Topic: [Ultracoin] [Est. Feb 2014] ~ ASIC Resistant & Ultrafast 6 Second Transactions! - page 165. (Read 381021 times)

Pretty sure it is just UTC difficulty algo being too sensitive and 'correcting' too far either side of optimum.  Things seem to get a lot more twitchy at these low low N15+ POW diffs.  Also as a POS/POW hybrid adjusting teh difficulty is even more complicated as the POW diff is in feedback with the POS diff so that a weighting between the two is maintained.  I don't feel like looking it up but I have a strong hunch that the YAC difficulty adjustment settings are not as sensitive so you will not see as much oscillation in difficulty if you are trying to compare the two coins.

The two unwanted side effects of the algo adjusting the diff too low are rapid blocks seconds apart and hand in hand with easy fast blocks are a high orphan rate. 

Adjusting the diff too high is worse.  The unwanted side effect when the diff adjusts too high are slower than normal blocks, and if it it adjusts way too high like when a big hash profit hopping miner/attacker hops onto a pool when diff is low until it is quite high and then just leaves, you see other miners leave as well and exaggerate the issue.  That kind of abuse is why UTC likely has a fairly sensitive algo that readjusts every 10 blocks.  Some other coins with slow adapting diff algo have been crippled pretty badly by these kinds of maneuvers.

It is possible that a high hash profit hopping miner keeps hoping onto one of the UTC pools every time the diff drops low and takes advantage until the diff rockets upward.  However I haven't noticed it, and my payouts from the pool seem more or less at a constant interval throughout the day so I do not think UTC is being 'attacked' by a a profit hopper or an actual attacker.

If you just pick a pool and mine for a few days I think you will see your daily payout is pretty constant.  I do not think UTCs difficulty oscillation is much of a concern though it might get even more wild at N16.  If so the devs could always tweak the algo if it became a big issue. 

I've been looking, and I see only that those addresses are dominating the chain, unless I'm missing something...

So something is causing crazy swings in difficulty without actually getting confirmed blocks on the chain? Would that be a botnet?

When UTC's difficulty dropped, it seemed YAC's skyrocketed almost completely in sync. I'm at a loss as to what is happening...

He is

Not outright denial, but there is some doubt.  Let's see some proof to back your assertion about this solo miner threat.  It can be readily checked by looking at the first transaction in each of PoW blocks- the pool generation reward, but I'm sure you already know that.  And here are the pool addresses:

UgLHrPXC5QeUxdr4RSVCappd7g7uZwkXw2    utc
UXs4V2RZKzk9uPq4Hyg9AM7HJ735RNqZzE    utc2

Any block generation rewards sent to addresses other than the pools' would be attributable to competing pools/solo miners.

Vert is dead and Ultra is still stable.

literally no f**ks given, they did this to themselves when they got hacked. UTC put them on the map and they shit the bed while using our blanket

CT shutting down               

Due to very low volume and lack of good userbase, Crypto-Trade has decided to shutdown permanently due to inability to cover its expenditures on rented servers , staff salary and site promotion. All the users are requested to withdraw their funds within 48 hours.The site will continue to process pending withdrawals till our private wallet is empty. The site will go offline on 29th January 6:00 UTC.

Oh well..at least we are still above Vert.  Fabietech will be happy

With trolls like you waiting to scoop up all the coins at the bottom, it can never die ;p

U......T......C.........4.........EVA

1400 h/s on 280X @ 1200/1500 with gap=24

Thank you for that reasonable response. I agree with pretty much everything you just said, Hilux...

So right now there is one centralized force which is attacking UltraCoin through swings in difficulty. Is there denial here about that?

The way to combat it is to reward those mining UltraCoin consistently. The high fees are a deterrent from using the pool. The orphans are not only punishing the healthy, consistent miners, but they are actually rewarding the attacker. The attacker wins the spoils of the 'race' (30 UTC) while invalidating the work of the miners in the pool.

To be clear, my interest is mainly in YAC. But more than anything else, I need a race to the top and not a race to the bottom. There are only a handful of scrypt-chacha coins left now...

Please sell your UTC then. You have always been negative towards UTC apart from your first 3 posts. Your an unwelcome disappointment of a community member.  Go back to your Darkcoin forum please and leave us in peace

I don't think there is an issue with orphans worth worrying about in my opinion.

With other coins a high orphan rate is typically linked to low difficulty + lots of hash.  Blocks are easy to solve at low diff so the race to the finish line from different miners is much closer.  Even UTC1 at Tumblingblock with 10% network hash is hitting blocks sometimes seconds apart now.  With block intervals like that there is going to be orphans as one pool (or solo miner) beats the other to the finish line in a photo finish. 

