rpietila Altcoin Observer

[AnonyMint]

Infinium-8 just released is the first cryptonote to have inflation but no other features

They have chosen an interesting inflation peramater
Block_reward = log2(difficulty) * 2^40

Essentially the block reward increases linearally with difficulty.
The inflation on this coin will still effectivally go to zero but not nearly as fast as those with only a fixed block reward like dogecoin.

log2 (2^x) = x

log10(10^x) = x

log2(10^x) = x / log10(2)

Thus we see that exponential growth (K^x) is converted to linear growth using a log of any base, not just logK. The base K is only a constant factor (as shown by the / log10(2)).

So they convert an assumed exponential growth in hashrate to a linear growth in nominal debasement rate.

Edit: they are increasing the nominal debasement rate, not decreasing it as most coins do. If the hashrate growth eventually slows, then the percentage rate of debasement must decline asymptotically towards 0, but early on the curve is much less favorable to early adopters and thus more fair and theoretically better for the network effects.

Edit#2: it rewards adding more hashrate to the system which is good for security. But a doubling of the hashrate at much higher nominal levels has a much less increase on nominal debasement, e.g. log(4) / log(2) = 2 and log(16) / log(8 ) = 1⅓.

I admire this idea [blockchain as scratchpad] as a short-time way to help insure CPU-only. I need to study it more to see if I can find any flaw.

It certainly is not CPU-only even short term as there have been private GPU miners with a significant advantage since shortly after launch (and public ones recently).

Implicit in my thinking was the GPU resistance comes from the AES instructions, as I had indicated to you in our prior public discussions. I as speaking to the ASIC resistance, while addressing the slow speed of Monero's Pow hash.

Note I don't expect tromp's Cuckoo hash to be GPU resistant, because it can be (even if sublinear) parallelized. I don't know if anyone has tested parallelizing it on more than the two dozen cores he tested?

[r0ach]

off topic:  I'm trying to figure out the most efficient way of converting a standard PoW chain that's still being mined to a DPOS system.  Bitshares did just a "snapshot of the chain" method of PTS>BitsharesX.  I was thinking proof of burn would be useful, but it seems like it would have the exact same centralization or central point of failure as the snapshot method, and I was hoping this is something people would be able to do over a long period of time without entirely trusting a central authority.  It seems like the snapshot method is something I'll have to use.

The snapshot method is being more fully developed by some bitcoin folks here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0

I didn't really see any mention of how to mitigate the central point of failure problem with snapshots.  If it's a coin 100% mined already, and you're only doing it once, it's not exactly a problem.  When you have to do snapshots on a continual basis for a coin that's in the process of being mined, that's a different story.

[AnonyMint]

I don't like variable block reward based on hashrate/difficulty.  We've already seen it in Darkcoin and others before it.  It mostly serves as a pyramid scheme attribute.  If I did debasement in PoW, I would use flat 1% most likely, 2% max.  I'm not a believer in PoW anymore at all though besides it's vital need in distribution.  It's a complete dead end.  Summary of issues = the cartoon...

I disagree on "dead end" for all PoW. There are potential solutions. None of which will be mentioned at this time.

Remember I pointed out upthread that P2pool is not a solution even if you could force its use, because it is vulnerable to share withholding attack because there is no server in control.

I agree that if debasement slows too rapidly there is a theory that it will killdiminish the network effects for the reasons I stated upthread.

Reputation is centralizing over long enough time.

Edit: Dogecoin coin supply halving is tied to time, not to difficulty.

[smooth]

off topic:  I'm trying to figure out the most efficient way of converting a standard PoW chain that's still being mined to a DPOS system.  Bitshares did just a "snapshot of the chain" method of PTS>BitsharesX.  I was thinking proof of burn would be useful, but it seems like it would have the exact same centralization or central point of failure as the snapshot method, and I was hoping this is something people would be able to do over a long period of time without entirely trusting a central authority.  It seems like the snapshot method is something I'll have to use.

The snapshot method is being more fully developed by some bitcoin folks here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=563972.0

I didn't really see any mention of how to mitigate the central point of failure problem with snapshots.  If it's a coin 100% mined already, and you're only doing it once, it's not exactly a problem.  When you have to do snapshots on a continual basis for a coin that's in the process of being mined, that's a different story.

I guess it is addressing a different use case -- the new coin continues independently of the old one after the snapshot. So any mining that occurs (on the old coin) after the snapshot does not earn a claim on the new coin.

That was my understanding of the situation with PTS/BTS but admittedly I haven't been following that very closely.

[drawingthemoon]

Once the manipulative games being played right now are over, the right CN coin will rise to the top "organically". Let people be castle-eyed for now. It is fun watching these from the sidelines.  

smooth, tacotime and BCX are more than welcome to join BBR.

I did not mine BBR from the start thinking Boolberry is not a cool coin name. A month later, I think this is exactly what a private currency needs to sound like.

[smooth]

Note I don't expect tromp's Cuckoo hash to be GPU resistant, because it can be (even if sublinear) parallelized. I don't know if anyone has tested parallelizing it on more than the two dozen cores he tested?

