I'm wondering whether HBN's emphasis on encouraging small stake values is contributing to the problems spoken of here. The maximum coin block size to optimise Proof Of Stake is 250 HBN. HoboNickels consistently refers to this reward as a '~2%' stake once a coin block matures and not '~2% interest'. The reason given for this policy is that it will keep people in Stake mode longer - 24/7 for some - and this will help with network security.
That was the original wording of Thundertoe, circa 2013. I never changed it, as I thought it fit pretty well, and was easy to understand. I suppose I could change or remove it.
I suspect that this might not be as effective as might be thought. The average number of active connections on the HBN network isn't that high, and some POS coins without maximum, coin-block, optimum stake sizes perform quite well by comparison in that area. I suspect that the difficulty in staking turns quite a lot of people away, who would otherwise significantly add to the security of the HBN network.
Fair points. But keeping the inflation rate constant is also a consideration. Staking on HBN network is still pretty easy.
To have stake-splitting combined with predominantly small coin block size values leads to many, many, smaller calculations. Like a chain reaction. I should imagine that is a major contributor to the blockchain expanding. Is not blockchain saturation a security risk and a vulnerability for a form of attack?
PoS and PoW work together to make 30 second block time. If we never had 1 PoS block created, we would still be at 1.4 million blocks.
Recently, I completed a full installation of the new HBN wallet on a 32-bit Windows XP machine with 8 Gb of RAM. It took nearly three days. I suppose that is to be expected for a wallet with a long-established blockchain, and HoboNickels has been around for longer than most. I have a faster i5 64-bit machine. The HBN Windows client is tagged as 32-bit. Will it run on a 64-bit machine with a 64-bit Windows7 operating system just as easily?
Yes 32 will work on either. A 64 bit client will only work on 64. My best time to sync from start, in the last few months, was 14 hours. My worst time was about 3 days as well. And these was from the same network connection and very similar computers. The difference was the peers I was connected to in the former case were feeding me blocks faster, and I didn't have as many wallet transactions to independently verify, although still a few thousand.
I found that the old, about to be phased out, wallet (v4.0.1) performed well. Transactions were fast and it was quick to load, although rather slow to stake. This has been my experience since first coming to HoboNickels in April. I hope that the fast stake v5 will be better. I've split 26,000 HBN into 10 coin-blocks of 500 HBN and the rest in 250 HBN coin-blocks - all with individual addresses to help keep track of staking. The 500 HBN and 250 HBN values were based on previously given advice.
Nothing should change on the usability of the client. Some things that you couldn't do, such as import a private key and still use the gui, are now an option on 1.5 The staking algo has only been slightly changed from 1.4 to 1.5, the split/combine threshold should prevent the blocks from getting split to far down and causing to much CPU usage.
I suppose what I am really trying to get at here is that I am sold on HoboNickels as a concept, but have some reservations. I would welcome stake-splitting with far higher parameters, if not phased out entirely, and the raising of the maximum optimum stake level to a much higher value, if not abolished altogether. I do not want to have to run my computers for long, extended periods in order to generate Proof of Stake. Certainly not 24/7. It doesn't fit in with my lifestyle. I prefer POS to be more like interest - there and easily accessible as of right - as opposed to being like the laborious, Proof of Work with a questionable break-even conciliation. That is too much like mining. I have better things to do!
Yes stake splitting will be increased in the future as noted. The max reward is likely to stay at 250 for the foreseeable future, if not forever.
I appreciate the feedback.
Thanks!
