[ANN] Catcoin - Scrypt meow!

[vondi1122]

Been waiting on a transaction to go through for 20 min. Why is Catcoin so slow???

The net hashrate of the network dropped a lot in the past few days to a increase in difficulty, it takes 28 min for one block now. But btw, BTC/CAT is the 5th most traided pair on cryptsy, not too bad is it?
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/v2/markets/show/cryptsy

[etblvu1]

Dear Fellow Catcoin Supporters,

I think what we need most urgently right now is a way to prevent the difficulty level from dropping too much at the next difficulty adjustment. There is nothing we can do about the excessive difficulty we have right now - it can be likened to a hangover effect from the rush of rapid mining at the start of the coin with easy difficulty levels - but to cut off enemy resupply lines so to speak (miner-dumpers mining coins cheaply, and dumping on the market), the most urgent thing right now is to prevent the difficulty level from readjusting to something south of 64 during the next adjustment. That would invite a bunch of miner-dumpers to come back, spike the network hashrate temporarily, create another manic cycle, to be followed by another hangover effect cycle, when the blocks get solved too quickly. This would only benefit the mercenary miner-dumpers at the expense of loyal Catcoin miners (and the reputation of Catcoins).

I propose we should create a notification list of miners who may have switched to mining other coins, but are generally supportive of Catcoins, and get them to commit to switching back to mining Catcoins a few blocks early, i.e., *before* the difficulty switch is to occur - so the difficulty adjustment will be a modest and realistic adjustment down rather than a crash to easy money for miner-dumpers. Likewise, we can use the same notification list, to let miners who plan to switch away from mining Catcoins at the next difficulty adjustment - to please switch away from mining Catcoins a few blocks early - so again, the increase in difficulty levels computed by the network will be more modest and realistic.

I believe this modest plan can go a long way towards solving the destructive resonance of wild difficulty swings. If this effort looks credible, and we could keep a list of how many megahashes worth of miners we have committed to follow this system and by publicly showing we have this system in place, we may even persuade Catcoin dumpers to immediately stop dumping. After all, they only dump because they anticipate being able to restock cheap Catcoins at the next difficulty adjustment - but if that adjustment does not provide the cheap Catcoins they were expecting, won't they fear running out of Catcoins - or worse yet - that they will have too few Catcoins as the prices start rising? We may have an immediate rise in the value of Catcoins, simply by taking this simple step.

Your comments, suggestions, criticisms, ideas, questions; and any volunteers to help make this happen?

Thank you,

Etblvu1

[kalus]

Dear Fellow Catcoin Supporters,

I think what we need most urgently right now is a way to prevent the difficulty level from dropping too much at the next difficulty adjustment. There is nothing we can do about the excessive difficulty we have right now - it can be likened to a hangover effect from the rush of rapid mining at the start of the coin with easy difficulty levels - but to cut off enemy resupply lines so to speak (miner-dumpers mining coins cheaply, and dumping on the market), the most urgent thing right now is to prevent the difficulty level from readjusting to something south of 64 during the next adjustment. That would invite a bunch of miner-dumpers to come back, spike the network hashrate temporarily, create another manic cycle, to be followed by another hangover effect cycle, when the blocks get solved too quickly. This would only benefit the mercenary miner-dumpers at the expense of loyal Catcoin miners (and the reputation of Catcoins).

while you have good intentions, this smacks of market manipulation and regulation.

Are you speculating on catcoin?  do you think you're striking it rich? catcoin seems more like a speculator's tool than an actual currency.  It's treated like a get rich quick scheme.  look at it from a miner's perspective:  someone willing to hoard catcoins is the customer they're looking for, so someone willing to put their money where your mouth is, is buying those cheap catcoins up.  that's how a free market works:  set a price, and see if someone buys it.  you are in competition with every other seller, and you are not protected by the catcoin cartel you're proposing.

can you not respect the free market and let catcoin float? if you choke off interest by miners, you will never get the baseline hash rate to persist.  we need hundreds of thousands of people with a video card and some spare cycles to hash on a casual basis.  If you believe that catcoin can stand up on its merits, then there is nothing to fear, and certainly no reason to engage in anti-mining propaganda.

to view miners as 'enemies', and then expect someone with a significant amount of real-world currency invested in large mining farm to come in and prop up this currency artificially?  that's sucking and blowing at the same time.  

