[ANN][COMB] Haircomb - Quantum proof, anonymity and more

[natasha-otomoski]

Hi! looking forward to this interesting project, I am on step 6, is there any way i can speed up this process? possibly download the blockchain on torrent and be able to sync faster? currently says estimated time left 6weeks.
Would love to get started faster.
Thank You

Hi I see..
Unfortunately this is how Bitcoin works (I'm not responsible for that) and only way to bypass the 250GB download is to get the files from another Bitcoin user.
The files you need is index folder chainstate folder and blk.dat rev.dat. Don't copy everything and especially don't copy other person's wallet.dat as yours. (They will see keys inside that wallet and when you deposit there they will steal your BTC).

Another option is to get commits.db from another user you trust. That file has like 30MB but fake file could mean you would see haircombs in your wallet that aren't actually real.

Hope that helps.

[kelozar]

Hi! looking forward to this interesting project, I am on step 6, is there any way i can speed up this process? possibly download the blockchain on torrent and be able to sync faster? currently says estimated time left 6weeks.
Would love to get started faster.
Thank You

Hi I see..
Unfortunately this is how Bitcoin works (I'm not responsible for that) and only way to bypass the 250GB download is to get the files from another Bitcoin user.
The files you need is index folder chainstate folder and blk.dat rev.dat. Don't copy everything and especially don't copy other person's wallet.dat as yours. (They will see keys inside that wallet and when you deposit there they will steal your BTC).

Another option is to get commits.db from another user you trust. That file has like 30MB but fake file could mean you would see haircombs in your wallet that aren't actually real.

Hope that helps.

Speed up a lot! less then 10hours to go, and gets faster.

Where does the satoshi go when attempting to claim? is this satoshi going to forever be locked/lost? (interesting if this decreasing circulating btc)
Is this coin stored in tx data on the first layer? so its not a side chain or 2nd layer, its a coin that lives on first layer btc chain in the tx data.
By running this edited qt client, is this also essentially running a full node for btc?

Looking forward to faucets to help distribute this.

[natasha-otomoski]

Speed up a lot! less then 10hours to go, and gets faster.

Where does the satoshi go when attempting to claim? is this satoshi going to forever be locked/lost? (interesting if this decreasing circulating btc)
Is this coin stored in tx data on the first layer? so its not a side chain or 2nd layer, its a coin that lives on first layer btc chain in the tx data.
By running this edited qt client, is this also essentially running a full node for btc?

Looking forward to faucets to help distribute this.

Yes, claim satoshis are provably burned. When someone is confirming payment and pays to those 21 addresses those coins sent there are also provably burned.

Yes tx data (outputs) is where the commitments are anchored in the host blockchain. Haircomb can be deployed atop any blockchain or consensus system that reaches consensus about a set of values.

Yeah haircomb users are running btc full nodes and they are indistinguishable from actual btc users. Contrast this with e.g. monero  where there is a separate network that can be monitored and / or traced.

[kelozar]

nice! now some question about claiming,
what is happening? does sending 546 sats guarantee a claim? or does it give a chance? whats the chance there?
does using more sats/byte give higher chance? or can use low sat/byte and just wait till miner accepts it.
if comb didnt get claimed can sending to same miner address give it another chance? or if comb are claimed, can u send again to same address or need to use a new one?

thnx

edit, so i read the white paper, and seems to answer some of my questions,
im wondering what would be the best strategy to claim comb
can only 1 comb claim be allowed per btc block? so would make no sense to try several attempts in the mempool, only one at a time.

any general tips on how to claim comb efficiently? paying highet sat/byte doesnt really make sense as that can be quite expensive, making comb cost more then $.50 just in tx fees to claim.

[natasha-otomoski]

I cannot give you the only true way to claim COMB, because there appear
to be many strategies or ideas that are viable.

Currently a good way is to claim it using an unrelated Bitcoin or haircomb
transaction that you are going to do anyways. It is a no-brainer to add the first
destination of 546 sats to participate in the COMB lottery. If everyone was
doing this the COMB claiming network would be very decentralized.

Faucet claiming is also nice option for people who use Bitcoin faucets.

There is a shady way to claim COMB when a tumbler operator claims combs using
every tumbling operation the customers make on the tumbler. I won't ever be
doing this, and it is probably illegal.

Exchanges can also claim COMB. Fair exchanges will split the COMB between
people who made withdrawals, unfair exchanges will keep the COMB for themselves.

Child pays for parent transactions are also an option. Claimer creates many lower
fees transactions that depend on each other. To pocket a good fee, miner has
to include several in the sequence. This produces a burst of transactions maybe
giving an increased chance that one of the burst transactions wins the reward.

