I mean, if bbqcoin is possible...
1. OK, to make it clear, it is vaporware: I'm a really lazy person and I have lots of ideas. But, on the other hand, I'm a pro C++ coder, so I can do this, in theory.
2. People might say: "Why don't you work on improving existing currency like bitcoin or litecoin?". It's simple: when currency is actively used and valuable, its developers become conservative in features they allow. They do not want disruption for existing users, which is understandable. OTOH with some obscure alt chain you can experiment however you want.
This is actually the purpose of alt chains, according to Gavin himself (
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=55506.0)
I had hoped that they would be full of interesting experiments with different transaction types or smart contracts or different fee-setting algorithms or maybe some innovative scheme for instant transactions.
3. So, here's a list of features I'm interested in:
3.1. Geared towards CPU mining, via scrypt tuning (more memory), plus maybe my own crypto ideas. (I need to discuss them with pros first, though.) This would change initial coin distribution patterns (i.e. owners of large GPU farms won't get majority of coins, sorry), and might help against 51% attacks simply because influential people in bitcoin community are likely to have more GPU hashing power than they have CPU hashing power. (Although they can rent CPUs from EC2, for example.)
3.2. First class support for escrows, distributed contracts and stuff like that. With usable interface. They are sort of supported in bitcoin, but half of features are disabled, and half doesn't have proper UI. I actually work it working since I'm working on services which need this stuff.
3.3.
Optional centralized timestamping to make instantaneous transactions possible. EDIT: probably irrelevant since similar goal can be accomplished with escrow I know it might be unpopular, but I'm going to make it a configuration option in client: you can configure it to either trust both timestamping server or only blockchain. It might also help against 51% attack, although I'm not sure about it. (Note that it's possible to implement it in bitcoin as a client feature, but it won't be as effective just because it's not default.)
3.4. Merged mining of stuff like ripple, distributed exchanges. (Technically this has almost nothing to do currency, but if I'll be making mining software I'll just include it there as a bonus feature.)
3.5. Potentially support for 'daughter chains', i.e. transfer of coins between many chains. I think it might help against blockchain bloat.
3.6. Constant mining rate, i.e. always 50 coins per block, forever. It would make monetary base stable, believe me or not. Rationale is that some coins are inevitably lost at a rate proportional to current quantity (on average), thus it's should be possible to get to equilibrium where number of coins lost = number of coins mined. As a side effect:
3.6.1. Since there are no changes in amount of bounties it makes things predictable and reduces volatility. (I.e. when mining goes from 50 to 25 you have change in supply and markets are going to react, even if it was known beforehand.)
3.6.2. Might subsidize transaction fees, i.e. miners don't have to charge a lot.
3.6.3. No deflationary problems like 'grandfather's wallet'.
4. I understand that many community members won't like some of these features, but the goal here is to try new things, not to get some people rich. If you don't like it, then forget about it. If nobody likes it, I have other things to do.
5. If there is an interest in bbqcoin community I can take it over. As I understand, original developer abandoned it... So this can save some time doing renaming and making initial block. However, it might be somewhat hard to switch hash algorithm 'on fly'. Also, there is already an awesome, vibrant community
Otherwise, I'm accepting donations (in form of pledges).
Thanks!
