Masternode Darkcoin

Masternode Requirements

These nodes are the foundation of DarkSend, all transactions will be routed through these nodes. Each masternode requires that 1000DRK be kept on the node and each time that node is selected the network will dedicate 10% of that block to these nodes. If you are running a masternode you need to be fairly familiar with network administration and securing your host.

The point is to make it very expensive to acquire them. Imagine the following:

FeedbackLoop:
- User asks "Should I create a masternode?"
- it costs $XXX, they would earn $X.XX/day. That's X days till they earn 100% of their investment.
- User buys 1000 DRK, creates masternode
- Price goes higher, 1000DRK gets pulled out of the supply
- Go to FeedbackLoop

This is a feedback loop that this strategy is creating. We should add masternodes until the price finds equilibrium with the masternode capacity.

1x Masternode = 576 blocks * 10% of the reward = 1036DRK/day
8x Masternodes = (576/8) blocks * 10% of the reward = 129DRK/day
16x Masternodes = (576/32) blocks * 10% of the reward = 32DRK/day
128x Masternodes = (576/128) blocks * 10% of the reward = 8.1DRK/day

Let's say after the feedback loop completes the price of Darkcoin is $5 and we have 1200 nodes. At that point we have six million dollar in masternodes, to gain 50% of the network to do an attack would probably cost much more than six million dollars, so it's not possible anymore. Also, an influx of six million dollars would create much higher prices, making it profitable for others to start masternodes again.

The other problem is all nodes need to keep a list of all of the masternodes. If the requirement is too low we'll end up with excessive amounts of network traffic from all of the discovery chatter.

How to create a masternode?

- Get a machine with a static ip
- Setup some ddos protection
- Setup firewall rules to block any ports that are not needed
- Open port 9999
- Download the beta daemon of darkcoin
- Use ./darkcoind getaccountaddress 0 to get an address on that daemon
- Send EXACTLY 1000DRK to that daemon
- Encrypt the wallet with a strong password, make a backup of the wallet, do not copy the wallet while the daemon is running
- In the darkcoin.conf add "connect=23.23.186.131" and "masternode=1"
- Restart the daemon
- In the logs you should see this if successful:

2014-04-07 18:37:18 IS DARKSEND MASTER NODE
2014-04-07 18:37:22 AddLocal(23.23.186.131:19999,4)
2014-04-07 18:37:22 RegisterAsMasterNode
2014-04-07 18:37:22 Found unspent output equal to nValue
2014-04-07 18:37:22 Is capable master node!
2014-04-07 18:37:22 Adding myself to masternode list CTxIn(COutPoint(d54dd4fcf52caa5fc23fbfadf106eb184e380f5a53306d3fc15f8ee7f4ce0c79, 0), scriptSig=)

When will you get paid?

We're just testing the election of masternodes and darksend updates at this point. All of the code is done and appears to work, at some point in the next future (3-4 weeks I'm guessing) we'll hard fork the public client and open source parts of DarkSend to enable the payments.

How will the payments work?

We're going to extend the blockchain by adding a voting system. Each block that is solved the miner will add the address of the masternode that he believes should get paid and increment a counter. Upon reaching six confirmations an extra transaction will be added to the block paying out that masternode and removing the vote. This means that to cheat the system you'll need 51% of the hashing power.

Worst case a miner will solve a block and try to pay themself, in which case 20 blocks will pass with no more confirmations and their entry will be removed.

The last thing we need to decide is where this extra money comes from. We have two options:

1) Block Reward = 18DRK + fees to miner, 1.8DRK to master node (10% more money supply)
2) Block Reward = 18DRK + fees to miner - 1.8DRK, 1.8DRK to master node

We will be working on creating AWS AMI’s for you to use as well as Ubuntu ISO images for you to setup a server, you will still be responsible for making sure the host is secure and firewall rules are complete based on your specific configuration. When these are created we will put out additional information on what you will need to do after installation.

Where's the beta?

We're compiling it and updating the docs. We changed ALOT.