[center] [size=12pt] [img width=300 height=240]http://i.imgur.com/4XSC1HV.png[/img] [center] [font=arial black][b]Peercoin Newsletter
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[size=14pt]The Fundamentals of Peercoin[/size]
It may have been a long time since you’ve heard from us. This email newsletter is a last minute reminder to all Peercoin holders that they need to upgrade their client before the protocol switches to v0.5. It will also give you a rundown of some of the things that have been going on in the community recently as well as remind you why Peercoin is unique amongst all other cryptos.
Proof of stake consensus has been seeing a surge of interest lately. Even the developers for Ethereum have made known their interest in eventually switching over from proof of work to proof of stake. As the original crypto to introduce a working implementation, Peercoin still stands to this day as a testament and the main example to the efficacy of proof of stake consensus. Sunny King had much forethought when he originally designed it and many people are still only coming to realize the numerous problems that it solves.
As Bitcoin and proof of work go through one stuggle after another, Peercoin’s true strengths shine through. As we speak, Bitcoin’s block reward halving is approaching closer, which will put many miners out of commission, further centralizing the network. Sunny King however designed Peercoin without these abrupt reward halvings. Instead, the block reward adjusts upward and downward based on the hashing power being put toward the network. Small miners losing profitability with Bitcoin mining will try to stay profitable by transitioning their hashing power over to Peercoin. As a result, Peercoin’s inflation rate will continue to decrease, making Peercoin more and more scarce over time. So far 98.5% (22,740,325) of all Peercoins are distributed to miners and merely 1.5% (341,888) to minters. The number of mined Peercoins will start to drop further as hashing power crosses over from Bitcoin to Peercoin.
Unlike Bitcoin however, a decreasing block reward will not harm Peercoin’s network security. Sunny King designed Peercoin as a hybrid system, meaning proof of stake minting is used for security of the network while proof of work mining is used solely for distribution of new Peercoins. Using proof of work for the continual distribution of new coins gives Peercoin an advantage over pure proof of stake systems, which often suffer from poor manual distribution. Proof of work in Peercoin ensures that coins are distributed widely to as many people as possible without the centralizing effects and security concerns that plague the Bitcoin network. The hybrid design offers Peercoin the best of both worlds in terms of security and distribution.
Making sure that Peercoins are distributed to as many people as possible is very important for the decentralization of the network. One of Bitcoin’s major flaws is that control over the network is given to miners, rather than the users of the network who hold Bitcoin. The increasing costs and decreasing rewards of competing in the Bitcoin mining market has led to a dwindling number of miners and a centralizing effect among those who provide security for the Bitcoin network. As time goes on, control over Bitcoin’s future and security is falling into the hands of fewer and fewer people. This opens up Bitcoin as a prime target for attack or abuse through government intervention and regulation. Another drawback is that miners and everyday users of Bitcoin may not share the same interests or vision for the future of the network, in the end putting each other at odds with the users feeling powerless and not in control.
Peercoin doesn’t have these problems by design. The owners of the network and thus the ones who control its future and handle its security are the Peercoin holders themselves. Since the owners and users of the Peercoin network are one and the same, interests are perfectly aligned. This leads to much less conflict and argument about the direction and purpose of the network. I’m sure many of you have grown tired of the arguments and endless debates on block size and clogged up mempool that take place in the Bitcoin community. If Peercoin holders wanted to increase the block size, we wouldn’t need to appeal to miners. We could simply do it ourselves by minting on a forked chain.
When it all comes down to it though, when Sunny King originally developed Peercoin, he had a very specific long-term vision, that of a network designed for maximum decentralization and security. Peercoin’s underlying purpose is to provide the ability to store value in an inexpensive to maintain crypto network which prioritizes security, decentralization and scarcity over speed, low fees and transaction volume. This is the definition of a backbone currency, according to Sunny King. The block size debate taking place in the Bitcoin community is ultimately about whether Bitcoin should focus on decentralization and security or sacrifice it all in order to become a payment network capable of competing with the likes of Visa. With Peercoin, Sunny specifically designed it to focus on the former, rather than the latter, a network that maintains a high degree of decentralization, maintains a high level of security, but not necessarily providing high volume of transactions.
The fixed 0.01 PPC/kb fee ensures that transaction spam and blockchain bloat are prevented. As we speak, Peercoin’s blockchain is only around 321 megabytes in size after over three and a half years of operation, compared with Bitcoin’s blockchain, which is now over 66 gigabytes. Peercoin can work with off-chain networks like Open Transactions or the Lightning Network to provide a solution for instant micropayments, at the same time preserving its fundamentals as a backbone currency. While Bitcoin and other cryptos fall victim to blockchain bloat and centralization attempting in vain to become payment networks for microtransactions, Peercoin will continue to focus on creating the most decentralized and secure network possible for storing value.
[size=14pt]Peercoin v0.5 Protocol Switch is Imminent[/size]
The v0.5 protocol switch is imminent and will happen on Tuesday, 26 Apr 2016 19:46:40 UTC. If you have not upgraded the core client to v0.5.3 already, please do so now. A late upgrade will generally require a blockchain redownload. Upgrade instructions and the download page can be found at the links below.
