-------------  
SUMMARY:  

In a nutshell, the good news is that there is an indication of interest from Bittrex Global and Coinbase to list bitcoinR.  Talks are ongoing and no agreement has been made.  There is a backlog of asset listings at both exchanges, even if an agreement were made immediately (which it will not be), we are told that the time to list would be 90 days+.

bitcoinR (XBR) is only ~160 days old.  When Bitcoin (BTC) was four months old, it wasn't listed anywhere and didn't have a market price.  It took 547 days from release for Bitcoin to have ANY value, and then it was only worth $0.000008 - $0.08 per share.
  
You can fact check this here:  
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/121815/bitcoins-price-history.asp  

Unfortunately, a number of challenges at present far outweigh the good news.  Put bluntly, the listing process has been a massive hassle and the bitcoinR community at large has not yet been helpful by way of growing the community or offering any financial help.  For now, we will continue the listing conversations but will need to find a means to pay for the listing, if the interaction with the mining community does not improve, or we cannot find means to pay for the exchange listing we may have no choice but to transition away from the bitcoinR project.

-------------
DETAIL:

1.  The Bittrex Global listing fee is ~$265k USD, plus we must commit to $10-20k USD per month in "market making" fees to a 3rd party like Jump Trading to ensure liquidity for the first 6 months.

2.  THIS IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE WE ARE CURRENTLY FACED WITH: Bittrex Global indicated that they will require bitcoinR to indemnify them for 100% customer losses in case XBR suffers a 51% attack.  They require a personal guarantee from the project founders.  We haven't seen the contract language yet, but if it's anything along their verbal, it's untenable.  It's unthinkable that ANY business person would take on an unquantifiable risk like that.  

Any PoW cryptocurrency can be 51% attacked.  Period.  Even Bitcoin could be 51% attacked if one had enough patience and funding.  XBR is more susceptible to this kind of attack due to the accelerated cryptonomics when compared to BTC as well.  This is a very scary liability indeed and if it happened as it would incur said liability all at once.

Thus, we may need to find yet another alternative to Bittrex Global for listing pending the analysis of the language in the listing agreement.

3.  Coinbase has agreed to continued discussions regarding listing and has requested that we consider custodying our treasury XBR units with them for a fee.  This might work surprisingly well and also has the advantage from a transparency perspective; we'd be happy to do this in order to strengthen our relationship with Coinbase.

4.  It was explained that the nature of Coinbase is such that they will not be "first to list" a new project, though in some cases, they are happy to follow another AML/KYC compliant exchange if the other exchange lists XBR first.  So the way it is now, it looks like Bittrex Global is still the front runner for initial listing if we can figure out the 51% indemnification clause.

5.  There is evidently a new hurdle for companies that wish to list with major US exchanges.  It is an LLC that functions as an adjudicator of what is or isn't defined as a "security" in the US.  It's called "The Crypto Rating Council" (CRC).  A project is scored on a scale of 1-5 in order to participate for Bittrex US (in the US vs Global) and Coinbase doesn't require a rating but it helps improve listing priority.  We cannot know this because we have no contact with the CRC, we have to trust Coinbase that this is true.  More information here:

The cost for the review is unknown, as is their method of prioritizing a project review.  They have made clear on their website that we as a developer team cannot put our project forth to review as the "members of the Council" select their own review targets and set their own priorities.  We consider the scenario that our rating might be closer to a 1 than a 5 since there was never a token sale or ICO and we are a PoW coin, but this is just a hypothesis.

More detail regarding the CRC here:  https://www.cryptoratingcouncil.com/faq    

6.  The constant onslaught of XBR miners asking inane questions repeatedly like:  "What exchange?"  "What is the listing price?"  "When will it be listed?"  "Is this a scam?" is both irritating and disheartening.  

One would think miners would ask "How can we help XBR list on an exchange?"  "How can we help determine a listing price for XBR?"  "How can we contribute to the costs to make listing XBR on an exchange quicker?" and "What actions can we take to further legitimize the bitcoinR project?"


Alas, it seems our community is currently teeming with greed and impatience.  If a community member cannot be proactively helpful, please refrain from taking precious time away from the development team for silly, selfish questions or Tweeting the founders / developers.  Again, Bitcoin did not have a market price for 547 days, and then it was <$0.10.

7.  The founders have funded every nickel of this project personally since 2018 when design started with the exception of a $30k loan to DG from two investors that is now in its repayment period via installments.  This repayment was unexpected and ultimately diverts money from deployment into the bitcoinR network, in fact: $30k could likely have paid for the bulk of the listing fees for XBR on at least one international exchange.

