CRYPTO DEV DIGEST: BCH Difficulty Adjustment Algo Broken, Zcash Devs Funded, CoinJoin Scare

By
C. Edward Kelso
-
BCH Difficulty Adjustment

TL;DR: Crypto Dev Digest (CDD) documents cryptocurrency development, highlighting the projects and persons working under the hood. Buckle up. This is another huge digest! An OG Bitcoiner takes on the BCH difficulty adjustment algorithm (DAA) being broken. Zcash developers are funded for the next 4 years. CoinJoin scaremongering explained, and so much more.

BCH Difficulty Adjustment Algo Broken

Developer and mining expert Jonathan Toomim took on the issue of BCH difficulty adjustment algorithm. He was careful to note not seeing “any evidence of DAA manipulation” by mining pools and the subject of oscillation as is often alleged. “All of the problems I see in BCH’s hashrate appear to be intrinsic to the DAA’s behavior with naive rational mining strategies. But yes, it should be addressed.”

Toomim explained how the BCH DAA was a rush job late in 2017, only months after the for from BTC, in an effort “to fix some extreme mining profitability and hashrate swings.” What the DAA solved it then created in “a new problem of hashrate echoes or oscillations. Those echoes have gotten much worse in recent months.”

His video attempts to explain both the newer problem and how to fit it, “using both simulations of various difficulty algorithms and mining strategies as well as real-world data from Bitcoin Cash. In the video, make use of several tools which I’ve built. First, there’s the simulation program. You can access a public instance of that app at the following URL: http://ml.toom.im:8051 If you want to use this tool for more than 5 minutes, I recommend running your own instance locally. Performance will be much better that way. You can get the code here: https://github.com/jtoomim/difficulty… This requires python3 and dash (python3 -m ensurepip; pip3 install dash). The BCH graphs I generated for this video can be found at the links below: http://toom.im/bch_conftime.html http://toom.im/bch_hashrate.html http://toom.im/bch_height_vs_time.html http://toom.im/bch_height_vs_time_mar… 

  • RIP, Hashimoto-san

  • Zcash Development Funded for Another 4 Years

  • BCHD Will be a Mining Node Soon

  • SLP Developers Meeting #2 in the Books

  • Spedn 0.2.2 Released

  • developers.cash Evolves Into a Resources Directory

Jim Hamill writes, “Last week i started work on https://developers.cash which i intend to turn into a developer directory that contains resources (Services, Libraries, Tools, Tutorials/Guides, Protocol specs, etc) for Bitcoin Cash.

“The idea of this service is that it does not contain the resources directly – but instead either links to it – or can, for some resources, render it direct on-site.

“For example, the resources listed currently are defined in a JSON file here:
https://github.com/developers-cash/developers.cash-resources/blob/master/resources.json

“Each resource contains ‘actions’ which are shown as buttons when that resource is clicked. The simplest action ‘type’ is an external link. However, ‘markdown’ and ‘documentationjs’ types are also supported. These types are pulled ‘on-the-fly’ via an AJAX request and then rendered direct on page.

“Markdown example:
https://developers.cash/#/resource/bip70-cash/introduction

“Documentation JS example:
https://developers.cash/#/resource/libcash-js/api
(Renders a JSON file generated with DocumentationJS).

“This is still early days and more of a PoC than anything at the moment. However, if anyone has any suggestions on features they’d like to see or would like to help contribute (once i’ve locked down the format of services.json), would very much appreciate the help and would gladly grant access to the repo.

“I anticipate being a bit busy with other work the next few weeks, but am hoping to have this project public (with full source available) before mid-March.”

  • fountainhead.cash Patreon Account

  • slpdb.bitcoin.com Update

  • Something Cool on SimpleCash.co

Campaigns on SimpleCash.co from btc

  • Dividend Calculator Bottleneck Addressed

  • New CashFusion Build

New CashFusion build points to a new server: https://c3-soft.com/downloads/BitcoinCash/Electron-Cash/Fusion

  • Sneak Peek of New Satochip.io Card for SLP Token

  • CoinJoin Scaremondering Explained

  • BUIP142 Vote

  • Contribute to the BU Bitcoin Cash Specification

  • GitHub Student Developer Pack

  • More Love for revoke.cash

  • Open-Source Pulse Volume #10 Published

  • Crypto Card with an Actual USD Stablecoin

  • Samourai Wallet: Mixing is Mobile

  • Still in Alpha but Coming Along Quickly

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DISCLOSURE: The author holds cryptocurrency as part of his financial portfolio, including BCH.

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