[ANN][SLR] SolarCoin - PoW reward for solar energy | the GREEN KING of Crypto

[corather]

I was trying to figure out where the extra hash rate was coming from and looky! Miningpoolhub is quite active! I didn't even know about them and they're right on page 1. Nice. 

http://solarcoin.miningpoolhub.com/

256 MHs and 7 miners.

A whale with ~320MHz of hash (scrypthash) has been doing the rounds of SolarCoin in the past few hours.  He was on Prominer.org for a while and blew up the front end.  He then moved to solarcoin.miningpoolhub where currently they are showing 456Mhz of a grand total of 566Mhz.  Not that healthy a situation and well over the 51% ....

With the new large bore ASICs obviously now coming on line, this local swamping of the traditional (smaller) rigs will be a real problem for pool stability, not to mention the very real possibly of a chain takeover.

In light of this news I've redirected all of my tiny gpu rig back onto prominer. I have a small asic also but it doesn't like vardiff one bit so i can't use it on prominer.

[1715059906]

1715059906

[1715059906]

1715059906

[1715059906]

1715059906

[Epiphany]

But it's the pool operator who would have to be behind a 51% attack right? The individual doing the hashing can't do an attack if he's mining in a pool, isn't that right?

[terciops]

But it's the pool operator who would have to be behind a 51% attack right? The individual doing the hashing can't do an attack if he's mining in a pool, isn't that right?

Quite right - and there is no suggestion from me that any of the pool operators who I have knowledge of would be in that game.  My point was that the new ASICs of 200-350Mhz are able to seriously disrupt a coin where the 'normal' hash rate is half that.  More specifically, if that sort of hash hits a pool where 20-30 Mhz is normal (like prominer for example), then strange things can happen.

I cannot for the life of me think through how this wave of change happening now will affect things - I just do not have the experience in the 'mining' game.  But these are certainly interesting times.   But that is a Chinese curse right?

T

[Epiphany]

But it's the pool operator who would have to be behind a 51% attack right? The individual doing the hashing can't do an attack if he's mining in a pool, isn't that right?

Quite right - and there is no suggestion from me that any of the pool operators who I have knowledge of would be in that game.  My point was that the new ASICs of 200-350Mhz are able to seriously disrupt a coin where the 'normal' hash rate is half that.  More specifically, if that sort of hash hits a pool where 20-30 Mhz is normal (like prominer for example), then strange things can happen.

I cannot for the life of me think through how this wave of change happening now will affect things - I just do not have the experience in the 'mining' game.  But these are certainly interesting times.   But that is a Chinese curse right?

T

Ah gotcha. It certainly has potential to disrupt things, as you say. I can't imagine anyone paying thousands of dollars for these machines just go around killing coins though... Then again, people do some pretty strange things sometimes.

[terciops]

Oh I don't think they are killing coins deliberately, but the whale (in the fishpond) metaphor is valid.  I guess that having invested 1000' or even 10s of K in these new ASICs you have to plug them in and point them somewhere. 

The issue is more interesting from the POV of the mining community overall. 

As I said earlier, I am a gross newbie at this 'cryptocoin' thing.  I got into it a couple of months back because 3 years ago I put 24 PV panels (4.4Kw) on my roof and now 'mine' 68% or so of the annual households electricity from old Sol.  I saw the solarcoin offer to pay 1 solarcoin / MW initiative and thought it very worthy.  However I don't qualify, as here in NZ we do not have the infrastructure (yet) to authenticate the production.  But that is largely irrelevant as I have only ever produced 17MW total = 17 SLR.

Then I saw some S/H GridSeed units on our local EBAY and brought 3 x 300khz disks and a 5.2Mhz blade.  They were troublesome little sods - early units and probably why they were going 'cheep', but I got them sorted in the end.  The whole lot only use 140W flat out (without the fans) so in keeping with the spirit of things I put them on my workshop solar PV (separate from the house) which has 350W of panel and a 115 AH battery.  Coupled to a old baby fanless PC and XP on a SD card - the whole thing is 180W.  I use a little thermostat to put a single larger fan onto cooling if the rig goes above 25C and that works very well and even in our southern winter I am maintaining H24.  I am now mining solarcoins entirely on solar PV.  Probably a pointless exercise - but it does appeal to my sense of Zen.

