FTC Diff Change
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While we welcome respectful discussion and debate, we will not tolerate personal attacks on any other member of the community.
You have been warned about this a number of times.
If you make another personal attack on any other member of the community, I will ban you, to avoid any accusations of unfairness to justabit.
Enough is enough.
Stefan
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So I’ve not heard a good argument against just lowering the retarget rate. One suggestion was that it reduced the value of the coin, but I’ve not understood that argument. Would anyone care to elaborate why having retargets every 100 blocks with a 41.1% cap on change be bad?
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Another option could be an AI run diff changing system where its looking at hashrate acceleration, block times, and market rates and based on prior data it will try to predict what the next diff will be before people even switch to it. This calculation could be run every minute and pumped out to the stats site for the next estimate. The best part is you can train and test this on live data as a proof of concept.
As a side note my favorite part of programming has and always will be computing algorithms of any kind :P I love math way too much to enjoy everything else as much that goes along with programming.
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[quote name=“erk” post=“13848” timestamp=“1371073828”]
I feel the diff change speed is still way to slow. It should be at least half the number of blocks that it is now or less. ie. 252 not 504.We are leaving ourselves open to another fork attack by letting the confirmation time rise so much, plus it’s a major hurdle for doing meaningful commerce with the coin when confirms are 10min or more. I have been quite vocal about the slow diff re-targets for months now, and the recent attacks add weight to my concern.
The original diff target was set to instamine on launch, and has nothing to do with long term coin usefulness. If I was the dev I would set the re-target to 100 blocks as the 41.4% restriction, means your re-targets have much less effect than the original code base. A block re-target every 100 blocks is much easier to work out when the next re-target will, occur, you don’t have to remember when the last one was and add 504 to it, I see no downside.
The 504 block target is supposed to be 24hr when you multiply 504 x 2.5min, but that’s BS because in reality the block time is virtually never 2.5min, it’s higher or lower.
[/quote]You think it’s slow to drop because it went up faster than before and you couldn’t cash out. If we make it shorter, you’ll have even less time to profit and cash out. You think the difficulty will drop faster, but it won’t, because with the shorter profit times, more people will leave. Therefore it will take just as long for difficulty to drop.
Then the attacks will come which will drive the difficulty way higher than before because even though there’s a limit in rise, there’s a retarget every 30 minutes (100 blocks at ludicrous speed). Then the majority of the blocks will be found by the attacker so no one will want to mine. Once that happens, 100 blocks will take the same 7 - 20 days.
Before arguing about difficulty, google a parabola and stare at it until you understand that low extremes are just as bad as high extremes. Until you understand that low extremes in design result in the same exact situation as we had before, you will simply not get it.
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[quote name=“RIPPEDDRAGON” post=“14363” timestamp=“1371158801”]
Another option could be an AI run diff changing system where its looking at hashrate acceleration, block times, and market rates and based on prior data it will try to predict what the next diff will be before people even switch to it.
[/quote]I had a very similar idea I shot over to Bush concerning prediction. What are the community thoughts on this one?
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[quote name=“justabitoftime” post=“14370” timestamp=“1371159884”]
[quote author=RIPPEDDRAGON link=topic=1741.msg14363#msg14363 date=1371158801]
Another option could be an AI run diff changing system where its looking at hashrate acceleration, block times, and market rates and based on prior data it will try to predict what the next diff will be before people even switch to it.
[/quote]I had a very similar idea I shot over to Bush concerning prediction. What are the community thoughts on this one?
[/quote]A custom alg would be good to set FTC apart from the rest of the cryptos. I have done everything from breast cancer prediction, to finding water on meteors based on light returning from it, to building a bot that learned the best way to dodge based on its environment for unreal tournament. If you go the AI rout I would really like to help out with the development of this.
I also have a professor that is a friend of mine that works with bioinformatics and AI every day and if need be could be a great reference for this (if I asked her nicely lol).
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[quote name=“justabitoftime” post=“14370” timestamp=“1371159884”]
[quote author=RIPPEDDRAGON link=topic=1741.msg14363#msg14363 date=1371158801]
Another option could be an AI run diff changing system where its looking at hashrate acceleration, block times, and market rates and based on prior data it will try to predict what the next diff will be before people even switch to it.