8.  We were in discussions with an entity who self-described as KuCoin.  It wasn't KuCoin, but rather a team of hackers that were emailing us from a cleverly spoofed domain and using man in the middle (MITM) attacks attempting to steal almost $10k in listing fees.  We reported the hackers to the real KuCoin team who said they'd happily consider our coin for listing, but did not indicate what the fee would be.  This was a massive waste of time and resources

9. When an XBR or BitcoinTalk community member asks if bitcoinR is a "scam" because it has not yet been listed after four months, it discourages the founding team from wanting to continue to invest time and money into bitcoinR on a monthly basis.

The fact that certain members of the international XBR mining community may need or desire money immediately does not constitute an emergency for the bitcoinR development team, nor does it make bitcoinR a scam.  The founders have paid 100% of the expenses associated with bitcoinR and have not sought money from either the global mining community or the global investor community.  How could there be a scam if no funding has changed hands or been solicited?  There was no ICO.  No IPO.  No IEO.  We haven't taken a single dollar from a single person with the exception of the loan from the two aforementioned investors who are in the midst of repayment.

If this type of scam-accusation-disguised-as-inquiry persists, the founders and development team will further tire and likely become interested in investing their time and money elsewhere.    

-------------
ACTION:

For all of the above reasons, I suspect one of four paths will be taken with the bitcoinR project:

A.  We will sell all or part of the bitcoinR project to a yet-to-be-identified entity that has access to greater monetary resources and can better deal with DETAIL items 1-5 above.  This may take the better part of a year or more.

OR

B.  Accept mining community donations to list XBR with an international exchange and custody the XBR OMO treasury units with a qualified custodian (such as Coinbase).  The founders will dissolve the operating company in favor of a non-profit entity controlled by the mining community for the governance of the project in a similar manner to Bitcoin.

Depending upon the interest from the mining community, Option B could happen quickly or not at all.

OR

C.  We will continue to poll international exchanges to find one that has a good mix of transparency and listing fee value, and the founders will make one last contribution out of pocket to list XBR.  This action is not guaranteed, and the founders / developers are under no obligation to do so.  Again, community participation to pay the listing fees (Option B) is far preferred and shows good faith from the community.

OR

D.  Eventually, if there is no interest in acquisition of bitcoinR or donations to further support the listing and operations of bitcoinR, or bitcoinR cannot obtain an economically feasible listing agreement, the project will likely cease to be supported by the existing team and seed nodes will be shut down.  Even with these actions taken, bitcoinR may inadvertently live on as a distributed ledger and could find governance and eventual success through a responsible, active community of caring, long-term thinkers, such is the nature of blockchain.

Regardless of the path chosen, the success or failure of bitcoinR is and will be determined by the community.  

-------------
CLOSING:

It is now clear to us the wisdom Satoshi displayed in choosing to remain anonymous and by further choosing to disappear from sight as figurehead of Bitcoin:  The nature of blockchain is such that it does not need a central governing entity or figurehead.  Crypto is, in-fact, better governed by a community of stakeholders who both collectively and individually have something to either gain or lose through strong control of ownership.  

The job of a founding team is thankless and cash flow negative in the early days, though for now we will continue our efforts so long as the community evolves into being respectful and helpful.  

NS

PS-  Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be crypto founders.

The hard cap is 21,000,000 XBR.  Half of which have been pre-mined for the uses described in this post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5249685.msg54468236#msg54468236

NS

---

It is impossible to increase the number of XBR, the money supply is limited to 21,000,000 units. 

NS

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Appreciate the kind words but I don't understand your post.  There is no account necessary to mine bitcoinR.

The only "account" that would be necessary is if one wanted to trade XBR via a virtual currency exchange like Bittrex or Coinbase.

NS

Hi tex173,

Thanks for the note.  Ubuntu is a standard Linux flavor, so you can most certainly download the Linux binaries.

NS

Hey ToothlessCoin,

Thanks for the note.  We started with CPU mining in late March with little coordination, simply letting friends and family know via text message and Facebook posts that they could mine XBR with their hardware at home.  At that time, difficulty was <1 and we proved that a 1.8GHz processor and as few as 4GB RAM worked well enough whether it was Mac or Windows.  The announcement was met with varying interest and most people were plagued by short term thinking (how much is it worth, where is it traded) thinking that they could just flip out of it quickly.  The allure of easy money has a very strong appeal; but, when you add the necessity for people to wait between investing effort and reaping reward the number of initial participants becomes vanishingly small.

bitcoinR is not unique in this way, all PoW coins go through this same adoption curve.  Those who are early in (CPU/GPU and early ASIC) prior to a price being established are the obvious long run winners.  This method has the disadvantage of zero immediate gratification, but then there are legitimate examples of those who achieved success by taking an early PoW risk for a subsequent, non-guaranteed payoff.

NS

---

Hi RomiM,

This is a great question; and the answer is one that is socioeconomic in nature.

