Biomech or Thundertoe.......
Any word on the fork? I would also like to know if any thought is put into not having to sync the entire block chain for a wallet. It is becoming cumbersome. Is there a way to draw the line in the sand and say "the past is the past and what happened before..say 6 months ago is archived." then just download from that point to current. then every 6 months, archive another 6 months of the block chain. Is this possible or just crazy talk? Man I could see this becoming a monster in a few years, and that can't be good for the industry.
Actually, no, that is not possible without completely changing how the blockchain works. But you can download a bootstrap and speed up the process considerably. I'm pretty sure there's one maintained continuously posted in the OP. If I'm wrong on that, I will see if I can make it happen. I have the knowledge, just need hosting
Last time I talked to Thundertoe, a bit over a week ago, the fork was still being worked on. I didn't get an ETA. As I noted before, I'm not actually part of the dev team for TEK, aside from being an enthusiast and occasionally helping with testing and what not. I've got some inside contact, but at least currently, no inside information.
Thanks for the explanation Biomech. And the update. I did use a bootstrap, it was a bit dated and I still had to sync a lot of data which took over 30 hours to complete. I am just considering the future.
TEK is only a couple of years old, and already the blockchain is becoming a bit of a beast. What is it going to look like in 5 more years? and how is that going to effect folks wanting to have a wallet? If this experiment is ever going to go mainstream, it has to be feasible for folks to have and maintain a wallet. I know this is an issue for Bitcoin and the other Alts as well, but if something CAN be done, this is a way for TEK devs to distinguish this coin from some of the other rabble. Again, I'm not a programmer, and don't quite get the limitations of what can or cannot be done with a blockchain, but some forward looking thought should be put into the coin if we wish it to break away from the pack.
As a business man, I immediately recognized the value of SuperStake, and am now seeing that as a two edged sword. I totally dislike the idea of trillions of TEK on the market diminishing the coin to absolutely no value. I am hoping that wider adoption, and more folks staking will help to take care of this issue, but if it adoption doesn't happen quickly enough, the stake rate MUST be address or we fail. The same holds true for blockchain management.
As far as hard forks go, I would much rather see the dev team put some thought into maintaining value and ease of use, rather then simply focusing on preventing micro-staking. It is arguable that micro-staking, as frustrating as it is for folks who see the difficulty climb and percentages drop, was having a bit of a calming effect on the coin from a inflationary standpoint. Runaway staking and coin deployment is also not desirable.
Do we want a coin that is something special? If so, the Devs need to have some gimmicks ready. Why buy TEK? because of Superstake, and X, and Y. We as a community also need to start coming up with ways to use TEK as more then just a staking asset. If the coin had intrinsic value, something other then the eco-mine aspect, (which we adore, but that alone will not save the coin) and the development team needs to be a partner in this.
Do we need to create a donation pool for the Dev team? I realize they have lives too, and likely jobs to boot!
If compensation for their time a trouble would help, then us as a community have the obligation to make it possible for the team to spend more time on the project. Perhaps some discussion with the community and some brainstorming is in order, where members submit ideas and the team considers and discusses what is and is not possible.
I would love to hear Thundertoe weigh in on this a bit.
I can think of a couple of ways to handle blockchain bloat. One is "Thin" clients, like electrum, but able to calculate and properly distribute staking. I suspect this is a fairly trivial exercise for those who can code, but I don't actually know. Another would be to, as you said, combine and truncate the blockchain at some point. This is fraught with uncertainties and likely to be problematic, but it could be done. I actually would favor, in a fork, updating to the newest bitcoin core, because it is much more efficient at downloading the blockchain.
30 hours after using a bootstrap, though, that's weird. I synched from zero in roughly 40 hours. Just a few days ago I did this. Your comments are well thought out, and blockchain bloat is going to be a problem at some point going forward, but I think that the synching problems you're having are local.