[ANN][MOTO] Motocoin

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Is motocoin going to survive, guys?

Why wouldn't it?

At this point I'm starting to wonder if you're serious, or just trollin.

I mean...
Also I think you should reconsider your financial model. I think it should eventually transition into a 'POS' coin

Stake based mining is both fundamentally flawed as a premise in general, and antithetical to the intent of MOTO specifically.

We might have some use in the future for something more like a PoA mechanism, but coinbase claim should always remain strictly driven by proof-of-play.

where interest from transaction fees is used to pay miners, otherwise the currency will hyperinflate... i mean wallet owners don't get POS interest, I mean the transaction fees is sucked into the blockchain and distributed to 'miners'...

Transaction fees are already redistributed to miners, so I'm not sure what you're on about here...

otherwise if you keep on creating more coins then well, the coin will just hyperinflate and become another flattened doge killed by a steamroller on the information superhighway!

Nobody can accurately predict the future and accuracy of predictions obviously decreases over time.  We can't possibly guess whether the production rate will sit above or below the rate of coin loss on the long tail, so we can't reasonably speculate as to if MOTO will be inflationary or deflationary "in the end" because the "end" is so far after all of us will be long dead.

If we were to speculate, the sensible speculation would be to assume that it will not hyper-inflate, on average.  The diminishing production is highly likely to overcome natural coin loss rate well before the end of the diminish period.

I think it is probably only natural that at some point the parameters of this formula would be "adjusted" to further increase the probability that these creation/loss curves do cross, and personally I'd even like to see it go so far as to introduce a finite supply to force the issue, but even if the supply is left infinite we will likely introduce a sink at some point to encourage (or maybe even give direct incentive for) more intentional coin loss.

In any case, it is a question that "doesn't matter" for hundreds of years anyway, so why dwell on it at?  Even if we do decide it is a problem (I'm not really convinced and I think Will is very far from convinced) we have a LOT of time to rectify it!

So I think transaction fees should be a bit higher than other cryptos in regards ratio of transaction fee to 1 unit of the coin,

Whoa, I think I missed something.  How did you make a jump from the inflationary/deflationary curve to tx fees?  Fees don't impact the coin production.  How is a change to TX fees even a factor here?

also i think this transition should auto adjust depending on the amount of transactions available. Sort of self modulation so that less coins are created eventually. The problem is that the coin would need to be popularized in order for this transition to have enough transaction fees to back it up.

Now you've lost me entirely.  Increasing or reducing fees makes no change in how many coins are created in any time-frame.

... but if there's a large amount of miners but not enough transactions and transactions fees are too small and their total isn't enough to reward all the miners...

Miners probably care very little about fee amounts, and likely will care very little about them for quite some time.  We are not even through the first halving yet.  Anyone mining today (and for many years to come) is doing so to collect block rewards, not fees.

it could help the coin rarify but depopulate the mining community...

This doesn't make sense to me.  Rarity of the coin in total depends only on the work subsidy function as encoded, and liquidity of the coin on the behavior of speculators.  Increasing or decreasing mining activity does not affect coin production rate in anything but the immediate term - difficulty target adjustment enforces, specifically, this.

and if you really want this coin played by a lot of people and bring in enthusiasm from outside the coin world I would suggest better graphics

Better graphics will probably be done at some point, but this is quite a way down on the priority list.

and as I mentioned be a sidescroller,

You're still beating this dead horse?  As has been explained to you several times (both publicly and in PM) this cannot reasonably be made to work in any way that doesn't explicitly give huge advantage to bots, which could use an indefinite "look ahead" on the level to play at a significant advantage.  No game mechanic which predicates a challenge on the premise of "surprise the user" can ever really work, since we cannot "surprise a bot" by any means known to date.

still based on time success, less difficult terrain

If anything, terrain should be made much more difficult!  Much (arguably "all" at this juncture) of our current woes stem directly from the fact that maps are currently far too easily traversed by bots.

but add a shooting factor just to make it harder for the player,

While possible, we (again) want to avoid doing things that add challenge to a human player while at the same time giving advantage to the machines.  A bot could trivially be made to have "perfect targeting" aim, so all this would serve to do is further decrease human margins.

while the terrain is more navigable and hence playability is increased... more enjoyable. playability of this game is pretty lousy... enjoyment factor 0.0001.

