Jamaican Bobsledders Ride Dogecoin Into Olympics(bloomberg.com)
bloomberg.com
Jamaican Bobsledders Ride Dogecoin Into Olympics
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-04/jamaican-bobsledders-ride-dogecoin-into-olympics.html
54 comments
That's great, but I get the feeling Dogecoin users are even less informed about the technology than the average Bitcoin user. I wonder how many understand why Dogecoin in it's current state (like Bitcoin) can't scale to support widespread usage of micropayments?
There are two problems:
1. The protocol limits the maximum block size to 1MB (https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/blob/master-1.5/src/mai...) which puts Dogecoin's maximum transactions per second at 70, without a forking protocol change.
2. Dogecoin targets one minute between blocks, which is 10 times faster than Bitcoin's 10 minutes per block. That number wasn't chosen arbitrarily. There needs to be plenty of time for new blocks to flood the network, otherwise forks will become more common as miners work on outdated information. This leads to reduction in effective hashrate and increased centralization of miners. Increasing the maximum block size significantly will be at odds with Dogecoin's faster confirmations.
There are two problems:
1. The protocol limits the maximum block size to 1MB (https://github.com/dogecoin/dogecoin/blob/master-1.5/src/mai...) which puts Dogecoin's maximum transactions per second at 70, without a forking protocol change.
2. Dogecoin targets one minute between blocks, which is 10 times faster than Bitcoin's 10 minutes per block. That number wasn't chosen arbitrarily. There needs to be plenty of time for new blocks to flood the network, otherwise forks will become more common as miners work on outdated information. This leads to reduction in effective hashrate and increased centralization of miners. Increasing the maximum block size significantly will be at odds with Dogecoin's faster confirmations.
"... A configuration in which the vast majority of users sync lightweight clients to more powerful backbone nodes is capable of scaling to millions of users and tens of thousands of transactions per second.
[PayPal] handles around 4 million transactions per day for an average of 46 tps or a probably peak rate of 100 tps. "
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
When Dogecoin approaches Paypal's transactions per second an engineering solution will have to be found.
[PayPal] handles around 4 million transactions per day for an average of 46 tps or a probably peak rate of 100 tps. "
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Scalability
When Dogecoin approaches Paypal's transactions per second an engineering solution will have to be found.
The community has already dealt successfully with one fork due to a bug. I'm sure the same thing can happen in the future if there are problems.
In many ways, Dogecoin is 'worse is better.'
In many ways, Dogecoin is 'worse is better.'
You would call that successfully? The developers have no idea what they're doing. They copied bitcoins code, but didn't realize that they made a 500 million doge transaction limit, so they gave their users a short period of time to update their clients. They ended up with a fork after someone made a 500 million doge tx which could have allowed many many doublespends. Doge will not be able to scale up to real economic activity unless they get a real dev team.
>They copied bitcoins code
They copied the code to Litecoin. At least get your facts straight.
They copied the code to Litecoin. At least get your facts straight.
Just to clarify some of the facts.
Dogecoin uses scrypt like litecoin, but this proof of work was first used by Tenebrix. It also employs the random block reward (vs fixed for litecoin) pioneered by LotteryTickets (which includes the ongoing 10k block reward feature). I'm not exactly sure which repo it was started from, but the wallet client, namely the 1.5 release inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*.
Dogecoin uses scrypt like litecoin, but this proof of work was first used by Tenebrix. It also employs the random block reward (vs fixed for litecoin) pioneered by LotteryTickets (which includes the ongoing 10k block reward feature). I'm not exactly sure which repo it was started from, but the wallet client, namely the 1.5 release inherits all Litecoin updates since 0.6.*.
"Pioneered"? Is there any advantage to random rewards, besides novelty?
It makes mining more addictive, which increases the number of people who are willing to mine, even if the financial rewards for doing it drop. Same reason why people by lotto tickets even though it's a net economic negative.
I'd argue that the Dogecoin creators are actually quite brilliant, because they manage to exploit several known cognitive biases in humans to drive adoption. Design for the world as it actually is, not for how you would like it to be.
I'd argue that the Dogecoin creators are actually quite brilliant, because they manage to exploit several known cognitive biases in humans to drive adoption. Design for the world as it actually is, not for how you would like it to be.
So, novelty.
It is an incentive to keep around gear that can't normally pay for its electricity. Mining gear that isn't online 24/7 but can come online when the need arises is useful to counter a temporary 51% attack.
