[UNO] Unobtanium Info & Discussion - Merge Mine w/BTC! - Update NOW to qt 0.11.5

[siameze]

Yes, our base hashrate dropped by more than 60% 

We need to maintain a selection of reliable pools. Whatever reason they had for dropping us we need to make sure that it doesn't continue to be a problem in the future.

For some reason merged coins cause instability in our stratum servers. Not specific to UNO, but it is why we've removed all MM coins from scrypt and sha256 on zpool.

We're working at figuring out why so eventually we hope to add it back on www.zpool.ca

Cheers

Perfect demonstration of why I am sceptical of the benefits of merge mining.

This and the f2pool market decision lead me to the same conclusion.

[FallingKnife]

Yes, our base hashrate dropped by more than 60%  

We need to maintain a selection of reliable pools. Whatever reason they had for dropping us we need to make sure that it doesn't continue to be a problem in the future.

For some reason merged coins cause instability in our stratum servers. Not specific to UNO, but it is why we've removed all MM coins from scrypt and sha256 on zpool.

We're working at figuring out why so eventually we hope to add it back on www.zpool.ca

Cheers

Crackfoo, thank you for the explanation. If there's anything in the Uno wallet causing instability for merged mining, send me the long and I'll have it looked at. We'll look forward to having Xpool/Zpool back soon.

[FallingKnife]

Yes, our base hashrate dropped by more than 60% 

We need to maintain a selection of reliable pools. Whatever reason they had for dropping us we need to make sure that it doesn't continue to be a problem in the future.

For some reason merged coins cause instability in our stratum servers. Not specific to UNO, but it is why we've removed all MM coins from scrypt and sha256 on zpool.

We're working at figuring out why so eventually we hope to add it back on www.zpool.ca

Cheers

Perfect demonstration of why I am sceptical of the benefits of merge mining.

This and the f2pool market decision lead me to the same conclusion.

You guys think Uno would be better off without merged mining?

[FallingKnife]

Not long ago I invited anyone who had a quantity of Uno trapped at Cryptsy to PM me with the amount.  

So far I've had 4 claims that amount to 5K Uno, or 1/3 of the value of Cryptsy's known cold storage wallet.

What's the point of this?  Why admit you lost Uno at Cryptsy, a possibly embarrassing thing to admit?
I'd like to bring whatever transparency is possible to the situation. I'll keep your message anonymous.  I promise a sympathetic ear (I've lost Uno at exchanges before, so you're not talking to a genius here).

I think the chances are excellent that the locked Uno at Cryptsy will eventually be returned.  Unlike the MintPal theft, we know exactly where the Cryptsy Uno is and we're watching it.   And if I hear any news, I'll be sure to contact you.

The Cryptsy Uno cold wallet is still here:
https://chainz.cryptoid.info/uno/address.dws?202946.htm

[cryptapus]

Yes, our base hashrate dropped by more than 60% 

We need to maintain a selection of reliable pools. Whatever reason they had for dropping us we need to make sure that it doesn't continue to be a problem in the future.

For some reason merged coins cause instability in our stratum servers. Not specific to UNO, but it is why we've removed all MM coins from scrypt and sha256 on zpool.

We're working at figuring out why so eventually we hope to add it back on www.zpool.ca

Cheers

Perfect demonstration of why I am sceptical of the benefits of merge mining.

This and the f2pool market decision lead me to the same conclusion.

You guys think Uno would be better off without merged mining?

UNO would be better off with less mining centralization for sure. It doesn't matter if it's AUX-POW or POW, if 60% of your hash is centralized on one pool you've essentially been owned with a "51% attack". Of course the pool would need to actively attempt to defraud (I can't remember seeing an example of a pool engaging in such behavior)...

It's not just UNO though, it's laughable how everyone seems to pretend that bitcoin mining is decentralized. Sure none of the pools get to 51% but the big miners just spread the hash to different pools. It's an interesting thought exercise to wonder how big the biggest bitcoin miner actually is...

But hard-forking for some willy-nilly reason seems risky too, many a coin has been killed with hard forks especially lately with low interest in most altcoins. There's something to be said about stability. Look at litecoin, it's essentially become just a bitcoin clone with no purpose but the value is still quite high. When was the last time they had a hard-fork?

By the way, there's nothing stopping anyone from mining UNO with direct POW but the rewards would have to make it worthwhile.

[FallingKnife]

Yes, our base hashrate dropped by more than 60%  

We need to maintain a selection of reliable pools. Whatever reason they had for dropping us we need to make sure that it doesn't continue to be a problem in the future.

For some reason merged coins cause instability in our stratum servers. Not specific to UNO, but it is why we've removed all MM coins from scrypt and sha256 on zpool.

We're working at figuring out why so eventually we hope to add it back on www.zpool.ca

Cheers

Perfect demonstration of why I am sceptical of the benefits of merge mining.

This and the f2pool market decision lead me to the same conclusion.

You guys think Uno would be better off without merged mining?