- Upgrade Instructions - https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4453.0
- Download Page - https://www.peercoin.net/download
Windows and Linux versions have been released, however Ben, the team member responsible for releasing the Mac versions for Peercoin, NuBits and B&C Exchange has unfortunately been unavailable to help us put out a version for OS X. We have located someone to help us put out an OS X version for release, but it looks as if we’re going to come up a little short and miss the deadline. If you are waiting for the OS X release, please follow this thread where work is being done to support Mac.
- Mac OS X Thread - https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4467.0
[size=14pt]Peerunity v0.2.0 Released[/size]
If you use Peerunity, rather than the core client, we have also released v0.2.0 as well. This upgraded version supports Peercoin v0.5 protocol changes and adds a new visual theme as well with Peercoin branded colors. For those unfamiliar with Peerunity, it is an easier to use community client which offers extra features that the core client doesn’t, such as enabling minting from the menu and other features. You can download at the link below, as well as see screenshots of the updated theme. Once again, the OS X version is still being worked on, but you can follow the progress being made at the link mentioned above.
- Download Page - https://www.peercoin.net/download-peerunity
- New Theme - http://imgur.com/a/y5yPp
[size=14pt]Peerbox v0.5.5 Released[/size]
A redesign of Peerbox, v0.5.5 has now been released. For those unfamiliar, the ultimate goal of Peerbox is to provide a maximum security platform for safely minting and running Peercoin nodes. With this release, Peerbox is no longer an independent operating system and is now designed as an addon for Debian. This new architecture enables stability, ease of installation and use and ease of maintenance. What is most important, the new Peerbox enables even less technology savvy people to use it, as it features a graphical user interface for the first time. Tor support for full nodes is also included. Users can now transform their Raspberry Pi into a Peerbox in minutes and not lose any of the functionality they are used to. To install your Peerbox and start minting Peercoins, check out the following links.
- v0.5 Release Thread - https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4470.0
- How to Thread - https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4468.0
- Support Thread - https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4469.0
[size=14pt]Peerassets Whitepaper Coming Soon[/size]
The creator of Peerbox (Peerchemist) will be releasing a whitepaper soon for a new feature called Peerassets, which will enable issuing of and transacting with assets on top of Peercoin’s blockchain. Other features will also be included as well, such as shareholder voting. An older draft is already on the Peercointalk forum called Peercoin Simple Assets, but a new version will be released shortly, so make sure to keep your eye on the forum for Peerchemist’s thread.
[size=14pt]PeercoinWisdom.com Coming Soon[/size]
Community member Saeveritt has introduced us to a website he is building called PeercoinWisdom.com. The following is his introductory announcement…
[I]"The aim and scope of Peercoinwisdom.com (PPCW) focuses on increasing public exposure of community driven projects and technical articles pertaining to Peercoin itself. In order to expand dialog between community developers, researchers and the public, PPCW will become a resource of technical information for the crypto-community to familiarize itself with.
The main focal point for this project is set towards the Peer Review section. In this section will reside articles pertaining but not limited to technical project proposals, comprehensive financial analysis and tutorials, market simulations utilizing blockchain data, declarations of new DAOs, DACs, assets and more. Anyone willing to can submit text to be peer reviewed publicly and if well received by the community will subsequently be published to the PPCW Journal. It is in this journal where work in less narrowly defined or inter-disciplinary fields may be discovered among its contemporaries. The academic quality of publicly available information is priority but by no means prevents the publication of invalid research. In this regard, community researchers and developers wishing to be apart of the publishing process will be provided Publishing Keys to help ensure quality articles are chosen.
Future and potential resources provided by PPCW consist of but are not limited to a block explorer, PSA (Peercoin Simple Assets) web client, and financial market data accompanied with charts covering multiple exchanges. An initial outline of the website can be found at the following address http://www.peercoinwisdom.com
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to discuss them. Site development is open to anyone in the community wishing to be involved."[/I]
- Announcement Thread - https://www.peercointalk.org/index.php?topic=4471.0
- Main Website - http://www.peercoinwisdom.com
- Repository - https://github.com/embeddedthought/Peercoin-Wisdom
- Peer4commit Donation Page - http://peer4commit.com/projects/168
[size=14pt]Peercoin: History of the First Year[/size]
Christopher P. Thompson has written a book detailing the history of the first year of Peercoin’s existence, a time when proof of stake was newly invented by Sunny King. The book delves into this time period and covers a lot of things such as the first fork of Peercoin, early exchanges that supported it, growth in the market cap and money supply, early work on the logo. It pulls many direct quotes from Sunny King and other forum members from around the internet. It even includes an early interview between Sunny King and the main developer of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin. Please grab a copy and leave a review so maybe we can get the author to continue it as a series.
- Amazon Page - http://www.amazon.com/Peercoin-History-First-Christopher-Thompson/dp/1512178063
- Video Review by Chronos - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S1XuCrnGiA
One thing that should be corrected is the size of the blockchain. Right now it’s 533 MB.