Hello,
What exactly are the main differences between Peercoin and Blackcoin and what advantages does one have over the other?
Thanks
Biggest difference is that ppc was first… It’s like differences between btc and ltc.
There are some previous threads on this here:
https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=3055.0
https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=2652.0
They have at least helped to attract more interest to proof of stake.
As petar said, Peercoin was the first implementation of proof-of-stake. Sunny King invented proof-of-stake independent of whatever discussion was going on about it on BitcoinTalk at the time. Honestly, I feel toward Peercoin clones similar to what Bitcoiners feel toward altcoins. Unless they do something drastically different (Like NuBits), I think they should just stick with the original and help build on that (unless it’s for experimentation). Developers are already spread thin as it is. Why make a new coin every time you have a small new feature? I would rather stick with the original creator and help him make Peercoin better than deal with clones that have small changes. It just doesn’t seem worth it to me. If all the clone communities came together under Peercoin we could do so much more together.
http://mapofcoins.com/bitcoin Try to find PPC on the fork map, then BC (hint: BC is a fork of a fork of a fork).
Very interesting discussion. I’ll try to respond to most if not all of the points made so far, in summary form and as concisely as I can.
First to the term ‘fork’. It is a mistake to presume that somehow 1st-is-always-best. Part of what makes opensource ecosystems so powerful is that they evolve by way of forks, within the environment of permissionless innovation fostering them. That said, 1st does deserve all credit and respect for breaking the initial ground and planting the original seeds. All hail Satoshi, all hail Sunny King.
Secondly to the term ‘clone’ as applied to Blackcoin. This is a misleading pejorative. Blackcoin at its inception brought fundamental changes to the original PoS protocol, and it has continued to add more over time. I recommend saving the pejorative use of ‘clone’ for innovationless knock-offs and repaint jobs, a la crass money-grab stunts like “Whitecoin”.
It’s also worth noting how many earlier peercoin forks went full PoS after Blackcoin paved the way, e.g., Mintcoin, Philosopherstone, and various others, not to mention 37 coins that have implemented Blackcoin’s v2 PoS since July last year.
What follows is a short version of statements already made by a member of our development community from Blackwave Labs, excerpted from a longer presentation covering all the coins the author felt most worthy of respect, including Blackcoin and Peercoin. I have edited it here for concision and relevance to this thread:
"Peercoin introduced the concept of the proof-of-stake protocol. They tested the waters by creating a hybrid cryptocurrency that utilizes both proof-of-stake and proof-of-work. Proof-of-stake is a major step forward for cryptocurrency. It solves two major problems that existed in the old paradigm: inefficient energy use and the centralization of mining power. These new benefits come with their own problems, and the debate is still going on whether these new benefits outweigh the new problems.
Blackcoin was the first fully proof-of-stake cryptocurrency built on top of the original Satoshi client, and the first real test of the new proof-of-stake protocol. With the move away from proof-of-work to power the network, it has been able to truly capture Satoshi’s original vision of a distributed cryptocurrency network that was powered by the computers running the client, similar to how the Bitcoin network was maintained for a short time after its inception. Furthermore, the developers of Blackcoin have modified the original proof-of-stake protocol to remove coin age calculations and solve security concerns in the original design.
Since the launch of Blackcoin, we have seen a dramatic evolution in the cryptocurrency ecosystem—almost every coin since the launch of Blackcoin has been proof-of-stake.
The Blackcoin protocol allows for rapid transactions with practically insignificant energy use compared to that of the previous cryptocurrencies. The specifications make Blackcoin a highly versatile cryptocurrency. Blackcoin features 10 second transaction intervals and as it reaches greater distribution secure confirmation can happen as quickly or quicker than a credit card.
Yet despite the massive influx of proof-of-stake cryptocurrencies, Blackcoin appears to be the only one that has made original and substantive improvements upon the existing proof-of-stake protocol. It has made fundamental changes to the protocol in an effort to keep it secure and stable, and its commitment to improving proof-of-stake continues as it works towards a solution for another major hurdle: decentralized checkpointing." etc etc, endquote.
At the end of the day, guess what? We are not dealing with an either/or proposition! Peercoin is awesome. Blackcoin is awesome. They share much, they differ much. Both are experiments. Both are still evolving, as is the whole cryptocurrency space in general.
You wouldn’t deride the work of the painter Ingres simply because he was a pupil of his great master David. Nor is Beethoven in anyway diminished by the fact that he studied with Haydn. And we don’t have a problem with Bach transcribing and transforming Vivaldi chamberworks into multi-harpsichord concertos. The world will decide what they most feel like listening to at any given time. Our business is to just keep developing. Blackcoin has done so. So has Peercoin. To wit:
see github for /rat4/blackcoin/commits/master
and for /ppcoin/ppcoin/commits/master
It would be nice if Peercoin forks would stop propagating this as it is misleading and shows a lack of understanding of Peercoin. Peercoin’s security is 100% based on proof-of-stake and proof-of-work is only used for distribution. Blackcoin basically just drastically shortened the distribution period and claimed it as an innovation.
Do you know if the developers have responded to any of the criticisms of this in the thread I linked above? (Cryptoblog - notícias sobre bitcoin e criptomoedas!).
Was any attempt ever made to reach out to the Peercoin community or Sunny King to implement these security changes? As far as I know, no attempt was ever made to work with us, unless it was in private. If an attempt WAS made and the ideas were rejected by our community or Sunny King, then I could understand creating Blackcoin, since there would have been no other way to implement these changes.
