Looking at the following code:


it does seem like it is averaging over nInterval, which is 2,016 or two weeks on average.


I considered that, but it would mean further code changes, and I want to make the minimum amount of code changes so that there is the least possible chance of something unexpected happening.  I think the only time it ever ran into the factor of four change is at the very beginning intervals, once it's going the difficulty changes are smaller.  Also, with the code change the difficulty change is now smoothed, so there would only be a difficulty change of at most a few percent per block anyways.  The factor of four limit could actually be removed entirely, but I don't want to yet in order to minimize the code change.


Indeed, that's why I'm making the change now.  If ever there is a spike in devcoin generation, after that we would have to wait months for the generation rate to normalize.  Once this code change is in place, spikes would be smoothed out within a few days.

Abe is only at block 124k
I hope it will speed up because it's taking all the cpu thus it halves the hashrate of the gpu my friend put on his server

The Devcoin block explorer is back online: http://devcoinblockexplorer.dyndns.org/chain/Devcoin

When the devcoin bounties were first posted, I made them similar in value to other bounties I've seen posted, which were small.  However, after getting used to devcoin, I realized that with 90% of generation going to bounties and developers, there's no need to be stingy anymore.

So I'm adding 1/5 of a share per 100,000 DVC bounty for bounties under one million.  For bounties over one million I'm adding one share per five million bounty.  I'm only adding one share per five million for the big bounties because if there are many large bounties that would drain the generation, if it turns out that few large bounties are being awarded the share for large bounties will be increased further.

To make the receiver file for these bounties, first an account file is made:
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/account_3.csv

The account file has the name of the contributor, their share as a fraction, and a link to the post where either they posted the information or the bounty was awarded.  Then an accountant runs genereceiver.py:
https://github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/blob/master/genereceiver.py

to generate a receiver file, like the test receiver file:
https://github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/blob/master/test_receiver_3.csv

Once the receiver file is checked, then it would be uploaded by the receiver file administrators.

On the account file, Mark and I are general administrators and get a share for that.  Jackjack is busy with other stuff and doesn't have much time to be an administrator, so he is only a file administrator, who posts the receiver file at a website, and gets 2/5 of a share for that.  Jackjack gets an additional one share bounty for making the devcoin block explorer.

I've also added informative bounties for people who post useful stuff (1/5 of a share) and for people who help develop devcoin in extra ways (2/5 of share).  Twobits posted that curl would be best for downloading from https sites, I tried that and it works well and has been added to devcoin (1/5 share).  Shattienator posted that namecoin is down to 12% of the required hash rate (1/5 share), and he made permanent devcoin nodes (2/5 share).

Edit: As of Aug 2012, there are enough permanent nodes, so there will not be bounties for any new permanent nodes.

Caston, Jackjack, Twobits and Shattienator also received the extra 1/5 per 100,000 DVC for the installation posts.

Please check your entry in the account file:
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/account_3.csv

to see that your donation address is correct.  Once round 3 starts, at block 12,000, that donation address will start receiving lots of devcoins.  At the time of this writing, the minimum round 2 share is 6,660,000 DVC.  If more bounties are awarded or developers added that share will be smaller, so that is just a ballpark share value.

The smooth difficulty change code is in the '22-Aug-2011' files at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/galacticmilieu/files/

The switchover is at block 10,700.  Because this changes the network difficulty, everyone must update devcoin before then.  If someone does not, their client or miner will not work properly after that block.  At the time of this writing, the devcoin block is about 9,000, so there are roughly two weeks to go before the switchover.  Please update your client and/or miner as soon as possible, please don't wait until the last minute.

