December 11, 2015 at 13:57Cryptocurrency Emercoin: coin as a technological platform for various services
We already talked in our blog about the project of our partners and friends EmerCoin: a distributed key management system , a decentralized authentication service , a peer-to-peer decentralized system for exchanging advertising links and a few other developments that are not feasible on the Bitcoin cryptocurrency blockchain. This time we want to share how it all began. To do this, we talked with an expert in the field of cryptography and computer security and one of the co-founders of the EmerCoin cryptocurrency network, Oleg Khovaiko .
I am already 47 years old. I was born in a small city in Ukraine. He studied at school, was fond of technical sciences, finance. From the age of 15, he lived separately from his parents: vocational schools, army, institute. In 1998, he left for the United States and worked there for ten years for the state, then transferred to work related to finances. All this time there was a hobby - cryptography. It turns out like this: finances, new technologies, cryptography - all this came together and resulted in what I am doing now - in the EmerCoin project.
How it all began? The functionality that I saw in Bitcoin, I did not particularly like, but at the same time I understood that Bitcoin is a brilliant invention. Therefore, the idea arose to move on. So I joined the EmerCoin project, setting out for them a number of ideas with which the project began to significantly differ from other cryptocurrencies.
Look, Bitcoin is really the first cryptocurrency and somehow it is the main one, also because it makes real financial transactions.
Since Bitcoin's code is open, analogues began to be created. Accordingly, a huge number of cryptocurrencies - they are just for this purpose, just to “print” coins, to distribute them to everyone, in the hope that they will also someday grow in value. The developers do not understand that the very idea of copying, even with small variations, is a failure. This is the same as Kazimir Malevich drew a black square, and I will draw a green triangle and sell it for a million. Strange, huh? I believe that something fundamentally new needs to be created.
We began to consider the coin as a technological platform for various services, different functionalities, which, in our opinion, are in demand and needed by people. We took blockchain technology as the basis for our services. We have a lot of them and they are all interesting. Our goal is to further develop in the Internet community and create something new.
The main team consists of five people. I mean people who regularly spend their time on a project. There are people, quite a large number who are helping us. All of them are scattered around the world: in Australia, America, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Estonia, etc. If you take the total number, then a person of fifteen will be typed. There are those who appear from time to time.
The main backbone is responsible for the infrastructure of the service, site, etc. We have a good team, with whom I share a common philosophical outlook and a common technical outlook; we think alike. So we just found mutual understanding and started to engage in the project. Emerkoin is still unprofitable: we work on enthusiasm, without any salary.
In order to attract attention, one must be different. In addition, people perceive any new initiative not only with disbelief, but with a flurry of unfounded criticism. And it doesn’t matter whether it is a good start or a bad one, the position is as follows: “I have not seen it, but I condemn it.” A society has gathered near the cryptocurrency that is trying to get only profit: mine or buy and merge. They are not interested in new technologies and the saddest thing is that their level of knowledge in this is minimal. This community initially interests me a little. We are trying to use our EmerCoin to enter the real world. We create a service not only for exchanging coins, but also for solving problems that exist in the real world. We see problems, we see ways to solve them, and we are moving in this direction.
For Bitcoin, “Proof-of-Work” is used, in which network security is guaranteed by the computing power of the participants. The probability of generating another block from an individual miner is directly proportional to its processing power. I doubt that Bitcoin will abandon PoW, because it is believed that nothing needs to be changed, because it will only get worse. Moreover, this does not raise the capitalization of bitcoins, that’s the whole answer. Although it would be worth it, because when selecting hashes, miners burn a large amount of energy.
We have PoW mining is a fallback, because PoS also has its own vulnerability. In fact, “Proof-of-Work” and “Proof-of-Stake” are different barriers against fraud, barriers of a different nature. The combined system is hybrid; it requires both. An attack on a hybrid system is much more difficult than a single one, because an “attacker” needs to collect resources of a different nature. We believe that this approach is the most correct. The concept of "Proof-of-work" protects against a genesis attack and some others. Honestly, initially we did just that, because Pircoin was made that way, which we took as a basis, and then we didn’t really understand this business. We took as a basis this promising option, remade some things, and that’s all. However, then we understood all the wisdom, the depth of Pircoin’s approach, which we transferred to EmerCoin. As often happens: first they did, and then they understood. There are coin options where one hundred percent PoS mining is used, for example, NxtСoin cryptocurrency. By the example of comparison with this coin, we understand that the version of our system is more correct.
We help on a voluntary basis, i.e. sponsor the project. So why are we doing this? It is necessary to develop not only technological progress, but also the progress of life. You see, we all want to live long, and better and forever, and for this we need scientific research. This is exactly what Stanford University does: research and develop new drugs. Accordingly, they made such a program of assistance, through which we can sponsor precisely this area of science - biology. It happens like this: the computational power of the program participants' computers implements protein folding simulations, drug development, and other types of molecular dynamics.
People who participate with their processors in this program receive a small amount of EmerCoin from us. At the same time, a number of goals are achieved: firstly, through our efforts we can at least slightly help science, and secondly, we, therefore, slightly popularize EmerCoin. And thirdly, people using their processor can earn a certain amount of EmerCoin. The total capacity of the project is pretty good. We have about 500 people who do this with us, they get coins for it, we sponsor the project at Stanford University and everyone is happy.
ICANN does not have alternative domain zones - they are “core”. And the alternative - there is no such analogue, in the sense - there is no universal regulatory body. Each alt-provider decides which zones and how it will serve. How is it solved? With us it’s simple. They decided to make a new zone - they added a corresponding entry to the configs of the purses serving the zones, and that’s all. Naturally, since we interact with OpenNIC, we need to officially inform them about the opening of the zone so that they send requests to the corresponding zones in wallets. And that’s it.
