[ANN][GRE] GreenCoin - A Blockchain-Based Social Carbon Ecosystem

[biodieselchris]

Update 2: We are currently working on a POSV coin launch with 5% interest (50% going to the Foundation) and data storage (OP_RETURN) functionality.

[IMJim]

Nice job on the vid Chris, I like the voice too personally.

[bitcoinboy12]

What tools to mine this new altcoin? can mine it via cpu or gpu mining... this interesting. I just want to know if this is better to mine than dogecoin?

[crackfoo]

What tools to mine this new altcoin? can mine it via cpu or gpu mining... this interesting. I just want to know if this is better to mine than dogecoin?

You generally can't mine it solo since it's a merged coin the same as doge. You would need some sort of Scrypt ASIC if you did. If you want to use CPU/GPU then you'd want to point it at a multipool, like ours,www.xpool.ca . That way you can earn BTC and get GRE payouts as well.

Cheers

[Cranky4u]

Chris,

Will this fork reduce the value of existing coins or will it be a 1:1 exchange?

Cranky

GreenCoin updates:

Coin tech dev:
Hello fellow digital carbon emission offset enthusiasts. I have a few updates. I am working with a dev to fix the coin which has the bugs/issues described in great length in the past. Unfortunately, it has been determined it will not be cheap or easy to get the syncing issues fixed and the dev is looking at solutions (the Foundation stake % is an easy fix however). One such solution is a total coin reboot and we might put PoS back on the table (being a little more "green" than PoW) but this has pros and cons as we've discussed before. If you have any specific recommendations please feel free to comment, as this will definitely be the time to do so. The issues are still being determined so the timeline for the fix and eventual fork (or re-launch) is not known. We also want to get in a bunch of upgrades and data storage and others cool things so we don't have to fork again anytime soon, so this will add to the cost and timeline. I will keep you apprised.

Marketing:
The Foundation paid for a better movie short that gives a good introductory overview of GreenCoin. The intended audience for the movie are prospective solar array homeowners and the purpose of this short is to get them interested in learning more, so it is not supposed to capture all of the benefits and features of GreenCoin in totality, so just keep that in mind. The next step after viewing the movie would be to hit the website for info (and yes this will be improved for the marketing launch by me which I've been saying for awhile but it'll come to pass), and to learn all of the wonderful benefits of greencoin and then sign-up. The tech dev and marketing effort's primary focus is to sign up new producers at this time.

You can preview the movie here.
PW: draft
It is fine to share the movie. Please give me feedback.

Advertising:
We have identified and costed an advertising blitz that gets in front of 200k or so solar array homeowners (emails). It would be disadvantageous to do the blitz before the fork because any and all of the new sign ups would need to be involved with the re-downloads and such, so therefore we would time this component immediately following the fork.

Like I said with the tech dev the ultimate solution and timing is not known. However, I would like to think the above is executed inside of two months.

[biodieselchris]

Chris,

Will this fork reduce the value of existing coins or will it be a 1:1 exchange?

Cranky

I'm thinking a 100:1 reverse split but it applies to everyone fairly. This would knock the total coin outstanding down to <20M and help support price perhaps. What do you think?

[biodieselchris]

One big difference with PoS is there is no coin cap. Coins just mine and stake interest forever. The dynamic also changes so that less coins are mined upfront and more are later (through exponential growth), which is opposite of the PoW "halving" mechanism which serves to mathematically create a total coin cap. For example the existing PoW GRE produces 2000 coins per block and there is a scheduled halving every 5 years. This sets the coin max at 10B total of which half are mined in 5 years. A switch over to PoS, and assuming it occurs around coin total of 2B old GRE, there will be ~100M coins (at 5% interest) being staked for interest annually (I'm not adjusting for any coin reverse split but that affects all calculations the same regardless).

So that's only about 275k new coins/d (half for the stakers / half for the Foundation to pay producers). So it is worth noting in the beginning this will reduce coin payouts from the current ~2.8M total per day (1.4/1.4M each) by ~10X. In the long run eventually Producers will indeed get more. So the net effect is early Producers/Miners who have coins to trade in at the swap will have "done better" than those joining the network after the fork, at least in the short term.

For what it's worth, if you want some free coins as a Renewable Producer (e.g., solar array owner) for the Love of God sign up now. There is still a lot of coins being given away every day per person since there are not many users.

