[ANN] Catcoin - 0.9.1.1 - Old thread. Locked. Please use 0.9.2 thread.

[hozer]

This should reduce the long block problems
<snip>

Happy Caturday!

Nice try, Troy/hozer/tmagik, but stealing from the community is still not an option.  No.

I do not agree with creating conflicting nodes as a means to decide which fork should "win" as way to decide the future of the coin. I also do not agree with the characterization that rejecting blocks which come too quickly after the previous block constitutes "stealing." If there is fair notice that this is the algorithm of the coin, nothing prevents the miner from developing pauses in the hashing (or move to hashing some other coin during the pause). Any hashing that is done by a miner during a time when it is known in advance any found blocks will be rejected, I would characterize as the miner not being sophisticated enough in the code yet, which can be fixed at any time by using one of the aforementioned techniques.

I would request all concerned to come to a consensus on the future of Catcoin that does not involve competing forks, and that does not involve mischaracterizing algorithms based on falsely assuming that miners cannot adapt to the algorithm to avoid performing mining calculations that get wasted.

Thank you,

Etblvu1

It appears there is a switchpool that is still using a 33 second minimum, and maybe two (or more) miners that appear to be running code that ignore anything under 3 minutes or so (Catcoiner's code?). So the way the consensus rules in the published code work, if the 33 second guy shows up for 10 blocks in 5 minutes and then leaves a stuck blockchain for a day and a half, the miners running 3-minute code end up continuing to find blocks. And when the chain work of the 3-minute fork gets to the point of exceeding the hung fork, *all* the nodes, agree, by consensus, that the 3-minute fork wins.

And then the profit switcher comes along on autopilot and starts mining again, to start the whole process over again. (Also please note, that when this happens, the profit-switcher is agreeing, by consensus, that the 3-minute fork wins, and is orphaning their previous blocks **by choice**, because they'd rather have one block get through than be on a dead fork)

So I could make an argument that the consensus *is* 3 minute minimum, and we just have some stragglers who either haven't noticed, don't care, or maybe even think it's more profitable to FUD.

This is also really determined by whether people buy catcoin, or sell it, and whether they mine, or not.

The problem is going to come if we have competing incompatible hardforks, and then it's going to come down to what code the exchanges run. It'd be a hilariously amusing case study in coin forking culture if we had two exchanges running different code. The problem is that's still a game of whomever has enough money to pay a couple of list-your-coins-for pay exchanges like Bittrex.

Or maybe to put this another way:

I'll understand a clear consensus for a hardfork-upgrade by who can raise real money to pay another exchange to list Catcoin. If the community believes in catcoin and is willing to invest money in listing on another exchange, then I think it will be good for everyone, and we can move on from this nonsense.

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[Blaksmith]

This should reduce the long block problems
<snip>

Happy Caturday!

Nice try, Troy/hozer/tmagik, but stealing from the community is still not an option.  No.

I do not agree with creating conflicting nodes as a means to decide which fork should "win" as way to decide the future of the coin. I also do not agree with the characterization that rejecting blocks which come too quickly after the previous block constitutes "stealing." If there is fair notice that this is the algorithm of the coin, nothing prevents the miner from developing pauses in the hashing (or move to hashing some other coin during the pause). Any hashing that is done by a miner during a time when it is known in advance any found blocks will be rejected, I would characterize as the miner not being sophisticated enough in the code yet, which can be fixed at any time by using one of the aforementioned techniques.

I would request all concerned to come to a consensus on the future of Catcoin that does not involve competing forks, and that does not involve mischaracterizing algorithms based on falsely assuming that miners cannot adapt to the algorithm to avoid performing mining calculations that get wasted.

Thank you,

Etblvu1

It appears there is a switchpool that is still using a 33 second minimum, and maybe two (or more) miners that appear to be running code that ignore anything under 3 minutes or so (Catcoiner's code?). So the way the consensus rules in the published code work, if the 33 second guy shows up for 10 blocks in 5 minutes and then leaves a stuck blockchain for a day and a half, the miners running 3-minute code end up continuing to find blocks. And when the chain work of the 3-minute fork gets to the point of exceeding the hung fork, *all* the nodes, agree, by consensus, that the 3-minute fork wins.

