Terracoin is ALLIIIIIVEEEE

[SRoulette]

We are not sure what happened with Terracoin but all we can say it was not handled great.  
No warning to services using it, just a webpage update, not even a forum thread for discussing the issue and helping others resolve it.

So our current status as of updating is: no transactions are confirming - despite using the latest git tree.

Who writes terracoin ?, is there a thread for this discussion already ?

[1714967587]

1714967587

[meebs]

We are not sure what happened with Terracoin but all we can say it was not handled great. 
No warning to services using it, just a webpage update, not even a forum thread for discussing the issue and helping others resolve it.

So our current status as of updating is: no transactions are confirming - despite using the latest git tree.

Who writes terracoin ?, is there a thread for this discussion already ?

The price was high enough that it was stupid profitable for a very short time.. some ASIC people point their guns at it and blow up the difficulty to 165k.. now it is only 55% as profitable as BTC to mine.

[SRoulette]

The issue as we understand it (and there is not much information being released from the Terracoin dev):

TRC is unrecoverable without ASIC assistance.

[spacegoat]

it went back online I thought I have been transferring TRC easily

[LouReed]

I'd like to know what's up with it too. It's trading on BTCe right now for .0143 BTC, which is crazy!

[iamrickrock]

You need to upgrade to the new client.


The announcement was made here: http://terracoin.org/news/

Windows binaries are found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/terracoin/

[Smoovious]

The issue as we understand it (and there is not much information being released from the Terracoin dev):

TRC is unrecoverable without ASIC assistance.

Well, that's exaggerating it a tad...

It'll take a long time until next retarget, sure, but hardly "unrecoverable"...

-- Smoov

[BaghdadSteve]

You need to upgrade to the new client.


The announcement was made here: http://terracoin.org/news/

Windows binaries are found here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/terracoin/

Even with the new client lots of people are having problems.

[SRoulette]

we are on the latest client and have not seen a tx confirm for over 24 hours.

All it will take next time is for 4-8 asics to mine for 2 days and this will happen all over again. 
How long will users support an altcoin that is taken offline this easily ?

[CoinHoarder]

we are on the latest client and have not seen a tx confirm for over 24 hours.

All it will take next time is for 4-8 asics to mine for 2 days and this will happen all over again. 
How long will users support an altcoin that is taken offline this easily ?

Yeah, that's definitely a problem. Perhaps something needs to be altered in the way it calculates and the rate at which TRC difficulty is changed.

[lumberjack]

Based on what I've read, they did implement something that was supposed to help vs ASIC bombing. However, someone apparently hit the pool yesterday until the rolling average was blown sky high, then left. The average calculation wound up swinging hard the other direction once the blocks started moving again, driving the difficulty down to 3 or lower for a short while. It's now on the rebound again, and has risen to a point where no new blocks have been found with the current hashrate of the network.


EDIT: blockchain at present. http://www.cryptocoinexplorer.com:3750/chain/Terracoin?count=32

[celkaris]

We are not sure what happened with Terracoin but all we can say it was not handled great. 
No warning to services using it, just a webpage update, not even a forum thread for discussing the issue and helping others resolve it.

So our current status as of updating is: no transactions are confirming - despite using the latest git tree.

Who writes terracoin ?, is there a thread for this discussion already ?

active services operators, and interested users joined the mailing lists, where this was announced (both users and announce lists)... (if not ... they should if they really care)

quote from terracoin-announce ml :

Subject:     [Terracoin-announce] build 0.1.3-29 available

Hi,

Urgent, mandatory build is now available on our github repository,
windows builds were uploaded to sourceforge.

This update will bring back a shorter period used in difficulty
computation, until a better algorithm is implemented, making the network
resilient to the huge hashrate spikes we recently saw.

changelog: [urgent] dirty difficulty computation update
- switching to a shorter averaging period.
 - should provide faster diff adjustments, while keeping *4 cap.
 - mandatory at block 101908 (chain should again be 'stucked' then,
   seeing current hashrate growth)

windows download link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/terracoin/files/SatoshiClone/terracoin-0.1.3-29-win32.zip/download

Sorry for the two consecutive mandatory updates.


--
TRC.

This message was less detailed than previous messages, because of the 'emergency' aspect i guess, but it was announced...

[Deprived]

Noone (or very few people) knows who the devs are - they only correspond through a few sock-puppets/spammers.

Why would they want other people to do transactions?  Better for them if they're the only ones able to dump into the pump on BTC-E. Expect some sort of message along the lines of "oops - we gave you all the wrong client" once the pump/dump is over.