I tested it for him on 32 cores. I don't know the results you would have to ask him (I just ran some code he gave me on an idle system).

[Anotheranonlol]

4. It has a novel block chain debasement (emission) schedule based on an algorithm that relates to difficulty change. I need to study this before commenting.

This is Infinium-8, not Boolberry.

Thus this changes my opinion about the need to make a big deal with the Boolberry developer. I thought all the innovations had come from him.

P.S. I edited my prior post.

BBR Block reward is directly like this:

base_reward=(EMISSION_SUPPLY - already_generated_coins) >> EMISSION_CURVE_CHARACTER;
if(block_cumulative_size <= median)
  reward = base_reward;
else
  reward = (base_reward*(block_cumulative_size * (2 * median - block_cumulative_size)))/(median2)

Where:
base_reward is base block reward according to current emission state
block_cumulative_size size of block's coinbase plus size of all transactions included in block
median - is median of cumulative sizes of last 400 blocks
If block cumulative size more than two medians - block is considered as wrong. This approach is used to make self-regulated fair model of transaction size/fee ration.

The diff recently adjusted to 128bit to avoid cumulative diff overflow

I personally think the emission curve characteristics of BBR is superior to XMR very clearly
but anyone who want to get big stash of XMR early on I'm sure would not agree

Anyhow XMR group does not have to make a deal with BBR devs, when they can hard fork if necessary and still retain leading position (the inverse is not true since BBR relegated to 2nd place, 2nd rate coin testing ground) . It's clear as evidenced by the ridiculous relative disparity in market cap and the fact bulk of this thread speaks only about XMR despite it supposedly being a discussion thread catering to any and all interesting developments across the whole cryptocurrency ecosystem-- XMR is orchestrated pump (doesn't necessarily mean a dump is precipitated though)  

It does not matter that BBR is the fundamentally stronger coin, the market formers have already picked and pushed XMR as not only the superior CN coin but in fact the only one, now the market followers are doing what they do best.
and from there the snowball starts rolling

[AnonyMint]

It does not matter that BBR is the fundamentally stronger coin, the market formers have already picked and pushed XMR as not only the superior CN coin but in fact the only one, now the market followers are doing what they do best.
and from there the snowball starts rolling

There is one kryptonite (pun intended) to make the market makers here impotent in that regard. You go out to a larger audience. They have no choice but to follow. Then it isn't driven solely by investment (pump) but also (hopefully more by) usage network effects.

[smooth]

I personally think the emission curve characteristics of BBR is superior to XMR very clearly

As far as I know it is the same exact curve, just slowed down.

I don't know what the "best" curve is, particularly assuming they are just time-scaled versions of each other. If slower is better, then wouldn't something even slower than BBR be even better?

I argued for a slower XMR curve early on. I did not prevail.

Although I lost the debate over the XMR emission curve, I wasn't sure the chosen curve was a bad one. (If I were sure enough, I would have dropped out of the project at the time.) I think it mostly depends on rate of uptake. You don't want all the coins mined out before there is adoption (and significant increase in coin price) because: 1) it means mining rewards will be too low to adequately secure the network, and 2) it encourages forking (ie. why XMR was forked from BCN: BCN was 82% mined with virtually no adoption).

XMR is approximately twice as fast as Bitcoin. It seems that given the greatly increased maturity of the cryptocoin concept, it is plausible to believe that a successful coin could uptake twice as fast as Bitcoin now. But I don't really know.

[cAPSLOCK]

I thought this same thing.  Hard forks probably do carry an inherent negative impact on a coin's value.  But depending on the reason for the fork that impact could easily be overshadowed by a positive response.  I think this factor is coin/situation dependent. 

I do not agree it is inherently negative. In fact a coin where developers are unable make important changes (including hard forks) for whatever competence, organizational, or political reasons could see its value decline for that reason.

So I agree what what you said about it being coin/situation dependent.

Hard forks done for bad reasons or which are poorly executed will hurt a coin value.

We may just agree.  My statement that a hard fork has negative impact is meant it is implicitly negative when viewed alone.  An analogy is the surgeons scalpel.  It is going to leave a scar, but under normal circumstances that impact is overshadowed by the value of the surgery.

A question.  What circumstances would a hard fork in BITCOIN not be viewed as negative by a significant percentage of users?  In my opinion there isn't one.

Monero and other alts have an advantage of being younger, and less established thereby reducing the impact.  We can get away with more for now.  And I think the more established the platform, the more -EV effect when there is a fork.

But if/when the devs choose to fork Monero there will be downstream issues.  We cannot pretend othewise.

[smooth]

A question.  What circumstances would a hard fork in BITCOIN not be viewed as negative by a significant percentage of users?  In my opinion there isn't one.

If the fork is done to add or improve some useful technical feature, and is done well, users would not see it as a negative.

If done for some politically contentious reason like rolling back the chain after an exchange hack, that would be a disaster.

[ArticMine]

...
A question.  What circumstances would a hard fork in BITCOIN not be viewed as negative by a significant percentage of users?  In my opinion there isn't one.
...