Anyway, back to the main topic.   From my limited experience I see several different categories of miners in this scrypt game  (I know next to nothing of the SHA256 community):

The hobbyist and tinkerer (that would be me), who has a small rig of whatever (s)he can afford and spare.  Probably in a previous time the CPU would have searched for SETI et al.  Not really in it for the money at all, and keeps coins in the hope that one day they will pay for a new PC / Car / House whatever.

The Serious Small Miner, who OCDs on the whole scene looking for fiscal plays to make enough fiat or digital coin to pay for the next expansion to keep up with the endless cycle of escalation.

The Big Boys, who see the crypto currencies as an investment and are prepared to put serious money into equipment to play the game at high levels.  As Bitcoin proper becomes a zero sum game with the cost of power a real road block to ROI, the new generation of scrypt ASICs must be very attractive.  And they are now available.  Q4 of this year will see some impressive units coming into play. Well those that are not scams.

At the lower end (that I could afford) - look at the small unit from FlowerTech (https://www.flowertechnology.com/product/the-daisy/).  A direct physical rip off of the small Gridseed format but hashing 10Mhz for $326 and 18W - almost identical cost and watts as the original GS unit which gives 300Khz.   Now that is a 30x improvement in hash power in what - 18 months. 

A good GPU could stand up to a couple of baby Gridseeds, all be it for some extra watts, but against this sort of hash escalation, even at the cheap end of the game - it is hard to draw a road map.

Then you pop one of these on your workbench and plug it in (https://www.flowertechnology.com/product/lilac/) and you have 300Mhz for $7,900.  $26 / Mhz - which would make one of my little GS units worth $9 or so..... Go figure. 

So where does it go from here, with the new wave of ASIC scrypt units coming into play?  I am taking the time on this rather overlong post in the hope of seeing what the other members of this forum think.



   

[LuckyKey]

Oh I don't think they are killing coins deliberately, but the whale (in the fishpond) metaphor is valid.  I guess that having invested 1000' or even 10s of K in these new ASICs you have to plug them in and point them somewhere. 

The issue is more interesting from the POV of the mining community overall. 

As I said earlier, I am a gross newbie at this 'cryptocoin' thing.  I got into it a couple of months back because 3 years ago I put 24 PV panels (4.4Kw) on my roof and now 'mine' 68% or so of the annual households electricity from old Sol.  I saw the solarcoin offer to pay 1 solarcoin / MW initiative and thought it very worthy.  However I don't qualify, as here in NZ we do not have the infrastructure (yet) to authenticate the production.  But that is largely irrelevant as I have only ever produced 17MW total = 17 SLR.

Then I saw some S/H GridSeed units on our local EBAY and brought 3 x 300khz disks and a 5.2Mhz blade.  They were troublesome little sods - early units and probably why they were going 'cheep', but I got them sorted in the end.  The whole lot only use 140W flat out (without the fans) so in keeping with the spirit of things I put them on my workshop solar PV (separate from the house) which has 350W of panel and a 115 AH battery.  Coupled to a old baby fanless PC and XP on a SD card - the whole thing is 180W.  I use a little thermostat to put a single larger fan onto cooling if the rig goes above 25C and that works very well and even in our southern winter I am maintaining H24.  I am now mining solarcoins entirely on solar PV.  Probably a pointless exercise - but it does appeal to my sense of Zen.

Anyway, back to the main topic.   From my limited experience I see several different categories of miners in this scrypt game  (I know next to nothing of the SHA256 community):

The hobbyist and tinkerer (that would be me), who has a small rig of whatever (s)he can afford and spare.  Probably in a previous time the CPU would have searched for SETI et al.  Not really in it for the money at all, and keeps coins in the hope that one day they will pay for a new PC / Car / House whatever.

The Serious Small Miner, who OCDs on the whole scene looking for fiscal plays to make enough fiat or digital coin to pay for the next expansion to keep up with the endless cycle of escalation.

The Big Boys, who see the crypto currencies as an investment and are prepared to put serious money into equipment to play the game at high levels.  As Bitcoin proper becomes a zero sum game with the cost of power a real road block to ROI, the new generation of scrypt ASICs must be very attractive.  And they are now available.  Q4 of this year will see some impressive units coming into play. Well those that are not scams.

