[PPC] [XPM] Peercoin/Primecoin Weekly Updates

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update would be published here starting with #7 due to popular request.

Previous weekly updates are here:

• Weekly Update #6 (September 30, 2012) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.msg1233906#msg1233906
• Weekly Update #5 (September 23, 2012) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.msg1215432#msg1215432
• Weekly Update #4 (September 16, 2012) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.msg1196648#msg1196648
• Weekly Update #3 (September 9, 2012) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.msg1174319#msg1174319
• Weekly Update #2 (September 2, 2012) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.msg1154847#msg1154847
• Weekly Update #1 (August 26, 2012) https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.msg1134469#msg1134469

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[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #7

• This week the total network money supply surpassed 10 million coins at block 8186.
• Work is under way for v0.3.0.
• Proof-of-work difficulty appears to have bottomed at block 8409, with difficulty 8116. A fairly strong reversal pushed difficulty past 12000 today due to (maybe temporary) strength in exchange rate the last two days. Proof-of-stake difficulty dropped to around 6.
• Andy has added a lot more charts besides the PPC:BTC price chart to his website. Nicely done and now I find myself checking the charts regularly. I like to look at the difficulty chart a lot, it resembles a beautiful mountain range. Looking forward to seeing higher and higher peaks as mining technology progresses.

Have fun and next week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #8

• SatoshiRoulette introduced PPC games this week, becoming the first (non-exchange) website that accepts ppcoin payments.
• Andy Rossy has provided a raw transaction rpc patch for those who needs the patch to run a service.
• This serves as a reminder that ppcoin is experimental software that I do not make any guarantee regarding its security. Users must evaluate risks on their own regarding the security of ppcoin and I can only say I will try to do my best to make it more secure.
• Some miners like to jump between currencies to maximize their profit, this is normal. Often we see ppcoin proof-of-work difficulty oscillate a bit as miners switch and this is expected. My observation is that mining difficulty tends to follow exchange rate. This phenomenon is universal to other bitcoin forks as well, as we saw some chains had problems recovering from miner withdrawals due to long adjustment intervals. For ppcoin it appears to recover from miner withdrawal reasonably well due to the continuous adjustment design. This type of oscillation has less negative impact on ppcoin network for two reasons. First proof-of-stake block generation is independent of the proof-of-work difficulty. And secondly the proof-of-work mint rate design somewhat dampens the oscillation effect.

Have fun and next week!

[Sunny King]

Week Update #9

• ppcoin has passed block #10000 this week at 10:41:39 UTC on October 15, 2012
• Proof-of-stake difficulty has dropped to 1. Last couple of days the frequency of proof-of-stake blocks has reduced compared to last two weeks. This is because 30 days ago the proof-of-stake blocks just started appearing so most coins eligible have already participated in block generation, causing a lack of eligible coins currently. The average size of stake generating blocks are expected to become smaller in the next couple months and proof-of-stake frequency will become more stable and start pushing up difficulty from it's minimum at 1.
• Due to my heavy schedule around the end of the year, work on the client is slowed down. There will be a delay for the next release.
• There was some complaints that bitcoin 0.7 rollout wasn't smooth. I don't know the details so if there is something to take note, welcome to message me about this topic. I would probably wait a while before reviewing bitcoin 0.7 and planning for a merge.

Have fun and next week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #10

• Proof-of-work difficulty temporarily peaked at 15732 at block #11509 this week following some buying strength on the Bitparking exchange.
• There was some effort to figure out the memory leak encountered with mining pools. So far it appears to be an elusive bug.

Not much else to report on this week. So have fun and see ya all next week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #11

• Proof-of-work difficulty stabilized over 16000 this week.
• Proof-of-stake blocks account for more than half of the blocks in the past several days. It is expected in the next month or two proof-of-stake blocks would reach the 10 minute spacing target and proof-of-stake difficulty should begin rising above the current minimum of 1.

Have fun and next week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #12

• Proof-of-work difficulty surpassed 20000 this week and briefly approached all time high yesterday.
• v0.2.2 release is under final testing and build. Improvements to the qt gui code have been done and qt can now properly display stake and coinstake transactions. However official build of gui would not be supported yet in this release. Gui users can either self-build or obtain community-released gui builds. v0.2.2 is expected to be ready some time next week.
• Regarding network hash rate, since ppcoin is designed with variable spacing target for proof-of-work blocks, you cannot directly compare network hash rate to other block chains based on proof-of-work difficulty. To estimate network hash rate you would need to first get an estimate of current proof-of-work spacing target (in seconds), by counting the number of proof-of-work blocks in the last 24 hours for example. The formula to calculate the total network hash rate is: hash rate = difficulty * 4G / spacing target.

Have fun and next week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #13

• Proof-of-work difficulty broke new high this week. The new peak is at block #14952 with difficulty 25020.
• v0.2.2 has been released. This release has made some improvements to the qt gui for stake transactions. Although official gui builds are not yet supported, those users who build qt gui themselves should find the new version much more usable.
• Vircurex has started ppcoin support this week, becoming the third ppc exchange.
• Bitcoin mint-halving date is approaching soon (in about ten days). This event could cause high volatility in ppc (and other altcoin) exchanges. We strongly caution investors and traders to fully evaluate and limit their risk exposure.

Have fun and next week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #14

• Proof-of-work difficulty continued to drop this week, currently at over 16000.
• Please be aware that in a few days bitcoin mint rate halves from 50 btc to 25 btc per block. This may cause high volatility in alt coins including ppcoin. So please limit risk exposure in the market accordingly.

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #15

• The mint rate halving of bitcoin at bitcoin's block #210000 caused ppcoin's proof-of-work difficulty to ramp up as some miners switched from bitcoin mining. This week's peak difficulty is a new record at 30677 at block #17333.
• The exchange rate on bitparking seems to be fairly stable throughout the halving event when difficulty was rising fast.
• I am happy to see more people discussing ppcoin designs on the forum. I hope more and more people gain deeper understanding of the design, which is important to the future of ppcoin and proof-of-stake designs in general.

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #16

• Proof-of-work difficulty continued to rise this week and is currently over 36000. Proof-of-stake difficulty is currently 1.28, gradually rising from the minimum difficulty of 1.
• Christian (xchrix) is now running a new website cryptocoinsend.com, becoming the first payment processor supporting ppcoin.

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #17

• Proof-of-work difficulty reached a new record of 43120 at block 19080. Currently proof-of-work difficulty stays around 33000 and proof-of-stake difficulty is about 2.1.
• Not much else to report on this week. Lots of people are probably busy preparing for the holidays. So relax and have some fun after a productive year!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #18

• We have disclosed a stake generation vulnerability this week. A researcher made the disclosure announcement two days ago so I had to issue a disclosure statement on the same day. I would like to talk a bit about the controversial topic of responsible disclosure. Why is responsible disclosure important? Because the computer software industry has already tried everything and learned the hard lessons, so an etiquette of responsible disclosure has been adopted widely. Responsible disclosure does not mean cover-up. It means the researchers and developers work together and negotiate a disclosure schedule, allowing reasonable time for developers to implement fix and for users to patch their systems. The management of bitcoin merkle hash vulnerability has been a prime example of responsible disclosure. We try to hold ourselves to high technical and ethical standard since the beginning of ppcoin network, and we would appreciate independent researchers from the community do the same.
• The impact of the vulnerability is described in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=131940.0
• The centrally broadcasted checkpoint is designed to help in this type of situations. So with the checkpoint protection the impact of the vulnerability is reasonably limited.
• The vulnerability has been known to us for a while and I have spent quite some time to formulate an improved hash protocol. Proper review and implementation of the new protocol would take some time, and that's why I stress the importance of responsible disclosure as not all vulnerabilities can be fixed and patched in a day or two.
• The schedule of implementing the new protocol is tentatively planned as following: week 1~2: implementation and review; week 3 - testing on testnet; week 4 - final testing, build and release; week 8 - client upgrade deadline and protocol switch. Yes the protocol change would be a hard fork and all clients are required to upgrade within 3-4 weeks after the release.

Merry Christmas to all!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #19

• Total money supply surpassed 15 million coins this week.
• Release 0.3.0 with protocol upgrade is being implemented and is currently on schedule (to be released in about 3 weeks).
• This week saw the debut of freicoin on the bitcointalk forum (actual release was the week before on Dec. 21st). I don't see the benefit of the concept of demurrage except for being more honest than the inflation tax, but alas, with even fellows at the Federal Reserve becoming fans (http://libertystreeteconomics.newyorkfed.org/2012/08/if-interest-rates-go-negative-or-be-careful-what-you-wish-for.html) we'd need to take notice. Welcome the new competition  

Happy New Year to All!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #20

• Release 0.3 is about 80% code complete and the new code is under some preliminary testing right now. Given the current progress and to ensure the quality of the protocol upgrade we might extend the testing period by 1-2 weeks before final release. So that means the release would be around end of January.
• Our seed nodes infrastructure recently experienced frequent outages. So for new nodes or nodes trying to redownload block chain you might experience connection issues. Running nodes shouldn't have these problems as those can always connect to other operational peers. I am trying to check the seed node status everyday so generally if you cannot connect as a new node just wait some time and it should be able to.

Have a fun week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #21

• Release 0.3 is now 90% code complete. First round of unit testing has been completed. Over this week testing on testnet is being prepared.
• Over the next two weeks we plan to migrate the seed nodes. Short periods of down time (no connection) is possible for new nodes and nodes attempting a redownload of block chain. Existing nodes shouldn't be affected.
• Due to exchange rate drop proof-of-work difficulty dropped below 30000. We remind investors and traders be fully aware of the experimental nature of the project and the volatility in market, and manage risks accordingly. With ASIC release looming the bitcoin difficulty is expected to rise quickly in the following months. Further volatility of exchange rate is expected due to this.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #22

• Testing continued with 0.3 protocol and revealed some bugs with the new code. I expect testnet testing on protocol switch to be initiated some time this week, when the core code is considered reasonably stabilized.
• The 0.3 protocol upgrade involves changing the way hash is computed to generate stake transactions (known as coinstake). The transition for users should have minimal impact as there is no effect on existing wallet balance, transactions and minting related protocols of the network. The new protocol replaces the current proof-of-stake difficulty in the role of stake modifier inside the proof-of-stake hashing computation (not to be confused with proof-of-work hashing, which remains unchanged). The stake modifier is a part of the hash inputs to scramble the computation so nodes cannot compute the future stake from a coin when the coin is first confirmed into block chain. The new protocol generates the stake modifier from roughly 10 days of future blocks from when the coin is first confirmed into block chain. This should reasonably resolve all currently known vulnerabilities regarding stake generation.
• Due to the technical nature of implementing and switching a core part of the protocol, we feel it's prudent to thoroughly test it before 0.3 release, lest critical bugs hitting block chain. Meanwhile, I am also contemplating releasing an unpolished gui build with 0.3 release, to help current gui wallet users with the upgrade. The final 0.3 release date would likely be determined in the next two weeks depending on the progress of testnet testing.

Have a fun week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #23

• 0.3 protocol is code complete. Testing continues on the release and I have just started testing with testnet protocol switch.
• The hosting provider for our seed nodes infrastructure is undergoing some migration pain and the recent support has been less than stellar. I would need to look for alternative providers next week (preferrably accepting bitcoin, recommendations are welcome). Meanwhile some downtime is expected over next few weeks, for new nodes and nodes redownloading the block chain. Existing running nodes shouldn't be affected.
• If I manage to still have some extra time I might start looking into qt build for the release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #24

• The seed nodes have been successfully migrated this week. The new servers have been running smoothly the last couple days. Also thanks for Andy and xchrix for volunteering their nodes. Hopefully the seed nodes would now have better availability for block chain download.
• Testnet has been successfully switched to the new v0.3 protocol. The new code looks to have stabilized and I will continue testing on test network this week. I will also test building qt client in our official build for possible inclusion in the 0.3 release.
• The official build of ppcoin adopts bitcoin's verifiable build system (gitian-builder). This system allows developers to verify the integrity of the final release binaries. In theory users can verify the build too by following the same build procedures but currently the process is quite involved. This is part of the reasons why we haven't supported qt in release build yet. We believe that delivering trustable executable files is very important to our users.
• The first ASIC miner has been delivered on the market. Another milestone in the young history of bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Congratulations!

