[ANN][CLAM] CLAMs, Proof-Of-Chain, Proof-Of-Working-Stake, a.k.a. "Clamcoin"

[SuperClam]

hey guys/gals I bought 120 clams off cryptsy just to play with (its what I usually do with new stake coins).
I split the main address into 6 inputs of 20 clams each... its been 3 days now and I have the wallet open for staking. I read initially it was 4 hours maturity then 8 hours should get a stake or something but i'm a little confused... my weight after 3 days for a 20 clam input is only 34 but the network weight is like 800,000 or something. It says estimated 4-5 days but its said that for ages...
I guess my question is... if I want to get a stake per day what sort of input size are we looking at based on current clams out there? I looked at just dice inputs which is what I based my size on but just dice has like a shit load of the available coins like 50 percent and if all their inputs are 20 i'm thinking it'll be a long time before I stake.
Depending on return through stake on this is whether its worth me continuing with more or just selling the 120 back. Seems a bit crazy if just dices input splits can dominate the stake potential due to the sheer amount they hold of customer funds :/.
so tldr
How many clams do I need in 1 input to get a stake in 24 hours... or the shortest possible time?

If the network weight is 800k, and 1 CLAM is staked each minute, that's 60*24 = 1440 stakes per day, and 800k/1440 = 555.555 is the number of CLAMs you need to expect to stake once per day.
Splitting is kind of irrelevant. It only affects your "recovery time" after staking. If your whole 120 CLAMs was in a single output, the whole 121 CLAMs would be frozen for 8 hours after it staked while it matured. If you split it into 6 sets of 20 each, only 21 CLAMs would get frozen for 8 hours and the other 5 sets of 20 would continue trying to stake.
The estimate shouldn't change much. It's not like you make "progress" towards staking. You can expect to stake every 4 or 5 days on average, but it's random. You could stake twice in a single day or you could go 10 days without staking.

I thought the point of splitting was each input stakes for a potential reward i.e. 1 clam. So if I run 20 per input and all 5 stake in say 3 days by miracle I get more return than if it was in 1 and happened in 24 hours? Am I thinking wrong?

Splitting doesn't increase your chance to stake.
Neither does "age".

Think of each CLAM as a unit of hashing power(kH,gH,etc.), with a catch: after a pile stakes, it must wait 8 hours to mature and have a chance again.
Kind of like a mining rig that goes out-of-commission for 8 hours after it finds a block.

That is why many split their outputs/piles.
The thought is that it is more efficient if less of your total balance is "immature" at a given time.

[1715131846]

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[dooglus]

I thought the point of splitting was each input stakes for a potential reward i.e. 1 clam. So if I run 20 per input and all 5 stake in say 3 days by miracle I get more return than if it was in 1 and happened in 24 hours? Am I thinking wrong?

That's right - if you run 20 per input and 5 stake in a day, you get 5 CLAMs. But each of those 20 CLAM pieces is 6 times less likely to stake in any given timeframe than a single 120 CLAM input is. So your expected number of stakes per day is unchanged by splitting.

The only difference, as SuperClam just posted, is that when your outputs are split, less value gets put "out of commission" for 8 hours each time you stake.

An extreme example that may help:

Just-Dice has 700,000 CLAMs trying to stake. It stakes about every 70 seconds or something silly.

If all 700,000 CLAMs were in a single output, we would only be able to stake 3 times per day, because the whole 700,000 CLAM output would take 8 hours to mature each time it staked. By having it split up into thousands of smaller pieces, only between 1% and 2% of the pieces are out of commission at any time.

Checking the warm wallet right now, I see a balance of 664694.30193479 made up of 656393.76362757 actively trying to stake and 8300.53830722 waiting to mature. I aim for roughly 1% of the balance to be maturing, and set the split size accordingly.

Edit: I figure it's OK for 1% of the outputs to be maturing at any point in time, and so I want an average time-to-stake per output of 100*8 hours.

With 800k network weight, an 800k CLAM output would stake once per minute, an 800k/60 CLAM output would stake once per hour, and an 800k/60/800 CLAM output would stake every 800 hours.

800e3 / 60 / 800 = 16.666

so 16.666 CLAMs is currently the kind of size output you need if you want 1% of your outputs to be maturing at any given time.

Here's a histogram showing how many outputs we have of each size:



The 33.33 CLAM outputs are left over from when I wanted to move coins from one wallet to another quickly. They'll be split by the client automatically when they next stake.

