Bitcoin (BTC) is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that aims to function as a means of exchange that is independent of any central authority. BTC can be transferred electronically in a secure, verifiable, and immutable way.
Launched in 2009, BTC is the first virtual currency to solve the double-spending issue by timestamping transactions before broadcasting them to all of the nodes in the Bitcoin network. The Bitcoin Protocol offered a solution to the Byzantine Generals’ Problem with ablockchainnetwork structure, a notion first created byStuart Haber and W. Scott Stornetta in 1991.
Bitcoin’s whitepaper was published pseudonymously in 2008 by an individual, or a group, with the pseudonym “Satoshi Nakamoto”, whose underlying identity has still not been verified.
The Bitcoin protocol uses an SHA-256d-based Proof-of-Work (PoW) algorithm to reach network consensus. Its network has a target block time of 10 minutes and a maximum supply of 21 million tokens, with a decaying token emission rate. To prevent fluctuation of the block time, the network’s block difficulty is re-adjusted through an algorithm based on the past 2016 block times.
With a block size limit capped at 1 megabyte, the Bitcoin Protocol has supported both the Lightning Network, a second-layer infrastructure for payment channels, and Segregated Witness, a soft-fork to increase the number of transactions on a block, as solutions to network scalability.
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer cryptocurrency that aims to function as a means of exchange and is independent of any central authority. Bitcoins are transferred electronically in a secure, verifiable, and immutable way.
Network validators, whom are often referred to as miners, participate in the SHA-256d-based Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism to determine the next global state of the blockchain.
The Bitcoin protocol has a target block time of 10 minutes, and a maximum supply of 21 million tokens. The only way new bitcoins can be produced is when a block producer generates a new valid block.
The protocol has a token emission rate that halves every 210,000 blocks, or approximately every 4 years.
Unlike public blockchain infrastructures supporting the development of decentralized applications (Ethereum), the Bitcoin protocol is primarily used only for payments, and has only very limited support for smart contract-like functionalities (Bitcoin “Script” is mostly used to create certain conditions before bitcoins are used to be spent).
In the Bitcoin network, anyone can join the network and become a bookkeeping service provider i.e., a validator. All validators are allowed in the race to become the block producer for the next block, yet only the first to complete a computationally heavy task will win. This feature is called Proof of Work (PoW). The probability of any single validator to finish the task first is equal to the percentage of the total network computation power, or hash power, the validator has. For instance, a validator with 5% of the total network computation power will have a 5% chance of completing the task first, and therefore becoming the next block producer. Since anyone can join the race, competition is prone to increase. In the early days, Bitcoin mining was mostly done by personal computer CPUs. As of today, Bitcoin validators, or miners, have opted for dedicated and more powerful devices such as machines based on Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (“ASIC”). Proof of Work secures the network as block producers must have spent resources external to the network (i.e., money to pay electricity), and can provide proof to other participants that they did so. With various miners competing for block rewards, it becomes difficult for one single malicious party to gain network majority (defined as more than 51% of the network’s hash power in the Nakamoto consensus mechanism). The ability to rearrange transactions via 51% attacks indicates another feature of the Nakamoto consensus: the finality of transactions is only probabilistic. Once a block is produced, it is then propagated by the block producer to all other validators to check on the validity of all transactions in that block. The block producer will receive rewards in the network’s native currency (i.e., bitcoin) as all validators approve the block and update their ledgers.
The blockchain
Block production
The Bitcoin protocol utilizes the Merkle tree data structure in order to organize hashes of numerous individual transactions into each block. This concept is named after Ralph Merkle, who patented it in 1979. With the use of a Merkle tree, though each block might contain thousands of transactions, it will have the ability to combine all of their hashes and condense them into one, allowing efficient and secure verification of this group of transactions. This single hash called is a Merkle root, which is stored in the Block Header of a block. The Block Header also stores other meta information of a block, such as a hash of the previous Block Header, which enables blocks to be associated in a chain-like structure (hence the name “blockchain”). An illustration of block production in the Bitcoin Protocol is demonstrated below. https://preview.redd.it/m6texxicf3151.png?width=1591&format=png&auto=webp&s=f4253304912ed8370948b9c524e08fef28f1c78d
Block time and mining difficulty
Block time is the period required to create the next block in a network. As mentioned above, the node who solves the computationally intensive task will be allowed to produce the next block. Therefore, block time is directly correlated to the amount of time it takes for a node to find a solution to the task. The Bitcoin protocol sets a target block time of 10 minutes, and attempts to achieve this by introducing a variable named mining difficulty. Mining difficulty refers to how difficult it is for the node to solve the computationally intensive task. If the network sets a high difficulty for the task, while miners have low computational power, which is often referred to as “hashrate”, it would statistically take longer for the nodes to get an answer for the task. If the difficulty is low, but miners have rather strong computational power, statistically, some nodes will be able to solve the task quickly. Therefore, the 10 minute target block time is achieved by constantly and automatically adjusting the mining difficulty according to how much computational power there is amongst the nodes. The average block time of the network is evaluated after a certain number of blocks, and if it is greater than the expected block time, the difficulty level will decrease; if it is less than the expected block time, the difficulty level will increase.
What are orphan blocks?
In a PoW blockchain network, if the block time is too low, it would increase the likelihood of nodes producingorphan blocks, for which they would receive no reward. Orphan blocks are produced by nodes who solved the task but did not broadcast their results to the whole network the quickest due to network latency. It takes time for a message to travel through a network, and it is entirely possible for 2 nodes to complete the task and start to broadcast their results to the network at roughly the same time, while one’s messages are received by all other nodes earlier as the node has low latency. Imagine there is a network latency of 1 minute and a target block time of 2 minutes. A node could solve the task in around 1 minute but his message would take 1 minute to reach the rest of the nodes that are still working on the solution. While his message travels through the network, all the work done by all other nodes during that 1 minute, even if these nodes also complete the task, would go to waste. In this case, 50% of the computational power contributed to the network is wasted. The percentage of wasted computational power would proportionally decrease if the mining difficulty were higher, as it would statistically take longer for miners to complete the task. In other words, if the mining difficulty, and therefore targeted block time is low, miners with powerful and often centralized mining facilities would get a higher chance of becoming the block producer, while the participation of weaker miners would become in vain. This introduces possible centralization and weakens the overall security of the network. However, given a limited amount of transactions that can be stored in a block, making the block time too longwould decrease the number of transactions the network can process per second, negatively affecting network scalability.