[johnny_non]

Dear Fellow Catcoin Supporters,

I think what we need most urgently right now is a way to prevent the difficulty level from dropping too much at the next difficulty adjustment. There is nothing we can do about the excessive difficulty we have right now - it can be likened to a hangover effect from the rush of rapid mining at the start of the coin with easy difficulty levels - but to cut off enemy resupply lines so to speak (miner-dumpers mining coins cheaply, and dumping on the market), the most urgent thing right now is to prevent the difficulty level from readjusting to something south of 64 during the next adjustment. That would invite a bunch of miner-dumpers to come back, spike the network hashrate temporarily, create another manic cycle, to be followed by another hangover effect cycle, when the blocks get solved too quickly. This would only benefit the mercenary miner-dumpers at the expense of loyal Catcoin miners (and the reputation of Catcoins).

while you have good intentions, this smacks of market manipulation and regulation.

can you not let catcoin float?  if you choke off interest by miners, you will never get the baseline hash rate to persist.  we need hundreds of thousands of people with a video card and some spare cycles to hash on a casual basis.  If you believe that catcoin can stand up on its merits, then there is nothing to fear, and certainly no reason to engage in anti-mining propaganda.

Are you speculating on catcoin?  do you think you're striking it rich?  dogecoin is being transacted, and being used as a currency, and may gain limited to widespread adoption.  catcoin seems more like a speculator's tool, like a get rich quick scheme.  look at it from a miner's perspective:  someone willing to hoard catcoins is the customer they're looking for. 
to view miners as 'enemies', and then expect someone with a significant amount of real-world currency invested in large mining farm to come in and prop up this currency artificially?  that's sucking and blowing at the same time. 

+1

[etblvu1]

while you have good intentions, this smacks of market manipulation and regulation.
Can you not let catcoin float?  if you choke off interest by miners, you will never get the baseline hash rate to persist.  we need hundreds of thousands of people with a video card and some spare cycles to hash on a casual basis.  If you believe that catcoin can stand up on its merits, then there is nothing to fear, and certainly no reason to engage in anti-mining propaganda. Are you speculating on catcoin?  do you think you're striking it rich?  dogecoin is being transacted, and being used as a currency, and may gain limited to widespread adoption.  catcoin seems more like a speculator's tool, like a get rich quick scheme.  look at it from a miner's perspective:  someone willing to hoard catcoins is the customer they're looking for.  to view miners as 'enemies', and then expect someone with a significant amount of real-world currency invested in large mining farm to come in and prop up this currency artificially?  that's sucking and blowing at the same time.  

True market manipulation is fundamentally only possible if there is a government agency or central bank involved, with the monopoly power to do something private actors are not allowed to do. When private individuals act in concert to cause things to happen, it really is not analogous to the central bank deciding to flood the market with a bunch of artificial money.

Or if you do not agree, and you think it is market manipulation to have miners make their intentions known early to the network, so the network can adjust difficulty levels realistically, then that is not fair either, because people who switch mining to different coins, to maximize profits, are cooperating and counting on creating artificial booms and busts in the coin difficulty levels, which itself is "market manipulation." What I propose simply counteracts this "market manipulation," to bring the state of affairs closer to what they would be absent this "market manipulation" that is already happening.

The mining difficulty adjustment was designed and intended to keep block generation at a certain pace (in our case, one block per ten minutes), with miners coming and going based on their decision to support the coin, and collecting rewards for participating in that productive process. It was never designed to counteract the effects of people jumping into and out of mining a coin, and the wild swings in difficulty levels that creates. There is nothing beneficial in having people pump up the hashrates and difficulty of a coin, which is really a type of exploit of a weakness in the difficulty adjustment algorithm if anything, then coming back and mining coins when the algorithm causes the difficulty to decrease. You only need to look at the difficulty history of a coin like GalaxyCoin to see how bad this can get.

So a concerted effort to even out difficulty is either not market manipulation at all - or it is a type of market manipulation, but of a kind that is specifically to counteract a market manipulation that is already happening. Either way you look at it, you cannot call it wrong, unless you intend to profit from pumping-and-dumping and hate to lose Catcoins as a means to engage in it.

[johnny_non]

Been waiting on a transaction to go through for 20 min. Why is Catcoin so slow???