Have a fun week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #25

• Testing of 0.3 release continues on testnet. System has stabilized and no significant issues have been found this week.
• Windows Qt build testing is successful this week, and works have been done so it is now confirmed that Qt begins support in 0.3 release.
• Current plan is to have a final week of testing. Barring further issues, v0.3 will be released afterwards.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #26

• v0.3 release is under final validation and release builds are being prepared.
• Qt UI begins support in v0.3.
• Release is expected to be published in the next few days. This is a mandatory upgrade release and deadline for upgrade is scheduled for March 20th.
• This week the first ppcoin fork known as novacoin has been released. The network hash rate of novacoin rose quickly, it's difficulty peaked over 10. Despite the controversy surrounding its release and the subsequent DDoS attack on btc-e, market response seems quite enthusiastic. Please note I am not involved in novacoin in any way, but I am happy to see other developers valuing ppcoin design and forking from it.
• Recently we have also seen another project known as ripple released, with its own currency called 'Ripple' or XRP. The design of XRP also attempts to eliminate energy consumption to secure a cryptocurrency, however the design choices are very different, with different properties regarding  the level of decentralization. Even though I am yet to be convinced that the technicals are sound I will keep an eye on this interesting new development.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #27

• v0.3.0 has been released. Upgrade should be performed before protocol switch on March 20th. A block chain re-download is necessary for the upgrade. See the 0.3 release thread for detailed instruction: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=144964.0
• v0.3 protocol involves several changes, first the proof-of-stake hash modifier is switched to one computed from roughly 9 days worth of blocks. The blocks are grouped and 64 blocks are selected based on a 'selection hash'. Then each selected block contributes one bit to the modifier. The purpose of stake modifier is to prevent stake owner from manipulating future stake generation at the time the coin is confirmed into block chain.
• Two other protocol changes are made: stake hash weight now starts from 0 at 30-day minimum age requirement; coinstake timestamp now must match block timestamp.
• Overall I think the 0.3 protocol should fix the known vulnerability of stake generation and make proof-of-stake protection much stronger.
• Qt UI is now available in official build and supported from v0.3.0 on. User who prefers UI would enjoy the release I think, and I did give you a good treat by making the splash artwork myself and hope you all like it
• v0.4 designs should start in the next couple weeks, while I continue to monitor the network for the switch in March.
• My current 0.4 plan is to begin supporting database usage in limited fashion. 0.4 should allow user to create something known as identity, with names associated with it. An RPC command 'sendtoidentity' would allow users to send ppcoins to names instead of addresses. This feature is present in namecoin. But I probably would redesign the database usage for ppcoin and it's going to be a bit different from how namecoin does things.
• A good couple months for me I am relieved that 0.3 is finally done. And I also enjoy watching all the new projects going on like ripple and novacoin.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #28

• After I motioned for a market cap ranking list dust did an excellent job of including this information into his mining profitability comparison portal: http://dustcoin.com/
• So far ppcoin has been in a close match with devcoin, in terms of market cap. I observe that people have put a lot of faith into scrypt mining, which I believe to be the main reason of high valuation of litecoin and novacoin. Of course all the altcoins are now dwarfed by ripple, which made a splash debut with an initial giveaway on bitcointalk altcoin subforum. Ripple team has done a lot of work on real features, while taking on a lot of risks. I will continue to closely watch the market development of all the competitions.
• Network has been running smoothly so far during the transition period to 0.3 protocol. Please remember to upgrade your client to v0.3.0 before the protocol switch scheduled for March 20th.
• Official faucet is now under development. Stay tuned on its progress.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #29

• Faucet is now operational on ppcoin.org
• I have also created a bitaddress page compatible with ppcoin 0.3.0 address/private key format. It is currently open for public testing at http://ppcoin.org/bitaddress
• Please remember to upgrade to v0.3.0 before protocol switch on March 20th.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #30

• The week saw significant market activity in altcoins. Investors should use caution in a volatile market.
• I am happy that more users are gaining interest in ppcoin and other altcoins, although this is presumably due to bitcoin's recent issues. I will continue to watch bitcoin's v0.8.1 release and follow up on the large block fork issue. To be fair, I think Bitcoin developers once again handled the situation reasonably well.
• I have received invitation from Bitcoin Foundation to join a panel on altcoin during the California Conference in May. If anyone is going to the conference and interested in presenting ppcoin please let me know.
• Another reminder that v0.3 protocol switch is scheduled for March 20th and please upgrade your client if you haven't yet done so. I will be watching the switch on Wednesday closely.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #31

• ppcoin network has successfully switched to v0.3 protocol on March 20th.
• After another thrust of the values of bitcoin following the resolution of the large block fork incident, the altcoin market cooled down somewhat vs bitcoin. The week saw ppcoin market cap pulling ahead of several competing altcoins and consistently ranking behind namecoin.
• The next release 0.4.0 will be a refresh to bitcoin's latest 0.8.1 release. Due to the mandatory nature of bitcoin's 0.8.1 release, ppcoin 0.4.0 is likely a mandatory upgrade as well. This release is tentatively scheduled for late April/early May timeframe.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #32

• Network has been running smoothly for the week, proof-of-work difficulty stabilized at over 40000.
• I am happy that new users are showing interests in ppcoin project. The main design goal of ppcoin is to achieve energy efficient operation in the long term. I have taken some time to update the wiki instructions a bit to help out new users. I have also written a page called 'history of cryptocurrency' in ppcoin wiki, which I think is a useful summary of the main events and players in the field.
• The javascript wallet generator tool (bitaddress) is now linked from home page. Please fully test it before use, and let me know if there is any issue or non-functioning feature.
• A new mining pool vpool.us has opened with ppc support.
• Biticker now supports ppcoin.
• This week novacoin hit a protocol issue which required update. I have helped Balthazar to switch the protocol related to entropy bit generation, in order to keep the p2pool support for novacoin. ppcoin currently does not support p2pool and is not affected by the issue.
• I have been trying to help other altcoins to fix their problems too. A couple months back I offered to help freicoin to fix their difficulty adjustment when they first hit the problem (although they declined). Recently I have communicated with terracoin developer about a major vulnerability and now it is fixed via a protocol update in terracoin. Why am I doing this? I believe as a community we are all part of a big team that we really should help each other and work toward a common goal, while competing fairly with each other. It's sad to see malicious attitudes among different altcoin fans who attack each other viciously. I hope my action would bring more positive vibes to the community.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #33

• What a week! PPCoin has achieved multiple milestones in the cryptocurrency market this week.
• Market cap surpassed namecoin and now ranked behind litecoin at 50,000 BTC or over $8M as of today, or about 0.5% of bitcoin and over 10% of litecoin.
• Proof-of-work difficulty continued to break all time high throughout the week and is now at 280,000 as of today.
• Many new users are showing interest in ppcoin. There are close to 5000 downloads at sourceforge for the week, more than all the previous downloads combined.
• Due to steep rise of the market Chris has now closed his bitparking exchange and pool. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Chris for all his hard work and professionalism since ppcoin's release. Bitparking was the first active exchange market for ppcoin which played a major role in jump-starting ppcoin market. Chris said it was more like a hobby level project, but actually he was being very modest. My experience is that bitparking exchanges were managed with high degree of professionalism and integrity. I am looking forward to Chris's next projects.
• Btc-e opened business to ppcoin on Friday evening and the first 48 hours total trading volume is over 10,000 BTC, another all time high.
• As ppcoin starts to gain foothold in the competitive cryptocurrency market, I recognize that my responsibility has also multiplied. I wish to thank all our supporters and investors, I will try to hold myself to the highest professional standard in the industry.
• I have updated our wiki FAQ to better explain the inflation model of ppcoin for new users. Even though ppcoin is designed without a fixed money supply cap, the design is not a pro-inflation one. The design attempts to simulate gold in a more natural fashion, with the help from Moore's Law. I do not subscribe to Keynesian economics. In terms of importance of scarcity of free-market money I share the views of classical and Austrian School thinkers, nowaday referred to as 'gold bugs.'
• Meanwhile, I would like to remind investors that there are high risk involved in cryptocurrency market. Even bitcoin once dropped from $30 in summer 2011 to $2 in winter 2011. So one should always seriously evaluate one's risk tolerance. Furthermore, there are additional risks involved in investing in a cryptocurrency with high degree of innovations like ppcoin, despite of our best efforts to contain those risks. So be careful out there and do research (e.g. know the previous close price at vircurex before entering trade at btc-e open).

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #34

• PPCoin successfully held #3 ranking of market capitalization this week on dustcoin, after taking over namecoin the previous week.
• xorxor has upgraded ppcoin to major cryptocurrency category in his altcoin list, thanks for the honor!
• D7 pool is operational, supporting stratum
• We were just reported by MIT Technology Review - http://www.technologyreview.com/news/513661/bitcoin-isnt-the-only-cryptocurrency-in-town/

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #35

• Several new pools projects are under development, supporting stratum, including TheSeven's and Vuxil's. TheSeven has implemented a ppcoin patch earlier, also used by the D7 pool, which saw several hundred Gh/s on its second week. Good job TheSeven!
• Cetoc made an very interesting tool to help users find the best exchange path between two currencies (http://ctpathfinder.com).
• Work should begin shortly on v0.4. There will be a delay from my previous estimate, as we now have a significant market cap any new release needs to go through more stringent review and testing methodology. v0.4 will include a refresh to bitcoin's v0.8.1 and other various improvements.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #36

• Bter (bter.com), a new exchange in China has started support of PPC/BTC trading.
• Direct Voltage (directvoltage.com) becomes the first retailer to accept PPC payment.
• Holy Angels Church in Chicago USA (holyangels.com) becomes the first charitable organization to accept PPC donations.
• AnonPaste (anonpaste.me) started accepting PPC donations as well this week.
• Jeff (jefflarkin) is currently working on mac osx build support.
• To encourage more retail acceptance of ppcoin, a bounty project is opened to promote ppcoin to online retailers.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #37

• namecoin managed to wrestle back #3 from us this week, although we are still in a close match.
• Another ppcoin fork called bitbar was released this week. One more fork is in the works by yet another team (due to release tomorrow). Although litecoin still has more forks than us, looks like we are closing in on it. Some people mistakenly credit scrypt proof-of-work to litecoin, in fact the scrypt implementation was done by ArtForz for Tenebrix, an altcoin long went out of fashion.
• A new Tor trading portal called 'The FreeMarket' has announced ppcoin support and is aiming for June release.
• I have published a new simpler proposal to eliminate the risk of stake minting associated with running hot wallet. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=194054.0)
• Jeff Larkin has volunteered to be the maintainer for ppcoin mac osx builds. The first build is ready for testing. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=194692.0)
• Mjbmonetarymetals, detail3, robotrebellion have been busy working on different graphics design on logos and banners.
• Thanks to all the contributing members and let's keep up the good work!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #38

• A new exchange 'Crypto Street' is in the works and is planning to support ppcoin. Crypto Street will support 5 national currencies at its release. Counting RUR from btc-e and CNY from bter, there would be 7 currencies convertible with PPC on exchanges.
• dreamwatcher (Robert) contributed seednodes and dns for our seednode infrastructure.
• Another PPC fork called Yacoin (YAC) has launched this week. PPC now has 3 forks NVC, BTB and YAC.
• Bitcoin has introduced a default minimum output value, although it does not enforce it in protocol. This action confirms our opinion that block chain is not suitable for micropayments (ppcoin output value must meet 0.01PPC minimum).
• The graphics team continues to put out great designs! I noticed that Arstechnica even included Mjbmonetarymetals's earlier designs for a redub of Wired UK article on altcoins.
• TheSeven did great work for PPC pools, but his own pool is underutilized right now. It has great features with support of 5 different types of payout systems. I hope more of our miners give his pool some help to get it into reasonable hash rate (http://theseven.bounceme.net/~theseven/pool/).

