[ANN] official NovaCoin thread - the original PoS+scrypt coin.

[Balthazar]

https://github.com/CryptoManiac/novacoin/commit/c0e8991ed1b482d0dab75f86e415fc63d1104d68

Cache scrypt hashes on disk
instead of recalculating every time. This policy is able to give us 10-20x startng speed up. User can disable caching with -fastindex=0 option.

Note that this commit makes blockindex code incompatible with old blockchain database files. You need to remove old blockchain files and syncronize with the network again.

Another changes:

1. Stake pooled keys are removed.

Happy new year, guys and ladies!

P.S. Builds will be published tomorrow.

[Balthazar]

NovaCoin 0.4.4.6 client update builds, some testing wold be helpful.

Linux x86_64 static: http://sourceforge.net/projects/novacoin/files/novacoin-0.4.4.6.ubuntu-lts-x86_64.tar.bz2/download
Win32 static: http://sourceforge.net/projects/novacoin/files/novacoin-0.4.4.6-nosetup-win32.zip/download

Please check README file before running.

// Testing branch builds will be published later.

[penek]

P.S. я вoт тyт пoдyмaл -- cчacтливчикy, нaшeдшeмy пepвый блoк в нoвoм гoдy (пo UTC) нaдo бы пoдapoк cдeлaть пpимepнo тaк в paзмepe нaгpaды...

(I thought here - the lucky who found the first block in the new year (UTC) ought to do something like a gift in the amount of reward ...)

that's lucky

gift will be send soon...


UPdate:

prize + gift

[nov]

Wanted to find out, would you be interested in MultiCoin wallet?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=394311.0

[doromcc666]

Wanted to find out, would you be interested in MultiCoin wallet?
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=394311.0

multicoin wallet will be nice

[Balthazar]

Maybe, but such idea seems quite unreal to implement. I suppose that author won't be able to follow the protocol updates and bug fixes in 10+ chains.

[Mike270]

Hm... Actually I have it:

₪:

Ups, I took that for Digitalcoin :-)
Ok, waiting for a suitable PoS :-)

[Balthazar]

Ups, I took that for Digitalcoin :-)

There is nothing new... PHS has the same address version with NVC script addresses, for example 

https://github.com/CryptoManiac/novacoin/commit/fc462f579d392011645c7fabcfc10ec45ca44bb5#commitcomment-3885423

[Balthazar]

NovaCoin 0.4.4.6 client update builds, some testing wold be helpful.

Linux x86_64 static: http://sourceforge.net/projects/novacoin/files/novacoin-0.4.4.6.ubuntu-lts-x86_64.tar.bz2/download
Win32 static: http://sourceforge.net/projects/novacoin/files/novacoin-0.4.4.6-nosetup-win32.zip/download

Please check README file before running.

Windows 64 bit installer: http://sourceforge.net/projects/novacoin/files/novacoin-setup-win32-amd64-0.4.4.6.exe/download
Windows 32 bit installer: http://sourceforge.net/projects/novacoin/files/novacoin-setup-win32-0.4.4.6.exe/download

[Balthazar]

Serious issue was found with 0.4.4.6 installation packages, those installers could function improperly on some systems. So, installation packages were replaced with corrected ones.

---

64-bit installer replaced, sha1 sum of the correct file is 8a8eac4c2abd70e94520014dfe67faa63945e2c3
32-bit installer replaced, sha1 sum of the correct file is ae600c0df9f5367787ff1ba9a401e3858005ee70

You can verify sha1sum of your file using QuickHash utility:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/quickhash/

If you have downloaded a new installation package recently then it's highly recommended to check your client version (see Help -> Debug window). If it's 0.4.4.6 then you can ignore this message, otherwise you need to download a corrected package and install it as usual.

P.S. Don't forget to remove the old blockchain database files while upgrading to 0.4.4.6 version.

---

Advice #1: Always back up your wallet.dat to make sure that your money are safe.
Advice #2: Always use encrypted containers for your backups. For any sensitive data, not only wallet.dat.