Interesting point. So miners would stay online and only mine blocks that they know would be profitable to them?
Presumably there would be a lot of such miners, which would increase competition for those more profitable blocks, which would essentially dampen out the expected value of the rewards. I wonder how the math works out.
Presumably there would be a lot of such miners, which would increase competition for those more profitable blocks, which would essentially dampen out the expected value of the rewards. I wonder how the math works out.
99% of dogecoins code originates from the Bitcoin project. The other 1% is Litecoins proof of work and other random garbage including 10k block rewards at the end (originally a bug they didn't want to fix), 1 year for all coins to be generated, random rewards, 500 million transaction limit (originally a bug that they fixed and due to incompetence caused a massive fork) the security and economic implications of which likely hasn't been considered AT ALL, yet people still argue that these arbitrary changes are genius.
The reason they argue that the changes are genius is because they either have been fooled by someone with a stake in dogecoin, or have a stake in dogecoin themselves.
The reason they argue that the changes are genius is because they either have been fooled by someone with a stake in dogecoin, or have a stake in dogecoin themselves.
> You would call that successfully?
There was a problem, and now it's not a problem. Seems like a success to me.
> The developers have no idea what they're doing.
Luckily, that doesn't actually matter. Frankly, if they knew what they were doing, Dogecoin probably wouldn't even exist in the first place.
> Doge will not be able to scale up to real economic activity unless they get a real dev team.
Last I checked, DOGE had a higher total transaction volume than all other cryptocurrencies put together, sooooooooo
There was a problem, and now it's not a problem. Seems like a success to me.
> The developers have no idea what they're doing.
Luckily, that doesn't actually matter. Frankly, if they knew what they were doing, Dogecoin probably wouldn't even exist in the first place.
> Doge will not be able to scale up to real economic activity unless they get a real dev team.
Last I checked, DOGE had a higher total transaction volume than all other cryptocurrencies put together, sooooooooo
I'm still very skeptical of Dogecoin's transaction volume. I ran some numbers last week and still haven't heard a decent explanation: https://www.quora.com/Dogecoin/Where-is-the-currently-massiv...
Do you think it could be fake - i.e. a bunch of bots trading back and forth to generate interest? If so, that's a very clever way of bootstrapping to critical-mass popularity. That reminds me of a story of a new york nightclub that pretended to be jam packed the first few nights with a bouncer outside telling everyone: "sorry, the place is full", when in fact, the place was empty. Needless to say, the first night it was actually open, hundreds were standing in line.
The /r/dogecoin subreddit has some _very_ active "tipbots." Many threads consist of people tipping each other back and forth. It's almost like a Potlatch. It's pretty ridiculous and fun and it's one of the reasons adoption among redditors has taken off.
Dogetipbot's creators say it's only exchanging about $1500 USD/day of DOGE, so that doesn't explain it.
To be fair, Bitcoin experienced a hard fork last year too.
That said, I agree Dogecoin's dev team talent is non-existent compared to Bitcoin's, but to some extent they can just copy everything Bitcoin/Litecoin does, for now.
That said, I agree Dogecoin's dev team talent is non-existent compared to Bitcoin's, but to some extent they can just copy everything Bitcoin/Litecoin does, for now.
I'm not sure it's a lack of talent but rather unfamiliarity with Litecoin/Dogecoin's code base.
Charles Lee and Sunny King, two very talented developers, both made similar mistakes when they started their coins. In Charles Lee's case, be had to scrap his first coin (Fairbrix) and start over with Litecoin.
Charles Lee and Sunny King, two very talented developers, both made similar mistakes when they started their coins. In Charles Lee's case, be had to scrap his first coin (Fairbrix) and start over with Litecoin.
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3. The blockchain is going to be mind-boggling huge in just a few years, maybe terabytes by the end of the decade.
I started mining doge just to give it a whirl. It's good, clean fun for those of us who don't expect to get rich.
In the event you decide to give it a shot, a few pointers:
1. Block rewards will be halved in 8 days, so giddy up.
2. Obviously, use a GPU-based miner if you have a decent GPU.
3. Sign up for a pool other than dogehouse, which has a highly disproportionate number of of the mining horsepower.
last but not least
4. Enjoy the community, and throw doge around like a high roller. The community is the best part of the whole experience.
In the event you decide to give it a shot, a few pointers:
1. Block rewards will be halved in 8 days, so giddy up.
2. Obviously, use a GPU-based miner if you have a decent GPU.
3. Sign up for a pool other than dogehouse, which has a highly disproportionate number of of the mining horsepower.
last but not least
4. Enjoy the community, and throw doge around like a high roller. The community is the best part of the whole experience.
