[ANN] Nxt :: descendant of Bitcoin

[bybitcoin]

While you keep everything open to negotiate and going forward modestly, it will be much more effective and eye-catching if you be more clear and exact about some parameters: how many coins total, how many coins per BTC, exact release time, bonus-reward for early buyers, the cap of buy-in (since it will be POS). With numbers being fixed and openly public, people will have a better idea about if it is a valuable thing or not.
At the moment it is just some kind of interesting rumor

[cunicula]

In PoW currency you can remine a block to build a longer chain.  In Nxt the order of generating accounts is determined, you can't create a long chain that contains blocks generated solely by you.  With 51% of the stake the odds to generate a longer chain with 10 blocks are less than 0.1%.  If someone buys a car with NXT they can wait a little bit longer to counteract even 90% attack.

I like that you plan to make things deterministic. My ideas for pure PoS have also been deterministic.

There is a potential problem here though.

How do you deal with AWOL coin-owners? If I can't make a winning chain with 51%, then can the chain continue at all if 49% of coins are lost?

Looking forward to the details so I can see how you address this and other issues.

[BCNext]

How does one claim ownership of Nxt funds once the genesis block is mined? They just put in the password? Since there's no signature confirming the initial TX, I suspect anyone else can also attempt to redeem the coins (in the same way redeeming an output like "OP_SHA256 <hash> OP_EQUAL" can be stolen by a miner, as there is no way to validate intended outputs).

I will run a web site.  Everyone will enter the hash of their secret phrase and a Nxt account id to claim nxts to.  The software will calculate SHA256(hash) to check it matches any of the hashes attached to the sent bitcoins.  Obviously, only a legitimate sender knows the hash.  Then I will publish collected data here for community approval.  Yes, I will know the hashes but I won't know the secret phrases.  Thus I can't claim someone's else nxts, if I attempted this the legitimate owner would easily prove his ownership by publishing the secret phrase.

What happens to the BTC sent to your address? You keep them?

After the genesis block is approved I will use them for further development of the project (advanced features and services).

Why not take all the public keys from transactions to your 'exodus'-esq address and assign them values at launch? All a user needs to do is import her privkey for the address they sent funds from and you have a more decentralised setup phase which doesn't require using a hash in a private database stored as a 'public message'.

Nxt keys are not compatible to Bitcoin ones.  Nxt uses Ed25519 and there is no a way to convert a Bitcoin key into a Nxt key.

On an economic tangent, you say there's no need to send large amounts to your address, but if the amount of Nxt you receive is proportional to the amount of BTC you send, you end up with the same wealth distribution we have in Bitcoin now (or similar enough - those who can pay more will, and thus control a similar-ish chunk of the Nxt pie).

Is it bad?  Nxt is a descendant of Bitcoin.

Economics is not my area of expertise.  I can say nothing about the issue.

Then why are you trying to design a currency?

I follow Satoshi's vision of the best currency.  Nxt gives a way to skip Bitcoin's inflation age and jump straight to the time when there is 21,000,000 coins.  Do I need to be an economist for that?

[BCNext]

Are you going to put out a whitepaper, so whatever you are doing can be peer reviewed?

There are not so many differences between Bitcoin and Nxt.

1]  Nxt uses Ed25519 (http://ed25519.cr.yp.to/)
2]  Nxt is 100% proof-of-stake currency.  I will publish technical details in this thread soon.
3]  100% of coins is premined in the genesis block.  No a whitepaper required for that I believe.

Core defeciency of PPC in my opinion was a lack of transparency in the POS design and a lack of receptiveness to criticism.

I will explain how PoS works in Nxt.  The source code will be published when Nxt is launched.

I don't think you will have much luck persuading people to switch unless you explain exactly what you are doing in precise detail. 

I agree.  Ask and be answered, later I will put FAQ into the OP.

Comparing an established opaque system to a novel opaque system, I think the established opaque system wins every time.

Nxt will be transparent.  After all main features are implemented I will find time to explain all important details.  You will be able to check everything using beta version of the client.

Also, do not start rewarding early adopters until everything has been made transparent. Otherwise you will be criticized as an opportunist scamcoin creator. You want your early adopter group to be serious about the coin's long term future. if you start putting in incentives etc., then you will attract speculators rather than real enthusiasts.