3. Bitcoin’s additional features
Segregated Witness (SegWit)
Segregated Witness, often abbreviated as SegWit, is a protocol upgrade proposal that went live in August 2017. SegWit separates witness signatures from transaction-related data. Witness signatures in legacy Bitcoin blocks often take more than 50% of the block size. By removing witness signatures from the transaction block, this protocol upgrade effectively increases the number of transactions that can be stored in a single block, enabling the network to handle more transactions per second. As a result, SegWit increases the scalability of Nakamoto consensus-based blockchain networks like Bitcoin and Litecoin. SegWit also makes transactions cheaper. Since transaction fees are derived from how much data is being processed by the block producer, the more transactions that can be stored in a 1MB block, the cheaper individual transactions become. https://preview.redd.it/depya70mf3151.png?width=1601&format=png&auto=webp&s=a6499aa2131fbf347f8ffd812930b2f7d66be48e The legacy Bitcoin block has a block size limit of 1 megabyte, and any change on the block size would require a network hard-fork. On August 1st 2017, the first hard-fork occurred, leading to the creation of Bitcoin Cash (“BCH”), which introduced an 8 megabyte block size limit. Conversely, Segregated Witness was a soft-fork: it never changed the transaction block size limit of the network. Instead, it added an extended block with an upper limit of 3 megabytes, which contains solely witness signatures, to the 1 megabyte block that contains only transaction data. This new block type can be processed even by nodes that have not completed the SegWit protocol upgrade. Furthermore, the separation of witness signatures from transaction data solves the malleability issue with the original Bitcoin protocol. Without Segregated Witness, these signatures could be altered before the block is validated by miners. Indeed, alterations can be done in such a way that if the system does a mathematical check, the signature would still be valid. However, since the values in the signature are changed, the two signatures would create vastly different hash values. For instance, if a witness signature states “6,” it has a mathematical value of 6, and would create a hash value of 12345. However, if the witness signature were changed to “06”, it would maintain a mathematical value of 6 while creating a (faulty) hash value of 67890. Since the mathematical values are the same, the altered signature remains a valid signature. This would create a bookkeeping issue, as transactions in Nakamoto consensus-based blockchain networks are documented with these hash values, or transaction IDs. Effectively, one can alter a transaction ID to a new one, and the new ID can still be valid. This can create many issues, as illustrated in the below example:
Alice sends Bob 1 BTC, and Bob sends Merchant Carol this 1 BTC for some goods.
Bob sends Carols this 1 BTC, while the transaction from Alice to Bob is not yet validated. Carol sees this incoming transaction of 1 BTC to him, and immediately ships goods to B.
At the moment, the transaction from Alice to Bob is still not confirmed by the network, and Bob can change the witness signature, therefore changing this transaction ID from 12345 to 67890.
Now Carol will not receive his 1 BTC, as the network looks for transaction 12345 to ensure that Bob’s wallet balance is valid.
As this particular transaction ID changed from 12345 to 67890, the transaction from Bob to Carol will fail, and Bob will get his goods while still holding his BTC.
With the Segregated Witness upgrade, such instances can not happen again. This is because the witness signatures are moved outside of the transaction block into an extended block, and altering the witness signature won’t affect the transaction ID. Since the transaction malleability issue is fixed, Segregated Witness also enables the proper functioning of second-layer scalability solutions on the Bitcoin protocol, such as the Lightning Network.
Lightning Network
Lightning Network is a second-layer micropayment solution for scalability. Specifically, Lightning Network aims to enable near-instant and low-cost payments between merchants and customers that wish to use bitcoins. Lightning Network was conceptualized in a whitepaper by Joseph Poon and Thaddeus Dryja in 2015. Since then, it has been implemented by multiple companies. The most prominent of them include Blockstream, Lightning Labs, and ACINQ. A list of curated resources relevant to Lightning Network can be found here. In the Lightning Network, if a customer wishes to transact with a merchant, both of them need to open a payment channel, which operates off the Bitcoin blockchain (i.e., off-chain vs. on-chain). None of the transaction details from this payment channel are recorded on the blockchain, and only when the channel is closed will the end result of both party’s wallet balances be updated to the blockchain. The blockchain only serves as a settlement layer for Lightning transactions. Since all transactions done via the payment channel are conducted independently of the Nakamoto consensus, both parties involved in transactions do not need to wait for network confirmation on transactions. Instead, transacting parties would pay transaction fees to Bitcoin miners only when they decide to close the channel. https://preview.redd.it/cy56icarf3151.png?width=1601&format=png&auto=webp&s=b239a63c6a87ec6cc1b18ce2cbd0355f8831c3a8 One limitation to the Lightning Network is that it requires a person to be online to receive transactions attributing towards him. Another limitation in user experience could be that one needs to lock up some funds every time he wishes to open a payment channel, and is only able to use that fund within the channel. However, this does not mean he needs to create new channels every time he wishes to transact with a different person on the Lightning Network. If Alice wants to send money to Carol, but they do not have a payment channel open, they can ask Bob, who has payment channels open to both Alice and Carol, to help make that transaction. Alice will be able to send funds to Bob, and Bob to Carol. Hence, the number of “payment hubs” (i.e., Bob in the previous example) correlates with both the convenience and the usability of the Lightning Network for real-world applications.
Schnorr Signature upgrade proposal
Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm (“ECDSA”) signatures are used to sign transactions on the Bitcoin blockchain. https://preview.redd.it/hjeqe4l7g3151.png?width=1601&format=png&auto=webp&s=8014fb08fe62ac4d91645499bc0c7e1c04c5d7c4 However, many developers now advocate for replacing ECDSA with Schnorr Signature. Once Schnorr Signatures are implemented, multiple parties can collaborate in producing a signature that is valid for the sum of their public keys. This would primarily be beneficial for network scalability. When multiple addresses were to conduct transactions to a single address, each transaction would require their own signature. With Schnorr Signature, all these signatures would be combined into one. As a result, the network would be able to store more transactions in a single block. https://preview.redd.it/axg3wayag3151.png?width=1601&format=png&auto=webp&s=93d958fa6b0e623caa82ca71fe457b4daa88c71e The reduced size in signatures implies a reduced cost on transaction fees. The group of senders can split the transaction fees for that one group signature, instead of paying for one personal signature individually. Schnorr Signature also improves network privacy and token fungibility. A third-party observer will not be able to detect if a user is sending a multi-signature transaction, since the signature will be in the same format as a single-signature transaction.
4. Economics and supply distribution
The Bitcoin protocol utilizes the Nakamoto consensus, and nodes validate blocks via Proof-of-Work mining. The bitcoin token was not pre-mined, and has a maximum supply of 21 million. The initial reward for a block was 50 BTC per block. Block mining rewards halve every 210,000 blocks. Since the average time for block production on the blockchain is 10 minutes, it implies that the block reward halving events will approximately take place every 4 years. As of May 12th 2020, the block mining rewards are 6.25 BTC per block. Transaction fees also represent a minor revenue stream for miners.
Groestlcoin September 2019 Development Release/Update!
