Latest posts of: Munich

The Munich Project

Hello Bitcointalk,

I'm very proud to present to you the result of 8 months of our team work.

First of all, I would like to apologize about my English, sometimes not the best because it's not our main language. But I'll do my best to explain the better I can.

- The Summary -

- No name coin, just called "Munich Project" for now. You will choose the name of the coin.

/ The Coin /

- Scrypt-jane w/ evolutive n-factor depending of the power of the network
- Kimoto gravity well algorithm for difficult adjust -- different implementation, not vulnerable to the TW exploit
- 256 billions coins, 96% mined in 100 years. Only 6,25% the first year.
- More coins, less divisible units. 0,01 is the least you can send / receive, just like fiat
- Target block 30 seconds, PoS every 10 minutes for best security
- 15220 base reward per block for the first year. Reward * 0,935 every year (no halfing). Good distribution and inflation controlled better.
- Fees mandatory for transactions : 1 coin at least (for now), 0.01% after 1000 coins sent
- Miners forced to accept a certain amount of transactions into mined blocks
- "Summary" blocks generated by a form of PoS every 2880 blocks (24 hours) to avoid downloading the complete blockchain for "light" nodes

/ The Wallet /

- Full node w/ PoS enabled by default
- Light node to avoid downloading all the blocks - very fast to sync, without the weakness of thin node
- New and attractive UI - just like iOS feeling
- Cloud (opt-out) free service : we store your wallet private keys if you want, but private keys encryption is mandatory (password +12 chars) and never stored on our servers. Works for BTC, LTC and our coin.
- Web interface to access your coins securely (visual keyboard for password, 2FA) if you're not at home and you choose to use the cloud
- In one sentence, you can't loose coins anymore. We, or an hacker, also can't steal your coins. UI preventing you to choose weak passwords.

/ The Exchange /

- Will trade with BTC, LTC, and our coin at first
- 100% compatible with our cloud service, you don't have to "send us" your coins manually
- You trade with your own wallet, you transfer us the funds you like to place on the market only when it's necessary.
- Once your trade is done, the coin you have bought are automatically returned to your wallet.
- We are never third party, unless your coins are on the market
- Best security has been done to avoid any hackers. But if by any chance someone gains the access on our servers, he can't stole your coins in your wallet. However, there is a very, very little chance someone can do that anytime soon - we know our job.

/ The start of the Coin /

- No pre-mine. No insta-mine. Only 3 blocks mined at start by us. Visible on the blockchain explorer at day 0.
- Fair start : no reward for 24h until the coin "really" launch - you have time to setup your miners
- New generation IPO : distribution of the pre-sold coins over the time (4 years), block per block, to avoid massive dumps. No injustice with the miners.
- 4% of the coins mined in 4 years are allocated to the IPO
- You have 15 days (2%) + 30 days (2%) to invest in the IPO, only if you like. You also can wait and mine our coin, and you will not be disadvantaged too much.
- Pre-sold coins are fixed in number, you only buy a part of this coins with the IPO. You can't know how much % you will have before the IPO is finished.

/ Our Team /

- We already are 3 developers and 1 does-everything-else guy
- We are ready to recruit 2 to 4 new and very competent people if our project works well
- We already worked full-time for 8 months on this project
- We are motivated to grow up the visibility of our coin over the time, by offering more services
- We allowed 1% of the mined coins to the development team on 4 years to make actions around the coin, without penalize the miners
- All the actions by us will be public - exact number of coins used for the actions will also be public
- The 1% coins are allowed only for promotion of the coin - it is not and will never be our "salary"
- Public website to voting our actions will come soon
- Much more to come - we are full of ideas

- The Full Paper -

First of all, let me introduce ourselves. We are a group of 4 persons :

- 3 developers :
Julian is specialized for +10 years in C++. He is doing the core of the coin.
Mark is specialized about native app creation. He is doing the UI for the wallets.
And myself, Donn. I know a bit about C++, but I'm mainly into Javascript, HTML5, and Databases. I'm in charge of all the web related content and the security of our servers. I'll also do the PR.
- 1 does-everything-else guy :
He is Matt. He is doing the marketing of our project. He is also advising me for the PR, and is good in all the works developers can't do.