I have the wallet set to automatically split outputs into two 13's when they get to 26. Most of these outputs started at size 13.37 and have grown via staking. The most common size is currently 16.37, and I guess that will change to 17.37 with time, as they continue to stake.

Edit2: It took me a while to figure out how to get gnuplot to put data into 'bins' for plotting like this. Here's what I ended up using:

Code:

binwidth = 0.2
bin(x, width) = width * floor(x / width)
set style fill solid 0.5
set grid
set boxwidth 0.8 * binwidth
plot "amounts.txt" using (bin($1,binwidth)):(1.0) title "output sizes" smooth freq with boxes

[EGStrategies]

it looks like poloniex is digging for clams and also it sells it on the market. Imo this is a huge conflict of interests... Maybe they are the misterious digger.

Just curious if you can say what the conflict is?  As I understand a conflict of interest, it's when someone has two (or more) competing financial interests: for example, say I am hired to regulate the oil industry in the name of the public interest and say I hold massive amounts of stock in that industry---here promoting either of my interests has a direct cost to the other.  Or say, for a smaller scale example that I am paid to police the forums and mark scammers with negative trust and at the same time I sell accounts for a living---clearly neg-repping many accounts bumps the value the accounts I sell.

In your case, poloniex sells clams, so like any other clamholder they have an interest in getting a good price on the clam they sell.  What's the conflict?  What's the other interest?

It looks like there is not evidence to support this claim, but I wanted to add that margin trading is the biggest reason that any exchange trading on their own books is potentially a conflict of interest. In margin trading if you can see all the other traders' positions you have an advantage akin to being able to see everyone's hand in a game of poker. You can basically print money by knowing exactly how much it would take to make someone liquidate into your orders, or just direct the price slowly in your favor by taking the least crowded position.

[tspacepilot]

It looks like there is not evidence to support this claim, but I wanted to add that margin trading is the biggest reason that any exchange trading on their own books is potentially a conflict of interest. In margin trading if you can see all the other traders' positions you have an advantage akin to being able to see everyone's hand in a game of poker. You can basically print money by knowing exactly how much it would take to make someone liquidate into your orders, or just direct the price slowly in your favor by taking the least crowded position.

I see.  I have to admit I don't know anything about margin trading.  Thanks for the education on this point!

[o0o0]

so I have 120 clams in 1 address split to 6 lots of 20... been going around 4 days now... i'm guessing its going to take forever to actually get a stake

[kolloh]

so I have 120 clams in 1 address split to 6 lots of 20... been going around 4 days now... i'm guessing its going to take forever to actually get a stake

You should expect to see a stake within a few days I would imagine.

[dooglus]

so I have 120 clams in 1 address split to 6 lots of 20... been going around 4 days now... i'm guessing its going to take forever to actually get a stake

I've tried answering your concerns twice already, in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12305702#msg12305702 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12310175#msg12310175. Is there anything in particular in my replies that you didn't understand? I would try to explain the situation more fully, but I've no idea what you aren't understanding.

[bitbabba]

it's very hard and expensive to stake your coins guys!
I don't know wheather it's worth to invest in CLAMs just for mine them..
PLEASE DO NOT ASSAULT ME IT'S JUST MY OPINION I'M OPEN TO THINK OTHERWISE

[o0o0]

so I have 120 clams in 1 address split to 6 lots of 20... been going around 4 days now... i'm guessing its going to take forever to actually get a stake

I've tried answering your concerns twice already, in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12305702#msg12305702 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12310175#msg12310175. Is there anything in particular in my replies that you didn't understand? I would try to explain the situation more fully, but I've no idea what you aren't understanding.

Just having trouble understanding how the clams stake actually work....

My weight has grown slightly but from what I read weight was meant to equal coins but my weight is around triple my coin amount (300 something weight).

I'm used to stake coins where you get a weighting from your coin amount input and it grows over time until it hits the approximate network weight at which time you are weighted more than others and you get a stake at some point around that (though I understand it can happen earlier).

Why is the network weight so high (in the 800,000 sometimes) and mine so low after 4 days? That's what i'm having trouble grasping... also it always says 4 days or 5 days expected time... is that from when they initially started staking OR from the current point in time?