And then the profit switcher comes along on autopilot and starts mining again, to start the whole process over again. (Also please note, that when this happens, the profit-switcher is agreeing, by consensus, that the 3-minute fork wins, and is orphaning their previous blocks **by choice**, because they'd rather have one block get through than be on a dead fork)

So I could make an argument that the consensus *is* 3 minute minimum, and we just have some stragglers who either haven't noticed, don't care, or maybe even think it's more profitable to FUD.

This is also really determined by whether people buy catcoin, or sell it, and whether they mine, or not.

The problem is going to come if we have competing incompatible hardforks, and then it's going to come down to what code the exchanges run. It'd be a hilariously amusing case study in coin forking culture if we had two exchanges running different code. The problem is that's still a game of whomever has enough money to pay a couple of list-your-coins-for pay exchanges like Bittrex.

Or maybe to put this another way:

I'll understand a clear consensus for a hardfork-upgrade by who can raise real money to pay another exchange to list Catcoin. If the community believes in catcoin and is willing to invest money in listing on another exchange, then I think it will be good for everyone, and we can move on from this nonsense.

Troy.

You RIGHT HERE, are admitting that you are running code that has NOT BEEN APPROVED, AND CAN CAUSE A FORK.  For the last time.

YOU HAVE BEEN EJECTED FROM THE COMMUNITY BY THE COMMUNITY.

All you ever talk about for CatCoin, is HOW CAN I LINE MY OWN POCKET, WHILE DISRUPTING THE REST OF THE MINERS

It is assholes like you that keep the stress levels high, and take away from other more important things in life.

Why don't you try this stuff with your Uro coin, and leave CatCoin alone, as you know you are not welcome!

Blak

[hozer]

Troy.

You RIGHT HERE, are admitting that you are running code that has NOT BEEN APPROVED, AND CAN CAUSE A FORK.  For the last time.

YOU HAVE BEEN EJECTED FROM THE COMMUNITY BY THE COMMUNITY.

All you ever talk about for CatCoin, is HOW CAN I LINE MY OWN POCKET, WHILE DISRUPTING THE REST OF THE MINERS

It is assholes like you that keep the stress levels high, and take away from other more important things in life.

Why don't you try this stuff with your Uro coin, and leave CatCoin alone, as you know you are not welcome!

Blak

Blak, you wrote the code for PID difficulty adjustment. It's not how I would have written it, if I had the time to spend, but you did, and the damn thing WORKS, and seems to work quite well with a longer minimum block time.

If you have some new code that you think works better, then I'd like to review it with you, and come up with a good test plan that either increases the minimum block time, or removes it entirely. I still hope it's possible you and I could have a rational discussion about the algorithms and how to test whether they work correctly or not.

It greatly decreased my stress levels to ignore unelected tyrants who write more inflammatory rhetoric than code, but that is not an easy thing to do.

I keep hearing about how I've been ejected, yet what I see is that everyone still runs the code I wrote.

The fact that we're still all arguing about this almost 2 years later seems to indicate there actually might be a community worth saving if we can grow up and learn some conflict resolution skills.

Nobody elected any of us, we all showed up here for our own reasons. Some for profit, some because we like cats. The original developer of Catcoin is long gone, and we all took in the stray code, and did what we thought was best to improve it, and the ultimate authority on who is 'part of the community' are the people that buy catcoin, sell catcoin, run miners, exchanges, and websites, and write the code that facilitates it. There's no 'catcoin federal reserve committee' that decides in secret who's part of the community, you either participate, because you want to, or you don't.

[Blaksmith]

This is the current test code running on testnet.

https://github.com/Blaksmith/CatcoinRelease

Checkpoints and Version change still need to be done before it gets released.

Blak

[SlimePuppy]

Troy.

