[ANN] [888] [SCRYPT] OctoCoin ◦ The Power of Eight ◦ Don't Blink

[edric]

I've kinda sorta been keeping my eye on it as well, but it's definitely reassuring to know that people have been comparing earnings vs FH and that my pool is on the right track. I really haven't been able to do the research here, but what MEGAman was saying makes some sense. I've thought some on actually putting some elbow grease in and setting up a multipool of my own, but I've kinda abandoned that idea, multipools just seem to rub everyone the wrong way, too much work, lots of risk, etc. But, nonetheless, I'm glad there's nothing wrong with the pool. When the bonus blocks are gone, maybe there won't be so much to worry about.

Anyway, I'd like to announce that, tentatively, within 2 days time, I'm going to have another game up and running for 888. If I have the time to make the final touches I'll try to have it ready by tomorrow. I'm going to keep the premise of the game a surprise until it's ready, but I will say that it has an invest system, so that has potential to make people some extra coin, if it becomes popular. I'll want to test everything out pretty thoroughly before I'd encourage heavy investing and betting but so far I'm pretty confident it's going to be good!

I haven't decided if I'm going to keep the grid game running or not, that depends on if people want to play

I was hoping to get more work done this weekend but I've been feeling pretty awful the past couple of days. It seems like since we've moved that I just cannot get anything done, like being in this house is somehow counterproductive. I did get the pool's software up to date early this morning, lots of improvements to MPOS, haven't done much of a test drive yet. Please PM me if anything funny happens. See you guys soon

PS. kskwerl, you're welcome to bring some of your asics to Fedaykin's Pool, spread the love :b

[OctoCoin]

As of this post, we are approaching block 62,400; the bonus blocks do not end until block 94,255. The largest pool is FusionHash and over the past 7 days, blocks have averaged 135 coins/block. While 5016 blocks were found in 96% of the expected time... that 4% obviously does not make up the difference as the block rewards should average out to roughly 188 coins/block.

The issue isn't exactly an exploit as much as it is an unavoidable situation - Dogecoin dealt with the same issue where farms would hit it as soon as a larger block reward was detected and bounce off when a below average block was detected. As a result, standard pools were getting a disproportionate percentage of smaller blocks. The question of whether or not this is an efficient strategy for them is irrelevant - whether they are losing shares or not, consistent miners are not getting the return they expect and that's more important to us than cheaters not actually getting the benefits they think they are. Of course the more hash power we have steadily mining 888 in dedicated pools/etc the better but this is definitely an issue we need to address right away. The Dogecoin developers have approached this a certain way but obviously the random rewards play a bigger role in their coin than in OctoCoin - the bonus blocks are set to end in just over a month.

We did not foresee this being an issue until OctoCoin was trading on a larger exchange. Unfortunately, there are enough people out there that recognize the potential OctoCoin has and are taking advantage of the bonus blocks for the long game.

We had a discussion this afternoon and came to the conclusion that we will absolutely need to fork at some point to resolve this - we don't want to go through another 32,000 blocks with sub-par returns and as much as we hate to fork, it is the right play here. This is where we turn to the community to get some feedback on preferences:

We could make adjustments to the randomization strategy that, as somebody suggested previously, would incorporate the time stamps of randomly selected previous blocks based on a sliding formula and additional factors in determining the value of the block. While we are confident this would make it quite difficult to exploit the random bonus blocks the way it's being done now, we cannot guarantee it won't happen again. We considered implementing a central-server just through the bonus block phase which would crunch the numbers in a way that would make it impossible to exploit, but ultimately agreed this was both unorthodox and overkill.

Another option is that we could just ditch the bonus blocks and change the block rewards to a static 188 coins/block. Most OctoCoin miners are consistently mining OctoCoin anyway so at this point that means a bigger ROI. Another advantage is that right out of the gates it means a more stable hash rate, fewer orphans, and less all-around BS. This is my personal choice but, during today's meeting, one of the guys expressed concerns that this changes the basic specifications of OctoCoin and might upset people. In my opinion, the only people this would upset are the people exploiting the bonus blocks but I understand where he is coming from.