There's a huge directory of everything from Pools to Exchanges maintained here: http://www.doktorrf.com/dogecoin/index.html
Is CPU mining still remotely sensible to do at this point?
Also, what's the recommended client for CPU mining on Linux at this point?
Also, what's the recommended client for CPU mining on Linux at this point?
BFGMiner and CGMiner (3.7.2 -- you must use an old version) are both good choices for ATI or CPU. CUDAMiner if you are using a Nvidia card.
CPU mining is not profitable. But absolutely reasonable to do if you just want to mine a small amount of dogecoin to see how it all works. My only caveat is I'd strongly discourage anyone from mining on a laptop for an extended period of time if they care about the laptop's lifespan.
CPU mining is not profitable. But absolutely reasonable to do if you just want to mine a small amount of dogecoin to see how it all works. My only caveat is I'd strongly discourage anyone from mining on a laptop for an extended period of time if they care about the laptop's lifespan.
I have a pooler's cpuminer (https://github.com/pooler/cpuminer) running with spare resources on my server, and while I wouldn't recommend keeping a dedicated machine for CPU mining, it does cover about half of my server costs.
Mining on all four cores of my CPU with CPUminer gets me about 80 kh/s, while mining on my GPU gets me about 270 kh/s. The GPU also uses about twice as much electricity when it's mining, so the CPU isn't completely terrible in comparison (although my CPU gets a lot hotter while mining, and the fans get a lot louder). However, I have an Nvidia GPU, which is less good at mining than an otherwise comparable AMD GPU. With an AMD GPU the disparity would be a few times greater.
CPU mining isn't really profitable unless you don't have to pay for electricity. I just do it because it's more fun than using a space heater for warmth.
CPU mining isn't really profitable unless you don't have to pay for electricity. I just do it because it's more fun than using a space heater for warmth.
A CPU will be better off mining Vertcoin in the long-term, as it uses what they call Adaptive N-Factor scrypt algorithm, meaning that RAM becomes more important over time than raw processing power.
That, of course, is assuming that they have equal value, which clearly they don't.
Also, as it's still a new coin with less take-up than Doge you may be able to 'get in on the ground floor', so to speak, but it's less likely to soar in price in my opinion.
That, of course, is assuming that they have equal value, which clearly they don't.
Also, as it's still a new coin with less take-up than Doge you may be able to 'get in on the ground floor', so to speak, but it's less likely to soar in price in my opinion.
If you have a nice Xeon quadcore maybe. Either way CPU mining isn't profitable as you're not making enough to pay for electricity. I set up my Windows dev machine to mine when the computer is idle, can't hurt. I've leaving it on when I take a lunch break for instance.
I go for pooler's cpuminer.
I go for pooler's cpuminer.
CPU Miner: http://sourceforge.net/projects/cpuminer/files/
Sensible or not, that depends on what you expect. It's definitely not profitable if you're paying for electricity or hardware.
Sensible or not, that depends on what you expect. It's definitely not profitable if you're paying for electricity or hardware.
> 3. Sign up for a pool other than dogehouse, which has a highly disproportionate number of of the mining horsepower.
Why not Doge House? Any problems with them? Or is it specifically because you want to encourage people to spread out between pools more?
Why not Doge House? Any problems with them? Or is it specifically because you want to encourage people to spread out between pools more?
The common knowledge (although I don't know the exact reason and technical details yet - cryptocoins are amazing, they have lots of quirks to learn) is that a pool getting more than 50% of the network hashrate at any given moment is a Very Bad Thing. If that happens they can manipulate the network somehow. I hope someone can explain it better.
At some points last week, dogehouse was bordering 50% so there were warnings in the community to switch to other pools. Not that dogehouse has any problem, it works fine.
At some points last week, dogehouse was bordering 50% so there were warnings in the community to switch to other pools. Not that dogehouse has any problem, it works fine.
51% would let you double spend coins.
Only if everyone in the pool was in on it, right?
Yes, though generally, that's what you do when you join a pool.
I meant in on the deception not in on the pool, but I could easily be mistaken.
Highly recommend multipool.
In a similar vein, Waffle Pool is smaller (and thus less dangerous for network health), and is also a coin-hopping profit-focused pool. It is different (I think) in that it always mines multiple coins simultaneously, in order to prevent huge changes in the market based on what a big pool is mining. Since a big pool like Multipool can effectively move the market for smaller altcoins, it's probably useful to spread the hashing love around a little.