You RIGHT HERE, are admitting that you are running code that has NOT BEEN APPROVED, AND CAN CAUSE A FORK.  For the last time.

YOU HAVE BEEN EJECTED FROM THE COMMUNITY BY THE COMMUNITY.

All you ever talk about for CatCoin, is HOW CAN I LINE MY OWN POCKET, WHILE DISRUPTING THE REST OF THE MINERS

It is assholes like you that keep the stress levels high, and take away from other more important things in life.

Why don't you try this stuff with your Uro coin, and leave CatCoin alone, as you know you are not welcome!

Blak

Blak, you wrote the code for PID difficulty adjustment. It's not how I would have written it, if I had the time to spend, but you did, and the damn thing WORKS, and seems to work quite well with a longer minimum block time.

If you have some new code that you think works better, then I'd like to review it with you, and come up with a good test plan that either increases the minimum block time, or removes it entirely. I still hope it's possible you and I could have a rational discussion about the algorithms and how to test whether they work correctly or not.

It greatly decreased my stress levels to ignore unelected tyrants who write more inflammatory rhetoric than code, but that is not an easy thing to do.

I keep hearing about how I've been ejected, yet what I see is that everyone still runs the code I wrote.

The fact that we're still all arguing about this almost 2 years later seems to indicate there actually might be a community worth saving if we can grow up and learn some conflict resolution skills.

Nobody elected any of us, we all showed up here for our own reasons. Some for profit, some because we like cats. The original developer of Catcoin is long gone, and we all took in the stray code, and did what we thought was best to improve it, and the ultimate authority on who is 'part of the community' are the people that buy catcoin, sell catcoin, run miners, exchanges, and websites, and write the code that facilitates it. There's no 'catcoin federal reserve committee' that decides in secret who's part of the community, you either participate, because you want to, or you don't.

Troy - while your politician/propaganda/"I Love Me" skillz are in rare form, the piece you continue to ignore is the part where you are not part of this community.  You were kicked for being a self-serving terrorist working against this community and it's clear that you haven't changed your stripes.  That's your first problem.  Your second is that there is no "everyone" running your code that is not you and your aliases and your nodes.  And your third is that those of us that came together had exactly one project in mind:  CAT and her community.  We aren't here to make money, or manipulate a blockchain, or fragment a network, or fund our farming hobby.  You were the only person wasting our time trying to find a way to get paid to program.  Seriously - put an add on elance if you want to but CAT is not your retirement fund.

Feel free to play with any strawmen you care to stitch together but here we don't like zombies, or strawmen, or hozers - and certainly not the embodiment of all three.

Enough of THAT BS. 

For the rest of the community:  I have only one concern with publishing the code.  I know - it has to be published and it'll be known regardless.  But as I have absolutely zero trust for hozer/troy/tmagik/catcoiner I fully expect that as soon as the code is made public that he will be sifting through it to find an exploit he can use for personal profit.  As he's been working against the community from the beginning, I don't expect him to be fully transparent if he does find a problem.  So - while this code works, and while it's been validated against other projects that are believed to resist exploitation, it's really important that we get eyes on it.  Thanks in advance for your help!

Andy

[hozer]

This is the current test code running on testnet.

https://github.com/Blaksmith/CatcoinRelease

Checkpoints and Version change still need to be done before it gets released.

Blak

My biggest concern with that code is that by going back to the original GetMedianTimePast function, in combination with using the timestamp to select the difficulty algorithm, you are basically giving the miners the ability to manipulate the difficulty by selecting timestamps that cause the difficulty to do whatever they want. This is why early disclosure and discussion of the code is so critical, so that we have a chance to talk about how or why it might be exploitable.

I see a repeat of some exploitable things in Dogecoin going on here.. https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/issues/323#issuecomment-37419607

GetMedianTimePast works in Bitcoin because they only change difficulty every 2016 blocks, and an attacker would have to maintain a large hashrate for at least that many blocks to subvert the block timestamps. With Catcoin and adjusting every block, you only need 5-10 blocks to cause dramatic difficulty changes, which means there's now a profitable motive to run the difficulty way up, and then mine on another fork with different timestamps and lower difficulty, but more consistent block times.

