Mining

[psztorc]

This coin will be mined "Proof of Work" (PoW) as designed by Satoshi, for several reasons.

Firstly, PoW is the optimal mining scheme from a technical perspective. As PoW coins have run for several years now, while being (a) Functional (no crashing), (b) Decentralized (without required checkpoints), and Secure (no huge reorgs or trust problems), and no other coin-types have done similarly, the burden of proof is on those who oppose PoW. If you think your mining scheme is so great, you're welcome to prove it (prediction markets, developer consensus, or empirically by running your software for several years).
To clarify, I would change my mind, and agree that X is technically superior to Proof-of-Work mining, if:

• One or more 'knowledgable individuals' (defined as "those who have a track record of exposing previously-undiscussed flaws in alternatives to Proof of Work", including but not limited to: gmaxwell, andytoshi, and DeathAndTaxes), signed off on your idea as potentially viable. If they decide that they are too busy to look into your idea, then they would be too busy to sign off on it, which would be signedoff(idea)=FALSE.
• You ran your coin's software for a few years, with a level of centralized interference comparable to Bitcoin (ie, negligible). Peercoin does not satisfy this requirement, and if you don't know why, ask yourself "Am I really sufficiently qualified to examine, assess, and propose new mining protocols?" .
• Some horrible flaw were demonstrated in PoW, such that almost anything else would be desirable. I would expect a flaw of this nature to destroy, or nearly destroy, the Bitcoin network. Complaining about someone-who-owns-better-miner-hardware-than-you, or mining pools (which have existed for years without causing any problems), are examples of items which would not satisfy this condition.
• Of course, I would also accept a reputable prediction market (as in, I personally believe it is viable enough to attract traders) whose price testifies to the future-confirmation of any of the above conditions.

Secondly, this coin will attempt to use merged-mining (ie double SHA-256, the same as Bitcoin), as it gives the coin a high degree of security for free. If you think you have a better way of doing things, again, you're free to attempt to prove it (see above).

Thirdly, this coin is already attempting to do new things (prediction market transactions), so even if a better mining algorithm were found, it would be unwise to attempt two experimental ideas at the same time. First we would establish PMs under the most conservative avenue possible (the existing avenue: PoW), secondly (much later) we would switch that system from PoW to X. To do otherwise would be to put the PM part of project (aka "the project") in jeopardy for no real reason.

Again, if you feel you have an alternative, first indicate which of the above criteria you've satisfied (ie which number, 1 through 4), then indicate the possible benefits that might result from a completely perfect, bug-free implementation of your scheme and it's interaction with reality, assuming everything goes completely as expected.

[zack]

If a developer were to create a POS version of truthcoin first, it would take little effort to modify it into a merge-mined POW currency.
Based off the number of bitcoin forks in existence, I am expecting multiple PM-coins in every flavour imaginable.

The implementation of truthcoin that I am working on is based off of slasher, because this type of currency is very good for testing purposes. Instead of waiting a random amount of time for more blocks, there is a button to pay for the creation of the next block at any time. I don't waste any cycles mining blocks.

I don't know all the details of how merged-mining works. I want to build something that works ASAP, and not waste time learning merged-mining.

[psztorc]

The implementation of truthcoin that I am working on is based off of slasher, because this type of currency is very good for testing purposes.

I don't know all the details of how merged-mining works. I want to build something that works ASAP, and not waste time learning merged-mining.

I think that's fantastic. I didn't see my comments as applying to developers who are testing mining-independent functions.

[koeppelmann]

A big disadvantage of using the Bitcoin POW is that 51% attacks are very likely.

Even if shared mining will be done - in the beginning only a small fraction of the Bitcoin miners would join. In this situation every Bitcoin pool would have the possibility for a 51% attack. Thus I think sha256 should only be used if a decent percentage of the miners/hashpower would join from the beginning.

[psztorc]

Absolutely, until the Truthcoin/Bitcoin hashrates are comprable, we'll need to have me (or someone) sign every Nth block, but that's a small detail which I doubt people will find controversial. Or miners can express interest during testnets, and we can start the genesis block off with a difficulty equal to Bitcoin's.

[zack]

If the same hardware can be used for truthcoin mining or bitcoin mining, then they will only ever mine one at a time.
One of the two currencies will be more profitable to mine, so everyone will only mine the profitable one, and the other currency will get stuck.

I think truthcoin should be POS like blackcoin, and am developing a custom POS based off slasher.
The copy of truthcoin that I am trying to get up as a testnet is POW SHA256.

[psztorc]

My comments will be completely uncontroversial to anyone who understands merged mining, and how namecoin was launched. I doubt any serious person will object to the initial block signing, which has been done many times before (by the Bitcoin community, who themselves introduced the idea on bitcointalk), and might last 2 weeks or less.

zack, you should -as I constantly advise- spend less time writing and more time reading.

[zack]

oh, only for 2 weeks.
I misunderstood.