[/quote]I had a very similar idea I shot over to Bush concerning prediction. What are the community thoughts on this one?
[/quote]I don’t think market rates can exactly be placed in the equation. Who do you pull from and can this be a new attack vector?
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[quote name=“justabitoftime” post=“14370” timestamp=“1371159884”]
[quote author=RIPPEDDRAGON link=topic=1741.msg14363#msg14363 date=1371158801]
Another option could be an AI run diff changing system where its looking at hashrate acceleration, block times, and market rates and based on prior data it will try to predict what the next diff will be before people even switch to it.
[/quote]I had a very similar idea I shot over to Bush concerning prediction. What are the community thoughts on this one?
[/quote]I actually like his earlier option with the approximation equation.
However, any change may end up being unnecessary. We now have double the hashrate than last time at the same difficulty and at same profitability. Sooner rather than later I think we will have enough dedicated hash to remain in a low difficulty range. In the medium run, our hash may fluctuate more than Litecoin, but we have a faster retarget.
We have to remember the current high difficulty is due to an unintended consequence of the attack which made the difficulty drop sending the profitability through the roof. I feel we will achieve decent stability as early as within 3-4 days.
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With a few more diff changes behind us I would like to see some more input. How is everyone feeling about how the diff has been changing recently?
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[quote name=“RIPPEDDRAGON” post=“16189” timestamp=“1371570709”]
With a few more diff changes behind us I would like to see some more input. How is everyone feeling about how the diff has been changing recently?
[/quote]Fine with me, the blocks are getting crunched and munched which is the important thing.
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The purpose of a long diff retarget is to allow profit without immediate new investment, especially if there’s a sudden influx. Our proplem was the hit and run.
The closer an algorithm matches the difficulty to the hashrate, the less profit there is in providing the service.
It’s simple really. The hash rate moves up and down in a curve. The shorter the retarget, the more the algorithm hugs the curve. The more the algorithm hugs the curve, the less incentive there is to add hashing power.
And we know what low hashing power means:
51% attacks
long confirmations
difficulty traps
nearly zero inertia against pump and dumpIf we retarget too slow we wait forever to come out of difficulty traps.
If we retarget too fast we get more difficulty traps.If you want to have the right intuition about these dynamics, don’t think ramp (low = good / high = bad). Think parabola (extreme low, perfect middle, extreme high = bad, medium low/high/periodic change = good).
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[quote name=“zerodrama” post=“16219” timestamp=“1371577099”]
The purpose of a long diff retarget is to allow profit without immediate new investment, especially if there’s a sudden influx. Our proplem was the hit and run.The closer an algorithm matches the difficulty to the hashrate, the less profit there is in providing the service.
[/quote]I 100% disagree with this statement. Profitability is based on the current market value of a coin and its difficulty. With our current system we will continue to yo-yo from most profitable to completely pointless. With this yo-yo we will continue to go from fast transactions to much slower ones as well offering a very inconsistent experience for merchants trying to use our system. With these profit swings we will see more pump and dump behavior with people trying to make as much as they can in a short period rather than holding and investing.
If a coin becomes less profitable people will always move away from mining it. This will always result in a lower diff which will increase profitability until it hits equilibrium. If you adjust quicker you will lower the length of high profit but also bring the low profit periods down. You will have a much more stable block time and much more stable profitability. Trying to find an equilibrium with huge 41% swings is like trying to do Acid-Base Titrations by dumping Acids and Bases (up to 41% of your mixture volume) into your solution until you get it stable.
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[quote name=“RIPPEDDRAGON” post=“16232” timestamp=“1371581174”]If a coin becomes less profitable people will always move away from mining it.[/quote]
Not always and not all. I admit there are people who cannot foresee tomorrow and make their choices according to whatever DustCoin or CoinChoose display. They always jump from one pool to another and so on, also from one crypto to another and so forth. Let them be, no crypto can be top profitable all the time. What we need for now is market expansion and hash rate high enough to sustain block generation rate at least within Bitcoin’s 10 minutes.
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[quote name=“ghostlander” post=“16243” timestamp=“1371582750”]What we need for now is market expansion and hash rate high enough to sustain block generation rate at least within Bitcoin’s 10 minutes.
[/quote]And we’re still comfortably within that bound at least.
