NXT :: descendant of Bitcoin - Updated Information

[Come-from-Beyond]

Who create that genesis block and distribute it? Or maybe everyone can create it with a simple tool.
How do we coordinate everyone?

Every node can construct new genesis block using previous blockchain. No need to distribute it.

[1714002499]

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[1714002499]

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[xibeijan]

Who create that genesis block and distribute it? Or maybe everyone can create it with a simple tool.
How do we coordinate everyone?

Every node can construct new genesis block using previous blockchain. No need to distribute it.

What's to stop malicious nodes from creating their own genesis blocks with super special bonus additions?

[ChuckOne]

Who create that genesis block and distribute it? Or maybe everyone can create it with a simple tool.
How do we coordinate everyone?

Every node can construct new genesis block using previous blockchain. No need to distribute it.

What's to stop malicious nodes from creating their own genesis blocks with super special bonus additions?

That might be circumvented cryptographically.

Additionally, who else is going to verify that transaction? Nobody, because they don't see the super special bonus additions. So, the guy will spend nothing of the additional money.

[bitcoinpaul]

Nxt's biggest and best feature is its blockchain and network.  Bitcoin is forever stuck on a Proof of Work form of consensus and a built-in scripting system for transactions. Neither of these can be "undone", and in fact the Bitcoin devs are loading even more bloat into the Bitcoin core with every release.  Everything "future-focused" that is being built on top of Bitcoin is being built on top of these inefficient, slow, "core" features.  Nxt has removed all of this and created a whole new set of primitives that bypass both of these hindrances.  Nxt has inherited some of Bitcoin's challenges (fungibility, blockchain growth, passphrase security), but it has completely bypassed several of the other ones (low transactions per second, an increasingly centralized mining network that burns $17 million in electricity per day)

Nxt is light because of its Proof of Stake mechanism, and it is agile because the "protocol layer" consists of simple transaction verification, a blockchain mechanism, and a few core transaction types.

+1

[bitcoinpaul]

Please comment

Just want to catch on the discussion we had this afternoon about features and target audience for nxt.

1. (Possible) Features:
- TF for instant transactions
- TF + punishment against 50% attacks (correct?)
- no bloated blockchain
- energy friendly crypto
- mobile friendly crypto
- easy to add new features
- many many TPS
- parallel blockchains
- blockchain shrinking
- decentralized exchange
- colored coins
- decentralized voting/opiniongrabber
- decentralized AM (data storage, link storage (eg torrents), encrypted messaging, ...)
- dividend payouts (all fees per block) for everyone instead of mining of the few with lots of power
- Turing capability
- smart contracts
- anonymous transactions
- SMS gateway

2. Today it was clear that the nxt community isn't sure yet, which features are the most important ones, which could be ignored in favor of other features (some exclude each other), and who the target audience is. Would it be easier if we knew plan 2 and 3 from BCNext? I don't know. But regardless of BCNext's plans, we should discuss this topic in the community: which is our target audience now, next months and in one year? Does this depend on the features we implement or does the features depend on the audience we want to tackle? The answer is clear (or is nxt just fundamental research?) That's why we should discuss this.

3. Some thoughts on some features and their implications:
- TF was and is our key ingredient in nxt. I have no clue at which state it is right now, who will develop all the core ingredients of TF (JL?) and how important it will be in one year
- bloated blockchain: although I was quite shocked about today's statements about the size of the blockchain, I see it more clearly now. First of all I think it is still bad because solar powered  RaspberryPis and AndroidTV sticks will not work for securing the nxt network in the future, IF we will get to a large TPS. The idea of thousands of raspberrypis working and securing nxt is dead. That's really sad because it was a really nice idea, especially marketing wise. Otherwise, I came to the conclusion that our chain should currently be measured with the same transaction amount as bitcoin has right now. And then, our block chain is cute and tiny.
- we are still very energy friendly, but the loss of raspberrypis in the future is a slap in the marketing face
- with lightweight clients, we are able to use nxt on every smartphone. BUT is this different and superior to BTC if we can’t actually forge with our phone? (Leasing forge power is not the same since we are not really part of the nxt network with the phone). When we implement block shrinking and parallel blockchains, we could shovel weight of the important transaction chain which means smartphones and raspberrypis could work longer for nxt (until how many TPS? I have one clue)
- SMS gateway (bounty by CfB) must be developed (eg Africa is using SMS as some sort of currency). This would be a really nice feature, especially for marketing
- do we need turing stuff? if we have the resources to develop this (i don’t want CfB to waste his energy if this is a nice, but not a must have feature or if this feature would make some other features impossible (like high TPS or no bloated blockchain)), let’s do it. it is nice marketing also.
- High and fast TPS is important for a special target audience (professionals like people relying on VISA). It was advertised big since the beginning. if we are able to keep this promise, then we must do this. or we also should look at the possibility of hight TPS if we implement other features which might interfere with hight TPS.
- anonymous transactions is a freaking HUGE opportunity. if we can tackle this, then, absolutely, let’s do it.
- decentralized exchange and colored coins are a must.
- CfB states many times that it is easy to implement new features in nxt. I am no dev and just have to believe him. It should always be easy so nxt can adapt to new ideas and technologies.

