[*] 8BIT [Dark Masternodes][Anon][Roadmap Stage 4]

[drays]

Looks like the block explorer's DB is damaged: https://explorer.8bit.cash/

[1714614007]

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[1714614007]

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[brakmic]

Looks like the block explorer's DB is damaged: https://explorer.8bit.cash/

The explorer works. It only shows queried blocks. Just enter some block number or hash to test it.

[drays]

Looks like the block explorer's DB is damaged: https://explorer.8bit.cash/

The explorer works. It only shows queried blocks. Just enter some block number or hash to test it.

Indeed. Strange behaviour. I have configured Iquidus explorer for multiple coins in the past, and it always used to show all the latest blocks, as well as the "Top 100" addresses and total coin supply, which are not shown by the https://explorer.8bit.cash/ as of now.

[brakmic]

Looks like the block explorer's DB is damaged: https://explorer.8bit.cash/

The explorer works. It only shows queried blocks. Just enter some block number or hash to test it.

Indeed. Strange behaviour. I have configured Iquidus explorer for multiple coins in the past, and it always used to show all the latest blocks, as well as the "Top 100" addresses and total coin supply, which are not shown by the https://explorer.8bit.cash/ as of now.

I have tried the same but Iquidus simply can't index it properly. I've left it run for days but at some point it failed. However, one can query data as blocks, txns, also addresses.

[Pon13]

Looks like the block explorer's DB is damaged: https://explorer.8bit.cash/

The explorer works. It only shows queried blocks. Just enter some block number or hash to test it.

Indeed. Strange behaviour. I have configured Iquidus explorer for multiple coins in the past, and it always used to show all the latest blocks, as well as the "Top 100" addresses and total coin supply, which are not shown by the https://explorer.8bit.cash/ as of now.

I have tried the same but Iquidus simply can't index it properly. I've left it run for days but at some point it failed. However, one can query data as blocks, txns, also addresses.

not sure about addresses cause when i put mine, it states address not found.

EDIT: ok, now it shows my address but not the correct amount

[brakmic]

Looks like the block explorer's DB is damaged: https://explorer.8bit.cash/

The explorer works. It only shows queried blocks. Just enter some block number or hash to test it.

Indeed. Strange behaviour. I have configured Iquidus explorer for multiple coins in the past, and it always used to show all the latest blocks, as well as the "Top 100" addresses and total coin supply, which are not shown by the https://explorer.8bit.cash/ as of now.

I have tried the same but Iquidus simply can't index it properly. I've left it run for days but at some point it failed. However, one can query data as blocks, txns, also addresses.

not sure about addresses cause when i put mine, it states address not found.

EDIT: ok, now it shows my address but not the correct amount

The only valid amount (or data in general) is from your own node, regardless of explorer or coin.
As this explorer isn't indexing any possible data there is a great probability that the amounts simply have not included all available data.
Best, use this explorer to check for transactions themselves but not for balance queries.

[biazar]

What about all those people that don't pay masternodes? Or wallets like 8c3LGTpyG2JJsx52CsWmMEoGcnYQc15iuv that get extremely lucky or have an immense network weight, so they receive 4 payouts in 23 min? Or 8aKGu54w5jLjSLTmfhfLFUCWDx1ac1WGbV, 3 payouts in less than an hour? Or 8aKGu54w5jLjSLTmfhfLFUCWDx1ac1WGbV, 3 payouts in 20 min? All 1.20 coins per payout...

[brakmic]

What about all those people that don't pay masternodes? Or wallets like 8c3LGTpyG2JJsx52CsWmMEoGcnYQc15iuv that get extremely lucky or have an immense network weight, so they receive 4 payouts in 23 min? Or 8aKGu54w5jLjSLTmfhfLFUCWDx1ac1WGbV, 3 payouts in less than an hour? Or 8aKGu54w5jLjSLTmfhfLFUCWDx1ac1WGbV, 3 payouts in 20 min? All 1.20 coins per payout...

I don't understand your question. Also, it's not my area of expertise. What someone earns and how much is nothing of importance to technology.

[biazar]

The POS reward is 1.20 8BIT, which is 0.32 8BIT for the stake wallet and a reward of 0.88 8BIT for the masternode. That is the reason to set up masternodes. But the stake wallets get 1.20 8BIT and don't reward the masternodes, so there is no incentive to set up a masternode. Which is a problem for a masternode coin.
The more coins you have in your wallet, the more rewards you will receive, since it depends greatly on the network weight and probably a bit of luck, but I see a lot of the same addresses getting the rewards and I'm not talking about 0.32 8BIT, but 1.20 8BIT. So they are extremely lucky or have a high network weight and they certainly cheat by not rewarding the masternodes.

