[ANN] Catcoin - Scrypt meow!

[Maverickthenoob]

Maverick if you need extra admin for fb/twitter, or if you need a project coordinator, code tester and so on and so forth I'm here to help as much as I can

Kuro, you've been quite active on the forums during this coins lifecycle, I personally would be happy to have you. Any objections?

I'd also like to personally nominate envy2010 and janos666 for addition to our team. Are you two interested?

Thank you, but I think I am too pessimistic for a marketing person.
But feel free to contact me about any ideas if you think I can be a significant help.
I am still a CAT holder myself.

I wasn't even really thinking as a marketing person, you've have some good ideas and are active, we always will need more people with good ideas who are respected by the community. Your ideas and contributions are all we ask for. PM me if you're interested.

[hozer]

Fork with proposed fixes at block 20880 (36*580) would be nice. We are currently on block 20725.

etblvu1 - K, now go code it and come back with the results.

Test code for a fork at 20723

https://bitbucket.org/dahozer/catcoin/commits/dc898694e9d2735d454d98d453977726867a7900

So rather than having another hard-fork to change the interval, I'd rather come up with a way to 'stake-vote' the interval averaging time. More to be done but this appears to run.

Please post reports/etc to bitbucket. watching forums is too much work for me.

[etblvu1]

Thanks for your reply, as I explained before the Idea is great, but the problem is how are you going to implement it, code wise I mean, and are you going to do it pool side or on the source code and on the blockchain directly? this is the point I'm trying to explane, it's hard if not impossible to code such a solution, also punishement was never a good solution it always drive people of, with such a system, I think the best would be to reward to loyal people, and this can be done pool side relatively easly but this will again need a cordination between all the pools to have set parameters and qualification for such bonus that everyone would like.

The thing about BTC/LTC, is that they are well established, and pretty stable, there is no alternative to BTC/LTC combo, you trade cats for either then to fiat and not the other way around, and there will always be people mining BTC/LTC because it's a sure value and well estblished, Cat is still young 2 weeks old or so, it needs at least a couple of months to mature and reach such a true stability and when that's happen, you can have a true loyalty system because the coin it self will be really relevant. So to resume I think a reward loyalty system would be good and would enter in the case of the long term project of making this coin valuable and relevant, a punishement system I'm affraid will have negative effect and push off people from joining, (some people wants to try other alternative from time to time without having to pay a price for that for example)

I appreciate your constructive feedback to my ideas, and am happy to have the opportunity to address your questions/concerns.

Implement at Pool vs. Coin Codebase I think it would be easier and less controversial to implement the idea at a pool first. Since no other coin has implemented the idea, it is quite appropriate that it should raise a lot of questions and skepticism - if it is a bad idea, then that needs to come to light - and if it is innovative and something to revolutionize cryptocurrency - then it's only fair it should meet the same sort of resistance and opposition as any other innovation that threatens the status quo. And in today's cryptocoin scene, coin-hopping profiteers are a big part of the status quo.

Difficulty of Coding I plead guilty to having been too lazy to write a white paper on the subject, and perhaps presenting the idea in a way which made it appear more complicated than it needs to be or is. I should perhaps rectify this omission, and for this I apologize. To summarize, whether at the coin or pool level, we identify and lock in the wallet ID (or pool user ID) of those who have been mining while a recent difficulty level was high, and recognize them with network-wide consensus as loyal miners. When and only when difficulty is exceptionally low, these loyal miners get to mine and receive more reward than the default amount to compensate them for their work during difficult times. Others may mine, but receive the default reward amount, which is less than what loyal miners get, but that is correct because the extra amount loyal miners are getting is delayed compensation for high difficulty work. This arrangement is designed to keep out coin hoppers, and stabilizes coin difficulty adjustments to the point where despite minor coin status, the coin could re-implement 2016 block retargeting, and the code implementing this could be back-ported to Bitcoin without any negative effect.

Punishment vs. Reward I think I can show this to be a semantic issue - if we think in terms of coins earned per megahash-minutes contributed, we can talk purely in terms of rewards and not punishments. Loyal miners would temporarily see lower profitability during high difficulty times, but would be compensated with temporarily enhanced profitability during easy difficulty times, averaging things out for them. Others who start mining when difficulty is low, receive the standard, default amount of reward, which is not excessively profitable - just the normal amount profitable. The new miner does not see profitability that is any lower than what the loyal miner was just recently receiving.  So it evens out. The miner is free to stay, and they would very quickly be in the same position as the miner who was there before. Looked at in this way, there is no punishment intended or involved. Or, we can just as easily say we currently have a system where people who choose to mine while the difficulty is high is specifically being singled out to be punished with low profitability. And from this viewpoint, we can say we need to do everything possible to eliminate this illogical punishment. We continue the argument - we really do actually value miners who keep the coin alive during high difficulty times, and they should not be punished for that. I hope you can see that at least there is a possibility that whether something is considered a punishment or reward can change depending on which way you look at it.