We hear you, we don't disagree.  We've heard you, and we haven't disagreed.  Our position hasn't changed.  We need suggestions on improvements to play-ability that are both possible and don't give wide margins to machines.  So far all you have done is repeatedly offer the same two suggestions which don't fall into that category.

We have to consider the human aspect as well... Also there's a drupal module called bitcoin commerce that can be modified to use other currencies. If motocoin can be stabilized somehow I'm sure it could be used or promoted in some way as a viable cryptocurrency.

I'm sure we would all heavily encourage adoption of the currency by any site or service wishing to.  I'd even be willing to personally assist people with making the necessary modifications to not only this drupal module, but any random btc payment gateway code.  Usually such changes are not difficult at all.

I prefer the term cyber currency because it means that the general internet population would be acquainted with it.

"Cyber currency" or "digital currency" are both super-sets of "crypto-currency" and as such are valid, though generalized, labels.

Cryptocurrencies are a niche item.

While I might have agreed with you back when I first got into BTC, I think this is increasingly less true today.

Buying moto with cash or being able to sell directly for cash is another ballgame of marketing...

You can already do this on c-cex today, no?

I know its completely irrelevant to your back-end developer bot problems yet they are still obstacles this coin faces...

I don't see anything you've brought up here as a significant "obstacle" for MOTO to overcome.  Can you clarify this statement for me?

Do you think this coin will be worth something in 5 years, or will it disappear soon?

Again, I'd like to know by what reasoning you think the coin might "disappear?"  As long as the chain keeps hashing (and boy, is it!) then MOTO can't disappear.  A crypto network can only be killed by stopping its chain, and that is generally pretty hard to do by any mechanism other than all of the miners simply stopping their mining of it.  I don't see any reason that this would happen any time soon, aside from the potential of a successfully executed warp attack of significance.  Given the current state of the network, this would probably be extremely difficult to pull off.  (Creating the deficit warp would require beating an already-inexplicably-fast map filter and creating the credit warp would require an in-feasibly fast traversal solver.  It is possible but, at this point, would be an astonishing feat of engineering for anyone but the current dominant miner to pull off.)

Please let me know, so I can go cry in a corner... I bought a coupla btc worth, LOL!
It was all I had...

Again, MOTO is not your average quick-pump, 1-2 month max lifespan coin.  If you were expecting some magical overnight return from riding some volatile momentum manipulations then you put your money behind the wrong coin, maybe you should have bought some HTML for a few days or something.  If you invested in MOTO without intending the long game, you might not have made a good investment.

On the other hand, if you wanted in very early on a coin that is actually different, has (multiple, independent) committed developers who are doing real research science and engineering work to better their offering, is building something truly novel in the industry to date, is going to make an effort to persist and compete, isn't subject to being "hash raped" by the mining cartel, and that stands to survive long after the scam coins have all absconded and the crap coins have all died off, then just hold steady and confident in your wise outlay.

We're playing the long game, and we're playing for keeps.  If you're looking for some higher risk and shorter term venture in this technology space then go talk to Bitfrog or HYPER (edit: or SVR, lol) guys, I'm sure they'd both just love to sell you some coin.

If you do end up selling your MOTO for something else please don't forget that I'm buying, just PM me and I'm sure we can work out a better priced and more immediate liquidation than you could get on the open market right now!  

hahaha! I could have gone on a tropical vacation with that money... Mozambique or Madagascar, ffs!
lol

Jamaica mon!

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Two small updates on my efforts:

First, I'm currently running a new round of simulations, comparing different strategies for input selection for traversal.  Specifically, I'm comparing about 15 of the major, published, general optimization algorithms against my own annealing and the published bot.  Two algorithms from this new set are consistently crushing these "gen 2 bots" which in turn are just barely beating out the best of the other algorithms.  (I haven't taken any steps to tune any of the new algorithms, just running with their implementation defaults.)  This means not only will I be throwing my old work curve data out with the garbage (for a couple of reasons beyond just having an improved curve) but we'll also be able to say approximately what the "last word" on "gen 2" bots (these "ideal gen 2" bots are what are currently competing on the network) looks like in terms of work expenditure.

Secondly, I've been working on what is arguably an "optimal" map filtering process, and I believe I have a way to explicitly define map filtering work requirement.  From this, I believe we could possibly derive a measure of map "quality" (how far it is from a straight-line solution) and encode a rule that the network would exclude as options any maps below a certain threshold.  In other words, I have the beginnings of some fun math that may let us formally eliminate fall-through maps entirely, if we chose.

