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

[arnuschky]

So I find Primecoin very intereseting. As far as I understand, the work of proof works as follows(I read the paper): I have to find a prime chain with a certain length (9.93 at the moment) and the prime origin has to be divied by the hash of the last block. So my question is: For me as miner wouldn't it be the easiest way to find chains of the length of 9.95 all the time and save them persisetent and then just buy a lot of RAM to put the list in there and then just test to find the right divident to the last hash? Wouldn't that be much faster than try to find new prime chains all the time?

In theory it works. In practice it will not be useful because you would need to generate at least 2^256 (or maybe 2^240 after heavy optimizations) header hashes to find one that is reusable. It works, but you won't be able to find a block this way in 10000 years.

No, I don't wanted to find a hash that matches. I wanted to find a lot of chains with the sufficient length and than just check, if there is prime origin of a chain that can be dividet by the given hash. 

I always wondered the exact same thing. Question is: how many 9-chains are there?

[porcupine87]

I always wondered the exact same thing. Question is: how many 9-chains are there?

I would guess infinite But like already pointed out. When the difficulty raises the 9-chains are worthless.

that does work neither.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=87147097827283387491814940739178353533964145353273967578241214417087984945505448916205980486400+divided+by+31847690383992637018076344290348582925915863984630344106427592361057663457100
You get a remainder of 15041030773099237554117129289223520172513247948977130670708248520342605621500

Ah, you are right and I missed the decimal point when I did the division.

Primecoin actually uses a special block header hash which is different from the "block hash". It's not normally displayed anywhere.

The block header hash of block 200 000 is:
0xc4cb2d790a4edf8a9e11615b22b1c45eb0688c793a1d07a6464704750f6d9448 = 89012302118294945913527852560669227610448148164408794304935511321715883742280

And that does divide the prime origin:
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=87147097827283387491814940739178353533964145353273967578241214417087984945505448916205980486400+divided+by+89012302118294945913527852560669227610448148164408794304935511321715883742280

Thank you, but somehow not really satisfying. And you don't just making that number up?

I looked now a little bit into the source code. And I thought - cool - I can just make my own miner by changing the existing miner. But now after a few hours of searching and looking around I realise it is impossible to build a working binary out of the source code. I mean impossible for a normalo. I read this one here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=149479.0
-> crazy. Everything seems to be easy but not building out of the source...

[hawas]

@porcupine87

We can make some calculations
let's see, I don't know the hash size, but say it is 256 bits, i.e. ~10^25 possible numbers.
You need aprox. 100 bytes to store a prime origin, so if you have 100TB of space, you can store up to 10^12 chains, disregarding how many years you need to find them, we will assume you already have them stored for now.

Now the chance that you have a good chain for a particular block(hash) is 10^12/10^25 = 10^-13
That's it, you will hit a suitable one every 10 trillion blocks!

Now on the time needed to calculate those chains, well if you somehow manage to get 1 million chains/day, you will need 1 million days, ~3000 years.

So, well...

[SpeedDemon13]

Thanks for your support in our prerelease thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=245953.0)

Primecoin will be released shortly.

http://primecoin.org

Design paper published today at
http://ppcoin.org/static/primecoin-paper.pdf

Source code will be available at:
https://github.com/primecoin/primecoin

Official Build (Windows + Linux, primecoind & primecoin-qt) will be available at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/primecoin/files/

Release Time is 2013 July 7, 18:00 UTC

Update:

Windows and linux builds have been released.
Source code uploaded.

Blockchain is now up and running.

Mining with Qt: debug window -> console -> type 'setgenerate true' or 'setgenerate true <thread-limit>'

I'm having an issue with "No block source available" with the wallet. It's been running fine for a month running it. How do I fix this issue?

[Trillium]

I'm having an issue with "No block source available" with the wallet. It's been running fine for a month running it. How do I fix this issue?

Installed any 3rd party security or network management software lately?

Check Windows firewall exception exists for the relevent .exe's in their current location. These can sometime be reset with windows updates or if the file location changes (although Windows Firewall itself would suggest that these problems should not occur, they can..).