Look around in your life at the people who are successful and those who are not successful.  Those who are not successful are generally paid more frequently than those who are successful.  Here are some simple examples to illustrate the traditional model of socioeconomically determined monetary velocity:

Daily Pay:

A laborer who in exchange for his or her physical effort in digging a hole in the earth or carrying scrap metal is paid daily.  This person uses his pay to pay for food and shelter for the night, with a little bit of funds left over to buy a small breakfast and lunch the next day.  There is no concept of saving, just work to survive.  This person does not plan for the future.

Weekly Pay:

A foreman who supervises the manual laborers in the field is paid weekly.  This person has a bit longer of a time horizon and can generally afford to save a little to pay for a used car and rent an apartment.  While the foreman generally has an easier life than the laborer, often there is little difference in their ability to save or plan for the future.

Bi-Weekly or Semi-Monthly Pay:

This is where most of the middle class is, they get paid on the 1st and the 15th of every month, or every other Friday.  They generally have had some success planning for the future, attending at least some college and are a bit more comfortable with the idea that they must invest time and effort without the happy result of immediate gratification.  Many in this category finance new automobiles and obtain mortgages for comfortable homes for their families. 

Monthly Pay

These are most self-employed individuals or small business entrepreneurs.  They must plan for the future every single month, carefully calculating how much time, effort and money they can invest in their business activities.  At the end of each month, they pay their laborers, foremen and managers along with overhead for the month, saving some funds in reserve and pay themselves from whatever profit is left over.  Many of these individuals have the ability to pay cash for their automobiles and homes.

Quarterly Pay

Many investment managers are paid quarterly.  Compensation for the best investment managers range from the millions into the billions of dollars annually.  They are paid partially upon performance of their investment ideas and execution and partially upon the tallied dollars that they "manage" in any given quarter.  Generally these individuals hold advanced degrees and have invested significantly into their educations (often in the several-hundred-thousand-dollar range).  They have planned for the future since they were children and have often had the benefit of guidance from a capable family member or mentor.

Annual Pay

Founders and CEOs of publicly traded companies will often take a very small salary, sometimes as low as $1 a year.  This salary is obviously far lower than what our laborer examples can make in an hour, let alone an entire year; however, these individuals are visionaries, and they are willing to exert tremendous effort, energy and personal funds to ensure that they are paid handsomely at year-end through the exercising of their stock options, which could be worth tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.  While it varies whether or not these individuals have heavily invested in education, they are not adverse to risk and they do not expect immediate gratification of any kind.  Often, they have the discipline to live far below their means, driving used cars and living in small homes to save their focus, funds and energy to invest in a worthwhile effort that will pay them an outrageous sum once per annum or at some future time.


So, while I cannot promise that mining XBR will be a profitable endeavor and I cannot point to any exchange listing today to establish a price, I can tell you that there are some very smart men and women who have chosen to invest their time, effort, energy and personal funds into making bitcoinR a success and that it may behoove others to do likewise.

NS


PS- bitcoinR has had listing offerings from multiple exchanges, but since they were non KYC/AML compliant, we declined listing.

---

Bingo.

NS

---

This is a good question and one that is difficult to answer without making promises; so what I will do is present data so one can make their own inference:

Yesterday the bitcoinR network eclipsed the hashpower equivalent of Bitcoin on November 1, 2013 (3582 TH/s).   On 1-NOV-13, the value of BTC was $198.51.

You can verify this here on the bitcoinR Block Explorer.

We are approaching AML/KYC compliant exchanges soon so we can list.  The first quantitative easing / tightening function to attempt to stabilize to our target price is 1-JUL-2020, so we would ideally like to be listed prior to that time.

NS

---

Thank you for the compliment.  Regarding traditional qualifications, we feel as though our team is without par in the crypto world with the possible exception of Ripple Labs.

Yes, we are constantly looking for smart, hardworking people to help us!  For ways to earn XBR without mining, please look at our XBR Bounty Hunter page:  https://bitcoinr.org/partners/xbr-bounty-hunters/

There's more work to do, certainly.

NS

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

No problem, as you can see I made a mistake linking to the wrong github repository earlier in the thread. 

You might also check your links, as when I click on them, my browser indicates that it the site is blocked?

Lastly, if you could please limit your posts a bit so as not to overwhelm the thread. 

Thanks again for your enthusiastic participation, good luck mining XBR!

NS

---

Thank you RUOFERTT-

We are hoping that our proactive compliance with the U.S. Government will show our commitment to integrity and transparency.

It certainly has not been simple trying to navigate the regulatory environment in the United States, but I do think the regulators have an open mind about crypto and are doing their level best to ensure people are not being scammed.

We appreciate and commend their work.

NS

---

Hi PARIVEENN,

This is a bit of a loaded question, so I'll preface my answer with the disclaimer that my response is not legal advice.

