How to solve the slow blocktime issue

[Arcurus 331]

Hello,

here we can discus how to solve the slow block-time issue:

 

Maaku:

Blocks are slow

---------------

 

This is due to a multi-pool hopper, a presumably unintentional attack of the freicoin network. The difficulty adjustment algorithm is able to handle differentials in hashpower of 5-10x between the freicoin network and the attacker, however current differentials are up to 50-100x. Although there are improvements that can be made, such a differential is beyond the capability of any stable adjustment algorithm.

 

There are basically two possible paths forward: (1) merged mining, (2) change proof of work. These have various plusses and minuses.

 

* Task for Jorge and Mark: write up an objective evaluation of the pros and cons of merged mining vs changing the proof of work.

 

List by Arcurus:

 

Merge Mining pro + con:

- at best as centralized as Bitcoin Mining

+ no need of switching hardware

+ reach more miners

+ people are used to it

+ more pragmatic solution

- maybe not enough to make the coin secure

- more easy to attack from outsiders

 

Look also in this topic:

 

New Mining Alg pro + con:

+ not so easy to attack from outsiders

+ not that centralized

+ good for newcomers

- not that connected to BTC anymore

- Freicoiners must switch there hardware

 

New Mining Alg in combination with merge mining:

(For example each pow with his own difficulty / diff calculation)

+ best of both

+ if one hashcrash occurs the blocktime is only doubled

+ lot more difficult to attack

+ more easy to switch a pow algorithm in the future

- more complex

- double spending attacks more easy

 

 

pow + pos (pos = proof of stake  - for example one coin one vote):

 

federated ripple like coins or masternodes like in dash etc...

how could that look like fore example:

simple take for example the top 80% unspent coins that have not been moved for 10 days.

Each owner of these coins can take part with his signature in the federation.

Each signature is weighted with the amount of coins he holds.

A new block is generated if 60% of all active signers sign the block.

(alternative also the ripple / stellar protocol could be used. as node list the active signing coin holders could be used)

 

pro con???

+ very very fast

+ very very energy efficient

 

- more complex

 

[Bicknellski 276]

Right unintentional.

Joe & Clark show back up after taking off with people's investment and closing his pool without any news or information nearly 2 years ago and this happens right after he retuns? Coincidence? Okay. It is coincidence.The real problem I see is not the difficulty adjustment algorithm but having nearly ZERO people in the community ZERO people using FRC.

So Arc: 

1. Which are they leaning to fix the problem Arc? 

2. Personally if we have few miners and few users of FRC what is the point of fixing anything? If they have to put in a lot of effort and time to fix it and there are literally only 7 people on the planet who use FRC what's the point?

 

Note we need to think about demurrage as well since we have 95 million coins in circulation now and 5 million left to go before we are done the initial distribution. 0% of the demurrage should go to the foundation in future and the 80% they hold should be cycled back into some sort of user based initiative I think it should be all given up as UNIVERSAL INCOME spread widely as possible across the planet where people need it.
 

[Arcurus 331]

¨UNIVERSAL INCOME spread widely as possible across the planet where people need it.¨

I fully agree with that, If you look in the old forum and in this forum, that is exactly what I am advocating for since the beginning even before we started Freicoin. Inaway for me thats the main idea behin Freicoin.

 

But now back to the history. Before we started Freicoin we discussed about how we could distribute the coins without using mining.

I was much in favor of an basic income, the problem is, how to pay it out in an fair way.

Another problem was, that the idea of an basic income was very new for most of the people at that moment, so we agreed to experiment general with alternative distribution methods.

To make this experiment maaku suggested that the easiest way is to make an foundation, so that we can start Freicoin and still experiment with alternative issuing methods.

Initially Maaku wanted to have the foundation separated from the main developers. Here I made maybe my biggest failure and turned down the offer to me. 

Therefore we ended up with having the core developers also to manage the foundation.

Because they wanted to do nothing wrong, they ended up with an very very very conservative coin distribution approach.

First the idea was to make grants to projects.

Then they didnt want them self in the position to make a decision on which project to support and which not. So they suggested to let the community decide through donation matching.

Sadly we also needed a very long time to create the website (thanks finally jorge made one) for the donation matching and it was also very complicated to bring orgs to register to that.

Nevertheless mainly jorge managed to have some very nice orgs registred on that.

