FreiCoin (FRC) discussion (was FreiCoin (FRC) for TRC, PPC, LTC or BTC)

[galambo]

FYI, that also looks like one of 3 sticks needed for a fasces (add 1 straight, 1 curved the other way, and a horizontal line or two for the rope and you have a fascism symbol), which might not be the best link.

This is the traditional fasces. I don't see how it resembles it?



Anyways, the fasces isn't evil. It's a roman symbol to represent "strength through unity." Its a heraldic charge used by many small towns in Europe.

You probably already know this, but there are two fasces prominently flanking the rostrum of the United States House of Representatives, where the Speaker of the House sits.

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[galambo]

I also like the ⌠ for historical/symbolic reasons. Maybe if you knew the reason you would understand more of what I am thinking here.

The ∫ symbol  is used to denote the integral in mathematics. The notation was introduced by the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz towards the end of the 17th century. The symbol was based on the ſ (long s) character, and was chosen because Leibniz thought of the integral as an infinite sum of infinitesimal summands. See long s for more details on the history of ſ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_symbol

[scrybe]

FYI, that also looks like one of 3 sticks needed for a fasces (add 1 straight, 1 curved the other way, and a horizontal line or two for the rope and you have a fascism symbol), which might not be the best link.

This is the traditional fasces. I don't see how it resembles it?

<snip>

Anyways, the fasces isn't evil. It's a roman symbol to represent "strength through unity." Its a heraldic charge used by many small towns in Europe.

You probably already know this, but there are two fasces prominently flanking the rostrum of the United States House of Representatives, where the Speaker of the House sits.

Hmm, I must have an odd one in my head, or maybe I'm confusing it with some art-deco wheat I saw or something.

I think part of the point remains though, how does a peer to peer distributed currency that does not promote or require unity in any real way get to "Strength in Unity?

I also like the ⌠ for historical/symbolic reasons. Maybe if you knew the reason you would understand more of what I am thinking here.

The ∫ symbol  is used to denote the integral in mathematics. The notation was introduced by the German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz towards the end of the 17th century. The symbol was based on the ſ (long s) character, and was chosen because Leibniz thought of the integral as an infinite sum of infinitesimal summands. See long s for more details on the history of ſ.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_symbol

This reasoning I like, but it's pretty geeky

[ElectricMucus]

FYI, that also looks like one of 3 sticks needed for a fasces (add 1 straight, 1 curved the other way, and a horizontal line or two for the rope and you have a fascism symbol), which might not be the best link.

This is the traditional fasces. I don't see how it resembles it?



Anyways, the fasces isn't evil. It's a roman symbol to represent "strength through unity." Its a heraldic charge used by many small towns in Europe.

You probably already know this, but there are two fasces prominently flanking the rostrum of the United States House of Representatives, where the Speaker of the House sits.

Go ahead, make it official.

BTW: Swastikas aren't evil either.

[galambo]

Hmm, I must have an odd one in my head, or maybe I'm confusing it with some art-deco wheat I saw or something.

I think part of the point remains though, how does a peer to peer distributed currency that does not promote or require unity in any real way get to "Strength in Unity?

Hmm.. I think you may be thinking of the Fleur-de-lis?

[scrybe]

Hmm.. I think you may be thinking of the Fleur-de-lis?

Could be, but the image I have in my head is something between the two. It's 4-5x taller than wide, 3-5 staves or stalks ending with the top 10% of them curving out up to 45 degrees, tied together with two parallel cords. It does not really matter what it is though, since it's not a fasces and your symbol does not remind me of one now that I've seen a picture of one in this century.

ALT-159 is ƒ, an alternative choice, but I do like ⌠ pretty well too.

[Sunny King]

FYI, PPC is at 15M coins and has a similar fast ramp you can look at. It's different denominator in the bottom fraction (D^4) and since PoS started it got WAY more complex, but the general result was the same.

1) PPC is preannounced 1 week before release on bitcointalk, no we didn't just announce it on our own website 

2) PPC block chain started at difficulty 256 and 800 blocks later it was already at difficulty 1000. So no we didn't allow massive amount of low difficulty blocks by design. Our continuous difficulty adjustment works well to further limit the number of initial low difficulty blocks.

Yes early adopters are still rewarded with more ppc but that's over weeks and months plus 1 week preannouncement on bitcointalk so it is much more fair for the mining society interested in altcoins.

[Impaler]

In hindsight 256 would indeed have been a better starting difficulty, unfortunately no one give us that piece of advice during the year long period the project was being discussed and presented, we had to constantly defend the very concept of Demurrage from a torrent of hostility.

It would be a good idea if the Bitcoin software itself had the base difficulty raised in it so people don't make this mistake in the future.

[doublec]

It would be a good idea if the Bitcoin software itself had the base difficulty raised in it so people don't make this mistake in the future.

They can't, because doing so would make all blocks after the block where the new difficulty comes into effect invalid.

