ARCH PoS 2.0 overview written by @gambleh
Part 1: Basics staking and Coin Control explained
Q: I setup coin control, and from my understanding the reason for it is because the pos splits the address into two blocks or something like that. meaning your coins keep getting split up?
A: Yes, but not the address, just the inputs. So lets say you send 10k coins in one block to one address. 24 hours later it stakes. Now you have 2 inputs for 5k each. 24 hours later those stake. Now you have 4 inputs for 2500 each. But all are still under the same address.
Q: But now those inputs stake at 2500?
A: Yes, the continually halve.
Q: So I have to continually 'merge' the inputs with coin control?
A: No.. dont worry about that. As the inputs get split, you'll stake more often, but less amount per time. You should get the same number of coins over time.
What coin control is for is to send coins with a high degree of control. So, lets say you have 10k coins, with 8 inputs of 1250 each. if you wanted to send 2k coins and just did it, you'd send 1 full input, and 750 from a 2nd one, but the remaining 500 would be put in a change address.
With coin control you can select which inputs you want to send from, so you can pick the inputs that just staked and leave the ones that are about to stake and you can direct change BACK to the main address so that it doesn't create a separate change address which might get you kicked out of slack.
Q: So this is more of a management tool?
A: Yes... if you are going to just stake and not worry about sending anything anywhere, you'll don't need it. Only worry about coin control if you are going to send coins to an exchange. Letting the coins split up over time helps the network because you'll be available to stake more often, and it helps you too, because each time you stake, only a percentage of coins will be tied up instead of all of them
Q: Where is a good resource for staking?
A: I believe this method is a special blackcoin implementation and is unique to crypto. There is a pos 2.0 white paper here
http://www.blackcoin.co/blackcoin-pos-protocol-v2-whitepaper.pdf and general info on PoS here
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/ProofofStakeOh, this one looks to be helpful
http://wiki.hobonickels.info/index.php?title=Coin_Control but much of that is not valid for BC's pos though
Part 2 - Staking information
Q: I have a small number of coins and hardly ever get stakes. How come?
A: PoS 1.0 was based on your coin age. Your chances of staking a block were directly related to the amount of coin age you had. This was insecure because people could take the wallet offline for months to save up coinage, bring it back on and then try to 51% attack the network.
Pos 2.0 removed coinage as a requirement. Now your chance of staking is based on total coins. Odds dictate that eventually everyone will create a block, and when that happens coinage is used to determine the amount you will get. So you might wait longer to get a stake with a small number of coins, but when you it will be a larger reward.
Q: I've noticed the amount I stake decreases as time passes. How can I improve my staking?
A: The amount you stake is based on two things. The amount of coins in the input and the amount of time since those coins last staked. Over time, as you stake and your inputs get broken up in half you will generally get smaller and smaller amounts as a reward. However, when one does stake, you will get the appropriate amount of interest for the amount of coinage that input has.
Q: Well, I want big stakes, so I'm going to send my coins back to myself so they are all in one input again.
A: if you send all your coins back to yourself in a big block, you'll get one input, but you LOSE ALL YOUR COIN AGE. it starts over. You might look like you are getting more, but you're not really not. You're just killing your potential to get the full amount of interest you deserve.
HOWEVER: One thing you might want to do from time to time is clean up the very small (below 250) inputs in your coin age screen. You can send them back to the same address in one bit input. If you have bunch of very small inputs that are staking repeatedly, it might be at the expense of any larger inputs you have. Those large inputs will eventually stake and you'll be paid for your coinage appropriately, but you might end up waiting a while for it.
Q: How did you learn all this?
A: I have Blackcoin and I watch how it stakes closely. I also keep a spreadsheet of my stakes to see how it works. BC is 1% a year and my interest has been very close to that over many months.
Right now I have a few larger BC inputs that haven't staked in weeks. So, it looks right now like I'm getting poor interest. But eventually that input will stake, and when it does ill get a ton because it has high coin age.
