First (and best) altcoin ever: Tonal Bitcoin (TBC)

[Luke-Jr]

So it occurred to me that TBC doesn't have a forum thread here yet...

I created this altcoin in January 2011 immediately after discovering Bitcoin.
While many altcoins have been created since, none come close to TBC's ideal design:

• Shares the same blockchain as BTC, so benefits from the full security and difficulty backing the Bitcoin blockchain.
• Mined together with BTC - unlike ordinary merged mining, you don't get BTC plus TBC, just one or the other at your choice.
• Completely compatible with all Bitcoin addresses: if you send BTC to a TBC client's address, it will automatically get converted and vice-versa.

The main, and only unique, feature of TBC is being based on the innovative Tonal number system.
What Bitcoin aims to do for currency, Tonal aims to do for numbers in general.

Instead of counting: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, etc...
In tonal, you would count: an, de, ti, go, su, by, ra, me, ni, ko, hu, vy, la, po, fy, ton, ton-an, etc...

That is, it is a radix 8 × 2 system, similar to hexadecimal.
Because humans naturally perform binary operations (try cutting your next pizza into 5 or 10 slices!), once you get past the learning curve, this power-of-two radix is easier and more powerful to work with.
Why not just use hexadecimal?

• Ambiguity: "I have a fish!" - is that 1 or 8 × 2?
• Tonal is actually older! Hexadecimal was invented in 1954, while Tonal goes back to 1862.
• Hexadecimal is only used or specified for integers, whereas Tonal already defines all sorts of everyday units including lengths, time, capacity, weight, power, gold/silver coinage, calendar, temperature, and even postage stamps and music!
• Tonal also has defined pronunciations for large numbers, while hexadecimal must be read digit-by-digit.

1 TBC is defined as 1,0000 (tonal) satoshis - that is, 0.00065536 BTC.
This amount was chosen for a number of reasons, including being nicely at four-tonal-places precision (standard for tonal) and balanced with the total number of Bitcoins if it were to achieve worldwide adoption (that is, there would be enough TBCs that everyone could reasonably have some).

Other handy units and their equivalents:

Abbreviation	Pronunciation	TBC	BTC
	tam-bitcoin	1 0000 0000	2 814 749.767 106 56
ᵇTBC	bong-bitcoin	1 0000	42.949 672 96
ᵐTBC	mill-bitcoin	1000	2.684 354 56
ˢTBC	san-bitcoin	100	0.167 772 16
ᵗTBC	ton-bitcoin	10	0.010 485 76
TBC	bitcoin	1	0.000 655 36
TBCᵗ	bitcoin-ton	0.1	0.000 040 96
TBCˢ	bitcoin-san	0.01	0.000 002 56
TBCᵐ	bitcoin-mill	0.001	0.000 000 16
TBCᵇ	bitcoin-bong	0.0001	0.000 000 01

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[garumaru]

Sha256?

[jcpham]

my favorite alt-coin!

[Luke-Jr]

Sha256?

Yes, it's extra-merged mined.
Don't even need to do anything special, just have your bitcoin mining pay to an address of a TBC wallet.

[Boxman90]

So this is not really an altcoin but just an alternative client for mining exactly the same, with the only difference a different base-system for numbering the amount of coins... The only thing different is the display in the client then, right?

[CIYAM]

So I wasted my time studying "atonal" music at uni then?

[Luke-Jr]

So this is not really an altcoin but just an alternative client for mining exactly the same, with the only difference a different base-system for numbering the amount of coins... The only thing different is the display in the client then, right?

It really is an altcoin, though your understanding of the nature of it is correct.
One does not need to do things the wrong way (making a separate blockchain for no reason) to make an altcoin.

[lazydna]

So this is not really an altcoin but just an alternative client for mining exactly the same, with the only difference a different base-system for numbering the amount of coins... The only thing different is the display in the client then, right?

It really is an altcoin, though your understanding of the nature of it is correct.
One does not need to do things the wrong way (making a separate blockchain for no reason) to make an altcoin.

So why would miners adopt tbc if it really has no benefit or innovation over btc?

[deslok]

So this is not really an altcoin but just an alternative client for mining exactly the same, with the only difference a different base-system for numbering the amount of coins... The only thing different is the display in the client then, right?