Or cryptopia is still open for business though the volume has been anemic (not many sellers!   !!!)

(and/or scrypt-mine at xpool.ca)

Thoughts on the PoS welcome.

- BDC

[Lightsplasher]

One big difference with PoS is there is no coin cap. Coins just mine and stake interest forever.
. . .
Thoughts on the PoS welcome.

- BDC

Well, most typical high stake PoS coins do have a coin cap.  Take Hyperstake for example, even though the rate is stated at 750% people earn no where near that rate because of the block reward cap and high difficulty.  In fact the annual percent earned is currently averaging around 200% and I would expect this may drop to around 100% in the next six months.  Eventually (in years?) block rewards should become a small fraction of the total coin market cap and very difficult to get.  This situation in my opinion is good because I feel that the value of the coin in the long run should be supported by buying and selling more than by rewarding people to maintain the block chain.  Just because you print up a bunch of coins doesn't “necessarily” mean that you should be rewarded for doing so. (Are you listening Federal Reserve?)  Just my opinion LoL. 

[biodieselchris]

One big difference with PoS is there is no coin cap. Coins just mine and stake interest forever.
. . .
Thoughts on the PoS welcome.

- BDC

Well, most typical high stake PoS coins do have a coin cap.  Take Hyperstake for example, even though the rate is stated at 750% people earn no where near that rate because of the block reward cap and high difficulty.  In fact the annual percent earned is currently averaging around 200% and I would expect this may drop to around 100% in the next six months.  Eventually (in years?) block rewards should become a small fraction of the total coin market cap and very difficult to get.  This situation in my opinion is good because I feel that the value of the coin in the long run should be supported by buying and selling more than by rewarding people to maintain the block chain.  Just because you print up a bunch of coins doesn't “necessarily” mean that you should be rewarded for doing so. (Are you listening Federal Reserve?)  Just my opinion LoL. 

thanks Lightsplasher we're looking into hyperstake

[Cranky4u]

Chris,

Will this fork reduce the value of existing coins or will it be a 1:1 exchange?

Cranky

I'm thinking a 100:1 reverse split but it applies to everyone fairly. This would knock the total coin outstanding down to <20M and help support price perhaps. What do you think?

Having seen reverse splits in another coins, I do not think it will help to raise prices solely on the basis of this mechanism. I have found it worked the opposite way, existing coin owners see their wallets slashed whilst any new players attracted are not aware of the action nor the supposed value introduced. This often has resulted in the pre-existant coin owners stampeding for the exit whilst new people quickly join the stampede.

I recommend staying with a 1:1 conversion if needed to give the perception of stability.

Price increases come from a combination of trading interest (volume) and new coin usage (acceptance for products / services)

[biodieselchris]

updates: GreenCoin will re-launch as a POS starting at block 800,000 which will most likely be in the daytime (US) on 1/1/2016. If the PoS testing is not successful we will fall back on a fork/update of the existing coin (PoW). I will update further as we work going forward.

Also, keep going after new solar producers please. We could use a sign-up!

[Cranky4u]

updates: GreenCoin will re-launch as a POS starting at block 800,000 which will most likely be in the daytime (US) on 1/1/2016. If the PoS testing is not successful we will fall back on a fork/update of the existing coin (PoW). I will update further as we work going forward.

Also, keep going after new solar producers please. We could use a sign-up!

Great news Chris. I will also push for some more sign ups under the previous bounty scheme...

Do you need some testers for PoS pre-fork?

As for PoS, do you have some idea of PoS rates in terms of p.a. interest equivalents?

[biodieselchris]

GreenCoin Fork Update:

As anyone familiar with GreenCoin over the course of 2015 knows, we've been advocating for a fork or re-launch for a variety of reasons discussed in length previously. We've ironed out most of the details which are listed below. We are going with a PoS coins for a couple of key reasons:

1) Obviously there is no power-intensive mining necessary, which is great for a coin with an environmental imperative.
2) Regular, everyday users can stake and receive mining awards as opposed to highly technical operations running huge, concentrated mining farms.
3) Other PoS coins exist and have had a fairly stable history of use and security, so we aren't re-inventing the wheel.

Release of GreenCoin V2 will occur at block 800,000. Currently this calculates to Jan 1st, 2016 between 11 and 11:30 AM US Pacific. The current block explorer is here.