At the lower end (that I could afford) - look at the small unit from FlowerTech (https://www.flowertechnology.com/product/the-daisy/).  A direct physical rip off of the small Gridseed format but hashing 10Mhz for $326 and 18W - almost identical cost and watts as the original GS unit which gives 300Khz.   Now that is a 30x improvement in hash power in what - 18 months. 

A good GPU could stand up to a couple of baby Gridseeds, all be it for some extra watts, but against this sort of hash escalation, even at the cheap end of the game - it is hard to draw a road map.

Then you pop one of these on your workbench and plug it in (https://www.flowertechnology.com/product/lilac/) and you have 300Mhz for $7,900.  $26 / Mhz - which would make one of my little GS units worth $9 or so..... Go figure. 

So where does it go from here, with the new wave of ASIC scrypt units coming into play?  I am taking the time on this rather overlong post in the hope of seeing what the other members of this forum think.



   

Scrypt ASICS will/can only do a few profitable coins. x11 & x13 (and others algorithms) are resistant to the ASICS being produced now. As well, more coins are taking the blackcoin path, and having a short PoW mining period, followed by a PoS period…keeping the blockchain functioning, without the mining; which I think solarcoin should too!  :-)

I can't see that much of a road for the scrypt ASICs, and believe they'll all be beating down whatever limited coins they can, and pushing Litecoin difficulty "to the moon", like  Bitcoin.

I like to think there will always be GPU exclusive algo coins….they keep things interesting.  lol

I have a small setup (10 GPUs of mining rigs) that love solarcoins when the difficulty is 2-3 :-)  I also have some Bitcoin miners, about 2 Th/s in total.  The crypto world is a hobby for me…albeit a pretty exciting, and ever-changing one!

[LuckyKey]

But it's the pool operator who would have to be behind a 51% attack right? The individual doing the hashing can't do an attack if he's mining in a pool, isn't that right?

Looks to be some code to handle the 51% attack in the solarcoin main program:

https://github.com/solarcoin/solarcoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L920

[LuckyKey]

Not sure if everyone has seen this, but it looks like cryptopoolmining is changing their stratum servers.  From site:

"Stratum server address has changed. Click here for more info. Please update your miners. Old stratum server will be available until 26-June-2014. "

"Dear all,

We have moved out stratum server to a new server. The details for the new stratum server are:

stratum+tcp://east-us.cryptopoolmining.com:4803  VarDiff: 8-1024 - Initial: 32
stratum+tcp://east-us.cryptopoolmining.com:4903 VarDiff: 256-4096 - Initial: 512

CryptoPoolMining.com"

…haven't moved miners over yet, but indication is the old stratum is up for only 2 more days?

[passionsurf]

Not sure if everyone has seen this, but it looks like cryptopoolmining is changing their stratum servers.  From site:

"Stratum server address has changed. Click here for more info. Please update your miners. Old stratum server will be available until 26-June-2014. "

"Dear all,

We have moved out stratum server to a new server. The details for the new stratum server are:

stratum+tcp://east-us.cryptopoolmining.com:4803  VarDiff: 8-1024 - Initial: 32
stratum+tcp://east-us.cryptopoolmining.com:4903 VarDiff: 256-4096 - Initial: 512

CryptoPoolMining.com"

…haven't moved miners over yet, but indication is the old stratum is up for only 2 more days?

Thanks for the info, I might not have gotten this news otherwise.

[freebird]

Hi everyone,

Since PoS is a topic of interest around here, I want to let you all know that the SolarCoin Foundation Board has been having some in-depth conversations about ideas for possible PoS implementation or other ways to reduce the inflation rate. At this point, we're still just discussing various options and nothing has been decided yet. We're serious about improving the technical and economics aspects of this currency.

In that vein, I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community about a few ideas. If you had to pick between the following choices, which would you prefer?

A. Switch to PoS with a high staking interest rate (10%+ per year)
B. Switch to PoS with a lower staking interest rate (somewhere from 1% to 10% per year)
C. Continue PoW but reduce mining reward so that fewer new coins would be created.

