[ANN][YAC] YACoin ongoing development

[Beave162]

As long as *MINER is devoting more resources to mining than at least 50% of the rest of the network, there is nothing that can be done EXCEPT THE COMMUNITY DEVOTING MORE RESOURCES THAN *MINER, that will prevent *MINER from controlling the network. This is a universal truth for all *coin(s)  Senj's changes will not fix this, Gavin's changes will not fix this, Satoshi's changes will not fix this. The fact that many of you have now committed to no longer mine and/or stake while waiting for a wallet change that you think will fix the issue is certainly making it look like " all over red-rover" to me though.

In the words of the CREATOR of PoW/PoS, "Controlling 51% of hashing power in ppcoin network does not get you direct control of block chain". It concerns me that as a 'main developer' you don't understand the basic concept of PoW/PoS.

You are right (by luck it seems) that if you control both PoW AND PoS, then it will take sheer resources to overcome that attack.

utc.tumblingblock.com has well over 50% of the network hashrate for ultracoin, yet I can solo mine ultracoin and have little or no problem with orphans at this very moment.

I also need to explain to you a very basic concept of how mining works... If it takes more resources (energy cost) to mine a coin, than what you receive in rewards, then it really doesn't make sense to keep mining it does it? At that point, it would be make sense (more cost effective) to buy coins on an exchange. I don't have enough resources at this moment to overcome the attack, but if you understood PoS/PoW, you would know it shouldn't take a lot. I have multiple PoS inputs trying to stake (unsuccessfully) every single day.

Following your mindset but adding in the understanding of how mining works, the realistic course of events that would have to occur is for the price to drop so much that it is a) no longer profitable for the attacker to dedicate so much of his resources and/or b) the attacker misses, and realizes, the opportunity cost of mining other coins. Of course, there is the possibility that the 'malicious' miner simply will waste resources to destroy YAC or somehow believe that mining at a loss is the best course of action.

If the community as a whole is unable to gather the resources to thwart *MINER, then possible the best move at this point, is to follow YbCoin's lead and move to POS only.

In my book, you lose all intellectual credibility with this statement.

I have expanded my rigs, which means I have invested more risk and more capital, to help secure the network. I also have large inputs of PoS trying to stake every single day. Luckily, senj understands the issue.

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[Joe_Bauers]

As long as *MINER is devoting more resources to mining than at least 50% of the rest of the network, there is nothing that can be done EXCEPT THE COMMUNITY DEVOTING MORE RESOURCES THAN *MINER, that will prevent *MINER from controlling the network. This is a universal truth for all *coin(s)  Senj's changes will not fix this, Gavin's changes will not fix this, Satoshi's changes will not fix this. The fact that many of you have now committed to no longer mine and/or stake while waiting for a wallet change that you think will fix the issue is certainly making it look like " all over red-rover" to me though.

In the words of the CREATOR of PoW/PoS, "Controlling 51% of hashing power in ppcoin network does not get you direct control of block chain". It concerns me that as a 'main developer' you don't understand the basic concept of PoW/PoS.

You are right (by luck it seems) that if you control both PoW AND PoS, then it will take sheer resources to overcome that attack.

utc.tumblingblock.com has well over 50% of the network hashrate for ultracoin, yet I can solo mine ultracoin and have little or no problem with orphans at this very moment.

I also need to explain to you a very basic concept of how mining works... If it takes more resources (energy cost) to mine a coin, than what you receive in rewards, then it really doesn't make sense to keep mining it does it? At that point, it would be make sense (more cost effective) to buy coins on an exchange. I don't have enough resources at this moment to overcome the attack, but if you understood PoS/PoW, you would know it shouldn't take a lot. I have multiple PoS inputs trying to stake (unsuccessfully) every single day.

If the community as a whole is unable to gather the resources to thwart *MINER, then possible the best move at this point, is to follow YbCoin's lead and move to POS only.

In my book, you lose all intellectual credibility with this statement.

I have expanded my rigs, which means I have invested more risk and more capital, to help secure the network. I also have large inputs of PoS trying to stake every single day. Luckily, senj understands the issue.

