Devcoin

[markm]

Yeah but unless the client can actually go look at the parent chain, anyone could just pretend they have a chain someplace that they used as parent, and make up stuff about some fictional block on that fictional chain they supposedly did the merged mining with.

Unless you can actually go look at that parent to make sure it really does have your chain's merkle hash thing in it at the place described and at the difficulty described, what does having a parent chain accomplish?

EDIT: maybe we don't care if the purported other chain(s) exist so long as the hash is difficult enough? It'd be just as much work to make the entry for the rainbow table of fake merged mining proofs one per merkle our chain might have that it wants to see in the proof as it would be to do the real proof? (But having done the real one, what stops you saving it as an entry for rainbow table in case a collision ever occurs so that you get to present the same proof again? Just the sheer unlikeliness of collisions?)

-MarkM-

[btc_artist]

I uploaded a new -qt to https://sourceforge.net/projects/galacticmilieu/files/ and will put a new devcoind there too shortly.

Tried that and it seems to work correctly now.  All 21083 blocks have been downloaded.  Thank you very much!

[Unthinkingbit]

Kumala made a permanent node: 209.217.250.10

It is running the standard devcoind daemeon, so it should allow up to 125 connections (default). None of the ports are blocked, so the service should be available.

If anyone uses it, please post whether it works or not.

For making the node, Kumala gets 2/5 of a share.  For maintaining it, he gets 1/5 of a share as long as it is running.

[btc_artist]

If anyone uses it, please post whether it works or not.

I used -addnode=209.217.250.10 and it seems to be working. From debug.log:

AddAddress(209.217.250.10:52333)
received: version (85 bytes)

[markm]

About how many DeVCoins per month does 1/5 of a share usually add up to?

I am thinking I might be able to convince my landlord to open the incoming port for DeVCoind depending on how much revenue that would add up to per month by the time it is converted into local fiat money.

Apparently he is looking at a fibre-optic link deal some provider is now offering too, so if I have something concrete to show him in the way of actual money I could put toward upgrading our connection I might be able to get us onto fibre...

-MarkM-

[Unthinkingbit]

The round 6 receiver files have been uploaded to:
http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/receiver_6.csv
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/receiver_6.csv
http://devcoinblockexplorer.info/receiver/receiver_6.csv

The account file is at:
https://github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/blob/master/account_6.csv

People on that list will start getting those coins in round 6, starting at block 24,000.  The procedure for generating the receiver files is at:
http://www.devtome.org/wiki/index.php?title=Devcoin&action=submit#Generating_the_Files

The next bounties will go into round 7.

[Unthinkingbit]

I used -addnode=209.217.250.10 and it seems to be working. From debug.log:

Code:

AddAddress(209.217.250.10:52333)
received: version (85 bytes)

Thanks for testing it.  For that testing post you'll get 1/5 share in round 7.

[Unthinkingbit]

About how many DeVCoins per month does 1/5 of a share usually add up to?

In round 6, 15 / 11 * 180,000,000 devcoins / 40 shares / 5 = 1,227,272 devcoins

As more people join devcoin, the per share amount will decrease.  The proportion that 1/5 of a share gets will be at least 1/5 of a receiver share and usually, like in the case of round 6, a bit more.  As the number of fractional shares increases, the average variance over 1/5 of a share will decrease.

I am thinking I might be able to convince my landlord to open the incoming port for DeVCoind depending on how much revenue that would add up to per month by the time it is converted into local fiat money.

We only need a few permanent nodes for redundancy so it's not going to be a big money maker.  The biggest money maker is porting over articles you've written or writing new ones for devtome.  This is because there is no upper limit on the amount of devcoins you can earn through writing:
http://www.devtome.org/wiki/index.php/Earn_Devcoins_By_Writing#Word_Bonus

This can be funded without limit because the ad revenue in turn has no limit.  If anyone doesn't have login access yet, then prepare wiki formatted articles on your hard drive and when you get an account throw em all in.  Eventually, most of the devcoins earned will be from devtome and other open source revenue projects.

Note, although the ad revenue itself will be tiny at first, its potential is what will give value to the devcoins you get.  Because the generation rate is constant, the value of devcoin will be around:
devcoin/$ = future revenue / generation rate * chance of success * effective seigniorage ratio

For example, say that if devcoin succeeds in several years the ad revenue will be 100,000 $/month, the generation rate is 200,000,000 devcoins/month, the chance of success is 0.1, the effective seigniorage ratio is 0.2, you get a value of:
0.0000025 $/devcoin = 100,000 $/month / 200,000,000 devcoins/month * 0.05 * 0.1

With bitcoin at around 3 $/bitcoin, that works out to:
0.000000833 bitcoin/devcoin = 0.0000025 $/devcoin / 3 $/bitcoin

Flipped around, that is:
1,200,000 devcoin/bitcoin = 1.0 / 0.000000833 bitcoin/devcoin

When you add an article of say 1,000 words to devtome, the revenue added will be on average a few cents a month in the beginning.  In time that same article will get a higher revenue as devtome grows because of increased cross traffic, say in several years it would be 1 $/month.  Also, the more articles there are today, the greater the chance of long term success.  So investors bid up the value of devcoin accordingly by say 6 $, you get 2,000,000 devcoins from generation worth about 6 $ and everything balances.  Also, if you have any coins, their value will increase in proportion to the number of coins you have over the total generation to date, about one billion devcoins.

