[ANNOUNCE] Ixcoin - a new Bitcoin fork

[Gavin Andresen]

So... I got this unsolicited email:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Hi Gavin,

I'm one of the founders of the Ixcoin fork of Bitcoin. If you're
interested in trying out the new blockchain, we set aside a 5,000 IXC
bonus for each of you.

Please email me your IXC addresses if you're interested.

Best regards,

Thomas.
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... and I'm trying to figure out why my immediate reaction is "yuck."

I guess I just don't see the point of IxCoin.  I just spent some time looking back through all the original poster's messages, and I don't see any prior discussion of goals of IxCoin, how it should be designed, etc.

If the goal is to let more people be early adopters of a new cyber-currency, then it seems to me giving early bitcoin adopters a bunch of IxCoin goes against that goal.

[1714019797]

1714019797

[1714019797]

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[Spacy]

If the goal is to let more people be early adopters of a new cyber-currency, then it seems to me giving early bitcoin adopters a bunch of IxCoin goes against that goal.

Maybe they want some people with a lot of BTCs in the boat, as very liquid investors ;-)

[tysat]

So... I got this unsolicited email:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
.....

... and I'm trying to figure out why my immediate reaction is "yuck."

I guess I just don't see the point of IxCoin.  I just spent some time looking back through all the original poster's messages, and I don't see any prior discussion of goals of IxCoin, how it should be designed, etc.

If the goal is to let more people be early adopters of a new cyber-currency, then it seems to me giving early bitcoin adopters a bunch of IxCoin goes against that goal.

I'm pretty sure you're right about that, the chain doesn't serve any purpose.  People seem to be speculating highly on it.  It's almost twice as profitable to mine ixcoin and trade for bitcoins compared to mining bitcoins currently.

[dancupid]

... and I'm trying to figure out why my immediate reaction is "yuck."

I guess I just don't see the point of IxCoin.  I just spent some time looking back through all the original poster's messages, and I don't see any prior discussion of goals of IxCoin, how it should be designed, etc.

If the goal is to let more people be early adopters of a new cyber-currency, then it seems to me giving early bitcoin adopters a bunch of IxCoin goes against that goal.

It doesn't need a point - it's a fly in the ointment.
I bought some IXcoins for fun (though I'm currently down $2 on the $2 worth I bought). I think it's interesting to see how bitcoin deals with the flies. The more irritations the better - I want bitcoin to be constantly tested. A fly is trivial - a tiger would be a better test.

[enmaku]

Again with the people seeking higher purposes and making obvious fallacies: "why do we need another blockchain?" we don't, necessarily NEED another blockchain, but someone thought bitcoin would be better with a steeper initial rise so we get to the deflationary fun faster so they made one simple change. "But we're diluting the bitcoin brand by allowing IXCoin to exist!" Maybe there's *some* truth to that one, but in the long run is FireFox a better or worse product when it must compete with Chrome, Opera, Safari, IE etc? Is there a need for silver bullion when we have gold? Do we really need as many varieties of sliced white sandwich bread as I see in the supermarket? And how many kinds of toilet paper can one grocery store possibly sell? Competition isn't a bad thing and not every competitor need offer a drastically different product.

Edit: and while I was posting, dancupid said it much more eloquently and with fewer words

[allinvain]

I am interested in making a new blockchain currency that is the complete opposite of IXcoin.

I am thinking of calling it longcoin or rarecoin. Basically you get 0.1 rarecoins per block so you need to mine 10 blocks just to get one rarecoin.
There will still be 21 million coins in total but it will probably take 1000 years until all the coins are made.

I will announce this well in advance and have an official date so that everyone knows when this will start the genesis block and everyone can have their clients and miners ready.

You should fork a chain that has a reverse difficulty curve This way there is no early adopter envy. Also this way the more people use them and join the network, the more coins will be produced. Just a wild thought.

[allinvain]

Dang, and the mining capacity keeps on increasing...

Pool Hash rate (MHash/second)   84649.9

Hey at the very least this will take some pressure off the bitcoin miners A difficulty DECREASE is very much welcome for a change.

[kjj]

Meh.  Whenever anyone suggests changing the rules, we tell them to go make their own competing block chain and see which one wins.

This guy did exactly that.  Now we get to watch and see which one wins.

I only wish he'd told the devs in advance so they could have deployed a node with extra debug logging to monitor the chain reorg logic.  The first 24 hours saw an amazing churn in the ixcoin chain, making a spectacular test of the code.  While we can now have some faith that our reorg logic is sound and can withstand some serious beaning, we will probably never get another chance to record it working under severe stress.

[tysat]

Dang, and the mining capacity keeps on increasing...

Pool Hash rate (MHash/second)   84649.9

Hey at the very least this will take some pressure off the bitcoin miners A difficulty DECREASE is very much welcome for a change.