With that said, if a country has banned crypto then I imagine the citizens of that country cannot purchase or mine XBR since XBR is a cryptocurrency and they are ostensibly citizens of a country in which cryptocurrency is banned.  Either way, if they somehow purchase XBR from an AML/KYC exchange, they will necessarily need to divulge their identity and contact information.  So, at best, it seems very risky for a person in a country that has banned crypto to attempt to acquire XBR or any other crypto like XRP, ETH or BTC.

NS

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Hey Moreen_ico,

Thanks for the encouragement.  I think we have the right team, we have Harvard trained economists and law scholars and MIT educated distributed computing experts.

They 100% believe in the project and are being paid in part with XBR.  We've been working together for two years before we made this ANN thread.  We are here to stay. 

---

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but it doesn't appear as though your pool is targeted for XBR.  Your links indicate a currency called XRB.

---

This is interesting, thank you for your enthusiasm.  Looks like a fairly well put together site.

NS

---

Thank you.  Everyone that is on the bitcoinR team currently are on the bitcoinR.org website and are listed in the whitepaper. 

We had three former advisors who are no longer with the project, we are still on good terms with all three.  One was the former CTO of a large credit card company in the US, another was the Chief Information Officer of a high-frequency hedge fund who was a founding quant on the Goldman prop-trading desk and the last was a finance specialist from a publicly traded telecommunications company.  Since they are no longer with the project in any official capacity, they are no longer listed on the website or in the whitepaper.  In any event, our entity is not structured as a partnership.

NS

---

Hey CjMapope,

Thanks for your note.  I appreciate you raising this concern; however, I don't understand entirely.

Our difficulty retargeting algorithm is set to 15 minutes; so even if the hashpower increases or decreases drastically, the difficulty will retarget within 15 minutes (every three blocks) and the miners who continue mining XBR will retain the ability to mine a block in approximately the same standard five-minute period.

This is all explained on page 10 of the Official Whitepaper.

NS

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Yes, the entire basis of the quantitative adjustment for the currency is that there needs to be a money supply that can be tightened or eased at set intervals.  Where would these funds come from if we did not pre-mine?  This is explained in detail in Appendix B of the Official Whitepaper. 

These are the properties of the 50% pre-mine:

~33.33% (7,000,000 units) of the total money supply was pre-mined and is reserved for periodic OMO.   
~6.67% (1,400,000 XBR) of the total money supply was pre-mined and is allocated to team compensation.
  10% (2,100,000) of the total money supply was pre-mined and is allocated to ongoing operations (bounties, development, infrastructure, etc.). 




Obviously, it is tempting for a developer to print his or her own money; but the main benefits are lost if a development team overpowers market demand with its own self interested supply.  Strong control of ownership in our semi-centralized model is important since its almost certain that effective circulation will be reduced via quantitative tightening effort at some future point.  Lastly, it's important to compensate oneself and one's team with an amount more substantial than just walking around money should the project prove sustainable.

Lastly, Bitcoin Core was 0% "pre-mined" and Ripple Labs was 100% "pre-mined".  Both of those projects have found their niche and are objectively successful within the context of the modern cryptocurrency movement.  bitcoinR has merely split the difference and allocated the vast majority of the pre-mine to a long-run attempt to stabilize the price of XBR (+/- 15% from target) while allocating the minority of the pre-mine to sustaining operations via continued technical/procedural improvement and the motivation of the team.

---

Thanks lorikate!  Keep an eye on the hashpower, it is not a perfect gauge of popularity, but it is at least a little nod to participation.  Here's the bitcoinR Block Explorer, the reason why the hashpower is important is because it represents a category of broader cost elements required for participation.

It stands to reason that one would not expend time, effort and cost-based electricity and machine depreciation to mine a currency that they did not assume would have a future monetary value.

So, by more than would be likely by just chance we think "this project will get the success." 

NS

---

Hey prettiestgirl,

Thanks for the kind words.  It should be noted that currency price "manipulation" and "stabilization" are very different objectives indeed, backed by wholly different intent.  A big advantage that we have is that we have been very transparent from the start and we have been careful not to commit any arbitrary actions.

We are telegraphing our actions far in advance via the outline of our Open Market Operations (OMO) in the whitepaper with the stated intent to adjust the currency for stability within a (+/- 15%) range of target to achieve the dual purpose of store-of-value stability and a triangular arbitrage price-range to encourage trading volume for liquidity purposes.   

For these reasons, I respectfully submit that our planned activities fall far outside the boundaries of "manipulation" and well within the boundaries of "stabilization".

So, thanks again for the nice post and sorry for the lecture.   

NS

---

Hey Kalin79-

Thanks for your continued interest.  We considered the possibility of a CPU-only algorithm like CryptoNight, but felt that widespread adoption of bitcoinR mining would be best accomplished by staying with SHA-256 for three reasons:

1.  Few individuals who mine with CPUs know much about hashing algorithms and are unlikely to prefer one over another.  They simply download and install a miner and await a block discovery.  The somewhat hesitant adoption of this in early April reinforced the case that most people weren't able to understand it.  We knew then we'd made the right decision using SHA-256 to eventually approach veteran miners.

