Today for my series on /r/CryptoCurrency, I’m covering NuShares. It seems pretty interesting and I’d like to give it a fair shake. I’ve got a standard template of basic information I get on each “coin”, and the lack of emphasis on NuShares versus NuBits is making this a little difficult.
Here’s what I’d like to know (that I’ve noticed so far and haven’t been able to find; I may have more questions later): What is the block rate average for transferring NuShares? And what is the transaction fee for transferring NuShares?
Additionally, since bitinfocharts doesn’t have NSR, I don’t know where to go to find: transaction rate (how many NuShares have been transferred on the blockchain in the last 24 hours?) and a rich list calculation (what % of NuShares are held by the top 100 addresses, or similar metric).
I greatly appreciate any information that can be provided and would most appreciate links to authoritative sources for this information.
Thanks for the fast response! Yes, that does answer the rate (although it would be nice to see where in the documentation it specifies the 1 min block average, but this is fine too), and the transaction rate question. And yep, that rich list will work; awesome!
Okay, so the last one remaining is what is the transaction fee for transferring NSR?
Although I hadn’t really looked for that one yet, just hadn’t found it in the intro at a glance, so I’d included it originally. I see https://nubits.com/nushares/voting-mechanics implies that it is usually 1, but higher for larger transaction sizes? A precise schedule would be nice, but that could also work too.
But to directly answer some of your questions it costs 1 NSR per KB to make an NSR transaction. This usually equates to 1 NSR per transaction, but for much larger transactions with many inputs it can vary.
I’m not sure how to show the number to NSR transactions that have occurred within the past 24 hours. I don’t know if we have a way to display that yet. The block explorer does show number of transactions per day, but it’s skewed because the minting reward counts as a transaction I believe. http://blockexplorer.nu/charts/numtrans
Ha, yep; was just about to respond here to note that I’d gotten that one answered as well. Thank you both; off to do the write-up. I’ll post a link in this thread when I’ve got the write-up done and I’ll make an xpost on /r/nubits as well.
No worries whatsoever; I’m pretty sure this is the fastest and most thoroughly any community has answered me.
I realized I had another question, and also found something that surprised me.
The additional question is one of scalability: I like to know how many transactions per second a network could theoretically process at maximum. Given the blockrate, the additional information needed is how many transactions could be fit into a block at most.
Usually this is pretty straightforward, since most coins are based on bitcoin and so I can derive it from there, but I see that NuShares has its own code, and that although there is some general intention to eventually release it stated https://nubits.com/about/source-code, that intention has not yet been carried out. This is quite interesting to me; it’s the first closed-source coin I have reviewed.
So I’m unable to estimate the theoretical capacity on my own, and would appreciate any links or statements about the capacity of a block in terms of transactions (assuming minimum sized transactions).
That’s a good question. Perhaps we could ask @sigmike chime in.
What I can tell you is that NuBits is a fork of Peershares, which is a fork of Peercoin, which is a fork of Bitcoin. So we have inherited quite a lot of code. Most of the changes are related to the unique features of NuBits.
Ah, awesome, thanks. I remember seeing a reference to Peershares somewhere but hadn’t put the pieces together. Yes, I think that answers it then (although I’d certainly appreciate developer input to confirm or correct as well): Bitcoin is limited to 7 transactions / second (at best) based on minimum transaction size and its 1MB block size limit, which, as far as I know, all the altcoins have inherited from it. But the block rate then becomes the modifier, so in this case it would be 70 transactions / second. This is rarely, if ever, an issue for any of the alts, but my summary includes it, so I always try to figure it out.
I posted this reply to someone who asked a similar question on reddit.
Maximum transactions per second is sort of a variable here. NBT/NSR transactions share the same blocks, so depending on how many of each are fit into the 1 MB blocks it could change the TPS for each. It’s not like Bitcoin where only one unit type is being transacted per block. That being said NuShares are designed to be more of an exchange speculative or holding unit so the volume of transactions are expected to be much much lower than NBT which is intended to be the transactional unit. How that will turn out in the future I can’t really predict. Really hard to say what the actual TPS would be.
That being said @sigmike would be able to correct any inaccuracies in my reply.
Those may be the current limits, but it is important to know that Nu is designed with change in mind. Nu has the ability to pass motions that are voted on by the NuShares holders. So if it is determined that 70 transactions/sec is not sufficient, a motion could be made and passed to direct the developers to change the parameters and up-rev the client/protocol.
Already there have been several enhancements made to the Nu protocol / client since launch using this method.
I understand. This is also true for every coin (that it can be modified to support more transactions). And it’s nowhere near a limiting factor nor am I claiming it as one. I just document what the current theoretical maximum is, in the code as written.
Sorry, I ended up being so tired I didn’t really write-up a description that did this justice. Just got the summary of facts and then crashed and now trying to get into bed ASAP so I can function with a modicum of sanity tomorrow. Feel free to write a better explanation in the comments.
Anyhow, thank you all again for your help and I wish NSR the best of luck.
I think we played around with the idea initially before abandoning it. If you’re willing to put something together with relevant information @mhps we’ll get it uploaded onto its own page.
Good idea, I’ll use that as a starting point. There are a couple errors - notably in our distribution method - but it will serve as a good starting template for a nubits.com hosted page.