I think difficulty will be going up again shortly... and with another 4x difficulty increase it will not be worth it to mine anymore.

[smoothie]

Dang, and the mining capacity keeps on increasing...

Pool Hash rate (MHash/second)   84649.9

Hey at the very least this will take some pressure off the bitcoin miners A difficulty DECREASE is very much welcome for a change.

I think difficulty will be going up again shortly... and with another 4x difficulty increase it will not be worth it to mine anymore.

Not saying you are wrong but the last two difficulty increases people said the same thing. Maybe the one after the next one.

[allinvain]

Meh.  Whenever anyone suggests changing the rules, we tell them to go make their own competing block chain and see which one wins.

This guy did exactly that.  Now we get to watch and see which one wins.

I only wish he'd told the devs in advance so they could have deployed a node with extra debug logging to monitor the chain reorg logic.  The first 24 hours saw an amazing churn in the ixcoin chain, making a spectacular test of the code.  While we can now have some faith that our reorg logic is sound and can withstand some serious beaning, we will probably never get another chance to record it working under severe stress.

Not necessarily. They can just create another testnet equivalent and invite people to mine it like crazy. I think with ixcoin it was a few people endowed with a lot of hashing power that raped the network initially. I remember seeing one dude put in like 23 Ghashes into it right when it was launched. But yeah I agree it would've been neat to have a node record network stats and whatnot and see what we can learn from a super rapid adoption rate.

Ixcoin breaking the ice sort of speak makes me wonder if we'll start seeing a lot more "mee too" forks.

[allinvain]

Dang, and the mining capacity keeps on increasing...

Pool Hash rate (MHash/second)   84649.9

Hey at the very least this will take some pressure off the bitcoin miners A difficulty DECREASE is very much welcome for a change.

I think difficulty will be going up again shortly... and with another 4x difficulty increase it will not be worth it to mine anymore.

Not saying you are wrong but the last two difficulty increases people said the same thing. Maybe the one after the next one.

Heh...pool hashrate is dropping Pool Hash rate (MHash/second)   78407

Someone with a lot of hashing muscle is calling it quits, or going solo. Pump and dump? Time to watch the exchange to see what price does.

Edit: ok, strike that..it seems the hash rate is oscillating wildly...I'm sure you guys can think of several scenarios as to why this is happening.

[smoothie]

This should be a fun couple of days ahead.

[tysat]

Ixcoin breaking the ice sort of speak makes me wonder if we'll start seeing a lot more "mee too" forks.

I'd love to see that, makes for some quick profit if people are buying them far above difficulty ratio.

[nmat]

There's a guy here saying the code will break once it reaches 21 million coins
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36701.msg451411#new

[caston]

Ixcoin breaking the ice sort of speak makes me wonder if we'll start seeing a lot more "mee too" forks.

I'd love to see that, makes for some quick profit if people are buying them far above difficulty ratio.

Yeah, if someone decides to make one that matures faster than IXcoin please let me know in advance so I get a chance to mine before all the others with the mega hash power dump IXcoin for it.

[enmaku]

There's a guy here saying the code will break once it reaches 21 million coins
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36701.msg451411#new

Which makes it no different than a couple old versions of the bitcoin client. An oversight in the code doesn't make it a scam, though I am keeping a close eye on how quickly this one gets fixed...

[Nasakioto]

... and I'm trying to figure out why my immediate reaction is "yuck."

I guess I just don't see the point of IxCoin.  I just spent some time looking back through all the original poster's messages, and I don't see any prior discussion of goals of IxCoin, how it should be designed, etc.

If the goal is to let more people be early adopters of a new cyber-currency, then it seems to me giving early bitcoin adopters a bunch of IxCoin goes against that goal.

Sorry you feel this way.

It was a gesture to motivate you to have a look. I'd be happy to donate your Ixcoins to an Ixcoin Faucet (if someone develops it).

[Nasakioto]

There's a guy here saying the code will break once it reaches 21 million coins
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=36701.msg451411#new

Which makes it no different than a couple old versions of the bitcoin client. An oversight in the code doesn't make it a scam, though I am keeping a close eye on how quickly this one gets fixed...

Indeed. We're working on a updates to the Ixcoin client such as integrating 0.3.25 changes. The above issue won't come into play for a few years so we still have time but we'll address it in the next version.

[Raoul Duke]

Indeed. We're working on a updates to the Ixcoin client such as integrating 0.3.25 changes. The above issue won't come into play for a few years so we still have time but we'll address it in the next version.

I think what you mean is you're going to use the code written for the bitcoin client...

Seeing as you didn't even changed some essential parts of the code i really doubt you will work on updating it on your own.

You are as much of a programmer as I am...  

And by the way: who is "we"? LOL