[CryptoNote] A complete forking guide to create your own CryptoNote currency

[drawingthesun]

In my opinion, CryptoNote is doing something much more important than trying to make a quick buck. It's a shame that XMR supporters are so obsessed with their coin and hash rate that they deny strategic development. Come on guys, you do have the highest hash rate, but it is 80% botnets. What's the point in trying to secure a rotten apple? CryptoNote is trying to change the world, while you are interested in your investment payoff. That's puny and unworthy.

I disagree with you.

Hal Finney said that if a CryptoCoin that had no real advantage over Bitcoin and were to overtake the value of Bitcoin it would create a disastrous situation where all the CryptoCoins would lose their value. His reasoning was that if investors (1) saw that another coin can overtake Bitcoin, based on hype and manipulation alone it would call into question "can any type of faith based currency (2) actually be a store of value".

This store of value is important because many projects die fast if people are not committed to their security, maintenance and continue research and development. If the "store of value" idea was to be undone via a clone without true merit and reason to exist, the investors would be unwilling to invest in the clone because the precedent has now been set that any clone on hype alone will eradicate their investment. As people stop investing their money into miners or buying the coin itself, people see their value fall and begin to stop investing the most important asset in the world, their time. Once time stops being invested into a project the project ceases to exist.

This has nothing about making a quick buck. I don't invest in alternative coins often and only moved onto Monero because I saw merit. However if Monero were to fall due to clones that offer very small incremental changes to the code, then I would be a fool to invest my time, money and energy into that competitor because I know the precedent has been set, another coin will be along shortly to ruin that coin, with small incremental changes. This is the crux of Hal Finney's argument.

Only coins that offer a massive advantage over the other market participants should be able to take value from a market leader, because that functionality is really adding a true addition to the marketplace. Obviously Bytecoin fills this role, however due to the 80% premine it was automatically unsuitable to be the market leader for a CryptoNote coin, Monero was born to be the restart of the unfair premine. Monero's first and vital innovation is one of the marketplace, Monero offered the first public release of a CryptoNote coin that was not premined.

This is the crux of my argument; if there are thousands of CryptoNote clones all fighting each other for market share, with no clear leader, where does the investor park his energies and capital? Without a growing capital base the developers leave to better pastures. Under the current vision of the CryptoNote "team" they are in fact creating a rotten apple, a confused market with no clear leader. It's a mess.

Up until Monero I saw a future of about three true market participants; Bitcoin, Ethereum and a Storage based coin. However it is entirely reasonable that Ethereum will also be that storage based coin.

Monero adds onto that list as the fourth participant.

(1) [Miners and people who buy the coin are both investors]

(2) [All CryptoCoins are faith based, they rely on the will of the people to maintain value, rather than a Government taking control and manipulating the market to keep prices at a set standard]

[Rias]

Only coins that offer a massive advantage over the other market participants should be able to take value from a market leader, because that functionality is really adding a true addition to the marketplace. Obviously Bytecoin fills this role, however due to the 80% premine it was automatically unsuitable to be the market leader for a CryptoNote coin, Monero was born to be the restart of the unfair premine.

Even if Monero is, as you say, supposed to 'take on' Bytecoin, who's to say that there can't be a coin made to overtake both of them, theoretically speaking? Cryptonote's genius is as an enabler - to introduce an environment where users are in no doubt that any innovation is possible, if they have the skill to implement it.

This is the crux of my argument; if there are thousands of CryptoNote clones all fighting each other for market share, with no clear leader, where does the investor park his energies and capital?

I would say that this is the essence of CryptoNote's philosophy: to create a level playing field where any coin is given the potential to become a leader - an environment where anyone will be able to compete for the lead position.

[dreamspark]

I would say that this is the essence of CryptoNote's philosophy: to create a level playing field where any coin is given the potential to become a leader - an environment where anyone will be able to compete for the lead position.

The playing field is level, the code is all open source. Anyone who has the skills can currently fork a CN coin as has been done. The issue is with 100's on uninnovative implementations which is possible with "noob forking guides" and devs with no skill at all. Im sorry but if you think that 10's or 100's of slightly tweaked reference implementations is good for anyone then you mistaken. Yes competition is good and anybody who has the ideas and the skills to implement them will be able to do so already without the cryptonote team babying people to do it. This is why the motive question has been thrown out there and most of what drawinginthesun aludes to makes perfect sense.