For a more interactive view of changes, click here In our current world; bordering on financial chaos, with tariff wars, Brexit and hyperinflation rife, you can count on Groestlcoin to consistently produce innovation that strikes to take the power away from the few and into the many, even after a full five and a half years of solid development. Here is what the team has already announced in the last 3 months since the last development update:
Groestl Nodes aims to map out and compare the status of the Groestlcoin mainnet and testnet networks. Even though these networks share the same protocol, there is currently no way to directly compare these coins in a single location. These statistics are essential to evaluate the relative health of both networks.
Features
Shows Onion (Tor) nodes
Shows IPv6 nodes
Supports both main net and test net
Node Checker – Check the status of a remote node
Ability to download node data by CSV, JSON or TXT format
Ability to download unique address data by CSV, JSON or TXT format
This is a tool for creating unsigned raw Groestlcoin transactions and also to verify existing transactions by entering in the transaction hex and converting this to a human-readable format to verify that a transaction is correct before it is signed.
Features
Create Raw Unsigned Groestlcoin transactions
Coin Control
Generates a QR code for the transaction
Verifying Transactions
Compatible with most Groestlcoin wallets including but not restricted to Groestlcoin Core and Electrum-GRS
Estimates final signed transaction size
Taking a raw transaction format and shows its Transaction ID, Transaction Inputs and Outputs
AGCore is an Android app designed to make it easier to run a Groestlcoin Core node on always-on Android appliances such as set-top boxes, Android TVs and repurposed tablets/phones. If you are a non-technical user of Groestlcoin and want an Android app that makes it easy to run a Groestlcoin Core node by acting as a wrapper, then AG Core is the right choice for you.
What's Changed?
Update to Groestlcoin Core 2.17.2
Switched to native builds via NDK for Groestlcoin Core resulting in a smaller footprint.
Added embedded tor
Added tor pairing support
TOR upgrade bug fixes
Improved blockchain Sync progress using getblockchaininfo verificationprogress
Improved package download progress bar
Added support for external storage access > Android M
Added support for Android Oreo, including new notification mechanism
Bump Fee (RBF) improvements – Implemented a new fee-bump strategy that can add new inputs, so now any transaction can be fee-bumped. The old strategy was to decrease the value of outputs (starting with change). We will now try the new strategy first, and only use the old as a fallback.
Coin Choser improvements
More likely to construct transactions without change (where possible)
Less likely to construct transactions with really small change
Only spend negative effective value coins when beneficial for privacy
Fix long-standing bug that broke wallets with >65k addresses
Windows binaries: Now build the PyInstaller bootloader ourselves, as this seems to reduce anti-virus false positives
Fix performance regression for large wallets
Fix high-DPI issues related to text fields
Trezor – Allow bypassing 'too old firmware' error
Trezor – Use only the Bridge to scan devices if it is available
Hardware wallets – On Win10-1903, some hardware devices with U2F functionality can only be detected with Administrator privileges. A workaround is to run as Admin, or for Trezor to install the Bridge.
The AppImage Linux x86_64 binary and the Windows setup.exe are now built reproducibly.
Fix watch-only wallets that could not bump fee in some scenarios
Faster transaction signing for segwit inputs or really large transactions.
Android Wallet is a BIP-0032 compatible hierarchial deterministic Groestlcoin Wallet, allowing you to send and receive Groestlcoin via QR codes and URI links.
V7.11.1 Changes
SegWit Support:
Send to native SegWit Bech32 addresses.
Receive to and spend from native segwit (Bech32) addresses
Existing wallets without a spending PIN are updated to use native segwit (Bech32) addresses
Existing wallets with spending PIN can be upgraded by changing or removing the PIN
Add 3 more block explorers – Groestlsight, Blockbook, Blockchair
New alert for users with insecure Bluetooth
Use much less memory when displaying QR codes
Add a warning dialog regarding a relatively high fee
Clarify message when fetching/validating the payment request fails
Backing up makes use of the SAF. For most users, this means encrypted backups are stored on Google Drive, but other cloud storage providers can also be used
Fix certain payments not showing up until they become confirmed
Always show fiat amounts directly below Groestlcoin value in the payment history
The QR Code scanner now supports portrait orientation
Run circular reveal transition if QR code scanner is started via lower action bar
Update build to Gradle 3.3+ and Android Plugin for Gradle 2.3.3
Use Room Persistence Library for access to the address book database
Adds a network security configuration
Migrate support libraries and architecture components to AndroidX
Add another backup reminder
Remove ability to restore backups from list of Base58-encoded private keys
The app now requires Android 5.0 (Lollipop) or higher
Option to request coins to a legacy address (Sender may not support BECH32)
Double the capacity of the block store
Make more room for transactions list by scrolling away the balance panel
Based on GroestlcoinJ 0.15.2
Disconnects from incompatible peers much faster
Fix crash on Pixel 2 devices
Fix crash with hyperinflated fiat currencies
Fix rarely occurring crash when backing up the wallet
Fix crashes when opening dialogs at the wrong time
Fix crash when archiving a wallet backup on certain devices
Updated checkpoints
Update Electrum-GRS list with server fingerprints
Removed unused code and features. Show splash icon whilst the app is loading
Remove labs feature – Look up wallet names from the DNS
The FOREGROUND_SERVICE permission is now requested (Android 9 Pie +)
Support notification channels and adaptive launcher icons (Android 8+)
Fix app shortcuts (Android 7.1)
Multiple 'coin received' notifications are now bundled into a notification group (Android 7+)
Groestlwallet is designed to protect you from malware, browser security holes, even physical theft. With AES hardware encryption, app sandboxing, keychain and code signatures, groestlwallet represents a significant security advance over web and desktop wallets, and other mobile platforms. Simplicity is groestlwallet's core design principle. Because groestlwallet is "deterministic", your balance and entire transaction history can be restored from just your recovery phrase.
iOS 0.7.3 Changes
Fix BIP70 payments
Updated QR Scanner
Lowered spending limit
Updated DNS Seeds
Updated checkpoints
Fixed URL Scheme
Fixed GRS Name in mailing
Fixed crash upon starting in some scenarios
Android v89 Changes
Use default fee
Republished on Google Play by removing send_sms permissions
As always, the past 3 months since 22nd June have been crazy busy. The bears might still be around, but the show must go on and of course has not slowed the Groestlcoin development team in the slightest. Here’s a quick overview of what has already happened since the last release: - Integrated into the bitbns exchange, with the ability to buy Groestlcoin directly with the Indian Rupee. - Groestlcoin Rebrand Vote – Whilst there was much talk and push for a rebrand vote, the overall result was almost unanimously in favour of keeping our unique and conversation-starting name. With just 83 votes to Rebrand, and 2577 votes to No Rebrand. Thank you for all who voted, the funds raised are being used to fund ongoing hosting and development costs. - Integrated into the Cryptobridge exchange. Cryptobridge is a popular decentralised exchange where you always hold the private keys to your funds, only YOU have access to them. - Groestlcoin has been added to SimpleSwap – Groestlcoin can now be swapped with over 100 other cryptocurrencies, without signing up! - Groestlcoin has been added to UnoDax, one of the leading cryptocurrency exchanges in India, with TUSD, BTC and INR trading pairs. - Groestlcoin has been added to SwapLab.cc, where you can buy Groestlcoin using Bitcoin and over 50 other altcoins. Purchasing with VISA/Mastercard is coming VERY SOON. Discussed later: - Groestlcoin has been listed on #3 largest exchange in the world on volume, Huobi Global! More on this to come further on in the announcements. - Groestlcoin has been added to the Guarda Multi-Currency Wallet. - Groestlcoin has been added to Melis Multi-Device, Multi-Account, Multi-Platform, Multi-Signature advanced wallet! Already this list is far more than most other cryptocurrencies have achieved in the past 3 months. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of what has been developed.