And,

Q: How do I solve a problem with the client not being able to synchronize or connect to any nodes?
A: Try adding this line to your primecoin.conf file:
Code:

seednode=primeseed.muuttuja.org


Also check that your firewall allows outgoing connections to other nodes. You may also allow incoming connections if you want. The default port used by Primecoin is 9911 (TCP).

Alternatively to above, open console and copy/paste this command, press enter afterwards

Code:

addnode primeseed.muuttuja.org add

[SpeedDemon13]

I'm having an issue with "No block source available" with the wallet. It's been running fine for a month running it. How do I fix this issue?

Installed any 3rd party security or network management software lately?

Check Windows firewall exception exists for the relevent .exe's in their current location. These can sometime be reset with windows updates or if the file location changes (although Windows Firewall itself would suggest that these problems should not occur, they can..).

And,

Q: How do I solve a problem with the client not being able to synchronize or connect to any nodes?
A: Try adding this line to your primecoin.conf file:
Code:

seednode=primeseed.muuttuja.org


Also check that your firewall allows outgoing connections to other nodes. You may also allow incoming connections if you want. The default port used by Primecoin is 9911 (TCP).

Alternatively to above, open console and copy/paste this command, press enter afterwards

Code:

addnode primeseed.muuttuja.org add

Do I still need a conf file even if I'm mining on ypool? If yes, how does the setup look like? I usually do a conf if I'm solo mining.

[porcupine87]

@porcupine87

We can make some calculations
let's see, I don't know the hash size, but say it is 256 bits, i.e. ~10^25 possible numbers.
You need aprox. 100 bytes to store a prime origin, so if you have 100TB of space, you can store up to 10^12 chains, disregarding how many years you need to find them, we will assume you already have them stored for now.

Now the chance that you have a good chain for a particular block(hash) is 10^12/10^25 = 10^-13
That's it, you will hit a suitable one every 10 trillion blocks!

Now on the time needed to calculate those chains, well if you somehow manage to get 1 million chains/day, you will need 1 million days, ~3000 years.

So, well...

Ah I think I get it now. So when you try to find a chain, you start with the hash. Let's assume the hash is 100. So then you try 200 as prime origin. If it doesn't work, you try 300. Or maybe you start with 234*100. You always start with a prime origin which can be divided by the hash.

Because now I did some calculations, too. My fallacy was that I thought there are so many big numbers which can be divided by the hash. But now I realize, it is only every 2^256th number. And that is not much...

Ok, thank you guys But that is good news for me, because if I was right this would be a problem.

[mikaelh]

Do I still need a conf file even if I'm mining on ypool? If yes, how does the setup look like? I usually do a conf if I'm solo mining.

Well, you only need to get your wallet connected once and the issue should be fixed. Typing the addnode command in the debugging console should be easier.

[mikaelh]

Ah I think I get it now. So when you try to find a chain, you start with the hash. Let's assume the hash is 100. So then you try 200 as prime origin. If it doesn't work, you try 300. Or maybe you start with 234*100. You always start with a prime origin which can be divided by the hash.

Because now I did some calculations, too. My fallacy was that I thought there are so many big numbers which can be divided by the hash. But now I realize, it is only every 2^256th number. And that is not much...

Ok, thank you guys But that is good news for me, because if I was right this would be a problem.

Actually, there is still a small loophole. It's possible to discovered a prime chain such that the origin has lots of factors in it. Sunny has outlined the idea in the v0.2 protocol proposal:
http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=453.0

It's not really realistic but the protocol is still getting tightened up in the future.

[SlyWax]

Ah I think I get it now. So when you try to find a chain, you start with the hash. Let's assume the hash is 100. So then you try 200 as prime origin. If it doesn't work, you try 300. Or maybe you start with 234*100. You always start with a prime origin which can be divided by the hash.

Because now I did some calculations, too. My fallacy was that I thought there are so many big numbers which can be divided by the hash. But now I realize, it is only every 2^256th number. And that is not much...

Ok, thank you guys But that is good news for me, because if I was right this would be a problem.