[Jacqul]

Hi WilliamLie2, HunterMinerCrafter and others,

I am an early supporter of Motocoin and love the idea of a coin that rewards human participation.
If you look back at my history on this forum it has all centered around the vision about what cryptocurrencies mean for the future.
I got burned in a couple of scams because I thought I saw the possibilities of the start of an ecosystem and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For example, I love the idea of Curecoin and using the energy to secure crypto to do something potentially useful.

With Motocoin the attraction point was the different mining method, enabling humans to mine.
Very quickly (much faster than expected for me) it turned instead into a competition to see who could design the best bots.
Then there was a period where the botbuilders had to develop an equilibrium so they would not destroy the coin.

Motocoin went from being Proof-of-Human to Proof-of-"being able to program a bot".
This is not a bad outcome.
HunterMinerCrafter said previously in a post: this might be the way true AI is born, in a botbuilding competition.

If I can expand on that idea a bit:
Think of humanity not as a collection of organisms but instead just one organism made up from many parts.
The internet is a new form of nervous system that has developed which means that the human organism can grow more efficient.
With the new nervous system the organism can react faster and its limbs can work in better concert.
A better nervous system allows for a new form of consciousness.

If you zoom into your body: as far as you know, your cells don't have individual consciousness.
If you zoom out of your body and try to comprehend humanity: as far as you know cities and countries of humans don't have consciousness.
My theory is that humanity as an organism acts like an entity with consciousness.
We can almost be seen as slime mold in this video> http://www.ted.com/talks/heather_barnett_what_humans_can_learn_from_semi_intelligent_slime_1

Cryptocurrency is a messaging protocol that is being developed that will enable the human organism to use its new nervous system a bit better.
Who knows where this will lead.
There is currently a form of natural selection happening to try and determine the best form this protocol will take, hence Bitcoin and all the alts, this is completely natural.
Soon the protocol will seem to consolidate and take on a mind of its own, directing its own development.
When people talk about the singularity, this is what I see.


How this relates to Motocoin?
As Motocoin turned into a competition not of a human's reflexes and coordination but instead their programming abilities, this future came a little bit closer.
What makes Bitcoin special is that it was the first coin that seemed to take on a life of its own, the creator left and the system still survives.
Recently I have been involved with another coin that seemed to take on a life of its own and it is fascinating to watch.
I believe that the first coin that has an inbuilt feedback system to direct its own development will be the one that goes viral.
The way I see this happening, is by having an idea platform, a voting system and a method of rewarding the successful product.
If the "nervous system" in my organism analogy can inherently evolve rather than having to be reborn with each iteration, we will see explosive growth and potential.

I basically want you: HunterMinerCrafter, WilliamLie2, and anyone else to help us build this system.
I don't particularly care which one we go for but I want it to be a collaboration and with the aspects described.
Currently it looks like Silkcoin has a good chance of becoming self directive (by proxy self aware) so this is where I want you to look first.
The idea is to have an inclusive coin economy built by developers to reward development.

I want to put my money where my mouth is and would be happy to spend 10 000 MOTO to further this cause.

Please let me know if the idea appeals to you.
I apologize in advance if you feel this post inappropriate but I am excited about the possibilities and want as many people as possible involved, especially developers with original thinking and abilities.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Sure I know some if /else statements and can kind of figure out how a script works, but writing a script or anything more technical without having a tutorial about the parameters, and I'm lost as to actually what is happening beneath the surface of the software.

Keep learning!  Just being able to grok control flow indicates that you certainly have capability to understand much about computing!  Python, drupal, and web are all cool, but you should take the plunge and learn a static language to start getting a little closer to how the machines really tick.

And no the intention was to hold motocoin long term I will be buying more as my financial situation again improves

I see many (most? lately. :\) alt coins spring up talking big about "to the moon" and how this-or-that feature is going to rapidly accelerate the valuation and make everyone rich, and soon.  Time and again, I watch as hoards of (usually "relative newbie") bitcoiners buy into the notions of why the alt is going to be worth so much so quickly, and watch them get burned every time.

Then I like to go back and re-read some of the writings of Satoshi on the subject.  It has always been fascinating how much trouble he had in getting a few key points across to his audience as it grew.  He was pretty explicit on this particular matter, on several occasions.