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[quote name=“ghostlander” post=“16243” timestamp=“1371582750”]
[quote author=RIPPEDDRAGON link=topic=1741.msg16232#msg16232 date=1371581174]If a coin becomes less profitable people will always move away from mining it.[/quote]Not always and not all. I admit there are people who cannot foresee tomorrow and make their choices according to whatever DustCoin or CoinChoose display. They always jump from one pool to another and so on, also from one crypto to another and so forth. Let them be, no crypto can be top profitable all the time. What we need for now is market expansion and hash rate high enough to sustain block generation rate at least within Bitcoin’s 10 minutes.
[/quote]In general this will hold true for a majority of the population. This was taken out of context just read the next sentence. If I had used the words ALL people will move away then you would have a point. Some people, like me, will stick it out regardless.
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[quote name=“RIPPEDDRAGON” post=“16232” timestamp=“1371581174”]
[quote author=zerodrama link=topic=1741.msg16219#msg16219 date=1371577099]
The purpose of a long diff retarget is to allow profit without immediate new investment, especially if there’s a sudden influx. Our proplem was the hit and run.The closer an algorithm matches the difficulty to the hashrate, the less profit there is in providing the service.
[/quote]If you have a faster retarget, your recent upgrade of mining equipment becomes worthless faster because you end up getting the same result that you did two weeks ago when you bought it.
You do not want to hug the curve.
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[quote name=“zerodrama” post=“16253” timestamp=“1371584033”]
[quote author=zerodrama link=topic=1741.msg16219#msg16219 date=1371577099]
The purpose of a long diff retarget is to allow profit without immediate new investment, especially if there’s a sudden influx. Our proplem was the hit and run.The closer an algorithm matches the difficulty to the hashrate, the less profit there is in providing the service.
[/quote]If you have a faster retarget, your recent upgrade of mining equipment becomes worthless faster because you end up getting the same result that you did two weeks ago when you bought it.
You do not want to hug the curve.
[/quote]What evidence do you have to back up such broad claims? The same can happen with long diff changes it does not matter how close you hug the curve. If FTC market value jumps for any reason and makes it the most profitable miners will swap over until its not the most profitable. Then your diff skyrockets and the value falls a bit. All a sudden your equipment becomes worthless mining FTC till the diff drops again. The only thing that makes your mining equipment worth less is more people buying mining equipment causing the global hash rate across all cryptos to rise.
A .004 pump and dump could crush FTC for weeks again because our hash rate will skyrocket. I know I mined through one but if it happens again I will not be able to afford to continue to do it. You hurt loyal miners and help hoppers a lot by letting the diff jump like it does now. If you want to reward consistent mining you need to hug the hash rate with your diff more.
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I also disagree with the profitability and long retarget. what we need is a stable time per block, the bitcoin algo is based on one curency having up and down from start and stop of mining not to flavor of the day big switch. Alt coins are in a different scenario as switch is a factor. so up difficulty also brings less hash power and lower more hash power. so the retarget formula that only take into account the block time should be extend to take the hash change into account.
this in fact is not simple as it has an external factor the price that can’t easily be inlcude without bringing error. but a factor .25 to .75 in the retarget should do a nice trick. the overall max is the same but the move is just slower. let say we retarget by 40% at .5 we do a 20%. so if the calculation get 88% we should get max at 41.4%.
do the point is .25 .4 .5 .6 .66 .75 is difficult to determine. but i personally think .5 is a good guess as hash rate variation seems to be inversely proportional to the difficulty in a nearly linear way. the actual retarget is over 100% so would get a 41.4% (as the LTC retarget to lower diff soon after we retarget with higher diff give us a dive in profitability and then hash rate). this formula should have retarget us at around 134 instead of 144.
for sure external event like retarget of BTC and LTC and other alt coins has effect and can’t be account for so .25 is probably not enough responsive. a big drop in price can also makes the hash rate change, but the profitability is already compute in the hash rate. non profitable = less hash rate, more profitable = more hash rate and hash rate is measure via the time per block at current difficulty. so the block time actually used already takes into account all external factor it is just not as linear as it should be with a single coin with the alt coins profitability switch.
note: We can get a small value added to use a small weighting to calculate the time per bloc favoring the recent block. so we get a better idea from event that happen lately. but this should be marginal as overweighting them can lead to retarget attack.