True.

[BCNext]

While you keep everything open to negotiate and going forward modestly, it will be much more effective and eye-catching if you be more clear and exact about some parameters: how many coins total, how many coins per BTC, exact release time, bonus-reward for early buyers, the cap of buy-in (since it will be POS). With numbers being fixed and openly public, people will have a better idea about if it is a valuable thing or not.
At the moment it is just some kind of interesting rumor

1,000,000,000 coins will be distributed proportionally to sent amounts if an early adopter bonus is not applied.  3rd of January is a good day for the launch.  I am still thinking of the bonus.  The cap is set by common sense, noone will trade a lot of BTC for NXT because of uncertainty the project won't fail.

[BCNext]

In PoW currency you can remine a block to build a longer chain.  In Nxt the order of generating accounts is determined, you can't create a long chain that contains blocks generated solely by you.  With 51% of the stake the odds to generate a longer chain with 10 blocks are less than 0.1%.  If someone buys a car with NXT they can wait a little bit longer to counteract even 90% attack.

I like that you plan to make things deterministic. My ideas for pure PoS have also been deterministic.

There is a potential problem here though.

How do you deal with AWOL coin-owners? If I can't make a winning chain with 51%, then can the chain continue at all if 49% of coins are lost?

Looking forward to the details so I can see how you address this and other issues.

It's a good chance to tell the details...

Each block has "generationSignature" parameter.  An active account signs "generationSignature" of the previous block with its private key.  This gives 64 bytes which are hashed with SHA256.  The first 8 bytes of the hash gives a number (I call it a "hit").  The hit is compared to the current "target" (64bit number).  If the hit is lower than the target then next block can be generated.

The target for each account is proportional to the balance.  Someone holding 1000 coins gets a 50 times bigger target than someone with 20 coins. Thus the owner of 1000 coins will generate 50 times more blocks than the owner of 20 coins (in the long run).

The target is not constant, it grows each second passed since the timestamp of the previous block.  If noone generated a block on the first second then the target becomes 2 times bigger and so on.  The base target is the target on the 60 second mark.  If there is only a few active accounts then after a long time someone will generate a block because the target will become very big.  If you open the client and log with any funded account you can see a ticking timer in BLOCKS widget.  It shows when the target will become greater than your hit.

[yufu571]

I AM WATCHING

[kriwest]

I just posted a thread about having CCI data for altcoins... thought I might as well put in a request here as well:
It would be nice if Nxt had built in market data a'la bitcoincharts directly in the client. I don't know how complicated, resource hogging, or time consuming this would be (I'm not a programmer), but I just thought I'd throw it out there as an idea/request. If it's not doable or not worth the time/resources - that's alright.

[ripper234]

I am thinking of setting an early adopter bonus, but I will do it after all main features are implemented and people can see it's not a vaporware.  The funds will be used to develop services accepting Nxt.

Btw, I did use a vanity address (1BCN1ugdKdWd9pQ8Am9hMhtHZfmbXzxE8a).

Alright, you can plan your release anyway you want.
The address you specified isn't a good one - its FirstBits are actually 1BCN1u. Anything shorter than that will not lead to the correct address, and 1BCN1u isn't really a catchy name (e.g. compared to 1Exodus).

For the record, I think using blockchain.info messages is a bad way to proceed with this.
You should use only fully decentralized properties of bitcoin itself.
You can create an easy javascript client-side way for people to donate to this address.

BTW, why not just use the exact Mastercoin kickstarter mechanism, where the way to invest in the kickstarter was just to send money to 1Exodus? Is there a problem with that kickstarter implementation that you're trying to solve by using blockchain.info messages?

[bybitcoin]

I am thinking of setting an early adopter bonus, but I will do it after all main features are implemented and people can see it's not a vaporware.  The funds will be used to develop services accepting Nxt.

Btw, I did use a vanity address (1BCN1ugdKdWd9pQ8Am9hMhtHZfmbXzxE8a).

Alright, you can plan your release anyway you want.
The address you specified isn't a good one - its FirstBits are actually 1BCN1u. Anything shorter than that will not lead to the correct address, and 1BCN1u isn't really a catchy name (e.g. compared to 1Exodus).

