[ANN][XEL] Elastic Project - The Decentralized Supercomputer

[cryptoheadd]

When is the ICO ending?

EDIT: What's the Roadmap for the launch?

Anyone?

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[Evil-Knievel]

When is the ICO ending?

You are right, this information is missing on the website (you can only see it from the chart).
I will shoot Lannister a PM to fix that as soon as possible.

To answer your question: after block 425920 has passed (or, if 5 million coins have been given away before that time),
no new Elastic Coins will be given out to new donators. Instead, all coins of these 5 million that are left over will be distributed proportionally to those who already have Elastic Coins.

[cryptoheadd]

When is the ICO ending?

You are right, this information is missing on the website (you can only see it from the chart).
I will shoot Lannister a PM to fix that as soon as possible.

To answer your question: after block 425920 has passed (or, if 5 million coins have been given away before that time),
no new Elastic Coins will be given out to new donators. Instead, all coins of these 5 million that are left over will be distributed proportionally to those who already have Elastic Coins.

Greaat. Thank you!

Looking forward to the launch. 

[Evil-Knievel]

Looking forward to the launch. 

Me too, but it will be a long and rocky road until we get there. Full of interesting challenges and nights of coding. 

[Dazza]

EDIT: What's the Roadmap for the launch?

I doubt we have a clear roadmap for the distributed computation market.  We're still at the brainstorming stage.

What we're currently developing is the coin which will ultimately support the market.  This is the easy part of the project, and should be functional, even releasable, as a coin within a few weeks.  However I will be recommending against releasing it so soon.  There have been any number of coins which have crashed and burned on release, and I don't want this to happen to ours.  I have some ideas about how to defend against that scenario, but they require us to have the market in place.

Please bear with us.  I would prefer to have it succeed, than have it soon.

[TheDR]

I am back excited that maybe by my birthday on july 26 my share of elastic will be available to market though I will wait until they are a bit cent each to really sell much

[Dazza]

I have a different way to prevent the same N accounts winning over and over again.  For any given chain, order the PoS+B trying to extend it by ASV.  Then the one with the Highest ASV wins straight away so long as it hasn't already won in the last M blocks.  Else if it won n blocks ago with n<=M, multiply its ASV by n/N, and move on to the next.  If the PoS+B with the next highest ASV hasn't won in the last M or 2N blocks (whichever is greater), then it wins straight away.  Else if it won n<max(M,2N) blocks ago, multiply its ASV by n/2N and move onto the next.  For the PoS+B with the third highest ASV, repeat the procedure using M and 3N and so on.

If no block wins straight away choose a block which has won the least number of times during the last M blocks.  Usually this number will be zero.  If there are several blocks tying on this metric, use the modified ASV as the tie-breaker.

With this scheme, larger stakes will win the block more often, but, so long as there is an alternative, never more than once since transaction confirmation or the oldest live fork point.  Smaller stakes get to win occasionally.

I see a problem, or at least an undesirable characteristic of the above.

For simplicity's sake, assume that M=N.  Suppose the three accounts with the largest ASV are A, B, and C, with ASV(A) > ASV(B) > ASV(C).  suppose further that A won a block less than N blocks ago, B won a block between N and 2N blocks ago, and C has not won a block, or did so more than 3N blocks ago.  If B and C both launch, but A does not, then B will have the highest ASV of any launched block, and because it last won more than N blocks ago, it will win this time.  If all three launch, then neither A nor B will win straight away, but then C will.

It's a bit strange that A could stop B from winning without winning itself.

Here's a modification of the above scheme which does not as far as I can tell, have this property.  Let M and N be defined as in the previous post, with M not necessarily equal to N.

Step 1.  Normalise each candidate's ASV by dividing by the largest ASV of any of the last N block winners.  This will not affect their rankings in any way.  From now on, when I refer to a candidate's ASV, it is the normalised value I'm talking about.

Step 2.  Iterate through the candidates in decreasing order of ASV.  For each candidate, if the account last won more than max(M,N/ASV), or if it has never won, it wins; exit.  Otherwise multiply the ASV by the number of blocks to the last win.  Use this figure in the tiebreaker described in step 3.

Step 3.  If no candidate won during step 2, then the winner is the candidate that has won the least number of times during the last M blocks.  If there is a tie, then use the figure calculated in step 2 as a tiebreaker.

[Dazza]

I am back excited that maybe by my birthday on july 26 my share of elastic will be available to market though I will wait until they are a bit cent each to really sell much

That's about $4/ELC (or whatever we call it).  I would be satisfied with that.  I hope it will go higher.

[Mrboot]

I am back excited that maybe by my birthday on july 26 my share of elastic will be available to market though I will wait until they are a bit cent each to really sell much

That's about $4/ELC (or whatever we call it).  I would be satisfied with that.  I hope it will go higher.

Hey Dazza you look well known with cryptocurrency, do you have any other projects and made this account specialy for this project ?

[TheDR]

Well with the halving of bitcoin probably $6+ and sometime in 2017 meteoric rise of btc from there followed by some setback is likely. I honestly wouldn't even blink at $10000 btc price being topped by 2018 and a pullback to half that. But you never can tell...

[Mrboot]

Well with the halving of bitcoin probably $6+ and sometime in 2017 meteoric rise of btc from there followed by some setback is likely. I honestly wouldn't even blink at $10000 btc price being topped by 2018 and a pullback to half that. But you never can tell...

Your talking about bitcoin price now ?

[Dazza]

Hey Dazza you look well known with cryptocurrency, do you have any other projects and made this account specialy for this project ?

I'm not sure if you're saying you think I'm well-known in the field of cryptocurrency, or you think I know a lot about the subject.