 Perhaps if you countered the actual arguments you might have more listeners.

Drawinginthesun gives many reasons why lots of the same coin isn't good, arguments such as this "Only coins that offer a massive advantage over the other market participants should be able to take value from a market leader" and "However if Monero were to fall due to clones that offer very small incremental changes to the code, then I would be a fool to invest my time, money and energy into that competitor because I know the precedent has been set, another coin will be along shortly to ruin that coin, with small incremental changes." need more response than they're just trying to create a level playing field.

[kbm]

Even if Monero is, as you say, supposed to 'take on' Bytecoin, who's to say that there can't be a coin made to overtake both of them, theoretically speaking? Cryptonote's genius is as an enabler - to introduce an environment where users are in no doubt that any innovation is possible, if they have the skill to implement it.

What do you even mean here? These are open-source projects. Apart from that .. what are they enabling? Innovation? I'll take two examples: merge mining, and i2p integration.

The environment for merge mining is highly clamored; however, the mention of i2p was in fact bashed. Cryptonote has nothing to do with enabling innovation, you don't need their permission or support for it. How do you think their presence in any way spurs innovation? People could simply fork this without them, due to being open source .. so where are you going with this?

I would say that this is the essence of CryptoNote's philosophy: to create a level playing field where any coin is given the potential to become a leader - an environment where anyone will be able to compete for the lead position.

I would point out that the CN philosophy is simply that of a cheerleader, not the creator of this playing field. They cheer for the currencies that would have been on the field regardless of their presence at all. This is more in line with their vision -- they're not a government and they don't make laws.

CryptoNote's genius, is coming up with a concept and contributing some code according to them. Apart from that, it was the Bytecoin/Cybernote/Betanote website that provided the bulk of the source code. It is their genius that is as an enabler -- not CryptoNote in the sense that you put forth. CN hasn't maintained a repo until this thread.

[Jcw188]

I would say that this is the essence of CryptoNote's philosophy: to create a level playing field where any coin is given the potential to become a leader - an environment where anyone will be able to compete for the lead position.

It's true - perhaps it's easy to forget that nothing has fallen apart. Innovation is being unveiled and progress from CN coins is happening, with positive consequences.

However if Monero were to fall due to clones that offer very small incremental changes to the code, then I would be a fool to invest my time, money and energy into that competitor because I know the precedent has been set, another coin will be along shortly to ruin that coin, with small incremental changes.

I would just take the perspective that as a concept, CN is working and producing results which are not just admirable but exciting as well, and we should take a level-headed, embracing attitude to developments while there is still no evidence to the contrary.

[cryptonote]

CryptoNote has updated its official repository to include the testnet tool for those who are building a new CryptoNote currency.

The testnet is your sandbox for the currency's and network's sustainability before the launch or prior to a major update. Generally, you wouldn't want to roll out a feature, which might jeopardize user experience or network health.

The new CryptoNote testnet tool ignores the real network by skipping its checkpoints and peer lists. It also generates a new genesis block on startup. By doing so you create a new block chain for your network which can be used for testing purposes. This can also be useful for pool owners deploying a new feature related to mining, since their own testnet doesn't have external miners to compete with for the blocks during the tests.

1. After compiling the binaries you should start the daemon with the "--testnet" and "--data-dir" arguments:

Code:

cryptonotecoind --testnet --data-dir=new/path/to/blockchain

--testnet argument forces daemon to start a new testing network.
--data-dir argument should be different from the default folder so that the testnet doesn't interfere with the real network's block chain and peer pools. When you launch a new testnet, be sure to provide it with a new folder.

