Separate NuBits and NuShares wallets

We already had this discussion in hipchat, but I want to repurpose it here.

NuBits and NuShares have two different purposes and two different prospect users :

  • Shareholders : uses NuShare to manage NuNet, mint, and move shares around
  • NuBits holders : uses NuBits as currency to make payments, hold value, and park.

Having everything blended into a single wallet is, imho, at least misleading.

What are your thoughts ?

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I don’t know enough to have any real thoughts, but my understanding is that a NuShareholder need not own NuBits, and a holder of NuBits need not be a NuShareholder - so they separate

If Nu was a manufacturer of chicken feed, the owners (NuShareholders) would need a system to manage raw ingredients, production, personnel, payroll, IT, etc - all the things to run a factory

Such a system would not relate to the needs of the farmer (NuBit holder) who would need a system for ordering feed, dispensing the right quantity and making sure the chickens are fed at a certain time each day

So, why mix two unrelated systems?

There is also a security implication, in that if both NuShares and NuBits are in the same vehicle, and one crashes or is highjacked, then so is the other

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I’m with you on this robert :wink:

This is only partially true. They share the blockchain but the private keys in the wallets are different. There are two separate wallet.dat files, one for NuShares and one for NuBits which can be unlocked in the client separately.

My main concern is more from a NuBits user perspective. They are unnecessarily exposed to complexity that they would probably never use. As others have said before this gets in the way at some stage. A NBT only wallet would be preferable in my opinion. The advantage would also be that it can be open sourced without revealing the more unique and valuable code around NuShares. The partial open sourcing likely addresses valid concerns of the Shareholders regarding copycats and satisfy the need of Users to trust the client with their NuBits.

It happens to be that my efforts to release a NuBits Android client are also partially driven by my concern around potentially perceived complexity and lack of open sourcing of NuBits wallet in the short term. The Android client will be open source and easy and straightforward to use without distractions. And with that I hope we would be able to address potential concerns some users might have using NuBits.

Isn’t one of the advantages of having NuBits and NuShares in the same block chain the possibity to use both NuBits and NuShares for securing this one block chain?
Say holders of NuShares have a very high incentive to mint (in order to maintain the security of their shares), they help securing the block chain as well as the holders of NuBits, who have an equivalent incentive to mint.
I only don’t know how the blocks are created and relate to each other. Is there a ratio between NuBits and NuShares blocks (I’m thinking of Peercoin and the PoW and PoS process…)? If so, how is this relation determined?
Are NuBits and NuShares transactions in the same block?
The whitepaper tells a lot about economical aspects but not very much about protocol level and I’m sure that it will stay some time this way (to keep the first mover advantage as long as possible).

Abstract:
including NuBits and NuShares in the same block chain might rather provide security benefits than additional risks, because both the “NuBits process” and the “NuShares process” (speaking with PPC words) secure the block chain (knowing that this is different from Peercoin’s separate processes…).

NuBits won’t mint or create blocks. Only Nushares mint/create blocks as far as I understand. NuBits can only be parked to obtain interest when offered by the Shareholders, but still won’t create blocks.

Why is there an option “Settings -> Unlock Wallet for minting only” for both the NuBits and the NuShares part of the nu.exe?
It appears that you can unlock both of the wallets for minting only and you require 2 different passwords.
First I though that the unlock for minting option is shown no matter what unit (NuBits/NuShares) you have set your wallet to and´that it is only used for the minting of NuShares.
But then I tried to unlock the wallets and had to use the NuBits password for the NuBits wallet and the NuShares password for the NuShares wallet.

I have almost no information about what happens on protocol level. I can only make assumptions…

…but if there would really be no minting or creating blocks with NuBits, how could you put it on a separate block chain? How would you manage to secure it?

Why is there an option “Settings -> Unlock Wallet for minting only” for both the NuBits and the NuShares part of the nu.exe?

This has been fixed in the forthcoming release

Thank you for that information.
So I guess that Cybnate was right saying that “NuBits won’t mint or create blocks” (which seems to be according to the whitepaper).
And my assumption that NuBits need to be included in the block chain (together with NuShares), because it would be hard to secure an own block chain was no bad guess :wink:

I see two separate questions here. Here are my thoughts.

  • Yes, NBT and NSR should have separate wallet software, for simplicity.
  • No, NBT and NSR should not have separate blockchains, for security.
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Not sure about separate wallets as in separate applications. This would be relatively costly from a maintenance perspective. I think the devs should come up with an option in the config to enable NuShares in the wallet having it off by default in the near future. This would suit 95% of the users, when users decide to become NuShares holders they can be instructed to change config file or such and have access to full NuShares functionality. I wouldn’t be too particular whether it is a config file or a setting under options in the menu though.

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