Replace by-fee is worth studying. In this strategy the claimer monitors the
memory pool, looking for highest fee haircomb claiming transaction. Then the
claimer proceeds to set an even higher fee to their own claiming transaction.

Now many people do not know about COMB. Currently, yeah, if you do transactions
for the sole purpose of claiming COMB, then you are going to pay hefty fees.
This is because multiple pools appear to sort transactions by fees and you
have to be on the top to win.

But if a paradigm shift occurs (invention of a powerful quantum computers),
the price of comb could explode beyond everyone's expectations. Suddenly,
claiming there at the beginning wins each early adopter a hefty profit.

But a dump scenario could be also profitable. When Bitcoin miners start claiming
COMB (it is possible to place COMB claim to a Bitcoin coinbase bypassing any
ordinary claimers). Suddenly COMB price could collapse to new lows. Those who guess
and identify the real bottom correctly and buy will walk away with a 100%
guaranteed profit.

[TimeWarperHH]

Are they any technical requirements to claim COMB? Can I claim also with a normal desktop PC with Win10?

[kelozar]

Are they any technical requirements to claim COMB? Can I claim also with a normal desktop PC with Win10?

claiming these comb is as easy as sending a 546 sats to a bc1 segwit address generated as the miner address and being the first in the block to make such a tx, this can be done from any segwit wallets.
but to see the comb in your wallet and to send them, you need to run a full node btc client modified. there is instructions for that above.

if anyone willing to start claiming comb, im interested to buy some for 1k sats per claim. can possibly negotiate a price

[albertorm2]

Sorry If I am missunderstanding anything. I was about to send some comb to a friend of mine. Just as the whitepaper says, I had to pay 546 satoshi to each of these 21 numbers. This plus the fees makes the transaction fees too high.

How can that scale? Am I missing something? How are we going to get a functional faucet?

[natasha-otomoski]

Sorry If I am missunderstanding anything. I was about to send some comb to a friend of mine. Just as the whitepaper says, I had to pay 546 satoshi to each of these 21 numbers. This plus the fees makes the transaction fees too high.

Hello, we take scaling very seriously. Truth is users pay Bitcoin fees for their transfers, and you need to fund 21 addresses to confirm payment.

The good thing is anyone can pay to huge number of addresses, using one payment, at once, by using liquidity stacks. This is not only an idea, it is actually implemented and working (but not user friendly).

The way it works with 2 receivers is this:

Suppose you want to pay 2 users AAA BBB each 0.1 COMB Your change address is DDD.

So you create 2 liquidity stack entries the first uses DDD AAA addresses and pays to AAA 10000000 smallest units. The address of first liquidity stack becomes EEE.

Next you create another liquidity stack entry that uses EEE , BBB addresses and pays to BBB 10000000 smallest units. The address of this stack becomes then FFF.

And then you fund FFF stack using your comb.

This scales to any number of receivers, using one payment.

How can that scale? Am I missing something? How are we going to get a functional faucet?

I'm very proud about how scalable COMB is. Faucet/exchange is going to pay out a huge batch of COMB every hour/day and confirm tons of payments by funding 21 addresses once a hour/day.

Hope that helps.

[new@age]

COMB is mineable?

[bizbiz4]

Anyone tested the wallet?

[natasha-otomoski]

COMB is mineable?

COMB is claimable on the Bitcoin main network. If the project becomes successful, will be mineable by using a generic SHA256d hardware in a specific Bitcoin pool that pays out COMB rewards.

Anyone tested the wallet?

Yes, I've tested it very thoroughly. Multiple people are running it as we speak.

I did not plant any backdoor / malware / phone home functionality. It simply opens a  web server on 127.0.0.1:2121 and reads/writes files in it's current folder that's all it does.

You can use your favourite sandbox/virtualization.

If you are worried about phone home you can run it offline. You only need commits.db all signing/payments/validation can be done purely offline.

I don't care

[bizbiz4]

What's the most efficient way to claim COMB?
I've been trying to claim some but the wallet hasn't synced yet still so I can't see if I've successfully claimed any, but I generated a bunch of addresses in the wallet then used 'pay to many' to send 546 sats to each mining address, with a decent fee. Is there a better way?

[kelozar]

What's the most efficient way to claim COMB?
I've been trying to claim some but the wallet hasn't synced yet still so I can't see if I've successfully claimed any, but I generated a bunch of addresses in the wallet then used 'pay to many' to send 546 sats to each mining address, with a decent fee. Is there a better way?

as far as i can understand, only 1 claim per block, and your tx has to be the first bc1 tx in the block to get the claim.
so claiming several in 1 tx wont work.
the best way would be when the blocks are more empty, and the sat/byte for the first bc1 tx is cheaper. you can also scout the mempool and overcut the highest bc1 tx so yours can be first. (this is because most miners put the tx's in order of highest fee first)
so ideally when the mempool is empty or more specifically bc1 tx are really cheap sat/byte then you can attempt to claim once per block.
if your tx is the first bc1 tx in the block then i understand your claim should be successful.

natasha can chime in and explain if im correct or not.

ive noticed some irregular mempool activity today, and some of those where tx's of 546 sats to bc1 addresses, coming from a binance wallet.
so seems like someone attempted to claim or it could of been them moving combs since that would require sending to 21 addresses.

im still learning myself, so feel free to correct me, just sharing what i think is going on.