*MINER doesn't control 50, 51, 52% of the hashing power they control enough to do whatever they want and dump for CNY on Bter. To that end.... why wouldn't they do it? The Yacoin community is composed mostly of folks such as yourself who seem to have no idea of what it actually going on and then try to bully other opinions out. You've probably already scared off a bunch of people already who could have helped the overall effort. YOU HAVE NO OPTION OF DOING THAT TO ME   Not in this realm or any other. It seems that now that times are difficult you are doing more harm than good. That's not to say that you haven't been helpful in the past, but I have more Bitcoin and time in Yacoin than you do  

If the community as a whole is unable to gather the resources to thwart *MINER, then possible the best move at this point, is to follow YbCoin's lead and move to POS only.
In my book, you lose all intellectual credibility with this statement.

In the book of reality, this is probably the best option at this point. If the community, including yourself, cannot defeat the attack that is under way, than this (POS only) is what I am going to start concentrating on. You're certainly free to create your own coin and have the dictatorship that you seem to want.

Next bullshit post from you that doesn't offer anything useful or constructive, earns you a place on my ignore list. 

[Beave162]

Reference my edit to my previous post:

Following your mindset but adding in the understanding of how mining works, the realistic course of events that would have to occur is for the price to drop so much that it is a) no longer profitable for the attacker to dedicate so much of his resources and/or b) the attacker misses, and realizes, the opportunity cost of mining other coins. Of course, there is the possibility that the 'malicious' miner simply will waste resources to destroy YAC or somehow believe that mining at a loss is the best course of action.

*MINER doesn't control 50, 51, 52% of the hashing power

What? Have you been monitoring the network hashrate at all?

they control enough to do whatever they want

What does that even mean? As Balthazar pointed out, there is no chain trust mechanism. He can build PoW block upon PoW block and keep ignoring the PoS of others. Have you looked at senj's comments?

The Yacoin community is composed mostly of folks such as yourself who seem to have no idea of what it actually going on and then try to bully other opinions out.

Who else besides me? Based on what? It's a little funny you say the 'Yacoin community' because it seems to me to be pretty much just one guy right now controlling everything (or a group who knows).

You've probably already scared off a bunch of people already who could have helped the overall effort.

Could have helped how? I'm not interesting in convincing people to waste their resources as a quick fix while ignoring the actual problems.

YOU HAVE NO OPTION OF DOING THAT TO ME  Not in this realm or any other. It seems that now that times are difficult you are doing more harm than good.

Well perhaps your priorities are changing.

That's not to say that you haven't been helpful in the past, but I have more Bitcoin and time in Yacoin than you do  

False.

In the book of reality, this is probably the best option at this point. If the community, including yourself, cannot defeat the attack that is under way, than this (POS only) is what I am going to start concentrating on. You're certainly free to create your own coin and have the dictatorship that you seem to want.

The only thing that I would 'dictate' is for you to do something or simply get out of the way. In reality, I have simply been giving my opinion. You just suggested you would dictate going to PoS and making the coin completely unspecial that way (Why invest YAC over YBC at that point?). I think any person with any semblance of intelligence would understand who more wants a dictatorship.

Next bullshit post from you that doesn't offer anything useful or constructive, earns you a place on my ignore list.  

Nothing more than a comment that reveals your maturity level.

[senj]

I think both of you bring up valid points (insults excluded).

Price dropping until it is unprofitable to mine certainly sounds promising. But I see no large volume on Cryptsy or BTER since he took over. As long as he sits on so much mining power, he is able to control network.

And all the folks who quit mining now, made it possible for him to drop hashrate to just above 50%, which raised reward, made him richer and consequently he grows more in PoS power.

I am mining full time with 100% loss and intend to keep doing it. Unfortunately I only have a tiny portion of hashpower.

I haven't checked what happens to transactions now, but having them included in blocks can be considered an act of mercy.

What is happening here is not exploitation of chaintrust vulnerability  - issue that Balthazar warned about (that renders whole system unusable anyway). This is simple resource domination.

Transition to PoS only would mean throwing away main yacoin feature. I would not have any incentive to participate in development afterwards. I am in only because of scrypt-jane. Perhaps if we can combine that ...

But I also think there is a high possibility that yacoin is being run in the ground right now.
I am surprised how easily one person/group can destroy a crypto with pure mining power.

[Groko]

This is crazy talk. Even someone with over 50% can't generate bogus transactions. But he can reverse them for a short period of time. A SHORT period of time. And what's the difference between a PoS attack and a PoW attack? Nothing. Neither is better or worse then the other. PoW miners have "stake" also. After all, they are paying for the hashing power aren't they? And the coins they are getting need to be worth something don't they? YACoin was always intended to be a CPU coin. Now that it has become a CPU coin we want to change it? That's nuts!

[old c coder]

I think both of you bring up valid points (insults excluded).

