I'm an academic researcher on cryptocurrencies. TittieCoin has come to my attention lately, because its blockchain is different from the source code.
The source code defines the block reward as follows, where there is one pre-mined block at height 2, and the rest of the blocks have rewards 8008 (halved every two years) plus fees.
int64 static GetBlockValue(int nHeight, int64 nFees)
{
int64 nSubsidy = 8008 * COIN;
if (nHeight == 2)
nSubsidy = 73644076 * COIN;
// Block reward halves every 2 years
nSubsidy >>= (nHeight / 350400);
return nSubsidy + nFees;
}
(Reference:
https://github.com/tittiecoin/tittiecoin/blob/master/src/main.cpp#L830-L841)
However, this is not what actually happens on the blockchain. While most of the other blocks have a typical reward of 8008 coins (plus fees), the following blocks are somewhat atypical: Their rewards are much higher than 8008!
block_reward difficulty timestamp
block_height
1779 18009 7.805143 2014-02-01 18:08:39
1819 18008 6.574982 2014-02-01 20:14:57
1949 18038 7.750942 2014-02-02 03:19:27
2372 18010 2.374759 2014-02-03 02:11:18
66574 12598 0.207160 2014-07-21 08:44:00
66696 11658 0.313181 2014-07-21 14:29:27
I looked through the commit history on Github. I cannot find any source code that would explain the behavior above.
Why did this happen? Thank you!
(To replicate my result, you can check blockexperts.com or run your own official client.)