[PRE-ANN] Spark: Whole new codebase for a whole new crypto [1/4]

[Spark-crypto]

Spark: The future is now

Thread 1 of 4 : Unveiling


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This post will be concise, and use simple language.

The second thread next week will go more into detail about various aspects of Spark.


Spark is a brand new cryptocurrency made by a team of 3 professional developers who wish to remain anonymous.

It takes the best from all the interesting cryptocurrencies out there (bitcoin, nextcoin, darkcoin) and mixes it with fresh and new ideas.



Below is a summary of all the important/interesting points relating to Spark.

The next thread will talk about some of these points in detail.





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A brand new start


The spark code base is 100% new. It is not a fork of an existing cryptocurrency.

Spark eliminates the clumsy/bloated blockchain and replaces it with what we call « Spark clouds », decentralized ledgers that shut down once they get too big

Spark clouds can emit near instant transactions (less than 10 seconds) which we call « Lightning bolts », if you set a high enough fee compared to the other outgoing transactions at the time you emit it.

Normal transactions are still very fast (should never be more than a minute), and will never get stuck in limbo if you set no fee, like bitcoin transactions tend to




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The self-sustained spark network


As proof of work mining is a waste of energy that might reach environmentally disastrous proportions, Spark can not be mined at all

Instead, inflation is introduced through a standard proof of stake model, with 10% new coins minted each year, except the first year where no extra coins will be generated

On top of the annual proof of stake inflation (distributed every day), mining fees will be proportionally redistributed to stakeholders

Spark's proof of stake does not require wallets to be unlocked and open, all they have to do is exist. Yes, you will get PoS revenue from your cold storage

Only a spark node can recieve a lightning bolt (super fast) transaction. This encourages businesses or other heavy Spark users to support the network by hosting nodes




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A coin with real life uses


The speed of Spark transactions, especially lightning bolt transactions, makes it appealing for online or offline businesses to use as an actual means of payment

Transactions can have attached messages, which is an extremely important feature for commercial usages (attaching a user id, a command id, an invoice id, etc)

Public keys can have aliases, which businesses can use for simplicity. For example, you would send your coins to the wallet Gamecompany instead of sending it to a random hash that you'd never be able to memorize

Sparks are divisible by up to 10 units, making them much more efficient than bitcoin for micro transactions. If Spark value goes up, we will increase this number

Wallets have an open plugin system that lets you build anything on top of them (in Python 3)

A demo plugin that greatly simplifies Spark related accounting for businesses will be released with the wallets

The wallet runs on every major OS (including our beloved FreeBSD), and a special lightweight wallet (called sparkyd) will be offered to exchanges on release




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True anonimity


In the spirit of cryptocurrency, we believe that anonimity is a very important feature, and we live by the way we think

Spark implements a mixing method that makes it extremely hard to trace transactions if you are not aware of their txid.

All transactions, even past ones, are constantly mixed within the spark clouds, which makes it harder to trace them than the currently existing coin mixing implementations

The team decided to remain anonymous on purpose, but we do intend to support the coin and keep churning bugfixes and releases, as we do believe in the importance of cryptocurrency

We are three professional developers who know each other in real life, and have worked on past crypto currency related projects. This is all you will ever know about the Spark team




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Number crunch and distribution model


There will be 1 000 000 000 (one billion) sparks distributed initially, with nothing at all premined or reserved for the developers

There are no block times, as there is no block chain. Spark clouds are spawned and/or transactions written into spark clouds when the nodes deem it necessary

As we have sadly not found a better distribution model, we will have to resort to an IPO to distribute the initial Sparks

The IPO will be fair for everyone involved, and we will guarantee that coins are not wasted or stolen by using a trusted escrow service for the IPO instead of collecting it ourselves

You will be given 10% of the Sparks you have bought through the IPO every month for ten months. This is to ensure that the market does not get flooded all at once, and has time to develop.

The bitcoins raised during the IPO will be used exclusively for the promotion of Spark. The escrow we have contracted will directly spend the coins for us when needed, we will never touch them




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Welcome to the future


Spark is a project that was started in secret in November 2013, and we are glad to finally be able to share it with you.

Feel free to ask all the questions you want in this thread, we will answer it in the next thread.

There should be about one week, more or less, between each thread.

Thread 2 of 4 will be going into detail about any topics that people are curious about.

Thread 3 of 4 will be the IPO and fund raising for Spark. We will reveal our escrow system at that time. This phase will last for 20 days.

