Topic: [PRE-ANN] {Name TBD}: Let's skip the pump n dump phase completely, okay? (Read 3688 times)

Not as yet; I've read a lot of qt documentation and think I've figured out what I need to do to get the qt client working, but I haven't done it yet.  I'll be working on it this weekend and see if I can't get something real going. 

Any launch date?

Yes, that would be best, and I will definitely publish the code I use.  I fear that if I publish the code first though, people will "game" it more than they will already just from my description.  


My designed features are:
1.  Does not unduly penalize small amounts, but also does not advantage them because Sybil attacks must remain unprofitable.

2.  Makes it impossible to create a valid block without reporting it to the network.  Block formation by proof-of-stake requires the cooperation of multiple 'secondary' participants, who are paid a partial block award for publishing the block regardless of whether the block eventually becomes valid.  The additional participants may invalidate the formed block if it fails to contain at least 3/4 of the valid outstanding transactions they know about, and automatically invalidate a block if their 'node' is not online and responding when they are selected for block formation.  Both participants and block formers are selected on a quasi-random basis weighted by their amount of coin age.  Published but invalid blocks become transactions available to subsequent valid blocks, paying the secondary participants
(those who responded when called upon) a partial block award.  This ensures that the 'coin age' expended in forming them supports the valid chain as much as it supports any chain that becomes invalid. This is to prevent any advantage from being gained by using one's 'coin age' to form blocks in separate incompatible chains.  It will happen, fairly frequently, that one of the valid blocks coming out on average seven times an hour, contains the wreckage of many invalid attempted blocks.  The amount of the partial block award given to both the primary (block forming) and secondary (block checking/publishing) participants are adjusted by no more than a few percent per day in order to achieve an average award of a half-coin per block (adjusted for inflation).

3.  Blocks formed by proof-of-work cannot be invalidated because secondary participants are offline, but may be invalidated if secondary participants reject the block on the grounds that it has failed to include at least 3/4 of the transactions they know about. Blocks formed by proof-of-work always receive 100% of the nominal mining award, which means that more than the nominal block award will be created whenever a proof-of-work block is found.


Mmmf.  The important thing to me is that there should be additional denominations just as natural to think about as the nominal or default denomination.  Not truly hung up on what to call them.  I thought of colors, which some like but others don't like that much. Others thought of metals, which I could go with but don't like that much,  now I'm thinking maybe I'll just give them funny names based on metric prefixes.

How would people feel about trading in Terrys, Gigis, Kilroys, Millies, Unas, Mikes, Nanettes, and Picards? I'm starting to think I like it.

Very interesting idea, I like it. Few thoughts, though:

1. I really hope that you're going to publish a piece of code that crawls through Bitcoin blockchain (or unspent outputs pool, depending on your implementation) and deterministically selects the addresses for initial distribution instead of just giving a blob of addresses chosen by you. If not, you surely will be blamed for cheating and filling the list with addresses own by you or your friends.

2. Are you going to give any details of your PoS implementation (white paper would be the best choice)? It would be good if the community could review it for possible flaws or weaknesses before the actual release.

3. I like the idea of coloured denominations, but dislike assigning amounts to the rainbow. It may be hard to distinguish between adjacent colours at a glance, and this surely will be used for scamming. The colours should differ as much as possible, i.e. Black, Red, Green, Orange, Blue, Yellow, Purple (violet), White.

It certainly would, if I kept that requirement.  But after some research, that requirement appears to be untenable.  So I'll have to drop it.   

When I realized that less than 5% had ever dealt in Bitcoin with anything except an exchange, I got to thinking about the role exchanges play when people actually *ARE* using the cryptocurrency as money.

I don't think anyone can pay the rent or buy the weekly groceries with Bitcoin anywhere, save by sending to an exchange and getting local currency in return.  So to penalize people for not using it as money, on the basis of having only ever bought from and sold to exchanges, would be factually wrong.  The only way people *can* use cryptocurrencies as money in these early days, at least for ordinary routine transactions of the kind I'd like this system to facilitate, is via an exchange. 

I'd like to get it into the hands of people who will use it as money rather than as a speculative vehicle, but after consideration, I simply have no way of distinguishing the two populations based on the information in the blockchain, and besides the way I'd considered doing it would have resulted in too narrow an initial distribution.

Heh.  Go back and read my description.  Black (infrared) Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple (violet), White (ultraviolet).

The spectrum was exactly what I was thinking of when I picked the colors.  I added black and white (mapped to infrared and ultraviolet) just because I thought they would make psychologically natural endpoints for the idea of a progression of colors.  Black was naturally mapped to infrared (and smallest denomination) because infrared is lowest energy and black is no energy, and that left white mapped to ultraviolet.

So, um, yeah, I agree with you about that progression thing.

Great detailed answers addressing all concerns! I look forward to seeing more of what is to come of this

I recall seeing an estimate that up to 50% of the wallets of the earliest miners were lost at some point, due to just not thinking that bitcoin would ever have any value and overwriting it with a cool new game instead -- or having a hard drive failure, or losing the notebook that the key was scribbled in, or an OS reinstall after forgetting to back up the bitcoin wallet, etc....  

I guess that more recent miners, aware that bitcoin has actual value now, have been much more careful with their wallets, and that at this point a smaller total fraction of them (like 40%) are lost.  