It really is an altcoin, though your understanding of the nature of it is correct.
One does not need to do things the wrong way (making a separate blockchain for no reason) to make an altcoin.

So why would miners adopt tbc if it really has no benefit or innovation over btc?

Unless they for some reason think tonal numbers are superior to decimal numbers?(and have some odd hatred for the more conventional hexadecimal system) they wouldn't.

[Luke-Jr]

So this is not really an altcoin but just an alternative client for mining exactly the same, with the only difference a different base-system for numbering the amount of coins... The only thing different is the display in the client then, right?

It really is an altcoin, though your understanding of the nature of it is correct.
One does not need to do things the wrong way (making a separate blockchain for no reason) to make an altcoin.

So why would miners adopt tbc ...

They don't have to. TBC uses the same blockchain as BTC, so both benefit from the same mining work.
That is, TBC miners benefit BTC, and BTC miners benefit TBC.

...if it really has no benefit or innovation over btc?

It does, as explained in the OP.

[lazydna]

So this is not really an altcoin but just an alternative client for mining exactly the same, with the only difference a different base-system for numbering the amount of coins... The only thing different is the display in the client then, right?

It really is an altcoin, though your understanding of the nature of it is correct.
One does not need to do things the wrong way (making a separate blockchain for no reason) to make an altcoin.

So why would miners adopt tbc ...

They don't have to. TBC uses the same blockchain as BTC, so both benefit from the same mining work.
That is, TBC miners benefit BTC, and BTC miners benefit TBC.

...if it really has no benefit or innovation over btc?

It does, as explained in the OP.

From my understanding, there is no benefit aside from saying a = b so mine a or b and its the same thing. So again, why mine tbc if it's the same as btc? If I'm mining btc already, what tangible benefit is there to switching to tbc or vice versa?

[Luke-Jr]

From my understanding, there is no benefit aside from saying a = b so mine a or b and its the same thing. So again, why mine tbc if it's the same as btc? If I'm mining btc already, what tangible benefit is there to switching to tbc or vice versa?

Cryptocurrencies don't exist for miners. Miners exist for cryptocurrencies.

I think it's perfectly reasonable to say nobody will just switch from BTC to TBC.
Rather, the switch would be entirely from decimal/metric to tonal (when interacting with others also making the switch).
Then you get the benefits of tonal being easier to work with universally.

[Mhash pipe]

Cryptocurrencies don't exist for miners. Miners exist for cryptocurrencies.

QFT

[TheSwede75]

From what I can understand (and am likely totally wrong about) this isn't so much an alt coin as it is an alternative parallel transaction system based on the factors as BitCoin. Still not 100% on WHY but.. well, it's not another fly by night altcoin so I love it instantly.

[daytrader420]

This is merged mining? Like NMC?

[Luke-Jr]

This is merged mining? Like NMC?

With NMC merged mining, you get BTC and NMC, while helping both with identical work.
With TBC extra-merged mining, you get BTC or TBC, while helping both with identical work.

[Hazard]

This isn't an altcoin. It's just a different display metric for bitcoin.

[procrypto]

So why would miners adopt tbc if it really has no benefit or innovation over btc?

Cryptocurrencies don't exist for miners. Miners exist for cryptocurrencies.

[Matthew N. Wright]

Could you explain for a dummy what benefit to someone already using BTC using TBC would give?

[Dayne]

TL;DR: You can divide amounts into fractions much easier with a base 16 system. But base 12 works just as well.

-

Honestly, people. Is it that hard to read the damn OP or google Tonal System if you don't understand it?

OP is right, it is an AltCoin.

But the posters saying it's not an "altcoin" but rather an alternate display system for the client (using base 16) are also right.

The benefits of this are somewhat negligible, unless you really like base 16. I like it cause it's like an AltBitCoin rather than an AltCoin, or as OP put it, it's an AltCoin that uses "extra-merged" mining.

Though I would prefer hexadecimal any day. It's MUCH easier to get used to  "012345689ABCDEF" rather than some kooky "An,  de,  ti,  go,  su,  by,  ra,  me,  ni,  ko,  hu,  vy,  la,  po,  fy,  ton."

And they are the exact same numbering system, both are base 16 systems. They just use different sounds for the numbers.

Having said that, a base 16 system for this currency would be HUGELY beneficial, given the fractional nature of it.