A crypto-currency just "does not work that way."  Bitcoin et al MUST naturally grow slowly, or they will tend toward failure.  There is some debate that it might actually be optimal to grow as slowly as possible.  I'm not going to go into the details of all of this, as it has been covered to death elsewhere, but it is important to remember that this principle doesn't change just because we talk about some alt instead of BTC - regardless of what the features that alt offers are.

1) having a game that humans can play and can actually enjoy playing (this may not be relevant, although it could introduce the coin to a whole new audience and thus, market),

This is absolutely relevant, and certainly an aspect of the primary goal or mission statement of the project, as I understand it!  The problems there are many and varied, though, and will take time to sort out.  Unfortunately, those problems also have to play second fiddle to stabilizing the network, itself, in such a way that those goals can remain attainable.

2) getting its value stable

MOTO, much like HUC, has a peculiar aspect to it.  I think that we can expect that the market value will have less volatility than most coins, except for when it doesn't.  What I mean here is that any given rules changes to the game which do get adopted by the network might significantly and suddenly impact the spot price!  I am curious to see how this plays out pragmatically in markets for projects that have such a caveat.

3)setting up infrastructure for webdevelopers in order to facilitate obstacle 2

I'm told that "commerce bitcoin" php module for drupal can work with alts, probably including MOTO, out of the box.  There is just an array in the .module file that defines the currency names and such.  There are probably some other options out there that would more or less "just work."  Go nuts.  Make a site where people can wager MOTO on which submitter node will claim the next block, or something.

If anything the only modification you might need to make for modules that work against normal daemon rpc is in any code that checks address prefixes.

though a demand for its use has to be created somehow... so that it could be adopted so that the scope of the coin expands beyond a rarified cryptocurrency acting as a form of investment into a a functional medium of payment - although I question as to whether that is an intended purpose, ultimately...

MOTO could follow the HUC model of "creating its own demand" through specialized transaction fees related to the game itself.  I imagine it could see self-creating demand in unique ways, as well.

No I wasn't trolling, sorry if I come across that way. I was disparaging a bit though. I think you guys rule! Sorry for not selling you my motocoins...!

NP.  Disparaging happens.  I certainly understand your frustrations.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

I got burned in a couple of scams because I thought I saw the possibilities of the start of an ecosystem and a self-fulfilling prophecy.
For example, I love the idea of Curecoin and using the energy to secure crypto to do something potentially useful.

Curecoin etc are awesome (I've had it on watch list for some time now) in premise, and I very much agree that these projects that "do something" with their blockchain are very much the first steps in an awesomely bright future.  .

The present, however, is a much murkier situation.  I believe that these sorts of projects are going to need a novel sort of openness, transparency, and accountability, the sort that only a hard-core commitment to the principles of a block-chain ledger can produce.  For example, I love the notion of GRC, but can't bring myself to hold any GRC because of a simple (and, to many, seemingly innocuous) fact: it has centralized crediting servers. (They might be compromised at any given moment, potentially with no-one having much capacity to notice right away, and giving away "fake" grid credit.)

Until we can look at such an initiative end to end and and know (in the sense of it being indisputably proven) that it is operating fairly, we have to make some unfortunate assumptions.  Add some gaming aspects into the mix and things become even murkier.  Now you're asking people to play in a game where all of the details of the rules might not be reliable and/or even visible at all, and to do so with money involved.  Scary stuff, important to get it right and not cling too much to projects that have critical centralized components.

Then there was a period where the botbuilders had to develop an equilibrium so they would not destroy the coin.

Unsurprisingly we drifted off of that equilibrium point, but likely will be heading back to a second equilibrium point as mining capacity redistributes again.

If you zoom into your body: as far as you know, your cells don't have individual consciousness.
If you zoom out of your body and try to comprehend humanity: as far as you know cities and countries of humans don't have consciousness.

I like to think of this a little differently, but it really comes down to your definitions of this crazy thing called consciousness.  I'm going to step around this philosophical Turing Tar-Pit for the moment, unless it somehow becomes more directly relevant to MOTO. (It very well could, eventually!)    In any case, I agree that certain projects are arguably (crude, to date) codifications of a collective consciousness. (The phrase "Conscious Coins" springs to mind, embodying a few related meanings...)