Actually, there is still a small loophole. It's possible to discovered a prime chain such that the origin has lots of factors in it. Sunny has outlined the idea in the v0.2 protocol proposal:
http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=453.0

It's not really realistic but the protocol is still getting tightened up in the future.

How come a prime chain origin be divisible by any number (except 1 and itself) since it's a prime number ?
What did I get wrong ?

[mikaelh]

How come a prime chain origin be divisible by any number (except 1 and itself) since it's a prime number ?
What did I get wrong ?

The origin is defined as the number next to the first prime in the chain (either -1 or +1 depending on chain type). In the case Primecoin, the primes are always odd, which means that the origin is even and thus is not a prime.

[haightst]

Thanks for your support in our prerelease thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=245953.0)

Primecoin will be released shortly.

http://primecoin.org

Design paper published today at
http://ppcoin.org/static/primecoin-paper.pdf

Source code will be available at:
https://github.com/primecoin/primecoin

Official Build (Windows + Linux, primecoind & primecoin-qt) will be available at:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/primecoin/files/

Release Time is 2013 July 7, 18:00 UTC

Update:

Windows and linux builds have been released.
Source code uploaded.

Blockchain is now up and running.

Mining with Qt: debug window -> console -> type 'setgenerate true' or 'setgenerate true <thread-limit>'

this one looks like it has potential...

[soulmann]

Hi

I mine primecoin on VPS Ubuntu 13.04. But I see the error



 sometimes and the mining stops. Is there any script to restart the miner automatically?

I use xolokram's miner v0.6 RC3

Thank you

[C. Bergmann]

Hi,

out of curiosity I looked in primecointalk and found this information:

Yeah big time  

http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm

We now own the records for 13-primes, 12-primes, 11-primes and 10-primes

I like the idea to use mining for scientific issues. Can you explain to me, what the records mean?

My hypothesis is -- no, I don't have a hypothesis. Looking on http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm#history I found out there are several records for prime numbers, but primecoin is far away from the records with 17425170 digits. But there are several categories regarding to k. Is k the number of primes?

thanks

[mikaelh]

Hi,

out of curiosity I looked in primecointalk and found this information:

Yeah big time  

http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm

We now own the records for 13-primes, 12-primes, 11-primes and 10-primes

I like the idea to use mining for scientific issues. Can you explain to me, what the records mean?

My hypothesis is -- no, I don't have a hypothesis. Looking on http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm#history I found out there are several records for prime numbers, but primecoin is far away from the records with 17425170 digits. But there are several categories regarding to k. Is k the number of primes?

thanks

Simultaneous primes refers to a cluster of primes that are somehow connected to each other. 'k' is the number of primes in the cluster. Longer primes (in terms of how many digits you would need to write it down) are harder to find and are considered better. The first category where k=1 is equivalent to the largest known prime which is a Mersenne prime with a whopping 17425170 digits.

Primecoin is trying to find Cunningham chains. The primes in a Cunningham chain of the first kind follow the pattern:

n - 1
2n - 1
4n - 1
8n - 1
...
2^i * n - 1

As you can see all the primes are connected to 'n' which is called the origin. A Cunningham chain of the second kind looks like this:

n + 1
2n + 1
4n + 1
8n + 1
...
2^i * n + 1

Primecoin is looking for chains that are at least 9 primes long (so k >= 9). The current mining algorithm is producing numbers that are about 300-bits long which is about 90 digits. The origin is always a multiple of the block header hash which is 256 bits long. This hash is then multiplied by a few small prime numbers and a multiplier produced by our sieve algorithm. The miner can occasionally try using big multipliers which may result in a new record if the numbers are primes.

[porcupine87]

Hi,

out of curiosity I looked in primecointalk and found this information:

Yeah big time  

http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm

We now own the records for 13-primes, 12-primes, 11-primes and 10-primes

I like the idea to use mining for scientific issues. Can you explain to me, what the records mean?

