Augeas Community and Network Status

Marketplace Altcoins
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This will be the new home for Augeas discussions. I am grateful for the Peercoin community leaders that have welcomed Augeas.

For those that may not have heard of Augeas, it was created as a fork of the B&C codebase, with initial share distribution to shareholders of Nu that wanted to take a different approach over the summer.

There was a 10,000 shift in the decimal point and a distribution of 35k AugeasShares (based on about 350 MM NSR that were minting) were made.

The blockchain is a healthy and running proof-of-stake (only) blockchain, with over two dozen nodes.

As of January 2017, Augeas is not listed on any exchange; however, escrowed transactions have happened. Augeas has no assets, and (at the moment) is based on volunteer efforts to further develop code and discuss business ideas ā€“ ranging anywhere from a pegged cryptoasset, to the Quite Good Money concept, to being a DAO hedge fund actively trading cryptos on behalf of the public, or something else.

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What is Augeas?

  • Augeas was inspired by the work done by @mhps in analyzing the patters of voting in the Nu network after the peg break in June 2016
  • Augeas was launched and announced in October 2016.
  • Augeas has initial share distribution to those who owned NSR, targeted to those who may have wanted to take a different path.
  • Augeas v1.0.0 is a fork of the B&C Exchange codebase at v5.0.1, with the changes that were necessary to launch a new blockchain

Coin Description:

  • Augeas has AugeasShares (AES) and AugeasCredits (AEC). AugeasShares are the voting asset.
  • AES addresses denoted by ā€˜Aā€™ on the production network and ā€˜aā€™ on the testnet
  • AEC denoted by ā€˜Dā€™ on prod and ā€˜dā€™ on testnet
  • As of January 2017, No AEC have been created

Coin parameters:

  • Initial mintage of 50,000 AES; the intent to represent a placeholder shift of 1/10000 (equivalent to 500 million NSR)
  • 10,000 Satoshis = 1 Coin; 100 Satoshis = 1 Cent. In other words, the smallest unit is 0.0001
  • Minimum amount for mintage is 0.1 AES, making it possible for many to have a large quantity of outputs to vote.
  • Mintage reward of 0.001 AES (1/10th of a cent) ā€“ this equates to 1.5% inflation (~525 AES/year) that will asymptotically decrease
  • AES transaction fee of 0.0005 (1/20th of a cent)
  • 1 minute block time (same)

Augeas functionality:

  • The Augeas blockchain and client retain the voting (for motions, for grants) capability that is in Nu and B&C.
  • This provides a method for the Augeas shareholders to vote to move the crypto asset ahead.

More about the Initial Distribution

This was done by way of scripts written to analyze the Nu blockchain:

  • Any NuShares address that were used in minting between blocks 500k and 1000k on the Nu blockchain were considered ā€˜candidate addressā€™
  • Any NuShares address that voted for the controversial motions or custodial grants (https://discuss.nubits.com/t/voting-address-census-who-are-voting-for-what/4300/38) were eliminated
  • This resulted in 455 addresses
  • The balances of those addresses were snapshotted at block 888888 (May 24, 2016). Of the 455 addresses, 377 addresses had a nonzero balance. This represented about 370 million NSR of the old network.
  • The Augeas blockchain was spun up in the classical bootstrapped POW model used for Peercoin, Nu, and B&C.
  • Distribution of 35k AES was to 377 separate addresses:
    ** It is unknown how many individuals this represents, but we can surmise that this community is probably in the dozens or hundreds.
  • The detail of this distribution is here: https://woodstockmerkle.bitbucket.io/augeasdao/initial-distribution.csv ā€“ you can look for your NSR address to see if you have had AES awarded.
  • Distribution was both to the production and test nets.

I do not know the identity or ownership of the addresses outside of my own. I made no contact with anyone prior to the launching of Augeas and distributing the shares. The shares in Augeas are yours for the taking.

Accounting (at the time of coin launch ā€“ October 2016)

50,000 AES initially minted

  • 36,950 AES distributed to a subset of NSR shareholders in their equivalent AES address
  • 39 AES consumed in fees for initial share distribution
    = 13,011 AES unassigned

Of those unassigned AES:

  • approximately 2,700 were reserved for short-term network minting to mak
  • these have not been used to mint since early November 2016.

Address information for the unassigned AES is here:
https://woodstockmerkle.bitbucket.io/augeasdao/augeasdao-addresses.txt

Downloads

Downloads are available here: https://bitbucket.org/augeasdao/augeascoin/downloads

SHA256 Hashes:

Linux Binaries:

bcaa094c304bd0fc288d784389cc2b1d2f3a5710e1af32c60c28e9daa5f3017a augeas-1.0.0-RC1-linux.tar.gz

444a89524db96e47336b1d7210f12bb2fc0f2b854b245d6f41af815359bee696 32/augeas
9a99340f1912192aa71a0dedfe6839648cd31e17b8e5c20030bad3c60e00ee16 32/augeasd
a426fcd79d7da8f2a91896fe35d4dbe6692f39fc126950e63d7dbf171b384a45 64/augeas
cb05009d4385e7b0f428ce087b89d88ade14f00119c284eed7b6a5f837a16f82 64/augeasd