The the most advanced wallet for Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Litecoin and now Groestlcoin.
With Melis you have the complete control of your bitcoins and private keys, you can define spending limits policies and make use of two or more factors authentication. Melis is open source, published on GitHub.
How Melis Works?
You can create as many accounts as you want. An account is a part of your wallet that can be customised to your requirements. You can choose how many co-signers are required to spend funds. The accounts are completely independent and act like separate wallets from each other but can be accessed via the same details. A core feature of Melis is the ability to set a ‘primary’ device. With this you can set an account as ‘Secure’ so it is only viewable (and accessible at all) from the Primary device. You can have a savings account hidden from the outside world whilst also having your ‘spending’ funds available on the go. With Melis you can create a multi-signature account between N people, where up to N signatures are required to sign a transaction, choosing if any of those should be mandatory.
Core Features:
Multi-Device – Ability to hide accounts from all but the primary account.
Multi-Account – Multiple, entirely separate accounts in one wallet.
Multi-Platform – Available on iOS, Android, Web, Windows, Linux and Mac OS
Multi-Signature – Create multi-signature accounts between many people, where a certain amount of people’s signatures is required to sign a transaction. Some can be required before a transaction is signed.
Native support for many currencies – Multiple currencies are supported, accessed all from the same wallet and backup keywords.
Advanced Coin Control (Choose which UTXO are involved in the transaction), multiple destinations and manual fee settings.
2FA support for enhanced security, also available via Telegram.
Wrong-Currency detection. The server knows if someone sends BTC to a BCH address and visa versa and automatically creates a new account to be able to recover the funds.
A single backup using standard BIP39 mnemonics is valid and enough for an unlimited number of transactions, address and different account types
Safer than ever! Desktop Light Wallet - Anonymous and fast!
With Guarda Multi-currency Desktop Light Wallet you don’t need to register. Guarda has no access to your private keys or funds. You can receive, send, store, buy and exchange cryptocurrencies in complete anonymity and safety. All these features are available on Linux, Windows or MacOS. Choose the one that suits you! More info about Guarda wallet on www.guarda.co https://holytransaction.com/images/logo.png
Integrated into HolyTransaction
What is HolyTransaction?
HolyTransaction gives users access to the crypto world with a universal cryptocurrency wallet and instant exchange.
Features
Cryptocurrency Exchange HolyTransaction features a cryptocurrency exchange where you can exchange between all popular currencies with just a few clicks. Instant send from one currency to another.
Simple to use - With a simple, no-handdles GUI, anyone can now use and have access to cryptocurrency.
Cutting-Edge security - Following industry-best standards, and guarentee that your money is safe. Utilising hot and cold storage wallets.
Features an API whereby you can integrate cryptocurrency support into any website, from invoice processing to white-labelled multi-currency wallets.
Blockchain Financial is a set of web based services for individuals and companies that want to make things happen with the Cryptocurrencies Ecosystem. - For those that don't know anything about cryptocurrencies, we offer tools that will let them receive, send and operate with an assortment of coins. - For those that are already riding the wave, we offer tools that will let them do all those things that they weren't able to do.
Blockchain Financials mission
We're not here to reinvent the wheel. We're here to make it run smoother for you, and we provide some of the most useful services you'll find on the internet, made in a way that is easy to understand and use on a daily basis. In short, we're a bunch of people that claim to be Crypto Evangelists. We strongly believe in cryptocurrencies, and our main promise is to push them up so more people get involved and take all the advantages they offer.
More information from Blockchain Financial
Back in 2014, the world was taken by storm when Facebook approved the first cryptocurrencies tipping apps. The first was for Dogecoin, and the second was for multiple coins. The project was hosted on whitepuma.net, and persisted for almost two years, built up a massive user community and gave a home to Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin and dozens of other bitcoin-based altcoins. After very active months, the tipping hype started to fade away. Then, the developers decided to jump into the next stage: bringing not only tipping, but also mining and a widget that could be embedded on websites to allow everyone to accept payments. Sadly, the work was never completed because the project started to require an unsustainable amount of resources. Then, in a painful decision, a shutdown was announced by December 2015. A couple of months after whitepuma.net was closed, the source code was released by its creator as Open Source on GitHub. But it wasn't maintained. Now, some of the original members of the dev and admin teams gathered up with a handful of the WhitePuma's elite users, and decided to make something good with the best pieces of the old source code. That, with fresh new ideas and the power of the BardCanvas engine, synthesized the core of Blockchain Financial.
Huobi was founded in China and is now based in Singapore, with offices in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and the North America, currently sitting #3 in volume on Coinmarketcap. Huobi is a great leap forward for our growing presence in Asia and we are very excited to be listed here! You can find the official Huobi announcement here.
Groestlcoin Core v2.16.3 - Please Update ASAP
A new major Groestlcoin Core version 2.16.3 is now available for download which includes both a Denial of Service component and a critical inflation vulnerability, so it is recommended to upgrade to it if you are running a full Groestlcoin node or a local Groestlcoin Core wallet. v2.16.3 is now the official release version of Groestlcoin Core. This is a new major version release with a very important security updates. It is recommended to upgrade to this version as soon as possible. Please stop running versions of Groestlcoin Core affected by CVE-2018-17144 ASAP: These are 2.13.3 and 2.16.0. As a result in this, all exchanges and services have been asked to upgrade to this version, so please be patient if wallets go in to maintenance mode on these services.
What's new in version v2.16.3?
This is a major release of Groestlcoin Core fixing a Denial of Service component and a critical inflation vulnerability (https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-17144) exploitable by miners that has been discovered in Groestlcoin Core version 2.13.3 and 2.16.0. It is recommended to upgrade to 2.16.3 as soon as possible. If you only occasionally run Groestlcoin Core, then it's not necessary to run out and upgrade it right this second. However, you should upgrade it before you next run it. If you know anyone who is running an older version, tell them to upgrade it ASAP. Stored funds are not at risk, and never were at risk. At this time we believe over half of the Groestlcoin hashrate has upgraded to patched nodes. We are unaware of any attempts to exploit this vulnerability. However, it still remains critical that affected users upgrade and apply the latest patches to ensure no possibility of large reorganizations, mining of invalid blocks, or acceptance of invalid transactions occurs.
