Merged Mined Coins Association MeMiCA

[deadsea33]

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[phelix]

The Namecoin developers are generally interested.

Note that domob rebased Namecoin to the current Bitcoin version: https://github.com/namecoin/namecore

[domob]

Also note that I (somewhat on purpose) also kept / keep the auxpow-related stuff in a separate branch from Namecoin proper.  I. e., it is a branch of Bitcoin Core (up-to-date with almost the latest upstream commits) that only adds auxpow, including proper unit- and regression tests.  I think that this could definitely be useful to other coins.  For instance, I also spotted (and fixed) some issues (memory leaks, for instance) in the getauxblock code used by Dogecoin and probably others.

[markm]

The three other traditional/ancient merged mined coins in the family are GRouPcoin (GRP), CoiLedCoin (CLC) and GeistGeld (XGG).

GeistGeld is still an interesting experiment, for example once I started trying to use Jupiter and Neptune mining rigs with p2pool I ran into a problem with GeistGeld blocks being found so fast that timeouts would occur then file handles would be exhausted.

With the Jupiter I found that if I gradually drove up the total hashing power that GeistGeld as a whole (across its whole network, not just on p2pool or my instance of p2pool) slowly to bring the difficulty up, the out of file handles errors would go away. I have not managed that yet since deploying Neptunes as I do not have enough electricity to allow me the luxury of running a few old Butterfly Labs rigs like I did in the Jupiter era. But I expect that once I get full power to my country-house I should be able to solve it the same way as before.

In theory one would imagine that setting the priority of pools sharing the mining power of a Neptune would let you gradually ramp up the amount hitting the p2pool, or the amount hitting a standalone GeistGeld, or whatever; but in practice not only does the Neptune's panel only offer priorities of 0 through 9 but also it is not even clear whether priority nine gets nine times as much hash power as priority one.

Basically the root of the problem seems to be not merely the speed of the blocks but also the dearth of miners. With very few miners running very few Neptunes, and before the Neptunes arrived only very few miners running very few Jupiters, each Neptune that starts mining it makes a big difference. The problem should thus go away once many miners using many Neptunes and the like have added it into their merge.

p2pool itself though seems to have problems dealing with Neptunes. When my first Neptune arrived I could only see one terahash from it, instead of the expected three point four terahashes, even qwhen only merging the slow-block coins. (That is, it was p2pool giving trouble not e.g. GeistGeld or other fast block coins in the merge.)

What other merged mining software is available as free open source, in particular, something fast enough to deal with Neptune mining rigs?

-MarkM-

[Hunterbunter]

Heya, Devcoiners are still interested.

Lastest official wallet: https://github.com/coinzen/devcoin

[jwinterm]

Huntercoin is also merge mined with Bitcoin (as well as scrypt coins, it uses two PoW algorithms, in addition to disbursing coins to players in the game).

[m00x!]

I0coin is interested in participating with MeMiCA.  Great idea to stick together in a  competitive crypto environment when we have many overlapping requirements and many tools developed for one merge mined coin will easily translate to the other.

Developer github:  https://github.com/rsnel/i0coin
Website:  http://izerocoin.org
bitcointalk:  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=624935.0

[markm]

Huntercoin is also merge mined with Bitcoin (as well as scrypt coins, it uses two PoW algorithms, in addition to disbursing coins to players in the game).

Huntercoin made that claim, however actually merging it resulted in no blocks found, which I reported at the time (long ago) and have not even seen them acknowledge the problem let alone announce they fixed it.

So as of last I checked their purported SHA256 merging does not apparently work.

Maybe their scrypt merging works though, I do not know.

-MarkM-

[m00x!]

You may want to put each coin's logo on your top post and here's one for I0coin.

[jwinterm]

Huntercoin is also merge mined with Bitcoin (as well as scrypt coins, it uses two PoW algorithms, in addition to disbursing coins to players in the game).

Huntercoin made that claim, however actually merging it resulted in no blocks found, which I reported at the time (long ago) and have not even seen them acknowledge the problem let alone announce they fixed it.

So as of last I checked their purported SHA256 merging does not apparently work.

Maybe their scrypt merging works though, I do not know.