The 6 $/article is low because until we have merged mining, and devtome is still tiny, our chance of success is low.  Once we have merged mining and devtome gets bigger, writers will get fewer devcoins, but the devcoins will be worth much more each, so the dollar value per article will increase.

[doublec]

The round 6 receiver files have been uploaded to:
http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/receiver_6.csv
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/receiver_6.csv
http://devcoinblockexplorer.info/receiver/receiver_6.csv

What do these receiver files do? Are nodes supposed to update to these new files or does it happen automatically? How can are node confirm that the files are valid - that the owner of one of the sites hasn't changed the file?

[markm]

The round 6 receiver files have been uploaded to:
http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/receiver_6.csv
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/receiver_6.csv
http://devcoinblockexplorer.info/receiver/receiver_6.csv

What do these receiver files do? Are nodes supposed to update to these new files or does it happen automatically? How can are node confirm that the files are valid - that the owner of one of the sites hasn't changed the file?

There should be an odd number of places to find the files, so that one won't end up with the same number saying the right thing as the number saying some fake thing some number of admins conspire to put there.

The nodes go looking for the files based on the URLs provided in the previous files.

We could do with more separate people hosting the files...

-MarkM-

[doublec]

The nodes go looking for the files based on the URLs provided in the previous files.

How do nodes know they've changed to get a new copy? Or do they try whenever a block is mined and they need to verify it?

[Unthinkingbit]

How do nodes know they've changed to get a new copy? Or do they try whenever a block is mined and they need to verify it?

The client procedure is at:
http://www.devtome.org/wiki/index.php/Devcoin#Client_Procedure

At the time of this writing, the block count is 21,421:
http://107.20.193.62:2750/chain/Devcoin?count=20&hi=21421

which is round 5 = floor(21,421 / 4000), so the clients are using the receiver_5.csv file.  When the block number reaches a random portion between 0.75 and roughly 0.95 of the way to block 24,000, which means a random portion between 23,000 and 23,800, the client will download the receiver_6.csv file according to the peers in the receiver_5 file.  When it reaches block 24,000 it will switch to the receiver_6 file.

[btc_artist]

I used -addnode=209.217.250.10 and it seems to be working. From debug.log:

Code:

AddAddress(209.217.250.10:52333)
received: version (85 bytes)

Thanks for testing it.  For that testing post you'll get 1/5 share in round 7.

Thank you.

[markm]

It seems that an Open Source FPGA miner is available: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=40058.msg642825#msg642825

An interesting Devcoin project to support open source came to mind: a Devcoin mining co-op/shares thing whereby people invest devcoins, we buy FPGAs and use them initially to just mine devcoins to pay out but once merged mining is implemented we use them to merged mine, using the coins other than devcoins to buy devcoins to pay out.

That way we support open source by buying open sourece FPGA boards, and once merged mining is implemented we help support the value of devcoin by using the other coins in the merge to buy devcoins with.

This would also make a nice project to set up in my Open Transactions server to pioneer the use of Open Transactions for such things.

-MarkM-

[Unthinkingbit]

An interesting Devcoin project to support open source came to mind: a Devcoin mining co-op/shares thing whereby people invest devcoins, we buy FPGAs and use them initially to just mine devcoins to pay out but once merged mining is implemented we use them to merged mine, using the coins other than devcoins to buy devcoins to pay out.

That way we support open source by buying open sourece FPGA boards, and once merged mining is implemented we help support the value of devcoin by using the other coins in the merge to buy devcoins with.

This would also make a nice project to set up in my Open Transactions server to pioneer the use of Open Transactions for such things.

I suggest a bounty of 8 generation shares for the first devcoin stock exchange.  Companies on that exchange could also trade in bitcoins or something else, the bounty is awarded for being able to trade a company in devcoins, the bounty is not lost if a company can also trade in another currency.  The next devcoin exchange would get 6 shares, then 4, and finally 2.