The Technicals
In Groestlcoin Core 2.13.3, an optimization was added (Bitcoin Core PR #9049) which avoided a costly check during initial pre-relay block validation that multiple inputs within a single transaction did not spend the same input twice which was added in 2012 (Bitcoin Core PR #443). While the UTXO-updating logic has sufficient knowledge to check that such a condition is not violated in 2.13.3 it only did so in a sanity check assertion and not with full error handling (it did, however, fully handle this case twice in prior to 2.1.0.6). Thus, in Groestlcoin Core 2.13.3, any attempts to double-spend a transaction output within a single transaction inside of a block will result in an assertion failure and a crash, as was originally reported. In Groestlcoin Core 2.16.0, as a part of a larger redesign to simplify unspent transaction output tracking and correct a resource exhaustion attack the assertion was changed subtly. Instead of asserting that the output being marked spent was previously unspent, it only asserts that it exists. Thus, in Groestlcoin Core 2.16.0, any attempts to double-spend a transaction output within a single transaction inside of a block where the output being spent was created in the same block, the same assertion failure will occur. However, if the output being double-spent was created in a previous block, an entry will still remain in the CCoin map with the DIRTY flag set and having been marked as spent, resulting in no such assertion. This could allow a miner to inflate the supply of Groestlcoin as they would be then able to claim the value being spent twice. Groestlcoin would like to publicly thank Reddit user u/Awemany for finding CVE-2018-17144 and reporting it (https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-core-dev/2018-Septembe000064.html). You deserve gratitude and appreciation from cryptoworld, and you have ours. If you want to support him for his work, please consider donating to him on his bitcoin cash address: bitcoincash:qr5yuq3q40u7mxwqz6xvamkfj8tg45wyus7fhqzug5 http://i.imgur.com/3YhyNZK.png
Electrum-GRS is a lightweight "thin client" groestlcoin wallet Windows, MacOS and Linux based on a client-server protocol. Its main advantages over the original Groestlcoin client include support for multi-signature wallets and not requiring the download of the entire block chain.
Changes:
Qt GUI: seed word auto-complete during restore
performance improvements (wallet, and Qt GUI)
hardware wallets: show debug message during device scan
add regtest support (via --regtest flag)
other minor bugfixes and usability improvements
If present, libsecp256k1 is used to speed up elliptic curve operations. The library is bundled in the Windows, MacOS, and Android binaries. On Linux, it needs to be installed separately.
Transactions that are dropped from the mempool are kept in the wallet as 'local', and can be rebroadcast. Previously these transactions were deleted from the wallet.
The scriptSig and witness part of transaction inputs are no longer parsed, unless actually needed. The wallet will no longer display 'from' addresses corresponding to transaction inputs, except for its own inputs.
The partial transaction format has been incompatibly changed. This was needed as for partial transactions the scriptSig/witness has to be parsed, but for signed transactions we did not want to do the parsing. Users should make sure that all instances of Electrum-GRS they use to co-sign or offline sign, are updated together.
Signing of partial transactions created with online imported addresses wallets now supports significantly more setups. Previously only online p2pkh address + offline WIF was supported. Now the following setups are all supported: > online {p2pkh, p2wpkh-p2sh, p2wpkh} address + offline WIF, > online {p2pkh, p2wpkh-p2sh, p2wpkh} address + offline seed/xprv, > online {p2sh, p2wsh-p2sh, p2wsh}-multisig address + offline seeds/xprvs > (Potentially distributed among several different machines) Note that for the online address + offline HD secret case, you need the offline wallet to recognize the address (i.e. within gap limit). Having an xpub on the online machine is still the recommended setup, as this allows the online machine to generate new addresses on demand.
Segwit multisig for bip39 and hardware wallets is now enabled (both p2wsh-p2sh and native p2wsh).
Ledger: offline signing for segwit inputs (#3302) This has already worked for Trezor. Offline segwit signing can be combined with online imported addresses wallets.
Added Revealer plugin. ( https://revealer.cc ) Revealer is a seed phrase back-up solution. It allows you to create a cold, analog, multi-factor backup of your wallet seeds, or of any arbitrary secret. The Revealer utilizes a transparent plastic visual one time pad.
Fractional fee rates: the Qt GUI now displays fee rates with 0.1 gro/byte precision, and also allows this same resolution in the Send tab.
Hardware wallets: a "show address" button is now displayed in the Receive tab of the Qt GUI. (#4316)
Electrum-grs is a lightweight "thin client" groestlcoin wallet Android based on a client-server protocol. Its main advantages over the original Groestlcoin client include support for multi-signature wallets and not requiring the download of the entire block chain.
Changes
Android: fix some crashes
If present, libsecp256k1 is used to speed up elliptic curve operations. The library is bundled in the Windows, MacOS, and Android binaries. On Linux, it needs to be installed separately.
Two-factor authentication is available on Android. Note that this will only provide additional security if one time passwords are generated on a separate device.
Semi-automated crash reporting is implemented for Android.
Qt/Kivy: added "gro" as optional base unit.
Kivy GUI: significant performance improvements when displaying history and address list of large wallets; and transaction dialog of large transactions.
Groestlcoin EasyVanity Released
Groestlcoin EasyVanity is a Windows app is built from the ground-up in C# and makes it easier than ever before to create your very own bespoke Groestlcoin address(es), even whilst not connected to the internet! You can even generate multiple keys with the same prefix and leave it on overnight whilst your CPU or GPU collects and stores these addresses locally.
If you're tired of the random, cryptic addresses generated by regular groestlcoin clients, then Groestlcoin EasyVanity is the right choice for you to create a more personalized address.
Features
• Ability to continue finding keys after first one is found • Includes warning on startup if connected to the internet • Ability to output keys to a text file (And shows button to open that directory) • Ability to make your match case sensitive (Where possible) • Show and hide the private key with a simple toggle switch, and copy the private key straight to your clipboard • Show full output of commands • Includes statistics whilst the application is running • Ability to choose between Processor (CPU) and Graphics Card (GPU) • Automatically detects 32 or 64 bit systems • Features both a Light and Dark Material Design inspired Themes • EasyVanity's search is probabilistic, and the amount of time required to find a given pattern depends on how complex the pattern is, the speed of your computer, and whether you get lucky. • EasyVanity includes components to perform address searching on your CPU (vanitygen) and your OpenCL-compatible GPU (oclvanitygen). Both can be built from source, and both are included in the Windows binary package. • Prefixes are exact strings that must appear at the beginning of the address. When searching for prefixes, Easyvanity will ensure that the prefix is possible, and will provide a difficulty estimate. • The percentage displayed just shows how probable it is that a match would be found in the session so far. If it finds your address with 5% on the display, you are extremely lucky. If it finds your address with 92% on the display, you are unlucky. If you stop EasyVanity with 90% on the display, restart it, and it finds your address with 2% on the display, your first session was unlucky, but your second session was lucky. • EasyVanity uses the OpenSSL random number generator. This is the same RNG used by groestlcoin and a good number of HTTPS servers. It is regarded as well-scrutinized. Guessing the private key of an address found by EasyVanity will be no easier than guessing a private key created by groestlcoin itself. • To speed up address generation, EasyVanity uses the RNG to choose a private key, and literally increments the private key in a loop searching for a match. As long as the starting point is not disclosed, if a match is found, the private key will not be any easier to guess than if every private key tested were taken from the RNG. EasyVanity will also reload the private key from the RNG after 10,000,000 unsuccessful searches (100M for oclvanitygen), or when a match is found and multiple patterns are being searched for. • Free software - MIT. Anyone can audit the code. • Written in C# - The code is short, and easy to review.