[galambo]

1) PPC is preannounced 1 week before release on bitcointalk, no we didn't just announce it on our own website  

2) PPC block chain started at difficulty 256 and 800 blocks later it was already at difficulty 1000. So no we didn't allow massive amount of low difficulty blocks by design. Our continuous difficulty adjustment works well to further limit the number of initial low difficulty blocks.

Yes early adopters are still rewarded with more ppc but that's over weeks and months plus 1 week preannouncement on bitcointalk so it is much more fair for the mining society interested in altcoins.

I don't understand. Are you trying to claim that PPCoin had a more fair initial distribution? I disagree with that statement. If you would like to dissect it we can do it in a new thread. Specifically, you chose the block reward as the inverse of the difficulty. If you think Freicoin is "unfair" to miners, why does PPCoin pay miners less to do more work?

[Jutarul]

In hindsight 256 would indeed have been a better starting difficulty, unfortunately no one give us that piece of advice during the year long period the project was being discussed and presented, we had to constantly defend the very concept of Demurrage from a torrent of hostility.

Yes - a starting difficulty of 1.0 was a major fail. I looked at it and thought, WTF!
However, given the 66% tax, the majority of the initial mining reward goes to the recipients of the foundation money - so the "damage" or "unfair advantage" is contained to 33% of the first few 1000 blocks. Also, one has to acknowledge the fact that an easier mining difficulty will generate cheaper coins. Thus those initial FRC are likely to go into the market for a cheaper than average market price. It's unfair, because the initial miners are likely to make a good profit - however they will likely "kick-start" the market at a lower price point, thus a significant larger fraction of the profit will be available for speculators.

I find another question more relevant: How will the foundation money be denominated? FRC or BTC? And how does the grant proposal scheme work? A centralized grant scheme is against the very nature of cryptocurrencies.

A possible solution out of the funding dilemma would be to integrate the community into the decision making process, e.g. by letting various projects collect funding from the community. E.g. if a developer offers a certain implementation or service for a certain amount of FRC, then he would need to collect 20% from the community and 80% would come from the foundation after the fact. Even better, the 20% would have to be generated from block rewards, which give miners "voting" power in selecting proposals.... (since the decision process must be hard/costly to manipulate)

[scrybe]

FYI, PPC is at 15M coins and has a similar fast ramp you can look at. It's different denominator in the bottom fraction (D^4) and since PoS started it got WAY more complex, but the general result was the same.

1) PPC is preannounced 1 week before release on bitcointalk, no we didn't just announce it on our own website  

2) PPC block chain started at difficulty 256 and 800 blocks later it was already at difficulty 1000. So no we didn't allow massive amount of low difficulty blocks by design. Our continuous difficulty adjustment works well to further limit the number of initial low difficulty blocks.

Yes early adopters are still rewarded with more ppc but that's over weeks and months plus 1 week pre-announcement on bitcointalk so it is much more fair for the mining society interested in altcoins.

I'm sure folks would have bent out of shape if you had given out 9999 PPC per block to the first few miners, which is a bit different than the (more) consistent block reward for FRC or BTC. Even the ~2500 rewards you started at were pretty large, so some folks might have the same argument about unfairness. There was also the fact that it took 2 days between 0 and 1 with that high difficulty. Don't get too high on a pedestal there King, your refusal to provide detailed background information and detailed calculations and modeling was pretty bad at the beginning, and caused me to limit my level of involvement with your project.

Personally I don't blame this team for leaving this board for most of their functions, they have been abused every time they have tried to get feedback. You may have noticed that BTCFPGA and BFL have done the same thing, there IS a pattern here, but it is not "being unfair to miners."

Much better short answer:

I don't understand. Are you trying to claim that PPCoin had a more fair initial distribution? I disagree with that statement. If you would like to dissect it we can do it in a new thread. Specifically, you chose the block reward as the inverse of the difficulty. If you think Freicoin is "unfair" to miners, why does PPCoin pay miners less to do more work?

Yes - a starting difficulty of 1.0 was a major fail. I looked at it and thought, WTF!
However, given the 66% tax, the majority of the initial mining reward goes to the recipients of the foundation money - so the "damage" or "unfair advantage" is contained to 33% of the first few 1000 blocks. Also, one has to acknowledge the fact that an easier mining difficulty will generate cheaper coins. Thus those initial FRC are likely to go into the market for a cheaper than average market price. It's unfair, because the initial miners are likely to make a good profit - however they will likely "kick-start" the market at a lower price point, thus a significant larger fraction of the profit will be available for speculators.

I find another question more relevant: How will the foundation money be denominated? FRC or BTC? And how does the grant proposal scheme work? A centralized grant scheme is against the very nature of cryptocurrencies.

+1 on the kickstarting effect, and remember that a lot of those first coins have changed hands already. I've seen at least 200 k move personally.