As far as I can tell, there are only two ways out of that mess:
1) do what Dogecoin did and merge-mine with another coin. (What if all the cat-themed scypt coins that are still alive agreed to do AuxPOW merge-mining?)
2) longer minimum block times

There also might be a way to use Heavycoin's temporal retargeting (https://heavycoin.github.io/about.html#temporal-retargeting) but I haven't quite figured out if that'd be exploitable in the same way or not.

[Blaksmith]

This is the current test code running on testnet.

https://github.com/Blaksmith/CatcoinRelease

Checkpoints and Version change still need to be done before it gets released.

Blak

My biggest concern with that code is that by going back to the original GetMedianTimePast function, in combination with using the timestamp to select the difficulty algorithm, you are basically giving the miners the ability to manipulate the difficulty by selecting timestamps that cause the difficulty to do whatever they want. This is why early disclosure and discussion of the code is so critical, so that we have a chance to talk about how or why it might be exploitable.

I see a repeat of some exploitable things in Dogecoin going on here.. https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/issues/323#issuecomment-37419607

GetMedianTimePast works in Bitcoin because they only change difficulty every 2016 blocks, and an attacker would have to maintain a large hashrate for at least that many blocks to subvert the block timestamps. With Catcoin and adjusting every block, you only need 5-10 blocks to cause dramatic difficulty changes, which means there's now a profitable motive to run the difficulty way up, and then mine on another fork with different timestamps and lower difficulty, but more consistent block times.

As far as I can tell, there are only two ways out of that mess:
1) do what Dogecoin did and merge-mine with another coin. (What if all the cat-themed scypt coins that are still alive agreed to do AuxPOW merge-mining?)
2) longer minimum block times

There also might be a way to use Heavycoin's temporal retargeting (https://heavycoin.github.io/about.html#temporal-retargeting) but I haven't quite figured out if that'd be exploitable in the same way or not.

That's the whole point of the semi-random algo used.  According to your statement, that so-called attacker (most likely you that CLAIMS that everyone is running your code, which looking at the blockchain, only YOU are running that code), could set the timestamp of each block....

ok,  say someone (you) does come up with a clever way to TRY and submit blocks within the certain period of the certain algo picked, that is still a VERY small period of time to submit a shit-ton of illegal blocks, as your code would try to submit, as you are still trying to manipulate the coin with low-ish fake hash.  What would happen if a LEGIT block domes through at the same time as your hacking attempts, it would throw you off 100000%, as the whole algo was changed, and then, it would probably take a main system another few hours to try to decipher what the next attack would be, and then in the mean time LEGIT blocks would be happening, and you, the hacker would only get 1 or two blocks out of the whole deal.

Hell, I'm even willing to tighten it up and add more algo's in there, with smaller timestamp resolutions.

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.. not ONE asshole who wants to try and hack the whole system EVERY FUCKING TIME!

Blak

[hozer]

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.

Agreed. How do you want to do that?

My suggestion is that we have Cryptsy suspend trading for 2 weeks.

At the end of those two weeks, whichever chain has the highest log2_work wins, and continues to be called Catcoin.

The other chain can either pick a new name and trading symbol, or stop mining and become an orphan fork.

Sound fair? Or do you have another idea?

[hozer]

That's the whole point of the semi-random algo used.  According to your statement, that so-called attacker (most likely you that CLAIMS that everyone is running your code, which looking at the blockchain, only YOU are running that code), could set the timestamp of each block....

ok,  say someone (you) does come up with a clever way to TRY and submit blocks within the certain period of the certain algo picked, that is still a VERY small period of time to submit a shit-ton of illegal blocks, as your code would try to submit, as you are still trying to manipulate the coin with low-ish fake hash.  What would happen if a LEGIT block domes through at the same time as your hacking attempts, it would throw you off 100000%, as the whole algo was changed, and then, it would probably take a main system another few hours to try to decipher what the next attack would be, and then in the mean time LEGIT blocks would be happening, and you, the hacker would only get 1 or two blocks out of the whole deal.

