Over the past few days there have been some comments and accusations about the relationship between DigiByte and Myriad. This post is an effort to address some of those important questions, and provide a factual foundation to move forward.
As we approach the upcoming DigiSpeed Hardfork, I suppose it is natural and important to think back and reconsider how we arrived where we are today. I understand that there are many members of our discussion who have been here since the very beginning. I haven't been around since the very beginning - but, I've been around for a long time, and have done extensive research on the work and development of DGB. However, there are also some people who are new to our discussion - and who might not have had the time to fully research the context for the current discussion. To best address some of the concerns and accusations, I am going to organize the links and discussion based around questions and ideas from previous posts. Keeping that in mind, this post is not a direct response to any single post in the recent conversation.
Why did DGB fork to multi-algo mining?Security. Plain and simple. On many occasions, Jared has stated that security is the 1st priority for development. And, distributed mining is at the core of security for a POW coin.
DigiShield was first released in February of 2014. The first version of DigiShield was implemented to reduce the unfair and unequal impacts of multipools on mining. DigiShield was a major advancement for DigiByte - and for digital currencies generally. Many other alt coins adopted DigiShield (including DOGE) and it established DGB as an innovative leader in digital currency. However, throughout the spring of 2014, Jared and the development team began to work on improving DigiShield and began to think about ways to make DGB even more secure. The objective was to get more hashing power. But, the problem was to get distributed and fair hashing power while simutaneously increasing security by improving DigiShield.
One of the early ideas was to merge-mine DGB with another coin. Over the course of a couple of months, the community - and the development team - decided that moving toward multi-algo mining was a better solution than simply merge mining.
For references to the above points you could look at these links:
https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7061946#msg7061946https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7185558#msg7185558 Does DigiByte mislead people into thinking that it was the first multi-algo coin?No. None of us have ever said we were the first. DigiByte, the community, Jared, and the development team, clearly used Myriad as the inspiration for multi-algo mining. Anyone who thinks different can watch this video posted about a year and a half ago (at the end of May 2014). At several points in the video Jared commends Myriad development and discusses Myriad as an inspiration for the DGB move to multi-algo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-0T99DZml4Why does DigiByte promote the fact that they were the first coin to fork from single algorithm mining to multi-algorithm mining?Because we are proud of the achievement. Forking to multi-algo was complicated and required new innovations - some devs from other coins even said that it wouldn't be possible. DGB was not simply creating a new multi-algo alt-coin, they were combining the existing benefits of DigiShield with newly added mining algorithms. The objective was to create more security, improve the distribution of mining hashrates, and integrate additional development and coding for mining. Putting all the different pieces together required significant innovation and development. Jared and the development team did a great job - and we are all proud to have been the first coin to accomplish a fork from single to multi-algo mining.
In addition to accomplishing the fork - DGB was the first to get 5 algorithms hashing in the same pool:
http://digihash.co/ It might not seem like a big deal - even I have taken digihash for granted - but it is important to remember that even the official pool of DGB was an innovation and advancement. Nobody had been able to get 5 algorithms hashing the same NOMP pool.
Again, for references to the above points you could look at these links:
https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7386556#msg7386556https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7848907#msg7848907https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7896756#msg7896756Did DigiByte just clone (or otherwise copy) Myriad?The answer is no - it is not a clone of Myriad. And, yes, it is built on the foundation that Myriad developed. Combining the foundation of multi-algo mining with DigiShield required more effort than copying and pasting code. In the same way that DigiShield was adopted and implemented by other coins - the multi-algo mining of Myriad was adapted and implemented by DGB. Having the ability to share and combine development ideas is the foundation of open source software. It is a central belief in digital currency.
DGB went through several months of evaluating different algorithms and implementations of the unique fork to multi-algo mining. Each was evaluated for efficiency, successful mining, combination with DigiShield, possible mining distribution, community feedback, etc.. There was a time when Jared considered only implementing 3 algorithms. Among others, they also considered and evaluated Keccack, Blake, and Quark.
https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7347863#msg7347863https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg7348700#msg7348700How successful was the implementation? And, why is any of this discussion relevant now as we move toward the new DigiSpeed Fork?In general it was a tremendous success. The fork to multi-algo mining occurred in September 2014 after months of development and testing. In addition to the previously mentioned innovations, the fork accomplished all the objectives of, (1) more evenly distributing the mining hashrate, (2) increasing the overall hashrate, and (3) improving the security. Over the past year, Jared and the development team have continued to work and evaluate the implementation. The real-world security of combining multi-algo mining with DigiShield did not reach the levels that they had projected during the development process. This was not a mistake or problem - it was simply a difference between the projected impact and the actual impact. We have had several extended conversations about the actual distribution and security. The link here is a good place to reference one of them:
https://bitcoin-forums.net/index.php?topic=408268.msg11839085#msg11839085As we move toward the upcoming DigiSpeed fork, we will be implementing the additional improvements (multishield, enhanced security, etc.). Jared has also indicated that there will likely be additional monitoring and additions (through several soft forks) over the coming year. Overall, these developments and innovations build on each other to further distinguish DGB as a leader at innovations and developments across digital currency.
It is also worth mentioning that in addition to the DigiByte core protocol, just in the past 6-8 months, we have seen the successful development and launch of DigiByte Gaming, several iOS and android wallets (including the DigiByte Gaming Wallet), integration of DigiByte with social media (through DigiByteTip), and the development of the soon-to-be-released DigiByte Marketplace (expected to be fully released in early November). Oh, and I nearly forgot the work that DigiByte contributed to the TofuGear Omnitech platform. It's amazing that I nearly forgot to mention the Omnitech development ... smart shopping and payments ... smart mirrors ... integrated online and brick-and-mortar retail ... connecting the payment protocols of digital currency with the internet of things ... it's so important - such a huge development - that it deserves a whole separate post of accolades ... but, will have to suffice here as an "also mentioned" item. But, just to be fair, here are some links for more information:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86CVAVr99-Ihttps://digibytetip.com/http://digibytegaming.com/---
I have, in this discussion not included the work and development done by members of the DGB community.
Work like HR's comprehensive guides and information at
http://asistec-ti.com/forum/ ... anyone who has technical questions about setting up equipment, wallets, etc.., should look there.
We have also seen the development of Digistats by Alaniz.
http://digistats.info/#/ His effort in getting that online and working has been tremendous - and the site provides extensive and useful information to the community.
We should also mention past and ongoing community work done to develop the dedicated DigiByte Forum:
http://www.digibyteforum.com/index.php And, finally, to thank all of the members of the community who have helped Jumbley, 24, and myself, with the DigiByte Group:
https://digibytegroup.com/---
We have a lot going for us here at DGB. We have a great dev - Thanks Jared. And, we have a great community - thanks to everyone. And, I have a feeling that the future growth, innovation, and development of DGB will be even better.