If you can explain the reasons for your answer, that would be even more helpful. Thanks!

This is not an official survey, just one Board member who is curious to hear people's opinions.

I can see PoS implemented in the future. An actuarial study should be performed to find the proper interest rate this coin should have, and whether it should be fixed, variable, what rate it should fluctuate etc. It will increase the incentive to producers to file a claim. If PoS is implemented however the mining reward will have to be reduced as a ratio of interest earnings otherwise the coin might inflate and could potentially ruin the incentive it's attempting to promote.

So yes on PoS and reduce PoW in a way that's proportional to the plan of the incentive. Making a mid course correction now can have great benefit to the entire program. It needs to be flexible but also not bend to every whim of the community.

That's essentially the proposal I worked on all weekend and put forward to the Board! (What Charles is describing)

Sounds like there's certainly some similarities. Epiphany's proposal has a gradually declining interest rate over the years, taking into consideration the gradually increasing rate of generator claims. But just to clarify, corather, it sounded to me like you're suggesting the possibility of something even more complex: a fluctuating variable interest rate which could take into account other factors as well. Are you suggesting that the interest rate could fluctuate continuously based on the short-term rate changes of SolarCoin claims -- i.e. when claims are high, staking interest would be low, and vice versa, so that the fluctuation of the overall inflation rate would be dampened rather than swinging with the swings in generator claims? Or are you suggesting some other reasoning for the variability of staking interest rate?

[freebird]

Hi everyone,

Since PoS is a topic of interest around here, I want to let you all know that the SolarCoin Foundation Board has been having some in-depth conversations about ideas for possible PoS implementation or other ways to reduce the inflation rate. At this point, we're still just discussing various options and nothing has been decided yet. We're serious about improving the technical and economics aspects of this currency.

In that vein, I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community about a few ideas. If you had to pick between the following choices, which would you prefer?

A. Switch to PoS with a high staking interest rate (10%+ per year)
B. Switch to PoS with a lower staking interest rate (somewhere from 1% to 10% per year)
C. Continue PoW but reduce mining reward so that fewer new coins would be created.

If you can explain the reasons for your answer, that would be even more helpful. Thanks!

This is not an official survey, just one Board member who is curious to hear people's opinions.

I would choose option B  with around 3.5% interest rate a year. that changes every year per the board.

Also the block reward would need to drop from 100 to around 1 to 5 coins a minute

PoS would also help the housholds that get there solarcoins from solarpower most of these people do not mine coins
as they would get 3.5% a year for holding on to there coins without having to mine them.
This would also be better then gold or silver coins since they pay no interest  

This would add another selling point when a person from a solar install company tells a home buyer not only will you be able
to claim solar coins but you get interest on the ones you claim as long as you hold them.

+1 both corather & vipgelsi ideas :-)

Thanks, all of you, for your feedback. Anyone else want to share an opinion?

[corather]

Hi everyone,

Since PoS is a topic of interest around here, I want to let you all know that the SolarCoin Foundation Board has been having some in-depth conversations about ideas for possible PoS implementation or other ways to reduce the inflation rate. At this point, we're still just discussing various options and nothing has been decided yet. We're serious about improving the technical and economics aspects of this currency.

In that vein, I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community about a few ideas. If you had to pick between the following choices, which would you prefer?

A. Switch to PoS with a high staking interest rate (10%+ per year)
B. Switch to PoS with a lower staking interest rate (somewhere from 1% to 10% per year)
C. Continue PoW but reduce mining reward so that fewer new coins would be created.

If you can explain the reasons for your answer, that would be even more helpful. Thanks!

This is not an official survey, just one Board member who is curious to hear people's opinions.

I can see PoS implemented in the future. An actuarial study should be performed to find the proper interest rate this coin should have, and whether it should be fixed, variable, what rate it should fluctuate etc. It will increase the incentive to producers to file a claim. If PoS is implemented however the mining reward will have to be reduced as a ratio of interest earnings otherwise the coin might inflate and could potentially ruin the incentive it's attempting to promote.

So yes on PoS and reduce PoW in a way that's proportional to the plan of the incentive. Making a mid course correction now can have great benefit to the entire program. It needs to be flexible but also not bend to every whim of the community.