Creating More Coins vs. Curtailing Coin Production I think when it comes to coin hoppers, there is no getting around the need to temporarily curtail coin production per block when difficulty gets ridiculously easy, because there is no way of getting around the fact that the value contributed by an easy block or mining an easy block, is demonstrably less value to the coin than doing this work for a difficult block. Declaring by fiat (in code) that whether the block was easy to solve or difficult to solve - they should always under every circumstance be rewarded equally - is really at the root of why coin hoppers feel incentivized to act as they do. It can be viewed as a fiat declaration to create unnecessary inflation specifically to reward coin hoppers. There is really no logical reason why this fiat declaration should not be revisited/revised, if we can improve the coin difficulty stability and enhance its value in the process. There is nothing inherently sacred about this assumption. If fewer coins are produced during an particularly easy block by default (but a higher number of coins is awarded to people who have earned the extra by contributing during difficult times - purely to compensate for their work during difficult times), everyone is receiving exactly what they have earned, and everyone can make a rational decision of how to conduct their mining based on the new incentives this sets up. There is no discrimination - everyone is equal.

I agree with you that CAT is young, and I do not necessarily expect to see my suggestions implemented immediately (especially since I am not in a position right now to whip up the code....that could change, with a bit of inspiration anything is possible) - and I hope I have been successful in clarifying some aspects of my proposed mechanism, so it perhaps does not seem quite as impractical as it might have seemed at first. And I appreciate the opportunity to contribute ideas and possible value to this coin.

Thank you,

Etblvu1

[janos666]

Maverick if you need extra admin for fb/twitter, or if you need a project coordinator, code tester and so on and so forth I'm here to help as much as I can

Kuro, you've been quite active on the forums during this coins lifecycle, I personally would be happy to have you. Any objections?

I'd also like to personally nominate envy2010 and janos666 for addition to our team. Are you two interested?

Thank you, but I think I am too pessimistic for a marketing person.
But feel free to contact me about any ideas if you think I can be a significant help.
I am still a CAT holder myself.

I wasn't even really thinking as a marketing person, you've have some good ideas and are active, we always will need more people with good ideas who are respected by the community. Your ideas and contributions are all we ask for. PM me if you're interested.

I don't think it's a secret that we need a lot of promotions, starting like... Right now!

It seems like the trading on Cryptsy can possibly freeze in any moment. And it can be a problem if CoinWarz records a low frozen price.
It was me who bought up most of the coins between 12:00 and 18:00 and right when I finished, the price dropped significantly.
And it's not just the price. I can't see any sell orders with significant amount of BTC, not even for very cheap prices.

It seems like people forgot about CAT coin.

[LeoC]

Hold your coins and pull your sell orders this is going to mars!

[Maverickthenoob]

fork it, fork it, fork it

There have been a bunch of suggestions, I believe a few are being built and testnet'ed as we speak to see what's going to offer the most protection and be viable. Not sure though only a couple of devs are on at the moment. As soon as we have some options ready we can offer some options and maybe reach a consensus and get the thing deployed. I'm pretty sure everyone needs this to go off without a hitch, so a bit more planning this time would be good I think.

[etblvu1]

I don't think it's a secret that we need a lot of promotions, starting like... Right now!

It seems like the trading on Cryptsy can possibly freeze in any moment. And it can be a problem if CoinWarz records a low frozen price.
It was me who bought up most of the coins between 12:00 and 18:00 and right when I finished, the price dropped significantly.
And it's not just the price. I can't see any sell orders with significant amount of BTC, not even for very cheap prices.

It seems like people forgot about CAT coin.

Let's work on some marketing fundmantals - I do have some background in this.

USP - Unique Selling Propostion - Why is CAT better than all other cryptocoins out there?

Only exact Bitcoin implementation of Scrypt in active development ==>

Target Market - Who Are Groups of People Who Should Want This Coin?

- Cryptocurrency speculators and hobbyists
- People out there in the general population who may be interested in the Cat meme
- Investors who want to put money where it is most likely to grow, and has huge room to grow
- Survivalist/Gold-bug types who want something to put away for when their national currency/society might collapse
- People who generally like cats (pet owners)

Emotional Tie-In of USP and what Target Groups Care About


Joint Venture Opportunities
- Businesses who cater to people who generally like cats (vets, pet food stores, pet toy manufacturers)
- Other businesses, cartoon characters, mascots, businesses, with a shared cat meme association
- Charities that are specifically targeted to helping cats and cat owners

Features and Benefits
Limited coin production => greater chance it will be considered a high value unit of account.
Similarity to Bitcoin => Greater chance its value will be compared to BTC, which is the biggest market cap and value coin out there.

Misc. and Elevator Speech
- Coin has the greatest potential to soar in value over other altcoins because ___________.
- I like this coin above all others because __________.


Please give feedback to build on this list, especially any of you with any marketing background.

Etblvu1

[etblvu1]

fork it, fork it, fork it

There have been a bunch of suggestions, I believe a few are being built and testnet'ed as we speak to see what's going to offer the most protection and be viable. Not sure though only a couple of devs are on at the moment. As soon as we have some options ready we can offer some options and maybe reach a consensus and get the thing deployed. I'm pretty sure everyone needs this to go off without a hitch, so a bit more planning this time would be good I think.