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #39

• A new exchange 'Coin Market' is in the works that supports PPC.
• Another ppc fork called 'bitgem' launched this week.
• I will introduce a trading section on ppcoin.org to help seed the market in using ppcoin as currency. The scope of the work is limited but it will have some advanced features. It's important work for the longer term in my opinion and it is currently taking higher priority than the next client release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #40

• A new exchange 'cryptsy' has started ppcoin support.
• Two tip bots currently support ppcoin, first being cointip which can be used on bitcointalk, the other ALTcointip can be used on reddit.
• A market feature will begin trial on ppcoin.org later this week. The client refresh to bitcoin 0.8 is scheduled afterwards for later in June.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #41

• ppcoin.org marketplace is now live (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=224012.0) with minimum features. This marketplace helps facilitate trading between forum users. It is intended to encourage trading with PPC as currency. We do not intend to run commercial marketplace websites as it's not our area of expertise. In my opinion our development resource is better spent elsewhere. So we look forward to community created auction/retail market websites. This marketplace will serve as a good exercise for us to web-of-trust rating system.
• Not much else to report on this week. So have a fun week!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #42

• A new exchange Crypto Trade (https://www.crypto-trade.com/) now supports PPC trading.
• Please vote for PPC support on mtgox feature request: https://support.mtgox.com/entries/21676064-Please-Add-Peer-2-Peer-Coin-PPC-
• We were mentioned in a Tom's Hardware article (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/bitcoin-mining-make-money,3514-9.html). As to the mining market of PPC, D7 now controls the majority of the network hash rate. However unlike pure proof-of-work cryptocurrencies, security is not threatened with 51% attack when a single pool controls a majority of mining power in the PPC network. Also, when the pool runs into technical issues, the network still mainly relies on proof-of-stake blocks so the impact to transaction processing is minimized.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #43

• Recently a few product/service websites start taking PPC as payment, including fendlestick's coingas, and Petr1fied's cryptoblackjack. Most of these new websites accept multiple cryptocurrencies. I expect this trend to continue as the market starts recognizing the benefit of competition in cryptocurrency.
• New Mercator Advisory Group published an analyst report on alternative currencies which mentioned ppc. http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/s5f5c3/alternative
• Recently we have seen intermittent 51% attack on feathercoin network and other new cryptocurrency networks. This was one of the top reasons that ppcoin's checkpoint system was originally designed. The recent attack on feathercoin network indicates that the attacker is quite resourceful, controlling maybe upward of 2gh/s scrypt mining (meaning thousands of highend GPUs). The phaseout of ppc's checkpoint is planned for later this year but will be gradual. Eventually the checkpoint would become user enabled and by default not enforced. In this running mode, the checkpoint system still acts as a safety mechanism that can be utilized via community consensus in the event of persistent 51% attack on proof-of-stake or other emergencies.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #44

• A new exchange coins-e.com now supports PPC trading.
• Captcha requirement is reduced on the ppcoin.org marketplace (http://ppcoin.org/market) to help users trade, also the rating thread and rating format is now up.
• Several new coins have been added to the marketplace for trading including onecoin and sifcoin, two latest cpu altcoins.
• I see peer-to-peer trading as an important part of cryptocurrency community in the future. As we can see recently, the political environment for the exchange operators are not very amenable. The goal of PPC Marketplace is to experiment in this area and gain some experience for me, while keeping its scope limited so that I can still focus on development and operations.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #45

• Primecoin prerelease: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=245953.0
• I am happy to launch another innovative cryptocurrency design soon. Primecoin project was under development since March. It was meant to complement ppcoin in our technology portfolio. Primecoin introduces the first non-hashcash proof-of-work, prime number proof-of-work, the first proof-of-work in cryptocurrency that not only provides minting and security, but also provides additional potential scientific values. This advancement will pave the way for future proof-of-work types with diverse scientific computing values and uses.
• Primecoin is currently tentatively scheduled to be released next week (July 7th). Please visit the prerelease thread for updates.
• Primecoin network would complement ppcoin network to strengthen our strategic position in the highly competitive cryptocurrency market.
• My weekly updates will from now on cover both ppcoin network and primecoin network.
• PPCoin v0.4 development was recently delayed to speed up the primecoin release. Once primecoin release settles, ppcoin v0.4 development would resume and take priority.
• A reasonably good article from Daniel at The Mises Circle: http://themisescircle.org/blog/2013/06/24/the-proof-of-work-concept/

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #46

• Primecoin is released! I am happy to announce the second innovative cryptocurrency design has now joined ppcoin as our advanced technology portfolio in the highly competitive cryptocurrency market. Primecoin design and development took a better part of 4 months since March, I am relieved that it is now released to public. I hope this work would further advance cryptocurrency field and inspire other scientific computing proof-of-work types to emerge.
• In addition to the design effort, I have also put a lot of work into organizing the design paper as well. Hope you all enjoyed it.
• The currency symbol of primecoin is chosen as the greek letter psi. This letter is chosen as a tribute to Riemann, as its shape symbolizes the Riemann zeta function (there is a graphical rendering used in primecoin windows setup screen). The horizontal bar is not only a standard currency symbol convention, but also symbolizes one of the highest jewels of math - Riemann hypothesis.
• Primecoin network now will complement ppcoin network to strengthen our overall competitive position in the market.
• In the next week I will watch primecoin network closely to ensure it is operating as designed.
• Meanwhile this week the ppcoin logo design project lead by Sentinelrv is proceeding to the final design round. Thanks to all who have participated in the design and voting!

Cheers  

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #47

• Primecoin made a big splash in the first week of its debut, with enthusiastic mining participation we managed to break multiple world records including 1CC0a, 2CC09, 2CC0b, TWN0a, and still besting our own records many times. Not only that, the race toward improving miner performance has already begun. Primecoin is designed to sustain a long-term prosperous mining industry, so I look forward to the constant improvement of algorithms and hardware advances by market participants.
• Many people ask about the scientific value of finding these prime chains. I have already delved into this topic in my design paper. The prime chains are believed to have infinite existence for every length, and a distribution law similar to those of prime number theorem. So it is connected to the deeper mysteries of prime distribution, a lineage from the first breakthrough at Riemann's time. Yet for the most simple case - the twin prime conjecture - no one can yet prove their infinite existence (some breakthrough with this earlier this year), let alone the distribution law. Primecoin network would provide further experimental data and spur the research and development of advanced algorithms in searching these chains that may provide possible clues to this phenomenon, in my opinion one of the top wonders of arithmetic.
• Primecoin has been reported by Bitcoin Magazine with 2 excellent technical articles and now supported on 4 exchanges. Our market cap ranking is now right outside top ten looking for a match with DGC and FRC.
• At the weekend peak there were about 1000x mining power in primecoin network compared to the first day of the release, due to a combination of improved miner and heavy growth of mining participation. The network has started cooling down a bit as of now. Difficulty broke through 8 yesterday, currently still marching toward 9 (right now 8.85) but somewhat stabilized.
• On the ppcoin side, the logo project lead by Sentinelrv has been completed and a nice new logo is selected by the community. Congratulations to the team!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #48

• Primecoin continues to surprise and this week we saw difficulty broke through 9! On block #74722 primecoin network finds its first prime chain of length 12, another new world record of course. Meanwhile by its second week primecoin has sweeped all length 10 and 11 Cunningham chain and bi-twin chain world records.
• Primecoin also surprised in capital market by reaching 1 million dollar market cap, now supported by 5 exchanges, helping several relatively new exchanges to reach record high trading volumes. On the highest day of the week it reached over 2000 BTC combined volume on the exchanges.
• Highest market cap rank of the week is #5, right behind ppcoin. Currently primecoin ranks at #6 and having a close match with NVC.
• At least two gpu miner projects are under development, one for opencl by mtrlt (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258540.0) and one for cuda by primedigger (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258982.0). mikaelh continues to improve on his optimizations of built-in miners. Meanwhile ypool became the first mining pool of primecoin with its own cpu miner. I am very happy to see the level of mining development for primecoin. Primecoin is designed to sustain a vibrant and competitive mining market.
• Media continues to show interest and praise in primecoin. For example, it is reported by The Register that DigitalOcean was hitting capacity problems after 18000 new registrations for mining primecoin. So now we understand why the block rate was going crazy last weekend. Some media credit primecoin as 'solving the energy waste problem'. To be fair I think ppcoin should be credited as such. ppcoin is designed to be energy efficient, while primecoin is designed to be energy multi-use. They are a two-prong approach to the energy consumption problem of cryptocurrency.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #49

• Primecoin has made a lot of progress in 3 weeks. I am so happy with the level of development support accross the cryptocurrency community. So here I would like to thank all for your hardworking in something we believe is a worthwhile cause!
• Primecoin network has claimed the 10-prime, 11-prime and 12-prime world records in simultaneous primes, on top of the Cunningham chain records and bi-twin chain records we hold. The simultaneous prime records count prime tuplets and arithmetic progressions in addition to prime chains. On this record GIMPS currently holds the 1-prime (single prime) record, while primecoin now holds three!
• On the development front, v0.1.2 release should be ready soon with additional miner improvements and other features. Users of mikaelh's version should continue to watch his builds as I think his build would remain the best performance builds for a while. mikaelh is an excellent developer and has earned the trust of the community. Meanwhile both gpu projects are still under development by mtrlt and primedigger.
• Starting next week I would resume ppcoin v0.4 development. I would make some announcement later on regarding the plan.
• Crypto-Trade now supports XPM/USD and XPM/PPC trading pairs. To have exchange support of direct XPM/PPC trading is part of our strategic goals. Thanks neotrix and team for the support!
• Due to the recent volatility in xpm trading I am obligated to once again remind investors of the high risk associated with cryptocurrency investment. Please invest only what you can afford to lose, thanks!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #50

• Primecoin v0.1.2 is released. Users can now use the new listprimerecords to check the most up-to-date records inside the network. A new performance metric chainsperday is introduced to help performance tuning.
• mikaelh joins primecoin core dev team. Mikael's work with his high performance releases has been top notch and will share responsibilities with me in future development and maintenance of primecoin. (announcement: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=266329.0)
• mtrlt has made further progress on his opencl miner. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258540.0)
• ypool is gaining momentum with peak block rate of the week reaching 25% of the network.
• Primecoin difficulty dropped to 9.2 earlier in the week and has been climbing up steadily.
• DailyBit.net is accepting primecoin payment. (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=267068.0)
• PPCoin v0.4 development resumes this week. Tentative target release date in early September.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #51

• Primecoin difficulty rises this week and reaches 9.7, following performance improvements in the new release version hp9 of mikaelh.
• Primecoin records as of this week stand at: 12-primes: 99-digit bi-twin (#111414), 11-primes: 140 digit Cunningham chain of first kind (#95569), 10-primes: 138-digit bi-twin (#85429). There have been now three 12-primes seen in the block chain. At this rate we probably would see the first 13-primes this year.
• mtrlt's opencl miner appears to be close to private beta.
• Crypto Street (a new exchange) is considering adding XPM support.
• Vitalik from Bitcoin Magazine interviewed me on ppcointalk.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #52

• ppcoin difficulty passed 1 million this week.
• Today is ppcoin's birthday. Happy birthday PPC .
• Coin Payments launched this week with both PPC and XPM support: https://www.coinpayments.net/
• Visa4Crypto now provides prepaid debit card service: http://www.visa4crypto.com/
• XPM v0.2 protocol improvement is proposed here: http://www.ppcointalk.org/index.php?topic=453.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #53

• Mikael released v0.1.2-hp10 with miner improvement.
• mtrlt made further progress on his opencl miner, now capable of running both sieve and Fermat test on gpu.
• New world record of 12-primes: 100 digit bi-twin at block #133522 on August 25.
• A beautifully written technical article today on ppcoin's proof-of-stake technology by Vitalik of Bitcoin Magazine (http://bitcoinmagazine.com/6528/what-proof-of-stake-is-and-why-it-matters/).
• crypto-trade is gaining volume on XPM and PPC trading. crypto-trade currently supports three XPM trading pairs and two PPC trading pairs, with direct XPM/USD and XPM/PPC trading. mcxNow remains the most liquid XPM/BTC market, while btc-e has the most liquid PPC/BTC market.
• FiniteByDesign introduces a beautiful physical silver primecoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=278470.0), the first physical primecoin.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #54

• mtrlt's xpm gpu miner released for private beta.
• Mikael's high performance client is now linked directly on primecoin home page.
• Primecoin difficulty reaches 9.85, rising steadily throughout the week despite heavy exchange rate drop against BTC.
• PPC v0.4 is still under development. I will give some updates on its progress next week.
• Coin Payments temporarily suspended PPC and XPM support, before a popular request for them to resume support. Coin Payments is the first payment processor supporting multiple cryptocurrencies, even though currently shop selection is still limited, I believe it is important to help such payment processor to grow. So I would encourage both PPC and XPM supporters spend some coins to test purchasing goods and services through Coin Payments. If you have plan of opening stores supporting PPC and XPM, feel free to discuss your plan with Coin Payments, and enable PPC and XPM payments with your coin selection on Coin Payments.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #55