Soon the protocol will seem to consolidate and take on a mind of its own, directing its own development.

Shhhh, don't wake the basilisk. XD

Yes, these games are just the beginnings of the inevitable.  Github (etc.) should take pause.  Before long the games the world will play with/against itself on these "conscious" block-chains will be redefining the very meaning of the concept of games, while simultaneously reshaping industries. A block-chain is awesome not because it democratizes money, but because it democratizes anything that you can codify with proof on a network, which is to say (at least) pretty much any useful computational process. :-|

How this relates to Motocoin?
As Motocoin turned into a competition not of a human's reflexes and coordination but instead their programming abilities, this future came a little bit closer.
What makes Bitcoin special is that it was the first coin that seemed to take on a life of its own, the creator left and the system still survives.
Recently I have been involved with another coin that seemed to take on a life of its own and it is fascinating to watch.
I believe that the first coin that has an inbuilt feedback system to direct its own development will be the one that goes viral.

No question, in my mind.  It has to do so in a way that is "just right" though, and this is difficult.

The way I see this happening, is by having an idea platform, a voting system and a method of rewarding the successful product.
If the "nervous system" in my organism analogy can inherently evolve rather than having to be reborn with each iteration, we will see explosive growth and potential.

I basically want you: HunterMinerCrafter, WilliamLie2, and anyone else to help us build this system.
I don't particularly care which one we go for but I want it to be a collaboration and with the aspects described.

It is possible.  It has been discussed here in there, in various forms, since the very early days of the bitcoin.  To me it feels unavoidable and I think if it where not for exuberance, we would ("should") be there already.  

Every time I see another coin claiming to be a step in these directions it consistently falls short and usually turns out to be some form of scam.  Recently the coins that are making these claims are mostly even doing so without offering source as evidence to justify any of their claims, and I can only bear to spend so much time with IDA.

The fact that MOTO was almost as open and up front (about pretty much everything involved) as it could have been is a big part of why I've latched on.  (Even if there were shenanigans from the premine or whatever they were minor and I, for one, am fine with what the developers would seem to stand to gain even in the worst case scenario.)

We not only need "Conscious Coins" we need them to be conscious, in particular, of remaining radically open and "Free" software.  (In the sense of all of Stallman's contemporary interpretations of the notion, heh.)

Currently it looks like Silkcoin has a good chance of becoming self directive (by proxy self aware) so this is where I want you to look first.

I was quite happy to see the democratization of processing in action there, but I think "grab random dead alt and run with it" is an approach particularly fraught with potential trouble.  I suspect that such a network would likely need to be built a little differently from how things are done now, anyway, in order to really thrive.

The idea is to have an inclusive coin economy built by developers to reward development.

We need something like a very basic "MOO on a blockchain" game where you mine by building useful things.  Then we need to show people how to world build, and how they get rewarded over time for building things that people find useful.  Then we just say GO.  (ikr? So much easier said than done.)

Or maybe something like Eliza-on-a-chain where you mine by conversing with it and teaching it to better converse.  There's no reason that the "programming work" itself couldn't be done in natural languages instead, I don't think.

The magic is all in how you define (and, more importantly, prove a measure of) the development.

We've scratched the surface with NMC/HUC type projects establishing rules structures in general, and MOTO/GRC type projects codifying some proofs over a measure of progress of some social contribution (slightly broken as they both might be) so I think that we are not far, now, from some thing(s) explosive, here.  (No seriously Github, you might be doomed.)

I want to put my money where my mouth is and would be happy to spend 10 000 MOTO to further this cause.

Lol "Conscious Coin Foundation" maybe?

Seriously though, I think this will all happen naturally in due time, even with the extra distractions introduced by short term greed in the interim.  More to the interesting point, I'm starting to have trouble seeing significant ways in which it could possibly *not* come to pass, short of some global disasters!

Please let me know if the idea appeals to you.

It does.  Since the day that I realized what the combination of a hash-collision secured log of merkle structures does in conjunction with "Secure Multiparty Computation" technologies established prior, I've had a rather incredible thirst to see certain events come to pass, and the sooner the better.  A fully democratized, auto-morphic coin is one of them, and should certainly be possible at this point in time.  By definition any such a thing would be a kind of game, so I think this certainly aligns with HUC/MOTO style experiments.