Sadly no one used the foundation web to donate except me (i think more then 80% to 95% of the donations before we increased from 10% to 100% donation matching, which is an story in itself).

Sadly also it took very very long time before the donations was paid out. I think it was, mainly to have an script in place that looks for donation cycling abuse.

i think mark and jorge was also very very very busy at that time, because they entered into becoming a full time bitcoin core developer with all the responsibility that brings.

So their life turned upside down.

Another issue was, that marcs and jorge main passion was not so much on making the foundation, it was mostly about having freimarkets in place.

Also we had the situation that the republicoin project (in short making the foundation p2p), what my main focus was and still is,  was on halt because we could not find any good solution to the miners censoring votes problem at that time, except for using an different way of securing the chain which I advocated for.

Here we lost fully the connection between the main community interests that was coin issuing and the core developers.

I think they still do not know how important coin issuing / having a coin-republic is for the community, because thats what Freicoin really can make different.

The first decentralized nation.

 

Now I realize, all these problems we had are mainly communication problems.

Marc and Jorge was super conservative and didnt want to make anything wrong, the community wanted to be lot more progressive with the coin issuing.

But we never met in person (except once with jorge which was a very very good meeting).

The first time I saw maaku on video chat some days ago which was very very helpful.

We really have to be more directly connected. best by personal meeting, second best by video chat. irc and forums is simply not enough.

So here is my offer, contact me and at best also the other main Freicoin participants and talk to them one to one.

Talk to them what is important for you, and listen to them what is important for them.

 

I still see that we can do a lot good with Freicoin if we manage to talk directly with each other.

Mainly we need to fix the basics, like block time, having updated websites with updated clients, and bringing the coins issuing to run.

What I advocate is 50% distribution as universal income to all participants, 50% for other projects like for example giving 10% back if you pay something ethical with freicoin.

 

Mainly I suggest to start with your school project as test example.

One the donation matching is functioning and well tested I guess I could bring also some good NGOs on bord, But first we have to fix it! I cannot go to an NGO and say, you weill get maybe 100% maybe 10% for donations, maybe in one month, maybe in one year. Maybe freicoin is there then maybe not, maybe block takes 10 min or maybe 1 day or two or three.

Thats not good! )

Im not keen on promising something until I can stand for it. Therefore Im focusing on your school project, because thats from Freicoin people, so they are ready to take some effort to make it work as pilot project, at least thats my hope.

I also hope, that Frederic is starting the organic mining project and registres it on the foundation web.

With feds pool we could also start the  Freimining project (in short one coin to donate for each mined coin).

Also feds freicoin faucet should not be that difficult to fix and bring to the foundation web.

 

I for my part want mostly focus on bringing the freicoin giveways to run. they could be giveaways to projects, but mostly the idea is to make small giveawys to individuals.

in short do some good, post it which the freicoin bird inside and get some coins for it.

 

By the way, we should use ONE logo not two or three or four. The Freicoin bird maaku choose was very nice. It tell a story of freedom. We should stay with the bird, maybe advance it little bit graphically, but stay with the bird, it tells a story and it connects!

 

So in short what we all should do now, take your phone or even better feet and talk directly, and yes I mean like really direct, tell what you feel, and listen to what others feel.

And no, their is currently no problem if the foundation get no new funds. The idea was to make it p2p. Still we have a lot funds to test new issuing alternatives, but yes a more clear statement would be wish-able, that we want alternative mining methods and no we are not ready to accept the fallback to mining only. That should be communicated very clearly on the websites.

 

And sorry, that I may sound little bit like Trump, happened to have seen little bit too much from the American tragedy / comedy what is currently going on these days...

 

Still I wish you all the best!

And please no bashing of JO, whatever is or not is, Freicoin was his life and he could not handle to see it fail!

If someone is to blame, I am to blame!

 

 

[Bicknellski 276]

As for everything else besides Joe here is my take on all this ARC?

1. I agree with most of it.

2. We have had talks and posts and what not about the foundation and plans etc however the issue for me and others who still are hanging on here is there are no plans really to change the direction of FRC in a meaningful way that would revive the coin. The foundation is a failure because there is no community to support it or have people ascend to positions inside the foundation to help support it. It isn't Mark's or Jorge's fault the problem really is there is no support. Not enough people just makes the work required to make things happen too much. I don't see the current foundation as viable with people that don't have the time to make it work and no one can join the foundation and help because of what amounts to trust / legal issues.

