For the non miner in mine, can you please explain how this fix allows their to be stability and growth for the currency? Seems like with that fix in place, the vol in price seems to be pretty high. Is that what the team expected?
Kind Regards,
YC
Some people have expressed an opinion that the difficulty is changing to much or too fast. That is what it is supposed to do when the net hash changes up or down.
The difference is no other coin difficulty changes and adapts as quick as DigiShield. It is about as instant as you can get. It is much more accurate at mirroring the actuall hash rate than any other system including Kimoto Gravity Well. Even with the Kimoto Gravity Well Multipools still have the chance to "instamine" for quite a few blocks when they jump on a coin. Then one they leave the KMG can get "Stuck" for awhile at a higher difficulty.
We saw a sudden increase from less than 2 GH to over 8 GH yesterday. DigiShield performed beautifully and the multipools got a very small amount of coins compared to what they are used to getting. Not only that, but we never were "Stuck" at a high difficulty like most other coins would have been with such a dramatic increase in hash.
IMG removed to save space
What the DigiShield fix does is allow for sudden spikes in the hash rate to be properly & quickly adjusted for. This prevents pool hopping by large hash farms and multipools, where they will jump onto a coin, mine for a bit at low difficulty & then jump off, leaving the remaining loyal miners at a very high difficulty for a few hours at a reduced reward. Those graphs clearly show that it is working brilliantly btw.
IMHO the price volatility this week was mostly due to speculation on how quickly the price would rise with this fix in place, so to some extent I think yes, that was to be expected. However, with limited market volume it remains possible for someone to attempt manipulation should they be willing to risk a few bitcoins having a go. I'd give it a week or so & I think the Digishield related volatility should quieten down & we'll see much smaller movements. It would also help for one exchange to become slightly more dominant than the others so that it attracts greater volume & then acts as a kind of buffer against attempted manipulation. MintPal seems to be edging towards this position at the moment.