I apologize in advance if you feel this post inappropriate but I am excited about the possibilities and want as many people as possible involved, especially developers with original thinking and abilities.

Not inappropriate at all, aside from perhaps the silkcoin elevator pitch, hehe.

These ideas/goals/ambitions are not entirely new to the crypto community.  Many of the things being discussed around these concepts lately just remind me of old conversations from many years back.  One thing that has always seemed to persist as a thread in those discussions are the (seemingly dual) notions that "it makes some AI inevitable" and "it would have to be, formally, a game."  BTC itself would seem to succumb to these properties, if you admit "faster sha hash collision" as a general optimization problem.  (Which it is, just a very noisy nonce space search.)

Or, to put this whole post another way: Look out because "in game currencies" are likely going to reshape our world rather drastically, once the definition of "in game" changes ever so slightly, and that change is (slowly) underway already.

[franckuestein]

Yesterday I've tryed to play the moto game another time to see if I can earn some blocks but unfortunately it was the last time because It's really impossible, guys :s haha

More than 2-3 hours trying it to obtain 0 MOTO... 

Maybe I'm not a good gamer, lulz

[Spiky]

HunterMinerCrafter, can you provide us with estimated patch release date! Please!!

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Yesterday I've tryed to play the moto game another time to see if I can earn some blocks but unfortunately it was the last time because It's really impossible, guys :s haha

At this point it is difficult even for the bots.  With TT this low, *only* a "straight line" solution can be valid and even just filtering up a qualifying map quickly enough is a tall order.

However, I'm pretty confident at this point that we can, in a deterministic fashion, "disqualify" such "100% fall through" maps in the future.

More than 2-3 hours trying it to obtain 0 MOTO... 

Maybe I'm not a good gamer, lulz

Humans have NO shot right now, so don't feel bad.  After the introduction of work requirement per-map this should change a bit, and if we do introduce a threshold on acceptable maps this should change drastically.

I'm increasingly believing that between map work requirements and directly restricting maximal map filter quality allowed we can give LOTS of margin back to humans without approaching a more heavy-handed solution like "N heads."

[HunterMinerCrafter]

HunterMinerCrafter, can you provide us with estimated patch release date! Please!!

Time frames have only been delayed by a small amount since my last rundown on the anticipated schedule.  I started sampling a new work curve, using a much more aggressive map filter.  This time I am also only measuring work requirement of the "winningest" solver from the set of optimizer implementations tested, which is specifically a hybrid "multi-level single linkage" algorithm with a local differential search.  Although I've restarted the sampling a few times now (as I keep adding small tweaks and optimizations in order to get the most accurate work curve that we can at this time) I think that the run currently churning along should be good.

Although I've started working out an implementation of the inverse work curve check for block credit (proceeding under an assumption that the new measurements will also fit to a logistic curve, so all that will need changed against the new numbers will be the parameters to the curve) there are still some things to be finished there.  I expect to have a good fit to the new curve within a day or two, and expect that finishing the implementation, polishing up the code, and testing will consume another couple of days beyond that.

All this being said, my hope would be to have a patch set proposed and ready for adoption before the next weekend hits, but we'll see how smoothly things go.  My goal is actually to have all of the motocoin specific "TODOs" addressed in some fashion in this patch, so that we can stop worrying and focus on more fun things, but if the couple of ancillary tasks hold things up I certainly wouldn't delay releasing the work measurement based fixes for the rest.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Wait wait

Everything in this post was already covered quite a bit.

and these botmined coins are distributed to players who play with a perceivable element of error, though U suppose you could design a bot to be 80% efficient too, could you?

You answered your own question.

There really seems to not be much benefit in dwelling on these topics, for the moment.  None of these factors are likely to alter the course of events that should occur, and many of them will be obviated after the changes.  We'll continue to sort out the rest then.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

Houston, we have a problem.

It seems that with an "ideal" map filter and a sufficiently capable optimization algorithm, the work requirement curve is almost entirely flat until you get very close to the minimal TT.  This means that, pragmatically, domob was more or less correct and also that we will have to make a slight change in our plans.