UNO would be better off with less mining centralization for sure. It doesn't matter if it's AUX-POW or POW, if 60% of your hash is centralized on one pool you've essentially been owned with a "51% attack". Of course the pool would need to actively attempt to defraud (I can't remember seeing an example of a pool engaging in such behavior)...

It's not just UNO though, it's laughable how everyone seems to pretend that bitcoin mining is decentralized. Sure none of the pools get to 51% but the big miners just spread the hash to different pools. It's an interesting thought exercise to wonder how big the biggest bitcoin miner actually is...

But hard-forking for some willy-nilly reason seems risky too, many a coin has been killed with hard forks especially lately with low interest in most altcoins. There's something to be said about stability. Look at litecoin, it's essentially become just a bitcoin clone with no purpose but the value is still quite high. When was the last time they had a hard-fork?

By the way, there's nothing stopping anyone from mining UNO with direct POW but the rewards would have to make it worthwhile.

Checking Cryptoid.info explorer, the last 100 blocks went to six different addresses putting up about 300 THS, most certainly pools.  The greatest share of blocks was 44%.

I don't know that UNO mining was tremendously more decentralized in the weeks before merged mining kicked in, when it generally had 10 -20 THS and a higher reward.

Certainly, anyone can still solo mine UNO. That has never changed.  It's a lot more profitable to mine both UNO and BTC together, though.

[BitcoinFX]

Does genesis-mining .com operate their own merge mining pool for UNO ? or are they just merge mining at another pool ?

- Figured that they are probably merge mining and then off-setting their own costs through the 'customers choice' as to which coin they mine ?
  

[geopayme]

Great News!

Unobtanium has joined the UberPay Family of Altcoins!

A new UberPay wallet will be released on March 2, 2016!

UberPay Multicoin Wallet is available on Google Play

https://i.imgur.com/fRjtOWL.png

Those who like to support our efforts and continued wallet enhancements for Unobtanium you can show your support by donating at the address below

UberPay Unobtanium Wallet :uRzvUA3AwsZDQDr7kaEGhADPkeCiCecfEF

[FallingKnife]

Does genesis-mining .com operate their own merge mining pool for UNO ? or are they just merge mining at another pool ?

- Figured that they are probably merge mining and then off-setting their own costs through the 'customers choice' as to which coin they mine ?
  

Maybe someone else knows.
I soured on Genesis when they stole my hash.

[BitcoinNational]

Anyone can still solo mine UNO. That has never changed.

And would you feel more at easy being the #3 POW Coin pulling under 20TH/s?

Example
Network Hashrate: 14.45 TH/s
vs.
Network Hashrate: 1,093.02 PH/s

51% attack needs only 0.002.PH/s out of the 1000 PH/s to target it.

UNO is at least protected in that at least x100 more hash is required to attack.

Yes, the more MM pools competing the better.  
Yes, small MH/s solo miners will and still compete for the blocks.

And have any sizable POW networks been victims of a malicious 51% attack yet?

[tertius993]

Anyone can still solo mine UNO. That has never changed.

Assuming you mean mine only Unobtanium (rather than merge mining it with Bitcoin) then you are right, but I would bet hardly anyone does any more.  It would be much the same as throwing your money away.

Which basically encapsulates my concern about merge mining - UNO mining is now basically tied to Bitcoin, and if there is an issue (as per a few posts up) pools will drop UNO from merge mining, not BTC.

[FallingKnife]

BN, congrats on Legendary. You've always been a legend to me, man.

[FallingKnife]

Anyone can still solo mine UNO. That has never changed.

Assuming you mean mine only Unobtanium (rather than merge mining it with Bitcoin) then you are right, but I would bet hardly anyone does any more.  It would be much the same as throwing your money away.

Which basically encapsulates my concern about merge mining - UNO mining is now basically tied to Bitcoin, and if there is an issue (as per a few posts up) pools will drop UNO from merge mining, not BTC.

UNO has always been tied to bitcoin. Every Sha256 coin is tied to bitcoin because they are in competition for the hash.  Miners will mine the most profitable coin, whether Bitcoin or something else.   The nice thing about merge mining is that bitcoin mining (and by default UNO mining) becomes even more profitable. Merge mining is good for miners. Its good for Bitcoin. Good for all Sha256 coins. Good for Bitmain.

[natmccoy]

I love how once asks are cleared essentially no new sell pressure is appearing. Our value has gone +65% in the last 3 weeks yet the sell side is just a puffy cloud, it dissipates when you fly through & doesn't re-form. Easy life for Unobtanium without that relentless Cryptsy dumping.

100 day high

[tertius993]

Anyone can still solo mine UNO. That has never changed.

Assuming you mean mine only Unobtanium (rather than merge mining it with Bitcoin) then you are right, but I would bet hardly anyone does any more.  It would be much the same as throwing your money away.

Which basically encapsulates my concern about merge mining - UNO mining is now basically tied to Bitcoin, and if there is an issue (as per a few posts up) pools will drop UNO from merge mining, not BTC.

