Sia - Siafund Redemption Deadline: June 1st, 2015

[GeorgeW]

Hi, we're a bit behind, but today we're working nonstop. It should be out before we go to sleep. We've got most things ready.
Thanks for the patience, sorry about the delay.

No worries. Take your time as long as you give an update.

[Momimaus]

Hi, we're a bit behind, but today we're working nonstop. It should be out before we go to sleep. We've got most things ready.

Thanks for the patience, sorry about the delay.

Take your time. Rome wasn´t build in a day, so you can take a week 

[PonyBoy]

So I wonder if there will ever be legal repercussions for the people sharing disk space for this coin.

What happens if/when a child porn ring starts using this coin to store imgs? It would mean anyone sharing disk space for this coin could possibly be arrested and tried for possessing child porn.

[Vega]

So I wonder if there will ever be legal repercussions for the people sharing disk space for this coin.

What happens if/when a child porn ring starts using this coin to store imgs? It would mean anyone sharing disk space for this coin could possibly be arrested and tried for possessing child porn.

If i understand this correctly there will be no way to know what do you store on your computer, it's encrypted. It will not even be full files, just pieces of data.

btw, this is a much more relevant question with some other crypto currencies
If a crypto currency allows anyone to send messages or comments what happens when someone sends the data of a child porn pic as messages, comments? Then technically anyone who stores the blochain posesses that picture.

This is why it is a very bad idea to make posession of any information or data illegal. In the near future there will be some serious problems with this.

[Taek]

The first alpha release is complete. This isn't intended to be used for actual file storage, just to demonstrate what Sia might look like. Feedback is appreciated, but we are aware of a large number of bugs and points of insecurity. There's a lot that hasn't been implemented yet. Think of it more as a proof-of-concept than a traditional alpha.

Check it out at siacoin.com/download.html

There you will find an explanation on how to download and install Sia. Unfortunately, we don't have Windows binaries yet.

We have an IRC channel now, #sia-talk on freenode. We have registered a few other channels for future use, but until there's a need for them we plan on keeping them mostly dormant.

Things you can do with the current alpha:

Create wallets
Send money between wallets
Upload files to wallets (max 256 atoms, explained later)
Download files

The block speed for the alpha release is 256 seconds per block. Unfortunately, many actions such as upload take several blocks to complete, though never more than 4. This can make the production Sia a little slow to play around with. (If it really bothers you, you can recompile with a shorter interval.) The full version of Sia will have block speeds somewhere between 1 block every 2-16 hours. However, it will also support accelerated actions, which can only occur under certain but easily achieved constraints. Most people will not realize that Sia moves at a pace of 1 step every few hours, because they will be using cryptographic proofs behind the scenes to accelerate their actions. These accelerations won't be supported in Sia until the beta.

Notes:
- Empty wallets do not get deleted.
- Participants do not get kicked for not having files.
- Participants do get kicked for missing a single heartbeat. This can cause problems for unstable connections
- Sometimes participants don't join the quorum in-sync. This is rare, and the fix is to just try again.
- After creating a new quorum, you must wait a full block before adding any siblings.
- You may encounter some hard crashes. This is because a good error-handling framework is still in the works.

What are Atoms?
An atom is a unit of storage on the Sia network. Uploaders are allowed to pick their own redundancy, which means that the amount of data which can be stored in an atom is variable. At full redundancy (every sibling has the complete file), only 4kb can be stored per atom, the max file size is 1MB, and the redundancy is equal to the quorum size. (For the alpha, the quorum size is 32). At a lower redundancy (like double redundancy), an atom is 4KB * 16 hosts, which means the max file size is slightly more flexible.

Picking a Redundancy
Redundancy works by picking a value, k, which represents the number of siblings that need to remain online in order for the file to be recoverable. The amount of redundancy is QuorumSize/K. At k=32 (the current quorum size), the redundancy is 1, meaning there is exactly 1 copy of the file on the network. At k=16, there are 2 complete copies of the file on the network, and the original file can be rebuilt from any 16 siblings.

Setting up a Quorum
Right now, all quorums are pseudo-decentralized, which means that anybody can establish a quorum, and anybody can join a quorum that has extra space for siblings. To establish a quorum, run the server executable and type 'e'. This creates a new quorum bootstrapped to your current address and chosen port number. To join a quorum, type 'j', and input the address of any host in the quorum you wish to join.

Messing Around
Feel free to dig into the source code a bit. To reduce the quorum size (which reduces the block speed), change QuorumSize in src/quorum/quorum.go. To change the step length (currently set to 8 seconds, reducing this will also reduce the block speed), change StepDuration in src/participant/listen.go.

We realize right now that setting up a quorum is a bit of a pain, and that there are lots of frustrating things that can go wrong while keeping one running. This is merely a result of the early stage of the software. Later versions will be easier to use, less dependent on a stable internet connection, and will not have occasional synchronization hiccups.