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[quote name=“RIPPEDDRAGON” post=“16256” timestamp=“1371584816”]
[quote author=zerodrama link=topic=1741.msg16253#msg16253 date=1371584033]
[quote author=zerodrama link=topic=1741.msg16219#msg16219 date=1371577099]
The purpose of a long diff retarget is to allow profit without immediate new investment, especially if there’s a sudden influx. Our proplem was the hit and run.The closer an algorithm matches the difficulty to the hashrate, the less profit there is in providing the service.
[/quote]If you have a faster retarget, your recent upgrade of mining equipment becomes worthless faster because you end up getting the same result that you did two weeks ago when you bought it.
You do not want to hug the curve.
[/quote]What evidence do you have to back up such broad claims? The same can happen with long diff changes it does not matter how close you hug the curve. If FTC market value jumps for any reason and makes it the most profitable miners will swap over until its not the most profitable. Then your diff skyrockets and the value falls a bit. All a sudden your equipment becomes worthless mining FTC till the diff drops again. The only thing that makes your mining equipment worth less is more people buying mining equipment causing the global hash rate across all cryptos to rise.
A .004 pump and dump could crush FTC for weeks again because our hash rate will skyrocket. I know I mined through one but if it happens again I will not be able to afford to continue to do it. You hurt loyal miners and help hoppers a lot by letting the diff jump like it does now. If you want to reward consistent mining you need to hug the hash rate with your diff more.
[/quote]TRC died particularly because the difficulty and profitability changed not only before you could receive any, but before you could even sell or trade them. You can’t make mining decisions on retargets that occur within a few hours of each other.
Our retarget at full speed is already less than a day. Unless you want this to be a pure daytrading vehicle, you’re going to want the difficulty to remain the same for a day.
We are retargeting within 1 to 2 days as it is. This is faster than litecoin retargets and they only approach our rate of retarget because of the GPU rush. If we retarget faster, you will make even less money when the flood really hits.
Faster retarget is easier pump and dump. It will not settle down. It will go wild. Retarget is dynamic inertia / mass, difficulty is static inertia / mass, if you want to use a physics analogy.
You’re thinking low = good, high = bad. Real world is extreme end and extreme middle = bad, a little less a little more than middle = good. This isn’t a fixed system. People react to it both after a change and before a change they calculated for.
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[quote name=“zerodrama” post=“16284” timestamp=“1371593289”]
TRC died particularly because the difficulty and profitability changed not only before you could receive any, but before you could even sell or trade them. You can’t make mining decisions on retargets that occur within a few hours of each other.Our retarget at full speed is already less than a day. Unless you want this to be a pure daytrading vehicle, you’re going to want the difficulty to remain the same for a day.
We are retargeting within 1 to 2 days as it is. This is faster than litecoin retargets and they only approach our rate of retarget because of the GPU rush. If we retarget faster, you will make even less money when the flood really hits.
Faster retarget is easier pump and dump. It will not settle down. It will go wild. Retarget is dynamic inertia / mass, difficulty is static inertia / mass, if you want to use a physics analogy.
You’re thinking low = good, high = bad. Real world is extreme end and extreme middle = bad, a little less a little more than middle = good. This isn’t a fixed system. People react to it both after a change and before a change they calculated for.
[/quote]See logic and reasoning this is what I like to see rather than blind statements. Do not take this sarcastically I truly want to have a constructed conversation on this topic. Ill respond to each section with a corresponding number.
1. Really good point about changes and TRC. This leads into an interesting topic about confirmations etc. Due to the nature of how cryptos work you cant have an instantly adjusting diff or anything close to that. What is the limit on how fast you can adjust a diff without hurting a currency? You really don’t know without trial and error and I don’t think this question will ever be completely answered.
2. More trading is a good thing you don’t want a stagnant currency so why would it be bad if day traders loved FTC. People can already automate selling choices and automate their mining. I don’t think it will be the end of the world if the diff changes while most of the population is working.
3. I disagree with this, because when a re-target happens faster there will be less time at a really high profitability. In fact it is less likely to reach a super high profit rate. This will lower the surge of new coins into the market dampening the pumping and thus less dumping. I like the example :) gotta give me a chemistry or bio one next!
4. First part is a bit of a generalization rather than a correct truth. The second half you are correct but why does it matter? Read 1 and 2 for my reasons.