[Balthazar]

http://explorer.novaco.in users by browser and by country:

Code:

Top 15 of 222 Total User Agents
#	Hits	User Agent
1	62545	19.32%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
2	61628	19.04%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
3	57201	17.67%	Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux x86_64) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
4	48401	14.95%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/30.0.0.0 Safari/537.36
5	28987	8.96%	Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux i686) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
6	18123	5.60%	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0
7	17017	5.26%	Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
8	12306	3.80%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0
9	7687	2.37%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
10	2014	0.62%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.2; WOW64; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0
11	1389	0.43%	Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_8_5) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
12	1045	0.32%	Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
13	795	0.25%	Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 5.1) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16
14	538	0.17%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/31.0.1650.63 Safari/537.36
15	342	0.11%	Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:26.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/26.0

Code:

Top 30 of 52 Total Countries
#	Hits	Files	KBytes	Country
1	138629	42.83%	134474	42.74%	76534	34.95%	Russian Federation
2	87004	26.88%	82530	26.23%	61533	28.10%	United States of America
3	76377	23.60%	76188	24.22%	43239	19.74%	Anonymous proxy
4	19915	6.15%	19875	6.32%	15949	7.28%	Unresolved/Unknown
5	534	0.16%	372	0.12%	5937	2.71%	Ukraine
6	252	0.08%	252	0.08%	231	0.11%	Estonia
7	122	0.04%	122	0.04%	657	0.30%	Netherlands
8	83	0.03%	83	0.03%	1860	0.85%	Poland
9	56	0.02%	53	0.02%	411	0.19%	Hungary
10	54	0.02%	52	0.02%	711	0.32%	Bulgaria
11	49	0.02%	46	0.01%	496	0.23%	Canada
12	37	0.01%	37	0.01%	2225	1.02%	France
13	33	0.01%	13	0.00%	192	0.09%	Thailand
14	31	0.01%	31	0.01%	509	0.23%	British Indian Ocean Territory
15	29	0.01%	26	0.01%	397	0.18%	Mexico
16	28	0.01%	26	0.01%	496	0.23%	Brazil
17	25	0.01%	23	0.01%	177	0.08%	Argentina
18	23	0.01%	23	0.01%	145	0.07%	India
19	23	0.01%	23	0.01%	134	0.06%	Turks and Caicos Islands
20	21	0.01%	21	0.01%	328	0.15%	Austria
21	21	0.01%	19	0.01%	407	0.19%	Australia
22	21	0.01%	21	0.01%	204	0.09%	Tuvalu
23	21	0.01%	21	0.01%	73	0.03%	South Africa
24	20	0.01%	18	0.01%	187	0.09%	Belarus
25	20	0.01%	20	0.01%	213	0.10%	Lithuania
26	20	0.01%	19	0.01%	207	0.09%	Portugal
27	18	0.01%	18	0.01%	2427	1.11%	Belgium
28	17	0.01%	15	0.00%	130	0.06%	Italy
29	15	0.00%	14	0.00%	186	0.08%	Czech Republic
30	15	0.00%	15	0.00%	241	0.11%	Ireland

[Balthazar]

At the moment it's possible to see "invalid checkpoint found" warning. There is an issue, which caused by new client database behaviour. We are currently investigating this situation. 

[Balthazar]

Attention to all users of novacoin.

Chain fork happened due to fee calculation issue with block #65873. The following short FAQ should be helpful in order to resolve this problem.

-------

Q: I've got an alert message from my Novacoin client. Is this right thread?

A: Yes, that's right thread.

Q: What's happened?

A: Some clients has this block rejected while the most part of nodes accepted that without any problem. That's caused a chain fork which couldn't be resolved automatically.

Q: What should I do?

A: You need to install 0.4.4.5 or 0.4.4.6 update, these versions are not affected by this issue.

Q: Why I'm getting runaway exception while trying to start 0.4.4.6 client?

A: That's normal, it's happened because 0.4.4.6 update makes blockindex code incompatible with previous versions. You need to remove old blockchain files and resyncronize with a rest of the network.

Q: How to remove the old blockchain database files?

A: You need to remove everything except wallet.dat from your client data directory. Data directory is located at

Windows Vista/7/8/2008 Server: C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\NovaCoin
Windows 2000/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<UserName>\Application Data\NovaCoin
Linux/*BSD: ~/.novacoin

Q: Where I can find update packages or source code?