So go ahead and post your feedback here over the next 24 hours or so - we are planning on releasing the new client within 72 hours (it will also contain a handful of tweaks and fixes in addition to the bonus block adjustments). There are approximately 980 OctoCoin blocks/day so assuming we release the new client in 72 hours, we would be somewhere around block #65,360. If we set the fork to occur at block #68,888 that would give us 3 1/2 - 4 days after the client is released to ensure everybody is updated. Obviously the main concerns would be the various smaller exchanges 888 is trading on, all of the pools, etc.

So this is the plan we've come up with and we would love some feedback from the community to help assist us in choosing the best way to proceed. If anybody is adamantly opposed to anything here, please speak up and explain why. Most of us are somewhat new to the crypto world and, despite learning more and more every day, our extensive software development background doesn't necessarily mean OctoCoin itself cannot continue to be improved. The ultimate strength of OctoCoin will come from our products and services but it's important that the coin, community and distribution remain as solid as they possibly can be to ensure the OctoCoin economy moves smoothly from our vision into reality.

Once again, we really appreciate the patience and support of this community - we are proud to have all of you in the OctoCoin family. There is some truly awesome stuff to come but, for now, we just need to ensure a strong foundation.

[coinz4fun]

For all who in octo theme!
We must vote more active on mintpal!!!
I make minimum 5-6 votes every day, but i see how some outsiders become higher then octo, and it is really sad...
Please be more active, it's our interest to give this coin future!

[OctoCoin]

As of this post, we are approaching block 62,400; the bonus blocks do not end until block 94,255. The largest pool is FusionHash and over the past 7 days, blocks have averaged 135 coins/block. While 5016 blocks were found in 96% of the expected time... that 4% obviously does not make up the difference as the block rewards should average out to roughly 188 coins/block.

The issue isn't exactly an exploit as much as it is an unavoidable situation - Dogecoin dealt with the same issue where farms would hit it as soon as a larger block reward was detected and bounce off when a below average block was detected. As a result, standard pools were getting a disproportionate percentage of smaller blocks. The question of whether or not this is an efficient strategy for them is irrelevant - whether they are losing shares or not, consistent miners are not getting the return they expect and that's more important to us than cheaters not actually getting the benefits they think they are. Of course the more hash power we have steadily mining 888 in dedicated pools/etc the better but this is definitely an issue we need to address right away. The Dogecoin developers have approached this a certain way but obviously the random rewards play a bigger role in their coin than in OctoCoin - the bonus blocks are set to end in just over a month.

We did not foresee this being an issue until OctoCoin was trading on a larger exchange. Unfortunately, there are enough people out there that recognize the potential OctoCoin has and are taking advantage of the bonus blocks for the long game.

We had a discussion this afternoon and came to the conclusion that we will absolutely need to fork at some point to resolve this - we don't want to go through another 32,000 blocks with sub-par returns and as much as we hate to fork, it is the right play here. This is where we turn to the community to get some feedback on preferences:

We could make adjustments to the randomization strategy that, as somebody suggested previously, would incorporate the time stamps of randomly selected previous blocks based on a sliding formula and additional factors in determining the value of the block. While we are confident this would make it quite difficult to exploit the random bonus blocks the way it's being done now, we cannot guarantee it won't happen again. We considered implementing a central-server just through the bonus block phase which would crunch the numbers in a way that would make it impossible to exploit, but ultimately agreed this was both unorthodox and overkill.

Another option is that we could just ditch the bonus blocks and change the block rewards to a static 188 coins/block. Most OctoCoin miners are consistently mining OctoCoin anyway so at this point that means a bigger ROI. Another advantage is that right out of the gates it means a more stable hash rate, fewer orphans, and less all-around BS. This is my personal choice but, during today's meeting, one of the guys expressed concerns that this changes the basic specifications of OctoCoin and might upset people. In my opinion, the only people this would upset are the people exploiting the bonus blocks but I understand where he is coming from.