Thread 4 of 4 will be the Spark release. In order to not get beaten at our own game, the source code and wallets will be released only then.

We are however open to giving the micro wallet (sparkyd) to exchanges before the Spark release date, to ensure a smooth launch.




See you in the next thread.

- The spark team -

[wolfspilz]

ok lets see, 

[LordCoder]

Looking promising.

[gutshot]

sounds very interesting - finally something different! Good work 

[GBattaglia]

So without the blockchain, what happens exactly when a "Spark Cloud" gets shutdown?  Are the transaction records no longer available to anyone?  

[Gunther]

*interested!*

[odin99]

fascinating evolution. great ideas.

q: have the devs worked on other coins, if so can we know which ones?

edit: and thanks for not calling it Sparkcoin....

[wosch]

very interesting. will follow closely.

[coin123123]

So without the blockchain, what happens exactly when a "Spark Cloud" gets shutdown?  Are the transaction records no longer available to anyone?  

without blockchain its centralized coin

[WutriCoin]

Excellent, looking forward for more information

[nave]

So without the blockchain, what happens exactly when a "Spark Cloud" gets shutdown?  Are the transaction records no longer available to anyone?  

I'm also very curious as to how this works and maintains the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies.

[hypersire]

[YouIsPeng]

Let me get this straight, you want to remain anonymous yet you want me to send you BTC in exchange for some of your 'Sparks' - do you think people are crazy? How is this a 'cryptocurrency' if there is no cryptography involved? You are just asking me to buy an untested and brand new coin direct from its developers. I can go out and buy some Dollars or Yen or Euros right now, which actually have a demonstrated and current value, and more importantly are actually being used by millions of people right now!!

People want coins that can me mined with their hashing power, not bought at a pre-determined arbitrary rate from people they can't trace.

I will be very interested to see how much you are going to sell your Sparks for, as you are essentially setting up your own BTC market at a pre-determined price, thinly veiled as an IPO. I'm sure you will argue this point, but all your plan boils down to is 1) I send you BTC 2) You send me some Sparks over 10 months. This means you have decided the exchange rate from the start, which will very likely be way-off what the market decides they are worth. The market should decide how much a currency is worth, not its developers. With your IPO you are effectively selling a commodity that is a) not tested in the market and b) could easily settle at a value way below what you are selling it for.

This is exactly the same as me minting a load of coins in my basement, calling them NewDollars and selling them to people for $1USD each then hoping that people will actually use them. A currency will only be useful if it is adopted and used widely. Which you cannot guarantee.

All of the other features of your coin sound very good ideas, but MAKE IT MINEABLE otherwise it has no inherent value.

My advice to all is STAY AWAY and KEEP YOUR HARD EARNED BTC (or sell them for Fiat) don't waste them on this nonsense.

[lolcoind]

POOL   I LIKE IT

[hypersire]

Let me get this straight, you want to remain anonymous yet you want me to send you BTC in exchange for some of your 'Sparks' - do you think people are crazy? How is this a 'cryptocurrency' if there is no cryptography involved? You are just asking me to buy an untested and brand new coin direct from its developers. I can go out and buy some Dollars or Yen or Euros right now, which actually have a demonstrated and current value, and more importantly are actually being used by millions of people right now!!

My advice to all is STAY AWAY and KEEP YOUR HARD EARNED BTC (or sell them for Fiat) don't waste them on this nonsense.

Well you've certainly shown that you can write, now you just need to learn how to read:

The IPO will be fair for everyone involved, and we will guarantee that coins are not wasted or stolen by using a trusted escrow service for the IPO instead of collecting it ourselves

[sonysasankan]

So without the blockchain, what happens exactly when a "Spark Cloud" gets shutdown?  Are the transaction records no longer available to anyone?  

I'm also very curious as to how this works and maintains the decentralized nature of cryptocurrencies.

From what I could make of it, I think the spark clouds are non-nodes, and is basically used to do confirmations and temporarily store records till a size quota is reached. Those opting to become nodes uses more resources to store and process the records and will not shut down like the spark clouds. In return, they get to keep the thunderbolt fee (or whatever its called) as a maintenance fee.

Of course I could be wrong.... I cant even get "hello world" to show up  

Might get some proper answers when the thread sequel comes. Interesting coin none the less... Its all about the name and the coin logo these days  

[sonysasankan]

Could you pass the butter please 

[barbaricmustard]

Not liking "IPO Only".

[B2BigAl]

Well, I was excited until I read "can not be mined at all".  So its a 100% IPO coin.  How is this a good idea?

[damiano]

Interesting