We also have some knowledge in economics - for what it worth.

Now, let me introduce you the Munich Project :

Eight months ago, we decided after our observations to create an alternative coin, with a maximum of improvements. Bitcoin is clearly an amazing technology, but it suffers in our opinion of many flaws that hinder its adoption by the masses.

We have observed with a great interest all the alt coins created during this times. Most are time loss, but a few have great ideas. We tried to keep the best of each coin we saw.

Before going into the details, I would like to let you know our work is not finished. It's still under development, but we can say 80% of the work is done.

Also, the name of our coin has not been chosen yet. If possible, we want it to be chosen by you. Let's call it "Munich Project" for now.

If you have good ideas about a name, just tell us !

/ The protocol /

- Type of Work

Nowadays, there is only 3 systems to create the money, validate the transactions, and avoid the infamous double spending.

Proof of Work is the traditional system, used by Bitcoin. However, it consumes energy, and depending of the hashing algorithm, can sometimes be not fair.

Proof of Stake is another system, used initially in Peercoin. It have many advantages, but also some disadvantages : it encourages the users to don't spend their coins. We truly thinks a money is here to be spent, and not only collected.

Proof of Burn is to our eyes a very bad system. It does not promote the usage, it promotes the early adopters only, and it is dependent of another blockchain (with it's flaws). It's good to create an asset, but clearly not a money.

We decided to use a PoW and PoS hybrid for some reasons :

- PoW is great because it's fair when the hashing algorithm is well chosen. Also, creating a community of miners is a great thing.
- PoS is great to reduce the 51% vulnerability, and is also a good way to make transactions more safe

- Hashing Algorithm

First of all, the hashing algorithm is very important, because it needs to be fair. Bitcoin has mainly been created to be mined by anyone with a computer.

We believe the use of scrypt-jane with evolutive n-factor (cpu + memory usage) is the best way today to avoid the use of asics over the time.

Our second concern is the anticipation of the n-factor change over the time.

To make the things impossible to predict, the n-factor will change (+1) every time the total network hashrate will be > 10.000,00 MH/s

Also, the n-factor will lower (-1) every time the total network hash rate will be < 2.000,00 MH/s

The base (and minimum) n-factor will be 9 at the start (2^9 = 512)

There will be only one n-factor change allowed per week to avoid constant n-factor changes.

- Maximum number of coins, divisibility, and a little of economy

We strongly believe it is way better to stay in something that people know. This said, a coin will be only divisible by 100.

It means the minimum coins to send or receive will be 0,01.

To compensate for this limitation, we tried to make the maximum number of coins in line with the fact one coin should never worth more than 1$.

Many economists thinks a money is not "usable" by the masses until it's market cap is somewhere between 200 - 300 billions USD.

So, we decided the maximum coins mined by PoW will never exceed 256 billions coins.

However, we are very aware about the fact this total market cap is impossible to be gained in few years, even for Bitcoin.

- Coin generation over time

We don't want our coins to "flood" the market. In fact, we believe the key of the success is a good repartition of the coin creation over the time.

The first year will generate 16 Billions of coins.

Block time target will be 30 seconds to insure quick transactions and confirmations.

Difficulty will be re-adjusted every block with Kimoto gravity well algorithm

Block target per year (counting 365 days per year) will be 1.051.200

Reward the first year will be 15220 coins per block

Unlike Bitcoin or other alts, there will be no "reward split" over time. Each year, the reward will be * 0,935.

Year +1 - 6,25% of total coins generated
15220 coins per block
Year +2 - 12% - 14230,7
Year +3 - 17% - 12440,83
Year +4 - 22% - 11632,18
Year +5 - 27% - 10876,09
Year +6 - 32% - 10169,14
Year +7 - 36% - 9508,15
Year +8 - 40% - 8890,12
Year +9 - 43% - 8312,26
Year +10 - 47% - 7771,96
Year +20 - 71% - 3968,69
Year +50 - 93% - 528,44
Year +100 - 96% - 18,35
Year +200 - 96,1% - 0,02

Note: after 210 years, block reward will be fixed to 0,01 coins

- Transactions and fees

What we want is a reliable network with transactions. Our coin is made to be a 100% reliable way to send, and receive money. We are not satisfied with the current Bitcoin work concerning the fees & workers validation system. So we wanted to be fair for the both of the parts :

- We have seen many cases of transactions being extremely long to be validated (when they are), and also many people who were mistaken in fees.