I know the cheating was already a problem 4 years ago, but I don't think it was ever 39 out of 40 blocks...

[brakmic]

The POS reward is 1.20 8BIT, which is 0.32 8BIT for the stake wallet and a reward of 0.88 8BIT for the masternode. That is the reason to set up masternodes. But the stake wallets get 1.20 8BIT and don't reward the masternodes, so there is no incentive to set up a masternode. Which is a problem for a masternode coin.
The more coins you have in your wallet, the more rewards you will receive, since it depends greatly on the network weight and probably a bit of luck, but I see a lot of the same addresses getting the rewards and I'm not talking about 0.32 8BIT, but 1.20 8BIT. So they are extremely lucky or have a high network weight and they certainly cheat by not rewarding the masternodes.

I know the cheating was already a problem 4 years ago, but I don't think it was ever 39 out of 40 blocks...

I don't know much about the past of this coin, but the Consensus Rules as they currently are won't be changed. Actually, couldn't be changed that easily. I am also not a fan of Consensus changes. Scamcoins resort to such tactics, usually.

And as this coin has no active exchanges right now all this reward stuff is not that important. I'd like to think that there will be more people interested in this coin, but it doesn't seem there will be many.

Well, at least you can now run it on the three major OSes: win32, mac & linux. Go to https://8bit.cash

As I have not received any support so far from the community (a few people here wrote here, many thanks for that!) I don't think that my skills are needed here. However, I will be keeping the home page and also updating the boostrap.dat there for the upcoming year. After that I'll decide what to do with it in future.

Cheers,

[biazar]

It has nothing to do with Consensus Rules, I think. The problem is that the devs were never able to enforce rewarding the masternodes, which is necessary and something that other masternode coins are able to do.
But I understand you don't want to spend more time on this coin without more involvement of the community .

Cheers

[drays]

What biazar tells is perfectly valid, and those are purely technical issues with the coin code. There are actually two major (and separate) issues, listed here in order of their severity (in my view):

a) some nodes are extremely more lucky than others. It means they get staking rewards much more often than others, regardless of their balance. I cannot be sure, but I assume those people were smart enough to modify the code somehow, and found a way to get more rewards than others. I suppose they are good programmers, and it is a challenge for a programmer to find the exploit they use.
b) the masternode payments are not enforced, so some stakers do not pay to masternodes at all. It could be either because their node is not reliably connected to the network, so it doesn't see masternodes, or because they modified the code to ignore the masternodes. By coincidence, most of those stakers are the most lucky ones

I believe those issues are purely technical (because it actually is one of the main innovations offered by cryptocurrency - the invention of technical methods to make it impossible for individual players to cheat), and it would be nice if someone finds the way how those cheats were applied, and most importantly, finds the way to fix this (make cheating not possible) with a wallet upgrade. Most surely this will not cause consensus change, but rather an enforcement of the existing consensus rules. This is a really good challenge for a really good programmer

P.S. I don't specifically refer to brakmic above... I suppose the people who made possible those hacks, might have an idea on how to modify the source code to make cheating impossible. It would be nice for them to post a fix and finally change their black hat to white one. In any case it doesn't make any sense to cheat here, on a coin which is close to extinction due to lack of exchanges and community support. It is much more sensible to help it grow, at least to protect one's investment..

[drays]

On a different note, few days ago I contacted NovaExchange regarding the listing and today got an answer. Here they are (I hope Harris is ok with the links I posted; if not please just let me know):

My request:

Hi!

I am your old customer, I like the exchange and think it could have great future. After the Cryptopia exchange hack and liquidation there is a new open niche for a leading altcoin exchange holding hundreds of coins with multiple pairs, like trading against LTC, DOGE etc.

I believe the exchange which could be able to pickup the coins from Cryptopia, have good chances for also picking up its traders community, especially if it officially announce that - to become a new home for the coin communities, who lost their markets at Cryptopia.

I understand picking up all the coins could be a challenge, but picking up chosen few, could be effective as well...

Saying that, I would like to ask you whether you would consider listing a specific coin, which after Cryptopia's closure doesn't have an active exchange left. I am speaking about the 8BIT coin. It is an old masternode coin with long windy history. Some time ago it has lost its dev, but few weeks back a new solid developer has picked it up, so I think it could have good chances at restoring its old glory. The new developer is public, his name is Harris Brakmić (see here: https://twitter.com/brakmic ore here: http://brakmic.com/).

Please let me know what you think and which steps you would require me or the developer to fulfill.