2. Launching simplewallet requires only the "--testnet" argument to connect to the testnet daemon:

Code:

simplewallet --testnet

3. In case you need to create a testnet that consists of more than 1 node, you should connect each next daemon to the previously launched testnet through the "--add-exclusive-node" argument:

Code:

cryptonotecoind --testnet --data-dir=new/path/to/blockchain --add-exclusive-node=testnet.node.ip:port

Links to the repository and the forking guide:
https://github.com/cryptonotefoundation/cryptonote
https://cryptonotestarter.org

Original discussion: https://forum.cryptonote.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=234&p=791#p791

[cryptonote]

CryptoNote has launched its official reference implementation: CryptoNoteCoin.
The currency is the showcase for CryptoNote technology and the educational coin for the new users.

It is designed to have no economic value. The emission will take 2 months, followed by the genesis block relaunch.

The announcements:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=686485.
https://forum.cryptonote.org/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=231

[cryptonote]

The official CryptoNote repository has been updated to include smart genesis block creation. Previously, it was required to comment and uncomment some parts of the source code. With our new currency creation flow, genesis block coinbase tx hash is created as follows:

1) Follow the forking guide and define all the parameters for your currency except for GENESIS_COINBASE_TX_HEX in /src/cryptonote_config.h. You should leave it blank:

Code:

#define GENESIS_COINBASE_TX_HEX               ""

2) Compile the binaries.

3) Start the daemon with the --print-genesis-tx argument:

Code:

cryptonotecoind --print-genesis-tx

The daemon will print out the genesis block coinbase transaction hash.

4) Insert the printed out tx hash to GENESIS_COINBASE_TX_HEX in src/cryptonote_config.h

Code:

#define GENESIS_COINBASE_TX_HEX               "013c01ff0001ffff...785a33d9ebdba68b0"

5) Recompile the binaries. You are now ready to announce and launch your coin.

Links to the repository and the forking guide:
https://github.com/cryptonotefoundation/cryptonote
https://cryptonotestarter.org/inner.html#genesis

Original discussion: https://forum.cryptonote.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=220&p=806#p806

[salsacz]

A new article about CryptoNote platform:
http://www.coinspeaker.com/2014/07/23/cryptonote-toolkit-truly-anonymous-untraceable-cryptocurrencies/

(also at: http://bitcoinviews.com/cryptonote-a-toolkit-for-truly-anonymous-and-untraceable-cryptocurrencies/)

[lemier]

I was trying to find how to define address prefixes (like in XDN or Cryptonotecoin), but couldn't find any tools for that. Here's my solution. You may add the following code lines to any of existing Cryptonote coins (as Cryptonote forking repo won't compile due to empty constants).

1) Update CMakeList.txt:

+file(GLOB_RECURSE PREFIXGENERATOR prefixgenerator/*)
+add_executable(prefixgenerator ${PREFIXGENERATOR})
+target_link_libraries(prefixgenerator crypto common ${Boost_LIBRARIES})

2) Add a new file /src/prefixgenerator.cpp

Code:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include "common/base58.h"

int main(int argc, char** argv) {

  if (argc > 1) {
    std::string s = argv[1];
    for (uint64_t i = 0; i < (uint64_t)(-1); i++) {
      std::string r = tools::base58::encode_addr(i, "test");
      if (s == r.substr(0, s.size()))
        std::cout << r << " 0x" << std::hex << i << std::dec << std::endl;
    }
  } else {
    for (uint64_t i = 0; i < (uint64_t)(-1); i++) {
      std::string r = tools::base58::encode_addr(i, "test");
      std::cout << r << " 0x" << std::hex << i << std::dec << std::endl;
    }
  }
  return 0;
}

3) Compile the updated repo

4) Run the util with the desired prefix:

Code:

./prefixgenerator PREFIX_YOU_WANT

or get all possible prefixes and grep the one you need:

Code:

./prefixgenerator | grep -E "REGEXP"

What the util does is trying every possible input to get you the prefix you wish to have. I hope this will help someone.

[salsacz]

Interview with Catherine Erwin from CryptoNote:
http://bitcoinbarbie.com/cryptonote-open-source-technology-concept/ (June 2014)

[cryptonote]

We are offering you to get some CryptoNoteCoins for free.

You can use them in educational purposes to test our possibilities. CryptoNoteCoin fulfills the same functions as the regular coins. But remember that all coins will be emitted in 2 month and after that new genesis block will be generated.

