[XPM] [ANN] Primecoin Release - First Scientific Computing Cryptocurrency

[lucasjkr]

sent. don't spend it all in one place!

[cbeast]

There are probably an infinite number of primes. Really, how scientifically useful is this endeavor?

[LazyOtto]

Price Equilibrium

Please punch holes in these thoughts.
I welcome amicable disagreement.

Seems to me there is a hard price ceiling on any CPU mined coin. That ceiling is bounded by the cost of procuring Virtual MIPS (virtual machines spun up on demand through Amazon or where ever). If the cost per transient mip procured is lower than the recovery cost on the <coins> generated by those purchased mips then there is an obvious incentive to just spin up sufficient VMs to harvest the delta percentage profit.

And, this is even more so in the case of any coin which has an open ended creation quantity. If the quantity which can be mined is finite then there is some incentive to over buy VM supplied mips in the speculation that the <coins> created with those mips might be worth more in the future than the current cost of production. If infinite <coins> are possible, just spin up the VMs whenever the <coin> sell price is higher than VM rental price required to generate one.

[mustyoshi]

There are probably an infinite number of primes. Really, how scientifically useful is this endeavor?

More than computing SHA256(SHA256(x)) :s

[LazyOtto]

There are probably an infinite number of primes. Really, how scientifically useful is this endeavor?

More than computing SHA256(SHA256(x)) :s

But it was never argued that there was any intrinsic value in generating hashes. That was merely the mechanism chosen due to being computationally expensive and having a mathematically provable output for input.


IMO, the subject line of this thread is just marketing glossy paper BS. primecoin is no more "scientific" than any other numerical computation. (I welcome links to serious papers, not SK's 'Sunday Supplement' level one, which refutes that assertion.)

[96redformula]

Where did all the blocks go ?

[maxsolnc]

Where did all the blocks go ?

Seems like difficulty went up. I have 20 servers, they had near block per hour, and last several hours nothing

[paulthetafy]

Where did all the blocks go ?

Seems like difficulty went up. I have 20 servers, they had near block per hour, and last several hours nothing

+1 this is quite concerning.  I have > 100k pps running and not a single block in the last 2 hours just doesn't seem right

[KrLos]

i founded 3 bloks 1 day after release then, i keep mining since 4 days now in two computers and not a single block founded. xD i will try this weekend, if i can't reach atleast 1 block with the two machines, i'm out.

[TheSwede75]

Pretty convinced that GPU/CUDA is the name of the game soon (or already if someone has figured it out). CPU for a single server, even quad Xeon tops out around maybe 8k PPS. Theoretically a single SLI NVidia setup could yield several MILLION PPS without breaking a sweat.

[LazyOtto]

Where did all the blocks go ?

Seems like difficulty went up. I have 20 servers, they had near block per hour, and last several hours nothing

+1 this is quite concerning.  I have > 100k pps running and not a single block in the last 2 hours just doesn't seem right

With BitCoin, you would have had an assured remainder of 2048 blocks to benefit from the 'arms race' of quickly pumping up compute power above what the average miner could supply.

This seems to be working well as a demonstration of the value of a continuously adjustable difficulty.

[tacotime]

Code:

getdifficulty
7.98816758

Just about to 8.  Remember that we're on a wacky logarithmic approximately base-30 scale for difficulty, so difficulty 8 is 30x harder to find a block as compared to difficulty 7.

[Vannicke]

That's very disconcerting ... though in the past four days of mining I haven't seen any primecoin between 5 cpus, when it seems some people have gotten as much as 100 on individual units.  I hope nothing broke.

[pgbit]

Where did all the blocks go ?

Seems like difficulty went up. I have 20 servers, they had near block per hour, and last several hours nothing

+1 this is quite concerning.  I have > 100k pps running and not a single block in the last 2 hours just doesn't seem right

With BitCoin, you would have had an assured remainder of 2048 blocks to benefit from the 'arms race' of quickly pumping up compute power above what the average miner could supply.

This seems to be working well as a demonstration of the value of a continuously adjustable difficulty.

Difficulty hasnt changed much I think. It was 7.988 just now, and 7.978 just over 12 hours ago. 1 block is now being mined every few seconds.

[LazyOtto]

Difficulty hasnt changed much I think. It was 7.988 just now, and 7.978 just over 12 hours ago. 1 block is now being mined every few seconds.

Then one block is still being mined every few seconds. It is just a question of how distributed is the set of people receiving those blocks.

One of my comments on the previous page is relevant.

-- edit

As is the clearly evident attempt at market manipulation in progress on the Vircurex exchange. (I'm not watching the other exchanges, but assume that equivalent games are in progress there, also.)

[Vannicke]

Where did all the blocks go ?

Seems like difficulty went up. I have 20 servers, they had near block per hour, and last several hours nothing

+1 this is quite concerning.  I have > 100k pps running and not a single block in the last 2 hours just doesn't seem right

With BitCoin, you would have had an assured remainder of 2048 blocks to benefit from the 'arms race' of quickly pumping up compute power above what the average miner could supply.

This seems to be working well as a demonstration of the value of a continuously adjustable difficulty.

Difficulty hasnt changed much I think. It was 7.988 just now, and 7.978 just over 12 hours ago. 1 block is now being mined every few seconds.

It was 7.96 26 hours ago according to my console ... it hasn't taken that much of a jump ... 7.96 to 8 on a log scale is still only about 5-10% 15% increase.

Edit: forgot base was around 30, math corrected.

[teknohog]

There are probably an infinite number of primes. Really, how scientifically useful is this endeavor?

There are definitely an infinite number of primes. Given a set of primes, you can easily show that there must be one more prime, and so on.

This project is not about finding new primes, because new ones are too big to verify in any sensible time for a block interval.

What does "scientifically useful" mean, anyway? Is something useful only because it makes money (ahem) or is the expansion of collective knowledge enough?

BTW, if you use encryption such as https, you are using the results of prime number math.

[mustyoshi]

There are probably an infinite number of primes. Really, how scientifically useful is this endeavor?

There are definitely an infinite number of primes. Given a set of primes, you can easily show that there must be one more prime, and so on.

This project is not about finding new primes, because new ones are too big to verify in any sensible time for a block interval.

What does "scientifically useful" mean, anyway? Is something useful only because it makes money (ahem) or is the expansion of collective knowledge enough?

BTW, if you use encryption such as https, you are using the results of prime number math.

And Bitcoin's private key system is based around primes.

[LazyOtto]

is the expansion of collective knowledge enough?

No.

Any number of examples can be given where "expansion of collective knowledge" is a useless endeavor of no arguable benefit to either the individual nor mankind as a whole.

Please play again.

I.e., narrow the scope of your statement sufficiently and I might even agree with you.  

[hl5460]

Code:

getdifficulty
7.98816758

Just about to 8.  Remember that we're on a wacky logarithmic approximately base-30 scale for difficulty, so difficulty 8 is 30x harder to find a block as compared to difficulty 7.

My i5 failed to spit out anything for +72 hrs. I guess I have to check once a week from now on.