The net hashrate of the network dropped a lot in the past few days to a increase in difficulty, it takes 28 min for one block now. But btw, BTC/CAT is the 5th most traided pair on cryptsy, not too bad is it?
http://www.cryptocoincharts.info/v2/markets/show/cryptsy

what's funny is how long we've been at a stand still 

[kalus]

The mining difficulty adjustment was designed and intended to keep block generation at a certain pace (in our case, one block per ten minutes), with miners coming and going based on their decision to support the coin, and collecting rewards for participating in that productive process. It was never designed to counteract the effects of people jumping into and out of mining a coin, and the wild swings in difficulty levels that creates. There is nothing beneficial in having people pump up the hashrates and difficulty of a coin, which is really a type of exploit of a weakness in the difficulty adjustment algorithm if anything, then coming back and mining coins when the algorithm causes the difficulty to decrease. You only need to look at the difficulty history of a coin like GalaxyCoin to see how bad this can get.

With scarcely a week into the start of catcoin, and you're suggesting we manipulate the currency difficulty in a way that has not been done with any other currency before.  what is the purpose of this?  you claim it is to prevent 'people jumping into and out of mining a coin'.  why on earth would you want to do that?  it is the miner's prerogative where to spend their hash power.

catcoin will thrive or wither based on its merits.  You're proposing regulating mining:  the actual production source of catcoins.  can you not see you're throttling the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs?

there is nothing beneficial in trying to manipulate the mining community as a whole.  many people in this thread are miners.  frustrating mining, which is built into the entire design of the coin in the first place, will make people orphan this coin for the next altcoin, with 99% of the similarities of catcoin and none of the mining restrictions.  

you're proposing making it slightly more difficult to live with and work with the coin.  this is enough to drive people to coinye west.  

[etblvu1]

Another thought from a moral angle on difficulty adjustments --

Since the Catcoin algorithm makes an estimation of what difficulty level is appropriate for the next 2016 blocks, if you are engaged in mining the coin during the time you know this estimation is taking place - you are in a way choosing to get included in that estimation. So when you skip out on the coin after your input was factored into computing the network difficulty - you are arguably skipping out on a moral obligation to continue mining, and passing the costs and pains of that onto others. If you know estimation is going to happen, and you don't intend to continue mining during the next difficulty level because you expect to earn better profits elsewhere, it is arguable that you have the moral obligation to remove yourself from being included in the estimation from the next difficult level - and failure to remove yourself is just causing pain to others. There is no law against this kind of thing (nor should there be), but choosing to act morally or cooperating with others who wish to act morally, certainly is not "market manipulation."

[YoyodyneSystems]

Looks like only 5 BTC of buy orders left in the 70000-50000. Down 30% in the last day. Big sell offs today.
Buy in cheap later... I guess.

[kalus]

you are arguably skipping out on a moral obligation to continue mining, and passing the costs and pains of that onto others. If you know estimation is going to happen, and you don't intend to continue mining during the next difficulty level because you expect to earn better profits elsewhere

this argument isn't market manipulation as much as you're attempting emotional blackmail.  If you want a moral currency, start MoralOrelCoin.  

I feel a miner puts in the hash rate, deprives themselves of the opportunity to mine other currencies with less hassle, commits real-world resources, and then has to put up with cryptsy's bullshit delays.  Then they have to come to this thread and read why mining isn't welcome for catcoins.  All of this resolves any 'moral obligation' a miner has to catcoin.

as for 'passing the costs-and-pains', ahahahahaha.  miners own the means of production.  they are the primary producers of the very commodity you're trading and speculating in.  It is the traders, speculators, pump-and-dumpers, that are on the "B" Ark.  If you are not mining, you're arguably a parasite on the working class, the entrepreneur miner.  don't punch the left tit while you suckle the right.

[etblvu1]

Hi Kalus, unless I am mistaken, when I saw you talk of "market manipulation" I understood this as you making a moral condemnation - you calling it wrong. I explained why my proposed solution to an identified problem does not deserve moral denunciation - and if anything - it is people who choose to be included in the difficulty estimate who then skip out after being included in the estimate - who are doing something that could be argued as morally wrong - now you seem to be playing the amoral card, with "rules of acquisition," and so on. I think if people cooperate to keep the difficulty jumps, the difficulty graph could indeed get "boring" like what you see with litecoins. Maybe it won't be exciting. But if we want the coins to suceed, we should want "boring." The blockchain's purpose for existing to secure financial transactions, not to create exciting rides for people to pump and dump. Maybe Bitcoins and Litecoins have good market capitalization in part because there isn't any "exciting" and destructive difficulty harmonics going on.