In order to be able to establish any meaningful work credit curve and avoid long runs of low quality solutions being able to overcome lower TT solutions with a surplus of work credit, we will need to enforce some map selection criteria in order to create a meaningful TT requirement.  A TT of ~8.78 is just downright too easy as a useful maximum on difficulty, so a work curve basically just breaks down into two sets, a few "easy" problems at ~8.78TT and a ton of "far too easy" problems at any value below there.  As things stand right now, even if we corrected the work credit curve to avoid attack we'd see, with any reasonable amount of network scale, blocks solving in fractions of a second, forks like crazy, and no meaningful transaction security.  It wouldn't seem to make sense to implement the current work curve and close both warps to establish a "secure" network with a far-too-easy challenge, only to have to go and re-establish an entirely new work curve against some changed network rules to increase difficulty requirements.

We will have to take measurements of map quality and disqualify "obviously too easy" maps.  I'm thinking it would be fine to just start with minim1ner's basic filter for a threshold, or something similar.  Because this will change the validity of maps themselves (instead of just adding work requirement to map generation) this will have a side effect of invalidating our TT history window for re-target, so we will have to either reset TT to max again after all or implement some other mechanism to make sure that we don't leave TT below the new threshold of solvable maps.

Thoughts?

[Spiky]

I think some grid-based pathfinding algorithm should be used to determine minimum path length between start and finish points, cause simple filters will not eliminate maps with slightly higher or lower straight pathes.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

I think some grid-based pathfinding algorithm should be used to determine minimum path length between start and finish points, cause simple filters will not eliminate maps with slightly higher or lower straight pathes.

It has occurred to me while working on repairing the work calculation functions that with a third re-target adjustment added (beyond the existing TT target and the upcoming minimum-hashing-work target) such as a dynamic minimum on path distance, the network should be able to correctly maintain the work curve automatically instead of requiring some best guess measurements from time to time.  However, I think that the math required to set this up is probably outside of my capabilities.  I'd very much like to see someone try it, though!

Anyway, having thought about this today I think I now agree that we should use something more than just Minim1ner's filter.  Does anyone have a good reason why requiring a fixed minimum A* distance, or similar, would not be a good idea?

[WilliamLie2]

I'm thinking it would be fine to just start with minim1ner's basic filter for a threshold, or something similar.

I think minim1ner filter is pretty bad. It computes perlin function values while good filter should look at values in the map array directly. How about your optimal filter?

Secondly, I've been working on what is arguably an "optimal" map filtering process, and I believe I have a way to explicitly define map filtering work requirement.  From this, I believe we could possibly derive a measure of map "quality" (how far it is from a straight-line solution) and encode a rule that the network would exclude as options any maps below a certain threshold.  In other words, I have the beginnings of some fun math that may let us formally eliminate fall-through maps entirely, if we chose.

I'm just curious why you wouldn't want to use motocoin as a prototype and then toss it to the jackals once you've figured out what you needed to and make a brand new coin that's got all the good properties from the start?
This is a very macabre blockchain...

I think he has a lot of motocoins.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

I'm thinking it would be fine to just start with minim1ner's basic filter for a threshold, or something similar.

I think minim1ner filter is pretty bad. It computes perlin function values while good filter should look at values in the map array directly. How about your optimal filter?

One good thing about using something based on "post perlin transform" map representation is that it adds additional base work requirement to map iteration.

The "optimal filter" does operate over the base map values, in three parts.  First, it checks the seeds around the coin, then the seeds in the set along the straight line traversal path, then the seeds around the start position.  It looks for specific patterns for each using support vectors optimized from the last (2k, in my implementation) maps in the blockchain.

The real concern with using either filter is exactly what Spikey said.  They are both basically band pass filters over the possible map space with very narrow accept bands.  With the "optimal filter" only one out of tens of millions of maps doesn't get clipped.  They really only accept/reject based on total straight line solution.  Even relaxing the constraints on either will always still fail to clip a lot of "near straight line" solutions, with traversal paths that stray only just outside of the line, when used as a rejection filter.

We want a filter with a much broader rejection set.  Instead of rejecting one or two maps in millions we want to do something more like rejecting the whole "top half" of the map candidates.

Path finding would work well for this and further adds load to base work, slowing map iteration.  While we could arguably "do the path finding" through the seed set, the implementation would be quite a bit more complex (unless I'm missing something obvious?) and it would likely not add nearly as many cycles to map iteration work.

I'm just curious why you wouldn't want to use motocoin as a prototype and then toss it to the jackals once you've figured out what you needed to and make a brand new coin that's got all the good properties from the start?
This is a very macabre blockchain...

I think he has a lot of motocoins.