Groestlcoin Sentinel is the easiest and fastest way to track/receive/watch payments in your offline Groestlcoin Wallets. Groestlcoin Sentinel is compatible with any standard Groestlcoin address, BIP44 XPUB (Extended Public Key) BIP49 YPUB and BIP84 ZPUB Groestlcoin Sentinel is a great solution for anyone who wants the convenience and utility of a hot wallet for receiving payments directly into their cold storage (or hardware wallets). Sentinel accepts XPUB's, YPUB'S, ZPUB's and individual Groestlcoin address. Once added you will be able to view balances, view transactions, and (in the case of XPUB's, YPUB's and ZPUB's) deterministically generate addresses for that particular wallet.
What's New?
Track Segwit BIP84 ZPUBs extended pubkeys
Sweep Segwit BIP49 (P2SH-P2WPHK) and Segwit BIP84 (bech32) amounts into selected account/address
Broadcast hex tx
Added option to chose from Binance and Upbit as selected Exchange
Added Korean Won as price option
Receive address closes upon receipt of groestlcoin
Fix EUR price  ### Groestlcoin P2SH Paper Wallet #### What is Groestlcoin P2SH Paper Wallet? Groestlcoin P2SH paperwallet is a simple groestlcoin paper wallet generator that utilizes Segregated Witness (SegWit) Pay To Witness Public Key Hash (P2WPKH) addresses and transactions.
The P2SH paperwallet supports creating P2SH paperwallets in bulk, keypair generation with QR codes and sweeping tool. Groestlcoin believes strongly in privacy, the live version does not collect and store IP or transaction data.
Changes
Details section to validate private keys and to view corresponding segwit address, public key and redeem script.
Segwit brain wallet
Removed Vanity generator as it was very slow. (Please use VanityGen command line or EasyVanity instead)
Rebranded segwit paperwallet to p2sh paperwallet
Favicon updated
Testnet support added
Groestlcoin Sentinel can sweep funds from private keys and QR codes generated with this tool
Groestlcoin Sentinel Testnet can sweep funds from private keys and QR codes generated with this tool
Electrum-GRS can import private keys using the console and the importprivkey() command. Import as P2SH segwit: importprivkey('p2wpkh-p2sh:KzTLBvC6mNudLBjEmwYCuk3jrZ7sZS8CzFDzcrwnDM2CVpH8vNAn')
Electrum-GRS Testnet can import private keys using the console and the importprivkey() command. Import as P2SH segwit: importprivkey('p2wpkh-p2sh:cNNDi1AT8XNng2wJ5HNFN41toufU9XZ2bW8MGi7c9SGw4hnMuASk')
Features
Keypair generation with QR Codes
Bulk address generator
Key Sweeping Tool to move all funds belonging to a single SegWit private key.  ### Groestlcoin BECH32 Paper Wallet Released #### What is Groestlcoin BECH32 Paper Wallet? Groestlcoin BECH32 paperwallet is a simple groestlcoin paper wallet generator that utilizes Segregated Witness (SegWit) Pay To Witness Public Key Hash (P2WPKH) addresses and transactions.
The BECH32 paperwallet supports creating BECH32 paperwallets in bulk, keypair generation with QR codes and sweeping tool. Groestlcoin believes strongly in privacy, the live version does not collect and store IP or transaction data.
Features
Detail section to validate private keys and to view corresponding segwit address, public key and redeem script.
Segwit brain wallet
Testnet support
Groestlcoin Sentinel can sweep funds from private keys and QR codes generated with this tool
Groestlcoin Sentinel Testnet can sweep funds from private keys and QR codes generated with this tool
Electrum-GRS can import private keys using the console and the importprivkey() command. Import as P2SH segwit: importprivkey('p2wpkh-p2sh:KzTLBvC6mNudLBjEmwYCuk3jrZ7sZS8CzFDzcrwnDM2CVpH8vNAn')
Electrum-GRS Testnet can import private keys using the console and the importprivkey() command. Import as P2SH segwit: importprivkey('p2wpkh-p2sh:cNNDi1AT8XNng2wJ5HNFN41toufU9XZ2bW8MGi7c9SGw4hnMuASk')
Bulk address generator
Key Sweeping Tool to move all funds belonging to a single SegWit private key.
Groestlcoin Webwallet is an open source, multisignature, HD Wallet and more! Webwallet is a a open source browser based Groestlcoin webwallet. Webwallet is a playground for Groestlcoin in javascript to experiment with. It supports multisig, OP_HODL, RBF and many more. Groestlcoin believes strongly in privacy, the live version does not collect and store IP or transaction data.
