Topic: [Ultracoin] [Est. Feb 2014] ~ ASIC Resistant & Ultrafast 6 Second Transactions! - page 86. (Read 381063 times)

10% donation, also from me for this project !

Nice work Usukan.

 


Working URL: Ethereum Partners with R3CEV on Lizardcoin, Bringing Together the Best of Centralized Finance and Blockchain Technology

Great stuff - thanks wtfc360

Your support is duly noted and highly appreciated.

Cheers - usukan

I love a sense of humour - this is the 2nd time now Alenevaa (1st - UTC Stealth address on the pool - dammit almost believed you)

I really liked this one

https://blog.Athereum.org/2016/04/01/Athereum-partners-with-r3cev-on-lizardcoin-bringing-together-the-best-of-centralized-finance-and-blockchain-technology/
Edit - damn - they took it down.  ETH had been taken over by the banks and r3cev.



Cheers - usukan

I go for option nr 1, i´m in for 10 % donation like Usukan and Roister01.

The pool fee has been raised to 25% since Friday, April 1st 0:25 am

Hi Roister - thanks for your support here.

This is how I see things in terms of overall viability of UTC.

When I stepped in here we had a "working" coin but it was limping badly.

The foundations of the coin were in disarray.  The re-targeting issue had ruined our fast reliable transaction claims (since transactions are delayed in high diff periods) and the code was causing trouble in several areas but most especially the wallets. The re-targeting had also screwed up mining and most miners had left and a few miners were opportunistically picking up a windfall during very low diff periods.

We just could not build any future on these foundations. It was a dead end case.

My mission here was to rebuild the foundations so we can get started again on building UTC up again.

An important part of the foundations was a block explorer - we did better than that - we got a full Ultracoin Dashboard.

So - in answer to your question - if we don't fix the foundations - there can be no future viability for UTC.  We don't have a reliable resource to build upon.

The 3.12 BTC fixes all the foundation issues.

That puts us back in business. At this stage we are as good as many other ALTs worth far more than UTC.  But we are still not real special.

As we get moving we will further improve the foundations to cater for specific use cases.

From there its up to us to make UTC useful and attractive in real world applications - this is the VISION bit.  This is the important step and it will determine the long term viability and value of UTC. This is where we make UTC REAL SPECIAL.

Cheers - usukan

 

Thanks for the hard work that you have put in there Usukan...

I must bow to the obviously superior knowledge of most folk on here, but would just like to ask:

If the 3.12BTC work is carried out, how would this impact on the overall viability of the coin as a going concern? If we all think that it is worth it, I too am willing to chip in 10% of the total, whichever way folks decide to go...

Cheers,

Roister

Here is the update on PressTab and the proposed fixes to Ultracoin.

I have had a lot of discussions with press so far and we have got to a point where we can present these details.

First we need to appreciate what we have in the UTC code so far – in press’s words
“To be honest there is a lot of crazy code that was hacked together in a very unorganized way which makes it hard for other programmers to follow.”

This has made it rather difficult and complex to determine what the best courses of action are to fix the bloat in the code and to pick the best diff retarget scheme.  I have had to rely on press’s professional advice which I believe we are very lucky to have.

NOTE
All costs are PressTab estimates – its unlikely, but they may change slightly.
PressTab terms of engagement are strictly “payment up front”


After much deliberation – these are press’s suggestions.


Difficulty Retarget

PressTab proposes to implement the "normal" diff adjustment which would be an update of the typical PPC (Peercoin)  implementation.
This is PressTabs professional advice to us – over the other options of reversion to Ultracoin V3 retargeting or Digishield.

This would take about 10 hrs @ $50/hr (approx 1.2 BTC)
This requires a hardfork.
This 10 hours covers not only the diff adjustment change, but also the supporting code for a clean, safe hardfork and ensuring a smooth hard fork, which includes the troubleshooting and debugging of the code, as well as standing by during the actual hard fork in case any quick response code would be needed.
This could be completed in about a week by PressTab.
The hardfork should be a couple of weeks after this so miners/pools/exchanges and user wallets can be updated and in place. We only have one pool (Alenevaa) and 1 exchange – (Bittrex).  
It would be our (UTC Committee) responsibility to inform all stakeholders on the hardfork.