some features are implemented, some are discussed, and some are plain ideas. We should discuss where nxt is heading to get a clear view what should be implemented in the next months. We should discuss all ideas and get an overview WHO will develop which services or features. And we should make a clear distinction between service providers (which uses nxt) and nxt features (which build nxt). and we should always be aware of paradox decisions (like 1000000TPS and mini blockchain for example). Now I have no clue who is responsible for what. I have a fear that many things just don’t get done because of diffusion of responsibility (Google it). I hope i’m wrong.



Maybe I forgot many major things, but it is a starting point.

-

All the written stuff above could be total bullshit, because I'm no programmer and have difficulties to keep up with all the stuff what's going on in the nxt ecosystem.

I sincerely hope that I get some comments from devs, idea makers, marketers, ... And I hope we get a discussion started about target audience, features and what is the meaning of nxt.

Please respond (think about diffusion of responsibility if you don’t want to click “reply”).

tl;dr invest in doge.

[marcus03]

Please comment

Just want to catch on the discussion we had this afternoon about features and target audience for nxt.

1. (Possible) Features:
- TF for instant transactions
- TF + punishment against 50% attacks (correct?)
- no bloated blockchain
- energy friendly crypto
- mobile friendly crypto
- easy to add new features
- many many TPS
- parallel blockchains
- blockchain shrinking
- decentralized exchange
- colored coins
- decentralized voting/opiniongrabber
- decentralized AM (data storage, link storage (eg torrents), encrypted messaging, ...)
- dividend payouts (all fees per block) for everyone instead of mining of the few with lots of power
- Turing capability
- smart contracts
- anonymous transactions
- SMS gateway

2. Today it was clear that the nxt community isn't sure yet, which features are the most important ones, which could be ignored in favor of other features (some exclude each other), and who the target audience is. Would it be easier if we knew plan 2 and 3 from BCNext? I don't know. But regardless of BCNext's plans, we should discuss this topic in the community: which is our target audience now, next months and in one year? Does this depend on the features we implement or does the features depend on the audience we want to tackle? The answer is clear (or is nxt just fundamental research?) That's why we should discuss this.

3. Some thoughts on some features and their implications:
- TF was and is our key ingredient in nxt. I have no clue at which state it is right now, who will develop all the core ingredients of TF (JL?) and how important it will be in one year
- bloated blockchain: although I was quite shocked about today's statements about the size of the blockchain, I see it more clearly now. First of all I think it is still bad because solar powered  RaspberryPis and AndroidTV sticks will not work for securing the nxt network in the future, IF we will get to a large TPS. The idea of thousands of raspberrypis working and securing nxt is dead. That's really sad because it was a really nice idea, especially marketing wise. Otherwise, I came to the conclusion that our chain should currently be measured with the same transaction amount as bitcoin has right now. And then, our block chain is cute and tiny.
- we are still very energy friendly, but the loss of raspberrypis in the future is a slap in the marketing face
- with lightweight clients, we are able to use nxt on every smartphone. BUT is this different and superior to BTC if we can’t actually forge with our phone? (Leasing forge power is not the same since we are not really part of the nxt network with the phone). When we implement block shrinking and parallel blockchains, we could shovel weight of the important transaction chain which means smartphones and raspberrypis could work longer for nxt (until how many TPS? I have one clue)
- SMS gateway (bounty by CfB) must be developed (eg Africa is using SMS as some sort of currency). This would be a really nice feature, especially for marketing
- do we need turing stuff? if we have the resources to develop this (i don’t want CfB to waste his energy if this is a nice, but not a must have feature or if this feature would make some other features impossible (like high TPS or no bloated blockchain)), let’s do it. it is nice marketing also.
- High and fast TPS is important for a special target audience (professionals like people relying on VISA). It was advertised big since the beginning. if we are able to keep this promise, then we must do this. or we also should look at the possibility of hight TPS if we implement other features which might interfere with hight TPS.
- anonymous transactions is a freaking HUGE opportunity. if we can tackle this, then, absolutely, let’s do it.
- decentralized exchange and colored coins are a must.
- CfB states many times that it is easy to implement new features in nxt. I am no dev and just have to believe him. It should always be easy so nxt can adapt to new ideas and technologies.