2.  For those individuals who are veteran miners, we posited that they likely have access to equipment that they previously used to mine BTC and were unable to sell / liquidate via eBay or Amazon.  Due to the individually held backlog of SHA-256 mining equipment we envisioned a veteran mining cohort that could get going faster in the mining of XBR by redeploying this unused / obsolete BTC mining inventory.

3.  A substantial aggregate network hashpower, evenly spread over a great number of individuals or entities has a better chance of decreasing the probability of a 51% attack.

Once serious miners can get their heads around the hashpower and difficulty going up and up, they can assess what individual hashpower requirements will be necessary to mine a block individually or as part of a pool.  Smart miners will make an attempt to jump the queue at a discount by going to a place like eBay, Craigslist, Ganji, Xianyu and pick up a used Antminer S9 for less than $200 USD which should, at present, be adequate to mine XBR.  Some vendors on Alibaba will give miners a discount (<$100 each) if they buy massive quantities of 10 or more.

CPU mining of XBR is now largely a lost cause I'm afraid.  I updated and uploaded v.29 of the Official Whitepaper today to reflect this.

NS


[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Hey Ozing,

Thank you for the kind words; yes, we did try to honor the original design of BTC with XBR by keeping consensus decentralized while centralizing the economic parameters.  Regarding the idea that a "secret government" controls BTC, I think that it is unlikely that any sovereign nation exercises direct control over Bitcoin Core; however, I do think it is possible that there could be some indirect control by certain countries where lines blur between the private and public sector.

Regardless, the backend economics of Bitcoin that may be manipulated by a loose federation of non-transparent entities is the challenge that we were looking to solve.  There is no question that Bitcoin Core will always be the original and the champion of all crypto; however, that does not negate the need for a transparent, quantitatively flexible version of Bitcoin which is bitcoinR.

There is room in the ecosystem for both BTC and XBR.

---

Hey cooltoadfrommmoon,

Appreciate your input; but we must politely disagree regarding the bad timing.  The COVID-19 pandemic was the perfect time to release the CPU miner to the general public because they were stuck at home for quarantine.  While some were lucky enough to retain their jobs, other folks lost their jobs entirely and had no way to compensate themselves- yet, they still had time on their hands and a computer that they could use to mine XBR. 

Interestingly enough, when we announced the project via Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, we were met with varying interest by audiences that didn't understand what crypto or mining was.  Most people ignored the announcement, but many did not and those individuals successfully mined a few thousand blocks using their laptops, Macbooks and regular desktops that they would normally just use to browse Facebook or update their resumes in MS Office.

You can get a rough idea of how popular the CPU mining videos were by checking out the initial two CPU mining videos on the bitcoinR YouTube Channel.  The Mac mining video had a little over 7k views and the Windows video had a little over 5k views.

Until yesterday morning the difficulty was <500 and as of right now it is 724,592,054; and while one cannot just success by hashpower and difficulty alone, I do believe it is directionally indicative of a project that may succeed in the long run.

---

Hey NITER2018,

Thanks for the note.  I'm struggling a bit to understand your question, XBR is not intended to replace, supplant or challenge BTC.  Our hope is that it may prove to be a fairly price stabilized (+/- 15%) alternative as a store of value and medium of exchange when the market is getting hysterical and BTC is commanding crazy high prices or has become artificially depressed.

To address some of your points directly.

1.  We forked Bitcoin prior to Satoshi's genesis block, thereby creating an entirely new blockchain with zero history shared with Bitcoin Core.  In this way; we are not technically identical to Bitcoin Core, but share 99% of Bitcoin Core's DNA.

2.  I'm usually careful about calling our changes "improvements" because to do so would likely be interpreted as little more than self-aggrandizing propaganda.  That said, it is important to "talk one's own book" because it is important to recruit new supporters for the project to effectively exceed XBR's Dunbar number, a threshold that I believe we have crossed at this juncture. 

3.  Do I think "the base is not updated"?  No.  The Bitcoin Core source code is lovingly maintained, far more than is the bitcoinR source code at this time.  Code maintenance beyond initial commits is generally a community function.  As the XBR community grows, perhaps the maintenance of our code base will approach the quantity and quality of the code commits by the BTC community; but I do not rank the probability of a 1:1 XBR to BTC code-commit frequency to be very high in the short run or the long run. 

Said another way, we have a long way to go before the size and active participation of the bitcoinR community reaches parity with that of Bitcoin Core; a goal that is not impossible, nor is it terribly probable.