3. Without a real push or way to get more users into the coin or into the foundation makes the whole discussion about FRC is meaningless. I see where Universal Income is the only option to get this coin going again but if the foundation remains ineffectual or locked to new people being members then I see no real reason to get on board and support it. I mean we can as easily use the same parameters and create a coin from scratch or adapt WLC lets say and have a community controlled coin as opposed to something that is largely abandoned by what was a small community in the first place less than 30 people in total miners included.

4. Moving forward I see there needs to be a significant change in the FRC Foundation as a starting point and others need to be included in development of the coin. To do that you need a more democratic structure.

5. All on board for the FRC Universal Income Test with my students. If it weren't for 36 hours blocks we would have tested it already.

 

JOE RANT:

I think a little JOE bashing is in order. Given he ripped people off. I was lucky to get my coins out before he fucked off without a word. Also his contributions were marginal at best given what he did at the end. He talked a lot about growing the community. He did nothing more than cripple it given the way he left it. He should not be trusted at all in the future given he is under massive debt and he owes people in this community money he took. Those are the facts and being all polite and smiles about it does no one any good. If you steal and get caught doing it you deserve no quarter. Also he owes this community a proper apology and restitution for what happened. His weakassed excuses as to what went down BEFORE his accident is telling. There are people in this community that know full well there were many inconsistencies in his pool and how it was operated. I will let them post more about that but suffice to say people were looking deeply into his operations before he left the community high and dry.

[Arcurus 331]

here also an interesting development:
Rootstock wants to use the proof of unique copies of the blockchain.

Could be interesting to follow it up:

https://youtu.be/F_0GxYU3SFc?t=805

[Arcurus 331]

To Bick:

The only thing the foundation currently does is:

- holding the key for the funds.

- deciding which issuing mechanism to use / which not

- Making the payout of the donation matching.

- And verify orgs / projects that apply for donation matching

 

Marc plan is to make the foundation more p2p.

How could that look?

First Instead of verification orgs, we had the idea using trust levels.

In short if an org / project has received more donations in the last 30 days then their trust, then the payout has to wait.

That would also give the benefit to have nearly instant payouts.

 

The Second idea is to make the voting for this trust level decentralized.

For example one coin one vote.

Marc want to use a a side-chain with messaging to count the votes. Im much more in favor to make it as easy as possible and use the transactions itself.

My idea is to allow to include short messages with an transaction.

For example if someone donates coins, he could then vote on limits of an org by voting +trust or -trust.

Thats nearly all we need and could be done onchain. And no, I dont think that this will blow up the blockchain too much at this point. WE ARE NOT BITCOIN. If it will blow up the blockchain too much in the future, still then we can create a sidechain or whatever. But I see no use to make it at this point more complicated then needed.

On top of that small messages would be also great to have to put in the chain for what the money was spent. That could give a lot more transparency for orgs / projects.

 

Once this is implemented and tested, we could go fully p2p for the foundation.

Ad worst 51% of the miners could block all votes. But still a normal client could see the voting transactions and therefore see that something is going on here.

Lets say we distribute 80% of the dumurrage this way, at worst miners could get the full 100% of the demurrage by cheating the system.

But hey, this is at worst as good as it is today, and still we could make an hard-fork to switch to another way of securing the chain like we want to do it now.

 

The biggest problem I see is, that marc is still very conservative with all that. He want to make it really well and want to make a perfect solution.

But I think at this point we dont need a perfect solution we just need something that is functioning!

Once have something functioning in place we will know how we can advance it further.

I think we generally have the habit to look too much into the future and see everything that could go wrong, instead of fixing what is currently going wrong.

 

For me these things must be fixed:

Vision:

1. Clearly communicate that only having a demurrage coin is not enough for us.

2. We want to make experiments with alternative issuing like universal income / freipay etc.

 

Technical:

1. block time issue

2. regular reliable coin issuing

3. updated wallets and updated websites

 

Community wise:

1. make regular meetings

2. meet more in person / per chat

3. Use an uniform logo / the Freicoin bird!

5. Update all links to the current forum

 

[Bicknellski 276]

Ya I agree with that assessment on what needs fixing 100% with you on that agenda and thanks for clarifying.

 

[galambo 4]

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