dcrd: Version 1.3.0 RC1 (Release Candidate 1) is out! The main features of this release are significant performance improvements, including some that benefit SPV clients. Full release notes and downloads are on GitHub. The default minimum transaction fee rate was reduced from 0.001 to 0.0001 DCkB. Do not try to send such small fee transactions just yet, until the majority of the network upgrades. Release process was changed to use release branches and bump version on the master branch at the beginning of a release cycle. Discussed in this chat. The codebase is ready for the new Go 1.11 version. Migration to vgo module system is complete and the 1.4.0 release will be built using modules. The list of versioned modules and a hierarchy diagram are available here. The testnet was reset and bumped to version 3. Comments are welcome for the proposal to implement smart fee estimation, which is important for Lightning Network. @matheusd recorded a code review video for new Decred developers that explains how tickets are selected for voting. dcrwallet: Version 1.3.0 RC1 features new SPV sync mode, new ticket buyer, new APIs for Decrediton and a host of bug fixes. On the dev side, dcrwallet also migrated to the new module system. Decrediton: Version 1.3.0 RC1 adds the new SPV sync mode that syncs roughly 5x faster. The feature is off by default while it receives more testing from experienced users. Other notable changes include a design polish and experimental Politeia integration. Politeia: Proposal editing is being developed and has a short demo. This will allow proposal owners to edit their proposal in response to community feedback before voting begins. The challenges associated with this feature relate to updating censorship tokens and maintaining a clear history of which version comments were made on. @fernandoabolafio produced this architecture diagram which may be of interest to developers. @degeri joined to perform security testing of Politeia and found several issues. dcrdata: mainnet explorer upgraded to v2.1 with several new features. For users: credit/debit tx filter on address page, showing miner fees on coinbase transaction page, estimate yearly ticket rewards on main page, cool new hamburger menu and keyboard navigation. For developers: new chain parameters page, experimental Insight API support, endpoints for coin supply and block rewards, testnet3 support. Lots of minor API changes and frontend tweaks, many bug fixes and robustness improvements. The upcoming v3.0 entered beta and is deployed on beta.dcrdata.org. Check out the new charts page. Feedback and bug reports are appreciated. Finally, the development version v3.1.0-pre is on alpha.dcrdata.org. Android: updated to be compatible with the latest SPV code and is syncing, several performance issues are worked on. Details were posted in chat. Alpha testing has started, to participate please join #dev and ask for the APK. iOS: backend is mostly complete, as well as the front end. Support for devices with smaller screens was improved. What works now: creating and recovering wallets, listing of transactions, receiving DCR, displaying and scanning QR codes, browsing account information, SPV connection to peers, downloading headers. Some bugs need fixing before making testable builds. Ticket splitting: v0.6.0 beta released with improved fee calculation and multiple bug fixes. docs: introduced new Governance section that grouped some old articles as well as the new Politeia page. @Richard-Red created a concept repository sandbox with policy documents, to illustrate the kind of policies that could be approved and amended by Politeia proposals. decred.org: 8 contributors added and 4 removed, including 2 advisors (discussion here). decredmarketcap.com is a brand new website that shows the most accurate DCR market data. Clean design, mobile friendly, no javascript required. Dev activity stats for August: 239 active PRs, 219 commits, 25k added and 11k deleted lines spread across 8 repositories. Contributions came from 2-10 developers per repository. (chart)
Network
Hashrate: went from 54 to 76 PH/s, the low was 50 and the new all-time high is 100 PH/s. BeePool share rose to ~50% while F2Pool shrank to 30%, followed by coinmine.pl at 5% and Luxor at 3%. Staking: 30-day average ticket price is 95.6 DCR (+3.0) as of Sep 3. During the month, ticket price fluctuated between a low of 92.2 and high of 100.5 DCR. Locked DCR represented between 3.8 and 3.9 million or 46.3-46.9% of the supply. Nodes: there are 217 public listening and 281 normal nodes per dcred.eu. Version distribution: 2% at v1.4.0(pre) (dev builds), 5% on v1.3.0 (RC1), 62% on v1.2.0 (-5%), 22% on v1.1.2 (-2%), 6% on v1.1.0 (-1%). Almost 69% of nodes are v.1.2.0 and higher and support client filters. Data snapshot of Aug 31.
ASICs
Obelisk posted 3 email updates in August. DCR1 units are reportedly shipping with 1 TH/s hashrate and will be upgraded with firmware to 1.5 TH/s. Batch 1 customers will receive compensation for missed shipment dates, but only after Batch 5 ships. Batch 2-5 customers will be receiving the updated slim design. Innosilicon announced the new D9+ DecredMaster: 2.8 TH/s at 1,230 W priced $1,499. Specified shipping date was Aug 10-15. FFMiner DS19 claims 3.1 TH/s for Blake256R14 at 680 W and simultaneously 1.55 TH/s for Blake2B at 410 W, the price is $1,299. Shipping Aug 20-25. Another newly noticed miner offer is this unit that does 46 TH/s at 2,150 W at the price of $4,720. It is shipping Nov 2018 and the stats look very close to Pangolin Whatsminer DCR (which has now a page on asicminervalue).
Integrations
www.d1pool.com joined the list of stakepools for a total of 16. Australian CoinTreeadded DCR trading. The platform supports fiat, there are some limitations during the upgrade to a new system but also no fees in the "Early access mode". On a related note, CoinTree is working on a feature to pay household bills with cryptocurrencies it supports. Three new OTC desks were added to exchanges page at decred.org. Two mobile wallets integrated Decred:
Coinomiadded Decred to their Android and iOS wallets. In addition to the Apple App Store and Google Play you can download the APK directly. Coinomi features an integrated cryptocurrency exchange and is the first company to offer a mobile Decred wallet.
Reminder: do your best to understand the security and privacy model before using any wallet software. Points to consider: who controls the seed, does the wallet talk to the nodes directly or via middlemen, is it open source or not?
Adoption
Merchants:
Bit Dialsannounced DCR support via GloBee at their bitdials.eu luxury boutique. Their separate supercar and classic car shop bitcars.eu also accepts DCR, either via GloBee or with manual invoicing in case of privacy concerns.
Sheldon Storere-enabled DCR payments. The shop sells gift cards for Amazon, iTunes, Netflix and many more.
Marketing
Targeted advertising report for August was posted by @timhebel. Facebook appeal is pending, some Google and Twitter campaigns were paused and some updated. Read more here. Contribution to the @decredproject Twitter account has evolved over the past few months. A #twitter_ops channel is being used on Matrix to collaboratively draft and execute project account tweets (including retweets). Anyone with an interest in contributing to the Twitter account can ask for an invitation to the channel and can start contributing content and ideas there for evaluation by the Twitter group. As a result, no minority or unilateral veto over tweets is possible. (from GitHub)
Events
Attended:
Meetup in Puebla City, Mexico, organized by @elian. (photo, slides, missed in July issue)
@joshuam discussed Decred and decentralized organizations with Craig Laundy, Federal Minister for Small Business, the Workplace, and Deregulation with the Australian Government, at @YBFVentures. (photos)
Meetup at @TheBlockCafe in Lisbon, Portugal. @mm presented "Decred 101 - Governance with Skin in the Game" and @moo31337 talked about Decred's 2018 roadmap. (photos: 123)
Meetup in Taipei, Taiwan. @morphymore made a short intro of Decred and noted: "After the talk, many have approached to tell me that they literally don’t hear of Decred until today, and are interested in finding out more about the merit of a hybrid consensus system.". Longer report here, some photos and a video are here.