Long story short, bitcoinR is not a new idea, rather it is a combination of Bitcoin Core, the old Chaumian central mint ideas from the 1980s and 1990s and the old / established processes described in the 2nd Edition of The Federal Reserve System: Its Purposes and Functions authored collectively by The Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in November of 1947.

NS

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Hi!

Wow.  You're right!  I uploaded the wrong version of the source code from 2018 with the wrong hashing algo and even to the wrong github repository address.  How embarrassing.  Sorry.

Thank you for pointing it out. Again, I really apologize.  What a boneheaded move.

I guess now is as good a time as any to reiterate that if anyone finds something that doesn't quite make sense or is functioning improperly, we are happy to compensate them with an XBR bounty so long as they provide their identity and contact information so we can do an AML/KYC check.

I'm happy to send you some XBR as a bounty for seeing this and bringing it to my attention SCAM-detector-X.

Please send your:

- Name
- Contact Information
- bitcoinR wallet address

The error has been corrected and you can now find the correct source code at https://github.com/fancywarlock/bitcoinR

Thanks again for taking the time to send a note, and to keep users here on BitcoinTalk safe!

NS

---

Hi AmoreJaz,

Thanks for the note.  I'll respond to each of your points below:

1.  The github repository link (https://github.com/fancywarlock/XBR) has been replaced with https://github.com/fancywarlock/bitcoinR. I did make a mistake and published the wrong code to the wrong repository address.  I thanked the user via PM and publicly and will happily send a bounty his/her way (if they choose to disclose their identity for AML/KYC) for pointing out my error.  It was not a good first look on my part- apologies again to the board.

2.  I need to understand your comment about the team members' "portfolios" a bit better please.  I am not sure to what exactly you are referring, but I can assure you that they are all very much a part of the bitcoinR project, and all of whom have signed contracts that indicate that we can publicly associate them via our website and other media.  Please clarify what you are looking for here and I'll see if I can make it happen.

3.  In the early days, our project was not called bitcoinR; and very much to your point, I wrestled with the idea of calling it any name that derived from "Bitcoin"; however, even a cursory examination of our source code will indicate that we haven't changed a great deal from the original Bitcoin code.  Technically, Bitcoin Core and bitcoinR are quite similar with the exception of crypto-economic parameters such as Block Halving, Target Spacing, Target Timed Difficulty Adjustment, Block Halving, # of Transaction confirmations, etc.  If you are scientifically inclined, you'll know that you want to change as few variables as possible when conducting an experiment.  We even left the money supply the same at 21,000,000; but sped up the block time for two reasons: First to accelerate the timeline of the experiment and the Second, to give regular people a shot at mining XBR while they were quarantined due to COVID-19.  So, it really seemed LESS transparent to name our project / experiment something other than bitcoin"X" since the technology is admittedly derivative. 

As for the balance of the name, we added the "R" to ensure that we delineated our project and brand from the original, and to (hopefully) indicate our charge which is to operate a Bitcoin-fork in a manner that is consistent with the way a central bank / reserve bank would operate from a quantitative easing/tightening perspective.  I could go on, but respectfully, all of this is explained in the whitepaper.

-----

So, in summary: we are trying our very best to make something that will be adopted within the market, but we aren't shilling it or promising units of XBR will be worth anything at all.  We are making a level attempt to ensure that we follow all AML/KYC rules in the process.  We aren't going to get everything right in the beginning, and maybe we won't get them right at all; but we will be honest and transparent in the process, and hopefully we will have made something that rewards the active participation of others.

Lastly, please understand that not all innovations are of the technical variety, there are economic and procedural innovations as well.  The real social experiment of bitcoinR is technical de-centralization paired with an economic centralization that requires a trusted party to stabilize unit value.  This is a combination requiring human intervention because we are unaware of a coding algorithm to assimilate, process and assign real world value of items / effort.
 
So, in this way, the bitcoinR project is a very, very different experiment than was Satoshi's Bitcoin (even while it is technically derivative).  In the end, we are not sure that XBR will ever have any value at all and plainly state this on our official website, in the whitepaper and here in the ANN thread.  It's for this reason (and others) that we have chosen to release bitcoinR to the mining community instead of continuing our attempt to understand whether or not XBR would be classified as a security if it were sold. 

Thanks again for the questions.

NS

---

Hey Kalyn,

You are absolutely right.  No one here on the team can believe the jump in hashpower and difficulty today.  The hashpower has gone from 198,389 Network (KH/s) to 24,365,170,193 Network (KH/s) in a matter of hours.  This is unexpected and unprecedented; certainly not what we were hoping for.  We wanted a gradual transition from CPU to GPU and from GPU to ASIC in order to ensure regular people had an opportunity to accumulate XBR.  Difficulty is now 159,779,998; the thought of which first delighted us, but then we realized that it is not likely possible to mine a block without a rig. 

Tomorrow I'll reach out to a few GPU miners that were having success last week to see when the last time they were able to mine a block.

