Suggestion: since you're incorporating mining but not using it to confirm transactions, why not just use BOINC? (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/ -- grid computing for scientific problems, cancer, AIDS, protein folding, etc.) Benefits:
1. Ripple's already doing this, with their World Community Grid "giveaway", and it seems like as good a proof of work scheme as anything else.
2. It's doing something that is obviously good and useful with your computing power. Might help you raise interest in Splash -- BOINC is useful in a much more concrete way than, say, finding long prime number chains.
3. It's easy for people to set up BOINC. It has a user-friendly interface. It runs on everything -- heck, I have it cranking away on my phone, because why not? Contrast this with, say, cgminer or cudaminer, which are a nightmare to set up the first time you do it.
Topic: [pre-ANN] Splash: Ripple without the pre-mine - page 2. (Read 6414 times)
IOU is the world largest scam in history.
The world has certainly had its fair share of IOU scams, yes! In fact my original conception of Splash was to be "Ripple with nothing but the pure currency" (the XRP). (And, of course, without the pre-mine.) This would then act as a testing lab to see just how well the consensus algorithm works, especially under DDoS attacks, Sybil attacks, etc.
However, in the end I decided to leave the full IOU-managing functionality in place. I had two motives: (1) it's there for those who want it, and it can simply be ignored by anyone who doesn't want it - they can choose to only ever use the pure currency (the XSP); and, uh, (2) you'd be amazed how long editing other people's code takes... it's easier to leave it in than to take it out!
If, after Splash is up and running, someone wants to fork it to "mini-Splash", with nothing but XSP, created purely by proof of work, and ledgers managing the XSP, created purely by the Ripple consensus algorithm... then yes, that would be an interesting experiment too.
(If they took it just one step further, and changed the consensus algorithm to a find-chain-with-most-work algorithm... then they'd have pretty much reinvented Bitcoin.
) 
interesting
I like it. I'm watching.
IOU is the world largest scam in history.
(reserved for further updates etc.)
NOTE 2013-12-18: I'll be away from the net for a fortnight, and rather busy even after getting back online. I'll likely not be settling down to proper Splash development till mid-January. (yeah, maybe my late February launch date is a tad optimistic... time will tell...) Please don't think badly of me if I'm not very responsive, in this thread or elsewhere. I'll probably still be lurking, and thinking carefully about everything everyone has to say.
EDIT 2014-05-04: I'm throwing this open to the community, since I have to concede large software development defeats me. It always takes ten times longer than you think, so I was making slow progress anyway. (And my life got complicated in various other ways that didn't help.) But now, something new has happened. Peter R has proposed a new standard for launching alt-coins: "Spin-offs: bootstrap your alt-coin with a bitcoin-blockchain-based initial coin distribution". I'm very impressed with this launch style, and I think it's the right way to launch Splash.
Unlike the proof-of-work way of minting XSP, though, I'm not claiming any special insight into the technical details of getting "Splash as a spin-off" done. (Even in the proof-of-work case, I wasn't really claiming that stunning an insight anyway. Essentially just a syntax for XSP-birth transactions that mentions only work and not money [XSP amount]; which simplifies how they can be baked into the consensus, without having to pick and choose among them if there's lots of them, and yet without ever exceeding the desired XSP asymptotic total, no matter how many of them are floating around.) So, "Splash as a spin-off" would really better be done by other people who may like to give it a go, rather than by me.
With that in mind, it's grand announcement time! I hereby relinquish the name "Splash", the slogan "Ripple without the pre-mine", and the currency abbreviation "XSP" to whoever is first to fork Ripple in spin-off style, i.e. starting with the Bitcoin UTXO-set - or, to be precise, the subset that translates into the rather impoverished Ripple address syntax (no multi-sig, no scripts, just single pubkeyhashes). - Or they could do it in Counterparty's style, with XSP minted by BTC being burned. Basically I relinquish to whoever is first to do a Ripple fork without an allocation by software special-case fiat to the developers, or to any other special cases. (That even includes doing it in my originally intended way, namely, XSP birth by proof of work. As I say, I'm no longer so enamoured myself of that way of doing it, but it certainly qualifies as not privileging the developers or other special cases, so... if a team doing it that way is first, they can grab my names and slogans.)