@eSizeDave introduced Decred to the SILC Undergraduate Program students at @YBFVentures. (photo)
OKEx Global Meetup Tour in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. @joshuam gave a brief presentation covering the history of Decred, how the project functions, and the importance of governance. Afterwards he joined a panel discussion and spoke about Decred's incentives for long term viability. (video, video, photo)
Blockchain Futurist Conference in Toronto, Canada. @zubairzia0 noted: "Devs and the community were held in high regard for the people who knew about decred ... one positive thing I remember was someone defending us saying 'Decred does not need a booth', I believe that comment was reflective of the quality of projects being showcased at the conference.". (photo)
Meetup at @YBFVentures in Melbourne, Australia. @joshuam discussed Decred with Graham Stuart, U.K. Minister for International Trade. (news, photos)
Small meetup with Jackson Palmer in Melbourne, Australia. (photo)
Voice of Blockchain in Chicago, USA. @moo31337 talked on Protocol Governance panel, Solving Scalability panel (video) and gave an interview, while @ay-p spoke on Decentralized Exchanges panel. Stakey made an appearance on the slides. (photos: 12345)
Hawthorne Street Fair in Portland, USA. Raedah Group was out answering questions about crypto and Decred. (photos)
Blockchain APAC in Melbourne, Australia. @joshuam joined a panel discussion with reps from banking, university and ISO/TC 307. @eSizeDave reports: "This enterprise conference was indeed a whole lot better than I expected. The presentations were actually full of very worthwhile information from credible people, articulated aptly to a very government, academic, and corporate crowd, who genuinely took on board valuable insights. Good to know some of these key people are Decred holders and stakers as well. I got to use the entire day to speak directly with some of the most pivotal personalities in this particular populace. Ongoing relationships have been built and strengthened.". (photos: 123)
For those willing to help with the events:
BAB: Hey all, we are gearing up for conference season. I have a list of places we hope to attend but need to know who besides @joshuam and @Haon are willing to do public speaking, willing to work booths, or help out at them? You will need to be well versed on not just what is Decred, but the history of Decred etc... DM me if you are interested. (#event_planning) The Decred project is looking for ambassadors. If you are looking for a fun cryptocurrency to get involved in send me a DM or come talk to me on Decred slack. (@marco_peereboom, longer version here)
Media
Decred Assembly episode 21 is available. @jy-p and lead dcrwallet developer @jrick discussed SPV from Satoshi's whitepaper, how it can be improved upon and what's coming in Decred. Decred Assembly episodes 1-21 are available in audio only format here. New instructional articles on stakey.club: Decrediton setup, Deleting the wallet, Installing Go, Installing dcrd, dcrd as a Linux service. Available in both English and Portuguese. Decred scored #32 in the August issue of Chinese CCID ratings. The evaluation model was explained in this interview. Satis Group rated Decred highly in their cryptoasset valuation research report (PDF). This was featured by several large media outlets, but some did not link to or omitted Decred entirely, citing low market cap. Featured articles:
Decred Investor Interviews: Ciarán O’Leary, General Partner, BlueYard Capital (medium)
Decred Update Research Report by Node Blockchain (medium), and the corresponding full 11-page report (Google Drive)
Is Decred worth my time and money? by Fabien Pelissier (medium), and the full 13-page Decred Analysis (PDF)
One private work channel was successfully migrated to Matrix.
Stylish room avatars were set.
@Haon has prepared a short guide to help new Matrix users get started and join the Decred rooms.
Highlights:
A thread was started to discuss changes to Decred jargon with the intent to make it more consistent and accessible to newcomers. The question whether changing "official" terminology requires stakeholder approval was touched in this thread and in #documentation.
Project fund transparency and constitution were extensively discussed on Reddit and in #general.
Pre-proposal to use Politeia to approve Politeia as a legitimate decision-making tool for Decred.
Reddit: substantive discussion about Decred cons; ecosystem fund; a thread about voter engagement, Politeia UX and trolling; idea of a social media system for Decred by @michae2xl; how profitable is the Obelisk DCR1. Chats: cross-chain trading via LN; plans for contractor management system, lower-level decision making and contractor privacy vs transparency for stakeholders; measuring dev activity; what if the network stalls, multiple implementations of Decred for more resilience, long term vision behind those extensive tests and accurate comments in the codebase; ideas for process for policy documents, hosting them in Pi and approving with ticket voting; about SPV wallet disk size, how compact filters work; odds of a wallet fetching a wrong block in SPV; new module system in Go; security of allowing Android app backups; why PoW algo change proposal must be specified in great detail; thoughts about NIPoPoWs and SPV; prerequisites for shipping SPV by default (continued); Decred vs Dash treasury and marketing expenses, spending other people's money; why Decred should not invade a country, DAO and nation states, entangling with nation state is poor resource allocation; how winning tickets are determined and attack vectors; Politeia proposal moderation, contractor clearance, the scale of proposals and decision delegation, initial Politeia vote to approve Politeia itself; chat systems, Matrix/Slack/Discord/RocketChat/Keybase (continued); overview of Korean exchanges; no breaking changes in vgo; why project fund burn rate must keep low; asymptotic behavior of Decred and other ccs, tail emission; count of full nodes and incentives to run them; Politeia proposal translations and multilingual environment. An unusual event was the chat about double negatives and other oddities in languages in #trading.
Markets
DCR started the month at USD 56 / BTC 0.0073 and had a two week decline. On Aug 14 the whole market took a huge drop and briefly went below USD 200 billion. Bitcoin went below USD 6,000 and top 100 cryptos lost 5-30%. The lowest point coincided with Bitcoin dominance peak at 54.5%. On that day Decred dived -17% and reached the bottom of USD 32 / BTC 0.00537. Since then it went sideways in the USD 35-45 / BTC 0.0054-0.0064 range. Around Aug 24, Huobi showed DCR trading volume above USD 5M and this coincided with a minor recovery. @ImacallyouJawdy posted some creative analysis based on ticket data.
Relevant External
StopAndDecrypt published an extensive article "ASIC Resistance is Nothing but a Blockchain Buzzword" that is much in line with Decred's stance on ASICs. The ongoing debates about the possible Sia fork yet again demonstrate the importance of a robust dispute resolution mechanism. Also, we are lucky to have the treasury. Mark B Lundeberg, who found a vulnerability in atomicswap earlier, published a concept of more private peer-to-peer atomic swaps. (missed in July issue) Medium took a cautious stance on cryptocurrencies and triggered at least one project to migrate to Ghost (that same project previously migrated away from Slack). Regulation: Vietnam bans mining equipment imports, China halts crypto events and tightens control of crypto chat groups. Reddit was hacked by intercepting 2FA codes sent via SMS. The announcement explains the impact. Yet another data breach suggests to think twice before sharing any data with any company and shift to more secure authentication systems. Intel and x86 dumpsterfire keeps burning brighter. Seek more secure hardware and operating systems for your coins. Finally, unrelated to Decred but good for a laugh: yetanotherico.com.
About This Issue
This is the 5th issue of Decred Journal. It is mirrored on GitHub, Medium and Reddit. Past issues are available here. Most information from third parties is relayed directly from source after a minimal sanity check. The authors of Decred Journal have no ability to verify all claims. Please beware of scams and do your own research. Feedback is appreciated: please comment on Reddit, GitHub or #writers_room on Matrix or Slack. Contributions are welcome too. Some areas are collecting content, pre-release review or translations to other languages. Check out @Richard-Red's guide how to contribute to Decred using GitHub without writing code. Credits (Slack names, alphabetical order): bee, Haon, jazzah, Richard-Red and thedecreddigest.
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