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Hey Sherriffin-

Thanks.  We were looking for an Altcoin like this, we couldn't find one so we built bitcoinR as an experiment.

Governments can and do tax crypto.  The bitcoinR network is very transparent and theoretically its movements are easily tracked.  We will never sell XBR except through an AML/KYC licensed exchange and encourage our users to do the same.  Thus, a government should have the ability to easily discern who buys and sells XBR and can tax them appropriately if they choose to do so.

If users are concerned about this, they should not attempt to trade XBR (or BTC or XRP). 

[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

This is true.  I could not believe how quickly CPU mining was optimized out by GPU miners for bitcoinR (XBR).  We did a little bit of investigation and found that it was a single person who was a video editor for a local news channel leveraging his high-performance GPUs in his video editing rigs and that's what kicked off the competition for hashpower.  It's very interesting to observe.  You can watch it here:  Blockchain Explorer:
bitcoinR Block Explorer.

We went from <500 in difficulty to 48,693,306 within the span of a few hours.  Insane.

I understand your question; however, it is very difficult to keep miners from attempting to corner the market.  I won't go into the specifics of a game theory discussion focused on the economics; rather, I'll say this: most projects don't care how they get their hashpower up, they just want participation.  Few projects have the magical property of common sense that requires them to keep hashpower low in the early days in order to enable and encourage CPU mining.  Our project, bitcoinR.org kept hashpower low by not doing a wide announcement immediately.  This was our best shot at creating a global distributed network of actual people instead of corporations. 

By keeping the threshold lower, we were able to get some very loyal miners who mined the coin early.  In fact, I believe one can still mine the coin via CPU assuming that their system is quick enough; though it seems that we are inching toward the GPU phase of the mining evolution.  Once the pool software is released, the hashpower will concentrate a bit but the desire to mine the coin spreads exponentially.

This is more prevalent as exchanges pick up the coin and assign a value based upon supply and demand; then, there is an economic function where the price of the coin will tend to gravitate to its production cost.  It's at this point where we will come in and make an attempt to stabilize the price in line with our whitepaper.

Long story short, pay close attention to Twitter, Reddit and here at BT for announcement threads.  Don't look to people that have thousands or millions of followers, look for the ones who have a few hundred, that have credibility outside of the crypto world- get interested in what they are interested in.  You'll find projects of value that way.

Sorry, a fresh copy of the deployed source code is located here:

https://github.com/fancywarlock/bitcoinR

NS

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Sweet!  Thank you.  I was looking for a few additional ways to share this.  I like the structure of your site, check out our bounties page at https://bitcoinr.org/partners/xbr-bounty-hunters/.  For example, we'd happily award a bounty to those who are linguistically skilled enough to translate the ANN thread into the multiple different languages here on BT.

We are happy to pay both media / advertising bounties as well as bug bounties with the obvious caveat that anyone seeking a bounty payment must go through our AML/KYC check.

Thanks again!

NS



[moderator's note: consecutive posts merged]

Hey Olkah,

Sorry if I didn't make that clear, and further apologies because I might be repeating myself here but the root problem with making the mining pool software available at this point is that it we feel would unfairly concentrate XBR in the hands of very few mining operators.  The good news is that if you have a powerful CPU or a decent GPU, you can mine full blocks yourself.

As of right now, the aggregate hashpower is only 198,389.857 Network (KH/s) and the difficulty is <500.

If one were to unearth some "obsolete" BTC GPU or ASICs, that might work surprisingly well; however, we'd prefer that the ASICS weren't deployed for another 30-45 days or so.

NS

A Quick Hello:

My name is Nicholas.  I am conflicted about creating this thread, but there is a necessity to announce publicly in order for the bitcoinR network to grow.  My hesitation is borne specifically from the fact that bitcoinR must necessarily and unavoidably challenge the libertarian viewpoint that underlies Bitcoin and many popular altcoins, namely: that most functions must be decentralized.  This fundamentally trustless ethos had been one that I myself espoused for over a decade but is incomplete without a more formalized version of quantitative balance which may be most efficiently instituted by a centralized entity.

This in and of itself is not a new idea; central banks make attempts to stabilize currency at regular intervals; however, they do so without the discipline of a fixed money supply; thus, there is very rarely any deflationary activity and generally when a government prints money the value of existing money goes down.  Bitcoin has the opposite challenge, which is that there is no way to create an inflationary impact to stabilize the price of BTC, the increasing price of which has proven to be partially reliant upon a naturally-occuring deflation; this, combined with other factors can enable price manipulation by large holders.  bitcoinR was developed in an attempt at reaching an equilibrium via the structured simplicity of centralized open market operations.  This will require trust, an unpopular concept due to its historic abuse by certain monetary authorities.