OK let's hope Splash in some recognisable form comes into existence! Let me summarize by putting it like this: I've given up my own personal involvement, but I haven't given up the dream.
NOTE 2013-12-18: I'll be away from the net for a fortnight, and rather busy even after getting back online. I'll likely not be settling down to proper Splash development till mid-January. (yeah, maybe my late February launch date is a tad optimistic... time will tell...) Please don't think badly of me if I'm not very responsive, in this thread or elsewhere. I'll probably still be lurking, and thinking carefully about everything everyone has to say.
EDIT 2014-05-04: I'm throwing this open to the community, since I have to concede large software development defeats me. It always takes ten times longer than you think, so I was making slow progress anyway. (And my life got complicated in various other ways that didn't help.) But now, something new has happened. Peter R has proposed a new standard for launching alt-coins: "Spin-offs: bootstrap your alt-coin with a bitcoin-blockchain-based initial coin distribution". I'm very impressed with this launch style, and I think it's the right way to launch Splash.
Unlike the proof-of-work way of minting XSP, though, I'm not claiming any special insight into the technical details of getting "Splash as a spin-off" done. (Even in the proof-of-work case, I wasn't really claiming that stunning an insight anyway. Essentially just a syntax for XSP-birth transactions that mentions only work and not money [XSP amount]; which simplifies how they can be baked into the consensus, without having to pick and choose among them if there's lots of them, and yet without ever exceeding the desired XSP asymptotic total, no matter how many of them are floating around.) So, "Splash as a spin-off" would really better be done by other people who may like to give it a go, rather than by me.
With that in mind, it's grand announcement time! I hereby relinquish the name "Splash", the slogan "Ripple without the pre-mine", and the currency abbreviation "XSP" to whoever is first to fork Ripple in spin-off style, i.e. starting with the Bitcoin UTXO-set - or, to be precise, the subset that translates into the rather impoverished Ripple address syntax (no multi-sig, no scripts, just single pubkeyhashes). - Or they could do it in Counterparty's style, with XSP minted by BTC being burned. Basically I relinquish to whoever is first to do a Ripple fork without an allocation by software special-case fiat to the developers, or to any other special cases. (That even includes doing it in my originally intended way, namely, XSP birth by proof of work. As I say, I'm no longer so enamoured myself of that way of doing it, but it certainly qualifies as not privileging the developers or other special cases, so... if a team doing it that way is first, they can grab my names and slogans.
)OK let's hope Splash in some recognisable form comes into existence! Let me summarize by putting it like this: I've given up my own personal involvement, but I haven't given up the dream.
(...or "pre-non-mine", or whatever it should be called exactly).
EDIT 2014-05-04: I'm throwing this open to the community, since I have to concede large software development defeats me. I'm recommending Peter R's "spin-off" concept as the best style for Splash, but anyone who wants to do it my originally intended way is welcome too. See message immediately following this one for my grand announcement putting the Splash names / slogans up for grabs.
(original message resumes here...)
I'm currently developing a fork of Ripple which may be of interest to readers of the alts section of the forum. I call it "Splash: Ripple without the pre-mine".
There's been a lot of talk recently about possible forks of Ripple - in particular, is it possible to do without the built-in ripples (XRP), and have only IOUs with counterparties, denominated in external currencies? Well, maybe that's possible, and if someone wants to have a go, it should be an interesting experiment. But for myself, I quite like the existence of XRP. It has useful path-shortening and anti-spam functionality, which would be difficult to achieve with only externally-defined IOUs. And it's nice to have something counterparty-free in the system.
The thing I don't like about Ripple's XRP, though - and I know I'm not alone in this! - is that it's "pre-[non-]mined": created by software fiat in one big bang at the start, and allocated to accounts controlled entirely by RippleLabs. RippleLabs then starts behaving something like a central banker, introducing it into circulation as it sees fit. All users must play guessing games about just how fast or slow they'll be in doing this.
It would be so much more in keeping with our community's traditions if XRP could instead come into existence gradually, by proof of work mining, asymptoting towards a ceiling quantity on a fixed schedule everyone knows in advance - i.e. like Bitcoin.