Hell, I'm even willing to tighten it up and add more algo's in there, with smaller timestamp resolutions.

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.. not ONE asshole who wants to try and hack the whole system EVERY FUCKING TIME!

Blak

The code everyone is running is the minimum block time. What's up for debate (for me) is should that be 3 minutes, or even longer. Leaving it at 30 seconds has proven to be rather non-functional for a 10 minute block time. 3 Minutes seems to work okay with the existing PID algorithm.

It's not even semi-random, the timestamp (ntime) is pretty much entirely under control of the miner. Go read https://mining.bitcoin.cz/user-manual/stratum-protocol/ and give me an argument about why you think it's a good idea to use something chosen by the miner to determine what difficulty algorithm to use for the next block. This basically lets a big pool select whatever algorithm they want to insta-mine for 10 or 20 blocks and then leave it hung on whichever algorithm is going to make everyone else expend the most effort on finding the next block before they come back and do it all over again.

[Blaksmith]

That's the whole point of the semi-random algo used.  According to your statement, that so-called attacker (most likely you that CLAIMS that everyone is running your code, which looking at the blockchain, only YOU are running that code), could set the timestamp of each block....

ok,  say someone (you) does come up with a clever way to TRY and submit blocks within the certain period of the certain algo picked, that is still a VERY small period of time to submit a shit-ton of illegal blocks, as your code would try to submit, as you are still trying to manipulate the coin with low-ish fake hash.  What would happen if a LEGIT block domes through at the same time as your hacking attempts, it would throw you off 100000%, as the whole algo was changed, and then, it would probably take a main system another few hours to try to decipher what the next attack would be, and then in the mean time LEGIT blocks would be happening, and you, the hacker would only get 1 or two blocks out of the whole deal.

Hell, I'm even willing to tighten it up and add more algo's in there, with smaller timestamp resolutions.

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.. not ONE asshole who wants to try and hack the whole system EVERY FUCKING TIME!

Blak

The code everyone is running is the minimum block time. What's up for debate (for me) is should that be 3 minutes, or even longer. Leaving it at 30 seconds has proven to be rather non-functional for a 10 minute block time. 3 Minutes seems to work okay with the existing PID algorithm.

It's not even semi-random, the timestamp (ntime) is pretty much entirely under control of the miner. Go read https://mining.bitcoin.cz/user-manual/stratum-protocol/ and give me an argument about why you think it's a good idea to use something chosen by the miner to determine what difficulty algorithm to use for the next block. This basically lets a big pool select whatever algorithm they want to insta-mine for 10 or 20 blocks and then leave it hung on whichever algorithm is going to make everyone else expend the most effort on finding the next block before they come back and do it all over again.

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.

Agreed. How do you want to do that?

My suggestion is that we have Cryptsy suspend trading for 2 weeks.

At the end of those two weeks, whichever chain has the highest log2_work wins, and continues to be called Catcoin.

The other chain can either pick a new name and trading symbol, or stop mining and become an orphan fork.

Sound fair? Or do you have another idea?

If you are going to try and be THE power to tell Cryptsy to halt all trading, because YOU want to fork the coin, then you are not only proving that you are trying to manipulate the market for your own pocket, but also proving that you are one hell of a crook that should be put behind bars.  Market Manipulation of ANY kind, be it Crypto, Fiat, Precious Metals, etc.. is a federal offense.

I'm done arguing with the village idiots.  So far, only ONE person has admitted to manipulating both their miner AND running unofficial code.  I'm not going to waste any more of my time or bits of data replying to someone that all they want to do is take precious time away.