some features are implemented, some are discussed, and some are plain ideas. We should discuss where nxt is heading to get a clear view what should be implemented in the next months. We should discuss all ideas and get an overview WHO will develop which services or features. And we should make a clear distinction between service providers (which uses nxt) and nxt features (which build nxt). and we should always be aware of paradox decisions (like 1000000TPS and mini blockchain for example). Now I have no clue who is responsible for what. I have a fear that many things just don’t get done because of diffusion of responsibility (Google it). I hope i’m wrong.



Maybe I forgot many major things, but it is a starting point.

-

All the written stuff above could be total bullshit, because I'm no programmer and have difficulties to keep up with all the stuff what's going on in the nxt ecosystem.

I sincerely hope that I get some comments from devs, idea makers, marketers, ... And I hope we get a discussion started about target audience, features and what is the meaning of nxt.

Please respond (think about diffusion of responsibility if you don’t want to click “reply”).

tl;dr invest in doge.

Great summary! A few thoughts on this:

Not only the target audience is undefined and might differ between people, but also the overall goal. This is what makes it so disturbing when CfB mentions "step X of "the plan"". The roadmap is not public and this makes it difficult to decide which features might make sense.

Having this somehow limited perspective, I think from your list of possible features "anonymous transactions" would be the killer feature.

Not just the possibility to use some kind of mixing service, but actually changing pseudo anonymity to real anonymity. It is beyond me to say if this is possible, but if it is and gets implemented, NXT will explode (not (just) the price, but adoption, resources and everything else).

[Come-from-Beyond]

I'm pretty damn sure they are pushing this update for one reason, that is to prevent exploitation of the said critical bug.

Right, as soon as majority of FORGING nodes upgrade, I'll disclose the details.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Why would someone need SHA256 in a script?

Atomic-cross chain transactions and the like will require a hash function (I would assume SHA256 would be the most likely to include).

If we can't get atomic-cross chain transactions to work then I think the idea of being able to have a trust-less P2P "coin" exchange simply won't work (not that we have to use a "smart contract" to do this of course but it would seem like something reasonable to support as other such "use cases" undoubtedly will arise).

Ok. Let's test Scripting without SHA256 and then add more opcodes if necessary.

[bitcoinpaul]

I think from your list of possible features "anonymous transactions" would be the killer feature.

Not just the possibility to use some kind of mixing service, but actually changing pseudo anonymity to real anonymity. It is beyond me to say if this is possible, but if it is and gets implemented, NXT will explode (not (just) the price, but adoption, resources and everything else).

+1

And thanks for replying.

[Come-from-Beyond]

I am making good progress on getting AE into my Client - as let's see what the testing does. Any tentative dates for 'official launch' of AE??

11th of Feb - public test
Xth of Feb - release

[wesleyh]

I'm receiving these errors:

[2014-02-06 08:36:19.098] NRS 0.6.0 started successfully.
[2014-02-06 08:36:33.536] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from 192.80.146.102, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:36:42.634] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from 65.49.77.102, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:36:56.667] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from 65.49.77.101, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:37:18.174] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from 62.4.23.171, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:37:50.971] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from 80.86.92.70, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:37:57.267] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from node15.mynxt.info, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:38:01.185] DEBUG: Error processing GET request
java.lang.NullPointerException
   at nxt.http.GetAccountTransactionIds.processRequest(GetAccountTransactionIds.java:74)
   at nxt.http.HttpRequestHandler.process(HttpRequestHandler.java:92)
   at nxt.Nxt.doGet(Nxt.java:356)
   at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:687)
   at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:790)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:717)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1644)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.CrossOriginFilter.handle(CrossOriginFilter.java:248)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.CrossOriginFilter.doFilter(CrossOriginFilter.java:211)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1624)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.DoSFilter.doFilterChain(DoSFilter.java:457)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.DoSFilter.doFilter(DoSFilter.java:326)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlets.DoSFilter.doFilter(DoSFilter.java:299)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1615)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doHandle(ServletHandler.java:550)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:143)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:568)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.doHandle(SessionHandler.java:221)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doHandle(ContextHandler.java:1110)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.doScope(ServletHandler.java:479)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.session.SessionHandler.doScope(SessionHandler.java:183)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doScope(ContextHandler.java:1044)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ScopedHandler.handle(ScopedHandler.java:141)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandlerCollection.handle(ContextHandlerCollection.java:199)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerCollection.handle(HandlerCollection.java:109)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:97)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.handle(Server.java:459)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpChannel.handle(HttpChannel.java:281)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.server.HttpConnection.onFillable(HttpConnection.java:232)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.io.AbstractConnection$1.run(AbstractConnection.java:505)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool.runJob(QueuedThreadPool.java:607)
   at org.eclipse.jetty.util.thread.QueuedThreadPool$3.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:536)
   at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:724)
[2014-02-06 08:38:03.887] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from 83.143.232.49, blacklisting
[2014-02-06 08:38:08.211] DEBUG: Failed to accept block received from vps18.nxtcrypto.org, blacklisting