So go ahead and post your feedback here over the next 24 hours or so - we are planning on releasing the new client within 72 hours (it will also contain a handful of tweaks and fixes in addition to the bonus block adjustments). There are approximately 980 OctoCoin blocks/day so assuming we release the new client in 72 hours, we would be somewhere around block #65,360. If we set the fork to occur at block #68,888 that would give us 3 1/2 - 4 days after the client is released to ensure everybody is updated. Obviously the main concerns would be the various smaller exchanges 888 is trading on, all of the pools, etc.

So this is the plan we've come up with and we would love some feedback from the community to help assist us in choosing the best way to proceed. If anybody is adamantly opposed to anything here, please speak up and explain why. Most of us are somewhat new to the crypto world and, despite learning more and more every day, our extensive software development background doesn't necessarily mean OctoCoin itself cannot continue to be improved. The ultimate strength of OctoCoin will come from our products and services but it's important that the coin, community and distribution remain as solid as they possibly can be to ensure the OctoCoin economy moves smoothly from our vision into reality.

Once again, we really appreciate the patience and support of this community - we are proud to have all of you in the OctoCoin family. There is some truly awesome stuff to come but, for now, we just need to ensure a strong foundation.

A standard block reward of 188 for the remainder of this phase seems to be the most practical solution to me, I would definitely vote for that.  My only concern would be that everything possible is done to prevent the chaotic multiple forks that seem to accompany any hard fork these days.  How do you manage/control that?

We will update both hard-coded DNS notes as well as the nodes from the original post. As long as people are updated to the latest client days before the hard fork occurs, I believe it will continue forward without a hitch. We maintain all of the nodes ourselves and will even fire up a few additional nodes just in case. A lot of problems occur because most coins have random nodes that are dead or outdated and then the process becomes a sloppy mess. I've seen coins where people are suggesting a list of 20+ nodes and 2/3 of them aren't even online - our nodes remain online 24/7 and are always current. Another bonus is that we're doing it before the network gets too massive. We already experimented with a hard fork on the testnet and there were zero issues. We will keep a close eye on things throughout the process.

We now have 2 members of the 888 team that will officially be dedicated to the project full-time. As this has been a side project for all of us up until this point, the collaboration alone took up huge portions of our development time. Everything is starting to come together and hopefully this fork will prove to be just a minor bump in the road. Personally, I view it as a priority.

[whiteali]

I personally also vote for a standard block reward of 188 !

The randomness was fun, but is supposed to be also 188 block reward in the end, and for know it is spoiled by the one who exploit the mechanism.

[JesstersDead]

+1 for setting block reward to 188.

And thanks dev team for looking in to the issue.

[klembyklem]

we can now vote to add octocoin on shareXcoin

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=598531.0

[peterw]

If it goes to 188 for every block, does that increase the total coins for octocoin? Or does it keep the total coins the same and shorten the length of the bonus block phase? Or something else?

Edit: or was 188 the expected average now? If so, maybe changing to that means no change in the total coins for octo?

[Sheryl Dimakiling73]

Great job 888 Team! your hard work is reflected in the recent price hike. Keep up the good

work!

[Stewart]

dev,I will be keeping track of you.

[kcanup]

What is happening here? 
Btw, i managed to recover coins from my broken wallet and transfer them to a fresh wallet with the help of a new wallet, thanks a lot for update

[GWCalvert]

So now we can vote for (at least) 4 5 exchanges:

Cryptsy - https://www.cryptsy.com/coinvotes
MintPal - https://www.mintpal.com/voting
Comkort - https://comkort.com/vote
Swaphole - https://www.swaphole.com/#!voting
ShareXcoin - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=598531.0

Vote, vote, vote, vote... and vote again!

There are a lot more people taking notice of 888. I've stumbled across conversations in the trollbox at Polo and other exchanges. There seems to be several early miners who are holding their coins... awaiting for further development and bigger exchanges. Most have positive things to say about OctoCoin's future.

On another note... Would anyone be interested in some OctoCoin Accepted Here/Donate OctoCoin buttons/banners or maybe an animated promo video? I could put something together this afternoon if there is interest. The banners/buttons would be easy as I have been experimenting with creating some for some of the sites that I own.


Even though I don't mine... the static 188 block reward seems to me the best option. Just my 2 cents worth...