I agree, Senj,

Price dropping until it is unprofitable to mine certainly sounds promising. But I see no large volume on Cryptsy or BTER since he took over. As long as he sits on so much mining power, he is able to control network.

And all the folks who quit mining now, made it possible for him to drop hashrate to just above 50%, which raised reward, made him richer and consequently he grows more in PoS power.

I am mining full time with 100% loss and intend to keep doing it. Unfortunately I only have a tiny portion of hashpower.

I haven't checked what happens to transactions now, but having them included in blocks can be considered an act of mercy.

What is happening here is not exploitation of chaintrust vulnerability  - issue that Balthazar warned about (that renders whole system unusable anyway). This is simple resource domination.

Transition to PoS only would mean throwing away main yacoin feature. I would not have any incentive to participate in development afterwards. I am in only because of scrypt-jane. Perhaps if we can combine that ...

I was wondering if there could be a way to nudge/bribe/incentivize/... PoW miners to include PoS blocks that aren't theirs, into their chain?  Somehow? Perhaps shortening the PoW reward delay period some amount for each PoS block that ain't from his/her IP address?  Or some trickery like that??

But I also think there is a high possibility that yacoin is being run in the ground right now.
I am surprised how easily one person/group can destroy a crypto with pure mining power.

Ron

[Joe_Bauers]

Nothing more than a comment that reveals your maturity level.

Actually, THIS reveals my maturity level... but thanks for playing




Anyway, I am not going to make/pull ANY changes, unless there is a consensus, so don't be too worried about my posts. I am annoyed like all of you about the current situation. We should ask Cryptsy and Bter especially to de-list Yacoin until this is resolved.  

[Joe_Bauers]

YACoin was always intended to be a CPU coin. Now that it has become a CPU coin we want to change it? That's nuts!

That's actually the problem. After the last NFactor change, (as you mentioned) Yacoin is for the most part a CPU only coin now. A huge majority of the network was POW mining using GPU's before that, which was a disaster waiting to happen.  Someone is currently using a botnet or something similar to make a lot of BTC trading YAC for CNY on Bter. They seem to have had this calculated and ready way before we moved to NF 17, so bully for them I suppose.
So yes, whatever change we implement to fix this issue will have to take into account that, going forward, Yacoin is essentially a CPU only coin.

[senj]

This is crazy talk. Even someone with over 50% can't generate bogus transactions. But he can reverse them for a short period of time. A SHORT period of time. ...

It's not about creating bogus transactions. Whoever mines all blocks can opt to exclude all transactions (except coinbase/coinstake). He has the power to stop people transacting.

... PoW miners have "stake" also. After all, they are paying for the hashing power aren't they? And the coins they are getting need to be worth something don't they? YACoin was always intended to be a CPU coin. Now that it has become a CPU coin we want to change it? That's nuts!

And what about 49% of honest PoW miners, who do not get their block excepted? We are paying for hashing power, and getting 0 coins. Yacoin was all about fair distribution. Nothing fair now.

Now that it has become a CPU coin we want to change it? That's nuts!

It has become privately mined CPU coin. All earnings go to one person/group. Not a single PoS block in a chain yesterday.

...I was wondering if there could be a way to nudge/bribe/incentivize/... PoW miners to include PoS blocks that aren't theirs, into their chain?  Somehow? Perhaps shortening the PoW reward delay period some amount for each PoS block that ain't from his/her IP address?  Or some trickery like that??

There is.

... We should ask Cryptsy and Bter especially to de-list Yacoin until this is resolved.  

Agreed 100%. I would even sugest temporary network shutdown until this is fixed.

...Someone is currently using a botnet or something similar to make a lot of BTC trading YAC for CNY on Bter. They seem to have had this calculated and ready way before we moved to NF 17, so bully for them I suppose.

That is actually very positive information. I did not check YAC/CNY and thought attacker is hoarding.
Can we be sure it is him/they who sells?

[birdvox]

If you are to make a fork, then increasing the block reward proportional with difficulty will solve your problems.
Right now it's impossible to get hashpower, unless the price somehow went to the moon. Otherwise as soon as difficulty raises it is totally unprofitable to mine this coin.

[Beave162]

... We should ask Cryptsy and Bter especially to de-list Yacoin until this is resolved.  

Agreed 100%. I would even sugest temporary network shutdown until this is fixed.

Disagree 100%

The answer to centralized manipulation with resources is NOT centralized manipulation WITHOUT resources.