[Come-from-Beyond]

J-L: I hate u......<engaging upgrade process for the second time today>

U shouldn't blame J-L. When I got info about the bug I offered a solution that was implemented in 0.5.12, actually it was just an uneffective work-around. Later BCNext poped up and proposed a better way to fix the bug. Enjoy 0.6.0.

BCNext popped up    

BCNext is now some magical fairy

I meant...



Just kidding 

[Come-from-Beyond]

What's to stop malicious nodes from creating their own genesis blocks with super special bonus additions?

Master blockchain.

[Come-from-Beyond]

I'm receiving these errors:

How many nodes show this error?

[Coinonaer]

Come-from-Beyond: Any news regarding how is Nxtgirl doing? Thanks

[voldemort628]

I am making good progress on getting AE into my Client - as let's see what the testing does. Any tentative dates for 'official launch' of AE??

11th of Feb - public test
Xth of Feb - release

Lets make 14th feb the release date. ) a day with full of love haha

[xibeijan]

Who create that genesis block and distribute it? Or maybe everyone can create it with a simple tool.
How do we coordinate everyone?

Every node can construct new genesis block using previous blockchain. No need to distribute it.

What's to stop malicious nodes from creating their own genesis blocks with super special bonus additions?

That might be circumvented cryptographically.

Additionally, who else is going to verify that transaction? Nobody, because they don't see the super special bonus additions. So, the guy will spend nothing of the additional money.

Unfortunately, you have not really answered my question with anything concrete.

What specifically do you mean by "circumvented cryptographically"?

[EvilDave]

J-L: I hate u......<engaging upgrade process for the second time today>

U shouldn't blame J-L. When I got info about the bug I offered a solution that was implemented in 0.5.12, actually it was just an uneffective work-around. Later BCNext poped up and proposed a better way to fix the bug. Enjoy 0.6.0.

BCNext popped up    

BCNext is now some magical fairy

OK....got both my home nodes up and running with 6.0, VPS is currently rebuilding its blockchain.

I've stopped hating J-L and am back in friendly mode. Got slightly irritated last night, but 4 hours sleep has made me a new man.  

Being not-too-techy:
 Do not blindly transfer your old web.xml over to 6.0 or u will get a monster Java crash on start up.
The important line is :

New version, 6.0:  
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app>
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>Nxt</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>nxt.Nxt</servlet-class>

Old version:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app>
    <servlet>
        <servlet-name>Nxt</servlet-name>
        <servlet-class>Nxt</servlet-class>



VPS seems to be sweet as well, everything is on:

59377      16386134630970163904      donderdag 6 februari 2014 10:12:33   
      
      0      0 + 0      0 B   
      
      2      8507575767315242138      503 %


Good job, guys, thx very muchly.

[xibeijan]

What's to stop malicious nodes from creating their own genesis blocks with super special bonus additions?

Master blockchain.

Isn't the whole point that the block chain will be shrunk?  So, at this stage who would have the master block chain?

[bithic]

Hm, that's assuming the merchant keeps those accounts empty right? I think a workaround would be that as long as the merchant plans to use that account for his customers, it should never be empty (he asks the client to keep at least 0.01 NXT in there). If the client empties out his account, then the merchant simply generates a new one for the client to use next time and tells him to not use the old one because the client emptied it out.

I think we should seriously consider forcing this behavior so we can prune public keys of accounts with no balance and no aliases

What if someone creates a new account just before a pruning? It would be frustrating to have it deleted before getting a chance to send Nxt to it.