I don't see how consolidating hash power into less pools has a net positive benefit.  It is more healthy to have more pools and solo mining with some orphans than a single dominant pool solving every block (thus no orhpans).  You do not want all the hash in one pool.  Quark for example has that issue with 90%+ hash at one pool and it used by FUDsters as an attack on the currency daily (regardless if it is an actual concern). 

Consolidating all pools is solving one issue that is primarily cosmetic and creating another issue that is real (network centralization).

I'm adding value right now by telling you you are devaluing UltraCoin with large fees to 'balance' your pools when you are actually just incentivizing orphans. You don't understand blockchain transaction processing. You don't understand orphans. And I'm waiting for more people to speak up...

we need some good news quickly... price slipping away...

this happens everytime i buy. i should consider charging money to sell off all my coin, maybe then it will spike lol

anybody want my 50K bag?

@Beav


You put a majority hash on any pool you will experience orphans.  The effect gets worse as more congregate on one pool until everyone is on that same pool, then it completely disappears.   Even with the longer block times a 2-3% orphan rate is acceptable at our still relatively short block time.  At the worst I've seen it go as high as 20% during the time when one of the UTC pools had a 90% net share with the previous target algorithm.   The only way it will be mitigated is to increase the difficulty to the point to where it becomes very unlikely that two blocks will be found near the same time before it can be accepted by the network.  And we aren't upping the block time any more.

And actually, YAC has had the same effect and it has been observed by others.  All the ppcoin-based PoS implementations that I've looked at experience the same thing.  

https://www.google.com/search?q=yac+pos+causing+orphans&oq=yac+pos+causing+orphans&aqs=chrome..69i57.3717j1j4&sourceid=chrome&es_sm=91&ie=UTF-8


While it may benefit miners to mine in just one pool, it doesn't help the overall security of the coin.  As the coin goes up in value and it becomes worthwhile, more pools will spring up.  I disagree that closing down the server is the best for the coin.

It's not too surprising at all as it seems that you're the only one with this perceived "concern".   In fact, your only apparent concern seems to be enriching your own mining experience and ironically devaluing Ultracoin as it seems that you've had nothing but criticism and snide commentary for everything Ultracoin.  You add little value here.

For me it's impossible to mine. Whatever settings I am using, all cards eventually go DEAD using yacminer. It takes them several hours in some cases, but the end result is all the same.

Any alternatives?

I'm not making conjectures... you can look at the orphan rate in the past 24 hours and past hour on both tumbling block sites utc and utc2. You are looking at well over 5% orphan on utc and approaching 2% on utc2. If PoS is causing orphans, I think that should be an issue to address. I'll tell you YAC doesn't seem to have that issue.


Weigh the costs and the benefits. Sounds like shutting down one would outweigh the cons of keeping it going. Let's say you did do that but kept the 3% fee, then you would really incentivize UltraCoin to be destroyed by massive solo miners. I'm surprised I'm the only one voicing concerned. Take away the fee issue, and you are still looking at huge orphan rates which helps absolutely no one interested in UltraCoin. You are definitely not helping the price. You should really reconsider.

There is nothing stopping everyone from moving from utc to utc2- or any other pool or going it solo.  If there is truly enough solo mining hash to the amount of three times the aggregate pool hash, it isn't going to make much of a difference having everyone in one pool.  And something to also keep in mind, the Proof of Stake system competes with the Proof of Work system for the next block and has potential to cause orphans as well.  Also, proof of stake is having more of an effect now too now that everyone can actually see their stakes show up in the wallet- more are staking and there is a higher percentage of stake blocks in the chain now.  But that's not to say that there isn't anyone out there that are working the dips for maximum effect; I'm sure there are some out there.  It's not like there are a lot of coins out there that are profitable to GPU mine now.

The problem is that the coin needs to go up in value significantly before it becomes profitable at lower fees.  After I fund the dev team for bounties and promotion, there is barely enough to cover the costs of the utc and utc2.  Basically, when you mine at the UTC pools you are helping to support the coin as the current staff did not get the benefit of the original 2 million UTC that was premined.   And I refuse to put a pool on a cheap VPS like Thiago did.  I have however considered closing UTC to help cut costs, but the problem is that it is also used for infrastructure services such as seeding and a dedicated public node.  At any rate, the fees won't be changing at this time.  

Right.  PoS has a minimum of .25 diff- so generally all the .25 diff blocks are going to be PoS unless we get substantially more miners.