Our opinion is all the transactions made into the network have to be processed to make the things simpler for the masses. To make this functional, we made the tx fees mandatory. To start, the minimum fee will be 1 coin, and in case the amount of coins sent is > to 1.000, the fees will be 0,01%. If the minimum fees are not sent in the transaction, the transaction is simply rejected.

There will be static options in the client to pay "premium" fees to guarantee the transaction will not be stuck in case of a long waiting list. We don't think this will be necessary, but we preferred to anticipate the case. Static options also means nobody will send thousands of coins as fee by mistake.

- Workers will have the obligation to include transactions on the blocks they will solve. Numbers are still in discussion, but the idea is to avoid miners who does not include transactions into their blocks. In case the miner does not add the required % of transactions pending into his block, the block reward will be rejected by the other miners.

This modifications will make the transactions fast, reliable, and smooth.

Transaction validations will be made using the Meni's implementation of hybrid PoW / PoS. We believe it is the most adequate implementation to stay fair for both workers and stakeholders. You can read more here : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake

Each checkpoint set by stakeholders will happen every 20 blocks. This also means every transaction made into the network will be fully validated every 10 minutes, without any possibility of 51% attack (transaction cheat) by PoW miners at this point.

PoS reward is still in discussion.

To avoid any result of a very large blockchain, we had to innovate a little bit :

- Blockchain

The main strength of Bitcoin is the blockchain. This make the Bitcoin system possible and operational. However, when we discovered Bitcoin, we seen very quickly the limits of the blockchain.

To us, it's impossible to make the use crypto currencies possible for the masses, as each client have to download the entire blockchain. (excluding third party clients running a thin node)

The fact is this problem will be more, and more problematic year after year, cause of the total size of the blockchain.

We agree thin nodes resolve the problem in some ways, but it is not good enough in our mind because of the lack of security.

To avoid this problem, we decided to split our coin client into two modes :

- The first mode is the way it works for each coin on the market right now : full node. By default, it have the entire blockchain synced, and the PoS enabled. This means you will also be rewarded for having the entire blockchain at disposal and your client running.

- The second mode, enabled by default, is making your client a light node. Only the "summary" blocks will be downloaded, with all the standard blocks discovered after this summary. This way, your client is well synched with the network (strong security, just like running a full node), but without the constraint to running a full node.

We will not disclose technically now how our summary system works until our coin is ready to launch, but we can say the generation will be made with the same process than PoS for transactions.

Summary blocks will be generated every 2880 blocks (24 hours)

Now everybody can install the wallet, and be synced with the network in few seconds only (instead of hours), without the concerns of having only a unreliable part of the entire blockchain like running a thin node.

/ The wallet /

To make this quick : we don't like Bitcoin-Qt at all. It is slow, not user friendly, not secure for the average Joe by our standards, and not ready for the masses.

So, we made our very own wallet to hold our coin. And Bitcoins. And Litecoins.

The most problematic problem with the usual wallet is if you loose your wallet.dat, or if your computer is compromised, your coins are lost. Also, it's not easy to understand to people not initiated with crypto currencies.

