[ANNOUNCE] Ixcoin - a new Bitcoin fork

[markm]

Greater supply of hashing should cause the difficulty of more and more merge-able chains to increase, making them more secure, thus appear less risky to use, thus more useful; plus more and more miners will have the coins thus want outlets for them, which should lead to exchanges for them, and since most (or many, anyway) do not even appear on exchanges currently if nothing else it could lead to more price discovery; whether price discovery leads to higher prices is something we might have to learn empirically. Look at BBQcoin prices in auctions on this forum, do you think once it appears on one or more web based public exchanges it will go up or down in price compared to prices people have been getting in those auctions?

-MarkM-

[1714137849]

1714137849

[1714137849]

1714137849

[ssateneth]

This coin is still being traded and merge mined. Where can I get an ixcoin wallet? When I install the client, it stays at zero connections. What can I do to force it to get connections to download the block chain?

[markm]

-addnode 198.154.60.183

-MarkM-

[markm]

can you tell me what's happening with IXcoin and why the devs seem to have stopped bothering with it?

I figured why waste my reply on just one reader when I could inflict it upon the entire altcoin forum? So here it is:



Ixcoin is being merged-mined, On bitparking's merged mined pool it is only merged with bitcoins, namecoins, and devcoins though, so the coins a small power miner would get the most of are not part of the merge so the small miners miss out on the very coins they would get the largest number of if they were included in the merge. So merged mining is best done oneself, so one can include all the merge-able coins and also, if you are a small miner who is very unlikely to find a block of namecoin or devcoin or even ixcoin, you can leave them out (or use bitparking's pool to get some of them) if your resources are too limited to actually manage to merge ALL the merged mine able coins.

Vircurex exchange still exchanges Ixcoins, I do not know offhand which if any other exchanges do.

As to the originator of the coin, maybe he sold off his pre-mined coins and considers the pump and dump joke coin he created to have done its job of getting him a quick buck and has no further interest in it? I do not know. He has not said why he does or does not do whatever he does or does not do.

When a copy of bitcoin with the merged mining patches is made, all the merged mined coins including Ixcoin will be updated regardless of whether their original creators bother to do that or someone else ends up having to do it. So it doesn't matter what the original creators are up to because the community supports its coins because the community cares about the users of the coins.

-MarkM-

[bitpop]

What other merge mining coins are there? I only know of nmc, dvc, ixc. I do p2pool btc, nmc and ixc myself. what patch are you talking about?

[markm]

What other merge mining coins are there? I only know of nmc, dvc, ixc. I do p2pool btc, nmc and ixc myself. what patch are you talking about?

BTC, NMC, DVC, GRP, IXC, I0C, CLC, XGG

(XGG = GeistGeld).

One version of the patch is in

https://sourceforge.net/projects/galacticmilieu/files/

as the file named merged-mining.patch

Google might be able to find earlier versions it derives from.

Also doublec likely has one or more versions too.

-MarkM-

[larkstongues]

How does Ixcoin differ from Bitcoin? - Different default ports

haha, I just love the release statement!
also: What about using Port 1337 and calling it l33tcoin?

[Kyune]

BTC, NMC, DVC, GRP, IXC, I0C, CLC, XGG

(XGG = GeistGeld).

MarkM, why is it that these SHA-256 coins can be merge-mined with BTC, but scrypt-based coins cannot currently be merge-mined on top of, say, Litecoin?  Is it because Bitcoin devs have chosen to allow merge mining at some level but Litecoin devs have not?  Or it is not a matter of "allowing" merge-mining, but simply that no one has done the necessary coding work?  Or is there some other technical obstacle?

[snailbrain]

BTC, NMC, DVC, GRP, IXC, I0C, CLC, XGG

(XGG = GeistGeld).

MarkM, why is it that these SHA-256 coins can be merge-mined with BTC, but scrypt-based coins cannot currently be merge-mined on top of, say, Litecoin?  Is it because Bitcoin devs have chosen to allow merge mining at some level but Litecoin devs have not?  Or it is not a matter of "allowing" merge-mining, but simply that no one has done the necessary coding work?  Or is there some other technical obstacle?

or is it only for the initiated

[bitpop]

What does the patch do?

[markm]

What does the patch do?

It tells "patch" what to change, based on a "diff" between normal bitcoin (which can only act as the primary chain in a merge) and a copy of that same version of bitcoin with support for being a secondary chain in a merge added.

-MarkM-

EDIT re other posts: I do not even know whether litecoin has support for being the primary chain in a merge.