I literally just finalized an offer to sell a house so that I can expand my mining operation to stabilize the network--I'm not joking. I expect to have 30 khash/s worth of hashing power in the next month or two, which still won't be enough.

I don't like to drop capital on what will be the best currency when there are thoughts of getting rid of PoW or thoughts of "shutting down the network" or thoughts of removing YAC from exchanges in the spirit of price control, destroying volume.

What we have is an arms race where one entity has a nuclear bomb while the rest of us have rocks and sticks. We need more rocks and sticks! By 'we' I guess I mean people who have reputations and who can be contacted through bitcointalk, forum.yacoin.org, yacointalk.grokonet.com. I will help anyone personally with setting up their rigs, but it would be nice for the the guy who owns yacoin.org and has the github for the next wallet release to partake in the joys of mining--perhaps that will change his perspective Anyone, please ask any questions about solo mining, or mining in general, in forum.yacoin.org. You will find a lot of helpful posts there already.

Once we have taken back the network, it seems we can fix the issue of PoS being ignored? (I thought that was a 'chaintrust' issue, but I guess not--confused). But a fix is meaningless if 'we' don't control the network, right? Btw, in case people didn't know, YBC wasn't even forked into PoS. The YBCoin powers that be controlled the main exchange, which allowed people to exchange the old scrypt-chacha PoS/PoW YBC coins for the completely new PoS only coins up to a certain date. They also convinced Cryptsy to switch over. I tried to fight to keep the old YBC on Cryptsy but to no avail   I haven't attempted it recently, but I imagine one could still mine the old scrypt-chacha YBCoin.

EDIT: Apparently, Cryptsy just simply removed YBCoin.

This is crazy talk. Even someone with over 50% can't generate bogus transactions. But he can reverse them for a short period of time. A SHORT period of time. ...

It's not about creating bogus transactions. Whoever mines all blocks can opt to exclude all transactions (except coinbase/coinstake). He has the power to stop people transacting.

What? How? If that were true, I'm pretty sure Cryptsy wouldn't have their YAC wallet up and running. If it is true, I'm not so sure that is completely a bad thing anyway. Perhaps the whole purpose is for this guy to scam bter.com and sell coins that don't actually stay in the blockchain. I'm on his side at that point. BTER.com STOLE $5000 worth of coins from me. Real life.

[alenevaa]

... We should ask Cryptsy and Bter especially to de-list Yacoin until this is resolved.  

Agreed 100%. I would even sugest temporary network shutdown until this is fixed.

Disagree 200%!  Delisting can bring YACoin down to death!

I expect to have 30 khash/s worth of hashing power in the next month or two, which still won't be enough.

Beave you are real man!

I think we need at least 100 kH/s combined power just to try to take back the network.
And with 150-200 kH/s we can definitely win!

[caston]

I think we need some kind of crazy new hardware. Crossbar tech or memristor for example.

I noticed the Yacoin.org page doesn't encourage much investor confidence right now... If you really want to put a warning up at least keep the links to the forum and block explorer.

 I originally suggested a coin that gets more memory hard over time as a concept sometime before Yacoin was developed.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=61888.0

To beat the botnet we need some crazy new tech. Perhaps something like this? http://www.crossbar-inc.com/products/3d-rram/

So Beave don't sell your house... I would suggest crowd sourcing the money required to buy some high end tech for mining very memory hardcoins and then selling mining shares.

[senj]

The answer to centralized manipulation with resources is NOT centralized manipulation WITHOUT resources.

This is not something I would like to do. But it might become the only way to save yacoin if situation gets worse.

I literally just finalized an offer to sell a house so that I can expand my mining operation to stabilize the network--I'm not joking. I expect to have 30 khash/s worth of hashing power in the next month or two, which still won't be enough.

I told that to my woman, so she will go easier on me now.

What we have is an arms race where one entity has a nuclear bomb while the rest of us have rocks and sticks. We need more rocks and sticks! ...

Current chain "caretaker" mines approximately million YAC every ten 10 days. If he doesn't sell, he might gather enough funds in next couple of months to compete with higher (pure) PoW hashrate by later also minting PoS blocks and consequently raising his chain's trust.

Once we have taken back the network, it seems we can fix the issue of PoS being ignored? (I thought that was a 'chaintrust' issue, but I guess not--confused). But a fix is meaningless if 'we' don't control the network, right?