[SuperClam]

so I have 120 clams in 1 address split to 6 lots of 20... been going around 4 days now... i'm guessing its going to take forever to actually get a stake

I've tried answering your concerns twice already, in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12305702#msg12305702 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12310175#msg12310175. Is there anything in particular in my replies that you didn't understand? I would try to explain the situation more fully, but I've no idea what you aren't understanding.

Just having trouble understanding how the clams stake actually work....
My weight has grown slightly but from what I read weight was meant to equal coins but my weight is around triple my coin amount (300 something weight).
I'm used to stake coins where you get a weighting from your coin amount input and it grows over time until it hits the approximate network weight at which time you are weighted more than others and you get a stake at some point around that (though I understand it can happen earlier).
Why is the network weight so high (in the 800,000 sometimes) and mine so low after 4 days? That's what i'm having trouble grasping... also it always says 4 days or 5 days expected time... is that from when they initially started staking OR from the current point in time?

What version are you using? 
Did you download the client from here? -> https://github.com/nochowderforyou/clams/releases/tag/v1.4.16
Where are you seeing this "weight" number?

[chilly2k]

it's very hard and expensive to stake your coins guys!
I don't know wheather it's worth to invest in CLAMs just for mine them..
PLEASE DO NOT ASSAULT ME IT'S JUST MY OPINION I'M OPEN TO THINK OTHERWISE

   It's not "Hard" at all.  "expensive" is relative. 

Only you can decided if it's worth investing in. 

Once this dig whale finishes I'm guessing we'll have around 1.2 Mil clams. 

Assuming all are staking that's 1440 / 1200000 =   .12% inflation daily.  .12 * 365 = 43.8% yearly

Those are just the staking assumptions.   There is much more to consider before investing in a coin.  anticipated price, long term value, stability, etc etc.  And I'll leave that up to you.. 

[o0o0]

so I have 120 clams in 1 address split to 6 lots of 20... been going around 4 days now... i'm guessing its going to take forever to actually get a stake

I've tried answering your concerns twice already, in https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12305702#msg12305702 and https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=623147.msg12310175#msg12310175. Is there anything in particular in my replies that you didn't understand? I would try to explain the situation more fully, but I've no idea what you aren't understanding.

Just having trouble understanding how the clams stake actually work....
My weight has grown slightly but from what I read weight was meant to equal coins but my weight is around triple my coin amount (300 something weight).
I'm used to stake coins where you get a weighting from your coin amount input and it grows over time until it hits the approximate network weight at which time you are weighted more than others and you get a stake at some point around that (though I understand it can happen earlier).
Why is the network weight so high (in the 800,000 sometimes) and mine so low after 4 days? That's what i'm having trouble grasping... also it always says 4 days or 5 days expected time... is that from when they initially started staking OR from the current point in time?

What version are you using? 
Did you download the client from here? -> https://github.com/nochowderforyou/clams/releases/tag/v1.4.16
Where are you seeing this "weight" number?

I'm running version 1.4.13 I see the weight when I hover over the staking icon or under send in the inputs for coin control.

[tspacepilot]

it's very hard and expensive to stake your coins guys!
I don't know wheather it's worth to invest in CLAMs just for mine them..
PLEASE DO NOT ASSAULT ME IT'S JUST MY OPINION I'M OPEN TO THINK OTHERWISE

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it seems like you're saying that you don't know whether to invest in CLAMs by buying them and then staking or to just mine for them.  But CLAM isn't distributed like BTC, the initial distribution doesn't involve mining.  And the security of the network is through the staking, so there's not really any mininig there either (indendent from the staking).  I'm not assaulting, you but it seems like you might not have all the facts on this one.

[SuperClam]

it's very hard and expensive to stake your coins guys!
I don't know wheather it's worth to invest in CLAMs just for mine them..
PLEASE DO NOT ASSAULT ME IT'S JUST MY OPINION I'M OPEN TO THINK OTHERWISE

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it seems like you're saying that you don't know whether to invest in CLAMs by buying them and then staking or to just mine for them.  But CLAM isn't distributed like BTC, the initial distribution doesn't involve mining.  And the security of the network is through the staking, so there's not really any mininig there either (indendent from the staking).  I'm not assaulting, you but it seems like you might not have all the facts on this one.

The argument was that it doesn't make sense to stake CLAM as it is too expensive in comparison to the staking reward.

I expect that there is a person or two who expressed similar opinions about mining Bitcoin years ago....

Relevant? Only time will tell.

