[ANN] 'foo' and 'bar' coins--a "how-to" guide for cut+paste cryptocurrency

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

How long roughly should this take to build from start to finish?

On your first time give yourself a day off and have plenty of breaks and always get the testnet up and running, a lot of developers do not do that.

After a few coins, you should be able to make one and release it within 60 minutes.

Wow thanks, I might have to  give this a go. I have already messed around with some of the previous guides over the last few months but this one looks comprehensive. I want to create a game that uses Cryptocurrency so this might be a good opportunity to create a coin specific to the project.

[CaptChadd]

How long roughly should this take to build from start to finish?

On your first time give yourself a day off and have plenty of breaks and always get the testnet up and running, a lot of developers do not do that.

After a few coins, you should be able to make one and release it within 60 minutes.

Wow thanks, I might have to  give this a go. I have already messed around with some of the previous guides over the last few months but this one looks comprehensive. I want to create a game that uses Cryptocurrency so this might be a good opportunity to create a coin specific to the project.

Are you going to compile it under Windows? It is easier than you think once you have the right deps with it.

What I do, is brainstorm the kind of coin I want, it short term and then long term goals and also how you would like others to perceive it. And always keep on top of even the smallest problems and fix it as fast as you can, miners with have loads more faith in a coin if they know it has an active dev team.

As soon as you know the name of the coin, register yourcoin.org and @yourcoin on Twitter and then off you go.

[The_Catman]

Further information regarding foocoin (et al.) will be posted here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=359000

If you wish to discuss things do so there, I will not be actively monitoring this thread.

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

I am new to Linux and I am having issues with the intial stage of the "first build".

First Build
Now that you have a fresh copy with all of your cut and pasting uploaded to Github, we're ready to build a copy of our command line only version of the coin:

Code:

 barcoin% cd src/
 barcoin/src% make -f makefile.osx USE_UPNP=- (or makefile.unix if you're on Linux/BSD/etc)

My test coin is called owenprescott, so I am typing in this to the terminal...

Code:

 owenprescott% cd src/
 owenprescott/src% make -f makefile.unix USE_UPNP=-

The terminal returns a "command not found" or "no such file or directory". The root folder is located on my desktop, what am I doing wrong? Obviously I have renamed everything etc, it seems I am not properly targeting the root. 

[The_Catman]

Just to be clear, "owenprescott/src% " isn't part of the command.

If you already knew that, then you need to make sure you have 'make' installed, i'm pretty sure it's part of 'build-essentials' on most distributions.

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

Just to be clear, "owenprescott/src% " isn't part of the command.

If you already knew that, then you need to make sure you have 'make' installed, i'm pretty sure it's part of 'build-essentials' on most distributions.

Oh that makes sense, I already installed the build essentials back when I installed Linux (Ubuntu) and it seems to be installed after performing a "checkinstall". I just tried this code:

Code:

make -f makefile.osx USE_UPNP=-

(all on one CMD line)

It returns, "*** No rule to make target 'markefile.unix'. Stop.". Oh well, I will figure it out eventually. 

[The_Catman]

Just to be clear, "owenprescott/src% " isn't part of the command.

If you already knew that, then you need to make sure you have 'make' installed, i'm pretty sure it's part of 'build-essentials' on most distributions.

Oh that makes sense, I already installed the build essentials back when I installed Linux (Ubuntu) and it seems to be installed after performing a "checkinstall". I just tried this code:

Code:

make -f makefile.osx USE_UPNP=-

(all on one CMD line)

It returns, "*** No rule to make target 'markefile.unix'. Stop.". Oh well, I will figure it out eventually. 

also, if you're using ubuntu that should be makefile.unix, not .osx.

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

Just to be clear, "owenprescott/src% " isn't part of the command.

If you already knew that, then you need to make sure you have 'make' installed, i'm pretty sure it's part of 'build-essentials' on most distributions.

Oh that makes sense, I already installed the build essentials back when I installed Linux (Ubuntu) and it seems to be installed after performing a "checkinstall". I just tried this code:

Code:

make -f makefile.osx USE_UPNP=-

(all on one CMD line)

It returns, "*** No rule to make target 'markefile.unix'. Stop.". Oh well, I will figure it out eventually. 

also, if you're using ubuntu that should be makefile.unix, not .osx.

Woops, the .unix extension is what I have been using lol.

Here is a copy of the terminal if anyone is able to check it out textuploader.com/1syy, perhaps I can find some videos on YouTube. Sorry for bumping this thread with my issues its just very frustrating getting stuck at this point.

[The_Catman]

Woops, the .unix extension is what I have been using lol.

Here is a copy of the terminal if anyone is able to check it out textuploader.com/1syy, perhaps I can find some videos on YouTube. Sorry for bumping this thread with my issues its just very frustrating getting stuck at this point.

You don't appear to be in the src directory of any coin, you need to cd into that directory before you can make it. if you type 'll' you should get a list of all directories in your home and one will probably stick out as the coin, you'll need to 'cd coinname/src' before running the make command.