Furthermore, there would be a bounty of 5 generation shares for the first open source company which trades in devcoins and makes at least a dollar of revenue.  The next company meeting the requirements would get 4, then 3, then 2 and finally 1.  Because people can set up a mining company relatively easily and make a dollar of revenue, which would drain the bounty for all other types of companies, there would be an additional bounty of 5 generation shares for the first open source non-mining company which trades in devcoins and makes at least a dollar of revenue.  Good accomplishment applies to the company bounties, so they will not be awarded for ponzi schemes, spam companies, etc..

Does anyone have an objection to these bounties?  Should any requirements be changed?

[cablepair]

that is an awesome idea!

I would very much like to buy a FPGA board to mine devcoins. Maybe I will buy myself one for Christmas

[Kumala]

I suggest a bounty of 8 generation shares for the first devcoin stock exchange.

Setting up the exchange shouldnt be the problem, thanks to the dynamic design of the underlying platform of Vircurex, adding additional Currencies/Stocktickers is a matter of minutes or using the same codebase for a second exchange.  Though I would need to adjust the screen layout a bit as it currently shows all possible combinations of available currencies, it would even allow to trade stock for stocks (though the sense of that is questionnable).

Looking at the current active currency combinations on Vircurex, it probably doesnt make sense to offer all possible combinations, that would water down the volume hence the decreased liquidity will push the prices down. I would suggest it do be trading against BTC and DVC only.

The more important question would be the scope of functionality expected?
 - Create new listing
 - Issue new stocks
 - Buy/sell stocks
 - Pay dividends
 - Delist stock
 - Stock splits / Reverse splits
 - Options (probably very low priority as there is no Options volume on Vircurex, I assume interest is rather limited.)

We'ld need to offer some space for people to store their quarterly/annual reports (devtome.com?)

[markm]

Open Transactions similarly allows trading anything for anything, thus trading one stock for another would be quite possible.

All the talk I see of stocks/shares on this forum always seems to assume common shares, with votes. Yet in the real world "preferred shares" are also often traded, maybe more so even than common shares since they are purely financial instruments not loaded with all the politics of actual control of the company.

Maybe bonds might serve as well, I guess I should try to look up what difference there is between bonds and preferred shares and exactly how preferred shares actually work...

Someone can issue shares, bonds, currencies, whatever on an Open Transactions server simply by creating and issuing a contract describing what they are offering. But actually doing voting through the software is not yet in place in the Open Transaction code. I am also not sure what would be involved in cases where an issuer has issued varying numbers of their offering on various separate Open Transactions servers. Presumably even if the software itself tallied votes on one server, the issuer would still have to collect the results from all the servers they issued on and correlate them.

I would have thought that in most cases someone wanting to raise capital would not be wanting to give away control of their idea/company in the process, so I would have thought non-voting shares would be the norm unless most people are only looking for less capital than they themselves already have available thus that they would only be selling less than half the shares?

-MarkM-

[Kumala]

I am targeting "preferred shares", hence no voting, the investors should be investing purely out of economical reasons and not because they want a controlling stake in the company.

Difference between bonds and shares, extract from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bond_(finance):

Bonds and stocks are both securities, but the major difference between the two is that (capital) stockholders have an equity stake in the company (i.e., they are owners), whereas bondholders have a creditor stake in the company (i.e., they are lenders). Another difference is that bonds usually have a defined term, or maturity, after which the bond is redeemed, whereas stocks may be outstanding indefinitely

The main point being: bonds have a defined term or maturity.

[markm]

Three entities in Galactic Milieu so far were using the term shares: General Mining Corp aka Galactic Mining Corp; General Retirement Funds aka Galactic Retirement Funds; and United Nations Shares aka United Nations Scrip.

In the United Nations case, the idea was that it would be their currency, backed by holdings of other currencies as well as by other holdings such as real estate, trade concessions, whatever they could sell.

Originally they had figured on using blockchains, based closely on Bitcoin thus being limited to never issuing more than 21 million shares/coins/scrip.

They still might go to blockchains eventually, but it now looks safer to simply trade in Open Transactions, using tokens that would be redeemed using blockchain based coins if ever they do end up moving to a blockchain. (Which would not be until after they are sure they could secure the chain adequately by merged mining.)

These instruments kind of blur any distinction between currency, shares and bonds, since for example GMC and GRF are still discussing whether to bother charging people 1%/day on loans as the borrowers assumed would be the case or simply increase by 1%/day the price of their scrip, thus effectively charging 1%/day on their debts simply by the borrowers ending up having to pay more per unit for the scrip with which to pay back the loan.

The core problem seems to be the actual valuation of the coin/scrip/shares. The blockchain idea provided a built in limit to the total number. If that idea is discarded in favour of only using Open Transactions without any concept of an eventual blockchain implementation then there maybe is no implicit limit to the number they could ultimately issue.

-MarkM-