Yes 100% agreed - let us be less hasty this time around. There have been plenty of other altcoins in worse situations that have survived. So we should be more deliberate and less in a rush.

Does anyone have access to any sort of statistics on how many hard forks a smaller altcoins have gotten away with implementing in quick succession, before exchanges and users start defecting? Or is this even a valid statistic that can be collected/analyzed/considered?

Etblvu1

[Maverickthenoob]

USP - Unique Selling Propostion - Why is CAT better than all other cryptocoins out there?

Only exact Bitcoin implementation of Scrypt in active development

FTFY. Just because the retarget count is less, doesn't mean it's not still a BTC copy, it's pretty much universally accepted that the BTC retarget is shitty even for bitcoin. It's complete insanisty for scrypt, especially with multipools. I'd argue we're IMPROVING BTC with that change.

[etblvu1]

USP - Unique Selling Propostion - Why is CAT better than all other cryptocoins out there?

Only exact Bitcoin implementation of Scrypt in active development

FTFY. Just because the retarget count is less, doesn't mean it's not still a BTC copy, it's pretty much universally accepted that the BTC retarget is shitty even for bitcoin. It's complete insanisty for scrypt, especially with multipools. I'd argue we're IMPROVING BTC with that change.

I think it could be argued that every altcoin out there is a BTC copy to one degree or another, and I am certain that every coin dev out there feels the changes he made to BTC was an improvement over BTC. Yet, BTC remains the #1 coin, with market cap and per unit value. So it's an interesting subject of debate. Do you feel that if the current Catcoin 36-block retarget was directly trasplanted into BTC in a hard fork, that BTC would be improved by it?

[kalus]

fork it, fork it, fork it

There have been a bunch of suggestions, I believe a few are being built and testnet'ed as we speak to see what's going to offer the most protection and be viable. Not sure though only a couple of devs are on at the moment. As soon as we have some options ready we can offer some options and maybe reach a consensus and get the thing deployed. I'm pretty sure everyone needs this to go off without a hitch, so a bit more planning this time would be good I think.

+1

Yes 100% agreed - let us be less hasty this time around.

+1

[LeoC]

Too many retarded sellers ATM, take your lunch money and gtfo!

[skillface]

Whoa I missed a fair bit while I was gone.

I don't know where all this hate towards the dev is coming from. He has his own priorities and it isn't just up to him what happens with Catcoin's code; it's up to all of us. And while I was initially against a second fork, in light of the continuing hashrate death spiral and absurd difficulty oscillations, I think another fork is required after all, to introduce either some kind of two-tiered difficulty adjustment mechanic, a loyalty system, or perhaps even a combination of the two. Because at this point it's become quite clear that someone or something is heavily manipulating the difficulty even after the fork. And Catcoin being the first coin to introduce an anti-oscillation system into its code could really give it some much needed attention. Apparently a simple 4x limit on difficulty changes is far too wide a margin these days.

I'm not saying anything should be done right away, this time around we should take our time to implement another fix. A second fork in the space of a week is almost guaranteed suicide. This time, we need to completely eliminate the problem, or at least as much as feasibly possible without destroying the essence of the coin or needing yet another fork in the future. We run the risk of exchanges like Cryptsy not tolerating any more forks and simply removing CAT altogether. However in the meantime all major pools could implement that loyalty system that was discussed earlier, or something along those lines.

Also I'll take this chance to remind everyone that the Coin Payments Coin Vote is still ongoing.

While the price has recovered back to ~0.00041, those two sell orders higher up in the list (a combined 70k worth) are still there. I'm a little worried that the price may never recover back above that point at this rate (volume is nearly non-existent these days), but I'll still keep a hold of my CAT in the meantime.

And my computer has been mining CAT nonstop for the last few days, so I know I'm not contributing to the sorry state of affairs at least. Not that 300KH/s is going to influence much anyway.. though at this point even that is a significant portion of the current net hashrate..

[LeoC]

Support CAT with your dollar. Where are all the buyers at!?

https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/136

[foodies123]

Support CAT with your dollar. Where are all the buyers at!?

https://www.cryptsy.com/markets/view/136

Don't forget I'm about to accept cat as a real payment in my husband's workplace (supermarket) so I'm putting up my $ to do so

[skillface]

The price seems to be slowly crawling its sorry ass back up.

[foodies123]

The price seems to be slowly crawling its sorry ass back up.

that shouldnt' be a topic of discussion here unless something dramatical happens, this thread should be about nethash, improvements, promoting and other comunity stuff. the only thing I check on cryptsy when I watch the market is VOLUME not price.

[LeoC]

I have a feeling that 45000 will break soon and we will climb up to 59000 where that wall is at!
Get these cheapies while they last!

[foodies123]

I have a feeling that 45000 will break soon and we will climb up to 59000 where that wall is at!
Get these cheapies while they last!

you and your damn feelings if this happens again I will praise you in my sig or something.

[LeoC]

You guys can help raise awareness here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=406111.msg4402293#msg4402293
Wanted to keep this thread clean