Coin Specs:
Coin type: PoS
The Foundation receives half of the staking for awards (given to Renewable Producers through daily payouts, as usual).
Block time: 120 seconds. Note the block time previously was ~61.5 seconds. The dev recommended this.
Block award: see interest rate comments below
Retargetting: Hyperstake algo

Interest rate:
We're looking into a couple of things here. I'll start with the back-up plan, which is to go with a simple 10% interest rate. What this creates is a coin that would have much less per day payout than currently exists at the beginning. To put numbers to it, there will be 1.6B coins at block 800k. An interest rate of 10% would generate on average 438k coins per day early on (219k each for foundation/stakers), which is far less than the 1.4M currently being generated per day for each. Given this is no longer a PoW coin with a halving rate, eventually this number would grow and overtake the 1.4M per day number, but it would take quite awhile for this to happen. We could set the fixed interest rate higher but given the coin grows exponentially now, it may inflate too quickly to be useful at an interest rate set too high.

Therefore, we started looking into a declining interest rate. It could, for example, start at ~70% annual interest and the daily payout would almost exactly equal the current one, and then have it re-adjust along an exponential decay function in order to keep the payout about the same each day. The third and final option, which we just began to discuss yesterday is a fixed coin payout per block, which for PoS is relatively new. This would be ideal because then we'd keep the payouts equal to 2.8M per day (1.4M each). The 2 min block award set for this would then equal 4000 coins per block (2k each producer/staker). The staker also gets the fees, if any. Technically, this is 2.88M/1.44M coins per day for 720 blocks occurring every 2 minutes on average, which is very close tot he 1,419,060 coins/day average for each we see now with the PoW system, so that is the reason for picking 4k per block.

Other notes:

• Stake time is 24 hours (time you need to hold before you stake). Given the Foundation pays out coins every 24 hours, the Foundation will not stake.
• The coin will still be called GreenCoin. It will install in a folder named something like "greencoin_v2". The logo will be the same.
• The blockchain will be able to store data via OP_RETURN
• Important: An exchange for old coins will be unnecessary. You can simply dump your privkey from the old chain, then import this key into your new wallet and your coins will be there.

I will keep posting updates as we get closer. Feel free to comment and ask questions. This will be a fun and exciting upgrade for GreenCoin!

[killerjoegreece]

GreenCoin Fork Update:

As anyone familiar with GreenCoin over the course of 2015 knows, we've been advocating for a fork or re-launch for a variety of reasons discussed in length previously. We've ironed out most of the details which are listed below. We are going with a PoS coins for a couple of key reasons:

1) Obviously there is no power-intensive mining necessary, which is great for a coin with an environmental imperative.
2) Regular, everyday users can stake and receive mining awards as opposed to highly technical operations running huge, concentrated mining farms.
3) Other PoS coins exist and have had a fairly stable history of use and security, so we aren't re-inventing the wheel.

Release of GreenCoin V2 will occur at block 800,000. Currently this calculates to Jan 1st, 2016 between 11 and 11:30 AM US Pacific. The current block explorer is here.

Coin Specs:
Coin type: PoS
The Foundation receives half of the staking for awards (given to Renewable Producers through daily payouts, as usual).
Block time: 120 seconds. Note the block time previously was ~61.5 seconds. The dev recommended this.
Block award: see interest rate comments below
Retargetting: Hyperstake algo

Interest rate:
We're looking into a couple of things here. I'll start with the back-up plan, which is to go with a simple 10% interest rate. What this creates is a coin that would have much less per day payout than currently exists at the beginning. To put numbers to it, there will be 1.6B coins at block 800k. An interest rate of 10% would generate on average 438k coins per day early on (219k each for foundation/stakers), which is far less than the 1.4M currently being generated per day for each. Given this is no longer a PoW coin with a halving rate, eventually this number would grow and overtake the 1.4M per day number, but it would take quite awhile for this to happen. We could set the fixed interest rate higher but given the coin grows exponentially now, it may inflate too quickly to be useful at an interest rate set too high.

Therefore, we started looking into a declining interest rate. It could, for example, start at ~70% annual interest and the daily payout would almost exactly equal the current one, and then have it re-adjust along an exponential decay function in order to keep the payout about the same each day. The third and final option, which we just began to discuss yesterday is a fixed coin payout per block, which for PoS is relatively new. This would be ideal because then we'd keep the payouts equal to 2.8M per day (1.4M each). The 2 min block award set for this would then equal 4000 coins per block (2k each producer/staker). The staker also gets the fees, if any. Technically, this is 2.88M/1.44M coins per day for 720 blocks occurring every 2 minutes on average, which is very close tot he 1,419,060 coins/day average for each we see now with the PoW system, so that is the reason for picking 4k per block.