• Dan Roseman published a good introduction to primecoin on Let's Talk Bitcoin (http://letstalkbitcoin.com/primecoin-primer/)
• Crypto-trade begins PPC/USD trading.
• Primecoin difficulty remains steady at around 9.86. PPCoin difficulty is now around 1.5M.
• Mikael's XPM charts page at http://muuttuja.org/primecoin-dev/charts/
• PPC v0.4 requires some more time. I expect code to be completed in 1~2 weeks, then followed by a couple more weeks of testing before release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #56

• Mikael released hp11 with further xpm miner improvements.
• mtrlt opencl miner released to public testing.
• 13-primes found at block 159217, press release at https://github.com/primecoin/primecoin/wiki/Primecoin-Reaches-13-primes-Milestone
• Sean's outpost, a spirited charity for helping the less fortunate now accepts PPC and XPM donations. Thanks to Jason for the excellent work and good luck to Project Satoshi Forest! http://seansoutpost.com/

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #57

• Due to technical issues and planned shutdown of momentovps, our seed nodes have been impacted. Migration of seed node from momentovps has been completed.
• mcxNow begins PPC trading.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #58

• New primecoin mining pools have been opened recently. Beeeeer.org have been gaining popularity. And this week a new Chinese pool called RPool opened business. Together with yPool there are over 12k workers mining in the pools.
• PPC difficulty is now over 3 million and inflation rate continues to drop due to rapid deployment of ASIC miners.
• I am very happy to see more and more users joining the communities of PPC and XPM, contributing ideas to help further development of the networks and services to cryptocurrency market in general.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #59

• Cryptsy opens XPM Markets section. XPM can now be traded directly with LTC and a few newly released altcoins.
• PPC briefly touched $10M market cap, consolidating the lead over NMC as the 3rd in market cap behind BTC and LTC. Trading volume has been impressive last few days. PPC proof-of-work difficulty breaks 6 million and block reward drops under 200. The current annual inflation rate of PPC is approaching that of BTC.
• PPC v0.4 has been making progress but it still needs some more work. Hopefully the merge with bitcoin v0.8 would be code complete this week and testing can be started. On the other hand, I am evaluating the cold-locked transaction feature proposed several months ago, it may get implemented into v0.4 if things go smooth. This feature allows PPC users to run hot wallet minting stake without the risk of losing the coins due to compromised system. This feature is particularly important for operators with public wallet such as exchanges.

Trade with caution and have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #60

• xpm reached top 5 in marketcap ranking on coinmarketcap.com.
• btc-e added xpm trading support.
• During the litecoin reddit event on Sunday, both coblee and wtogami claim that xpm is centralized and that I could shut it down if I am forced to. I am quite disappointed at the intellectual dishonesty of these supposedly respectable figures in altcoins. It's quite questionable whether this is only due to their ignorance of the way checkpoints work in xpm, as that has been public knowledge for quite some time. In xpm users must explicitly issue command to enforce checkpoint, I cannot single-handedly shutdown xpm network nor force a reorganization of the block chain. The decentralization level of xpm is basically the same as bitcoin or litecoin.
  
  Moreover, ppc would also gradually transition to this operation mode of checkpoint. Even before that happens, I cannot arbitrarily shutdown ppc network either. The checkpoint system in ppc and xpm also builds in consistency check to protect network if checkpoint key is compromised. Overall the defense mechanism is much more effective against sustained 51% attack and is a great asset to help small altcoin networks.
  
  I sincerely hope altcoin developers could compete honestly and fairly, keeping in mind the philosophy behind cryptocurrency movement, how else could we achieve the goal together without moral backbone?

Trade cautiously and have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #61

• Recent new records in primecoin network: 10-primes: 146 digit 1CC type at block 182690; 12-primes: 103 digit TWN type at block 212935.
• Primecoin trading added to Coinmkt.com. Coinmkt now trades both PPC and XPM against USD.
• RPool.net, the 3rd primecoin mining pool rises quickly in the last two weeks and now accounts for about 20% of primecoin blocks. RPool pays coins in generation transaction (coinbase) letting coins mature in miner's own wallet, similar to Eligius pool of bitcoin.
• Effort is underway on ppcointalk.org for contributors to focus on different areas in marketing and development for PPC/XPM, everyone is welcome to participate.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #62

• Vault of Satoshi (previously Toronto Bitcoin Exchange) now supports PPC trading.
• I have completed a round of interview with John Manglaviti based on community member questions.
• Thijs van den Berg will present PPC and XPM technology in Bitcoin Conference in Amsterdam early next month.
• PPC website has been updated. Thanks Super3 and web team!
• Both beeeeer.org and rpool.net pools were under DDoS attack. At the moment rpool appears to be restored, beeeeer.org would reopen later by xolokram.
• Lots of activities on our forum. Feel free to participate! Fill out survey (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=715).

Have fun

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #63

• New 12-primes record by primecoin: block #239833, 110 digit length 12 Cunningham chain of 1st kind.
• Community newsletter #1 published: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=321355
• rpool.net back online at 15% xpm mining. ypool.net accounts for about 50% of xpm mining.
• The Amsterdam bitcoin conference this coming week is cancelled due to lack of attendance. Although there are many more conferences coming up around the world. So stay tuned for our future participation.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #64

• John and I have completed a round of interview with coindesk on PPC. An article has been published on coindesk regarding PPC.
• Primecoin difficulty is approaching 10. In July at primecoin's release, the network started at difficulty 7. We have come a long way in a short four months, I have never expected such fast pace of miner improvements and adoption. Difficulty 10 is more than four orders of magnitude more computing intensive than difficulty 7 in primecoin. Current primecoin network difficulty is around 9.975.
• Supercomputing has started working on a gpu (cuda) implementation of primecoin miner. He has reported promising results so far which could make gpu mining competitive for xpm, though currently this project is still under private development.
• I have relocated PPC testnet seed node. PPC testnet resumes operation.
• Don't forget to check out all the different community activities on peercointalk.org!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #65

• Community newsletter #2 here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=326659.0
• Community newsletter #3 here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=333962.0
• Primecoin has gracefully recovered from a block rate impact event this week due to problems at ypool.net. Block rate about halved after ypool.net went offline, but the difficulty continuously adjusted to the event. Primecoin network has now recovered close to 1 minute block spacing target.
• Primecoin has its first fork named datacoin this week. Of course there are countless PPC forks already I have lost track of them long time ago.
• Bitcoin continues the relentless climb in the exchange markets all over the world, broke $5B USD market cap and marching towards $10B USD market cap. Looking back the entire cryptocurrency community has made huge achievements together. Let's keep working together toward a better future!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #66

• Community newsletter #4 here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=341509.0
• PPC breaks 10M difficulty this week.
• Record highs of PPC and XPM price on the markets. XPM reached over 5000 BTC volume today and is back at #5 behind NMC on coinmarketcap.com while PPC maintains its #3 ranking.
• John and me have completed an interview with New York Times this week and it was published today (http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/11/24/in-bitcoins-orbit-rival-virtual-currencies-vie-for-acceptance/?hp). You can find links of most media reports on the PPC and XPM wiki press page on github.
• PPC website has been revamped by a web team lead by super3. I have transferred my responsibility on website to the web team.
• Based on community consensus, we have begun a rebranding effort for PPC from ppcoin to peercoin.
• Sentinelrv has updated the logo resources. I find the logo looking really nice on the BBC program, we must thank Sentinelrv and team again for the logo project!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #67

• btc-e added support of PPC/USD trading this week.
• Combined PPC/XPM market capitalization reached over 100M USD.
• PPC achieves 1% of bitcoin market cap for the first time!
• Community newsletter #5: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=350553.0
• Once PPC v0.4 is reasonably stabilized, I will push a v0.4 branch to the official repository. I am very happy to see interests in PPC development picking up among the community

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #68

• Jordan has made some good progress with Peershare project.
• John and I have completed an interview with CNBC Asia.
• There have been some discussions regarding transaction fees in PPC/XPM. I have recently explained my philosophy on the issue of transaction fees. But I am happy to see many of our users are interested in debating such subject extensively on the forum. This is part of the open source culture, that anyone interested can offer opinions and insights. As a lead developer I think it is also healthy for me to listen to inputs from community.
• So I would like to give some summary of my thoughts on this matter. The goal of PPC/XPM projects are not to try dominate both store of value and medium of exchange in cryptocurrency. I have mentioned the concept of backbone currency. I feel the attempt to dominate every aspect of money is what drives the adjustment of bitcoin transaction fees, which has seen reduction from 0.01, to 0.0005, and now 0.0001. However in my opinion blockchain data structure has some inherent scalability limitations, so such a goal is probably not wise for a single cryptocurrency. Note currently PPC/XPM still has a lower fee than bitcoin in terms of the real fee value. So there is no need to rush this topic. In fact the minimum fee is enforced in protocol to require a hardfork when changing minimum fee, exactly to encourage long term thinking and careful decision making regarding transaction fees. We should have plenty of time to observe bitcoin's struggle with block chain capacity (in terms of both total blockchain size and throughput/block size), the delicate balance between transaction fee, block chain capacity and user experience. In contrast to bitcoin dev I value decentralization and usability over a lower transaction fee.
• Transaction fee is also an important regulator on the transaction spamming attack, which could potentially significantly reduce network service quality (prolonging confirmation time). So this should also play an important role in the decision making of transaction fees.
• Meanwhile I have never said transaction fees are fixed at 0.01 forever. There are many factors at play, the general hardware performance including network bandwidth, the advances in blockchain data structure etc. These factors should also play important future roles in determine a good minimum fee value.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #69

• Primecoin difficulty reaches 10.
• I am trying to work with potential business partners to help further peercoin and primecoin, having been extremely busy last couple weeks. Peercoin development is still ongoing, so please be patient. At this time of the year, there are also quite a bit personal obligations so my response to communications might be slow.
• I sincerely thank all your support of the innovations in peercoin and primecoin. Your support are crucial to the success of peercoin and primecoin projects.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #70

No report from me this week. Wish everyone a wonderful holiday season

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #71

Review of year

2013 has been a fruitful year for cryptocurrencies. Bitcoin woke up from a relatively uneventful 2012 and its marketcap reaches US$10B for the first time. China becomes one of the major markets for cryptocurrencies. Peercoin achieves 1% of bitcoin marketcap for the first time. Numerous currency networks were started, including primecoin from our team, bringing new innovations in proof-of-work consensus algorithms. Meanwhile, ripple introduces the first built-in exchange in a currency network, and establishes itself as the second most valued currency network after bitcoin.