That would depend on your definition of a lot.  I'm sure I don't have nearly as many as the person who has been more or less solo-mining the whole chain the past weeks. 

To answer willoweb's question -

First, I am using MOTO as a prototype!  There is a growing list of proof-of-play applications that could become new projects, but the concepts need to be proven out entirely first.  If the first proof-of-play coin fails, it could set the whole endeavor of human-mined and proof-of-play coins back quite a bit.  Further, it would be much better to get all of these problems and concerns sorted out before the second proof-of-play coin, and the third, (and so on) instead of risking just ending up with several "broken" networks and a lot more work to get everything sorted.

I don't understand what reason there would be to just "toss it" though, in any case.  Once we've "figured out what we needed to" and made "a brand new coin" with some other game/challenge why wouldn't we continue to use moto as a platform for new development as well?  This network should continue to serve as something of a flag ship among the inevitable fleet of coins that will head in these directions, simply because it set out on the voyage just a little ahead of the rest.  We're in uncharted waters, charting the course.  Once we've explored these parts why wouldn't we press on, ahead of the rest?!

[willoweb]

o k then. time to tack

just curious , of topic, if I wanted to create an autotrading bot to do autotrades for me on mintpal,
is that possible?
would it be some kind of browser extension?...
Just curious, I can't really program but Ive been thinking about some if and while loops.
you know, if any coin goes up 0.5% buy, if it goes down 0.5%, sell, if it goes up 1%, sell. So of course there's risk of losses but I would just be testing it.
I'm just not sure the contextual parameters and how to implement a bot. Where can I learn how to do something like this?
I'd like to throw a percentage of a bitcoin at my bot and have it autotrade the smaller waves, and see where it gets....
Where to learn how to do this, for something like mintpal via a browser like firefox...

[e1ghtSpace]

o k then. time to tack

just curious , of topic, if I wanted to create an autotrading bot to do autotrades for me on mintpal,
is that possible?
would it be some kind of browser extension?...
Just curious, I can't really program but Ive been thinking about some if and while loops.
you know, if any coin goes up 0.5% buy, if it goes down 0.5%, sell, if it goes up 1%, sell. So of course there's risk of losses but I would just be testing it.
I'm just not sure the contextual parameters and how to implement a bot. Where can I learn how to do something like this?
I'd like to throw a percentage of a bitcoin at my bot and have it autotrade the smaller waves, and see where it gets....
Where to learn how to do this, for something like mintpal via a browser like firefox...

I'm also interested in learning such things. What coding language would be able to navigate webpages? I know there was a code for scrypt.cc the auto reinvested every 10 minutes for you and I think it was JavaScript. You needed to press ctl+j or something and paste the code in.

[Nyterax]

After considering both sides of the debate, I also believe it is best to stick with Motocoin with all of the new developments and further research. The first mover advantage, the secure blockchain and seemingly fair distribution of coins (with no premine remaining) are all worth keeping.

[HunterMinerCrafter]

After considering both sides of the debate, I also believe it is best to stick with Motocoin with all of the new developments and further research. The first mover advantage,

Mostly this, IMO.

the secure blockchain

Yes, over the past weeks the most "reassuring" thing to me about this coin is that despite the large potential for abuse, all of the various miners who have "won" network dominance at various times have all continued to mine altruistically.  This indicates that the miners, at least, see more potential in the future of the coin than in the opportunity of stealing a few btc from people and trashing the coin in the process.

and seemingly fair distribution of coins (with no premine remaining) are all worth keeping.

Some would certainly disagree with our definition of "fair" here, as has been brought up earlier in the thread...  personally I still consider the distribution to date to have been exceedingly fair, particularly in comparison to most contemporary alts.  (Even though I haven't had opportunity to get a block in weeks, myself! All well, that'll change very soon, heh!)

[Spiky]

All well, that'll change very soon, heh!)

Sounds suspicious to me... Like you just want to stop other's bots and give yourself an advantage instead of stopping all bots...

Anyway, if I understand correctly, upcoming patch will reset TT, so we will have an opportunity to mine moto by hand again. So I just want to make a suggestion to all bot owners: it will be really cool if you deliberately stop all your bots for a week or two after TT reset. Moto will become human mineable again and price will likely go up, then you will be able to sell your accumulated moto at higher prices and everybody will be happy. Maybe it's our last chance to revive moto.