Moving Forward:
The first thing we're doing is taking a 3-4 day break from coding. It's easy to get your head buried and miss out on what's happening in the rest of the world. We'll be using this time to take a broader perspective on Sia and figure out what the next best steps are.

We're also setting a deadline for a alpha v2 release in 3-4 weeks. This alpha will have:

+ increased DOS (denial-of-service) protection
+ automatic port forwarding
+ smooth, cryptographic synchronization among hosts
+ wallets that get deleted upon running out of money
+ nonces for transactions, meaning a signed transaction can only be used once
+ proof-of-storage with cheating protection and auto-cheating implemented. (Auto cheating is something you do if you don't have the file, for example if your disk corrupts.

After that we'll be looking toward building the meta-quorums, cryptographic DOS protection (), an instant-transaction network, and a more comfortable scripting environment.

If you have questions, you can post here, chat with us in the IRC channel, or shoot us an email.

[msin]

Thanks for the update!

[PaulWang]

It seems that Sianotes price has increased more than 30% in term of Nxt and 100% in term of BTC. https://nxtblocks.info/#section/assets_exchange/11593659039925686857

[msin]

It seems that Sianotes price has increased more than 30% in term of Nxt and 100% in term of BTC. https://nxtblocks.info/#section/assets_exchange/11593659039925686857

Typical for an alpha release.  Expect much bigger returns when Sia is up and running.

[zoro1]

do you think you are able to join forces with storj?   i think one decentralized cloud storage is enough,
then we can develop all the other decentalized apps based on storage

[Taek]

We've already been in touch with storj. We're both looking at working together but it's difficult to tell how exactly to fit the pieces together. We're also in the next few months going to be looking at joining forces with other Boston based cryptocurrencies, and we'll definitely be involved with the MIT Bitcoin project.

Right now most alt-coins are competing with each other. I think there's some room to change that to at least some degree, but the biggest obstacle is that everyone is so passionate about what they're currently working on. But right now the politics are very friendly, and we might get some very powerful partnerships up and running in the next year or so.

====

In other news, I've been looking at our current automatic repair scheme for files, and I've realized that repairing low redundancy files is extremely expensive using Reed-Solomon encoding, even if you wait until you're repairing 8-12 files at a time. As an only solution, I don't think it's reasonable.

Luckily we've got a large array of options available to us. We can have a slow-degrade of files, where when 1 node goes offline all the other nodes respond by shifting some of their data to the new node. You start with a file at 1.2 or 1.5 redundancy (or whatever), and over time it slowly degrades to 1 and less than 1 redundancy as nodes fail. It's then up to you to figure out when to repair it. This is obviously not ideal because then the network can't automatically repair your files, but it might not be difficult to set up some sort of peripheral service (perhaps even a decentralized peripheral service) that automatically repairs your files for you as they degrade. And maybe we could establish some rules for extending redundancy and... anyway, it's an option that's available to us.

Another option is to support other types of codes. Reed-Solomon codes are nice because they're maximum-distance separable. A redundancy of 3 results in storing 3 complete copies of the file. A redundancy of 1.2 results in storing 1.2 complete copies of the file. LT codes, Spinal codes, and Raptor codes are all alternatives that might be cheaper to repair, but you lose the some efficiency in storage. A redundancy of 3 might take 3.5 or 5 complete copies of the file being stored. But if you can repair files using only 50% extra bandwidth instead of 15000% extra bandwidth, it could be worth the tradeoff.

What I'm really going to be holding out for, and perhaps working on myself (once the other facets of Sia are developed, so don't expect anything soon), is a new type of erasure code that is both maximum-distance separable and minimum-bandwidth recoverable. That means that repairing a 16MB file piece would only take 16MB of downloads, instead of needing to rebuild the entire original file that the pieces build out. Intuitively, it seems possible. I have no idea, but I'm not aware of any mathematical laws indicating that it wouldn't be possible.

Regardless, this ultimately means that automatic file repairing is not going to be a feature for a while. We'll be working on the other pieces of quorum-based cryptocurrency and giving the expensive recovery problem time to stew. I'm optimistic for the long term prospects.

[robinson5]

On Sia's website under Sianotes (http://www.siacoin.com/sianotes.html) it says that "the developers will own the majority of Siastock".  I know there are only 1250 sianotes in circulation which represents a little under 0.5% of host income.  Sia is tentatively planning on having a 3.9% fee so does this mean the remaining 8,750 sianotes, which represents a little more than 3.4% of host income, is held by the developers?  Or are the remaining sianotes just not in circulation and no one has them yet?  I'm fine with the developers keeping sianotes because they should be able to reward themselves for all the work.  I'm just wondering how much they have because I think at some point it could potentially be too much.  Thanks for explaining!