As the competition heats up, 2014 would be an interesting year to look forward to

Happy New Year!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #72

• kactech has been organizing projects for peercoin/primecoin android wallets. This is great effort as I think it is one of the important long term goals as cell phone payment is strategic market for cryptocurrency. Also, wallet app for cell phones can be more user-friendly catering to a wider audience.
• A fix is published for testing for the block minting only unlock mode with Qt (encrypted wallet), see (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=1917.0). This is a feature to provide additional user security for minting blocks. The feature is confirmed to not quite work for Qt in v0.3.0. Note this bug has no impact on block chain security.
• If you sent me a private message recently that I haven't been able to get back to you, I will be reviewing my messages (both bitcointalk and peercointalk) during the week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #73

• Due to the bug affecting Peercoin minters using Qt with minting only unlock mode, I would release a v0.3.1 bug fix builds for these users. No need to upgrade if you don't use this feature.
• Peercoin v0.4 is still under testing. I will push a development branch once testing is complete.
• Check out gpool.net, another relatively new primecoin mining pool. I didn't realize primecoin has a few more forks now

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #74

• Peercoin v0.3.1 should be ready for release in the next couple days. Some high priority features have been ported to v0.3.1 in addition to bug fixes.
• The new feature in v0.3.1 includes debug window rpc console, which allows user issue rpc commands inside the qt client. This simplifies operations such as unlocking wallet for block minting, especially for windows and mac users.
• Another feature ported to v0.3.1 is the RPC API getblocktemplate/submitblock, which is a high priority requirement for mining pools as peercoin mining is now dominated by ASIC devices. If you are operating a peercoin mining pool, please help test the new API with the latest code in repo.
• There is also a slight change to testnet node. Previously testnet node shares default rpc port (9902) with production node. Now testnet node has a separate default rpc port 9904. Testnet node can be run simultaneously with production node, but if you use command line for rpc access make sure you use the -testnet switch to query testnet node.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #75

• There will be a change with the release plan of peercoin. I have decided to include a minor protocol change for future p2pool support so the release will become a mandatory upgrade release. There will be at least 4 weeks or more upgrade window provided to users. The previously planned v0.3.1 will become the v0.4.0 release, and the previous v0.4 development would become the v0.5 development.
• So the new v0.4.0 release should be ready soon. I have updated the repo throughout the week and Fuzzy started publishing some test builds. Please report any bugs found to our forum. Remember to always backup wallet before switching to a different wallet client. Also you are recommended to try it out on testnet first.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #76

• Super3: new primecoin website preview: http://primecoin.io/
• I am busy wrapping up peercoin v0.4 release. Stay tuned.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #77

• Primecoin network reached a new record last month for 13-primes, a 107 digit Cunningham chain of first kind. This breaks the record held by Primecoin in September last year, a 94 digit Cunningham chain of 2nd kind (https://github.com/primecoin/primecoin/wiki/World-records).
• Riecoin appears to be ready for launch. Riecoin was in development by gatra, initially hyped as a tester of Riemann hypothesis (thus the name) last year. A brief read of the its pre-launch description indicates that the proof-of-work is now a slight variation of Primecoin's proof-of-work, searching for a specific type of prime constellations instead of Cunningham chains. The author of Riecoin compared it with Primecoin, although most of his criticisms of Primecoin are due to lack of a good understanding of Primecoin's design choices. In fact I have described most of them in my Primecoin paper. I certainly welcome other work based on Primecoin however it would be nice for the author to give proper credits.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #78

• I will transfer my primecoin website responsibility to super3 soon. The current website will be moved to a subdomain for backup purpose.
• Peercoin v0.4 is under final development and testing. Since this is a mandatory upgrade release, users would be given ample time to upgrade before a scheduled protocol switch time, which should be at least 4 weeks after release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #79

• Since peercoin v0.4 is a planned mandatory upgrade, and due to peercoin's popularity it is now supported on so many different exchanges that I have lost count of. It's prudent to take a cautious approach to this release. Here is the proposed release plan:
• Week 1: Peercoin v0.4 release candidate for testnet deployment
• Week 2: Release candidate upgrade window for testnet
• Week 3: Post upgrade testnet validation
• Week 4: Peercoin v0.4 release for mainnet deployment
• Week 5-8: v0.4 release upgrade window
• Week 9: upgrade deadline and v0.4 protocol switch

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #80

• Peercoin v0.4 is going through final round of validation. Release candidate will be announced in a few days once all tests complete and build starts. The upgrade schedule will be fixed before release candidate according to what I described last week.
• If you run exchange or mining pool please consider dropping me an email at sunnyking9999@gmail.com to receive updates of peercoin v0.4 upgrade via email. As standard practice upgrade message will be sent to daemons (shown in 'getinfo') and thread posted to forum. But you could also choose to get dev technical support in email. If you think the currently planned 4-week upgrade window for main release is not long enough, please also contact me as soon as possible.
• Mikael has released hp12 client for primecoin. hp series primecoin clients are high performance mining versions of primecoin client, developed and currently maintained by Mikael and used by some pool mining software such as primeminer. Miners can choose to donate to Mikael in hp12 release by explicitly setting a configuration parameter.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #81

• Peercoin v0.4 release candidate final round of testing has been completed. Release candidate will be cut and build started tomorrow. Expect release candidate this week for distribution. Release schedule is now fixed as following:
• 2014-MAR-24 Peercoin v0.4rc1 release candidate testnet upgrade deadline and testnet protocol switch
• 2014-APR-05 v0.4 release for distribution
• 2014-MAY-05 v0.4 upgrade deadline and network protocol switch
• Peercoin v0.4 release progress can be followed on peercointalk.org.

Have fun

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #82

• Peercoin v0.4 release candidate has been released. Please refer to the v0.4 schedule announced last week and follow the release status on http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0
• Release candidate is for testnet upgrade with deadline on March 24.
• If testnet upgrade goes smooth, main release should be ready around April 5 with upgrade deadline on May 5.
• If you are a service provider of peercoin feel free to test it on testnet.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #83

• Peercoin testnet has now been switched to v0.4.0 protocol. Testnet operation will be monitored closely this week. If you run a testnet node and haven't upgraded yet, you would need to redownload blockchain for it to work properly. Please visit peercointalk.org for latest progress at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #84

• Peercoin v0.4 release is currently on schedule. Visit peercointalk.org for latest progress at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #85

• Peercoin v0.4.0 released. This is a mandatory upgrade release. Upgrade deadline is May 4th. Please visit peercointalk forum for more information and instructions: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0
• Source code release at https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin
• Linux and Windows release builds at https://sourceforge.net/projects/ppcoin/files/0.4.0/
• Instructions for upgrade from v0.3.0 is posted at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #86

• Peercoin v0.4 release is now in the upgrade window. Upgrade deadline is May 4th. Please visit peercointalk forum for more information and instructions: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0
• Alert message has been sent to all v0.3 peercoin clients.
• Recently there have been multiple GPU mining development for Primecoin. Primecoin is designed to be a powerful network for scientific computing and the first to bring such technology to cryptocurrency world. It's expected Primecoin network would migrate to GPU mining and ASIC mining just like Bitcoin did. Prime algorithm hardwares are important contribution to computation technology in general. We certainly welcome such development. In the next primecoin release, the proposed v0.2 protocol would be readied on testnet so mining developers could test against v0.2 protocol to ensure future compatibility.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #87

• Reminder that Peercoin v0.4 upgrade deadline is May 4th. Please upgrade your peercoin client within next two weeks.
• We are trying to confirm with major service providers about their upgrade schedule/status. If you are a service provider, you are welcome to confirm with me at sunnyking9999@gmail.com, or post to the forum thread: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #88

• Reminder that Peercoin v0.4 upgrade deadline is May 4th. Please upgrade your peercoin client within the week. It is recommended to upgrade as soon as possible, at least before Sunday May 4th 2014 14:00 UTC. Late upgrade would require manual procedure to redownload blockchain, possibly even more manual procedures such as wallet repair, key export/import etc. should wallet discrepancy occurs due to running on a forked v0.3 blockchain.
• Our community team is contacting peercoin service providers to confirm their upgrade to v0.4, to ensure timely upgrade from the service providers without service disruption. If you are a service provider please feel free to post confirmation message to the relevant discussion at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2721.0
• Due to numerous new service providers emerging in the industry, we feel that extra step is needed to further protect service providers in case they miss the upgrade deadline. On May 5th around the protocol switch time, another alert message is planned to be sent to all v0.3 clients, while triggering safe mode on all v0.3 clients. This means v0.3 clients would stop sending transactions by default, unless overridden manually by configuration setting 'safemode=0'.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #89

• Peercoin network has been upgraded to v0.4 protocol.
• If you haven't yet upgraded the client, please do so as soon as possible. Instructions at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0
• v0.3 clients would reach end of support within two weeks. v0.3 clients would fork blockchain from the main network (v0.4) in about 20 days. This means nodes that continue running v0.3 clients would no longer operate properly with the main network.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #90

• If you haven't upgrade peercoin client to v0.4 please do so as soon as possible. v0.3 client would be desupported in a week or so.
• Happy to see the community continue to gain strength. Come and join us at peercointalk.org for discussions!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #91

• If you haven't upgraded peercoin client to v0.4 please do so as soon as possible. v0.3 client would be desupported on May 24th, and another alert message would be sent to all v0.3 clients to trigger safe mode, to prevent unnecessary losses for unaware users.
• Primecoin difficulty is now approaching 11! As of today difficulty is around 10.96. It means primecoin network has been gaining computation power vastly in the last couple weeks, likely due to the transition from cpu mining to gpu mining.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #92

• If you haven't upgraded peercoin client to v0.4 please do so as soon as possible. v0.3 client has reached end of support. v0.3 client shouldn't be used any more, if you continue to use v0.3 it would run on a forked blockchain from the main peercoin network.
• Primecoin now has a test switch against proposed v0.2 mining protocol. Miner developers (fpga and gpu especially) and pool operators please test with this new switch -v2compatible for future compatibility (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2858.0).
• My interview last week at peercointalk with transcript here: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2862.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #93

• Peercoin v0.3 has reached end of support. v0.3 clients have now separated from main peercoin network. If you haven't yet upgraded, please do so. Upgrade instructions at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2473.0
• Peercoin's merge with bitcoin v0.8 resumes testing. There should be a separate development branch on repository once tests complete to reasonable satisfaction. Once the development branch opens, requests would be reviewed for acceptance.
• Primecoin network reached another milestone by discovering a 14-prime chain at block 547276, a Cunningham chain of 2nd kind with 100 digits (http://primecoin.21stcenturymoneytalk.org/index.php?block_hash=5119057bae9847731b735e2b21d77239e14c9decc53a6241181f8e9a6be5dbdf). This is a result of great strides made in mining market. Primecoin now holds 5 out of the 21 world records in simultaneous primes (http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm). Looking back, when primecoin was launched less than a year ago, such record shattering results are simply inconceivable even to me. So congratulations to primecoin community, miners and especially miner developers!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #94

• I have now opened the development branch of peercoin on the source code repository. Merge with bitcoin v0.8.6 has been done. The development branch is for testing purpose only and is not considered stable, so please refrain from using it on production systems.
• I have done another community interview this week, transcript here: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2934.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #95

• Peerunity v0.1.0 has been released by the peerunity dev team. See announcement thread: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2902.0
• Based on the consensus of project leaders of the community, I am happy to announce that sigmike is now sharing responsibility with me in the Peercoin core-dev team. Responsibility of core-dev team is maintenance and development of peercoin protocol and reference client implementation. sigmike has been a key member of the peershare project and peerunity project, who has also demonstrated exceptional knowledge of peercoin protocol and security.
• There are many more talented developers/contributors in the community project teams, so we are continuing to evaluate and seek recommendations. Some of the key members are focusing on the respective project currently but could be joining the core-dev team at a later date. It's very nice to see the growth of peercoin dev community and the quality work being produced.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #96

• Peercoin v0.5 is under development, currently work is being done on the checkpoint system. First step, user would be able to opt out enforcement of broadcast checkpoints.
• There are many exciting development on peercoin and primecoin projects, stay tuned. Visit our forum and join the community in helping with different development projects, and ongoing marketing effort.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #97

• HolyTransaction(https://holytransaction.com/), an integrated wallet/exchange/payment service provider, now support peercoin services. Give it a try
• Peercoin marketing fund is now operational, it's an important step to further marketing effort in peercoin community. Proposals can be submitted at the fund's subforum here: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?board=66.0
• Many more projects are underway on peer4commit (http://peer4commit.com/). Since its establishment, peer4commit has become an important portal for organizing and funding community projects.
• Let's give big applause to all the hardwork of the teams and community members to make all these projects happen!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #98

• Congratulations to the primecoin network reaching one year old! I would like to show appreciation to primecoin users and especially miner developers, without whose tireless work we wouldn't be able to claim 5(!) of the simultaneous primes world records out of a total of 21 world records (https://github.com/primecoin/primecoin/wiki/World-records) (http://primerecords.dk/simultprime.htm), within the first year of its running. This is a feat that I couldn't have imagined at the time of primecoin's design, when I was still in doubt whether it could break any world record or not. One year after primecoin's public debut, the cryptocurrency designers are still focused on mixing hash functions with hash-cash proof-of-work, or finding ever more 'cpu friendly' proof-of-work, primecoin's unique proof-of-work remains the first and one of the very few useful and actually interesting proof-of-work designs, that preserves the decentralization property of cryptocurrency.
• So happy birthday Primecoin 

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #99

• The peercoin community video project has made great progress! Check out the project: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2537.0
• Check out and contribute to many other community projects at our forum and peer4commit!
• I have done an interview with Sean@Let's Talk Bitcoin earlier the week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #100

