[XPM] [ANN] Primecoin Prerelease Announcement - Introducing Prime Proof-of-Work

[Sunny King]

I am happy to announce that the primecoin project is now close to beta quality and will be released to public soon. Please keep in mind this is experimental technology and we reserve the rights to rollback or restart the blockchain should severe bug/vulnerability require such actions. However we would try our best to avoid such scenarios and further develop it into reliable public infrastructure.

Introducing primecoin

• First non-hashcash proof-of-work in cryptocurrency, pure prime number based proof-of-work
• Cpu mining at launch, gpu mining to be developed by market participants
• Pure proof-of-work, no proof-of-stake (unlike ppcoin), not energy efficient, but with additional potential scientific value derived from proof-of-work energy consumption (energy multiuse)
• Scarcity enforced by Moore's Law similar to ppcoin, mint rate gradually drops as difficulty rises, without sudden halving shock
• Security model similar to bitcoin
• Continuous difficulty adjustment like ppcoin
• Reasonably high starting difficulty to limit instamining
• 1 minute target block spacing
• Zero premine, zero tax

ppcoin + primecoin

• Sharing the same goal of real innovations, moving cryptocurrency technology forward and demonstrating our technical capabilities
• Sharing the same value, open source, no premine, no tax, advancing cryptocurrency technology for humanity
• Cpu mining initially for primecoin to cater to a larger mining community, now covering all mining hardwares with both ppcoin (gpu+fpga+asic) and primecoin (cpu)
• New innovations in primecoin catering to a wider audience including the mathematical and other scientific computing community, and users who prefer pure proof-of-work cryptocurrencies.
• Sharing development resources and infrastructures
• Different innovative cryptocurrency designs provide cryptocurrency investors with diversified advanced technology portfolio
• Strategic positioning for the next 5 years in cryptocurrency market

ppcoin vs primecoin

• ppcoin is our first innovative cryptocurrency design to focus on energy efficiency. Almost a year after its release ppcoin's design remains the only proof-of-stake design on the market, with seven forks/clones (NVC, BTB, YAC, BTG, BOT, CGB, YAB). primecoin is our second innovative design to focus on alternative proof-of-work system producing additional scientific values. The two networks would work in synergy to achieve our long-term cryptocurrency strategy.
• Cryptocurrency market has now split into two sectors, energy intensive sector and energy efficient sector. In the longer term (5+ years) I believe the energy efficient sector would begin to challenge the energy intensive sector due to its cost advantage. In the shorter term though energy intensive market would likely remain dominant and we would like to have an innovative and competitive offering in this sector as well. The innovations in primecoin give us this opportunity, and would complement ppcoin to strengthen our strategic position in the market.
• The energy intensive sector currently has two major types of proof-of-work, both of the hashcash type, one is SHA-256, the other is scrypt. There have been some new variations of the hash functions recently, with modified scrypt and SHA-3 series hash functions as well, or even compositions of different hash functions. Though existing cryptocurrencies are all still based on hashcash proof-of-work. primecoin introduces the first non-hashcash proof-of-work in cryptocurrency, the first type of proof-of-work that not only secures the block chain, but also provides additional potential scientific value, paving the way for future proof-of-work types with more diverse scientific interests and uses.
• Both ppcoin and primecoin demonstrate our design prowess and capability in real innovations. We are fully dedicated to provide long term support and further development to both cryptocurrencies.
• For existing ppcoin users our dedication to the continued development of ppcoin and its market has not changed. ppcoin's advanced proof-of-stake technology has long-term advantage over pure proof-of-work designs, and is an innovative environmental-friendly solution to the escalating energy consumption on cryptocurrency. In my opinion the energy intensive sector will fragment into many different types of proof-of-work, a single type of proof-of-work is unlikely to maintain dominance. More fragmentation is likely even within a single type of proof-of-work. Meanwhile the energy efficient sector would rise to challege the energy intensive sector, and ppcoin is among the leading contenders in the energy efficient sector. So in terms of our long term strategy ppcoin is of more importance than primecoin.

Release Schedule

Primecoin release is tentatively scheduled for 2013 July 7th 18:00 UTC


Update: 2013-JUL-07: Primecoin blockchain now up and running. Main discussion thread at:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=251850.0
Thanks for your support 

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[NWO]

Reserved.

[mr_random]

Reserved.

[coinerd]

If I understand correctly, this will be the second non-hashcash crypto-currency to achieve beta.

Looking forward to it.

Will you provide backwards compatibility at the daemon for existing crypto currency infrastructures?

(Similar RPC-JSON interface especially?)

[Scooby903]

Looks interesting...

[FirewallXIII]

Nice to see something that's not a carbon copy with parameters changed.

[cbeast]

• Pure proof-of-work, no proof-of-stake (unlike ppcoin), not energy efficient, but with additional potential scientific value derived from proof-of-work energy consumption (energy multiuse)

What kind of scientific value?

[SullyTex]

I'm in!

[jasonslow]

This is awesome.

[Vorksholk]

Interesting!

[Kevlar]

I'd like more information about this prime number based proof of work scheme please.

[anderl]

Interested.  I've subscribed

[thef]

Finally something different.

[Sunny King]

Maybe I have missed something new among the sea of clones, but who is the first non-hashcash proof-of-work that you are referring to?

Some API would be preserved some would be impacted, especially those mining related. Although I haven't looked into it yet the release is client wallet solo mining only.

If I understand correctly, this will be the second non-hashcash crypto-currency to achieve beta.

Looking forward to it.

Will you provide backwards compatibility at the daemon for existing crypto currency infrastructures?

(Similar RPC-JSON interface especially?)

[super3]

Looks pretty interesting. My miner is is ready. Can you have pool software / mining software ready at launch?

[Sunny King]

Design details will be available some time before release.

I'd like more information about this prime number based proof of work scheme please.

[Hazard]

Reserved

[Sunny King]

Looks pretty interesting. My miner is is ready. Can you have pool software / mining software ready at launch?

No pool software. It's up to the market to develop those later. Release will be client wallet solo mining only. No external miner.

[kimosan]

Looks good. Subscribed.

[zackclark70]

I can do a basic exchange a prize draw and a giveaway if needed