We have all studied or are at least aware of this economic history.  Myself and my team members have been educated at Brown, Harvard, MIT and a fair number of other lesser known but still academically rigorous schools.  We have studied economics, law, cryptography and computer science.  bitcoinR is the result of these learnings, combined with what was accomplished by a small group of individuals over the past four decades that is now best known as Bitcoin; for the former we are grateful to our professors and academic advisors, for the latter we are very much indebted to David, Eric, Gavin, Hal, John, Nick, Paul, Phil, Tim & Wei.

We are hopeful to provide value in a structured, predictable and transparent manner while cooperating fully with regulators in the United States if and when we are asked to do so.  bitcoinR is not a privacy coin, in fact it is the exact opposite.  It is important to get away from the idea that major cryptocurrencies are run by a mysterious shadowy figure whether acting alone or as part of a cohort with an undisclosed profit motive.

As a matter of full disclosure, we do hope to make a return on our time and money investment; however we do not expect this to come quickly or easily, and we will not get there by selling bitcoinR units (XBR) directly to the public outside of an AML/KYC compliant exchange.  For now the public can only obtain units via mining or bounties; and in the latter case they must provide their full name, address and contact information for us to do an AML / KYC check prior to sending the earned bounty units.  More detail may be found in the bitcoinR whitepaper.

We understand that some will choose not to participate in the bitcoinR network as a result of their personal privacy ideal; however, we urge that this decision be predicated upon the idea that privacy even in the Bitcoin network can always be overridden.  Either way, we wish you the very best of luck with mining XBR and do hope that your participation will fuel the attention necessary for creation of intrinsic value, continued gradual growth and eventual institutional momentum.

Thanks,

NS

bitcoinR Overview:

bitcoinR is based largely upon Satoshi’s original design of the technically decentralized Bitcoin blockchain. We paired this improved technology with a centralized economic governance model designed specifically to allow central-bank-like quantitative easing and quantitative tightening within set tolerances. This quantitative flexibility should equate to a more stable money supply, one that is less likely to be manipulated by an unseen hand.

We have chosen to re-begin with a new Genesis block to ensure equal ability for all to accumulate the new virtual currency unit XBR. To have forked and airdropped would have largely defeated the purpose of addressing the high concentrations of BTC through quantitative adjustment.

XBR’s network is called "bitcoinR". In choosing this name, we give credit to Satoshi for their original design, with the newly appended "R" to signify the currency’s "Reserve"-like feature of quantitative flexibility.

Quick bitcoinR Facts:

Algorithm:  SHA-256
Block Halving: 52,500 blocks
Block Reward (initial): 100 XBR
Block Type: Proof of Work (PoW)
Coin Name: XBR
Coin Unit: Satoshi
Coinbase Maturity: 99+1 Default Confirmation Blocks
Initial Address Letter (Mainnet): X
Initial Address Letter (Testnet): B
Last Reward Block: 1,785,000
Network Name: bitcoinR
Node 1: 204.48.17.237 (New York)
Node 2: 167.172.122.211 (San Francisco)
Node 3: 167.99.88.236 (London)
Node 4: 167.172.42.86 (Amsterdam)
Node 5: 206.189.95.138 (Singapore)
Node 6: 167.71.41.67 (Frankfurt)
Node 7: 138.197.143.76 (Toronto)
Node 8: 139.59.63.124 (Bangalore)
P2P Port: 17482
RPC Port: 17481
Supply: 21,000,000 XBR
Supply (minable): 10,500,000
Target Spacing: 5 minutes
Target Timed Difficulty Adjustment: 15 minutes
Transaction Confirmations: 12 blocks


Miscellaneous:

bitcoinR Team
https://www.bitcoinR.org/

(scroll down mid-page)

Whitepaper
https://www.bitcoinR.org/whitepaper

Mining:
https://www.bitcoinR.org/mine

Exchanges:

bitcoinR will apply to AML/KYC exchanges only; we cannot control whether or not foreign or decentralized exchanges eventually trade XBR.

XBR CPU/GPU Mining Videos for Beginners:

Macintosh
Windows

Mining Pools:

To be released in late Q2'2020.  To facilitate gradual growth of hashpower, we first released for CPU mining only.  As of mid-may, it has become fairly difficult for standard CPUs to mine blocks; this occurred more quickly than we would have preferred.  If past is prologue, once we release the mining pool, chances become vanishingly small that even powerful GPUs will retain the ability to mine blocks.  It is for this reason that these announcements have been deliberately and totally staggered and will continue in this manner until bitcoinR can transition entirely to ASIC miners.  We are doing this so some level of equitable distribution can still be maintained.  To do otherwise would be dumb and unfair.  Early release of pools could create the exact challenge that we are attempting to solve.  Thanks for understanding.

Blockchain Explorer:
bitcoinR Block Explorer

AML Compliance and Auditing Firm:
BitAML

Contact Us:

team@bitcoinr.org