[PondSea]

On Sia's website under Sianotes (http://www.siacoin.com/sianotes.html) it says that "the developers will own the majority of Siastock".  I know there are only 1250 sianotes in circulation which represents a little under 0.5% of host income.  Sia is tentatively planning on having a 3.9% fee so does this mean the remaining 8,750 sianotes, which represents a little more than 3.4% of host income, is held by the developers?  Or are the remaining sianotes just not in circulation and no one has them yet?  I'm fine with the developers keeping sianotes because they should be able to reward themselves for all the work.  I'm just wondering how much they have because I think at some point it could potentially be too much.  Thanks for explaining!

From my understand the devs hold the rest unless they have another ipo and then it will get distributed again.

[Taek]

We're thinking 3.9%. If we took too much, then hosts wouldn't be inclined to be on our network, which would be bad for the entire network.

The Siastock would be owned by Nebulous Incorporated, which is a company and not two individuals. That's an important distinction. We are looking for large volumes of income, initially on the order of millions of dollars but we would like to see Nebulous become a Google or Microsoft sized company. At that point most of the revenue would be coming from sources other than Siastock, of course.

The big reason we're looking at taking a lot of money is so that we can do a lot with the cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is often criticized as being underfunded. Imagine if Satoshi's 1 million btc were funding a corporation with hundreds of full time developers, marketing, and actively doing things like attacking mastercard. That's where our Siastock will be going.

[Tobo]

Will Nebulous issue stocks in the near future? Will siastocks have a chance to convert to Nebulous stocks?

[Taek]

Siastocks will never turn into Nebulous stocks. There are legal barriers to doing that.

It's very difficult to crowd fund corporate equity, and it's strongly recommended against by every lawyer I've talked to so far. You can crowd fund a product (like through Kickstarter), but as soon as you are selling equity to a bunch of little investors you've got legal problems.

[msin]

A smart strategy,  if you are able to raise that kind of capital and employ several devs, you can accomplish many things in a short period of time.  This makes sense for Sia as Sia has a more commercial application than other Cryptos.

[Malibusparky]

Siastocks will never turn into Nebulous stocks. There are legal barriers to doing that.

It's very difficult to crowd fund corporate equity, and it's strongly recommended against by every lawyer I've talked to so far. You can crowd fund a product (like through Kickstarter), but as soon as you are selling equity to a bunch of little investors you've got legal problems.

So then maybe dumb question but does that mean the lawyers you've talked to say the money I'll be making from siastock is legal?

[Taek]

So then maybe dumb question but does that mean the lawyers you've talked to say the money I'll be making from siastock is legal?

There aren't any clear regulations around this type of product. We sold you something that'll generate you income, except in many ways it feels like a financial instrument. The SEC for the most part has been playing nice with Bitcoin related tech. Some companies have gotten busted for illegally selling equity, but Sianotes are not equity and are thus protected against that specific case.

I wish that I could give you a definitive yes, but our lawyers said the best they could do is "it's probably not going to be a problem." There's no law that clear-cut makes it illegal, and there's no law that makes it seem likely to be illegal. But the laws are so complex and convoluted that if some regulator decided it needed to be illegal, they could likely find some wording in an existing law and use it to prosecute us. They don't think that will happen though.

If we do receive any sort of notification or attention from the SEC (which is the body that is most likely to want to regulate Sianotes), we'll let everyone know immediately.

I personally don't see it being a problem. I also know that the name 'Siastock' isn't going to stick around, because it's very much not stock in the traditional sense, and we don't want regulators making that mistake. I haven't figured out a good replacement name yet though.

[grandpa_seth]

So then maybe dumb question but does that mean the lawyers you've talked to say the money I'll be making from siastock is legal?

There aren't any clear regulations around this type of product. We sold you something that'll generate you income, except in many ways it feels like a financial instrument. The SEC for the most part has been playing nice with Bitcoin related tech. Some companies have gotten busted for illegally selling equity, but Sianotes are not equity and are thus protected against that specific case.

I wish that I could give you a definitive yes, but our lawyers said the best they could do is "it's probably not going to be a problem." There's no law that clear-cut makes it illegal, and there's no law that makes it seem likely to be illegal. But the laws are so complex and convoluted that if some regulator decided it needed to be illegal, they could likely find some wording in an existing law and use it to prosecute us. They don't think that will happen though.

If we do receive any sort of notification or attention from the SEC (which is the body that is most likely to want to regulate Sianotes), we'll let everyone know immediately.

I personally don't see it being a problem. I also know that the name 'Siastock' isn't going to stick around, because it's very much not stock in the traditional sense, and we don't want regulators making that mistake. I haven't figured out a good replacement name yet though.

That is the answer that should have been expected. Its kind of a reminder to us all that although your idea for siacoin is superb and sianotes sold like hotcakes this is still a risky investment with no guarantee of anything. That being said if you are successful I fully expect a huge return on investment. As for the new name to siastock I wouldn't even attempt at suggesting a proper name. I think you two can come up with something appropriate when the time comes. Commence obligatory members posting name suggestions.

[Momimaus]

Hey dev, everything is very nice so far.

Can I ask you to renew the timeline? I think a lot of things have changed.