UNO has always been tied to bitcoin. Every Sha256 coin is tied to bitcoin because they are in competition for the hash.  Miners will mine the most profitable coin, whether Bitcoin or something else.   The nice thing about merge mining is that bitcoin mining (and by default UNO mining) becomes even more profitable. Merge mining is good for miners. Its good for Bitcoin. Good for all Sha256 coins. Good for Bitmain.

Well, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this point.

My concern with merge mining is:

1. it drives the difficulty sky high
2. the high difficulty means the only practical way to mine is merge mining
3. because the vast majority of miners are merge mining, their primary interest is Bitcoin and not UNO (or indeed any other MM coin)

those three points together lead to two consequences:

A. in the event of an issue with merge mining, the miners/pools will drop UNO (as we have seen)

and

B. because the merge mined coins are effectively "free" they can and will be sold at very low values

[natmccoy]

1) Siameze, "being that uno is such a rare cryptocurrency, isn't it time to make the code a bit more `rare` ?"

I very much agree, however I also agree with people who have said that we don't need to add in gimmicky features (I'm not implying that you would be for gimmicky features). So it's a balance, I'd love progressive, interesting additions to the code, but they must be beneficial and worth the effort. It's difficult to come up with fresh ideas now that there are 700'ish cryptos out there. The recent issues with merge-mining may give the more clever of you some novel ideas.

2) Tertius993 on his concerns of merge mining.

Your points are valid but I'm not sure that they are an issue. New coins generated are so few that they are minuscule relative to existing supply (<0.002% daily). It could be an issue at significantly higher prices but it isn't at the moment.

I see high difficulty & high hashrate as a strength that separates us from other cryptos.

If people were interested in simultaneously resolving the concerns of Tertius993, some 'UNO whales', & maybe Siameze; a unique blend of merge-mining & proof of stake could be implemented. Maybe even a trifecta of merge-mining, PoS, & PoW, though I don't know if that could be done in a way that makes sense. I know PoW/PoS blends are common in the early stages of PoS coins, it could be an interesting component of a late-stage low-inflation coin like UNO. An issue with that is it would further dilute the rewards going to merge-miners, which is already too low to be attractive to some pools (as referenced on the previous page).

I'm open to a lot of ideas as long as: 1) The rewards schedule is not changed & 2) The maximum number of coins is never changed.

At a minimum though I think we should work to be added on other pools, hope that xpool.ca fixes their stability issues and re-adds us, & maybe figure out if our drop in hashrate is due to the various versions of bitcoin being mined at the moment.

[tertius993]

Actually I wouldn't change anything, as I have said I have concerns about the impact of merge mining, but we are where we are and I suspect changes would cause more harm than good at this stage.

I certainly wouldn't introduce any sort of PoS mechanism.  How could you without increasing the total coin cap?

[natmccoy]

I certainly wouldn't introduce any sort of PoS mechanism.  How could you without increasing the total coin cap?

You'd reduce every level of PoW rewards by 10-50% then allocate that directly toward PoS rewards. But I'm not advocating that, just tossing ideas into the discussion.

[tertius993]

I certainly wouldn't introduce any sort of PoS mechanism.  How could you without increasing the total coin cap?

You'd reduce every level of PoW rewards by 10-50% then allocate that directly toward PoS rewards. But I'm not advocating that, just tossing ideas into the discussion.

But the PoW rewards are reducing towards zero - at some point you run out of PoW rewards to re-allocate.  In fact I don't think there are sufficient PoW rewards today to turn into PoS. Just can't see it working.

[FallingKnife]

Anyone can still solo mine UNO. That has never changed.

Assuming you mean mine only Unobtanium (rather than merge mining it with Bitcoin) then you are right, but I would bet hardly anyone does any more.  It would be much the same as throwing your money away.

Which basically encapsulates my concern about merge mining - UNO mining is now basically tied to Bitcoin, and if there is an issue (as per a few posts up) pools will drop UNO from merge mining, not BTC.

UNO has always been tied to bitcoin. Every Sha256 coin is tied to bitcoin because they are in competition for the hash.  Miners will mine the most profitable coin, whether Bitcoin or something else.   The nice thing about merge mining is that bitcoin mining (and by default UNO mining) becomes even more profitable. Merge mining is good for miners. Its good for Bitcoin. Good for all Sha256 coins. Good for Bitmain.

Well, I think we will have to agree to disagree on this point.

My concern with merge mining is:

1. it drives the difficulty sky high
2. the high difficulty means the only practical way to mine is merge mining
3. because the vast majority of miners are merge mining, their primary interest is Bitcoin and not UNO (or indeed any other MM coin)

those three points together lead to two consequences:

A. in the event of an issue with merge mining, the miners/pools will drop UNO (as we have seen)

and

B. because the merge mined coins are effectively "free" they can and will be sold at very low values

I hear what you're saying, and I appreciate the respectful discussion.
I guess I'd rather have a few guys mining it at high hash than a few guys mining it a low hash.

There are consequences either way. Given UNO's low inflation, I believe the right choice was made to secure the chain. 
I guess we'll see longer term if it was a good idea or not.