Not sure that I agree it was a major fail, I think it's minor in the long run. It sure got coins out there and buzz going. Now if someone starts at 1 difficulty with ASIC's in the wild, that will be a major fail. Trying to do 2k-10k blocks per second at difficulty 1 and stay in turbo-block-mode for 16k-20k blocks would be one hell of a ride. Or not paying out right, or payout on the wrong formula, or maxing out at the wrong number of coins (cough, litecoin.) This worked as expected, even if it was a bit fast, nothing broke significantly.

[jtimon]

Mhhm, the community bounty completed with funds from the foundation idea is interesting. I don't like the "only miners can collaborate with the bounties" part, but it's interesting.

About the mining difficulty...I didn't thought about that neither. I even thought we may use galambo's improved difficulty filter (but, honestly, I don't really understand how it works).

And no, there was no pre-mining and it can be demonstrated with genesis block. I'm not sure what we ended up putting for that, maybe several things. maaku generated it so he must know. I was happy putting my little sentence there.

[Syke]

And no, there was no pre-mining and it can be demonstrated with genesis block. I'm not sure what we ended up putting for that, maybe several things. maaku generated it so he must know. I was happy putting my little sentence there.

I'm curious. How is the 80% tax any different than a pre-mine? In the end, the "foundation" get a butt-load of coins.

[DarkHyudrA]

And no, there was no pre-mining and it can be demonstrated with genesis block. I'm not sure what we ended up putting for that, maybe several things. maaku generated it so he must know. I was happy putting my little sentence there.

I'm curious. How is the 80% tax any different than a pre-mine? In the end, the "foundation" get a butt-load of coins.

Maybe... this way they will always get more, more, MOAR COINS!

[jtimon]

And no, there was no pre-mining and it can be demonstrated with genesis block. I'm not sure what we ended up putting for that, maybe several things. maaku generated it so he must know. I was happy putting my little sentence there.

I'm curious. How is the 80% tax any different than a pre-mine? In the end, the "foundation" get a butt-load of coins.

Some basic English vocabulary:

The pre- prefix means "before"

http://www.5minuteenglish.com/may14.htm

examples:
preschool: education previous to school
pre-mining: mining BEFORE launch

Taxes are something that only coercive entities can collect: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax

[scrybe]

And no, there was no pre-mining and it can be demonstrated with genesis block. I'm not sure what we ended up putting for that, maybe several things. maaku generated it so he must know. I was happy putting my little sentence there.

I'm curious. How is the 80% tax any different than a pre-mine? In the end, the "foundation" get a butt-load of coins.

Maybe... this way they will always get more, more, MOAR COINS!

as long as by always you mean the first 3 years...

[Impaler]

It would be a good idea if the Bitcoin software itself had the base difficulty raised in it so people don't make this mistake in the future.

They can't, because doing so would make all blocks after the block where the new difficulty comes into effect invalid.

That can't be the case because initial difficulty is irrelevant to BTC now, difficulty is just a running value in the chain, 1 was just the difficulty at the start and that value of 1 is still in the code that maaku forked from, anyone else who forks and starts a coin has to correct this manually while it is of no significance to changing it in the exiting BTC github code.  Clients running BTC do not even need to updated in any way.

[Sunny King]

I don't understand. Are you trying to claim that PPCoin had a more fair initial distribution? I disagree with that statement. If you would like to dissect it we can do it in a new thread. Specifically, you chose the block reward as the inverse of the difficulty. If you think Freicoin is "unfair" to miners, why does PPCoin pay miners less to do more work?

Is it that hard to understand? Why is bitcoin paying 25btc (which is 25btc less than before) for more work from miners? Of course it's a way to make future inflation approach 0. Well it's the same for ppcoin but I don't like the way step functions are interfering with the market. freicoin also does that but with a different curve (from 250 coin to 0 in 3 years).

Personally I don't blame this team for leaving this board for most of their functions, they have been abused every time they have tried to get feedback. You may have noticed that BTCFPGA and BFL have done the same thing, there IS a pattern here, but it is not "being unfair to miners."

Yes the subsidy drop in ppcoin  is faster in the first few months, and I did get plenty of ppl complaining about it. I would say I got a good amount of 'abuse' myself as well but no I am not going to hide from this board because of that. Not to mention the freicoin team and fans never intended to avoid this board they just chose to show up a few days too late, maybe as a way to 'punish' the hostility of this board?  

[DeathAndTaxes]

It would be a good idea if the Bitcoin software itself had the base difficulty raised in it so people don't make this mistake in the future.

They can't, because doing so would make all blocks after the block where the new difficulty comes into effect invalid.

That can't be the case because initial difficulty is irrelevant to BTC now, difficulty is just a running value in the chain, 1 was just the difficulty at the start and that value of 1 is still in the code that maaku forked from, anyone else who forks and starts a coin has to correct this manually while it is of no significance to changing it in the exiting BTC github code.  Clients running BTC do not even need to updated in any way.

Initial difficulty is set in the genesis block.  Changing it for the Bitcoin chain would cause an immediate hard fork as all subsequent blocks would be invalid.