Windows Binaries:

43f1914de8ce5bfa9ebc7f91cd4ee057befae2628848cbadd046920b71361aa7 augeas-1.0.0-RC1-win.zip

d6f2108f81db64cb9db9deebb9d31ad5926e684dce04aaff1dee696e481424d6 32/Augeas-1.0.0-RC1-win-setup.exe
09e02f7098c2752776463bc5b9736ccf31514b332871a7aa90b035df6a252411 32/augeas.exe
f8df988bdc9dfbff83f3923d425e2f6813e92e5aa941171dd07c38ffae20a11c 32/augeasd.exe
8dd53cfc425fa1311e7193e2196bb25fd17f38601243e5d07433e7be618d79ac 64/Augeas-1.0.0-RC1-win-setup.exe
6f65fa35bc67db8a29550d8ecb978b9fd2ba930ec783c84c7e10b42f3e03277e 64/augeas.exe
1eca8dbb7749a2720fc49742b2fbee901554985b8522116f3041bbcab6d86104 64/augeasd.exe

I built the binaries above. sigmike has reviewed the code and also has built the binaries independently. However we do have a mismatch in checksums for Windows when independently built. One of those is in part due to a bug with the Windows NSIS installer as it relates to how it encodes an icon. https://discuss.nubits.com/t/the-augeas-launch-thread/4682/128

Next steps - for users:

You can download the precompiled binaries (for Linux and Windows), or build from source.

Just like B&CExchange, there is an ā€œimport walletā€ feature ā€¦ point it to your Nu wallet, and it will import your keys and do a blockchain scan.

After importing, you may wish to close Augeas and re-start, as minting may not commence immediately.

Next steps - for developers and Raspberry Pi users:

The code repository is here: https://bitbucket.org/augeasdao/augeascoin

Other tools:

A modified version of Cointoolkit is posted at https://woodstockmerkle.bitbucket.io/cointoolkit/ that includes the coin parameters for Augeas.

The code repository is here: https://bitbucket.org/augeasdao/cointoolkit

Use of unassigned AES (about 13k)

These coins remain in a singlesig, and should either be burned or assigned to a multisig for custody by the shareholders.

Final thoughts

As of January 2016 I am hoping to anchor discussions about Augeas on this Peercoin message board, and move away from the Nu message board. The Peercoin community has received us well so far, and hope we can continue the great discussion.

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@woodstockmerkle do you have any plans to improve the B&C (parents are NuNet and Peershare) codebase and what are you main concerns about that technology?

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Iā€™ve been reading deeper into the code and the B&C whitepaper

I see two parts to the question:

  • the fork from the Bitcoin client upon which all of this is built that is way old (using old versions of Qt, etc)
  • the implementation of B&C as layed out in the whitepaper

Re: being based on the Bitcoin client

ā€“ Iā€™ve been seriously considering writing an alternative implementation, that would reduce the dependencies to just Qt and openssl (for example), make it easier to get additional developers involved, make for faster builds, and perhaps a codebase that can be extended to iOS or Android. It bothers me that something like a blockchain explorer needs to be a separate pile of code, and canā€™t just run out of the wallet that already has an http server. 70k lines of code is ambitious but plausible.

Re: the B&C concept

I am still catching up with the concepts in the whitepaper. I do see a lot of data that is written into the blockchain, which is permanent space usage, and may require blocks to age to execute.

I wonder if there isnā€™t a simpler way ā€“ as there appear to be a lot of steps.

Also, I wonder if it makes sense to use pegged currencies in a ā€œhub and spokeā€ model. The hub asset being pegged to BTC, or USD (or PPC). At the end of the spokes would be other assets like (example) currencies like CNY, EUR, or other crypto assets. The spokes itself would be the exchange from/to the hub asset. Especially given the post by George from Bitspark that one may need to handle hundreds of assets, n^2 becomes impractical.

If all assets are on the blockchain, then the protocol can to all sorts of awesome tricks to do settlements ā€“ the orders would be (signed, rate-limited) messages, but settled atomically in a block. Perhaps even route thru the ā€œhubā€. (And take fees / a spread along the way of course)

To get into and out of the ecosystem, there may be the need to run pairs on exchanges and/or do things like what Henry did with NuLagoon Tube. (And instead of registering addresses ā€“ ā€œjust sendā€ to a translator, and the funds will be sent to the address whose private key matches.)

Fully knowing I was an advocate to have separate blockchains for the pegged asset vs. the trading part, but the sum may be more powerful than the parts.

Iā€™d really like to pick sigmikeā€™s brain on this, as he is listed as a co-author to B&C, and Iā€™m sure plenty of hours of thought went into this.

But those are the thoughts at the moment.

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Can you please defend the use of peershares over PA for this project? Assuming you can easily snapshot and redistibute the ownership in PA tokens, what benefit is there for running this operation on the peershares platform?

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Youā€™ll be creating a mountain for yourself, is all I can say.