If my share winds up smaller than I presently imagine, I will shrug and laugh.  My retirement is already paid for, this is something I'm doing mostly because I think it's good for the world.  If my share winds up much larger than I presently imagine, and the cryptocurrency turns out to have actual value, then I will probably use the excess to do something else I think is good for the world, like funding long-term (more than a century) research into the maintenance of closed biospheres, human bioengineering for longevity, contributing to an endowment for an eventual off-earth colony, etc.  Or possibly spend it on stuff I in particular find to be fun and rewarding, like robotics, 3d printing, automated construction, solar power engineering, or AI research.  


Fund?  Ha.  I'd be putting up a public server with a stable IP address, working on development as often as I can, completely ignoring the concept of marketing, and expecting no help except from volunteers.  And if no one volunteers, I'd be okay with that too.  I'm in no hurry.   The entire point is to try to create a *usable* digital currency, not to invest in it or get rich off of it.


Widest possible initial distribution.  Providing a reason (hey, free coins on this blockchain!) for people who otherwise wouldn't adopt to come in.  Roughly equal initial distribution resulting, at least I hope, in roughly equal proof-of-stake awards.  


Yeah, that's a sticking point...  As I said earlier, I'd like to put it into the hands of actual users of cryptocurrencies who use it for buying and selling things rather than currency market speculators, and I could do that by just filtering out addresses that have never been used except in exchange transactions.  

But after a look at the blockchain data, as far as I can tell actual users constitute less than 5% of the population of current holders of cryptocoins, which is depressing... and I don't want to limit the initial distribution to just 5%, because that would make them into an 'elite' with an overwhelming advantage in later Proof-of-stake mining.  So that's a requirement I was considering which I think I'll have to drop.  

Any answer?

+1

Good idea. I'm not sure how many people know the wavelength colour spectrum from memory, but using a colour system that already exists is a good idea, and it's very easy to remember the scale.

This.

It makes much more sense to make use of preconceptions. When building something new you need to have some base people already understand. It would avoid confusion and lead to a much better adoption of your currency.
+ it would sound much more serious which I think it's very good in this case. You don't need the rainbow..hmm.

EDIT: I was thinking you can use the basic spectrum of the rainbow for color coding, from the most valuable coin to the least valuable. That way you'll have your system already structured (and based on a known order).

I think colour denominations are a good idea, actually. I mean, casinos do it with chips, don't they? It's an easy way to recognise denominations. Provided they look good, I think it'll work. It also creates tiers for the currency. Smaller players will deal in the smaller denominations, and bigger players will deal in the larger ones. For that reason alone I think it's brilliant.

+2

Was about to suggest the same thing.

+ I don't like the color coding. I see how it could catch in some circles.. still unsure. Or how somebody would want to trade 100 black ones.. nah it doesn't work.

+ I could help with design and other stuff you're not good at.

I meant as a trade ticker. If the ticker is as memorable as the coin name I often use the ticker when talking about a crypto currency.

Seeing however as the name is going to change, though..

I suppose you could come up with a name that still uses CC.

But, as you are considering changing the name, you may as well look at a few unique alternatives that will stand out in the crowd. Crypto-Credits sounds good, but it is a little generic. I would consider using a name that highlights the uniqueness of the coin.

If anything, MMORPGs have just about established the color=denomination scheme for the general public.

"That house costs 2 plats? That's absurd."

"I'll give you 3 coppers for that coffee, if you throw in a cookie."

Better than trying to memorizing abbreviations or trying to figure out whether you paid 0.0000017 or 0.000017 BTC for that soda.

I see. My wallet has had coins coming in and out, but only to exchanges. The coins have been spent on the exchanges, but not on services, so I'm not sure if I have any stake beyond the initial stake, but as long as I'm in the overall majority percentage of stake holders, that's not so bad.

My wallet has only been used as an intermediary for exchange transactions. Does this mean I won't get anything?

Watching with interest.

Some questions:
1. What did you base your assessment of 40% address activity on? Monthly BTC exchanged? Days destroyed? etc. Specifically, if the amount of "cryddits" claimed through the process is significantly less than what you anticipate, what will you do then? (based on the popularity of bitcoin compared with, well, any alt, I suspect this is the case).
2. Assuming that the distribution goes on, I expect 28 months to elapse before you get the coins necessary for your "pre-mine". How do you plan to fund the project in the interim? Bounties, marketing (if any), etc
3. Several coins that heavily weigh a PoS scheme vs PoW have susceptibility to spending attacks where a single holder mines the majority of PoS blocks (see yacoin for instance) without a PoW block appearing. What measures in PoS block generation do you propose to mitigate that?
4. You mention using transactions to determine if an address is valid. What is a transaction? Sending bitcoins to a non-exchange affilitated address?

Well, okay, had a little discussion with my ISP that settles it.  When it goes live it'll be with a different name. The alternative would be to reward a domain squatter for antisocial behavior.

Whatever, it wasn't the name that was important anyway.  In light of the current incident, I'll announce the new name no sooner than the release actually happens.

I see that one of you guys promptly went out and got the 'cryddit.com' domain. 

Sneaky.  But I should have expected it.  In fact, I should have registered it before I posted here. 

Now, here's a question.  Do I just pick another name, or do I work with 'cryddit.org' instead?