[PROPOSAL/PLANNED] ShardCoin

[rarkenin]

First of all, I'm most definitely not using C++ for this as my knowledge of it sucks. I'm likely forking bitcoinj for this, and using that as an official client. I know basic to moderate cryptography/cryptology and have studied the technical design of bitcoin, but I am self-taught so my terminology is likely crap.

This thread is extremely likely to change or die depending on my personal responsibilities and free time, as well as how coding goes. There is NO ETA. With that said, let's get started.

ShardCoin? Yes. A coin that can be created in shards. Perhaps an interesting idea, perhaps a stupid one. We'll see. In traditional bitcoin mining, every single coin created is created at the minting of a block into which transactions enter. The miner gets their 50 25 BTC and tx fees and is happy. But what about all these uber-small miners out there, trying to mine? Pools? An external solution to an internal concept problem.

ShardCoin is somewhat different, in that the network carries two difficulties depending on mining successes and the current hashrate. The first, high difficulty, is extremely similar to the bitcoin network. A working nonce reaching this difficulty will get their share of coins, as an input into the block's transactions paid to the miner. This is targeted to happen once every 2.5 minutes. Read on.

The second difficulty is much easier compared to the first. A nonce meeting this difficulty will NOT create a new block, as that would bloat the blockchain crazily. These will be targeted to be generated once every few seconds, network-wide. Nonces are tried with a different set of fields. However, if these nonces do not create blocks, what is their purpose? They would actually become transactions granting a certain number of coins to a given private key. The public key, the nonce, and details about the current block(serial number and perhaps its hash) are included in this hashing calculation. If this meets a difficulty as hashed, it is entered as a transaction into the blockchain, except with no inputs and the nonce/public key/block ID provided. The address provided now gets their share of spendable, transferable coins after 6 confirmations. A double-spend could likewise occur in this case without these confirmations.

This operation, however, carries a small fee, needed in order for mega-miners to accept the generation. This fee would need to be sufficient in order for a miner to value adding these transactions over manipulating the currency by deliberately denying them entry. That is a pitfall that must be addressed.

Difficulty calculations will act to keep the rate of creating blocks to once every 2.5 minutes, and creating mining transactions every 5 or so seconds on the network.

The hashing method may be scrypt, but it could also be expanded requiring lookups in random locations on the blockchain, forbidding mining on disk-less devices without appreciable losses of hashing power.

Economics and planned release:
I'm really going to need some feedback here. I plan to pre-mine 256 blocks of this coin in order to establish a chain. The coins from the first 256 blocks would be defined as unspendable in the code but would count toward difficulty calculations (especially important early on).

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[burnum]

in laymens terms, a small miner does not have to mine the whole block?

[duuuuude]

it would be smarter to focus your energies on the already established coins, instead of trying ot make a new one. No disrespect, but it you dont even know c++, then you almost have no chance, and if you look thru the forum thare are actually 50-100 that have failed. Everyone shows up here thinking they are going ot get rich, then they figure out there are to late and, then think if  make my own coin then i will be rich. A coin is just code, what makes it worth it is people faith and interest. Like all money.

j

[rarkenin]

in laymens terms, a small miner does not have to mine the whole block?

I wouldn't word it that way. A block isn't really mined, it's created by someone that found a valid nonce(working parameter to hashing) by bruteforce. If their hash they found is a "really good match" they can create a block, relay transactions, and collect fees. If their hash is not that goo a match (fails the high standard but passes the low standard) they can get coins. They just don't get the chance to create a block and collect fees of transactions put into that block.

[rarkenin]

No disrespect, but it you dont even know c++, then you almost have no chance

Thanks for the criticism, but who ever said c++ is the only language out there? What if I wished to create a totally new system in Java? Anyway I updated the title of the thread in light of your criticism. I'm also not necessarily seeking a financial gain in this (though I wouldn't reject it if it came my way).

[burnum]

No disrespect, but it you dont even know c++, then you almost have no chance

Thanks for the criticism, but who ever said c++ is the only language out there? What if I wished to create a totally new system in Java? Anyway I updated the title of the thread in light of your criticism. I'm also not necessarily seeking a financial gain in this (though I wouldn't reject it if it came my way).