Tidy up Ultracoin code

This is the really tricky one.  To clean up all the code it would really take a lot of time to get everything to an updated “clean state”. Its practically a rewrite.

Press suggests a general tidy up and proposes to target areas where he suspects the most gain can be made. Its however a gamble. We could tidy up the code but it may not make any perceivable difference to wallet users.

One issue is that it also takes time to comb through the code and identify specific areas that might be causing problems. There is very messy code all over the place, but just because it is messy does not necessarily mean that it is causing excess resource load.
One thing to keep in mind here is that UTC will always be much slower than other coins:
- because it has 1.6m blocks
- because it has a difficult hashes algorithm.
 
Press estimates that it would take about 10 hrs @ $50/hr (approx 1.2 BTC) to comb through the code in more detail, identify key target areas and modify the code.

Understood - this is not updating all code to a clean state and we may see little appreciable difference in the user experience – but at least we would have tidier and more legible code to work from in the future.
This would probably take up to an additional week and would best be done with the diff retarget hardfork.
  


liteStake code

PressTab has one further suggestion for UTC to improve staking and drastically reduce resource load from wallets during staking.  

This is to replace the current UTC staking code with his own “liteStake” code which is used successfully on several other coins (notably HyperStake). This typically has reduced CPU consumption from hashing from 15% to around 1% depending on the exact coin. This will likely prevent the “lock up” issue in the wallet while staking.

This would dramatically reduce CPU usage when staking.
This does not require a hardfork
This would take approx 6 hrs @$50/hr (approx 0.72 BTC)


So – we need discussion and some decisions from the Community on the above options.


In Summary - The options are:

1 – Retarget fix, Tidy up code, add liteStake (TOTAL COST – approx. 3.12 BTC)

2 – Retarget fix, Tidy up Code (TOTAL COST – approx. 2.4 BTC)

3 – Retarget fix (TOTAL COST) – approx. 1.2 BTC


Of course we could also add an option 4 - Retarget fix and liteStake (TOTAL COST – approx. 1.92 BTC)


The priorities I see for UTC are as follows:

First Priority – Retarget Fix
2nd Priority – Tidy Up Code
3rd Priority – liteStake


Of course everything depends on the available funds from Community support.


My vote would be to go for Option 1

1 – Retarget fix, Tidy up code, add liteStake (TOTAL COST – approx. 3.12 BTC)


Of course Option 2 with a later move to liteStake is feasible since liteStake does not require a hardfork to implement.


I will contribute 10% of whatever option the Community may decide.



Cheers - usukan

Please note

After I deliver the proposition here with PressTab to the community - I will hand the helm back over to Steven to continue our journey.

I will still be here as part of the Committee and will contribute to the costs of the work PressTab will do to fix up UTC.

Truth of the matter is that I have a busy period looming in my other life and we need to hand back to Steven/Committee so we can get a range of things more organised.

Steven - are you all good with this?

Cheers - usukan

Getting close now with PressTab - hopefully announce proposed deal tomorrow for required fixes.

Cheers - usukan

Hi Roister

With EXP you need to download both the wallet (expwallet) and gexp (which handles the blockchain).

But the blockchain and sync is a separate process (via gexp) from the wallet operation.

The GUI expwallet is the bit that I am impressed with (look/feel/simplicity etc) - but splitting the functions likely makes the wallet lite and simple/fast to run.

Cheers - usukan

Good luck with the quote Usukan!

I do have a few Exp...does this mean that you don't need to download the GEXP, you only need to download the wallet itself? If so, that would be great for Ultracoin...

Don't worry - I have not left the party.

Still waiting to finalise scope of work, cost and delivery with PressTab who has taken an Easter break (good on him).

Back asap - but will await full detail before broadcasting.