For the record, I think using blockchain.info messages is a bad way to proceed with this.
You should use only fully decentralized properties of bitcoin itself.
You can create an easy javascript client-side way for people to donate to this address.

BTW, why not just use the exact Mastercoin kickstarter mechanism, where the way to invest in the kickstarter was just to send money to 1Exodus? Is there a problem with that kickstarter implementation that you're trying to solve by using blockchain.info messages?

I second this, unless you have very specific purposes for those hashed messages, it is a useless complication that may slow down the people in. Also you better put an early adopter bonus announcement as soon as possible. That may give a momentum to the fundraising.
And a whitepaper before end of October is the must need and appreciated, I am curious to know which POS model will you use.

[Come-from-Beyond]

BTW, why not just use the exact Mastercoin kickstarter mechanism, where the way to invest in the kickstarter was just to send money to 1Exodus? Is there a problem with that kickstarter implementation that you're trying to solve by using blockchain.info messages?

He/she already answered that Bitcoin keys can't be converted into Nxt.

[Come-from-Beyond]

And a whitepaper before end of October is the must need and appreciated, I am curious to know which POS model will you use.

Heh, seems I'm the only who pays attention to technical details in this thread...

Each block has "generationSignature" parameter.  An active account signs "generationSignature" of the previous block with its private key.  This gives 64 bytes which are hashed with SHA256.  The first 8 bytes of the hash gives a number (I call it a "hit").  The hit is compared to the current "target" (64bit number).  If the hit is lower than the target then next block can be generated.

The target for each account is proportional to the balance.  Someone holding 1000 coins gets a 50 times bigger target than someone with 20 coins. Thus the owner of 1000 coins will generate 50 times more blocks than the owner of 20 coins (in the long run).

The target is not constant, it grows each second passed since the timestamp of the previous block.  If noone generated a block on the first second then the target becomes 2 times bigger and so on.  The base target is the target on the 60 second mark.  If there is only a few active accounts then after a long time someone will generate a block because the target will become very big.  If you open the client and log with any funded account you can see a ticking timer in BLOCKS widget.  It shows when the target will become greater than your hit.

[xchrix]

watching this

[BCNext]

I want you to consider such early adopter bonus

All payments prior beta-testing (planned to start in a week) are counted with 300% multiplier.
All payments prior some Bitcoin block (will be announced later, in a month after the beta-testing) are counted with a multiplier scaled from 300% down to 100%.
All payments after the announced block are counted with 100% multiplier (until the genesis block generated).

[klee]

I want you to consider such early adopter bonus

All payments prior beta-testing (planned to start in a week) are counted with 300% multiplier.
All payments prior some Bitcoin block (will be announced later, in a month after the beta-testing) are counted with a multiplier scaled from 300% download to 100%.
All payments after the announced block are counted with 100% multiplier (until the genesis block generated).

What about the payment I already did upthread??

[BCNext]

It will be tripled.

[BCNext]

UPDATE

New blocks are distributed over the network now.
Added KEY button (top left corner) to log into third-party sites using Nxt account.
Implemented API calls listed in the corresponding thread (like http://88.198.210.245:7876/?request=getBlock&block=15420240104732740931)
Number of transactions per block limited to 255.  The client chooses transactions with higher fees on first place.

[stink]

UPDATE

New blocks are distributed over the network now.
Added KEY button (top left corner) to log into third-party sites using Nxt account.
Implemented API calls listed in the corresponding thread (like http://88.198.210.245:7876/?request=getBlock&block=15420240104732740931)
Number of transactions per block limited to 255.  The client chooses transactions with higher fees on first place.

Watching this.... hummm

[wezelvis]

I want you to consider such early adopter bonus

All payments prior beta-testing (planned to start in a week) are counted with 300% multiplier.
All payments prior some Bitcoin block (will be announced later, in a month after the beta-testing) are counted with a multiplier scaled from 300% down to 100%.
All payments after the announced block are counted with 100% multiplier (until the genesis block generated).

You'll generate some urgency to act sooner rather than later with that scheme.

[BCNext]

We must collect critical mass of users.  The bonus should help with it.