Some ideas for a new crypto coin

[TheNightFly]

This is not a whitepaper or presentation, it's just a raw copy of my notepad file showing some ideas.

Consensus
In the context of a cryptocurrency, consensus refers to the ability of a network to agree on the state and progress of a shared ledger.
If a ledger is non-deterministic, the nodes of the network will not share the same state or progress.
The typical consensus mechanism involves choosing one of many nodes to decide for the rest of the network what the next state will be.
In contrast, if a ledger is entirely deterministic, there is no need for a consensus mechanism.
Nodes will achieve consensus independently.

Desync
Desync will be caused by data corruption, whether by network errors or malicious nodes.
Nodes can resolve desync by requesting data from different peers.

Blocks
This ledger has blocks but they are neither hashed nor chained.
Every transaction goes into the block immediately following the block that contains the output that it spends.
If a transaction spends multiple outputs from different blocks, it goes in the block following the block that contains the latest output.
Nodes can see exactly where a new transaction will go before it's even published.
Within each block, transactions are sorted by txid, so they can all be referenced by block:txid.

Confirmation
In a blockchain ledger, confirmation refers to the process of adding new transactions to the ledger.
Nodes must validate transaction messages before relaying them so, in the absence of a consensus mechanism, the only confirmation is when the recipient gets it.

Proof of work
Some adversaries want to attack the network with fake ledgers.
This won't fool nodes who have the full history but nodes who don't have the full history can be fooled.
Proof of work solves this by putting a lot of work into the ledger.
As long as the combined work of the genuine ledger exceeds the fakes, the genuine ledger is obvious.

Competition vs. Efficiency
It's unfair and inefficient when nodes have to compete over redoing the same work.
Every node that wants to work needs it's own things to work on.

Tags
Nodes who want to work begin by making tags and broadcasting them to the network.
A tag consists of three fields- a payment address, a nonce and a sha256d hash of the payment address.
To limit tag spam, each tag must have a minimum POW.
This hash is temporary and doesn't generate any coins.
The tag hash must be the best hash within the first trillion iterations of the nonce.

Transactions
Once a node has created all the initial parts of a transaction, they generate the txid.
Then they sign it.
Then they time stamp it.
A tag is required to complete a transaction.
Once a transaction has been published, the node who created the tag replaces the tag POW with a final POW based on the txid.
Once the POW is generated, the transaction cannot be replaced by one with a better txid. (see brute force)

Replace by Tag
The worker who creates a tag is the only one who can provide the final POW for the transaction that includes it.
If that doesn't happen within the average time the POWs are usually generated, the recipient can replace the tag with a different tag. (see brute force)

Time Stamp
The fee and expiration mechanisms are based on the time stamp.
It can be any time.
If a time stamp is behind actual time, it will expire sooner.
If a time stamp is ahead of actual time, it will expire later but the transaction cannot be spent until it 'matures'.

Mempool
Fills with tags instead of unconfirmed transactions.
As long as there is always a small surplus of tags, transactions are as fast as network latency allows.

Coinbase
The coinbase of a transaction POW hash scales with it's difficulty.
The higher the difficulty the greater the coinbase.

Tag Reward
Half of the coinbase goes to the node who generated it.
Since it can be computed from the hash, it's implicit.

Tag Bonus
Half of the coinbase goes to the outputs as a bonus, to encourage adoption.
Since it can be computed from the hash, it's implicit.
Bonuses are allocated in equal proportions to the outputs from largest to smallest.
If the bonus for an output includes a fraction, it's rounded down to the nearest whole number of coins and the difference goes to the next output.

Duplicates
Sometimes a tag will be claimed by more than one transactions.
This is fortunate for the node who created it but is not a problem.

Double Spends
Double spends can be identical in every way except the payment addresses and the TXIDs.
The TXIDs do not include malleable data and are therefore non-malleable.
Any change to non-signature data changes the txid but also breaks the signature.
Therefore double spends can be resolved by always accepting the transaction with the lowest or highest txid.
Which way is arbitrary but all nodes must validate the same way to maintain consensus.

Brut Forcing Double Spends
Since the output is included in the signature and the payment address is included in the output, changing the payment address changes the signature.
Normally this will break the signature but, an adversary could scan a range of payment addresses, stopping to re-sign the transaction with each one until they find one that produces a valid signature, but this would take some work.
This is why transactions become irreplaceable once the final POW is generated, and why recipients can pic a new tag if the POW isn't provided soon enough.

Elasticity
The coinbase is neither fixed nor unlimited.
The network seeks to induce inflation or deflation so as to negate the perception of deflation or inflation respectively.
When the average number of coins per utxo decreases as the number of utxos increases, it signals the need for inflation.
When the average number of coins per utxo increases as the number of utxos decreases, it signals the need for deflation.

Burning
Deflation is implemented through the fee and expiry.
As coins are burned, the smallest tags are discarded first since they represent the least POW.
Transactions can be discarded while keeping the tags but tags cannot be discarded until the corresponding transaction is discarded.

Fee
Equal to the coinbase at zero inflation/deflation.
Declines to 0% over 3/4ths of the expiration time.
Declines to 50% at 3/8ths of the expiration time.

Expiry
Lost utxos will never be spent and will build up over time and greatly reduce the portability of the ledger.
The simplest solution is for transactions to expire.
Nodes only need to recycle their coins to prove they aren't lost.
The expiration time is 4x the average coindays destroyed in the previous 24 hours.

Entrypoint Transaction
A special type of non-coinbase transaction created to help track coins generated and coins burned.
All tag outputs must be spent through an entrypoint and only entrypoints can spend tag outputs.
They require no tag, fee or time stamp.
They are limited to a maximum of 64 inputs and 1 output.

Launching a Brand New Ledger
Workers begin doing what they normally do- making tags.
As long as there is little or no transaction history, workers are permitted to tag their own otherwise empty transactions so that they can spend their rewards.
Expected sequence of events:
mempool - fills with tags.
block 0 - fills with transactions containing only coinbase outputs.
block 1 - fills with entrypoints that spend the coinbase outputs in block 0.
block 2 - fills with transactions that spend the entrypoint outputs in block 1.
block 3 and on - who knows?

 

[the other mike]

Colorful pebbles would be a good currency.

 

[Votto]

Colorful pebbles would be a good currency.
View attachment 575735

Yay. I want the shiny red one.

 

[the other mike]

Yay. I want the shiny red one.

They make good sling shot ammo too.