[Stonerboy]

So now we can vote for (at least) 4 5 exchanges:

Cryptsy - https://www.cryptsy.com/coinvotes
MintPal - https://www.mintpal.com/voting
Comkort - https://comkort.com/vote
Swaphole - https://www.swaphole.com/#!voting
ShareXcoin - https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=598531.0

Vote, vote, vote, vote... and vote again!

There are a lot more people taking notice of 888. I've stumbled across conversations in the trollbox at Polo and other exchanges. There seems to be several early miners who are holding their coins... awaiting for further development and bigger exchanges. Most have positive things to say about OctoCoin's future.

On another note... Would anyone be interested in some OctoCoin Accepted Here/Donate OctoCoin buttons/banners or maybe an animated promo video? I could put something together this afternoon if there is interest. The banners/buttons would be easy as I have been experimenting with creating some for some of the sites that I own.


Even though I don't mine... the static 188 block reward seems to me the best option. Just my 2 cents worth...

+888

Yeah, some banners and buttons would be nice! 

[wartywarlock]

I say screw the hoppers and take the option that rewards your loyal miners  if this upsets someone, they probably only care for profit and not the coin itself.

[peterw]

If it goes to 188 for every block, does that increase the total coins for octocoin? Or does it keep the total coins the same and shorten the length of the bonus block phase? Or something else?

Edit: or was 188 the expected average now? If so, maybe changing to that means no change in the total coins for octo?

Essentially the latter I believe, mathematically the average block reward for this phase should be 188 so the total coin distribution would remain the same.  It would just be a more equitable distribution for the remainder of this phase than it has been recently and would only hurt pools/farms who are throwing hash at the network whenever a bonus block is due.

OK cool, that makes sense to me now. Seems like a good way to go for the rest of the bonus phase.

[OctoCoin]

The consensus thus far seems to be 188 coins/block - we'll continue to process feedback for another 12 hours or so and then lock in the final decision in the morning. There is a division within the OctoCoin team on the topic which is why we are looking to you guys to help us make the call. Since we will need to hard fork things anyway, we will also make some tweaks to the difficulty adjustment formula. While I believe the current formula has served us well and tweaking it wasn't worthy of a fork on its own, we might as well make the adjustments we want while we have the opportunity. There have been a lot of requests for implementation of KGW but, based on our calculations and testnet runs, we have determined there are better options for a more consistent network.

We will try to get the updated client out tomorrow; keep in mind, however, that the fork will not actually occur until block 68,888. Also, just to clarify, this will have no effect on the total number of coins or how soon we get there. We have received more than one enquiry on the topic and wanted to ensure this point is clear. The only change to the distribution is that the remainder of the bonus blocks period will be modified to a static 188 coins/block with no bonus blocks - this averages out to be the same number of coins and is just a slightly different method of distribution. Every consistent miner will be rewarded by this change and the only miners that will be negatively affected are the coin-jumpers that are exploiting the bonus blocks. We apologize for not noticing and addressing this "exploit" sooner but, as they say, better late than never. We can take solace in the fact that the majority of miners exploiting the 888 bonus blocks are likely dumping their coins as the blocks mature meaning they are selling well below even the short-term value projections.

[GWCalvert]

Here are a couple of examples in full size (800 px)




I have them made in 800px, 468px, 240px and 180px widths. See them all at http://garycalvert.com/octo You can save them individually or there is a zip file download link with all the images.

Enjoy!

[OctoCoin]

FYI, we have asked Cryptsy to refrain from taking BTC donations for OctoCoin votes temporarily (you may have noticed we're one of the few coins without a BTC donation address). Feel free to vote and/or use Cryptsy points to improve exposure but we want to ensure all ducks are in a row before we get listed - the upcoming client and subsequent hard fork are the primary remaining hurdles.

[BitCoinDream]

How many OctoCoin I can have against 0.1 BTC ?

[edric]

Good deal, thanks for testing it out Jaggedminer!

And the new update sounds nice! I hope the nasty payout issues have been resolved, since this is going to be a mandatory update XD

Thanks for doing this, though, because the whole superblock/multipool issue is pretty discouraging. Hopefully this will thwart it.