As I understand it though, no attempt was ever made to work with the original creators of Peercoin and proof-of-stake, and the creation of Blackcoin has led to unnecessary further division among proof-of-stake supporters. This division could have been avoided if the creators of Blackcoin would have just reached out to us first with their concerns and ideas. Am I mistaken here?
I applaud you for your work on Blackcoin, but I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have worked together on things like this, so that we’d all benefit from a stronger community.
It would be nice if Peercoin forks would stop propagating this as it is misleading and shows a lack of understanding of Peercoin. Peercoin’s security is 100% based on proof-of-stake and proof-of-work is only used for distribution. Blackcoin basically just drastically shortened the distribution period and claimed it as an innovation.[/quote]
This is true. Peercoin may be a hybrid of PoW and PoS, but its network security has always come 100% from PoS and I think that is the ONLY thing that matters here. If Peercoin’s security came from both PoW and PoS then the claim above about Blackcoin being the first fully PoS crypto would be true, but that isn’t the case.
[quote=“Sentinelrv, post:8, topic:3400”]Was any attempt ever made to reach out to the Peercoin community or Sunny King to implement these security changes? As far as I know, no attempt was ever made to work with us, unless it was in private. If an attempt WAS made and the ideas were rejected by our community or Sunny King, then I could understand creating Blackcoin, since there would have been no other way to implement these changes.
As I understand it though, no attempt was ever made to work with the original creators of Peercoin and proof-of-stake, and the creation of Blackcoin has led to unnecessary further division among proof-of-stake supporters. This division could have been avoided if the creators of Blackcoin would have just reached out to us first with their concerns and ideas. Am I mistaken here?
I applaud you for your work on Blackcoin, but I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have worked together on things like this, so that we’d all benefit from a stronger community.[/quote]
Sentinelrv,
Thank you for your thoughtful and articulate response, and for your acknowledgment of our work. I admit that I am torn between opposing views on some of what you’ve expressed. You see, in a sense, what I’d most like to have is simply ‘the best possible coin’, and a vast community focused around supporting, refining, using, and promoting it to the world. Just as (again, in a sense) I would like to see one harmonious world-government rather than competing nations perpetually at war. But then, no. There is something not only unrealistic, but also undesirable about such visions. Something monolithic, engulfing, the ultimate nightmare of centralization.
I wonder, did Sunny King ever reach out to the Bitcoin community, to suggest the changes that Peercoin ultimately brought? Or did Charlie Lee do so, with his new ‘asic-resistant’ scrypt algo idea? Did they make that a priority, and in the name of working together initially submit their ideas to the higher authority for approval? And did they only then, upon meeting rejection, embark on the rebellious enterprise of a new coin (with the unfortunate side-effect of diverting attention, talented developers, and sacred MARKET CAP from Bitcoin)? Doubtful. I bet neither of them lost much sleep over the matter, or even gave it the least thought. They had exciting ideas, they ran with them.
The phrase ‘permissionless innovation’ is often bandied about in the most glowing terms in the crypto-world. Bitcoin people love to talk about that wonderful atmosphere of freedom, don’t they? But god help you if you create an altcoin!
Believe me, Blackcoin people have done their share of bitching about all the forks, clones and knock-offs that we inspired. We often indiscriminately called them scams. Just as some Peercoiners called us a scam. Just as Bitcoin called Peercoin a scam. Just as banks call Bitcoin a scam. Somehow it is all so…predictable. It reminds me of something Abraham Lincoln pointed out about political negotiations between different countries. He said, as I remember it, that it is wrong to expect any of them to see beyond their own monetary self-interest. They wont. Because they can’t.
Maybe I am mistaken, but I like to think at least few people in Peercoin were proud and pleased to see Blackcoin happen, for many reasons. Blackcoin has arguably done more to bring attention to proof-of-stake than Peercoin itself. And it has continued to innovate upon the protocol and alter its security approach in significant and interesting ways. It has furthered the great experiment.
Worth noting as well, how nearly every new coin after Blackcoin launched went full PoS after a compressed PoW distribution period, (where did they get that ballsy idea?). And a year down the road, of all those new PoS coins only Blackcoin has had a thriving and successful multipool to continue distribution to hundreds (at times even even thousands) of miners via multi-algo ‘indirect’ mining. That was Blackcoin’s idea too. It was quickly copied by dozens. Now the other ‘me too’ multipoools have nearly all died-off, along with many of the coins who attempted them. Clearly we are doing something right. Many things, in my opinion.
In conclusion, I’d like to say that your vision of cooperation and working together is not excluded merely by the fact that we don’t operate under the umbrella of a single coin. We can communicate, we can cross-pollinate ideas, we can go beyond crypto-xenophobia and seek out potential community synergies. If we try those things, some good is very likely to come of it.
Also posted on Blackcoin’s Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/blackcoin/comments/2zzji5/blackcoinpeercoin_fireside_chat/
“It is better to beg forgiveness, than ask permission.”
― Grace Murray Hopper
(there, my second post)
It’s usually more profitable to obtain an inexpensive stake in your new coin, than to buy a stake in an existing coin. I think that’s why most altcoins exist. I don’t know of the history of Blackcoin specifically, though.
The shorter the distribution period, the more a coin is “pre-mined” by those participating in the PoW. It’s a great defence to an accusation of “Pre-mined scamcoin!” to point out that there was indeed a short mining period that the accuser didn’t participate in. 
Peercoin has this effect as well, since the reward dropped so quickly that the early miners received a large percentage of today’s total PPC supply.
Welcome to the forums!
Good discussion. Thanks everyone. I think POS coin security hasn’t been seriously tested because they haven’t become valuable enough to attract a lot of determined attackers.
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