Correct - by all means honest branch should have more trust with PoS blocks included already.
But if an attacker can generate longer PoW-only chain, that one wins.
Chaintrust fix in development will mostly address issue Balthazar exposed. But fix for ignoring PoS blocks issue will make it harder/impossible for attacker to create longer PoW-only chain.


I have a pretty good feeling about what is happening now:

We build PoW+PoS+PoW chain with a trust of 10+11+20=41 for example.
Minutes later attacker broadcasts PoW+PoW+PoW+PoW+PoW (10+10+10+10+10=50) and kicks our blocks out.

But the real problem is that PoW difficulty in our branch get's adjusted towards 2 minute spacing when PoS block arives. On the other hand, attacker's blocks are stil one minute apart, so he is mining on lower difficulty, has more time and is able to overtake us eventually (before our POW difficulty readjusts back). It might be that in addition to having more hashing power.
Just one more thing to consider while refactoring GetBlockTrust method.

This is crazy talk. Even someone with over 50% can't generate bogus transactions. But he can reverse them for a short period of time. A SHORT period of time. ...

It's not about creating bogus transactions. Whoever mines all blocks can opt to exclude all transactions (except coinbase/coinstake). He has the power to stop people transacting.

What? How? If that were true, I'm pretty sure Cryptsy wouldn't have their YAC wallet up and running. If it is true, I'm not so sure that is completely a bad thing anyway. Perhaps the whole purpose is for this guy to scam bter.com and sell coins that don't actually stay in the blockchain. I'm on his side at that point. BTER.com STOLE $5000 worth of coins from me. Real life.

Every transaction sent must be eventually included in a block by a miner (PoS or PoW miner).
If there is only one miner, he decides which transactions land in the chain. Small change in code and any or all optional (not coinbase or coinstake) transactions can be left out.
This is extremely ungrateful situation, but if everything mined now get's directed towards exchanges, he, she or they must let transactions through (not all though).

If for some reason this would stop, we can conclude there is malevolence behind and attacker does not really care for any loss incured due transaction system "halt".
In that case we should temporary shutdown and possibly restart from past point to alleviate attacker's influence over large currency supply portion later.

...
I think we need at least 100 kH/s combined power just to try to take back the network.
And with 150-200 kH/s we can definitely win!

I think we need some kind of crazy new hardware. Crossbar tech or memristor for example.
...

We need to fix yacoin. If that goes well, we will get more attention and miners.

[NineEleven]

I think we can manage the hasrate if we try harder

If you all wanna try to ghet the network back by overpower the hasrate
count me in 

I mine solo whit 7khs

and i have a public pool running also

so let do it ?

[Joe_Bauers]

What we have is an arms race where one entity has a nuclear bomb while the rest of us have rocks and sticks. We need more rocks and sticks!

Finally you're starting to make sense.

[Beave162]

I think we can manage the hasrate if we try harder

If you all wanna try to ghet the network back by overpower the hasrate
count me in  

I mine solo whit 7khs

and i have a public pool running also

so let do it ?

I'm at full steam ahead at the moment: 7 khash/s on the pool and 6 khash/s solo. My solo wallet is staking like a mother as well. I think we have control at the moment but that will surely change tonight per the usual routine.

[Joe_Bauers]

I think we can manage the hasrate if we try harder

If you all wanna try to ghet the network back by overpower the hasrate
count me in 

I mine solo whit 7khs

and i have a public pool running also

so let do it ?

What is your pool address again? I will put it on the website and tweet it out as well. You'll need to (hopefully) be ready for any high volume that comes in. Also, probably getting ddosed.

[Beave162]

What we have is an arms race where one entity has a nuclear bomb while the rest of us have rocks and sticks. We need more rocks and sticks!

Finally you're starting to make sense.

I could have said you were right after your first comment on the matter--but that wouldn't have been fun. 

[caston]

If we can't get some new bleeding edge state of the art mining tech for memory hard calculations then the quick and dirty solution is to reset the N factor back to 1 and have a big relaunch and invite all the GPU miners back in.

Additionally you may decide to reset PoS payments to 1% a year but make them increase with N. e.g. when N factor gets 5 PoS is 5% again N = 6 then PoS = 6% etc

Hopefully by the time we get back to our current N factor (which would take a couple of years) then the technology to mine at the higher N factors will exist.

My third suggestion is that while we upgrade the security of our PoS tech we also change the payout intervals from three montly to weekly.

Will GPU miners mine a coin with 60 million already in existence?

They will if it is profitable.

The difficulty will probably have to be increased.