i could see here, at this forum, profit of developers is very sensitive point. And to get success with some another new currency it is very important to find good approach to be received by community.
With all this chaos of bitcoin forks creating a new cryptocurrency is not associated with some real work. It's even more associated  with a joke now
CryptoNote is not a final product yet, it's just a bright technology in which we believe, and want to improve, but there a lot of work ahead (UI, services integration, cloud wallet etc).
Now take a look to altcoins: there are no success projects where the founders does not have a stake. Or you just don't know about  stake yet, don't be a naive.
If project starts without earning model - it started to be abandoned.
So, finally, our monetization model will be transparent and clear for all, but to be "fair" doesn't mean to be "moneyless".
In other words: we going to earn with this project.
Now let's back to subject.

Our announcement says that this is a donations-based project, but we met some arguments from community and it puts us on the thought to make it better.
As it pointed by SlyWax miners already have big power in PoW coins, on the other hand using announced approach make theoretically possible for developers to build own pools that have more profit unlike others, it is unfair and leads to centralization.

We've tried to move focus from miners to common users of network, whith actually use it currency.
Each transaction is vote for donation of size equals to a fee of this transaction.
For each block, we calculate the summary value of donations (summing only those transaction's fees in which the donation flag is voted for donation).
Every 720th block we take the median of the average values of prev 720 blocks​​, and use this as a size/2 for donation amount to transfer the developers.

This means that developers will get their earning only if net will be success(will have transaction flow), you know that most abandoned forks had no significant transaction flow.
And it seems to impossible to manipulate with this votes - to make vote for some amount you have to spend this amount - no profit. Even mining own tx with huge fee will not move median until devs don't have about 50%.

Long term monetization for long term project.

Please comment if you agree or not.

[Let's get new suitable name for project!]

Tell you frankly, HoneyPenny name has not been well received by people.  

Let's get new suitable name for project!  (Announce: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577267.0)


Main points of this project, that can be refered in name:
1. Of course privacy. Anonymity and unlinkability (even more then CryptoNote), etc. (twistedpenny would be nice, but you don't like pennies   )
2. Fair project start/run, without cheats.
3. Long term development

But the name does not necessarily have to refer to these points, do not need to hung on them. It could be neutral word, or nonexistent word.


I'll pay 200 coins to winner, not a big value of course, it just a symbolic tribute to a person who suggested a good name. And will put "thankyou" words to project title page.
As well, if there are some designers - please feel free to post names together with design concepts. This could be paid more generously or lead to long term work.

NOTICE:
1. WE WON'T CHOOSE NAME ENDING WITH *COIN.
2. Befor suggest - please spend few seconds to check is there are no buisnes already exists with this name and if it possible to by suitable domain name.
3. It obviously should be countable, you know.

Thanks in advance!
We'll go back to development and will implement today alias command line interface, to check out if command:
"transfer 1 @zoidberg 100"
works ok now.

[Let's open hash-function discussion friends.]

Let's open hash-function discussion friends.
Just want to uncover our approach and show differences with CryptoNote that we use in our project announced here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=577267.0

First of all I want to say that CryptoNote hash function (so called cn_slow_hash) is actually a very strong protected from ASIC's with different CPU instructions set as well as memory consuming algo. cn_slow_hash works hard on 2MB scratchpad and most of this scratchpad are fits in CPU cache.

For now it is difficult imagine that will be possible to make some specific hardware which will be more effective than CPU and will coast less than CPU. But world changes so fast, nobody knows what will happen in near future. We've all seen how rapid technological breakthroughs capable of performing the computer industry.  

Since cn_slow_hash created 2MB scratchpad, it's have to cover all this data, that's why they use 2²⁰ iterations, and side-effect from this pretty slow work (about 500ms on normal laptop, twice faster on normal pc with suitable cpu cache). It may slow down synchronisation process at downloading blockchain (that is not a big problem) and theoretically it may be possible to attack network - connect and send a random block to make peer calculate slow_hash for useless fake block.

So, putting all together, we want to have:
1. Wide CPU instruction set
2. Memory-oriented algo
3. Small work time.

Realizing it, we've  tried to take a step to the side.

Idea of using blockchain data as scratchpad resulted in this hash function:



Actually this is a keccak hybrid, which use external scratchpad. After each keccack round, psudo-randomly addressed[state vector used as addresses] data is taken from scratchpad and xored with state.
Calculating each block PoW usualy hits about 1100 randomly addressed reading of blocks by 32 bytes.