That's the risk you take when you buy into a clone of BTC that lacks the network power and where the devs are too embarassed to even show themselves here.

[hiddenvalleyranch]

I'm stuck on block 101606

[celkaris]

I'm stuck on block 101606

we all are in 4 blocks the diff should fall again (block 101610 if i'm right), and give us a chance to see the changes included in the last client

i guess diff will fall incredibly low during those ~ 300 blocks ...

[Impaler]

Boy, kids these days go no patience, over at FRC we had to wait 2 months for our difficulty to come down. 

[crazy_rabbit]

Well there is a mailing list where all important updates come up pretty fast, and the DEV is on the issue tracker at github, and responds very quickly. He even has is email address listed in response to Sunny Kings exploit discovery, so if in an emergency you could contact via email.

That said I agree, it could have been handled a bit different. At one point though we supposedly had the equivalent of 6% of the BTC network hashing TRC, I think when the dev and others imagined the difficulty "going to the moon" we never thought anywhere near that high. Hence getting the difficulty to settle in any reasonable amount of time became a challenge. The Dev realizes the difficulty of having two mandatory updates one right after another and apologised. Right now it's a temporary fix while a better solution to the difficulty problem has to be found. If ASIC's were to stay on the chain we would be fine, it's figuring how to deal with gpu's one minute, super computers the next, and back to GPU's.

So, growing pains. None of us thrilled about it unfortunately. That said, the price is holding steady on BTC-E, so people still believe (I still do). It's an alt chain, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more then a few bumps along the way.

Anyway, the mailing list will keep anyone up to date though.

[SRoulette]

We are not sure what happened with Terracoin but all we can say it was not handled great. 
No warning to services using it, just a webpage update, not even a forum thread for discussing the issue and helping others resolve it.

So our current status as of updating is: no transactions are confirming - despite using the latest git tree.

Who writes terracoin ?, is there a thread for this discussion already ?

active services operators, and interested users joined the mailing lists, where this was announced (both users and announce lists)... (if not ... they should if they really care)

quote from terracoin-announce ml :

Subject:     [Terracoin-announce] build 0.1.3-29 available

Hi,

Urgent, mandatory build is now available on our github repository,
windows builds were uploaded to sourceforge.

This update will bring back a shorter period used in difficulty
computation, until a better algorithm is implemented, making the network
resilient to the huge hashrate spikes we recently saw.

changelog: [urgent] dirty difficulty computation update
- switching to a shorter averaging period.
 - should provide faster diff adjustments, while keeping *4 cap.
 - mandatory at block 101908 (chain should again be 'stucked' then,
   seeing current hashrate growth)

windows download link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/terracoin/files/SatoshiClone/terracoin-0.1.3-29-win32.zip/download

Sorry for the two consecutive mandatory updates.


--
TRC.

This message was less detailed than previous messages, because of the 'emergency' aspect i guess, but it was announced...

Thanks we were unaware of the mailing list, we shall be subscribing shortly.

Boy, kids these days go no patience, over at FRC we had to wait 2 months for our difficulty to come down. 

Ouch that would have been a hard ride to endure for many.

Well there is a mailing list where all important updates come up pretty fast, and the DEV is on the issue tracker at github, and responds very quickly. He even has is email address listed in response to Sunny Kings exploit discovery, so if in an emergency you could contact via email.

That said I agree, it could have been handled a bit different. At one point though we supposedly had the equivalent of 6% of the BTC network hashing TRC, I think when the dev and others imagined the difficulty "going to the moon" we never thought anywhere near that high. Hence getting the difficulty to settle in any reasonable amount of time became a challenge. The Dev realizes the difficulty of having two mandatory updates one right after another and apologised. Right now it's a temporary fix while a better solution to the difficulty problem has to be found. If ASIC's were to stay on the chain we would be fine, it's figuring how to deal with gpu's one minute, super computers the next, and back to GPU's.

So, growing pains. None of us thrilled about it unfortunately. That said, the price is holding steady on BTC-E, so people still believe (I still do). It's an alt chain, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more then a few bumps along the way.

Anyway, the mailing list will keep anyone up to date though.

Thanks for the update, as mentioned about we will be subscribing to the mailing list. 

There does need to be some sort of presence on the forums for new altcoins, a PR figure if you will.
Many altcoins have their coders doubling up as the PR contact ie Sunny King for PPC and Balthazar for NVC. Their presence and willingness to discuss issues as they happen reassure the users.

