An Issue with Overall Rate of Coin ProductionThis posting will cover a slightly different issue we have been having. We are suffering from anemic hashing in the coin overall, even if we were to consider the contribution of Coin Hoppers (green bars) jumping in for easy coins, to be a legitimate contribution (something of a dubious proposition).
Please observe that I have marked off six-hour periods on the X-Axis with dotted lines. These represent how often block difficulty adjustment periods should occur, if the coin operated according to current specifications. The math is as follows - 36 blocks per adjustment period, 10 minutes per block = 360 minutes = 6 hours.
Over the course of one week, we should see a total of 7 (days) x 4 (6 hour periods per day) = 28 adjustment periods. But if you count the stairsteps in the illustration above, there are only 14 adjustment periods that took place. This means for that entire week, the average coin production rate was only 50% of what it should have been. Instead of producing 50,400 coins that week, we only produced 25,200 coins. This means that miners were underpaid by 50% compared to the production rate promised, to correspond to this 50% underproduction.
I believe this fully explains the anemic hashing on the Catcoin network. If we had the Catcoin software simply produce the number of coins it promised to produce (50 coins every 10 minutes, on average), I believe we will see a substantial increase in the hashing activity on the Catcoin network.
Sentiments ExpressedThere have been sentiments expressed by some, about looking at the rate of coin production (should average 5 per minute), and block timing (should average 10 minutes per block), as being faulty. Among the arguments made:
1. There is no such thing as "minutes" in the cryptocurrency world, and if 50 coins get paid per block, there has not been underproduction regardless of how long these blocks take to solve, and nobody was underpaid.
2. "Difficulty" is all about changes in the blockchain timing and is only incidentally related to things like cost of performing hashing work or the price of coins on the exchanges, so focus should be on smoothing out the shape of the curve only.
3. It will all even out through averages, because the formulas are designed to compensate and spend some time in high difficulty, and other times in low difficulty so there is "no problem."
4. The graphs are fallacious, because they manipulate data to support a desired argument.
I believe in light of the massive underproduction of coins illustrated above, and massive underpayment of miners in relation to what is promised in the code, #1 and #3 do not require further arguments. #2 and #4 do deserve a bit more attention.
Answer to #2 - This may make more sense to some of you with experience in investing and finances than to those who are primarily coders. It goes like this: In the real world, where people make decisions about where to put money, whether or not to borrow money, where electricity costs money per kilowatt-hour, and computers and video cards cost definite sums of money, it is all about putting in the least amount of investment, to get out as much returns as possible measured in time (return on investment), with as little risk as possible. There are two independent values which can be expressed in terms of cost per unit - a) The current value of a coin in the exchanges, and b) The current cost (taking into account hardware, labor, space utilized, electricity, etc.) of delivering megahash-hours to a coin network. These two values cannot be controlled by the programmer - they are external facts which must be accepted and respected by the coder. The "difficulty" parameter is a technical parameter hidden deep inside the coin, and its primary function is to act as the ratio or intermediation between #a and #b above. Given any price of the coin (whether it is 5 cents or $500), and any cost of performing a megahash-hour of mining (whether it is a penny, or $2.50), this "difficulty" variable alone can bring the two into equilibrium. Since this is the only variable that can keep the relationship between market price of coins, and cost of producing them, in proper ratio, it should be respected for this function. Any theory about the difficulty variable as being something that can be coerced into some shape without considering this important function can do nothing but wreak havoc and create opportunities for arbitrage for the coin hoppers (some variation of the green and tall rectangles in the box above, representing easy coin production for very brief periods of time). I suggest every stakeholder in Catcoins digest this idea and really consider the ramifications, when various proposals are put forth for "fixing the difficulty problem."
Answer to #4 - I selected a one week period which at the time was the one week immediately preceeding when I started working on the charts, without knowing exactly what they will end up looking like. As I have covered, there are even some things which surprised me, so I definitely went into it with a scientific spirit rather than with my mind made up about exactly what lessons are to be drawn. Also, I submit that the graphs cover a one week period with 14 difficulty adjustment periods - and it would be very difficult to select 14 consecutive cycles of wildly varying difficulty cycles and durations which would support one viewpoint, where any other 14 consecutive cycles would not. I challenge anyone who believes I have cherry picked my dataset to select a different 7-day period (or longer period) that you consider a fairer sampling of the data, that suggests or supports a different viewpoint.
A Note to SupportersSome of you have sent me private messages expressing support for what I am doing even if it does upset some of the established people who prefer to lead by taking initiative without getting consensus. I believe consensus building is an essential part of keeping a healthy coin, and will endeavor to continue posting informative articles to keep the community up to date.
On a somewhat unrelated note, some individuals who I will not name, have threatened to kick me from the development team, because they did not appreciate my posting information and graphs with which they did not agree. Although I suggested they are free to post any information they would like to show a better way forward, they felt that I should simply cease to participate in this coin and in this forum, on their say-so, and go create a new coin - to leave them in peace to implement a new fork I would consider sub-optimal, and without getting community consensus first. I respect the community consensus, and if I receive indication that there is community consensus that my postings and graphs and explanations here have been "disruptive" and "only muddying the waters for the primarily trader audience," vs. my intention, which is to be informative, educational, and maybe a bit entertaining, then I will respect the consensus and stop posting.
Thank you for your time and consideration,
Etblvu1