Thanks and best regards.

Their reply:

Hi

We made an announcement about that, so if you are a developer, please feel free to apply, if you are not a dev, please contact the team and ask the dev to apply.

"Dear Cryptocommunity,

We've just been reached by the news that Cryptopia Exchange is going out of business due to the severe damage that they faced earlier.

It is sad to hear that a fellow competitor of ours is facing these problems since all competition is good for crypto.

Cryptopia as a company has been around for many years, providing excellent trading, service and a healthy ecosystem for the cryptocurrency community.

In order for the communities to survive, especially the ones being traded only at Cryptopia, we at Nova Exchange would like to offer our help in order for the ecosystem(s) to grow, and offer free listing for all coins that were listed with Cryptopia.

The only condition for the free listing would be the following:

1: We receive the listing application before 1st of June 2019 in this format
(please specify Cryptopia Free Listing under payment options)

2: We ask their developers to add in the extra comments, addresses that they know that belong to the hackers.
This will ensure that we do not facilitate money laundering from people that are responsible with actions that are not in the favor of the cryptocurrency community.."

Cheers

So... I would like to ask brakmic to help with this, and fill the form, if possible. @brakmic: I really appreciate your efforts, and I don't want to make you feel overloaded in any way. Having someone reliable in a role of lead developer is beneficial for the coin, so even if you cannot provide much time for this project, please help with as much effort as you feel comfortable with... Thanks!

[Pon13]

And as this coin has no active exchanges right now all this reward stuff is not that important. I'd like to think that there will be more people interested in this coin, but it doesn't seem there will be many.

This coin has been through a lot cause of malicious/incompetent people, in addition to this looooong bear market the community left or stop following.
We can take it really slow and as the market trend changes more people will come.

It is a miracle that someone legit with good programming skills showed up and i personally cannot thank you enough for your efforts and time, however rebuilding the community and taking this project back on track needs a lot more.
I'm not a programmer but i'll do what i can to help in here, whether it is promoting 8bit or helping people creating masternodes etc.

you have done more than enough brakmic !!! working wallets, website and the most important you are here.

[2xjO9M3P]

[...]
a) some nodes are extremely more lucky than others. It means they get staking rewards much more often than others, regardless of their balance. I cannot be sure, but I assume those people were smart enough to modify the code somehow, and found a way to get more rewards than others. I suppose they are good programmers, and it is a challenge for a programmer to find the exploit they use.
b) the masternode payments are not enforced, so some stakers do not pay to masternodes at all. It could be either because their node is not reliably connected to the network, so it doesn't see masternodes, or because they modified the code to ignore the masternodes. By coincidence, most of those stakers are the most lucky ones
[...]

I have another theory, based purely on observation - and possibly a naive belief that people are good.
Used to run a number of masternodes, and a staking wallet. All on non-standard ports (ie. not 18888), and as time passed, "masternode list" would show fewer and fewer masternodes on the network, and consequently the same - this both on the masternodes and the staking node. Restarting would bring everyone back.
I never observed this behaviour on the masternode running on standard, 18888, and that one got many times more rewards than the other masternodes. Maybe it's as simple as the clients timing out, maybe they actively block masternode ip's.

I want to re-iterate that all this is speculation based on my own observations over time.


On another note, I'm very curious how these 2 masternodes can be "active":
    "192.168.2.208:16666" : 100778,
    "192.168.2.208:15555" : 86384,

[brakmic]

On a different note, few days ago I contacted NovaExchange regarding the listing and today got an answer. Here they are (I hope Harris is ok with the links I posted; if not please just let me know):

My request:

Hi!

I am your old customer, I like the exchange and think it could have great future. After the Cryptopia exchange hack and liquidation there is a new open niche for a leading altcoin exchange holding hundreds of coins with multiple pairs, like trading against LTC, DOGE etc.

I believe the exchange which could be able to pickup the coins from Cryptopia, have good chances for also picking up its traders community, especially if it officially announce that - to become a new home for the coin communities, who lost their markets at Cryptopia.

I understand picking up all the coins could be a challenge, but picking up chosen few, could be effective as well...

Saying that, I would like to ask you whether you would consider listing a specific coin, which after Cryptopia's closure doesn't have an active exchange left. I am speaking about the 8BIT coin. It is an old masternode coin with long windy history. Some time ago it has lost its dev, but few weeks back a new solid developer has picked it up, so I think it could have good chances at restoring its old glory. The new developer is public, his name is Harris Brakmić (see here: https://twitter.com/brakmic ore here: http://brakmic.com/).

Please let me know what you think and which steps you would require me or the developer to fulfill.