Blak

[hozer]

That's the whole point of the semi-random algo used.  According to your statement, that so-called attacker (most likely you that CLAIMS that everyone is running your code, which looking at the blockchain, only YOU are running that code), could set the timestamp of each block....

ok,  say someone (you) does come up with a clever way to TRY and submit blocks within the certain period of the certain algo picked, that is still a VERY small period of time to submit a shit-ton of illegal blocks, as your code would try to submit, as you are still trying to manipulate the coin with low-ish fake hash.  What would happen if a LEGIT block domes through at the same time as your hacking attempts, it would throw you off 100000%, as the whole algo was changed, and then, it would probably take a main system another few hours to try to decipher what the next attack would be, and then in the mean time LEGIT blocks would be happening, and you, the hacker would only get 1 or two blocks out of the whole deal.

Hell, I'm even willing to tighten it up and add more algo's in there, with smaller timestamp resolutions.

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.. not ONE asshole who wants to try and hack the whole system EVERY FUCKING TIME!

Blak

The code everyone is running is the minimum block time. What's up for debate (for me) is should that be 3 minutes, or even longer. Leaving it at 30 seconds has proven to be rather non-functional for a 10 minute block time. 3 Minutes seems to work okay with the existing PID algorithm.

It's not even semi-random, the timestamp (ntime) is pretty much entirely under control of the miner. Go read https://mining.bitcoin.cz/user-manual/stratum-protocol/ and give me an argument about why you think it's a good idea to use something chosen by the miner to determine what difficulty algorithm to use for the next block. This basically lets a big pool select whatever algorithm they want to insta-mine for 10 or 20 blocks and then leave it hung on whichever algorithm is going to make everyone else expend the most effort on finding the next block before they come back and do it all over again.

Let's let the WHOLE community decide.

Agreed. How do you want to do that?

My suggestion is that we have Cryptsy suspend trading for 2 weeks.

At the end of those two weeks, whichever chain has the highest log2_work wins, and continues to be called Catcoin.

The other chain can either pick a new name and trading symbol, or stop mining and become an orphan fork.

Sound fair? Or do you have another idea?

If you are going to try and be THE power to tell Cryptsy to halt all trading, because YOU want to fork the coin, then you are not only proving that you are trying to manipulate the market for your own pocket, but also proving that you are one hell of a crook that should be put behind bars.  Market Manipulation of ANY kind, be it Crypto, Fiat, Precious Metals, etc.. is a federal offense.

I'm done arguing with the village idiots.  So far, only ONE person has admitted to manipulating both their miner AND running unofficial code.  I'm not going to waste any more of my time or bits of data replying to someone that all they want to do is take precious time away.

Blak

What I thought I heard you say is there is a small group of people that want to hardfork Catcoin by adding a difficulty adjustment that is selected by the nTime provided by the miner. Is that accurate?

If that is accurate, I think it's best for any of you advocating such a thing to be very clear how and why you think this is better, and that you can answer my concerns about why I think it's exploitable.

The reason for asking cryptsy to halt trading is to remove any potential accusations that someone is going to profit by releasing code they know is broken. It is to YOUR benefit to have them halt trading if you are going to ask them to run a new hardfork upgrade.

I am not making any bullshit claims about being 'official'. I have published code that modifies the minimum block time, and let the community make a free choice if they want to run it. Apparently we have differences of opinion on if this is a good idea, and whether doing so constitutes 'manipulation' (which is an awefully vague term). What is it going to take for you to consider that maybe the community actually wants a longer minimum block time, and they would rather express their opinions by what code they run and what chains they mine on, instead of having to put up with inflammatory FUD all the time?

If you want to have an 'official' release where it is a crime to run unauthorized code, then change the software license, and then you can send a DMCA notice to anyone that is not following exactly as you wish.

I have the same problem you do, these idiotic arguments take time away from more important things, like posting cat pictures.

I keep talking, because I keep hoping there are people listening who are sick of accusations and attacks, and would rather have an upgraded catcoin that includes features from the latest bitcoin-core, and is secure, reliable, and has consistent block times, even with a fraction of the total scrypt hashrate. I can see this happening with a 3-9 minute minimum block time, and maybe Heavycoin's temporal retargeting. If you want this, mention #catcoin somewhere other than this toxic forum.

[skillface]

I say do whatever - I'm done.

This coin's been dead for too long.