[g4lt]

you are arguably skipping out on a moral obligation to continue mining, and passing the costs and pains of that onto others. If you know estimation is going to happen, and you don't intend to continue mining during the next difficulty level because you expect to earn better profits elsewhere

this argument isn't market manipulation as much as you're attempting emotional blackmail.  If you want a moral currency, start MoralOrelCoin.  

I feel a miner puts in the hash rate, deprives themselves of the opportunity to mine other currencies with less hassle, commits real-world resources, and then has to put up with cryptsy's bullshit delays.  Then they have to come to this thread and read why mining isn't welcome for catcoins.  All of this resolves any 'moral obligation' a miner has to catcoin.

as for 'passing the costs-and-pains', ahahahahaha.  miners own the means of production.  they are the primary producers of the very commodity you're trading and speculating in.  It is the traders, speculators, pump-and-dumpers, that are on the "B" Ark.  If you are not mining, you're arguably a parasite on the working class, the entrepreneur miner.  don't punch the left tit while you suckle the right.

If you're going to white-knight somebody, at least try to white-knight someone who's actually still around to white knight FOR...

[kalus]

Hi Kalus, unless I am mistaken, when I saw you talk of "market manipulation" I understood this as you making a moral condemnation - you calling it wrong. I explained why my proposed solution to an identified problem does not deserve moral denunciation - and if anything - it is people who choose to be included in the difficulty estimate who then skip out after being included in the estimate - who are doing something that could be argued as morally wrong

you're made a separate argument claiming "costs and pains".  that's spurious, and pulls at emotional heartstrings.

There is no obligation, moral or otherwise, to keep your mining equipment on when you're done mining.

It is the speculator's fault for intentionally hyping the currency without a way to conduct day-to-day transactions.   when the coin was announced and the difficulty shot up in the first 96 hours, we didn't even have fucking wallets for windows, linux, and osx.  even though it wasn't listed on a single exchange, everyone was already hoarding their coins, trading their coins, and trying to intentionally drive up the price on no actual, real world value.  nothing but speculation.

that speculation has dried up.  miners followed in on the hype, and now they're gone.  this is the result of SPECULATORS.  don't blame the miners for producing bona fide coins.

if you get-rich-quick-schemers hadn't bought into your own hype, this valuation would have built up over time.  however, a week into it, you're trying to make miners create false value in catcoin by obligating them to stay around.  sorry, these rigs cost money to run.  and you're not making me any money. 

I've never heard of hash rate being leveraged in this way.  simply ridiculous how you scapegoat mining, yet benefit directly off the labour.  it's like people that hire landscapers from the home depot parking lot becuase they can't be bothered to get their hands dirty in their own backyard.  

The blockchain's purpose for existing to secure financial transactions, not to create exciting rides for people to pump and dump. Maybe Bitcoins and Litecoins have good market capitalization in part because there isn't any "exciting" and destructive difficulty harmonics going on.

don't personify the blockchain.  it is there to facilitate the integrity of transactions with the currency, not just the transactions you personally, morally approve of.

[kalus]

you are arguably skipping out on a moral obligation to continue mining, and passing the costs and pains of that onto others. If you know estimation is going to happen, and you don't intend to continue mining during the next difficulty level because you expect to earn better profits elsewhere

this argument isn't market manipulation as much as you're attempting emotional blackmail.  If you want a moral currency, start MoralOrelCoin.  

I feel a miner puts in the hash rate, deprives themselves of the opportunity to mine other currencies with less hassle, commits real-world resources, and then has to put up with cryptsy's bullshit delays.  Then they have to come to this thread and read why mining isn't welcome for catcoins.  All of this resolves any 'moral obligation' a miner has to catcoin.

as for 'passing the costs-and-pains', ahahahahaha.  miners own the means of production.  they are the primary producers of the very commodity you're trading and speculating in.  It is the traders, speculators, pump-and-dumpers, that are on the "B" Ark.  If you are not mining, you're arguably a parasite on the working class, the entrepreneur miner.  don't punch the left tit while you suckle the right.

If you're going to white-knight somebody, at least try to white-knight someone who's actually still around to white knight FOR...

I'm a miner, and i'm here.  i'm waiting for a market-incentivised excuse to mine catcoins, because i am not irrationally exuberant. 

for now, it's more profitable for me to buy catcoins from panicked speculators. 

[janos666]

I think the first mistake was that the excel trade sheet listed this coin at ~0.001 BTC at high value and it stick.
It was obvious that this coin will be too far from profitable to mine at that price after the very close difficulty recalculation.