• Peercoin video project released on youtube: http://whatispeercoin.com
• More peercoin news see this week's Newsletter #9: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3181

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #101

• Interview by Let's Talk Bitcoin published at http://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/the-real-sunny

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #102

• Team is still busy working on peercoin v0.5 features.
• Some strategic planning is also being worked on. Stay tuned.
• Check out many active projects on going at our forum and peer4commit!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #103

• I am happy to see peerchemist's Fazon initiative (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3246.0), a very good step toward better organization of community development and sharing of resources. If you don't know, peerchemist is also the lead developer for the excellent peerbox project (http://peer4commit.com/projects/92).
• Given recent market loss in altcoins, I would like to remind investors in peercoin and primecoin projects to be always aware of market risks, i.e. only invest with what you can afford to lose.
• Our development community has grown quite a bit compared to last year, thanks to the tireless and selfless  teamwork of many of you. I am amazed at what our community has achieved, and honored to express my appreciation for all your great works!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #104

• Happy birthday peercoin 
• I am taking a short break this week. More infrastructure related development will be coming in the following weeks.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #105

• As a first project of our data services initiative, we are working on a web wallet support service. The core team will look into providing a reference brain wallet implementation in client side javascript, with combined peercoin/primecoin support. More full-featured wallet app can be developed by community further with API support of full nodes.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #106

• Web wallet platform is under development and testing. The platform should be able to support multi-currency functions. Stay tuned!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #107

• Mike has the proposed change to peercoin's duplicate stake protocol under review and testing. This protocol change aims to introduce a disincentive to minting on multiple blockchain forks.
• A brain wallet implementation is still under development and testing.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #108

• Jordan has announced planned release of Nubits on September 23rd (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3357). Nubits aims to provide a solution to volatility, using a peershare implementation. More details would be available at the release time. Congratulations Nubits team!
• A JSON-RPC API extension has been implemented to provide web wallet service. Currently we are testing brain wallet functions using primecoin. A combined peercoin/primecoin brain wallet would be developed once the basic wallet works.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #109

• Matthew Mitchell releases beta android wallet: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3331.0
• Peercoin main discussion on bitcointalk.org is now moved to https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=793142. Sentinelrv gaves a great presentation of the overall project in the new thread.
• Nubits project to be released soon by Jordan and Nubits team.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #110

• Nubits project (http://nubits.com/) is now released by Jordan and Nubits team. Nubits is a first implementation of peershare, utilizing its share and divident system. Nubits introduces fiat equivalent currency unit, pegged via share holder voting and interest system, with high degree of decentralization. Compared to centralized bank notes, such as exchange fiat balance, it has much better decentralization and privacy properties. In my opinion, Nubits is a highly interesting experiment in the cryptocurrency field, providing a class of digital currency with differing set of properties from centralized notes and cryptocurrencies.
• Congratulations to Nubits team on completing the first major DAC project in peercoin ecosystem!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #111

• Mike's work on duplicate stake protocol has been reviewed and scheduled for v0.5. This work introduces a change in the duplicate stake detection, such that when a block is received having the same proof-of-stake with the current best block (the latest block on main chain), the best block would be rolled back and proof-of-stake would be minted on top of previous block. At the same time, the block causing the rollback of best block is broadcasted to other nodes to take actions
• This solution introduces disincentive to minting on multiple branches, that is, this type of minters risk losing the acceptance of their blocks.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #112

• Peerunity v0.1.1 has been released (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3470.0) by the Peerunity team. It features more UI enhancements and bug fixes, especially UI enhancements related to minting. Congratulations to the Peerunity team!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #113

• I think our community is familiar with the importance of Peershare project. It serves as a template for running crypto ventures or businesses, also known as DAC's. Nubits has become the first project using the Peershare template. A shareholder voting system has been introduced so basically it can be run through semi-anonymous shareholders. This marks an important milestone in the history of cryptocurrency. So it is expected, many more ventures would be created in the future, eventually driving a prosperous crypto-economy.
• On the other hand, in the past decade we are experiencing a migration of personal computing to mobile devices, most notably, smart phones and tablets. So I think inevitably some of our successful ventures could take the form of web apps, that is more suited to mobile computing. So the brainwallet project would serve to showcase such a possibility, a model pairing open source web app with the full node. Unlike typical web service existing in the market, most of which are built with significant centralization. This model allows direct communication between web app and the full node, preserving a high degree of decentralization.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #114

• Since the release of Nubits, the exchange peg of nubits to USD appears to be working so far. It must be noted that, the fact that due to the peg it's under political control (fiat inflation) to some extent, is actually quite superficial. This is because, the pegging mechanism can be used to commodity money as well, especially gold. The fact that the project issues USD equivalent first is likely a market driven decision, as USD remains the dominating currency in the world.
• Also, Nubits inherit privacy features of bitcoin, thus having privacy properties very close to fiat cash. Let's recall that during Internet 1.0, David Chaum had a project known as digicash/ecash, which focused on anonymity of digital fiat. The project failed primarily due to political obstacles. But it was a big deal back then, as that was the only known way to preserve privacy in money at the time. That was before bitcoin brings decentralization technology to the market. It is decentralization that allows the market to freely launch currency projects without official support from banks and governments.
• Notably, Nubits now has achieved similar goals of ecash, despite having different compromises in its properties. And thanks to decentralization, nubits is now circulating in the market, while the other pioneers of market-driven digital currencies, ecash and e-gold, languished in the footnote of history.

Chronology:

1995 digicash/ecash, anonymous digital note
1996 e-gold, digital gold note
2009 bitcoin, decentralized digital currency
2012 peercoin, energy efficient decentralized digital currency
2013 peershare, decentralized autonomous/anonymous company
2014 nubits, decentralized pegged digital note

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #115

• Bitspark (http://www.bitspark.io/), a new exchange based in Hong Kong begins trading support of Peercoin and Nubits.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #116

• YPool, the largest primecoin mining pool, now has an online wallet service (wallet.ypool.net) supporting Peercoin and Primecoin.
• Nubits mandatory upgrade to v0.5.0.
• Nubits is preparing for its period 1 divident payment in Peercoin.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #117

• ShapeShift Lens (http://www.shapeshift.io/lens.html), a new payment service that automatically converts currencies to bitcoin, now supports Peercoin and Nubits.
• peerchemist has released Peerbox v0.24 (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3592), with built-in 2FA support.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #118

• Nubits project issued its first dividend distribution in Peercoin this week. This is an important milestone not only in the Peercoin community, but also of cryptocurrency in general. It validates the new business model in cryptocurrency world. In my opinion it's a mark of profound changes, the rise of cryptoeconomy.
• blockparser (https://github.com/znort987/blockparser) now supports peercoin blockchain.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #119

• Excoin (https://exco.in/) is a relatively new exchange with sleek presentation. Excoin now supports both peercoin and nushares trading.
• Coinnomi (http://coinomi.com/) android wallet app now supports peercoin, nubits and nushares, with collaboration from the nubit team.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #120

• Peerunity v0.1.2 in release candidates (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3668.0).
• Mike has been making some good progress on the cold minting feature. The feature will introduce better security mechanism for Peercoin minters.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #121

• MatthewLM is now testing a new version of Peercoin Android wallet (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3331.0), that would introduce several new features.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #122

• Peercoin proof-of-stake difficulty has been rising steadily in the past few weeks.
• Latest peerbox release 0.24.2 by peerchemist at http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3592
• We have seen the new model of ventures the peershare way via nubits, it is highly encouraging for the community to explore other possible ventures with this model. I would also try to contribute to the future support and development of peershare infrastructure.

have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #123

• Mike is now code complete with the backend of the cold-minting feature. The feature allows for minting with special mint-only key, while the corresponding spending key can be stored in a cold wallet. This safeguards the coins of a minting wallet from hackers who gain unauthorized access to user's system.
• The feature will be under review and testing in the following weeks.

Happy New Year!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #124

• mably made a nice tool to look where the peercoin nodes are in the world! (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2968.0)
• Excoin (https://exco.in/) now supports nubits trading, with direct markets between nubits and peercoin, nubits and nushares.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #125

• emeth is working on a messaging application on top of peercoin network (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3773). It's a very interesting project in my opinion, as it tries to store the payload somewhere other than the blockchain, reducing blockchain bloat in the process.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #126

• btc-e announced delisting of XPM trading, so please be aware if you trade on btc-e. Short term primecoin's liquidity would likely drop. Although from a long term point of view, the exchange market should become more competitive. This event by no means affect our stance of long term support and development on primecoin.
• SigmundAlpha posted a new theme design of peerunity for comment: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3796.0
• peerchemist is planning on a redesign of peerbox website: http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3780

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #127

• Courtesy of Thireus: a list of current peercoin explorers (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3865.0).
• Another nubits divident has been issued this week.
• MatthewLM releases v2.0 of the Android wallet (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3331.90).

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #128

• 247exchange now supports peercoin to USD withdrawal to credit/debit card (https://www.247exchange.com/peercoin).
• Matthew's android wallet is now at v2.2 (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3331.95).
• Check out Tyke's thread about his coming book on peercoin (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3870.0)!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #129

• emeth's peermessage project is in private beta. I have mentioned emeth's work recently, his platform offers external storage for apps thus significantly reducing apps' direct data load on the currency network.
• Ben has announced new peercoin wiki home (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2255.0)

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #130

• Excoin recently suffered wallet loss due to likely a hacking attack. It's unfortunately as this relatively new exchange has been supporting both peercoin and nubits. It's an unfortunate reality of the current exchange business, in light of recent bitstamp loss as well. It is our prudence to refrain from direct involvement in any exchange operations, as any centralized exchange is subject to high risk of attack and/or mismanagement. But all is not lost, I think the exchange infrastructure in the cryptocurrency world has good potential to improve in the future.
• Peerbox v0.25RC1 is released by Peerchemist. (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3927.0)

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #131

• We are looking into an intermediate release of peercoin v0.4.1, to integrate support for emeth's peermessage project. Features being investigated for v0.4.1 includes OP_RETURN support and raw transaction API support. The potential release v0.4.1 should be non-mandatory.
• FuzzyBear has announced a redesigned peercoin forum! (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3966)
• Hook.io, an interesting hosting platform, is planning accepting peercoin payments. (http://hook.io/)

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #132

• Peermessage now has its own subforum (http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?board=72.0), known as the peerapps. Congratulations!
• Jubi (http://www.jubi.com/) is a popular Chinese exchange recently, and supports both PPC and XPM market with Chinese Yuan.
• Nubits mandatory upgrade release v0.5.4. (https://discuss.nubits.com/t/immediate-mandatory-upgrade-nu-client-version-0-5-4/1500)

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #133

• Check out this minting wallet called "DuoDuo" from HappyMushroom: (https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3862.msg38206#msg38206)
• Peercointalk forum now supports https service.
• Peerunity RC4 for upcoming v0.1.2 release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #134

• Teehe (http://www.teehe.net/) is looking for a public offer in a peershare implementation (https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3999). With peerchemist as the founder, who has been behind the Peerbox project and has been an excellent developer in the peercoin community.
• MatthewLM has just released his Android Wallet 2.3 for peercoin: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3331.msg38407#msg38407
• Another peercoin blockchain explorer: http://peer.coinchains.info/
• There was a outage with two of our main seed nodes on the network earlier this week, some users might have experienced difficulty initializing connection to the peercoin/primecoin network. Existing nodes on the network are not affected. The seed nodes in question are now up and operational.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #135

• I have updated peercoin v0.4 branch (master) with raw transaction related API changes from peerunity. This is to meet the requirements of peermessage and other community projects. Developers can test them out.(
• Fuzzybear is working on including IRC chat and a block explorer into peerunity.
• If you have resource to run a domain name server, check out thokon00's dnsseed for peercoin: https://github.com/thokon00/ppcoin-seeder. Let us know to include your dnsseed in source code. This would help with the seed nodes downtime issue we experienced last week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #136

• TheSeven has provided an auto dnsseed service for peercoin. This will be added to peercoin dnsseed list to share the load and improve the availability of dns node discovery.
• Teehe's funding period is closing soon: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3999

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #137

• Nubits is going open source.
• Nubits mandatory upgrade to v1.0.1.
• Teehe didn't reach its funding goal and has fully refunded potential investors. But we definitely will see more attempts at peershare implementations (https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3999).