[snailbrain]

Mark thanks for your time...

i'm a little bit confused to merged mining .. i know of it (have been in the scene for a while but have just "returned").. but just curious about something:

when you say it is merged mined (IXcoin):
1. is it merged mined only by bitparking because they have this patch
or
2. it's merged mined by a few pools, but they don't give the merged coins to their clients.
or
3. it's merged mined by everyone mining bitcoin, but they don't know it.

if:
1. Won't they have over 51% on this pool?
or
2. These pools are making free coins at the expense (although not extra work) of the miners on the pool.
or
3. Where are these merged coins going.


very sorry to sound so "noobish"..

[markm]

Good questions. I'd be interested to know the answers too.

However, doublec (bitparking) is far from being the only entity in possession of the patch, that Galactic Milieu sourceforge files download dir I pointed at is mine, the namecoin author wrote the merged mining support so also has some form of it, it is in all the merged mined coins so can be derived back out of any of them and everyone who has  them thus has it.

Bitcoin blocks mined while merged-mining secondary chains contain the chain identifiers of the chains merged, so anyone who knows a particular block was mined by a particular pool can check which chains the pool was merged-mining at the time.

(Tricky part conceivably being to identify whether any particular block was mined by a pool and if so which pool, if the pool didn't want anyone to figure out that pool mined it or if a miner or pool chose to "counterfeit" the stigmata by which a block's miner sometimes chooses to identify itself.)

-MarkM-

[bitpop]

Sorry I still don't understand why btc needs a patch?

[snailbrain]

Good questions. I'd be interested to know the answers too.

However, doublec (bitparking) is far from being the only entity in possession of the patch, that Galactic Milieu sourceforge files download dir I pointed at is mine, the namecoin author wrote the merged mining support so also has some form of it, it is in all the merged mined coins so can be derived back out of any of them and everyone who has  them thus has it.

Bitcoin blocks mined while merged-mining secondary chains contain the chain identifiers of the chains merged, so anyone who knows a particular block was mined by a particular pool can check which chains the pool was merged-mining at the time.

(Tricky part conceivably being to identify whether any particular block was mined by a pool and if so which pool, if the pool didn't want anyone to figure out that pool mined it or if a miner or pool chose to "counterfeit" the stigmata by which a block's miner sometimes chooses to identify itself.)

-MarkM-

thanks.. i think we need to delve deeper into this rabbit hole

every pool should be merge mining.. i'm guessing all the pro's are.. but the noob pools are not.. seems a little bit like "secretly stealing money" if they aren't declaring it?

by looking at the hash rates

Network
GH/sec
Bitcoin   84,150.3997
Devcoin   1,638.3046
Freicoin   2,337.9647
Feathercoi   0.5389
Ixcoin   1,434.6362
Litecoin   19.1917
Namecoin   18,248.9634
Ppcoin   2,894.8738
Terracoin   489.3262

i assume that the hash rate in merged mining would be the same (sorry if i'm wrong, just seems logical)..

example... if i merged mine bitcoin and namecoins at 1.5ghash, they both get 1.5ghash..
so.. atm.. bitparking is mining at 1180.66ghash... this is over 50% of the namecoin pool.. BUT.. it says ixcoin is only getting 1.5ghash.. so it can't be merge mined on bitparking?

please correct me.. as i must be wrong, as this does not add up

[bitpop]

Slush just got rid of merge mining nmc

[markm]

Less people being given free namecoins they don't even want or care about might mean less namecoins being thrown away dirt cheap on exchanges, so it could turn out that slush miners no longer getting them could turn out nicely for people who do care enough to seek out pools that do still offer them.

(Last I heard Eligius offers namecoin and maybe even also devcoin along side bitcoin? Namecoin anyway at least?)

That question about the hash rates of e.g. Ixcoin vs a pool that merged mines it is intriguing, I expect doublec would be the chap to ask about that, maybe he had some troubles with Ixcoin over the timespan the hash rate is averaged over or something? Or maybe Ixcoin has an adaptive difficulty fix against chainhopping that the routine that comes up with the estimated hash rates is not taking into account?

-MarkM-

[bitpop]

Just focus on btc. Ltc might be ok but can't mine both let alone merge mining

[markm]

Maybe bitparking even gives miners full options, such that if they choose not to receive a particular coin they also do not get given work that includes merged mining that particular coin?

-MarkM-

[snailbrain]

Maybe bitparking even gives miners full options, such that if they choose not to receive a particular coin they also do not get given work that includes merged mining that particular coin?

-MarkM-

from what i gathered.. if you don't supply a nmc address you don't get the coins.. i'm not sure if the shares are then distributed evenly to the people that do give an address or not.. not really bothered..

what i'm worried about is if it has more than 51% hashing power in the nmc chain.. and if this can be exploited somehow.. ixcoin.. i gave up on it now