If it's not there you've probably messed something up pretty bad and should try again from the beginning.

[uMMcQxCWELNzkt]

Woops, the .unix extension is what I have been using lol.

Here is a copy of the terminal if anyone is able to check it out textuploader.com/1syy, perhaps I can find some videos on YouTube. Sorry for bumping this thread with my issues its just very frustrating getting stuck at this point.

You don't appear to be in the src directory of any coin, you need to cd into that directory before you can make it. if you type 'll' you should get a list of all directories in your home and one will probably stick out as the coin, you'll need to 'cd coinname/src' before running the make command.

If it's not there you've probably messed something up pretty bad and should try again from the beginning.

Oh I just opened the terminal from the menu, I will try it out tomorrow. I'm curious how I might integrate the coin into my game.

[epixam]

I've been looking through the Litecoin source code, and I am interested in possibly creating an alt-coin, but I wouldn't want it to be a cookie cutter coin.

I have a few ideas for implementation that would involve changes to the block-chain database information as well as changes to the data sent and received from miners for security and anonymity purposes. My biggest problem at this point is the fact that the documentation is not well commented, and it's a bit tough to follow. (also I have not actively coded in C++ in 5+ year)

Does anyone have a good reference with detailed explanations or is there a different crypto that has better documented source code?  At this rate it will take me quite a bit of time to just identify the areas that will need to be modified.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[TribalBob]

I've been looking through the Litecoin source code, and I am interested in possibly creating an alt-coin, but I wouldn't want it to be a cookie cutter coin.

I have a few ideas for implementation that would involve changes to the block-chain database information as well as changes to the data sent and received from miners for security and anonymity purposes. My biggest problem at this point is the fact that the documentation is not well commented, and it's a bit tough to follow. (also I have not actively coded in C++ in 5+ year)

Does anyone have a good reference with detailed explanations or is there a different crypto that has better documented source code?  At this rate it will take me quite a bit of time to just identify the areas that will need to be modified.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This guide tells you exactly what to change and where to change it right down to the filename and line number... Not sure what it is you are looking for...

[epixam]

I've been looking through the Litecoin source code, and I am interested in possibly creating an alt-coin, but I wouldn't want it to be a cookie cutter coin.

I have a few ideas for implementation that would involve changes to the block-chain database information as well as changes to the data sent and received from miners for security and anonymity purposes. My biggest problem at this point is the fact that the documentation is not well commented, and it's a bit tough to follow. (also I have not actively coded in C++ in 5+ year)

Does anyone have a good reference with detailed explanations or is there a different crypto that has better documented source code?  At this rate it will take me quite a bit of time to just identify the areas that will need to be modified.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

This guide tells you exactly what to change and where to change it right down to the filename and line number... Not sure what it is you are looking for...

The guide gives good detailed information about changing information like block generation times, total number of coins and generating a more or less "cookie cutter" crypto currency based on the scrypt algorithm.  What I'm thinking of doing is altering the block-chain database with addition information, changing the way coins are distributed, changing the algorithms for mining as well as how mining is done, and removing the hard cap on total coins and replacing it with some small form of adjusted inflation.  

EDIT:  With the help of cinnamon_carter, I have figured out how/where to adjust block reward for inflation.  For anyone check out "int64 static GetBlockValue(int nHeight, int64 nFees)" of main.cpp. I have not yet determined if it will conflict with anything else.

What I intend to do is quite invasive in comparison to what this guide explains.  I was hoping to cut down on research time by having a discussion with someone who has done extensive work modifying the source code.

[igl00]

really nice thread

[scrypty]

Thanks shakezula
This is a truly awesome guide and a wonderful contribution to the cryptocoin community - excited to read through it and try some test run implementations.

Love your work! You are a rockstar, sir!

[Bram]

If you think the number of new coins coming out now is bad, wait a week or two.
Going to be a mad house.

[Wilhelm]

CopyPasteCoin 

[Bram]

I followed the steps, but got stuck in the end.
When starting the demons to connect to the other computer, I keep getting "could not connect to server" and it errors out.

These are two VM's with their own distinct IP addresses.

What am I missing?

Thanks in advance

[scrypty]

Hi shakezula
I can't find the github foocoin repository.
https://github.com/foocoin/foocoin

What should we use instead, or where can we find it?

Brain gears turning slowly - I'm guessing we just use barcoin. Could somebody confirm the obvious for me..... and for others just as slow.

 

[Cryddit]

The nice thing about this guide is that it's applicable to nearly any bitcoin-descended cryptocurrency source code.  You don't need the foocoin or barcoin or even Litecoin sources to start with this.  The line numbers won't match, but the features involved in the files you need to edit are the same across a wide variety of sources.  You can download the Bitcoin sources directly to get a known quantity with all the latest bugfixes, or the MEC sources to get some cool extensions, or the Doge sources for ... um, sorry.  I guess there's no reason to do that after all.