This is why I didn't dump this coin, but bought even more than I mined.
It was obvious that price must rise (at least to 0.002 or 0.0028 when it spikes) or that the coin will practically die soon. (I wished to believe in the first version...)

The next mistake was the big wave of panic sells which pushed the price even lower. But it's a free market. And it's their mistake.

But it's not over yet. I wouldn't call it dead at this point. Let's see what the next few days will bring for CAT.

[vondi1122]

I'm a miner, and i'm here.  i'm waiting for a market-incentivised excuse to mine catcoins, because i am not irrationally exuberant. 

for now, it's more profitable for me to buy catcoins from panicked speculators. 

Very reasonable

[etblvu1]

There is no obligation, moral or otherwise, to keep your mining equipment on when you're done mining. [unquote]

I did not say you had the obligation - people are free to mine or not mine or cooperate in mining or cooperate in not mining as they see fit. But I said if you are going to attribute moral judgments for people mining as they see fit or cooperating in mining as they see fit, then clearly skipping out on actually following through with mining after intentionally choosing to be included in difficulty estimation would run afoul of a (minor) moral obligation. If I can take you at your word that people have no moral obligations in regards to how they choose to mine or not mine, then you stepped out of your own bounds when you called the proposed cooperation among miners a "market manipulation" (which is just another way of saying "morally wrong."). I have the right to start mining and stop mining any coin any time I see fit, just as much as you claim to for yourself, and if so, you have no business trying to morally suppress me (or others who may wish to follow my lead), in choosing to use my mining equipment in a manner I believe will benefit the success of the coin. Or you have the free speech right to try to morally suppress me, in which I case I claim the same prerogative. Please, be consistent.

[kalus]

you stepped out of your own bounds when you called the proposed cooperation among miners a "market manipulation" (which is just another way of saying "morally wrong.").

This argument is non sequitor.    you have created a strawman.

Market Manipulation are transactions or collusions which create an artificial price or maintain an artificial price for a tradeable security.

litmus test:  let catcoin float to its natural value.   don't prop up a currency's value artificially. by maintaining a hash rate artificially with your own equipment, you're manipulating the currency to be worth higher than it naturally would be.  as soon as you stop using market intervention to 'correct' whatever it is you're trying to fix, you'll start to see where the real needs are:  catcoin still needs to be accepted as a currency in the same way bitcoin and dogecoin are.  this has little to nothing with keeping a few megahashes mining catcoin to prop up your own portfolio valuation. 

case study:  Dogecoin has a healthy transaction ledger as well as a healthy baseline of mining infrastructure devoted to its survival.  this is not through collusion between large mining farms:  it is being held together by part time, casual farmers using laptops, cpus, anything to get a few, quick, inexpensive coins to play with.  this is what happens when a coin floats, rather than catcoin being indexed to 0.0001 from the start.  

Or you have the free speech right to try to morally suppress me, in which I case I claim the same prerogative. Please, be consistent.

Lets be clear here:  i'm not suppressing your speech. I did not report you to the moderator.  I did not tell you to fuck off.

i'm simply disagreeing with you.  I'm sorry if you feel that a dissenting opinion is an attack.  

[etblvu1]

This argument is non sequitor.    you have created a strawman. Market Manipulation are transactions or collusions which create an artificial price or maintain an artificial price for a tradeable security. let catcoin float to its natural value.   don't prop up a currency's value artificially. by maintaining a hash rate artificially

Me and anyone I voluntarily persuade to mine or not mine under whatever circumstances I/we choose (such as what would support the coin's long-term success), is no more or less "artificial," than you and anyone you persuade to mine or not mine under circumstances you choose (such as split second profitability). I have the same moral freedom to act as you do. If you disagree, please explain your rationale.

[kalus]

Me and anyone I voluntarily persuade to mine or not mine under whatever circumstances I/we choose, is no more or less "artificial," than you and you persuade choosing to mine or not mine under circumstances you choose. I have the same moral freedom to act as you do. If you disagree, please explain your rationale.

that was not your original argument.

Additionally, you make this claim:

a "market manipulation" (which is just another way of saying "morally wrong.").

This is your claim, but you do not support it argumentatively.  You simply state: "it's just another way of saying..." i reject the equivalency as a non sequitor:  one train of thought does not follow to the conclusion you make.

I don't need to explain your strawman.


you still have not addressed the huge problem speculators created when they indexed catcoin at 0.0001.  this was pointed out a few posts back, and i pointed out there's no rational reason it should be valued as such.  this was the real cause of the problem, not the miners.