Altcoins Without Blockchain

[sase007]

I have been wondering for some time now, what is meant by the term "altcoins without blockchain".

How does the system work without a blockchain and couldn't this open that particular altcoin network to other probles?

Could anyone explain to me what this means or howit could be better than cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin?

[kevin08]

It probably means altcoins that have no miners, but that can still be traded on exchanges. The miners sometimes stop mining an altcoin if it they can't make a profit, then the network stops working and it becomes impossible to send coins anywhere. Any exchanges with markets for that altcoin carry on letting people trade even though nobody can deposit or withdraw. The coins have no working blockchains, but can still be traded.

[Snail2]

I have been wondering for some time now, what is meant by the term "altcoins without blockchain".

How does the system work without a blockchain and couldn't this open that particular altcoin network to other probles?

Could anyone explain to me what this means or howit could be better than cryptocurrencies with Bitcoin?

E.g. Ripple protocol using a distributed database as common ledger on a bunch of validating servers. The transactions are not organized in blocks, just records in a database, so no mining needed as the database servers doing all the tx processing and database synchronization tasks.

[tokeweed]

Also Stellar, which could be a better implementation after forking Ripple.

[l8nit3]

@OP - Thank you for being the one to finally ask this question! Ive been wondering the same thing myself for quite awhile lol

@Snail2 - Thanks for your great explanation! I think I at least have a basic understanding of the term now. Is there possibly a link you could provide where I could possibly do more reading on the subject?

[Snail2]

@OP - Thank you for being the one to finally ask this question! Ive been wondering the same thing myself for quite awhile lol

@Snail2 - Thanks for your great explanation! I think I at least have a basic understanding of the term now. Is there possibly a link you could provide where I could possibly do more reading on the subject?

Perhaps the Ripple-consensus white paper is the best information source for this: https://ripple.com/consensus-whitepaper/
(but some of the other white papers can be useful too: https://ripple.com/whitepapers-reports/)
I think the IOTA white paper(s) also going to be interesting as it will implement an other blockchainless transaction processing approach.

[l8nit3]

@OP - Thank you for being the one to finally ask this question! Ive been wondering the same thing myself for quite awhile lol

@Snail2 - Thanks for your great explanation! I think I at least have a basic understanding of the term now. Is there possibly a link you could provide where I could possibly do more reading on the subject?

Perhaps the Ripple-consensus white paper is the best information source for this: https://ripple.com/consensus-whitepaper/
(but some of the other white papers can be useful too: https://ripple.com/whitepapers-reports/)
I think the IOTA white paper(s) also going to be interesting as it will implement an other blockchainless transaction processing approach.

Awesome thank you for the quick reply and the reading material

[DunningKruger]

And there's also IOTA: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1216479

Iota

Iota is a brand new and novel micro-transaction cryptotoken optimized for the Internet-of-Things (IoT). Unlike the complex and heavy blockchains of Bitcoin and the like, which were designed with other uses in mind, Iota is created to be as lightweight as possible, hence the name "Iota" with emphasis on the ‘IoT’ part.

The number of connected devices that will permeate our modern landscape in the coming decade is estimated to be 50 billion(!) Each of these are designed to make the world a better and more seamless place for us. Tied to this fantastic promise are of course a ton of obstacles to be overcome, of which one major one is micro-transactions. These connected IoT devices must be able to automatically pay miniscule amounts to one another in a frictionless manner without having to compromise on product design by introducing additional hardware. This is why Iota was conceived.

While it was developed as a solution to scalability issues faced in IoT, the underlying protocol is agnostic and can be applied in any other use-cases that utilize micro-transactions.

In order to achieve these audacious goals Iota’s design diverged radically from blockchain cryptocurrencies. It still retains the core principle ideas of the distributed consensus blockchain, but in order to be able to scale to the size of the coming Internet-of-Things ecosystem with tens of billions of devices that are connected to each other, it needed to be very lightweight and efficient. This problem is solved by Iota’s core innovation: the tangle.

Tangle

A Tangle is a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG).
https://i.imgur.com/dB7zOho.jpg

[Fuserleer]

We do something complete different too.

