Quote from: smoothie on October 12, 2015, 03:31:34 AM

this deserves to be reposted here:

As does this follow up:

Quote from: smooth on October 12, 2015, 08:07:12 AM

Quote from: moocowmoo on October 12, 2015, 04:00:49 AM

Considering xcoins max block subsidy was 500 and litecoins was 50 that makes sense.

The difficulty algorithm "int64 nSubsidy = (1111 / (pow((dDiff+1),2)))" would have clamped that down but the difficulty didn't raise fast enough (see point #1) to restrict total minting to more reasonable levels.

These are the facts. Code doesn't lie.

What you are missing is that:

1. Xcoin was specified to adjust difficulty every 60 minutes (12 5-minute blocks), and barring any other issue this would have slowed down mining reasonably quickly, as you said.

2. However, without explanation, the code that was actually released adjusted difficulty only once every 576 blocks, 48 times more slowly.

3. Xcoin also had a "bug" that greatly increased the amount of coins per block. It should have started at 100, not 500, and once the difficulty started to increase, it should have dropped lower still, not stayed at 500. This was not fixed until block 4500.

4. Subsequent supply cuts reduced the per-block reward to the current 3, which is <1/166 of the reward in most of the first 4500 blocks. By contrast LTC only recently reduced its per-block reward to 1/2 of the reward in the initial blocks.

These are the main reasons that the instamine ended up being so enormous, especially relative to the current supply, not the normal ramp up of difficulty that causes a very small instamine in most normal cases.

Quote

It's not an analogy. It's a flaw that many, many coins share. Xcoin was not unique in this regard.

Okay maybe not unique, but the scale of it is vastly larger in the case of Dash, and Dash had additional factors contributing to its instamine in addition to normal difficulty adjustment lag, wouldn't you agree?

References:

Quote from: TimFChavez on January 19, 2014, 04:00:54 PM

Quote from: xibeijan on January 19, 2014, 03:55:17 PM

Quote from: kaene on January 19, 2014, 03:39:30 PM

Is it me or difficulty is stuck at 1.00 for the last 2 hours? The network is around 100Mh/s, and we are solving blocks faster than every 5 minutes, shouldn't diff be higher?

I notice this too. Why isn't diff increasing?

- 5 minute block target
- 6 Confirms per transaction
- Difficulty re-targets every 60 minutes
- Block reward controlled by moores law ( 1111 / (diff+1 ^ 2))

Quote from: TimFChavez on January 19, 2014, 08:02:39 PM

Block reward controlled by moores law ( 1111 / (diff+1 ^ 2))

( 1111 / (0.005+1 ^ 2)) = 92.54477301

( 1111 / (1.00001+1 ^ 2)) = 85.46147272

( 1111 / (3.44635085+1 ^ 2)) = 71.92637347

( 1111 / (5.44+1 ^ 2)) = 63.70412844

The block rewards should have start close to 100 coins per block and should have gotten smaller each time the difficulty goes up and the reward should increase as the difficulty goes down.

Quote from: badman74 on January 19, 2014, 07:36:34 PM

Quote from: phm on January 19, 2014, 07:08:20 PM

Difficulty just changed to 3.44635085, block reward is now: 1111 / (1 + 3.44635085)^2 = 56.1961549627. I guess there is little point in solo mining now.

If the block reward was supposed to be 56.1961549627, why is it showing 500 in both mining pools.....

Quote from: eduffield on January 19, 2014, 09:27:33 PM

Quote from: phm on January 19, 2014, 09:24:07 PM

I confirm that block reward with current difficulty is again 500, this is weird.

Everyone using the linux based version please update your source from GitHub! I fixed the code that is causing the strange block rewards and it goes active at block 4500! If you do not upgrade you'll be left behind!

Just update from GitHub here: https://github.com/evan82/xcoin