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #138

• diandianbi.org has kindly set up another dns seed for peercoin at seed.diandianbi.org
• We have made some adjustment to peercoin's release plans. The support for peermessage will be joined with some protocol adjustment to enhance peercoin's network security, which will then be bundled into a release v0.5.0. The current develop branch will become v0.6.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #139

• OP_RETURN small data transaction support is now added to peercoin. This feature is requested by the peermessage project and will be included in the coming release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #140

• The Nubits team led by Jordan has announced fund raising for a decentralized exchange platform based on peershare (https://discuss.nubits.com/t/passed-motion-to-provide-seed-funding-for-b-c-exchange-a-decentralized-exchange-built-on-the-peershares-platform/2001). This is the second major attempt at a peershare project since the team completed peershare project, which enabled a new form of crypto enterprise known as DAO.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #141

• Emeth has updated latest peermessage/peerapp project to run against peercoin master (to become v0.5): https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4102
• Current peercoin protocol does not allow outputs with value < 0.01PPC, to discourage dust problem. This also prevents the zero amount on outputs, unlike bitcoin. To fully support OP_RETURN, from v0.5 on, zero output amount will be allowed, but nonzero amount less than 0.01PPC is still not allowed.
• v0.5 release will be mandatory upgrade, with a 2 month upgrade window. Once testing completes on the protocol change, I will announce a release schedule.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #142

• DuoDuo project is making good progress. Version 1.2 under testing: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4110.0.
• Mably is planning to give a talk about peercoin and proof-of-stake in France next month at the BdxCoin event: http://www.meetup.com/BdxCoin/events/222368107/
• Mably has made good progress on ppcwallet, a peercoin wallet implemented in Go. Minting was successful on testnet. (https://wiki.peercointalk.org/index.php?title=Ppcsuite)
• Nubits' team's exchange project B&C fund raising is closing soon. A decentralized exchange platform is important to the overall ecosystem and future DAO's, and the team's track record (peershare & nubits) speaks for itself. I would certainly like to see the project reach its goal.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #143

• Tyke's book "Peercoin -- A first year history" is almost finished: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3870.0
• B&C funding event is rebooted, where B&C shares are offered instead of additional nushare issuance. B&C is Nubits team's venture into decentralized exchange. With the experience gained from nubits liquidity operations, the team is certainly well positioned for such a monumental task.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #144

• Tyke's book "Peercoin -- A first year history" is now published on amazon: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3870.90
• v0.5 protocol adjustment is under testing. Once testing and reviews are completed testnet deployment would follow. Schedule will be fixed after testnet deployment completes sucessfully.
• B&C funding raising is still ongoing with nubits team this week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #145

• B&C funding raising ongoing, 75% reached. Nubits team appears to be planning its development after the upcoming nubits 2.0's release.
• Mably is raising fund to port btcd to ppcd: http://peer4commit.com/projects/130

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #146

• Peercoin Chinese Community and 8BTC forum jointly organize the "Cryptocurrency and PoS" essay contest: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4156.0
• B&C exchange project has reached 80% of its funding goal, according to nubits team.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #147

• B&C exchange funding goal is reportedly 89% reached.
• Aside from B&C's own blockshare and blockcredit, the exchange plans to support peercoin, nubits, nushares together with bitcoin and a few other popular cryptocurrencies.
• Upon user request, walletnotify should be included in the planned next peercoin release.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #148

• B&C funding has reached 100%, congratulations to Jordan and the nubits team! This is another significant event in DAO's, eyes are on the team to pull this important project off.
• B&C shares still for sale, so one still has a chance to better support its development.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #149

• Nubits experienced a minor blockchain fork event last week, a fix has been released with mandatory upgrade v1.2.0. See notice here:https://discuss.nubits.com/t/critical-nu-network-fork-experienced-at-block-407-740/2276/17
• snakie has open sourced http://peerchain.net to the community with repo at https://github.com/snakie/peerchain (https://www.reddit.com/r/peercoin/comments/3b7uua/open_sourced_peerchainnet/)

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #150

• With the recent transaction volume on bitcoin network, I would like to discuss the transaction fee policy of peercoin/primecoin. I have always felt that the transaction fee design of bitcoin is overly complex, so peercoin/primecoin simplified it quite a bit, so users could have easier understanding of the policy. However, the deeper issue with bitcoin's technology is that, due to the nature of the decentralization technology, it's inherently a rather expensive settlement network. This means it's more suitable to act as a backbone network for financial systems, rather than to compete with centralized payment networks on volume and cost. This isn't obvious when bitcoin userbase is still limited, but the situation will get more and more obvious as its popularity grows.
• Originally bitcoin's transaction fee was defaulted to 0.01BTC. In fact I think this original default value was quite good, it beats having an overly complicated system in my opinion. Think about it, at current valuation it's still only one tenth the cost of bank wire networks. To prematurely increase the scale of the network, to compete against networks such as paypal or credit cards, would cause a significant loss of decentralization which by the way is what bitcoin technology and philosophy is all about. It appears that bitcoin developers are not guarding the fundamental principles with enough vigilance.
• In such spirit both peercoin/primecoin set default transaction fee to a required 0.01 coin per KB of data, in a simplified and effective fee policy from old bitcoin. The situation in bitcoin is closedly watched, the current fee policy in peercoin/primecoin likely would remain in place when upgrading to latest bitcoin codebase in the future.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #151

• Since I mentioned the topic of transaction fees last week, l should mention the exact kind of simplification of fee policy in peercoin/primecoin. As I explained last week, blockchain technology is not well suited as an ultra high volume transaction processing system, thus we want to discourage tiny payments such as a fragment of cent, also known as 'dust' in bitcoin. Bitcoin charges additional fees for these dust transactions. In peercoin and primecoin, each transaction output must have a value at least 0.01. For the next release of peercoin, the output value can also be 0 to accommodate data transactions. But still, dust is not allowed, you either have an output value greater than or equal to 0.01 or a value of 0.
• Another simplification is that we don't allow no-fee transactions, so the default 0.01 per KB fee is a requirement, not an option as in bitcoin. This eliminates the complication for user to understand the tradeoff between no-fee and quality of service.
• Some might question the consistency of the approach as we move to allow data transaction in peercoin's next release. Data transaction is simply a mechanism to allow user to explicitly declare extra data in the transaction, otherwise user could still stuff data into transaction in obscure ways. In principle transaction fee is the only cost associated with blockchain space usage.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #152

• There is an interesting article written by Ray on proof-of-work: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4200.0
• Some of our users are still having trouble understanding the way wallet works: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4199.0. I would say this is not the user's fault, as I always thought the way the 'change address' works in bitcoin wallet is very inconvenient, especially with a brain wallet. Bitcoin introduced this mechanism to obfuscate the sending graph on blockchain, so it's a purely privacy feature. However it's more natural for users to associate balance toward fixed addresses. That's also why a feature was added to peercoin that I call 'avatar mode', where it disables the privacy feature and returns the change back to the sending address. Though it's still a development feature with peercoin. The latest peerunity release should support this mode.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #153

• It has been reported that some exchanges running the latest master branch have run into a bug that always sends the change output back to the input address (like in the avatar mode, but should not be the default behavior), which is causing the exchange software problems. This issue only affects the recent master branch of peercoin, not affecting official v0.4.0 release. If you build your own binaries from the latest master branch due to feature requirements, please consider update to the latest with the fix as soon as possible. See https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4208

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #154

• Tyke's book 'Peercoin history of first year' in the print: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3870.105
• Emeth resumes his work on Peerapp project and his recent thoughts on the use of identification system: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4203.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #155

• Walletnotify feature is now supported in peercoin's master branch. Please give it a try if you needed this feature.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #156

• Happy birthday peercoin!
• It's been a bit slow last few months. We plan to speed up peercoin development for the next months. Stay tuned.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #157

• There appears to be a competing protocol team in the bitcoin community, known as bitcoin-xt. The situation is new to bitcoin. We are watching the situation closely.
• B&C exchange team has launched their website with a teaser wallet client: https://bcexchange.org/

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #158

• Faucet Box has a nice collection of faucets for both Peercoin and Primecoin: https://faucetbox.com/en/list/PPC, https://faucetbox.com/en/list/XPM
• Tentative schedule of peercoin v0.5 for next couple weeks:
• Week 1: Code complete, review
• Week 2: Review and testing
• Week 3: Release candidate and testnet deployment

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #159

• MatthewLM has released 3.0 version of Peercoin Android Wallet: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3331.msg40733#msg40733
• Notable new features in the Android wallet release:
• Shapeshift support to pay in other cryptocurrencies
• Specify trusted server list in settings

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #160

• Peercoin v0.5 protocol is under review this week. The protocol adjustment includes:
• Allow transaction output to have zero value, a requirement to support data transaction usage such as peermessage.
• Protocol adjustment to improve security.
• Expect further review and testing the following week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #161

• Holy transaction has announced support for peercoin exchange. Together with shapeshift.io, these represent a new breed of 'accountless' exchanges with greater respect to privacy. Of course, Nubit's team's B&C is eagerly anticipated as well.
• Peercoin v0.5 protocol is under further review and testing this week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #162

• Nubits reaches 1-year milestone of successfully maintaining dollar pegging. Even though it is different from cryptocurrencies for it lacks cryptocurrency's independent inflation model, still it's a good bridge between fiat and cryptocurrency, with similar high degree of privacy features of cryptocurrency as well. Congratulations!
• Peercoin v0.5 protocol still in review and testing this week. Stay tuned.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #163

• Reports have surfaced that Cryptsy is now under investigation by US federal agencies. Although we object to any criminal activity alledgedly happening within that exchange operation, it would appear that the targets are all exchanges dealing with cryptocurrencies. Maybe the real goal is to eventually cut the link between cryptocurrency and fiat?
• Cryptsy was one of the exchanges trading both peercoin and primecoin. Our users be advised.

Take care!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #164

• Peercoin v0.5 protocol is still under testing this week. Stay tuned.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #165

• Peercoin v0.5 is getting ready for testnet deployment. Expecting release candidate some time next week.
• A tentative schedule for testnet deployment:
• Week 1: Release candidate build for testnet deployment.
• Week 2: Testnet protocol switch. There shall be at least a few days windows to upgrade on the testnet after candidate build is released.
• Please note this is planned testnet deployment intended for devs and testing nodes. This does not affect mainnet operations and typical users.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #166

• Peercoin v0.5 is undergoing final testing before release candidate. Expect release candidate to be cut soon.
• Once release candidate is cut, build will be prepared. Once build is ready to pick up, there should be around 5 days of upgrade window for testnet deployment and testnet protocol switch.
• Please note this is planned testnet deployment intended for devs and testing nodes. This does not affect mainnet operations and typical users. If you plan to test the release candidate on testnet, please look for announcement in the peercointalk forum.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #167

• It took a few more days to confirm the internal testing results. Code has passed final internal testing. Release candidate will be cut and build started before the weekend. Expect release candidate build around this weekend.
• If you plan to test the release candidate on testnet, and are short of testnet coins, you can turn on mining on testnet: ppcoind -testnet setgenerate true 1, or ask in the forum for coins from other developers. Try turning on minting on your testnet node before upgrade to better test the upgrade and protocol switch. Testnet protocol switch is tentatively scheduled to be around next weekend after release candidate build.
• Please note this is planned testnet deployment intended for devs and testing nodes. This does not affect mainnet operations and typical users. If you plan to test the release candidate on testnet, please look for announcement in the peercointalk forum.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #168

• Many peercoin users have experienced 'invalid checkpoint error' in the last couple days, this is due to an attack on the network based on an exploit of an openssl library cross-platform issue. It caused peercoin blockchain to fork into two chains, one on v0.4.0 linux 64 bit, one on v0.4.0 linux 32 bit and windows. We have released a hot fix v0.4.1 RC1 release for the affected users. Users using v0.4.0 linux 64 bit official build is not affected. Users using v0.4.0 linux 32 bit or Windows client is recommended to upgrade to v0.4.1 RC1 or wait for v0.4.1 final release, transactions should generally be avoided before upgrade is performed. Peerunity has also released corresponding hot fix for 32 bit nodes. More details here: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4312.0
• Many thanks to our community members who responded to the blockchain event at the earliest possible time and helped with debugging. Also we should give a round of applause to sigmike for the hard work and dedication to solve the issue and provide the hot fix to the network!
• Peercoin v0.5.0 RC1 has been released for testnet deployment. Note this release is not intended for mainnet and doesn't yet include the hotfix for blockchain fork. It is intended for developers and testing nodes only. Testnet protocol switch to v0.5 has also been scheduled for Monday Nov 16.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #169