That's essentially the proposal I worked on all weekend and put forward to the Board! (What Charles is describing)

Sounds like there's certainly some similarities. Epiphany's proposal has a gradually declining interest rate over the years, taking into consideration the gradually increasing rate of generator claims. But just to clarify, corather, it sounded to me like you're suggesting the possibility of something even more complex: a fluctuating variable interest rate which could take into account other factors as well. Are you suggesting that the interest rate could fluctuate continuously based on the short-term rate changes of SolarCoin claims -- i.e. when claims are high, staking interest would be low, and vice versa, so that the fluctuation of the overall inflation rate would be dampened rather than swinging with the swings in generator claims? Or are you suggesting some other reasoning for the variability of staking interest rate?

That's a good question and after much thought I realize I'm not qualified to answer it. I think however most currency has it's interest rate tied to the amount of outstanding debt and the faith in the ability to repay it. If there was a proper variable interest rate in the staking algo, it would have to take into account outstanding buy/sell orders on every exchange where it's traded. If the ratio on buys is high vs. sells then your interest rate would be nice and low, if the sells outweigh the buys the interest rate would climb to discourage mass dumping and stabilize the currency. I think there could be something added to the algo for claims also. I'm sure that could fit into the equation somewhere.

Just my two cents.

[mackattack]

Hi everyone,

Since PoS is a topic of interest around here, I want to let you all know that the SolarCoin Foundation Board has been having some in-depth conversations about ideas for possible PoS implementation or other ways to reduce the inflation rate. At this point, we're still just discussing various options and nothing has been decided yet. We're serious about improving the technical and economics aspects of this currency.

In that vein, I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community about a few ideas. If you had to pick between the following choices, which would you prefer?

A. Switch to PoS with a high staking interest rate (10%+ per year)
B. Switch to PoS with a lower staking interest rate (somewhere from 1% to 10% per year)
C. Continue PoW but reduce mining reward so that fewer new coins would be created.

If you can explain the reasons for your answer, that would be even more helpful. Thanks!

This is not an official survey, just one Board member who is curious to hear people's opinions.

I can see PoS implemented in the future. An actuarial study should be performed to find the proper interest rate this coin should have, and whether it should be fixed, variable, what rate it should fluctuate etc. It will increase the incentive to producers to file a claim. If PoS is implemented however the mining reward will have to be reduced as a ratio of interest earnings otherwise the coin might inflate and could potentially ruin the incentive it's attempting to promote.

So yes on PoS and reduce PoW in a way that's proportional to the plan of the incentive. Making a mid course correction now can have great benefit to the entire program. It needs to be flexible but also not bend to every whim of the community.

That's essentially the proposal I worked on all weekend and put forward to the Board! (What Charles is describing)

Sounds like there's certainly some similarities. Epiphany's proposal has a gradually declining interest rate over the years, taking into consideration the gradually increasing rate of generator claims. But just to clarify, corather, it sounded to me like you're suggesting the possibility of something even more complex: a fluctuating variable interest rate which could take into account other factors as well. Are you suggesting that the interest rate could fluctuate continuously based on the short-term rate changes of SolarCoin claims -- i.e. when claims are high, staking interest would be low, and vice versa, so that the fluctuation of the overall inflation rate would be dampened rather than swinging with the swings in generator claims? Or are you suggesting some other reasoning for the variability of staking interest rate?

That's a good question and after much thought I realize I'm not qualified to answer it. I think however most currency has it's interest rate tied to the amount of outstanding debt and the faith in the ability to repay it. If there was a proper variable interest rate in the staking algo, it would have to take into account outstanding buy/sell orders on every exchange where it's traded. If the ratio on buys is high vs. sells then your interest rate would be nice and low, if the sells outweigh the buys the interest rate would climb to discourage mass dumping and stabilize the currency. I think there could be something added to the algo for claims also. I'm sure that could fit into the equation somewhere.

Just my two cents.

Ok I'm not the best with this whole coding thing but our you guys suggesting some how "hard code" in the use of API data from random websites? Like I just said I'm not the best, but this sounds very dangerous, and like a head ache. Maybe an experienced coder out there could explain how this would be safe and could possibly work?

Anyway Guys this was numbers me and my group worked on back when PoS was first talk about on the forum. I updated the numbers for current use, But If you want to go PoS I would work fast.