-MarkM-

Maybe you just found no blocks because f2pool/discusfish ( https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=700411.0 ) merge mines it with a boat load of hashrate. I know that there was also a myriadcoin p2pool that was setup to mergemine huntercoin sha256; the site is down now, but I remember them complaining about not finding (many/any?) blocks on huntercoin because of the massive hashrate of discusfish.

[domob]

1st Step: Appoint a Lead Developer
He/She will have the tasks to coordinate the efforts,  check the progress of every project, handle the github repo, stay in contact with devs, discuss ideas, have a public identity.
The last requirement would refrain the person from behaving selfishly, act instead with a sense of responsibility, being able to explain the plans in motion for mm coins to others.
Please everybody available to cover this position let this community know. Thanks

I'm available.  (As lead dev of the merge-mining part - of course, individual coin features would stay within the responsibility of the individual projects.)

[brooksby]

2st Step: Appoint a cooperating developer for every coin
He/She will have the tasks to work on specific parts or projects, helping in keep github repo updated, stay in contact with all the other devs, discuss ideas.
There is no need to have a public identity, unless the dev himself desires so.
A coin without at least a dev working for the group will be eventually excluded from the project.
Please everybody available to cover this position let this community know. Thanks

Hello from i0coin to all you MeMiCA's!!!

I manage the website for i0coin.  I could help with a MeMiCA website when the time comes to roll one out.

[brooksby]

My suggestion for doing something as a group that is difficult to do alone is to start some kind of payment service, store, gaming site, exchange, or the like to attract real users to the MeMiCA coins.  It should be something unique so we aren't just competing with all the other cryptos.  Something that could generate a genuine influx of loyal users.  The trick is to find something that hasn't already been done, or is an improvement over other services?

[tinderbox]

My suggestion for doing something as a group that is difficult to do alone is to start some kind of payment service, store, gaming site, exchange, or the like to attract real users to the MeMiCA coins.  It should be something unique so we aren't just competing with all the other cryptos.  Something that could generate a genuine influx of loyal users.  The trick is to find something that hasn't already been done, or is an improvement over other services?

Payment service is the best choice.  "MEMICA Payment Services"

[m00x!]

On coinmarketcap.com the top four MeMiCA coins sit in the positions below as of today.

14     Namecoin        $4,057,339
56     I0coin               $289,106
57     Ixcoin               $280,336
122   Devcoin              $72,579



But if you strip out the non-mineable coins it looks like this.

8       Namecoin       $4,057,339
22     I0coin               $289,106
23     Ixcoin               $280,336
54     Devcoin              $72,579

3 of the 4 MeMiCA coins with the highest market caps are in the top 25 positions among mineable coins.  As a group they are very well positioned.  We just need more development to bring them more visibility and utility for users.

[m00x!]

If nobody is against it, domob will be our lead developer.
Please express yourself. Thank you.

Sounds good to me.  Going once... going twice...

[FallingKnife]

Unobtanium is now available for merged mining since block 600k about 12 hours ago.
I'll be very interested in the progress of this group.


https://github.com/unobtanium-official/Unobtanium

http://unobtanium.uno

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=527500

[domob]

Well, it's a good news. I would like to read domob's opinion on this.

From a quick glance, it looks like its auxpow code is (as with most) based off the original Namecoin auxpow.h/auxpow.cpp - so you should be able to switch to my "auxpow" branch of Bitcoin, if you desire.  Not sure what opinion else I can have at the moment.

[Bicknellski]

Likely  Freicoin will be merged in the future as that was/is the plan.

[domob]

So, how to move forward?  As I have already written above, I maintain a branch of Bitcoin Core that adds nothing except for merge mining: https://github.com/namecoin/namecore/tree/auxpow

It is the basis of Namecoin's merge-mining implementation, but with minor changes (i. e., chain ID, auxpow start height and possibly some details in the auxpow verification if coins made changes to it), it should be applicable to other coins as well.  I keep it up-to-date with all the latest Bitcoin patches.

For the individual coins, the ultimate responsibility lies, of course, with the corresponding coin developer.  Thus, if you are a MeMiCA coin developer and want to benefit from shared merge-mining code, please take a look at my branch.  Try to rebase your coin off it if that is possible and you want to keep track of the latest Bitcoin patches.  If you can not do that, carefully look at the auxpow code in there and the one in your coin.  Feel free to contact me with any doubts you have, and I will try to support you as much as possible.