I'm not well-known.  I have never been involved with any other open-source project of any kind.  My only other online-identities pertain to social commentary and a social group activity.  I've never commented on crypto matters here or anywhere else under a different name.

Almost everything I know about cryptography has come from Wikipedia, and Bruce Schneier's blog.  Other than that, I've read a few whitepapers, a few academic papers, and some of the online-documentation of BitCoin, and some AltCoins.

I've consistently said from the start that I'm just a guy on the internet.  That's me being honest, not modest.  That really is all I am.

[Relaxedsense]

Hi Guys, I know you are busy with coding, however I woud really like to know if it is save for me to donate to the crowdfunding using my MultiBit wallet.

Many thanks

[Dazza]

Well with the halving of bitcoin probably $6+ and sometime in 2017 meteoric rise of btc from there followed by some setback is likely. I honestly wouldn't even blink at $10000 btc price being topped by 2018 and a pullback to half that. But you never can tell...

Your talking about bitcoin price now ?

I assume he is.

I don't know what will happen to BitCoin next year or the year after.  I think it is foolish to try to predict.  I do know that the only thing that can really support a coin in the long run is a trade economy.  Everything else is hot air and tulip mania.

And that is why I've been consistent about wanting our coin to be the best, most useful coin it can possibly be for general trade.  Because my dream with this coin, is to knock BitCoin off its perch first, with Visa to follow.  The distributed computing market is a way cool idea, and I really believe in it.  But if my dream is to come true it will be only the kickstarter for something much, much bigger.

The chances of this are slim in the extreme.  I will be happy with 4$/ELC.

[TheDR]

Both I was speaking about elastic price if bitcoin was $600 and elastic commanded a bit cent. but not too long from now speaking in terms of dollars will be irrelevant for anyone into computational currency and bitcoin. Just imagine this and other projects unlocking the resources to produce Actual Intelligence to contribute to further development of itself and every other thing. Even though we are not using memristors yet and quantum computing is not household yet. There is tons of this current architecture computing laying around now enough to produce interesting abilities.

[Dazza]

Both I was speaking about elastic price if bitcoin was $600 and elastic commanded a bit cent. but not too long from now speaking in terms of dollars will be irrelevant for anyone into computational currency and bitcoin. Just imagine this and other projects unlocking the resources to produce Actual Intelligence to contribute to further development of itself and every other thing. Even though we are not using memristors yet and quantum computing is not household yet. There is tons of this current architecture computing laying around now enough to produce interesting abilities.

This is all rather vague and technobabblish to me.  I prefer to stick to what I understand and can see how to make work.

[TheDR]

I do that sometimes I know something great will come from the efforts towards projects like this. Carry On and dont panic

[Dazza]

I know something great will come from the efforts towards projects like this.

I don't know that anything great will come of this.  I hope it will.  Nobody should invest in this thinking it is a sure winner.  There is no such thing.

[icecube45]

I do that sometimes I know something great will come from the efforts towards projects like this. Carry On and dont panic

Amen! you can not underestimate the power of hard work.
My own projects would never have succeeded unless I put in the work up front.

[Dazza]

Some further thoughts.

Step 1.  Normalise each candidate's ASV by dividing by the largest ASV of any of the last N block winners.  This will not affect their rankings in any way.  From now on, when I refer to a candidate's ASV, it is the normalised value I'm talking about.

Nodes could use this normalised value to decide the timing of their block launches.  A node will not launch its block(s) if it sees a block which (a) extends the main chain (as viewed by that node) and would beat that node's own block(s), or (b) extends a side-chain and would cause the node to switch to that side-chain even if (one of) its own block(s) were to win the (current) main chain.

In fact I'm now thinking that there could be two refectory periods.  The sequence of events might be, for example:

00-30 seconds:  launch blocks
30-40 seconds:  refectory
40-50 seconds:  launch collateral PoS
50-60 seconds:  refectory

You need less time to launch the collateral PoS (is "collateral" the best word for this?  How about "subsidiary", "auxilliary", or "secondary"?), because there is no need to delay them, you are voting for your favoured chain, not your favoured block.  (But why not favoured block?  Favoured chain was just my original idea), and you don't need to see the other votes before deciding.  You do need to see the other blocks because if you see a side-chain get a strong block, you may want to switch to it, even if that means voting collaterally against your own block.

The refectory periods are there to allow the data to percolate through the network and for nodes to make their decisions.

Step 2.  Iterate through the candidates in decreasing order of ASV.  For each candidate, if the account last won more than max(M,N/ASV), or if it has never won, it wins; exit.  Otherwise multiply the ASV by the number of blocks to the last win.  Use this figure in the tiebreaker described in step 3.

Step 3.  If no candidate won during step 2, then the winner is the candidate that has won the least number of times during the last M blocks.  If there is a tie, then use the figure calculated in step 2 as a tiebreaker.

There is still a strange, though not necessarily undesirable property about this system.  Sometimes more stake can hurt an attacker.  For example, suppose the same honest accounts are staking throughout.  An attacker with N accounts each with equal balances greater than the highest-value honest stake would win every block forever (or until a non-staking account with a higher balance decided to start staking)  If these N accounts were the N highest, the attacker could permanently shut out transactions of his choice, including any transaction that might enable another account to compete.

But it would be really obvious that he was doing this.  So let's suppose that the attacker had some more funds, and randomly increased the balances of some of his accounts, then he would no longer prevent accounts he doesn't control from winning the occasional block.

I have a way to mitigate the "N equal accounts" attack, but I want to go to bed now, so I'll post it when I next have time.