• Testnet protocol has switched to v0.5 on Monday Nov 16. If you are testing on testnet please report any issue to our forum.
• In the following weeks peercoin v0.4.1 and v0.5.0 RC2 will be prepared. v0.5.0 RC2 would include the hot fix on the mainnet blockchain fork issue.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #170

• Work on peercoin v0.4.1 is underway. Builds should be ready by next week.
• Once v0.4.1 is ready, v0.5.0 RC2 will be prepared.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #171

• Peercoin v0.4.1 should be cut around this weekend. Stay tuned. Users who have been impacted by the blockchain event of the last couple weeks are recommended to upgrade to this version once it's released.
• Peercoin v0.5.0 RC2 will also be prepared to include v0.4.1 fixes.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #172

• Peercoin v0.4.2 release has been cut. Official builds are being prepared. Release will be announced on peercointalk shortly.
• Please check our forum for announcement during the week. Users who have been impacted by the recent blockchain fork issue are recommended to upgrade. Users of official 64-bit linux builds of v0.4.0 are not impacted.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #173

• Peercoin v0.4.2 has been released: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4343.0
• This is a maintenance release, users who were impacted by the blockchain fork event of last month are recommended to upgrade. Refer to the upgrade instructions in the release thread.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #174

• Peercoin v0.5.0 release candidate 2 is being prepared. This release candidate would include support of the recent bug fixes.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #175

• Peercoin v0.5.0 RC2 should be ready by next week. Meanwhile, wish everyone in the community and fulfilling new year 

Happy New Year!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #176

• Peercoin v0.5.0 release candidate version 2 should be cut this weekend. Please look for announcement in the peercoin forum. The release candidates are intended for developers and users who intend to run testnet nodes.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #177

• Peercoin v0.5.1 release candidate 2 has been cut. Official builds are under preparation and should be available in the next few days.
• This release includes the v0.4.2 patch so should work with current mainnet. Please note release candidates are only intended for developers and testing on testnet.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #178

• Peercoin v0.5.1 release candidate 2 have been released, linux and windows builds ready: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4376
• Release candidates are not meant for production use and are intended for developers and nodes on testnet.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #179

• Peercoin v0.5.1 is under preparation, the release is expected to be ready once the RC2 testnet run is considered stable.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #180

• Nubits 2.1.0 is in the works which includes features from peercoin develop branch. These features are scheduled for peercoin v0.6.
• Peercoin 0.5.1 is under preparation this week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #181

• Peercoin v0.5.1 still under final testing. Expect release late February. This is a mandatory upgrade release, so once annouced, users should have at least several weeks time window to upgrade their client wallets.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #182

• Peercoin v0.5.1 is still under preparation this week.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #183

• Peercoin v0.5 release will be cut this weekend.
• Release schedule is tentatively fixed as following:
• Release cut and builds for linux and windows: end of February
• Mandatory upgrade window: before April 3rd, ~ 5 weeks
• Upgrade deadline and protocol switch date: April 4th

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #184

• Due to considerations for other wallet services and infrastructure service providers the upgrade deadline for peercoin v0.5 will be extended to April 25.
• Release code will be cut soon and linux/windows builds started.
• Visit peercointalk for latest release announcement.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #185

• Peercoin v0.5.2 has been released: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4434.0
• This is a mandatory upgrade release, upgrade deadline is April 25, for users using v0.4.2 release.
• Please note, users who have tried the release candidate v0.5.1 RC2 must upgrade before March 14.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #186

• Peercoin 0.4.2 support will end on April 25. Upgrade from v0.4.2 to v0.5.2 is required before this deadline.
• Peercoin 0.5.1 RC2 support has ended as of March 13. For users running this release candidate, if upgrade wasn't performed before March 13, blockchain redownload is required for the upgrade.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #187

• Peercoin v0.5.3 is released. This is a bug fix release with hot fix of the Qt transaction amount display bug in v0.5.2. Users of Qt clients are required to upgrade: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4453
• v0.4.2 upgrade deadline is still Monday April 25.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #188

• Peerunity new version that's compatible with peercoin v0.5.3 should be ready soon: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4459.0
• Reminder that upgrade deadline for Peercoin v0.5.3 is April 25th. A mandatory upgrade alert for v0.4.2 users would be issued soon.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #189

• Peerunity v0.2 has been released: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4465.0
• peerchemist posted a white paper on simple asset for community review, welcome to comments: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4461.0
• Reminder that upgrade deadline for peercoin v0.5.3 is Monday April 25.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #190

• Reminder that peercoin v0.5.3 upgrade deadline is Monday April 25th.
• peerchemist announced a debian/ubuntu build for v0.5.3: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4505.0
• peerchemist also announced arch linux package here: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4417.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #191

• Peercoin v0.5 protocol switch is coming up next week. The protocol switch will happen on Tuesday, 26 Apr 2016 19:46:40 UTC
• Please remember to upgrade to peercoin v0.5.3 or compatible before April 25th. Late upgrade would generally require blockchain redownload.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #192

• Peercoin blockchain has now switched to protocol 0.5.
• There was a blockchain fork incident on peercoin network due to a bug in peerunity client. Impact is limited to peerunity clients. Kudos to Matthew for quickly providing the fix and peerunity team for quickly providing hot fix release: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4541.0
• Sentinelrv excellent peercoin newsletter on 0.5 release: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4536.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #193

• Another blockchain fork incident has hit peercoin this week, which is similar in nature to the incident of November 2015, impacting all windows and 32-bit linux clients (https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4563.0)
• Fix is being prepared. Both peercoin and peerunity should release hot fix within a couple days, check peercointalk forum for latest status update.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #194

• Kudos to sigmike and other community members, peercoin hot fix release 0.5.4 and peerunity hot fix release 0.2.2 have been released. Users who have been impacted by the recent 32-bit clients fork incident should upgrade.
• Peercoin 0.5.3 64-bit linux client is still supported.
• hrobeers has published a paper on 'P2TH' for peerasset: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4546.0
• peerchemist has published a much expanded version of peerasset paper: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4566.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #195

• peerchemist's peerasset paper has been translated into Chinese: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4566.0
• sigmike has updated python tools for peercoin.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #196

• Python tools for peercoin is now at github.com/ppcoin/peercointools
• Peercoin v0.6 development resumes next week

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #197

• hrobeers is working on a browser based client called 'PeerKeeper' with support of PeerAssets: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4583.0
• Peercoin v0.6 is under development.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #198

• Interesting discussion in hrobeers's peerkeeper thread: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4583.15
• Support hrobeer's peerkeeper project here: https://peer4commit.com/projects/179

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #199

• Peercoin v0.6 is in development.
• In v0.6 users can choose to disable checkpoint enforcement. In this mode, the node does not automatically reorganize to the blockchain fork where the checkpoint resides. Instead, it shows a warning message that checkpoint is on a different blockchain fork.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #200

• hrobeers has begun work on project PeerKeeper: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4583.30
• Tyke is planning another book on Peercoin: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4627.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #201

• Sentinelrv has reorganized peercointalk forum, there is now a new project development board now: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4647.0
• Some good discussions here related to peerassets: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4632.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #202

• Bitcoin reached its 2nd halving this week (congratulations!). As expected peercoin's proof-of-work difficulty is pushed up due to influx of miners. Currently peercoin's proof-of-work difficulty is about 700M, roughly doubling the difficulty before bitcoin's halving.
• There is a discussion regarding merge mining (https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4655.0). I am still of the opinion that merge mining does not provide any security benefit to peercoin as peercoin's security is pure proof-of-stake. Additionally supporting such feature involves significant development and maintenance overhead.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #203

• I have recently done an interview with Ying-Ying from Crypto Capitalism Center: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4661.0
• From hrobeers - key card printer implemented in project PeerKeeper: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4583.45

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #204

• We did a great interview as a team with CoinDesk this week. I like it very much, as in the past most of those are on me alone. Thanks team!
• hrobeers is having some fun with data transactions in peercoin: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4671.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #205

• Have some graffiti fun with hrobeers: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4676.0
• Some thoughtful discussions on funding of cryptocurrency projects: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4673.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #206

• Next week will be peercoin's 4th birthday coming
• CoinDesk article on peercoin: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4689.0
• hrobeers announced 'advanced relay subnet' to experiment non-standard transactions in peercoin blockchain: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4684
• peerchemist announced a chat service for the community: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4688.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #207

• The peercoin community had great birthday events at beyondbitcoin on 19th! hrobeers gave the main talk and then we had a pretty extended party afterwards. It's been great fun
• Sentinelrv's newsletter for the 4th birthday of peercoin: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4701.0
• Enjoy ppcman's picture contest for the anniversary: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4698.0

Have fun

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #208

• hrobeers is making great progress with PeerKeeper: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4583.msg44485#msg44485
• Here is the audio of hrobeers' interview with beyondbitcoin on peercoin's 4th birthday: https://soundcloud.com/beyond-bitcoin-hangouts/e169-beyond-bitcoin-dollarvigilante-talks-steem-blockpay-ico-grc-hangouts-steem-billboard-campaign
• Audio link to the birthday party: https://soundcloud.com/beyond-bitcoin-hangouts/peercoinbirthday

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #209

• I was asked about the status of cold minting feature, it is currently on-hold pending further evaluations. We want to make sure that it can be supported long term. Yes we are aware of the concerns of large stake holders, so it is still on the plate. Sigmike recently gave a good summary of the feature: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2783.msg43933#msg43933
• Interesting discussions of a possible 'PeerTicker' project: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4723.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #210

• Long-time Peercoin supporter Superppc has acquired domain peercoin.org: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4735.0
• Superppc is also the original author of this peercoin video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjL2AgCQDJ0
• As members of the peercoin community, let's all give gratitude and appreciation to Superppc for his great effort and generosity!
• peercoin.chat has been upgraded, existing users need to re-register though if you haven't yet.

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #211

• hrobeers introduces PeerScript Labs: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4742.0
• peerchemist refreshes peercoin.chat service. This service is intended for community hangout place and provides better channel for developers. https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4738.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #212

• Peerchemist's python tool for rpc access to peercoin daemon: https://github.com/peerchemist/peercoin_rpc
• New peercoin logo set announced by Sentinelrv: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4750.0
• New look at peercoin.net, lovely?
• Updated theme at peercoin.chat, now a busy place for developers and community members!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #213

• nagalim compiled a list of 10 current peercoin projects: https://www.reddit.com/r/peercoin/comments/5722yj/10_current_peer_projects/?st=iukpbc3z&sh=f36c70ab
• Peerbox v0.6.3 released.
• hrobeers article in PeerScript labs - P2SH script puzzle explained: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4758.0
• Support hrobeers excellent projects: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4761.0

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #214

• Nice tutorial on peerassets deck spawning protocol by embeddedthought: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpewpLGEfiM
• Sentinelrv annouced peercoin's telegram chat group: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4767.0
• Community proposal to reallocate project funds for peerassets and peerkeeper: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4766.0
• hrobeers started working on backend of peerkeeper: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4583.msg45051#msg45051

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #215

• peerchemist announced development of peerasset python library.
• Some discussion in the community regarding future of PoW mining in peercoin: https://www.reddit.com/r/peercoin/comments/5cebk1/its_time_for_peercoin_to_reduce_its_pow_reward/?st=ivmg6wf9&sh=0cd91546
• Article on peerasset advantages by Nagalim: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4774.msg45077#msg45077

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #216

• Negalim published a nice article on history of peercoin: https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4785.0
• hrobeers annouced the first peerassets explorer with a cool name 'Mercator': https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4787.msg45226
• Peercoin surpasses 5000 followers on twitter!

Have fun!

[Sunny King]

Weekly Update #217

• We have transferred our official source code repositories from ppcoin organization to peercoin organization on github, to match the branding efforts.
• I am happy to announce that the peercoin core development team welcomes hrobeers and peerchemist to join the team. In 2017 the team plans to release newer versions of peercoin that matches with latest functionalities of bitcoin.

Happy New Year!