[bitbabba]

it's very hard and expensive to stake your coins guys!
I don't know wheather it's worth to invest in CLAMs just for mine them..
PLEASE DO NOT ASSAULT ME IT'S JUST MY OPINION I'M OPEN TO THINK OTHERWISE

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, but it seems like you're saying that you don't know whether to invest in CLAMs by buying them and then staking or to just mine for them.  But CLAM isn't distributed like BTC, the initial distribution doesn't involve mining.  And the security of the network is through the staking, so there's not really any mininig there either (indendent from the staking).  I'm not assaulting, you but it seems like you might not have all the facts on this one.

The argument was that it doesn't make sense to stake CLAM as it is too expensive in comparison to the staking reward.

I expect that there is a person or two who expressed similar opinions about mining Bitcoin years ago....

Relevant? Only time will tell.

Thank you for your replies
I have calculated that the return as today is around 0,18% per day (even less if you consider the 8 hours you have to wait after you get a block). You have to keep yor wallet open and online 24/7. With hashnest, for example I can get from 0.3% to 0.35%, if I buy some s5 ghs without the burden of keeping my pc on all the time.
I like your project and how you developed the proof of working stake, but honestly 0.18% that will get lower and lower over time doesn't sounds a good deal to me when the dear old BTCBTC give me almost the double.
Maybe I lost something or I didn't get something.

[salex8216]

Thanks dooglus for your help with the restore access to my Just-Dice.com account. You're a real man!

Yes real)
Thanks Dooglus

I had non-zero balance in 12 may 2014 in BTC encrypted wallet.dat

It's possible for anyone to submit fixes to the CLAM website. I just submitted a pull request to fix the date:
  https://github.com/nochowderforyou/nochowderforyou.github.io/pull/3

Importing of this wallet do nothing.
Where is my CLAM 

We ended up PMing back and forth about this, and he finally got his free CLAMs.

It turned out that:

* he was fully synced
* his BTC address was funded at the snapshot date
* the 'receive' tab showed the corresponding CLAM address, so the import worked
* but the balance was still zero

I fixed the problem for him by having him run "clam-qt -rescan" - and then the coins showed up.

I don't know how the client go into that state. I'm wondering if maybe he quit the client while it appeared 'hung up' while it was rescanning the blockchain after doing the import, and that left the addresses imported, but the rescan not done. But that's just a guess.

Anyway: -rescan for the win.

I'm wondering if maybe he quit the client while it appeared 'hung up' while it was rescanning the blockchain after doing the import

Slow sync made me crazy and maybe I shut client via task manager

[kito]

Hi, 

I'm a newbie to clams.  Is there a possibility to have a SPV wallet for clams?  Is there a white paper for clams like bitcoin?
I went to the two clam websites - both are high on graphics and low on detailed information.
I waded through hundreds of posts on this forum to figure stuff out, but alot of it sounds like its wrong and from what I read in later posts.
For example, is it still possible to randomly get 1000 clam bonus when staking?  It sounds like that doesn't happen anymore? 
Asking new users to read 200 pages of old stuff is not good for clam adoption...  But still I like the clam.
   

[dooglus]

Just having trouble understanding how the clams stake actually work....

Can you be more specific? Basically each output has a chance of staking that is proportional to its value in CLAMs, and inversely proportional to the total network weight. Unless the output was involved in a transaction in the last 4 hours, or staked in the last 500 blocks, in which case it has 0 chance of staking.

My weight has grown slightly but from what I read weight was meant to equal coins but my weight is around triple my coin amount (300 something weight).

I don't see how that is possible. Could you show us a screenshot please, showing your balance and your weight?

Something like this:



That is the old JD hot wallet. It has 515 dust outputs in it from faucet users who didn't yet realise that their JD deposit address has changed. It also has an output of around 6 CLAMs that is only 2 hours old. The dust is old enough to have a weight, but its total value is roughly 0, and so the whole wallet's weight is roughly 0, and it is rounded to an integer: 0. In a couple of hours the 6 CLAM deposit will be 4 hours old and will start contributing to the staking weight. But at no point do I expect the staking weight to exceed the wallet balance.

Edit: a few hours later the 6 CLAM deposit is 4 hours old and shows up in my staking weight as predicted. Note how the weight isn't greater than my balance:

I'm used to stake coins where you get a weighting from your coin amount input and it grows over time until it hits the approximate network weight at which time you are weighted more than others and you get a stake at some point around that (though I understand it can happen earlier).