This year SLR PoW has 31,514,200 coins left to reward

For a total this year of 52,550,300 coins by block 525600 (365*1440)

Then every 525600 blocks it will cut in halve, next year will be 26,280,000 coin rewarded, or a total of 78,830,300 over the 2 years. So that only leaves 26,169,700 coins of the total 105 million to give for rewards.

SLR has a little different set up then most coins, so a simple % APR may not work. There are a few reasons for this, one there is no way to work in to the code how many Granted coins will be given. The block explorer API is one thing for using it on websites, but writing code to do math of how many coins leave the cold wallets just won't work.

So you would be left with using the total coins that exists, even though as long as you keep the premind offline in cold wallets they will not PoS. They still must be counted in the APR % because if you only use the coins mined then anyone getting a SLR from a grant would PoS and mess up the APR.

I don't think APR % will work for SLR also the longer you wait to go PoS the less coins are left from the 105 million. I mean if you wait until the end of this first year to go PoS, with mining and grants there could be 53 million coins out there. Then if you do the 10% just of that number it 5.3 million needed for PoS. Then it leaves no room for new grant holders to get PoS, and you will run out of coins in 3-4 years.

You guys would be way better off just setting an amount of coins per year to give as PoS. Then keep the premined offline, and set your min/max coin age. Also I would suggest you go PoS ONLY and faster the better (less coins taken from PoS reward). There are many reasons behind ending the mining period, mining shrinks PoS rewards, No more diff retarget talk, No more x11 or other algo talk.... Look mining SLR was fun, It's been a mess lately and seems to be only there to get the coin rolling. With PoS there is no need to mined anymore, you could all then just focus on Grants and investors.   

When I see 10% and think to be far you would need to set that with total coins, because there is no way to know if 10 million in SLR will be handed out over that year in grants. But if it was you would need to have the room there to adjust for that,  and there is no way to guess at that number.

So if you end mining soon enough (at 30 million mined) you could still have 75 million coins out of the 105 million coins. If you give out 5 million coins every year in PoS it would last 15 years. 

this year
30 million mined + grant  / 5 million = 16.7%

next year say the grants pick up to 1 million
30 million+ PoS+grants = 36 million/5 million= 13.8%

the next year grants pick up to say 2 million
36+PoS+grants = 43 million/5 million  = 11.6%

I'm just saying it may just be easier for you guys to control the amount of coins given out over the year and let the % be controlled by how many coins are out there.

You all must decide on the coin age min and max, coin min age range from 8 hours to 20 days out there. It just means how long the coins must stay in the wallet untouched before they can PoS. Then the time gets reset after the PoS, so if you set it to 8 hours then every 8 hours the coins can PoS.

However this number is simply divided evenly based on the amount of coins set to PoS. So if you set a coin age min to 10 days, that means if every coin sat there for the whole year there would be 36 PoS times for the year divided by 5 million. So lower min coin age means lower payouts more frequent, and higher age means higher payouts less frequent.

The last thing I will say about just doing away with mining all together is you may get away from this whole premind thing as well. I'm not sure coinmarketcap could call SLR premind and non-minable at the same time. PoS only coins get a different marking all together.

Just my 2 cents take it or leave it, not you Epiphany I heard how you feel loud and clear didn't mean to quote you. Aside from this I will leave you how you wish to be, and out of my post

[corather]

Hi everyone,

Since PoS is a topic of interest around here, I want to let you all know that the SolarCoin Foundation Board has been having some in-depth conversations about ideas for possible PoS implementation or other ways to reduce the inflation rate. At this point, we're still just discussing various options and nothing has been decided yet. We're serious about improving the technical and economics aspects of this currency.

In that vein, I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community about a few ideas. If you had to pick between the following choices, which would you prefer?

A. Switch to PoS with a high staking interest rate (10%+ per year)
B. Switch to PoS with a lower staking interest rate (somewhere from 1% to 10% per year)
C. Continue PoW but reduce mining reward so that fewer new coins would be created.

If you can explain the reasons for your answer, that would be even more helpful. Thanks!

This is not an official survey, just one Board member who is curious to hear people's opinions.