Why not create a new language?? its possible.

in laymens terms, a small miner does not have to mine the whole block?

I wouldn't word it that way. A block isn't really mined, it's created by someone that found a valid nonce(working parameter to hashing) by bruteforce. If their hash they found is a "really good match" they can create a block, relay transactions, and collect fees. If their hash is not that goo a match (fails the high standard but passes the low standard) they can get coins. They just don't get the chance to create a block and collect fees of transactions put into that block.

This is kind of a cool idea and I hope you start working towards it being developed, looking around here in the forum and others I find alot of people sitting on alot of coins (good for them) but coming in new to it someone might find it really difficult to get into the game cause of block difficulty's and investment cost's (I might really love to own a butterfly labs machine, but the cost...) so if possible that someone could mine at a fair advantage without being involved in a pool would be a great way to get the masses plugged in where they can earn their fair share and not fork any over to a pool owner, so in a way this style of alt coin would very much be the common working class's coin, they can earn it without somebody skimming from their efforts, i think you would get alot of people with no tech knowledge involved and so I hope you could setup with that in mind, the support you will have to give will be tremendous.

Now then Now then, please explain to me how one finds a really good match? or point me in a good direction to read about it where i could better understand what your talking about, its all math for the nodes is it not, there should never be a good match, it is or is not right?

[rarkenin]

Why not create a new language?? its possible.

Now then Now then, please explain to me how one finds a really good match? or point me in a good direction to read about it where i could better understand what your talking about, its all math for the nodes is it not, there should never be a good match, it is or is not right?

1. Why create a new one? I'll just use Java.

2. Basically when I'm mining, I'm taking hashes of the block header and nonce. once in a while I'll find a hash with some 0s in front like 000000001f636a8c6a959086b074687 (that's not a real hash and not the right length). However many 0s are how "good" the hash is. In traditional bitcoin if you have a certain number of 0's in front (or more) you create a block. here, I'm also allowing obtaining coins from hashes with less leading 0's, as long as that hash is still above the easier difficulty.

[burnum]

So how far out are you? I will watch this closely to see if it makes sense to the "non techy" to see if you will be able to gain a following and use for the coin, i figure if it makes sense to me then it would do well in the public, most tech savvy guys appear to think there are enough coins floating around and seem to think that they are adequate for the masses, but I will say that it takes an investment and some tech awareness to get anywhere with anything out there now, mining anything right now is plain stupid if you don't have a long term plan or some cash to put into it cause its dependent on others to operate a pool honestly for your sake, if a lower class guy can flip on his computer and get full share for his investment i think you could succeed

Beyond the mining though, there will be alot of support involved, why do you want to do this? Is it worth it to you? is there a purpous for the coin, a network or use?

[anti-scam]

I don't get the point of this. It won't change the distribution of the coin much at all. On average, a person with X% of the hashing power will still get the same percentage of the coins they would otherwise, simply spread out over more coinbase transactions. It's a bloated non-solution.

[rarkenin]

First of all, I see this from my point of view as a cryptographic experiment at best, for now. Second, it aims to solve the issue of mining pools growing to sizes that could cause danger for the network, such as a potential 51% attack mounted, or other problems that can be caused by accidental or deliberate wrongdoings by a large pool.

[anti-scam]

First of all, I see this from my point of view as a cryptographic experiment at best, for now. Second, it aims to solve the issue of mining pools growing to sizes that could cause danger for the network, such as a potential 51% attack mounted, or other problems that can be caused by accidental or deliberate wrongdoings by a large pool.

How does it solve that problem?

[rarkenin]

Incentive for people to mine off-pool. One would actually get more on average from mining transactions than from block generation.

[burnum]

So a pool would be pointless maybe?

[rarkenin]

Yes, something along that line.

[anti-scam]

Incentive for people to mine off-pool. One would actually get more on average from mining transactions than from block generation.

But mining transactions use the same proof-of-work as generating blocks, so what is to stop the pool from doing both?

[rarkenin]

In that if people can micro-mine without fees, then they won't want to go to a fee-ridden pool. People (in my personal experience) would want to get their money aside from a large sort of "pool" or company if they can get the same amount equally stably.

[rarkenin]

Taking my daily bump. Anyone want to take this over, feel free, but PM me first.