There is a known issue with our protocol which places a floor, or minimum, on the proof of stake difficulty. Presently the network is producing about 36 blocks per hour but it should be producing 60. Normally the difficulty would adjust downward and the network would produce 60 blocks an hour with the present level of minting. However, due to this issue the difficulty will not adjust downward as it is already at the minimum enforced by the flaw in the protocol.
There are a couple problems that result from low block counts:
The parking interval is based on block counts, not time, so that means that when funds are parked they will stay parked longer than the advertised time interval, resulting in user dissatisfaction.
Interest rate changes occur more slowly. The protocol only allows the rate to rise by 1% every 1440 blocks.
There are two ways to address the problem:
Change the protocol to remove the minimum difficulty level using a hard fork.
Shareholders can mint with NuShares not currently minting to increase the number of blocks to 60 an hour (or even more for a week until the difficulty adjusts).
Hard forking poses a risk to the integrity of the ledger and a rushed hard fork poses a much higher risk. Therefore, I’m inclined to request that NuShare holders do as much minting as possible until we can implement an orderly hard fork with our 0.5 release. About 67% more minting is needed to create 60 blocks an hour. More NuShares are being distributed all the time, which will make dealing with this known issue easier with each passing day.
If you bring a new wallet online to mint be advised that voting settings are contained in the wallet, not the client. So in that case you will need to configure your votes again.
Thank you, Jordan, for this information. I agree that we should not rush to a hard fork.
All, please note that NuShares transactions must be 7 days old in order to begin minting (compared to the 30-day coin age from Peercoin). I expect we will see a sharp uptick in minting as recent NuShares purchasers cross the 7-day mark and are able to participate with minting on the network.
The network is configured as follows:
Min coin age: 7 days
Max coin age: 7 days
Minting reward: 40 NSR per block
Difficulty adjustment: After every block (same as Peercoin protocol)
Are people able to buy NuShares right now so they can start minting after 7 days? I’d like to purchase some, but I’ve been having problems with Bitmessage for the last several days. I think my message finally got through to Jordan though. At least it says it was sent and is waiting acknowledgement. Hopefully we can get a lot of people minting.
Also a side question, in order to get the maximum amount of people to mint, we’ll need cold-locked minting. Is that system already in NuBits, or is it still being developed to include in both Peercoin and NuBits?
@Sentinelrv My guess is that since Sigmike is a developer on both PPC & NuBits, they will share development. I do remember Jordan saying many months ago that it would be good for shareholders to have a secure way to mint their shares.
I wonder though, what implications would cold-locked minting have on voting? Will cold-locked still allow you to interact with the client and set your votes?
The wait to be screened for NuShare purchase is currently 5 days, an all time high. I think this will drop back down to 24 hours in the next couple days. My apologies for the delay. I’m being stubborn about using Bitmessage only for this. Sorry the inconvenience there as well.
Cold locked minting is not currently planned for NuShares. While I understand the demand for it, I have not yet seen a design that does not pose unacceptable risks to network security. I’m in favor of developing inexpensible dedicated hardware for minting along the lines of what peerchemist is doing (though additional refinement is certainly possible) as an alternative. It is still possible a design could be discovered that would not compromise security, but I haven’t seen it yet.
So you don’t believe the design Sigmike is building for Peercoin is secure enough? What in your opinion is wrong with it? I was under the assumption that it was good to go, unless you just disagree with Sunny that it’s secure enough.
What is the technical procedure for minting NuShares? Currently, I have NuShares and have “Unlock[ed] Wallet for Minting Only”. Is this all that is necessary? How does one properly set their voting configuration?
Once you have your wallet unlocked for minting, you just need to wait. Once seven days have passed your NuShares are matured and will begin trying to mint. Currently it takes approximately 5 weeks for a 10,000 NSR output to find a block.
Share days are accrued by shares if they are undisturbed (not sent or staked) after becoming a verified transaction. After seven days, shares are fully matured (usable for minting). Holding shares beyond this date has no impact on the difficulty of minting a block. This creates an incentive for NuShareholders to mint as soon as possible.
Just a reminder for those who don’t follow the links in @tomjoad’s post:
it’s important to get familiar with voting if you have NuShares and decide to mint.
Minting and not having configured votes is essentially voting for 0% park rate interest and against all motions and custodians! Better think twice before doing that!
Data feeds are a high development priority. @sigmike is already working on the implementation. The feeds will allow NuShares holders to pull in votes from a trusted source which alleviates keeping up with the day-to-day network trends.