Just enter your CryptoNoteCoin address in the special form called "Get free coins" on our website.

[cryptonote]

I was trying to find how to define address prefixes (like in XDN or Cryptonotecoin), but couldn't find any tools for that. Here's my solution. You may add the following code lines to any of existing Cryptonote coins (as Cryptonote forking repo won't compile due to empty constants).

1) Update CMakeList.txt:

+file(GLOB_RECURSE PREFIXGENERATOR prefixgenerator/*)
+add_executable(prefixgenerator ${PREFIXGENERATOR})
+target_link_libraries(prefixgenerator crypto common ${Boost_LIBRARIES})

2) Add a new file /src/prefixgenerator.cpp

Code:

#include <string>
#include <iostream>
#include "common/base58.h"

int main(int argc, char** argv) {

  if (argc > 1) {
    std::string s = argv[1];
    for (uint64_t i = 0; i < (uint64_t)(-1); i++) {
      std::string r = tools::base58::encode_addr(i, "test");
      if (s == r.substr(0, s.size()))
        std::cout << r << " 0x" << std::hex << i << std::dec << std::endl;
    }
  } else {
    for (uint64_t i = 0; i < (uint64_t)(-1); i++) {
      std::string r = tools::base58::encode_addr(i, "test");
      std::cout << r << " 0x" << std::hex << i << std::dec << std::endl;
    }
  }
  return 0;
}

3) Compile the updated repo

4) Run the util with the desired prefix:

Code:

./prefixgenerator PREFIX_YOU_WANT

or get all possible prefixes and grep the one you need:

Code:

./prefixgenerator | grep -E "REGEXP"

What the util does is trying every possible input to get you the prefix you wish to have. I hope this will help someone.

Thank you for your contribution! Your solution should be working, but it doesn't suit CryptoNote Starter repo well as it is quite complicated. Hence, we've implemented address prefix generator on https://cryptonotestarter.org/tools.html

You may also find calculator for your coin emission speed compared to bitcoin's emission.

https://i.imgur.com/4PwU1gM.png
https://i.imgur.com/CNE12Ro.png

[salsacz]

[XMR] [BCN] Multiple wallet monitor for all cryptonote coins:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=718928.msg8121234#msg8121234

[cryptonote]

CryptoNote Starter has a new section added. The "Knowledge base" covers all the basics of operating CryptoNote currency in addition to the forking guide. Currently, the sections covered are:

• general binaries overview
• testnet
• payment processing
• mining pool deployment

New articles will be published based on the community requests.

Please, let us know what you think.

Link to the knowledge base: https://cryptonotestarter.org/kb/

[YarkoL]

Please, let us know what you think.

Despite my initial misgivings, I now think you're
doing a great job.

[salsacz]

Mysteries and Puzzles Behind the CryptoNote Technology (1/4)

[smooth]

Hal Finney said that if a CryptoCoin that had no real advantage over Bitcoin and were to overtake the value of Bitcoin it would create a disastrous situation where all the CryptoCoins would lose their value. His reasoning was that if investors (1) saw that another coin can overtake Bitcoin, based on hype and manipulation alone it would call into question "can any type of faith based currency (2) actually be a store of value".

My argument would be similar to Hal's, but I'd take it a step further and perhaps come to a different conclusion (since I haven't seen Hal's original comments in context I don't know his conclusion).

Yes, it would be disastrous if a hype-based clone were to overtake a preexisting leader, but only by having such coins try to do it and fail is the value of the leader convincingly demonstrated. If clones are impeded by barriers to entry (for example by technical or knowledge barriers) and one can only speculate about whether a hype-based coin could overtake the leader, then the leader's value will always be impaired.

tldr: the more shitcoin clones fail, the more value accrues to the leader.

[hodlbananas]

tldr: the more shitcoin clones fail, the more value accrues to the leader.

Thats why competition is a bless, if something better doesnt come out, the ones that are leading become worth more.

+1 agree

[Spoetnik]

uhhhm WHY ?

why would you pretty much create a coin and then tell people to clone it ?

wouldn't be so bag holders have a fresh new coin to pump and dump would it ?