Thanks and best regards.

Their reply:

Hi

We made an announcement about that, so if you are a developer, please feel free to apply, if you are not a dev, please contact the team and ask the dev to apply.

"Dear Cryptocommunity,

We've just been reached by the news that Cryptopia Exchange is going out of business due to the severe damage that they faced earlier.

It is sad to hear that a fellow competitor of ours is facing these problems since all competition is good for crypto.

Cryptopia as a company has been around for many years, providing excellent trading, service and a healthy ecosystem for the cryptocurrency community.

In order for the communities to survive, especially the ones being traded only at Cryptopia, we at Nova Exchange would like to offer our help in order for the ecosystem(s) to grow, and offer free listing for all coins that were listed with Cryptopia.

The only condition for the free listing would be the following:

1: We receive the listing application before 1st of June 2019 in this format
(please specify Cryptopia Free Listing under payment options)

2: We ask their developers to add in the extra comments, addresses that they know that belong to the hackers.
This will ensure that we do not facilitate money laundering from people that are responsible with actions that are not in the favor of the cryptocurrency community.."

Cheers

So... I would like to ask brakmic to help with this, and fill the form, if possible. @brakmic: I really appreciate your efforts, and I don't want to make you feel overloaded in any way. Having someone reliable in a role of lead developer is beneficial for the coin, so even if you cannot provide much time for this project, please help with as much effort as you feel comfortable with... Thanks!

I have already written in the discord chat about my own experience with NovaExchange and that they always come first with "it doesn't cost anything" only to later ask for payments. Therefore, I'd like to avoid any work or contact with them. I could show you many screenshots to prove my point but I think I should not invest more time into these people as needed. Also, it's really not important who is entering those data and this could be done by anyone as this project is open source. Open Source projects don't have CEOs and an exchange could list this coin without any additional bureaucracy or demands. But, as already said, NovaExchange only wants to extract money and it's no wonder that they hope by getting the lead dev "on the phone" that they could extract any amount of Bitcoins. It's just a cheap psychological trick (that of course wouldn't work with me): "hey, you have invested that much time into your project, it's really a cheap price we want you to pay. C'mon just a few BTC and your project could be listed again".

So, all in all, I don't want to have anything to do with them. I already had enough.

[brakmic]

What biazar tells is perfectly valid, and those are purely technical issues with the coin code. There are actually two major (and separate) issues, listed here in order of their severity (in my view):

a) some nodes are extremely more lucky than others. It means they get staking rewards much more often than others, regardless of their balance. I cannot be sure, but I assume those people were smart enough to modify the code somehow, and found a way to get more rewards than others. I suppose they are good programmers, and it is a challenge for a programmer to find the exploit they use.
b) the masternode payments are not enforced, so some stakers do not pay to masternodes at all. It could be either because their node is not reliably connected to the network, so it doesn't see masternodes, or because they modified the code to ignore the masternodes. By coincidence, most of those stakers are the most lucky ones

I believe those issues are purely technical (because it actually is one of the main innovations offered by cryptocurrency - the invention of technical methods to make it impossible for individual players to cheat), and it would be nice if someone finds the way how those cheats were applied, and most importantly, finds the way to fix this (make cheating not possible) with a wallet upgrade. Most surely this will not cause consensus change, but rather an enforcement of the existing consensus rules. This is a really good challenge for a really good programmer

P.S. I don't specifically refer to brakmic above... I suppose the people who made possible those hacks, might have an idea on how to modify the source code to make cheating impossible. It would be nice for them to post a fix and finally change their black hat to white one. In any case it doesn't make any sense to cheat here, on a coin which is close to extinction due to lack of exchanges and community support. It is much more sensible to help it grow, at least to protect one's investment..

What I know from the code is that the Spork SPORK_1_MASTERNODE_PAYMENTS_ENFORCEMENT_DEFAULT gets marked as unknown. Just go through your logs to see it. Search for "Spork unknown" and similar entries. I am not sure why is this happening as I don't know the whole "code"-past of this coin and what changes got into it over the last few years.

I think that the only "sane" way would be to create a new coin, with a certain premine and offer the holders on 8bit coins a time window to swap the old coins for new ones. Although I personally hate premines as they almost always mean something's scammy, there is no other, more "economic" way to get rid of the old code and start with a new blank page.