[vondi1122]

I say do whatever - I'm done.

This coin's been dead for too long.

Selfquote, this is what i wrote Andy aka Slimepuppy 4 months ago:

Hey Andi,

there's one thing that bugs me with catcoin:

According to http://catcoinwallets.com:2750/chain/Catcoin?hi=16499&count=500 the first 814.000 Catcoins were mined in 24 hours, with an appropriate starting diff and difficulty adjustment right at the beggining this wouldn't have been the case. Those 16279 blocks given an average block time of 10 minutes each would've taken 113 days instead to be mined if the difficulty parameters were adjusted appropriately. This was not the case and additionally the release of this coin was rather questionable (delayed start, only linux wallet available first etc).

Because of the rather scammy and shady altcoin releases in end-2013, I hoped to finally join a "fair" coin, a community coin. But instead I have the impression that again some smart boys snatched big chunks of the pie and don't even bother to get involved with the coin (no interaction in Catcoin thread, no faucets etc). I have the impression, that getting involved with this coin mostly benefits the clever early snatchers.

What's your take on this?

Hope to hear from you
vondi1122

Cheers

[Blaksmith]

I say do whatever - I'm done.

This coin's been dead for too long.

Selfquote, this is what i wrote Andy aka Slimepuppy 4 months ago:

Hey Andi,

there's one thing that bugs me with catcoin:

According to http://catcoinwallets.com:2750/chain/Catcoin?hi=16499&count=500 the first 814.000 Catcoins were mined in 24 hours, with an appropriate starting diff and difficulty adjustment right at the beggining this wouldn't have been the case. Those 16279 blocks given an average block time of 10 minutes each would've taken 113 days instead to be mined if the difficulty parameters were adjusted appropriately. This was not the case and additionally the release of this coin was rather questionable (delayed start, only linux wallet available first etc).

Because of the rather scammy and shady altcoin releases in end-2013, I hoped to finally join a "fair" coin, a community coin. But instead I have the impression that again some smart boys snatched big chunks of the pie and don't even bother to get involved with the coin (no interaction in Catcoin thread, no faucets etc). I have the impression, that getting involved with this coin mostly benefits the clever early snatchers.

What's your take on this?

Hope to hear from you
vondi1122

Cheers

And quite sadly, NONE of the original developers are involved in this coin any more.  I didn't get involved in this coin until around 3 months after launch, and by then, the damage was done.  If there is still interest from the community as a whole, then we can still try and pull this CAT back up.  I would like to hear from more of the community, not just one person.

[hozer]

I say do whatever - I'm done.

This coin's been dead for too long.

Selfquote, this is what i wrote Andy aka Slimepuppy 4 months ago:

Hey Andi,

there's one thing that bugs me with catcoin:

According to http://catcoinwallets.com:2750/chain/Catcoin?hi=16499&count=500 the first 814.000 Catcoins were mined in 24 hours, with an appropriate starting diff and difficulty adjustment right at the beggining this wouldn't have been the case. Those 16279 blocks given an average block time of 10 minutes each would've taken 113 days instead to be mined if the difficulty parameters were adjusted appropriately. This was not the case and additionally the release of this coin was rather questionable (delayed start, only linux wallet available first etc).

Because of the rather scammy and shady altcoin releases in end-2013, I hoped to finally join a "fair" coin, a community coin. But instead I have the impression that again some smart boys snatched big chunks of the pie and don't even bother to get involved with the coin (no interaction in Catcoin thread, no faucets etc). I have the impression, that getting involved with this coin mostly benefits the clever early snatchers.

What's your take on this?

Hope to hear from you
vondi1122

Cheers

My take is early-on a bunch of people insta-mined Catcoin, and didn't contribute much of anything, except possibly some just-as-shady promotion.

So if we want to be taken seriously, we need to address two things:

1) hashrate-proportional distribution of block rewards
2) address the early-instamining concerns.

