Sloth pulled out off high difficulty lock

Slothcoin v1.3.1b3

At some point I got involved in Slothcoin. It is a 'coin' that got my interest because it uses the so called 'Keccak' algorythm for POW (= Proof Of Work) 'mining'. This algorythm later became the new SHA3 standard. It has to do with the cryptography math that binds the blocks in a blockchain together. This is done in such a way that it does not need a third party to be trusted as an intermediator.

In effect banks will become superfluous thanks to the blockchain technology, at least that is the thought behind it from the beginning. And in some countries where our fellow humans are not allowed to have a bank account, for what ever reason, the crypto fiat valuta, or crypto coins, or what ever they are called, come to the resque. All they need is a computer, or better even, just a simple cheap Android phone. And apps like Coinomi will do the rest for them. That is truly liberating!

A geek diving into the crypto world

In april 2014 we moved all our computers to Linux. And that had some great advantages. Things like easy compiling Open Source software sourcecode. If an application would not run on any of the specific hardware, I would simply compile the free available sourcecode into an executable program that did work. Already I had fallen for the Free Open Source philosophy, where collaboration, instead of closed source competition, worked wonders at amazing speed. While huge multinational companies spend billions on license and in court, fighting their so called 'competition', the Free and Open Source community just created one beauty after another. Like they still do!

And one of the greatest invenstions in the Open Source field was done by a legend known by the name of "Nakamoto Satoshi". A value transaction system that could function trustless and on a decentralized computer network! And it even created it's own value token in the proces, all thanks to very smart programming and the use of mathematics. Cryptography and extreme huge numbers all made it work. Humanity was liberated from the system at last? Well, not completely yet, but thanks to Bitcoin and all spin-offs and innovations we are really getting closer. Although I did not grasp that concept right away it really triggered my interest. And so I started to look trough a lot of crypto coin sourcecodes. When I came across a mining algorythm called 'Keccak' I thought that it might be the next big thing.

There was Maxcoin and in came Slothcoin

You might know 'Maxcoin' as the most famous one of them. But somehow most of the 'Keccak' based coins did not really pick up from where they left. Now this was also because a lot of 'ready-steady-cook' coins came out, where the people who payed for to get them constructed really had no clue about how it worked. It was a pump-and-dump business. The next get-rich-quick scheme. And at a certain point I stopped paying attention for yet another coin announcement. And in the meantime I had found a cute coin that I compiled and it noticed that I could get the full blockchain in at no time. It was Slothcoin and I found out that it was created by somebody that went by the name Thimo. It was a spin-off of another 'Keccak' based coin, and a second generation sibbling of Maxcoin.

Where the Dev seemed to have gone, the Geek came in

Now the beauty of Slothcoin was that it still could be POW mined without the use of extreme hardware. All I had to do was to compile the sourcecode, get the complete blockchain in and use the build in miner. But when I had a deeper look through the sourcecode I saw something that I thought could not work. A value was set that could not fit inside the spot that was reserved for it. That would, at a certain point, create a negative value where it should not. So I started to change the code after I came to notice in the forum that the original developer seemed have moved onto other things. Not an unknown phenomena in the crypto coin realm. The website was gone but there were still Slothcoin users. And it still had an exchange were it could be traded.

So I started to wander through the sourcecode, not being a nerd and I dislike 'C' the programming language. Still I wanted to get the Slothcoin going forward way into the future. And I managed to create a new reward sequence that would make this coin mineable way into the year 2021. Also making sure it stayed within the right range. So the total coins to become available was set at a bit more than 92 billion SLOTH. And there I was, some graphical designer by profession, being a Geek that dived in an unknown 'C' of code... Well, I did have experience in programming, but that was fairly 'basic' stuff.

And with the help of a member of the Slothcoin loving community not only a Linux version came out on time, but also a Mac and a Windows version. Would personally have been satisfied with only the support for an Open Source operating system, but I came to understand that this was considered as 'not done' in the crypto coin world. So I decided to offer a bounty for the first one to make a working Mac and Windows executable. And only after a short while I allready received a PM at the forum that let me know there the compilations were done. Time for the announcement and the release.

The Slothcoin wallet, version 1.3.1b3

Slothcoin had a faucet, an exchange and a home at a website

Slothcoin, the fork, got a home at on of my websites called: Slick dot CF, wanted to create Slack dot CF but some startup allready claimed the word 'slack', so I had to be inventive, again. And Slothcoin had found a new home. Even the original developer came by, telling the community about the new project he was working on, wishing succes and best of luck. That is one thing I like about the Open Source community. Then all the current users needed to understand that they had to change to the new. community driven, version of Slothcoin. Before blok 300K kicked in the major changes.