[bizbiz4]

What's the most efficient way to claim COMB?
I've been trying to claim some but the wallet hasn't synced yet still so I can't see if I've successfully claimed any, but I generated a bunch of addresses in the wallet then used 'pay to many' to send 546 sats to each mining address, with a decent fee. Is there a better way?

as far as i can understand, only 1 claim per block, and your tx has to be the first bc1 tx in the block to get the claim.
so claiming several in 1 tx wont work.
the best way would be when the blocks are more empty, and the sat/byte for the first bc1 tx is cheaper. you can also scout the mempool and overcut the highest bc1 tx so yours can be first. (this is because most miners put the tx's in order of highest fee first)
so ideally when the mempool is empty or more specifically bc1 tx are really cheap sat/byte then you can attempt to claim once per block.
if your tx is the first bc1 tx in the block then i understand your claim should be successful.

natasha can chime in and explain if im correct or not.

ive noticed some irregular mempool activity today, and some of those where tx's of 546 sats to bc1 addresses, coming from a binance wallet.
so seems like someone attempted to claim or it could of been them moving combs since that would require sending to 21 addresses.

im still learning myself, so feel free to correct me, just sharing what i think is going on.

For some reason I thought you only had to outbid another Comb claimer for the fee to be first in the block but I just realised there would be no way to tell the difference between them right? But that sounds like it could get expensive since some people use high fees. I just used the slider on Electrum and ended up paying between 0.50 and $5 per tx. And yeah I saw the mempool thing too but seems unlikely since they moved so much?
Ah, I tried claiming some anyway I guess I'll just wait for the faucet if there ever is one unless anyone is selling then I will buy some. Guess we'll see what happens

[kelozar]

the implications on if this actually takes off, this can be really huge for bitcoin.
one is that it will be a further btc sink, as if the 546 sat txs are actually verifiably burnt, then thats great for overall deflation of btc!
2nd is that, this can create a more competitive tx fee market, even if just for 1 claim per block, it can put a staple for atleast 1 tx pet block to have a higher fee, overall this helps support the security of the btc network since it helps create market for layer one fees.

im curious to see more prominent btc devs say on this project. as this could be a potentially huge advancement, having totally anonymous transfer on btc first layer, and creating further deflation, and ontop of that helping create a higher fee market, its a win win in every direction for btc. (atleast in my opinion)

if this takes off, we might even see different flavors of such tokens on the network, further increasing deflation, and also further creating more market for fees.
higher fees is essential imo for btc security long term.

im curious on how the supply mechanics of this comb token works, does the amount per claim change?

[bizbiz4]

im curious on how the supply mechanics of this comb token works, does the amount per claim change?

Don't know the mechanics of how or why it changes but the amount per claim seems to change slightly.

1.59906193   COMB
1.59906156   COMB
1.59906118   COMB

The last 4 digits at least. If you mean over time like halvening then I'm not sure

Edit: Read the whitepaper again.

"The supply has 8 decimal places, reward decreases at a subexponential rate. System scales with the number of inputs spent multiplied by the size of one signature (21 hashes). Using a Merkle tree segment signer can route coin to one of 65536 outputs by revealing two commitments (2 hashes), enabling atomic swaps and other constructs."

[kelozar]

im looking to buy some comb, if anyone would be nice to sell some let me know, we can use an escrow if needed,
5k-10k sats per comb depending on amount, can also neg a better rate depending on quantity

[bizbiz4]

im looking to buy some comb, if anyone would be nice to sell some let me know, we can use an escrow if needed,
5k-10k sats per comb depending on amount, can also neg a better rate depending on quantity

Pretty sure it costs more than that in fees to claim.

[kelozar]

im looking to buy some comb, if anyone would be nice to sell some let me know, we can use an escrow if needed,
5k-10k sats per comb depending on amount, can also neg a better rate depending on quantity

Pretty sure it costs more than that in fees to claim.

what do you think is a fair price? how bout 50k sats

edit: come to think of it, small transfers wouldnt be worth atm since alot of it would be to fees.
might have to just continue my luck on claiming instead.

edit2: what happens to a failed attempt? i see the mining address is not shown in the wallet anymore, can i still use the same mining address to try again?
or only can use a new one?