We integrated some functionalities to make the things better :

- Native client for Windows, Mac OS and Linux.
- New and attractive look. Better and more "human" presentation of the wallet. We like the Apple iOS look, even if Apple don't like Bitcoin. We also love to be user-friendly.
- Mandatory password for wallet (12+ chars minimum)
(not mandatory if you decide to do not use our cloud, but all is done to make you protect your coins by default)
- Optional storage in our cloud of your private key -- your password is NEVER send into our cloud, so we don't have access to your coins
- Optional (but opt-in) visual keyboard to avoid keyloggers
- Optional (opt-out) keylogger protection - Windows only
- Web-app wallet to access your coins, even if your are not at home -- your password is (again) NEVER stored on our servers. If your wallet have cloud enabled, you're ready to use our web-app.
- Integrated paper wallet generator, because it's better if it's integrated
- Also, integrated and user-friendly way to add private addresses into the wallet
- By default, the wallet is pre-generating 1000 addresses instead of 100 into your wallet.dat -- better to make saves, just in case you don't want to use our cloud
- Possibility to add "contacts" - better presentation to avoid showing the addresses a maximum as the "main" info.
- Any functionality in the wallet is well documented in a easy way - even a 10 years old child can understand how it works

Wallet and web-app wallet are not finished now, we'll share more when it will be ready

A mobile web-app wallet in HTML5 is also planned, but not started now (I only have 2 hands, unfortunately)

/ Blockchain /

A web based blockchain explorer will come at the launch of the coin. Nothing special here.

/ The exchange /

With our wallet and web-app, we are also working on an exchange to make the things easier for you to buy or sell your coins.

Mainly, we didn't want to do that to avoid centralization of the services around our coin, but the recent stories has changed our feelings about that (Mt.Gox, Poloniex, ...).

We are doing the exchange to be 100% integrated with your wallet. This means if you have your wallet with cloud enabled, you're ready to exchange our coin for BTC or LTC if you like. This also works if you transfer BTC or LTC in your wallet, and you want to buy our coin.

This also means your coins will be stored on YOUR wallet, with YOUR private keys and YOUR password (the one we will never know).

So basically, we made our best for your safety, because it became our first priority after what we seen.

Our exchange will not be real time, because it needs some time to transfer your coins to our exchange wallets. It will also cost some transaction fees, but best security comes with a cost.

When a transaction will be complete, the coin you bought will be returned immediately to your wallet for best security.

This way, it's impossible for you to loose your coins by using our exchange. Even if we done the best concerning the security of our servers.

To make the things more fair, our exchange will be 0% fees for the first 6 months. You will only pay transaction fees.

Technically speaking, all our web based services are HTML5, 100% generated by JS with your browser. It means our servers only send you the "real" information in JSON. Overcharge of our servers is not for today this way.

More details will come later when the exchange will be finished.

(We also plan to add tools for merchants -- but I'll not disclose anything more about that, our time is limited now)

/ Our mining abilities /

Because we trust our project, and we want to provide a good security on the network, we will add 1 rig per day during 5 days, then 3 rigs per day during 10 days. Each rig is currently doing ~2,2 Mh/s with Litecoin mining.

We will not run all our rigs at the start to benefit the other miners.

/ Pre-mine and starting /

No pre-mine. No insta-mine. No "unavailable" wallet and/or mining tools at start. We'll do a fair start. We know everybody launching a coin is claiming their start will be fair, we'll do it better :

- Wallet and mining tools will be provided on at least 5 files hosting to prevent any DDoS. Our servers are well protected, but we never know.
- The first 2880 blocks (24 hours) will not generate any reward

This way, we hope anybody interested with our coin will have the time to make it works correctly before the "real" start 24 hours after the initial start.

/ Initial pre-ordering /

We always hated pre-mine or insta-mine alt coins, but we thought we had to find a better way to fund our project.

I have to be honest : developing this project had cost us a lot of time not being to work on any other project. We all had to find the money deeply in our pockets to live during these 8 months. 2 of us had to quit their respective (and well paid) jobs. To make it clear, we had to find $150k / €100k to make this happen during these 8 months.

Hopefully, we had early bought Bitcoins to fund this -- but we will need more money to continue our work after the launch of the coin and the services associated (explorer, exchange, wallet, and web-wallet).

Developing our futures services will cost us big money in terms of time not beeing spent on another projects. Not talking about the servers costs, etc.

So we have found a good way to avoid some problems with the standard IPO we seen so far.

The main problem with the IPO currently are :

- Quick, not many people are aware about it, until it's too late to invest
- Sometimes shady and/or underground
- This makes a few people having a lot of coins very quickly
- This people makes at least 1000% on their investment by dumping the coins on the market, killing the coin most of the time at the same time

In few words, it's just unfair and not well for the coin. We don't want that.