Thanks to Mark and Jackjack, the round 3 receiver file is posted at the sites:
http://galaxies.mygamesonline.org/receiver_3.csv
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/receiver_3.csv
https://raw.github.com/jackjack-jj/charity/master/receiver_3.csv

The round 3 receiver file is generated from the account 3 file at:
https://raw.github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/master/account_3.csv

using the genereceiver.py script:
https://github.com/Unthinkingbit/charity/blob/master/genereceiver.py

Everyone on the account 3 file will get their share of devcoins starting at block 12,000 and ending at block 16,000.  There are 27 shares and 4,000 blocks, so each share is a minimum of 148 blocks each giving 45,000 devcoins to the receivers, for a minimum of 6,660,000 devcoins.  The fractional shares are worth a minimum of 6,660,000 devcoins devided by the number of receivers in that line.  So for example in the line:
1QFNbLgpFKwFYKLNc9XkYbzgCryd3XYfuX,1QFNbLgpFKwFYKLNc9XkYbzgCryd3XYfuX,1M1BzQBpb8sbCuNzBTaae9PBdvjLthVrbR,1M1BzQBpb8sbCuNzBTaae9PBdvjLthVrbR

the address 1QFN.. will get a minimum of 2 4 * 6,660,000 = 3,330,000 devcoins for that distribution line and address 1M1B.. will also get a minimum of 3,330,000 devcoins.  The reason it is divided four ways even though the award was two fifths of a share in the account file is that the genereceiver.py script fills the distribution lines as evenly as possible up to the share denominator (5 in this case).  In this case because there were 12 5 fractional shares to distribute, it divided them into 3 lines of 4.  In other words, when there is a fractional share bounty awarded, the bounty is at least the fractional share, it could be more and was in round 3.

The round 4 receiver file will be generated and posted at around block 13,000.  Any new bounties awarded between now and then will be in the round 4 file.

Something wrong with the smooth difficulty change:
Block 10698 - difficulty 33.62
Block 10701 - difficulty 134.49
Block 10702 - difficulty 537.97

(difficulty was taken from the getinfo stats).

Below is updated code for GetNextWorkRequired which uses average difficulty to avoid difficulty oscillations and the median time to resist the timestamp attack.  Please look it over and post if there are any errors.


If no errors are found within a day, it would be added to devcoin and everyone would have to download devcoin again.

Devcoin block explorer mirror is up.
Please check availability (can take some time for DNS records to propagate).

http://devcoinblockexplorer.info:2750

or

http://107.20.193.62:2750

Thank you to whoever mined the really difficult blocks 10705 through 10707.  To thank those miners, the miner of block 10705 will get 3/5 share of round 4, the miner of block 10706 will get 2/5 of a share and the miner of block 10707 will get 1/5 of a share.  The difficulty is now increasing and hopefully by around block 11400 the block interval will approach ten minutes.

Also, since no extra big bounties have been awarded, the big bounties can be enlarged, so 4 shares for what used to be a 5 million devcoin bounty.  So Jackjack will get a total of 4 shares for the devcoin block explorer, since he's already received two, he'll get two more in round 4.

Shattienator gets 1/5 of a share for each of his latest two informative posts.  Twobits gets 2/5 of a share for the windows devcoin version.

So the current bounty part of the future account 4 file is:

13TxNC3qaCk5v9TsoDRisVNcwEUzw5WAte,3/5-http://107.20.193.62:2750/block/000000000004f9668231db30d58097a68abd23dd09e53e83a282a2db8c82abbc
1NHFumXZMCjMvV5BU3Bgb6cpy8HgugwV7w,2/5-http://107.20.193.62:2750/block/00000000000b7026b41a6ff23ffc2f8af6749daa5a008b2672bea7f92c01681a
16irnhMJJufLdW5aL9cNA5tqbwiHyzm4P7,1/5-http://107.20.193.62:2750/block/00000000004db4ef3358168fa91dde15a3ee7e9c71c86a17380b886af83f98db
1M1BzQBpb8sbCuNzBTaae9PBdvjLthVrbR-Jackjack,2-https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/24813.msg429585#msg429585
1Fhex5BvBGaChJqK75Z6MPxtK9muSsScKC-Shattienator,1/5-https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/34586.msg527776#msg527776,1/5-https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=22994
1QFNbLgpFKwFYKLNc9XkYbzgCryd3XYfuX-Twobits,2/5-https://bt.irlbtc.com/view/34586.msg512933#msg512933