It does, however, pay out in Bitcoin only. So, if you're wanting to mine Doge and hold them, it's not the right choice. I have a Multipool miner running and I keep some of the proceeds in the coins that result; though I mostly sell the also-ran coins (anything that has nothing significant to differentiate it from Bitcoin) and trade them in for Bitcoin or Peercoin. I keep some Doge, however.
It does, however, pay out in Bitcoin only. So, if you're wanting to mine Doge and hold them, it's not the right choice. I have a Multipool miner running and I keep some of the proceeds in the coins that result; though I mostly sell the also-ran coins (anything that has nothing significant to differentiate it from Bitcoin) and trade them in for Bitcoin or Peercoin. I keep some Doge, however.
Highly discourage using multipool and ilk if you care at all about the coins you are mining. The hash-n-dash behavior of these pools overwhelm a chain with hash power causing difficult adjustments upwards, then disappear as quickly as the come leaving the network high and dry with hours or days between blocks. Coins have been destroyed this way.
Heck, even if you don't care about the underlying coins, it's simply not as profitable (because you decrease the value of the coins you mine before you even have a chance to sell them).
Heck, even if you don't care about the underlying coins, it's simply not as profitable (because you decrease the value of the coins you mine before you even have a chance to sell them).
I would suggest that if a coin can be destroyed by a multipool it's probably not a viable coin and deserves to be destroyed.
Bitcoin at the beginning could've been destroyed by this behaviour, it's only the quirk of being first that means it couldn't have happened. In other words, your statement there is kinda pointless :/
Just about any coin could be destroyed by this behavior, if one or more of the large pools started acting as a multipool. Even Bitcoin could be hurt badly.
This is a problem of mis-aligned incentives that hurts everybody, not just particular coins.
This is a problem of mis-aligned incentives that hurts everybody, not just particular coins.
Multipool also has a huge share of the network hashing power, but is designed to hop between whatever happens to be the most profitable coin. So for someone looking to get into DOGE for fun, it's not the way to go.
They have both the profit-hopping hostname:port , and, a dedicated Dogecoin hostname:port. So if you only want to mine Dogecoin, you can do that.
Huh. Didn't know they had that option. But either way, along with #3 in the top level comment, Multipool also holds a massive share of the total network: http://i.imgur.com/n9xaRQo.png, and if a lot of that is profit-hoppers, when they change coins, that will leave Dogehouse with even more share.
If you're interested in supporting a fundraising campaign that's on a more serious note, please consider supporting Doge 4 Kids, our campaign to raise $30,000 for hearing aid, seizure alert, and mobility assistance service dogs for children who need them. You can donate by sending DOGE to DTMxdZkWd7aCX1a7DcJmUJs931b1GSBQsk or through credit/debit card through Crowdtilt.
http://www.Doge4Kids.org
http://www.Doge4Kids.org
The doge donation was a small, but significant, part of the donations that helped them get there.
https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-the-jamaican-bobsle...
https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/help-the-jamaican-bobsle...
From the campaign description, looks like $30k+ worth of DOGE was donated while the campaign had raised $73k by that point.
Bitcoin is to Myspace as Dogecoin is to Facebook?
i wouldn't go that far, one issue with bitcoin is that .08 is ~$65 now that values is ~40k dogecoin last time i checked.
for micro transactions the dogecoin is a better crypto currency but i don't see it as one or the other think about it as american express vs (mastercard or visa)
for micro transactions the dogecoin is a better crypto currency but i don't see it as one or the other think about it as american express vs (mastercard or visa)
Value can change. Myspace was $500Million company when FB was a ~$500K company. Today, Myspace ~$5Million, FB $150Billion.
More relevant is that Myspace had an image problem, whereas Facebook got mass appeal.
A currency that is social will win the internet.
More relevant is that Myspace had an image problem, whereas Facebook got mass appeal.
A currency that is social will win the internet.
Shiva Keshavan, Indian luger, also received a majority of his donations in dogecoin!
http://www.ibtimes.com/dogecoin-raises-7000-send-indian-luge...
http://www.ibtimes.com/dogecoin-raises-7000-send-indian-luge...
From the article comments:
"They're also digging wells in Africa and training companion dogs. It's a real party over at /r/dogecoin. Someone gave me thirty bucks for telling a joke."