I used "performance_tests" with different scratchpad size to find out memory hardness:

Warm up: 2161 ms
test_wild_keccak<400> - OK:
  loop count:    100000
  elapsed:       3020 ms
  time per call: 0 ms/call

Warm up: 2158 ms
test_wild_keccak<40000> - OK:
  loop count:    100000
  elapsed:       3060 ms
  time per call: 0 ms/call

Warm up: 2168 ms
test_wild_keccak<4000000> - OK:
  loop count:    100000
  elapsed:       3484 ms
  time per call: 0 ms/call

Warm up: 2156 ms
test_wild_keccak<40000000> - OK:
  loop count:    100000
  elapsed:       8119 ms
  time per call: 0 ms/call

Warm up: 2150 ms
test_wild_keccak<100000000> - OK:
  loop count:    100000
  elapsed:       8574 ms
  time per call: 0 ms/call

As you can see, working on small amount of memory 100000 hash operations takes 3020 ms, meanwhile work on 100Mb scratchpad with the same operations count takes 8574 ms.
Such difference(caused by the cache memory overflow) points to real memory hardness we guess.

Wellcome to comment.

[Private]

Website: https://boolberry.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/boolberryBBR
Medium: https://medium.com/@BoolberryBBR
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/boolberry/
Discord: https://discord.gg/2amMcYn





Boolberry is a cryptocurrency based on CryptoNote technology. Boolberry's major benefit is that it provides much stronger privacy for both the senders and receivers of transactions.  It does so by ensuring that receivers are anonymous (the destination of a transaction can only be determined by its real recipient) and transactions cannot be linked to a single sender. Instead, each transaction could have many equally possible senders, and an attacker cannot determine which one it was.

Boolberry improves upon Ordinary CryptoNote technology in several ways. Boolberry offers improved anonymity through unlinkable outputs. Boolberry reduces the size of the block chain, the global ledger of all transactions, by  pruning the ring-signatures. This provides over a 55% reduction in block chain size. These features are found in no other CryptoNote based cryptocurrency.

A few other exclusive features are an easy-to-use GUI wallet, address aliasing and the ability to send network alerts.





Private
Boolberry exchange protocol supports multiple unique one-time addresses protecting receiver from being exposed
Untraceable
With ring signature technology Boolberry keeps transactions untraceable by blending a message within an equiprobable group
Solving blockchain bloat
Boolberry's unique pruning mechanism trims old ring signatures that are covered by checkpoints
Defending against asics
Boolberry employs a Wild Keccak algorithm designed specifically to keep real miners in the game
User friendly
Boolberry wallet app will finally bring an easy-to-use experience to Cryptocurrency. It's unique alias system gives users the option to replace long wallet addresses with a simple alias, such as @yourname





Launch Date:  17 May 2014 16:00 GMT
Algorithm:  Wild Keccak (Blockchain-Based PoW hash)
Block Generation:  2 minutes
Money Supply:  ~18,450,000
Premine:  0%
Default P2P Port:  10101
Default RPC Port:  10102
Developer Bounty:  Up to 1% (Controlled by miner's votes)





Wild keccak whitepaper https://boolberry.com/files/Block_Chain_Based_Proof_of_Work.pdf
Cryptonote 2.0 https://cryptonote.org/whitepaper.pdf
Boolberry Reduces Blockchain Bloat https://boolberry.com/files/Boolberry_Reduces_Blockchain_Bloat.pdf
Boolberry Solves CryptoNote Issues https://boolberry.com/files/Boolberry_Solves_CryptoNote_Issues.pdf





Github/Releases https://github.com/cryptozoidberg/boolberry/releases/





http://mining.blue/
https://boolberry.luckypool.io/
http://bbr.miningclub.info/





BTC-Alpha https://btc-alpha.com/exchange/BBR_BTC/
STEX https://app.stex.com/en/basic-trade/pair/BTC/BBR/1D





Crypto_zoidberg Lead Dev
Sowle Dev
Ravaga PM
Hashapplience Biz Dev





Clintar, Crypjunkie, B4h4mu7, Aldobryn, Alex.Bo, Shojayxt, Dga, Surfer43, James(jl777), Othe, Enerbyte, Pt7, Satoutaka6612, Trueberry, Damashup