My hypothesis is -- no, I don't have a hypothesis. Looking on http://users.cybercity.dk/~dsl522332/math/simultprime.htm#history I found out there are several records for prime numbers, but primecoin is far away from the records with 17425170 digits. But there are several categories regarding to k. Is k the number of primes?

thanks

Simultaneous primes refers to a cluster of primes that are somehow connected to each other. 'k' is the number of primes in the cluster. Longer primes (in terms of how many digits you would need to write it down) are harder to find and are considered better. The first category where k=1 is equivalent to the largest known prime which is a Mersenne prime with a whopping 17425170 digits.

Primecoin is trying to find Cunningham chains. The primes in a Cunningham chain of the first kind follow the pattern:

n - 1
2n - 1
4n - 1
8n - 1
...
2^i * n - 1

As you can see all the primes are connected to 'n' which is called the origin. A Cunningham chain of the second kind looks like this:

n + 1
2n + 1
4n + 1
8n + 1
...
2^i * n + 1

Just to be once in this forum a smart ass
For Cunningham 1 either:
p2 = 2*p1 -1
p3 = 2*p2 -1
p4 = 2*p3 -1
German Wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham-Kette

or:
p2 = 2*p1 +1
p3 = 4*p1 +3
p4 = 8*p1 +7
English Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cunningham_chain

It is both the same.
p1=11
p2 = 2*11+1 = 2*11+1 = 23
p3 = 4*11 +3 = 2*23+1 = 47
p4 = 8*11 +7 = 2*47+1 = 95
-> 95 is no prime, so the chain is the length 3.

To get the decimal you take the Fermat Test(look up on Wikipedia): 2^94 mod 95 = 54
So you take (95-54)/(95) = 0.43

-> So the Chain has the length 3.43. The current difficulty to reach is 9.94something.

Primecoin is looking for chains that are at least 9 primes long (so k >= 9). The current mining algorithm is producing numbers that are about 300-bits long which is about 90 digits. The origin is always a multiple of the block header hash which is 256 bits long. This hash is then multiplied by a few small prime numbers and a multiplier produced by our sieve algorithm. The miner can occasionally try using big multipliers which may result in a new record if the numbers are primes.

Ah interesting. Sorry I'm not very good in c++ neither can I just simply change the code, compile and then find out. So in the miner you just multiply the block header (which is different to the showed hash in the explorer which is very confusing) which different primes? So the CSieveOfEratosthenes tries just to find this multipliers?

Sorry, I don't want to disturb u all the time. Are there somewhere more informations to the code?

[Distribution]

I've been trying to learn a little about prime coin and how to participate, but it's just been difficult. Many of the sites don't work. And when I try to use mining software, it either gets quarantined by my anti virus (jhprimeminer) or I can't tell if it's working. For example, I tried mining on Rpool with the miner they recommend, and I get this:

Code:

********************************************
*** Xolominer - Primecoin Pool Miner v0.6 RC2
*** by xolokram/TB - www.beeeeer.org - glhf
***
*** thx to Sunny King & mikaelh
*** press CTRL+C to exit
********************************************
usage: current maximum supported number of th

********************************************
*** running time: 0.000hrs
***
*** valid: 0    (0.000%)
*** rejects: 0  (0.000%)
*** stale: 0    (0.000%)
********************************************

C:\Users\user>

I assume this means it's not working. Is there something I can do in this specific case? Or is there an easier way for me to do it?

[C. Bergmann]

Thanks for the explanation. Love your project! I hope it will be the start for something big, like monte-carlo-simulations via mining.

[satriani]

after breaking diffucult 10 at Primecoin will we see quick move diff at 10,5 like it was earlier at 8 and 9 ?

[mhps]

after breaking diffucult 10 at Primecoin will we see quick move diff at 10,5 like it was earlier at 8 and 9 ?

Yes. For a certain length the difficulty is tracks how fast new blocks are found, which is proportional to the probability of finding a new block. After an integer difficulty level is reached, the probability change is more or less inversely proportional to that of the network calculation power. For example if the network finds 10 chains twice as fast as the difficulty=10 point is reached, the difficulty increase by 0.5. If the network finds 10 chains three times as fast as the difficulty=10 point is reached, the difficulty increase by 0.6667.

At high fractional difficulties, one has to correct for higher length chains. See details here http://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=695.msg6301#msg6301