A: Binary updates could be downloaded here. Source code is available at github.

Q: Is there any affected versions list?

A: All clients with protocolversion value lower than 60010 are affected by this issue. You can check your protocolversion value using getinfo command. If you are using a binary builds prior 0.4.4.5 then it's necessary to apply update.

Q: How to shut up this alert message?

A: You can apply 0.4.4.6 update and warning will disappear. You can also ignore it or wait until alert will be cancelled.

Q: Is there any list of unaffected resources?

A: It's confirmed that novacoin.ru/novacoin.su/explorer.novaco.in, nvc.khore.org, coinpool.ru, virpool.com and btc-e.com are on the right chain.

[Slipknot79]

>1. If you are getting the "invalid checkpoint found"

I am getting a "chain fork issue", "please check an official bitcointalk thread".

Am I right here?

[Balthazar]

Hi Slipknot79, that's correct.  

It's a notification, which was sent as a warning. Please verify your syncronization status and install update if it's necessary. Or just install an update without checking.

[Balthazar]

Frequently asked questions list created in #981 message of this thread.
Mac OS X update is added.

[Heymdale]

I had 15 more coins in old branch 
People, let's use the old branche! We not need new features! All exchanges must use NovaOldcoins! Viva la Revolucion!

[Balthazar]

Heymdale

How you got this 15 coins in the wrong chain?   BTC-e follows the right chain originally. There is no PoS or PoW difficulty drop happened, so the most pools and holders did the same... Maybe somebody sent you this coins and then spent it again in the right chain? Like somebody did against OKPay at the spring...

Of course you are free to choose but the fork is happened due to bug in the old clients, not because of any feature. By following fork you are following a buggy version.

Wrong chain contains 20 blocks since #65873, while the right chain has 370 blocks length and 520 blocks maturity window will be reached tomorrow. I really can't see the reason why this 370 valid blocks should be wasted in order to restore 20 invalid blocks from the wrong chain.

P.S. PM sent.


OK I understood, it was funny, thanks for joke.

=============

Proof-of-stake difficulty 0.1 is finally reached!

http://explorer.novaco.in/block/d61c82b5743aa05968bb111029efbe1ee076f70eaff6b26c76c3df93a74ebd68



Congratulations to all of us

[Balthazar]

Changes planned for 0.4.4.8:

• Separate databases for private keys and transactions, instead of wallet.dat;
• Moving the public data to separate folder (e.g. move blockchain database to AppData\Local\Novacoin on Windows);
• Switching to UTXO storage (similar to used in the Bitcoin, but with extended metadata) instead of the current full transaction logs approach;
• Switching to deterministic keys, and possibly withdrawal of the keypool approach;
• Withdrawal of the Berkeley DB support (LevelDB is used by default for a long time).

This changes will be implemented in the 0.4.4.7 testing branch, the 0.4.4.7 binaries will be rebuilt and published sometimes, just for testing purposes.

Parts of this functionality are already available for testing.

[yonillasky]

I have a question/proposal regarding the PoS minting process.

After some cursory analysis, I have realized that the rate in which PoS blocks are generated implies a certain upper bound on how many different chunks of coin there can be, before the relatively smaller ones would start taking more than 90 days on average to hit the PoS "jackpot".

This is a bit of a problem as it means getting into NVC and enjoying a roughly equal footing requires a certain coin amount, which limits the rate of adoption for this coin. I haven't done exact calculations, but it seems that it may start being a significant problem for wallets with around 10**-5 of total NVC (so ~5 NVC right now). It might become a non trivial amount if NVC were to appreciate in monetary value. It limits us to a few thousand users that could use PoS to full effectiveness, right?

Am I missing something here?

If not, fixes that come to mind are,

1) faster blocks (a pretty huge change that may be out of the question for an established coin)
2) somehow have multiple PoS minting transactions per block, though keeping the interest generated the same as it is now.

I am not aware of the low-level/implementation details of PoS minting so I don't know if (2) is a reasonable option either

Just an idea