Lets hope TRC recovers soon and survives the next attack better.

[crazy_rabbit]

We are not sure what happened with Terracoin but all we can say it was not handled great. 
No warning to services using it, just a webpage update, not even a forum thread for discussing the issue and helping others resolve it.

So our current status as of updating is: no transactions are confirming - despite using the latest git tree.

Who writes terracoin ?, is there a thread for this discussion already ?

active services operators, and interested users joined the mailing lists, where this was announced (both users and announce lists)... (if not ... they should if they really care)

quote from terracoin-announce ml :

Subject:     [Terracoin-announce] build 0.1.3-29 available

Hi,

Urgent, mandatory build is now available on our github repository,
windows builds were uploaded to sourceforge.

This update will bring back a shorter period used in difficulty
computation, until a better algorithm is implemented, making the network
resilient to the huge hashrate spikes we recently saw.

changelog: [urgent] dirty difficulty computation update
- switching to a shorter averaging period.
 - should provide faster diff adjustments, while keeping *4 cap.
 - mandatory at block 101908 (chain should again be 'stucked' then,
   seeing current hashrate growth)

windows download link:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/terracoin/files/SatoshiClone/terracoin-0.1.3-29-win32.zip/download

Sorry for the two consecutive mandatory updates.


--
TRC.

This message was less detailed than previous messages, because of the 'emergency' aspect i guess, but it was announced...

Thanks we were unaware of the mailing list, we shall be subscribing shortly.

Boy, kids these days go no patience, over at FRC we had to wait 2 months for our difficulty to come down. 

Ouch that would have been a hard ride to endure for many.

Well there is a mailing list where all important updates come up pretty fast, and the DEV is on the issue tracker at github, and responds very quickly. He even has is email address listed in response to Sunny Kings exploit discovery, so if in an emergency you could contact via email.

That said I agree, it could have been handled a bit different. At one point though we supposedly had the equivalent of 6% of the BTC network hashing TRC, I think when the dev and others imagined the difficulty "going to the moon" we never thought anywhere near that high. Hence getting the difficulty to settle in any reasonable amount of time became a challenge. The Dev realizes the difficulty of having two mandatory updates one right after another and apologised. Right now it's a temporary fix while a better solution to the difficulty problem has to be found. If ASIC's were to stay on the chain we would be fine, it's figuring how to deal with gpu's one minute, super computers the next, and back to GPU's.

So, growing pains. None of us thrilled about it unfortunately. That said, the price is holding steady on BTC-E, so people still believe (I still do). It's an alt chain, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect more then a few bumps along the way.

Anyway, the mailing list will keep anyone up to date though.

Thanks for the update, as mentioned about we will be subscribing to the mailing list. 

There does need to be some sort of presence on the forums for new altcoins, a PR figure if you will.
Many altcoins have their coders doubling up as the PR contact ie Sunny King for PPC and Balthazar for NVC. Their presence and willingness to discuss issues as they happen reassure the users.

Lets hope TRC recovers soon and survives the next attack better.

I agree, although I wouldn't count this as an attack. More like, "victim of it's own success" with massive GPU miners and ASIC miners decided to get a big purse of coins in a short amount of time and then decide to go back to bitcoin, leaving us with the diff.

The DEV is on the github issue tracker, although it's true a presence here would be nice (I think the DEV is lurking though, I have my suspicions about who he is). That said, PPC and LTC are lucky to have Sunny King and Coblee. No one wants a DEV that can't resist the urge to descend into a Troll fest a-la SolidCoin......

In anycase, the Dev is working on it. There should be a way to find a compromise between preventing a collapse of the diff from ASIC's while simultaneously allowing the DIFF to drop within a reasonable time frame after the huge miners get off.

Of course another solution would be if the price jumps and ASICS just stay on it. :-)

[BaronMcG]

While i do support terracoin i think the issue of someone poining asics at the network and thrus forcing up the difficulty of a reletively new coin shows a major flaw in most alt-coin designs - using the same algorythm as bitcoin, imho any alt coin that wants to stand the test of time and actually be taken seriously is going to need a difference algo - take litecoin as the perfect example, different algo and it's followed the same mining evolution as bitcoin.

First CPU, now GPU - next someone will develope an FPGA and eventually it will probably go ASIC - this is how it should be. it shouldnt run the risk of being killed off in a matter of days because someone pointed a high end mining device at it.

The lesson i think that should be learned is that now ASIC's are out there, if you want a serious alt-coin then dont use the same algo as someone else.