\


off topic

Not sure if any of you are into Expanse (EXP) - they are a Ethereum clone.  They have the most elegant and simple GUI wallet I have come across.  I would like to see UTC similar in the future.
They split the blockchain (gexp) from the wallet

http://www.expanse.tech/#about
http://www.expanse.tech/#downloads (note the GUI expwallet)

Cheers - usukan

Seems there is some classic "accumulation" trading by investors on Bittrex

Letting the sell orders bleed down slowly to a low price - then take them all out up to 800-900.

Also a few on the buy side scraping some cheap sells up too.

Good to see a bit of solid trading activity in UTC.

Hi barbados-fs

I think you are talking about trying to recover the UTC stolen by Cryptsy.

The Committee will follow the consensus of the community (where resources might be available) - but this is my opinion and reasoning behind it.

The short answer is no - thats not on the roadmap - and for good reason.

Its almost certainly a waste of time.

I have made numerous posts here on the Cryptsy problems from the time it was obvious it was going down.  I warned this community to get out. I have researched the matter and followed it closely for a very long time.

This thread here is one of the most voluminous discussions starting from when some withdrawals started showing problems to the present day (360 pages).  There is a lot of bullshit in the thread - but it contains the critical info.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/cryptsy-stopping-withdraw-locking-accounts-without-notifying-users-class-action-1173703
You need to review this to really appreciate the hopelessness of the situation.

Also - search CRYPTSY on this UTC forum and you will see most of the discussions and my updates on Cryptsy.

Cryptsy is gone - dead, deceased. Paul Vernon has run to China and the rest of his crew vaporised. Prosecutors cannot find them.  The Cryptsy headquarters have gone.  Criminal investigations are under way but as far as I can see not getting anywhere fast.  Some say that support tickets are being answered still sometimes - but with "sorry for the inconvenience"
Paul Vernon's (Big Vern) new Chinese partner has started a Chinese exchange where we might expect a lot of the ALTs to be sold off from.
The US authorities are totally lost in the investigation - so I doubt a couple of UTC Committee members working 18hrs a day on this are going to get anywhere very fast.
There is a hacker trying to trace and recover some coin according to Cryptsy - but this is just a fake ploy by Cryptsy IMO.

I believe there is a class action in progress to attempt to recover funds.

I have written all my funds off in Cryptsy - and suggest you do too. Replies to my support tickets ceased in Dec 2015.

If this ever gets sorted out (funds located and in control of the government or other appointed authority) - its possible that the UTC Committee could approach that group to attempt to arrange transfer to rightful owners but its really going to come down to each individual user doing this themselves because they will have to supply all their personal details, balances and proof of ownership etc to have any funds released.

You might consider joining the class action against Cryptsy. You will unfortunately need lawyers involved in this.

So the long answer to your question - if I understand it correctly, is no.

Its not part of the UTC Committee business to recover personal funds trapped in Cyptsy.  Its an unfortunate business but not a UTC issue - its an issue between Cryptsy and yourself.  This problem was not caused by UTC - it was caused by Cryptsy.  Its your personal decision, should you consider there is a reasonable chance of recovery - to follow up on possible methods yourself.

If there is some legitimate entity in control of funds in the future - then the Committee could approach them to discuss global/consolidated UTC claims  - but until we have somebody to talk to (who talks sense back) that also has control of the funds its a total waste of time IMO.

If you wanted to fast track this project onto the UTC roadmap - might I suggest that you step up to the Community and volunteer to take on this project yourself as part of the UTC Committee.

Cheers - usukan

Do you plan to output UTC on exchange?

Did you try to talk to cryptsy about the possibility of the UTC output from them? They do NOT refer to the work of the UTC

Wonderful!!

Well we have some good news.

PressTab is now available to do our work.

This is extremely good news.

PressTab was our preferred option by far - for many reasons.

Will report back as news comes to hand  - I will advise the community the scope of work, cost and delivery.

We can discuss then.

Cheers - usukan

Cheers Usukan...and a happy Easter to you too...😃