Figuring out 1) is both technically challenging, and controversial. (if you happen to remember discussions about block time or rewarding loyal miners)

I think we might be able to address 2) by implementing Demurrage (which, I think, for Catcoin, should be called Depurrage), and since Freicoin has code that does this, I'd say it's a relatively minor technical change to borrow their code. This leaves the controversy. Would anyone run a hard-fork upgrade in which coins lose value over time? (see http://p2pfoundation.net/Freicoin#Why_Demurrage )

[SlimePuppy]

skillface - sorry to see you go.  Best of luck.

Vondi1122 - thanks for posting the PM.  I didn't want to without your permission.  As Blak already outlined (and as I outlined in my response to you), none of the current dev team was involved in the project at launch.  I truly do not know the intent of the original crew.  I think we can all agree that it wasn't a well thought-out release and that the first few months were rough.  During that time - the time I started to ask questions here - my 'gut' was screaming to me that while it appeared that a number of people were working for CAT and her community, that 'something' wasn't quite right and that it appeared someone was also working against CAT.  I think it's pretty clear from recent activity that there's at least one person that has proven to be working to damage the coin and her community.  I don't know if they're acting alone or not.

We're a very small team, and frankly it's taken way too much time away from the project dealing with folks trying to hoze the coin.  One thing I do know about the folks working on the coin is that we completely adopt and live by the original intent of crypto - that the process be completely open, that we all run the same code, and that modified code must ONLY be run on testnet.  We understand this to be critical:  "It's crucial that clients follow certain rules in order to maintain consistency across the network, and to protect the Bitcoin security guarantees."  

I think that it's pretty clear from the network hash rate and the rise in CAT's value that the community and the coin is alive and well.  I also think that the new wallet will result in a dramatic improvement in block times while significantly reducing or eliminating the problems with PID.

Please give the testnet code a look if you're so inclined, and if you can see ways to improve it please DO let us know.  If you don't want to post the code here, PM me or Blak, or hit us on #catcoin-dev.

For everyone in the community - please only pull code from https://github.com/CatcoinOfficial/CatcoinRelease or use binaries from catcoins.org - this is the only code that should be run on the network.

Thanks everyone.
Andy

[SlimePuppy]

The final release candidate code is on testnet.  This is a full test of the code that'll be posted on catcoinrelease.

http://testnet.geekhash.org/

Comments?  Code?  Exploits?  Suggestions? Alcohol recommendations?  Bring them soon - after the last couple of years I need a drink. 

[SlimePuppy]

Ok everyone - Catcoin has new code on the streets.

Windows wallet:
http://catcoinwallets.com/win/Catcoin_0.9.2.0.zip
SHA256: A3FAC5C54F2E22B2918823140A4D121BA25160DFB3E2AEDB073A14E30A5204B9

Windows build instructions are here:  http://catcoinwallets.com/win/catcoin_wallet_build_windows.pdf

Source:
https://github.com/CatcoinOfficial/CatcoinRelease

Mac wallet is on the way.

Cryptsy has been notified.  The seednodes and catchain explorer are updated.  The Geekhash pool is updated.  We'll get the word out to other pool operators next.

The fork block is 46331 - we should hit it in mid-July.


And yes...work on the next release has already begun.

Andy

/edit...updated Windows wallet hash - bug fix posted.

[bejjan]

Working pool.

https://pool.bejjan.net/pool/CAT

Proportional, 1% fee, free transactions.

Welcome!

/Bejjan

[barrysty1e]

Hi all,

Seems to be more than one version of the Catcoin chain being distributed at the moment.
The block explorer at http://catstat.info:2750/chain/Catcoin indicated that we were up near 44,xxx - has just dropped back as of 10 minutes ago to block 43977.

I'm also unable to get any Windows QT wallet to sync correctly; it seems to crash at a number of checkpoints (i've tried v0.1, 9.1.1 and 9.2) which may indicate the libdb used was incorrect or there are indeed multiple forks of the chain (particularly the Assert error shown).
Linux catcoind appears to get to 43,xxx and rejects new blocks (timestamp too early for xx).

Can someone try syncing either wallet from scratch and letting me know the results?

james