The Ripple folks have stated that their consensus algorithm is not compatible with proof of work. Well, I'll take their word for it - and in Splash I'm leaving the Ripple consensus algorithm alone: I'm not trying to introduce proof of work there.
The exciting news is: I've found a way to introduce proof of work at transaction level, rather than ledger (block) level. Thus, barring any unexpected hitches in the development process, I hope to unleash Splash on the world soon.
Splash will be just like Ripple in its core user functionality - it'll have both a built-in pure cryptocurrency ("splashes", XSP), and the ability to manage IOUs with counterparties, denominated in other, external currencies. All the Ripple trading and order book features will be present unchanged. The difference will be that no XSP will exist initially. All XSP will be born by decentralized, anonymous miners submitting a special kind of transaction to the network: one with proof of work embedded in its syntax, which, when accepted by the Splash consensus algorithm into a ledger, causes new XSP to be born at whatever address the miner chooses.
I'm hoping to launch around late February 2014. In the meantime, I've put a Splash page on the wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Splash (still very introductory for now). I'd be delighted if any Ripple gateway folk would be interested in running a Splash gateway too. For example, perhaps the good folks at DividendRippler (https://dividendrippler.com/) might like to run a "DividendSplasher" too?
This is, as I say in the title, not so much an ANN as a pre-ANN. I hope to say more as development progresses, either here or on the above wiki page (or both). Wish me luck!
EDIT 2014-05-04: I'm throwing this open to the community, since I have to concede large software development defeats me. I'm recommending Peter R's "spin-off" concept as the best style for Splash, but anyone who wants to do it my originally intended way is welcome too. See message immediately following this one for my grand announcement putting the Splash names / slogans up for grabs.
(original message resumes here...)
I'm currently developing a fork of Ripple which may be of interest to readers of the alts section of the forum. I call it "Splash: Ripple without the pre-mine".
There's been a lot of talk recently about possible forks of Ripple - in particular, is it possible to do without the built-in ripples (XRP), and have only IOUs with counterparties, denominated in external currencies? Well, maybe that's possible, and if someone wants to have a go, it should be an interesting experiment. But for myself, I quite like the existence of XRP. It has useful path-shortening and anti-spam functionality, which would be difficult to achieve with only externally-defined IOUs. And it's nice to have something counterparty-free in the system.
The thing I don't like about Ripple's XRP, though - and I know I'm not alone in this! - is that it's "pre-[non-]mined": created by software fiat in one big bang at the start, and allocated to accounts controlled entirely by RippleLabs. RippleLabs then starts behaving something like a central banker, introducing it into circulation as it sees fit. All users must play guessing games about just how fast or slow they'll be in doing this.
It would be so much more in keeping with our community's traditions if XRP could instead come into existence gradually, by proof of work mining, asymptoting towards a ceiling quantity on a fixed schedule everyone knows in advance - i.e. like Bitcoin.
The Ripple folks have stated that their consensus algorithm is not compatible with proof of work. Well, I'll take their word for it - and in Splash I'm leaving the Ripple consensus algorithm alone: I'm not trying to introduce proof of work there.
The exciting news is: I've found a way to introduce proof of work at transaction level, rather than ledger (block) level. Thus, barring any unexpected hitches in the development process, I hope to unleash Splash on the world soon.
Splash will be just like Ripple in its core user functionality - it'll have both a built-in pure cryptocurrency ("splashes", XSP), and the ability to manage IOUs with counterparties, denominated in other, external currencies. All the Ripple trading and order book features will be present unchanged. The difference will be that no XSP will exist initially. All XSP will be born by decentralized, anonymous miners submitting a special kind of transaction to the network: one with proof of work embedded in its syntax, which, when accepted by the Splash consensus algorithm into a ledger, causes new XSP to be born at whatever address the miner chooses.
I'm hoping to launch around late February 2014. In the meantime, I've put a Splash page on the wiki: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Splash (still very introductory for now). I'd be delighted if any Ripple gateway folk would be interested in running a Splash gateway too. For example, perhaps the good folks at DividendRippler (https://dividendrippler.com/) might like to run a "DividendSplasher" too?
This is, as I say in the title, not so much an ANN as a pre-ANN. I hope to say more as development progresses, either here or on the above wiki page (or both). Wish me luck!
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