Our IPO will be done in a better way :

- There will be 2 IPO to slightly advantage the early investors
- The first IPO will last 15 days, and the second IPO will last 30 days, with no limits of investing or number of people investing
- A fixed percentage of coins is set for the IPO. The more people invest, the better the distribution is
- The coins will not come from a pre-mining, but instead, by a very few % of each block mined

4% of all the mining for 4 years will go for the IPO :

Year +1 - 640 Millions
Year +2 - 598,4 Millions
Year +3 - 559,5 Millions
Year +4 - 523,1 Millions

Makes a total of 2,321 Billions of coins allowed to the IPO - less than 0,91% of all the coins in existence.

The coins will be distributed 50% into each IPO.

Each person who will investing into the IPO will be publicly announced into this thread, and will receive at the end of the second IPO a software to generate a public and a private key. We will need only the public key. You will receive the payments at each block mined directly into this address (will be hard-coded into our software)

Disclaimer : you will not know how much coins you will receive from the IPO, until it's finished

/ Our action to promote the coin /

Another 1% of all the mining for 4 years will go to us - the developers, to promote the coin :

Year +1 - 160 Millions
Year +2 - 149,6 Millions
Year +3 - 139,9 Millions
Year +4 - 130,8 Millions

Makes a total of 0,580 Billions of coins allowed to the public developing of the project.

We will NOT consider this as our personal reward. Our personal reward will be the coins we will mine with our own hardware.

The coins will go to a publicly known address, and all our actions done with this coins will be publicly announced (with the exact numbers). We plan :

- Coins giveaways (bitcointalk, reddit, our website, twitter, etc.)
- Free games to gain some coins (more than the giveaways)
- Charity
- Funding of special events
- Advertising
- etc.

This way, we make sure we can afford the long-term action to promote the coin to the most people.

We also plan soon to develop a web platform to permit people to poll on witch way we should spend or give the coins.

/ The current calendar /

From today - We are finishing our work. We will also take our time to listen to you and your questions about the project.

We will choose and disclose the final name of the coin as soon as you suggest us some good names. We'll also give our Twitter and Website name at this moment -- now we can't register anything until the name is chosen.

For the logo, I think we can make a good draft in few days once the name will be chosen.

2nd April - Midnight GMT - Begining of the first IPO

Before the 15th April - Midnight GMT - Finalizing the coin name, starting graphics (logo, banners, etc.)

16th April - Midnight GMT - Closing of the first IPO, beginning of the second IPO

15th May - Midnight GMT - Closing of the second IPO

16th May - We send the software to generate public / private key to the investors

------------ From this line, dates are estimations, and are susceptible to slightly change, depending of our work ------------

1rst June - We launch the coin and the wallet. It's probable that the wallet UI will not be ready exactly at this date, depending on our progress.

2nd June - The first blocks with rewards are mined

July / August - The exchange market is launched

August / September - Many more services to come, like platform for internet sellers, mobile web-app wallet, etc. We'll take the time to explain you later what are our plans

/ Disclaimer /

This thread is self moderated. Trolling, childish, or baseless comments are not tolerated. Please keep this thread serious, we think our work deserve it.

If you think we're a scam, we can't blame you considering all we've seen these last months. Just keep your words, you are free to believe in our project - or not.

We also know we have a "Newbie" account here. To be honest, we have been lurking for some years now, but we never felt necessary to participate here until today. This is also our first public Bitcoin-related project. We have done many Bitcoin-related things in private until we decided to do this.

So, in order to be as clear as possible, please consider our project as a very high risk investment if you wish to take part to the IPO. Even if we don't think it's that risky, it worth to be said.

/ Final words /

Now, we are here to :

- Answer all your questions
- Read your comments, suggestions, etc. All the constructive comments are very welcome and appreciated, we are very open-minded.
- Let you propose and vote for a coin name. Be creative !

Once the coin name will be choosen, we will update this thread accordingly

Thanks you for your time,

Donn