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i do think that having augeas token built on top of PA would work just as good and would not contain builtin insecurities like feature with voting minority creating new tokens. having massive blockchain prefilled with rubbish does not help augeas neither.

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Maybe you should copy over your criticisms of the voting system that you posted over at Nu.

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There are enough benefits of PA that i dont need to give negatives of peershares. Just to give a quick summary of PA benefits:

  1. No cost for security. This one is huge, the inflation rate would drop to 0% while the project is still being planned.
  2. Blockchain agnostic. If one chain rules them all, you can migrate to that chain.
  3. Active developers.
  4. PPC has a much smaller attack space than peershares and the distribution of ppc is devoted to fair and decentralized while the token can be distributed based on concepts of debt and ownership over the DAC. Therefore, PA is more secure.
  5. Novelty. No peershares project has been successful and it carries with it a tarnished reputation.
  6. Exchange adoption. For PA they already have the peercoin blockchain downloaded, so they should be more willing to add a PA token than download a whole new peershares blockchain.

Letā€™s start with those.

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Augeas offers much shorter confirmation time than PA.

on the other hand PA has no track record which is a source of risk.

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Shorter blocktime comes with it many additional node problems. Peershares grows fast and uses like a gig of memory. PA doesnt even require nodes, ppc already has it covered. For what purpose does augeas need a fast block time?

True that PA hasnt been finished yet. Also, anyone can make the redistribution in PA whenever they want. Maybe it would be better to wait till augeas forms a board so they can run a secure multisig.

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Iā€™m wondering if thereā€™s been any clarification or progress in terms of what Augeas may do? Is it flying without vision at the moment, or is there some progress and direction?

Is it more likely to become a stable / pegged asset, hedge fund, something else, or nothing?

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As for a business model or strategy, Quite Good Money and Hayek Coin have been talked about, as well as of course the distributed B&C exchange (which would require some code to complete), or a stable coin like NBT.

Nothing has come to consensus or fruition, and PeerAssets has opened a vector to try some of these. The fate of Nu and B&C are also a factor in determining what market (or share of market) Augeas could address.

On the technical front or rather ā€œwhat have I been doingā€:

I had spent several weeks trying to merge the Augeas codebase (derived from B&C, derived from Nu, derived from Peershares, derived from Peercoin, derived from Bitcoin v0.6.something) to at least v0.7. I made good progress but ultimately stood down from this effort.

I have concerns about the scalability of the blockchain in storage ā€“ for Bitcoin now at 108 GBytes https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size and there are claims of Etherium being 60+ GBytes or more. There are concerns about Nuā€™s size as well: https://discuss.nubits.com/t/passed-nudroid-trusted-server-svr1-upgrade/3277/19

For a fledgling cryptoasset, it is a detraction to wait for days for a blockchain to load. Also Augeas really doesnā€™t have much to offer that is distinct from other blockchains (apart from being a pure Proof-of-stake blockchain, independent of the commitments and circumstances of B&C and Nu ā€“ valuable, sure, but not blockbuster) ā€¦ I feel something spectacular is needed, especially to cut thru the clutter of blockchains competing for exchange and marketplace attention.

The summary of that is that I am using my time experimenting with blockchain ideas that may make possible some of the ideas spoken of in the Nu communty that are either very difficult or impossible to implement on a Bitcoin-based blockchain technology. I have been quiet about it because I donā€™t want to overpromise and underdeliver, but if the effort is successful (optimistically, measured in many months but I would not be surprise if itā€™s a year or never happens) then I would launch a new blockchain based on the ownership of AES.

This does not impede anyone from rallying a cause around Augeas. Itā€™s just not where my focus is ā€“ and I am not compensated for my effort (apart from my the investment I made in Nu that carried over to Augeas), and the time I can commit is a very small amount per week.

One thing that has discouraged me is that, despite a critical bug and a fix Augeas-1.0.0-RC1-win Fatal Crash I have not seen uptake of the new version on the network. A fair criticism of me is that I havenā€™t marketed Augeas to any significant degree. But again I want it to be something special lest it get painted as yet another blockchain of no distinction.

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What are your thoughts on redistributing as a PA? You can port private keys between chains, you could distribute a PA token to every address with >x AES and then there would be no upkeep, it would update with PA and ppc protocol, it wouldnt have a bloated blockchain, and it would give you all the time in the world to come up with an application for your ready-made community.

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Iā€™m running on Linux. As far as Iā€™ve seen there is only a Windows client v1.01 available. There might be more in the same position as me. Although I only see a very limited numbers of peers (<5).

Some significant pruning could be done as most blocks are empty anyway.

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Thanks for the response, and glad to hear your thoughts.

Once the Safe network is available, it may be interesting for applications like these that require decentralisation, but donā€™t want the heft of a blockchain, and can benefit from higher transaction capacity, lower fees, and easy access. Project Decorum aims to implement a crypto-currency on top of the Safe network. However, thatā€™s all theory until the network is up & running with a full feature set!

I wish you all the best with your efforts, and hope Augeas finds a purpose and route forward soon.