One news stood up in my news feed this morning. It was about a new cryptocurrency (no, really?) aimed at (and here I'm not sure I understood properly) creating a better internet.
I perused the website at http://skycoin.net but I wasn't able to understand more than I just wrote in the paragraph above. But what I did understand is that they're planning to sell their own mining hardware.
Before running away, be advised that this mining hardware is the thing that got my attention. It's not an ASIC. It's an ARM. The same family of processors that powers Raspberry Pis, Odroids, Pine 64s and Arduinos. In other words, a very low consumption processor, initially designed for IoT (Internet of Things).
I'm not yer sure how SkyCoin will solve whatever problems they intend to solve, but I'm very interested in this new trend. I myself run a few mini-nodes on ARM processors (raspis and odroids for now) and I'm keen to go in this direction. The reason? But it's obviously, my dear Watson: electricity. Electricity and its associated cost. I think the huge mining farms we know about now in China or Iceland will become obsolete sooner than we think, and they'll be replaced by very low consumption devices, running PoS, PoB or BFT consensus engines.
For a glimpse of how the SkyCoin miners will look like, here's a screenshot from the site the-blockchain.com
And another one, from a different angle.
As you can probably see, the 8 boards used in the node aren't proprietary PCBs, but most likely some varieties of Odroids, Orange Pi or Pine (they have multiple USB ports, not needed in such a setup, and audio chips and HDMI outlets, also not needed).
Most likely, this is a prototype and if it's going to be successful, they'll start designing their own boards.
Nevertheless, I'm happy to see this trend, in which environment is finally becoming a real concern.
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
https://steemit.com/~witnesses
If you're new to Steemit, you may find these articles relevant (that's also part of my witness activity to support new members of the platform):
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Im kinda sketchy about the starting price, atm that's 8$ per skycoin, a little high for a new coin, but who knows this looks innovative, and i like the idea of earning by ruining a network node.
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Haha, it's not new. You should check https://blog.skycoin.net
It's as old as Litecoin
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Yeah I noticed that lol all these startup coins though get
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This machine is just beautiful. I love design.
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The mining process is important and often ignored when comparing attributes between different coins, but this article ignored the rest of the attributes, like is skycoin inflationary? What is its privacy policy? Speed, cost and security of transactions, etc.
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These are the attributes that I couldn't get my head around, by reading their page. It's a bit obscure.
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This is a hint for the founders not being honest.
Now I bet it is an inflationary coin with a higher inflation rate than Monero and Ripple.
Just because it was not explicitly stated.
My advise is to stay out of it.
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just dig deeper into the skycoin blog, they have superior tech to any existing coin today, it's like whole different league: the cost of transactions is zero, the tx speed is few seconds, which is visa/othercrypto-killer and , same with security as it uses consensus algorithm that detects malicious node behaviour. and im agree, skycoin site sucks, its hard to find info there but the team is working on the new site anyway
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The cost of transactions is never zero, it is just being financed by other costs, such as the cost of inflation.
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I've read their site too, but I also don't get it. How come they can fix the monopolized mining pool problem of bitcoin by getting people to buy ARM miner? Aren't ARMs are generally slower to use to mine cryptos?
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If the hashing algorithm operates only with these low cost/low power devices, and resists future attempts at high power ASIC designs for more centralized mining by the big mining pools, the problem fixes itself.
It's a question of distribution and saturation of great numbers of devices owned and operated by great numbers of individual miners, vs a handful of rich mining pools dominating hashing, and hence also dominating decision making.
By targeting the ARM, pi and other low cost platforms, the economics favor affordability for everyone, compare the few dollars cost of a pi with a few thousand dollars cost of a new ASIC miner and you'll get the idea :) The more affordable the device, the better the chance for high distribution of miner nodes = a more democratized network and decision making.
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Right that's why coins like #gridcoin and #solarcoin will work well
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that thing is not really a miner. it's kind of a specialized vpn node that provides backbone for the improved version of the internet. it's called miner because people can earn coins by running one, but skycoin doesn't have mining in a usual sense of this word since skycoin consensus algorithm throws miners in annals of history
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It depends on the algorithm.
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Im not a real miner , i like trading :) thanx for sharing
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A quick look at the whitepaper, and just an impression so far, but seems their network and consensus algorithm have taken some inspiration from IOTA. I'll continue researching it, but when all you have to go on are whitepapers it's kind of grueling work :)
Thanks for the heads-up, you're spot on with the trend towards low power/low consumption massively distributed "micro-miners" being the trend of the future, and certainly the only practical way to achieve a truly democratized network.
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Glad I'm helpful and also thanks for the IOTA hint. I was wondering what's behind them, I'll have a look when I get some free time.
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You bet - just to make sure I was clear though, it's just my personal impression that their network seems to resemble more of the IOTA "tangle" concept than a standard blockchain configuration.
But I may be wrong - either way IOTA is another interesting one that aims at a better Internet :)
Cheers for now - @parallaxx
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Another one, near the one i saw today that will launch ICO on august 16th, the trackr or TKRP or TKR.
Let's hope that at least 1-2% from almost 1000 crypto coins will bring something new to life and be real, that will not be at some point controlled or regulated still from usa or other countries like current system.
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Yes, that's my stance too. It's a lot like the dotcom boom, 25 years ago. Out of thousands of investments, only a few survived.
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That's a good thing. Because you can't tell me that 1000s and more that are today listed on coinmarketcap are made by really well-intentioned devs :-)) with all their good thoughts and feelings.
A very good one, will resist to all battles and survive to make it's purpose.
But, if they will be controlled by the same people in the world, that's the problem.
Now SEC killed some bitfinex options for us users. Today i saw about Nigeria telling to banks to watch and stop suspect crypto deposits or withdrawals... and there are more.
We'll live and see.
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This looks so powerful
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Thanks for the article! This @tipu bot is never working from the first time, haha
tip!
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Thank you, appreciated :)
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have a good feeling about SKY price in short term (it might double if not tonight, then this week), not to mention that it's the most attractive long term investment asset we can find out there:
https://www.c2cx.com/?with_invitation_code=SN44HT6F
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nice skycoin hope it will be better in future for us like our some good coins sir and also thanx to share with us about skycoins
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Superb post @dragosroua sir, thanks for introduce us with new skycoin, the good thing is it can be mined with ARM processor's.
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good - resteem
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Good
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plsss https://steemit.com/@mahboobfsd/feed
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Mining is obsolete since the launch of VIVAcoin, May 1st.
VIVAcoin is using proof of authority.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/598cdcc6e4b0caa1687a5ed7
http://vivaco.in
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https://blog.skycoin.net
tip! 0.01
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The minimum tip amount is 0.1 SBD - check if you have sufficient deposit :)
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