CLAM weight doesn't grow over time. It's a constant 1 CLAM = 1 unit of weight. That is so that your rewards are proportional to how long you keep the wallet open for. Other coins let you run the wallet only once per week or once per month, collect all your staking returns, then shut it down again with little to no loss. CLAM rewards you for running the wallet 24/7, contributing to the network security.

Why is the network weight so high (in the 800,000 sometimes) and mine so low after 4 days? That's what i'm having trouble grasping... also it always says 4 days or 5 days expected time... is that from when they initially started staking OR from the current point in time?

The network weight is simply an estimate of the total number of CLAMs attempting to stake. There are ~700k CLAMs trying to stake. Your weight is low relative to the total network weight because your CLAM balance is low relative to the total network CLAM balance.

Like with Bitcoin mining, the expected time is from right now. The expected time to the next Bitcoin block is "10 minutes", no matter when you ask. Even if it has been an hour since the last block, the expected time to the next block is still "10 minutes". No progress was made towards finding a block in the last hour. A lot of work was done, but it failed, and we're still where we started. It's the same with CLAM staking. If you have 1% of the network weight, you have a 1% chance of staking the next block. If you fail to stake a block and get beaten by the other 99% 1000 blocks in a row, you still have a 1% chance of staking the next block.

[dooglus]

I have calculated that the return as today is around 0,18% per day (even less if you consider the 8 hours you have to wait after you get a block). You have to keep yor wallet open and online 24/7. With hashnest, for example I can get from 0.3% to 0.35%, if I buy some s5 ghs without the burden of keeping my pc on all the time.
I like your project and how you developed the proof of working stake, but honestly 0.18% that will get lower and lower over time doesn't sounds a good deal to me when the dear old BTCBTC give me almost the double.
Maybe I lost something or I didn't get something.

Some things you may have missed:

1) With hashnest you are trusting them with your money. They could turn out to be a scam and you end up with nothing. With CLAM you can keep control of your coins at all times. You can run the staking locally so that nobody can steal your coins.

2) With hashnest there is presumably a sunk cost. After buying the "s5 ghs" you have presumably made a loss, which it will take you some time to break even from. With CLAM there is no sunk cost, other than the exchange fee (typically 0.2%). It's possible to buy CLAM one day, stake for a day, then sell them again and break even. Is that possible with hashnest?

Having said that, I think you're probably right at the moment. CLAM isn't a good investment while there is someone able to dig up huge amounts of CLAM. He's slower his digging over the last few days, but that doesn't change the fact that he has large amounts of CLAM he can dump on the market whenever he likes. Maybe look again after Christmas, by which time he may have finished his long slow dump.

[bitbabba]

I have calculated that the return as today is around 0,18% per day (even less if you consider the 8 hours you have to wait after you get a block). You have to keep yor wallet open and online 24/7. With hashnest, for example I can get from 0.3% to 0.35%, if I buy some s5 ghs without the burden of keeping my pc on all the time.
I like your project and how you developed the proof of working stake, but honestly 0.18% that will get lower and lower over time doesn't sounds a good deal to me when the dear old BTCBTC give me almost the double.
Maybe I lost something or I didn't get something.

Some things you may have missed:

1) With hashnest you are trusting them with your money. They could turn out to be a scam and you end up with nothing. With CLAM you can keep control of your coins at all times. You can run the staking locally so that nobody can steal your coins.

2) With hashnest there is presumably a sunk cost. After buying the "s5 ghs" you have presumably made a loss, which it will take you some time to break even from. With CLAM there is no sunk cost, other than the exchange fee (typically 0.2%). It's possible to buy CLAM one day, stake for a day, then sell them again and break even. Is that possible with hashnest?

Having said that, I think you're probably right at the moment. CLAM isn't a good investment while there is someone able to dig up huge amounts of CLAM. He's slower his digging over the last few days, but that doesn't change the fact that he has large amounts of CLAM he can dump on the market whenever he likes. Maybe look again after Christmas, by which time he may have finished his long slow dump.

Thank you for your reply.

About hashnest and bitmain the leader asic bitcoin miner hardware manufaturer, think that they could be scammer is very hard to believe (bitmain has an hero member account with positive trust like you), but hey everything could be. Could be that the CLAMs coin is a scam as well, who knows? Never say never!

About the dig actor, pardon my ignorance but what is "digging"? Can I dig as well?

Thank you again