[Pon13]

What biazar tells is perfectly valid, and those are purely technical issues with the coin code. There are actually two major (and separate) issues, listed here in order of their severity (in my view):

a) some nodes are extremely more lucky than others. It means they get staking rewards much more often than others, regardless of their balance. I cannot be sure, but I assume those people were smart enough to modify the code somehow, and found a way to get more rewards than others. I suppose they are good programmers, and it is a challenge for a programmer to find the exploit they use.
b) the masternode payments are not enforced, so some stakers do not pay to masternodes at all. It could be either because their node is not reliably connected to the network, so it doesn't see masternodes, or because they modified the code to ignore the masternodes. By coincidence, most of those stakers are the most lucky ones

I believe those issues are purely technical (because it actually is one of the main innovations offered by cryptocurrency - the invention of technical methods to make it impossible for individual players to cheat), and it would be nice if someone finds the way how those cheats were applied, and most importantly, finds the way to fix this (make cheating not possible) with a wallet upgrade. Most surely this will not cause consensus change, but rather an enforcement of the existing consensus rules. This is a really good challenge for a really good programmer

P.S. I don't specifically refer to brakmic above... I suppose the people who made possible those hacks, might have an idea on how to modify the source code to make cheating impossible. It would be nice for them to post a fix and finally change their black hat to white one. In any case it doesn't make any sense to cheat here, on a coin which is close to extinction due to lack of exchanges and community support. It is much more sensible to help it grow, at least to protect one's investment..

What I know from the code is that the Spork SPORK_1_MASTERNODE_PAYMENTS_ENFORCEMENT_DEFAULT gets marked as unknown. Just go through your logs to see it. Search for "Spork unknown" and similar entries. I am not sure why is this happening as I don't know the whole "code"-past of this coin and what changes got into it over the last few years.

I think that the only "sane" way would be to create a new coin, with a certain premine and offer the holders on 8bit coins a time window to swap the old coins for new ones. Although I personally hate premines as they almost always mean something's scammy, there is no other, more "economic" way to get rid of the old code and start with a new blank page.

good morning man !
If you have the time and you are willing to do this, then i support what you state. lets wait for others feedback to see where they stand.
I mean its better to restart and know what the code does in all of its states and it would be faster to implement changes, upgrades, etc. with a fresh clean up to date code.

[drays]

I have already written in the discord chat about my own experience with NovaExchange and that they always come first with "it doesn't cost anything" only to later ask for payments. Therefore, I'd like to avoid any work or contact with them. I could show you many screenshots to prove my point but I think I should not invest more time into these people as needed. Also, it's really not important who is entering those data and this could be done by anyone as this project is open source. Open Source projects don't have CEOs and an exchange could list this coin without any additional bureaucracy or demands. But, as already said, NovaExchange only wants to extract money and it's no wonder that they hope by getting the lead dev "on the phone" that they could extract any amount of Bitcoins. It's just a cheap psychological trick (that of course wouldn't work with me): "hey, you have invested that much time into your project, it's really a cheap price we want you to pay. C'mon just a few BTC and your project could be listed again".

So, all in all, I don't want to have anything to do with them. I already had enough.

Oh.. Didn't know they are using such tactics.

[drays]

What I know from the code is that the Spork SPORK_1_MASTERNODE_PAYMENTS_ENFORCEMENT_DEFAULT gets marked as unknown. Just go through your logs to see it. Search for "Spork unknown" and similar entries. I am not sure why is this happening as I don't know the whole "code"-past of this coin and what changes got into it over the last few years.

I think that the only "sane" way would be to create a new coin, with a certain premine and offer the holders on 8bit coins a time window to swap the old coins for new ones. Although I personally hate premines as they almost always mean something's scammy, there is no other, more "economic" way to get rid of the old code and start with a new blank page.

And regarding this - yes, switching to new blockchain seems to be the best way to fix the mentioned issues, as otherwise the time investment could be huge.
As for swap - indeed swaps have some 'scammy' associations, but from the other hand, most of swaps done last years were not scammy at all (the ones I am aware of).

Except traditional swap option, there is another, much less questionable method used by many solid developers lately, I am sure you are aware of it. In short it is this: a) get a snapshot of the user balances as of some date; b) generate a genesis block of the new blockchain containing all those balances, with the same (or derived) private keys as on old chain; c) release the new coin, so each user of the old one, could import his private keys to the new wallet, and unlock his coins. What do you think of that method?

There is another possible issue with swap approach - I am sure some users will not switch to the new coin, and will continue to run the old one, especially as I suspect many node owners do not even check the thread (it seems). But well, probably its not important, as those users are free to run 8BIT Classic later if they want to. Now when 8BIT is not listed on exchanges, could be the most convenient time to switch to a new chain.

Another good thing to understand now, when there is no exchange, no noisy speculators, and its nicely quiet here (while there is small tech-oriented community) - is to find out what direction this project can flow into...