Other notes:

• Stake time is 24 hours (time you need to hold before you stake). Given the Foundation pays out coins every 24 hours, the Foundation will not stake.
• The coin will still be called GreenCoin. It will install in a folder named something like "greencoin_v2". The logo will be the same.
• The blockchain will be able to store data via OP_RETURN
• Important: An exchange for old coins will be unnecessary. You can simply dump your privkey from the old chain, then import this key into your new wallet and your coins will be there.

I will keep posting updates as we get closer. Feel free to comment and ask questions. This will be a fun and exciting upgrade for GreenCoin!

very nice updates here dev thanks for your great work. will we get hyp coin control too?

A proposal from me is

70% first year
30% second year
5% third year onwards

Also check my signature if you need a greek translation

[killerjoegreece]

With the pos update this coin can only go up now

[Lightsplasher]

Great news!  I'm certainly looking forward to minting some new coins with PoS (somethings got to pay for all those wild proof of biking rides I did!)   Since you have a new change in the works I wonder if it is worth considering adding a transaction memo field similar to the one in Florincoin for storing transaction notes into the blockchain.  This could let GRE be more easily adapted for use in project Alexandria plus it might be nice to send notes attached to transactions for public viewing, and it opens up the potential to build other types of applications, such as tracking notes and auditing of payments for clean energy production or composting.

I was just thinking that this project has a fairly specific targeted use and media that pertains to environmental carbon issues could be stored stored as meta-data in the GRE block chain.  Potentially the media itself could be stored in IPFS (or wherever), and the content creators could be tipped using GRE.  I'm just looking at ideas here, there is more information and a better description of project Alexandria at: http://blocktech.com/

[Cranky4u]

Greencoin is a long term winner. It has produced results consistently every since inception 2~3 years ago.

[mrbodz]

Great news!  I'm certainly looking forward to minting some new coins with PoS (somethings got to pay for all those wild proof of biking rides I did!)  Since you have a new change in the works I wonder if it is worth considering adding a transaction memo field similar to the one in Florincoin for storing transaction notes into the blockchain.  This could let GRE be more easily adapted for use in project Alexandria plus it might be nice to send notes attached to transactions for public viewing, and it opens up the potential to build other types of applications, such as tracking notes and auditing of payments for clean energy production or composting.

I was just thinking that this project has a fairly specific targeted use and media that pertains to environmental carbon issues could be stored stored as meta-data in the GRE block chain.  Potentially the media itself could be stored in IPFS (or wherever), and the content creators could be tipped using GRE.  I'm just looking at ideas here, there is more information and a better description of project Alexandria at: http://blocktech.com/

Already done

(I'm the dev chris has hired to make greencoin v2)

[mrbodz]

The new specs:

Block reward will be 4000 GRE per block (static) for both POW and POS (POW wont last long) of which 1/2 is paid to the foundation
Minimum stake time: 24 Hour
Maximum stake weight: -1 (no maximum but in this case doesnt mean much due to the static reward)
Difficulty retarget Algorithm: HoboNickels (HBN)
Block Time: 120 seconds
Base used for the coin: Blackcoin

Supported Features:
- Comments/Messages inside transactions
- OP_RETURN transactions (extra fees are charged here)

Other Info
- Premine (160002000 GRE) 1:1 ratio
- POW will last 3 days as a fallback incase wallets dont stake immediately

[biodieselchris]

The new specs:

Block reward will be 4000 GRE per block (static) for both POW and POS (POW wont last long) of which 1/2 is paid to the foundation
Minimum stake time: 24 Hour
Maximum stake weight: -1 (no maximum but in this case doesnt mean much due to the static reward)
Difficulty retarget Algorithm: HoboNickels (HBN)
Block Time: 120 seconds
Base used for the coin: Blackcoin

Supported Features:
- Comments/Messages inside transactions
- OP_RETURN transactions (extra fees are charged here)

Other Info
- Premine (160002000 GRE) 1:1 ratio
- POW will last 3 days as a fallback incase wallets dont stake immediately

The launch is scheduled to occur at block #800,000. This should be about 10:30 AM PDT (US west coast time).