Bitcoin has to hard fork in order to address the 1 MB max blocksize limit. If it does not it will not be able to scale. The main reason I have invested in Monero is to hedge against the risk of Bitcoin not biting the bullet with this hard fork.

Edit: Here is a thread on the subject of the 1 MB max blocksize in Bitcoin and the discussion it generates. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=709970.0 The technical people understand the need, but there is also considerable fear and opposition.

[AnonyMint]

A hard fork is dangerous if a majority (perhaps even a super-minority) of the mining (full and pool share) nodes have an incentive to refuse it.

The 1MB limit in Bitcon may incentivize miners to resist it in order to obtain higher transaction fees? (I haven't studied Bitcoin's case)

[AlexGR]

Anonymint, can one solve the low-latency timing analysis issue of I2P/TOR by having all wallets configured to broadcast stuff at 1m intervals? Like 13:42:00, 13:43:00, 13:44:00 etc? Or making a customized I2P implementation that does something similar, joining all the network movements in some way?

[AnonyMint]

Anonymint, can one solve the low-latency timing analysis issue of I2P/TOR by having all wallets configured to broadcast stuff at 1m intervals? Like 13:42:00, 13:43:00, 13:44:00 etc? Or making a customized I2P implementation that does something similar, joining all the network movements in some way?

I'd rather defer to the researchers, who are cited by the Tor and Tails FAQs[1], comment on that more analytically than I can (at the moment). I think one problem with that is there is no decentralized global clock so I doubt you can get the entire network run on a synchronous clock step.

My understanding is that high-latency is required (which makes it unacceptable as a general network protocol such as I2P or for browsing such as Tor), meaning that relay nodes independently (asynchronously) queue up constant size packets, then release them in random delays significant enough to overcome statistical correlation.

Even it that works, it doesn't address the potential Sybil threat. Who is providing all that relay traffic for Tor nodes for free?[2]

(again I am not trying to assert I2P and Tor are totally useless)


Edit: High randomized latency may not be acceptable for mining because of the competitive aspect of being first. Also it impacts potentially the speed of transactions. It depends on the level of latency required. I would need to dig into the research to find out. Perhaps one of you can and comment here? I am very busy on other matters.

[1] https://www.torproject.org/docs/faq#EntryGuards
     https://tails.boum.org/doc/about/warning/index.en.html#index7h1
     https://geti2p.net/en/comparison/tor

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tor_%28anonymity_network%29&oldid=618641905#Exit_node_eavesdropping

[AnonyMint]

Does anyone think that Boolberry is currently undervalued?

Sorry I couldn't resist some humor  

https://www.google.com/search?q=price+ball+bearings&tbm=shop

https://www.google.com/search?q=price+blueberries&tbm=shop

https://www.google.com/search?q=price+blue+balls&tbm=shop

http://www.classiccargoodies.com/viewitem.php/classiccargoodies/pd2131598/Bull_Balls_Large_Blue_Rubber_8_

This is serious commentary.

[rpietila]

Does anyone think that Boolberry is currently undervalued?

Its fully mined market cap is $3.9 million, of which $3.6 million still needs to be mined, and thus, invested.

If you believe the price should be, let's say 5 times higher, you are counting on:

- other people will invest $18,000,000 to the newly mined coins
- this includes no current owners selling, and no additional value increase in the period of 5 years.

Really?

[dewdeded]

It's pretty obvious that Boolberrys biggest problem is, it has no team.
It's just one good coder and a marketing guy. I really give respect for there good work.
But its the truth, there is no long term success without forming a team.
"One-Man-Shows" in any business or (coding) project will always stay an amateurish level and have the great risk, of failing if this one man cant deliver anymore.

Its eg. just impossible even for an coding god (maybe e.g zoidberg of BoolBerry project) to outform an team of professional acting 7 or more good to very good coders (objective example Monero team).

[atoni]

Does anyone think that Boolberry is currently undervalued?

Its fully mined market cap is $3.9 million, of which $3.6 million still needs to be mined, and thus, invested.

If you believe the price should be, let's say 5 times higher, you are counting on:

- other people will invest $18,000,000 to the newly mined coins
- this includes no current owners selling, and no additional value increase in the period of 5 years.

Really?

How much is monero's fully mined mkcap and how much money is needed to support price from miners selling pressure? Thank you

[smooth]

Does anyone think that Boolberry is currently undervalued?

Its fully mined market cap is $3.9 million, of which $3.6 million still needs to be mined, and thus, invested.

If you believe the price should be, let's say 5 times higher, you are counting on:

- other people will invest $18,000,000 to the newly mined coins
- this includes no current owners selling, and no additional value increase in the period of 5 years.

Really?

At his point I see all of these coins as purely speculative assets. Meaning people investing in them are doing so entirely as a bet on their future success, where such success likely needs to be fairly large (>>$18m).

So my questions would be:

1. Is there $18m of speculative money that could flow into such a coin that appears likely to become a success? I think the answer is yes.

2. Is the coin likely to appear likely to become a success? I have no idea.

It certainly does not seem impossible.