Some diagrams which are included in documentation I'm working on at the moment and a brief, non-techy explanation of whats going on.

Our ledger consists of partitions and channels and is organized as so



The ledger contains 1024 partitions, which themselves contain n channels. Channels are assigned to partitions from their public ID, which is randomly generated so they should always be fairly evenly distributed amongst partitions.

Partitions operate largely independent of each other, and reference the ledger state to ensure they stay valid and can defend against double spends reliably.  

The ledger state is a compact, combined representation of all partition states at that moment in time.  A partition state is a compact, combined representation of all contained channel states.  

At 100 tx/s this ledger state is ~170kb of data per minute, which is lightweight enough to keep in sync network wide quite easily.

Nodes can chose to hold a full copy of the ledger, a portion of it, or none at all.  So for example, a Raspberry being a low performance device might only want to serve a copy of partition 1, or partition 1,2 and 3.

This is what provides eMunie with its incredible performance, as even on very low end hardware such as a Raspberry, 100 tx/s is achievable.  If the network consisted of only Raspberrys serving 1 partition each at 100 tx/s, then 1024 partitions allows a theoretical max performance of 100,000+ tx/s.

Channels look like this



A channel is associated with an account, and contains all the transactions for that account in a kind of chain structure (which allows short term branching).  

Nodes that don't wish to serve ledger information simply maintain their channel information, no more 3rd party held wallets.  

Channels also allow us to have decentralized P2P native debit cards with no middle men taking fees.  Users can create their own physical or virtual debit cards with no central party.

Full docs on this stuff should be on our wiki in the next 2 weeks.

[Richard1972x]

Wow very interesting, was thinking Blockchainless IOTA is somehow unique, but EMunie seems to be very interesting as well. Will watch out for the testing here!

[sase007]

Let me get this straight...

It is a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) but is a centralised currency (all mining is done on their own servers).

This means, that initially, the developer owns all of the coins, and sets their prices accordingly on markets. Then sends the blockchain to clients but the clients don't have to mine the currency in the way te Bitcoin clients do?

[50cent_rapper]

Let me get this straight...

It is a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) but is a centralised currency (all mining is done on their own servers).

This means, that initially, the developer owns all of the coins, and sets their prices accordingly on markets. Then sends the blockchain to clients but the clients don't have to mine the currency in the way te Bitcoin clients do?

Well, it's not like Bitcoin (cause it has no blockchain and mining).
In case of IOTA and EMUNIE it is decentralized. Ripple/Stellar is questionable about decentralization.

Coins created all at once, and, in general case, to be sold. At first glance it may look unfair, but if you try to mine bitcoin you'll find that you need to buy equipment/ASIC-s to mine something. So there is just no ASIC proxy for your $$$ --> coin exchange.

[Fuserleer]

Let me get this straight...

It is a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) but is a centralised currency (all mining is done on their own servers).

This means, that initially, the developer owns all of the coins, and sets their prices accordingly on markets. Then sends the blockchain to clients but the clients don't have to mine the currency in the way te Bitcoin clients do?

Well, it's not like Bitcoin (cause it has no blockchain and mining).
In case of IOTA and EMUNIE it is decentralized. Ripple/Stellar is questionable about decentralization.

Coins created all at once, and, in general case, to be sold. At first glance it may look unfair, but if you try to mine bitcoin you'll find that you need to buy equipment/ASIC-s to mine something. So there is just no ASIC proxy for your $$$ --> coin exchange.

eMunie has currency emission, and it happens in 1 of 2 ways, but its not done by expensive mining, nor is it a fixed emission rate.  It's elastic, and reacts to supply/demand mechanics.

First is "interest" on balances, simply if you hold some EMU, then you'll get periodic payments to that account.

Secondly if you provide some resource to the system (through one of a number of services such as the ledger or messaging), then you also receive these periodic payments to an account.  The work that a node does in the system is tracked quite accurately, and is rewarded accordingly.  Furthermore there is no requirement for special hardware, a Rasp Pi can earn almost as much as a powerful 12 core desktop, its much more efficient than mining.