One reason to give Slothcoin a radical different look was also for marketing reasons. For that I came up with the idea of a young Sloth, called 'Sluke' and the previous version had a Sloth called 'Sloda'. The old and wise one would then say things like "Use the fork Sluke, use the fork!" and "May the fork be with you!" It was not related to a well known science fiction movie series, okay, so it was. It is the kind of tongue in cheek humor I like. And a lot of forum members got it. Still it was a real challenge to get this new version accepted enough. Mining should be done with this new version after block 300K. And luckily it all worked out. But had I've known it all on forehand, I just would have done it anyway. And after a while even a mining pool announced support for Slothcoin...

Mining, like digging for gold?

Mining, as used in the realm of crypto coins, means that a computer does complex mathematical calculations. It gets data, being a huge list of transactions from the decentralized network, that needs to be put into a block of data. This block needs to have a unique large number, and this gets created by cryptography. But it has to be linked to the previous block and it has fit a certain puzzle. This could be a rule like that the extreme long number has to start with a set of zeros. And the make this possible an program adds a counter to the data. Does the complex mathematical calculations and checks if the amount of zeros is correct. This proces can take a lot of runs for the computer, until the right answer is found. The amount of zeros needed up front determins how difficult it is to find the right solution. The more zeros, the harder it gets, very fast. So more energy gets burned, buy number crunching systems.

This proces is called Proof Of Work mining, but where is the proof and what does it mine for, not gold, right? Well, it mines for 'coins'. Because when a computer has found the right code, for a block of data, it will anounce this on the network of computers connected. And with this announcement it sends a timecode and a counting number. This will make sure that the other computers in the network can check the claim without the need to do the whole set of calculations again. They just fill out the timecode and counting number and are able to do the Proof Of Work math. If enough computers agree on the cryptographic result the block is added to the blockchain. And the computer that send the solution, and got confirmed, is allowed to get a reward added to the announcement address.

This reward will be added to the 'Wallet' of the mining computer and can be used after a certain of following blocks have been created. That is a way to secure the blockchain and the mined value. It will be extremely difficult to calculate 120 blocks again and trying to trick the rest of the network. To this day it is considered to be impossible to rigg a blockchain. The reward computers get for solving the cryptography puzzle differs. Bitcoin started with 50 BTC for every found block. And Slothcoin uses 4321 SLOTH per found block at the moment.

Mining Slothcoin with the build in miner

Not to fast not to slow, the difficulty will take care of it

Steem on Graphene does a block every 3 seconds. But the block calculation method used is different. Bitcoin allowes to create a block every 10 minutes and Slothcoin does one ever 150 seconds, or two and a half minute per block. But it is not really set to the tick of a clock. And if blocks come in too fast, the network of computers will agree on more zeros needed up front. This will make it harder to solve the puzzle, in effect making sure less blocks are produced. Or that it takes more time to produce a block. It works the other way around too. If it takes too long, beyond the target time, to find a new block, less zeros need to be in front of the solution.

For Slothcoin I now and then keep an eye on the mining difficulty. If no blocks are being created for a longer period of time that could mean the difficulty got to high. This can be caused by very powerfull computing systems that solve the puzzles so fast that there are way to many blocks produced in a short amount of time. Rising difficulty every block and after the powerfull miner stops, the difficulty gets stuck at a high value. Too high for Slothcoin users that want to mine with the build in miner, that only uses the computers processor. And not the graphics card and special mining software, like SGminer that supports Maxcoin bases coins, like Slothcoin.

So that is when I the graphics card mining software for a while to make sure it gets out off the high difficulty again. And others can enjoy mining for those 4321 SLOTH again, only using the build in miner, using their computer processor. But I allready noticed a rise in difficulty just now, so there is some heavy mining going on.

And you could say it still pays to mine Slothcoin. Sometimes still with the build in miner, but surely with the Maxcoin supporting SGminer that can be used to mine with an AMD graphics card. The way it works for Slothcoin is the way it works for most Bitcoin sibblings using Proof Of Work mining, no matter the algorythm they use. Slothcoin uses the 'Keccak', AKA 'SHA3', algo just like Maxcoin and can use any mining software that supports it.

Full blockchain, no lightweight wallet

Slothcoin has no lightweight wallet. It works with the complete blockchain, that is only about 350 MegaByte in size. Compaired to the about 70 GigaByte of the Bitcoin blockchain that is pretty small. Another reason why Slothcoin is worth a try.

At some point Slothcoin could move on to a different system, there might be some solutions that are thinkable for that. In a way that it will fit into a multi-light wallet on any mobile phone. And I'm not stating that I will make this possible, because I'm just a Geek who enjoys playing around with Geeky stuff that Nerds invent.

May the Sloth be with you, and remember, use the fork!


SGminer vertcoin release 5.1.4 using Maxcoin(Keccak/SHA3) algo to mine Slothcoin
This is a 50-50 payout post