I can see PoS implemented in the future. An actuarial study should be performed to find the proper interest rate this coin should have, and whether it should be fixed, variable, what rate it should fluctuate etc. It will increase the incentive to producers to file a claim. If PoS is implemented however the mining reward will have to be reduced as a ratio of interest earnings otherwise the coin might inflate and could potentially ruin the incentive it's attempting to promote.

So yes on PoS and reduce PoW in a way that's proportional to the plan of the incentive. Making a mid course correction now can have great benefit to the entire program. It needs to be flexible but also not bend to every whim of the community.

That's essentially the proposal I worked on all weekend and put forward to the Board! (What Charles is describing)

Sounds like there's certainly some similarities. Epiphany's proposal has a gradually declining interest rate over the years, taking into consideration the gradually increasing rate of generator claims. But just to clarify, corather, it sounded to me like you're suggesting the possibility of something even more complex: a fluctuating variable interest rate which could take into account other factors as well. Are you suggesting that the interest rate could fluctuate continuously based on the short-term rate changes of SolarCoin claims -- i.e. when claims are high, staking interest would be low, and vice versa, so that the fluctuation of the overall inflation rate would be dampened rather than swinging with the swings in generator claims? Or are you suggesting some other reasoning for the variability of staking interest rate?

That's a good question and after much thought I realize I'm not qualified to answer it. I think however most currency has it's interest rate tied to the amount of outstanding debt and the faith in the ability to repay it. If there was a proper variable interest rate in the staking algo, it would have to take into account outstanding buy/sell orders on every exchange where it's traded. If the ratio on buys is high vs. sells then your interest rate would be nice and low, if the sells outweigh the buys the interest rate would climb to discourage mass dumping and stabilize the currency. I think there could be something added to the algo for claims also. I'm sure that could fit into the equation somewhere.

Just my two cents.

Ok I'm not the best with this whole coding thing but our you guys suggesting some how "hard code" in the use of API data from random websites? Like I just said I'm not the best, but this sounds very dangerous, and like a head ache.

I agree completely. That has the potential to cause problems, and I'm not the guys, I'm just "a" guy with some crazy ideas.

[freebird]

Hi everyone,

Since PoS is a topic of interest around here, I want to let you all know that the SolarCoin Foundation Board has been having some in-depth conversations about ideas for possible PoS implementation or other ways to reduce the inflation rate. At this point, we're still just discussing various options and nothing has been decided yet. We're serious about improving the technical and economics aspects of this currency.

In that vein, I'd like to hear some thoughts from the community about a few ideas. If you had to pick between the following choices, which would you prefer?

A. Switch to PoS with a high staking interest rate (10%+ per year)
B. Switch to PoS with a lower staking interest rate (somewhere from 1% to 10% per year)
C. Continue PoW but reduce mining reward so that fewer new coins would be created.

If you can explain the reasons for your answer, that would be even more helpful. Thanks!

This is not an official survey, just one Board member who is curious to hear people's opinions.

I can see PoS implemented in the future. An actuarial study should be performed to find the proper interest rate this coin should have, and whether it should be fixed, variable, what rate it should fluctuate etc. It will increase the incentive to producers to file a claim. If PoS is implemented however the mining reward will have to be reduced as a ratio of interest earnings otherwise the coin might inflate and could potentially ruin the incentive it's attempting to promote.

So yes on PoS and reduce PoW in a way that's proportional to the plan of the incentive. Making a mid course correction now can have great benefit to the entire program. It needs to be flexible but also not bend to every whim of the community.

That's essentially the proposal I worked on all weekend and put forward to the Board! (What Charles is describing)

Sounds like there's certainly some similarities. Epiphany's proposal has a gradually declining interest rate over the years, taking into consideration the gradually increasing rate of generator claims. But just to clarify, corather, it sounded to me like you're suggesting the possibility of something even more complex: a fluctuating variable interest rate which could take into account other factors as well. Are you suggesting that the interest rate could fluctuate continuously based on the short-term rate changes of SolarCoin claims -- i.e. when claims are high, staking interest would be low, and vice versa, so that the fluctuation of the overall inflation rate would be dampened rather than swinging with the swings in generator claims? Or are you suggesting some other reasoning for the variability of staking interest rate?