This explanation is overly simplified for a forum post, but essentially it means that currency distribution is more broad, and rewards for work are a lot more fair.

[50cent_rapper]

Let me get this straight...

It is a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) but is a centralised currency (all mining is done on their own servers).

This means, that initially, the developer owns all of the coins, and sets their prices accordingly on markets. Then sends the blockchain to clients but the clients don't have to mine the currency in the way te Bitcoin clients do?

Well, it's not like Bitcoin (cause it has no blockchain and mining).
In case of IOTA and EMUNIE it is decentralized. Ripple/Stellar is questionable about decentralization.

Coins created all at once, and, in general case, to be sold. At first glance it may look unfair, but if you try to mine bitcoin you'll find that you need to buy equipment/ASIC-s to mine something. So there is just no ASIC proxy for your $$$ --> coin exchange.

eMunie has currency emission, and it happens in 1 of 2 ways, but its not done by expensive mining, nor is it a fixed emission rate.  It's elastic, and reacts to supply/demand mechanics.

First is "interest" on balances, simply if you hold some EMU, then you'll get periodic payments to that account.

Secondly if you provide some resource to the system (through one of a number of services such as the ledger or messaging), then you also receive these periodic payments to an account.  The work that a node does in the system is tracked quite accurately, and is rewarded accordingly.  Furthermore there is no requirement for special hardware, a Rasp Pi can earn almost as much as a powerful 12 core desktop, its much more efficient than mining.

This explanation is overly simplified for a forum post, but essentially it means that currency distribution is more broad, and rewards for work are a lot more fair.

Sounds like the bitcoin killer. I'll buy some when it comes.

[HeroCat]

Altcoins can exist without blockchain, if there is not new mining and all mining is in one place. Then, yes altcoins do not need blockchain as such. For example, pelecoin in the past. 

[viewdevilstc]

thank you

[sase007]

Let me get this straight...

It is a cryptocurrency (like Bitcoin) but is a centralised currency (all mining is done on their own servers).

This means, that initially, the developer owns all of the coins, and sets their prices accordingly on markets. Then sends the blockchain to clients but the clients don't have to mine the currency in the way te Bitcoin clients do?

Well, it's not like Bitcoin (cause it has no blockchain and mining).
In case of IOTA and EMUNIE it is decentralized. Ripple/Stellar is questionable about decentralization.

Coins created all at once, and, in general case, to be sold. At first glance it may look unfair, but if you try to mine bitcoin you'll find that you need to buy equipment/ASIC-s to mine something. So there is just no ASIC proxy for your $$$ --> coin exchange.

eMunie has currency emission, and it happens in 1 of 2 ways, but its not done by expensive mining, nor is it a fixed emission rate.  It's elastic, and reacts to supply/demand mechanics.

First is "interest" on balances, simply if you hold some EMU, then you'll get periodic payments to that account.

Secondly if you provide some resource to the system (through one of a number of services such as the ledger or messaging), then you also receive these periodic payments to an account.  The work that a node does in the system is tracked quite accurately, and is rewarded accordingly.  Furthermore there is no requirement for special hardware, a Rasp Pi can earn almost as much as a powerful 12 core desktop, its much more efficient than mining.

This explanation is overly simplified for a forum post, but essentially it means that currency distribution is more broad, and rewards for work are a lot more fair.

Sounds like the bitcoin killer. I'll buy some when it comes.

It's already here.
In the coins suggested above.
There was also a scamcoin that ran without a blockchain (Avatarcoin DO NOT DOWNLOAD - VIRUS PLACED IN SOURCE)

[BruceLee007]

Altcoins do not used the bitcoin blockchain, which is what makes them altcoins. Some altcoins, like Clams, use the bitcoin blockchain to guide the initial distribution of coins. Some altcoins, like Namecoin, are merged mining capable, so you can mine them along with bitcoin without extra effort.This is my opinion that all.

[robelneo]

I think an altcoin that has no miner on it can be considered a dead coin I  would not be involved in a coin that has no one mining on it ,i don't understand the whole concept of mining but if there are no one mining then there will be new coin that can be produce..