That's a good question and after much thought I realize I'm not qualified to answer it. I think however most currency has it's interest rate tied to the amount of outstanding debt and the faith in the ability to repay it. If there was a proper variable interest rate in the staking algo, it would have to take into account outstanding buy/sell orders on every exchange where it's traded. If the ratio on buys is high vs. sells then your interest rate would be nice and low, if the sells outweigh the buys the interest rate would climb to discourage mass dumping and stabilize the currency. I think there could be something added to the algo for claims also. I'm sure that could fit into the equation somewhere.

Just my two cents.

Ok I'm not the best with this whole coding thing but our you guys suggesting some how "hard code" in the use of API data from random websites? Like I just said I'm not the best, but this sounds very dangerous, and like a head ache.

I agree completely. That has the potential to cause problems, and I'm not the guys, I'm just "a" guy with some crazy ideas.

It's an interesting idea and I'm glad you shared it. I actually kind of like it, but it certainly is complex and would present some potential problems.

We're in the idea-gathering stage right now. That's why I asked for the community's input. No idea is too crazy to be considered at this point, but soon we'll narrow things down to the most realistic ideas which would be most beneficial for this particular currency.

The SolarCoin Foundation Board will be having another meeting in the next couple weeks and one of the topics on the agenda is the possible switch to PoS. So, now is a good time for people to share their ideas and views, since the Board will presumably make a decision on some plan soon.

[freebird]

You all must decide on the coin age min and max, coin min age range from 8 hours to 20 days out there. It just means how long the coins must stay in the wallet untouched before they can PoS. Then the time gets reset after the PoS, so if you set it to 8 hours then every 8 hours the coins can PoS.

However this number is simply divided evenly based on the amount of coins set to PoS. So if you set a coin age min to 10 days, that means if every coin sat there for the whole year there would be 36 PoS times for the year divided by 5 million. So lower min coin age means lower payouts more frequent, and higher age means higher payouts less frequent.

So basically it's the compounding schedule for the interest rate? Sounds like it. Thanks for explaining this technical aspect of PoS and for sharing your ideas on the numbers.

[Epiphany]

When I see 10% and think to be far you would need to set that with total coins, because there is no way to know if 10 million in SLR will be handed out over that year in grants. But if it was you would need to have the room there to adjust for that,  and there is no way to guess at that number.

So if you end mining soon enough (at 30 million mined) you could still have 75 million coins out of the 105 million coins. If you give out 5 million coins every year in PoS it would last 15 years.  

this year
30 million mined + grant  / 5 million = 16.7%

next year say the grants pick up to 1 million
30 million+ PoS+grants = 36 million/5 million= 13.8%

the next year grants pick up to say 2 million
36+PoS+grants = 43 million/5 million  = 11.6%

I'm just saying it may just be easier for you guys to control the amount of coins given out over the year and let the % be controlled by how many coins are out there.

You all must decide on the coin age min and max, coin min age range from 8 hours to 20 days out there. It just means how long the coins must stay in the wallet untouched before they can PoS. Then the time gets reset after the PoS, so if you set it to 8 hours then every 8 hours the coins can PoS.

However this number is simply divided evenly based on the amount of coins set to PoS. So if you set a coin age min to 10 days, that means if every coin sat there for the whole year there would be 36 PoS times for the year divided by 5 million. So lower min coin age means lower payouts more frequent, and higher age means higher payouts less frequent.

This is brilliant and is where my mind was as I was trying to come up with a model over the weekend, I just didn't understand the inner workings of the code to be able to determine how it could be implemented.

I also sent you a PM to clarify my previous post directed at you. I hope you read it.

[vipgelsi]

Thanks for fixing the difficulty issue my 7950 is awake from the dead again.

[passionsurf]

More solar power news:
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27987827

Here is an interesting quote from the article:

Dr Major believes that solar energy could eventually meet the world's energy needs.

"There is enough sunlight that falls on the Earth every hour to generate enough electricity for the planet for a year," he said.

"The way solar is progressing it will just be a matter of time before it becomes competitive with fossil fuels and eventually replace them."

[IMJim]

"There is enough sunlight that falls on the Earth every hour to generate enough electricity for the planet for a year,"

That's just insane!