After Roskomnadzor blocked many popular resources, the interest in the domain zones of Emercoin from the owners of the sites has grown significantly. Now the system has four popular sites. In addition to these four, of course, there are many more sites that are not particularly popular, which simply make no sense. And from popular resources: the first is flibusta.lib, it is the very first in our domain zones, the second is a rather large torrent tracker nnm-club.lib, then maxima-library.lib is the Russian online library and the last is coollib. lib.
We are creating a new technology, that’s all. There is such a good poem about “Pirate Bay” and there is a funny phrase: “Well, let's say, playing the ball, the children broke the glass in a hurry, according to this logic, the ball makers answer.” So, here is about the same. We have created a certain distributed technology, no more. Regarding some sites - we ourselves do not create them, do not manage them and generally have nothing to do with it. For that matter, people created the Internet, and there are various sites in it that no one likes. Let’s then put all the creators of the global information computer network. Stupid, isn't it? And if we talk specifically about the persecutors, then it is necessary to prosecute only violators of the law. Moreover, according to the laws of the country in which I live, nothing threatens me. Relying on the whole world makes no sense. We create some technological solution that helps people. Creating new technologies, we focus more on the needs of ordinary people, rather than business.
Fifteen years ago, the Internet was treated like a toy and something completely unnecessary. Approximately, this is now the attitude to cryptocurrencies and cryptotechnologies. But there is one important thing - people have an interest, namely, certain groups within large organizations, for example, in banks, but this does not officially reach the level of official interaction or the introduction of regulations. It’s clear why. A large bank, of course, is heavily regulated, or rather, it supports a huge number of regulations and cannot officially interact, for example, with cryptocurrency, because this is not prescribed in the law. It is logical that now they collect information, but do not take specific actions. It is a reasonable approach from the point of view of serious financial circles.
Ordinary organizations are actively showing interest, but they have some kind of naive approach. In my experience there was a situation. Like, can you make cryptocurrency so that all mining gets to us? You can, of course, but they don’t think that you can put the server and “drive” there as you please, but you can’t make the system centralized and decentralized at the same time, in the end, the network will be overturned.
Of the latter: USA, China, India and Russia. By the way, the news about a possible ban on Bitcoin in Russia did not affect the interest in Emercoin, this is understandable. Whether the ban will be there or not is not yet clear. We in Russia have sites that accept payments in cryptocurrency, for example 7Pay.in, there are information sites or the Russian exchange btc-e. In principle, despite the fact that discussions are underway on this topic, there are a huge number of businesses that are associated with this, which do not hide this and are open to everyone.
So, there are a number of technical parameters that I would change. Specifically, that now there is a 6% income, I would make 4%. From my point of view, this is a little unprofitable. You see, it will become good when the network develops and when the system stabilizes at the level of hundreds of thousands or millions of wallets. Now we have only a few thousand, and for the current stage this percentage is a little too big. Of course, this is not critical, but if there was an opportunity, I would change.
And so, we create new things, develop and, of course, change something, improve, but already in the process of real time.
Autobiography
I am already 47 years old. I was born in a small city in Ukraine. He studied at school, was fond of technical sciences, finance. From the age of 15, he lived separately from his parents: vocational schools, army, institute. In 1998, he left for the United States and worked there for ten years for the state, then transferred to work related to finances. All this time there was a hobby - cryptography. It turns out like this: finances, new technologies, cryptography - all this came together and resulted in what I am doing now - in the EmerCoin project.
How it all began? The functionality that I saw in Bitcoin, I did not particularly like, but at the same time I understood that Bitcoin is a brilliant invention. Therefore, the idea arose to move on. So I joined the EmerCoin project, setting out for them a number of ideas with which the project began to significantly differ from other cryptocurrencies.
How is Emercoin different from the rest
Look, Bitcoin is really the first cryptocurrency and somehow it is the main one, also because it makes real financial transactions.
Since Bitcoin's code is open, analogues began to be created. Accordingly, a huge number of cryptocurrencies - they are just for this purpose, just to “print” coins, to distribute them to everyone, in the hope that they will also someday grow in value. The developers do not understand that the very idea of copying, even with small variations, is a failure. This is the same as Kazimir Malevich drew a black square, and I will draw a green triangle and sell it for a million. Strange, huh? I believe that something fundamentally new needs to be created.
We began to consider the coin as a technological platform for various services, different functionalities, which, in our opinion, are in demand and needed by people. We took blockchain technology as the basis for our services. We have a lot of them and they are all interesting. Our goal is to further develop in the Internet community and create something new.
Team
The main team consists of five people. I mean people who regularly spend their time on a project. There are people, quite a large number who are helping us. All of them are scattered around the world: in Australia, America, Canada, Mexico, Germany, Estonia, etc. If you take the total number, then a person of fifteen will be typed. There are those who appear from time to time.
The main backbone is responsible for the infrastructure of the service, site, etc. We have a good team, with whom I share a common philosophical outlook and a common technical outlook; we think alike. So we just found mutual understanding and started to engage in the project. Emerkoin is still unprofitable: we work on enthusiasm, without any salary.
How to promote new technology
In order to attract attention, one must be different. In addition, people perceive any new initiative not only with disbelief, but with a flurry of unfounded criticism. And it doesn’t matter whether it is a good start or a bad one, the position is as follows: “I have not seen it, but I condemn it.” A society has gathered near the cryptocurrency that is trying to get only profit: mine or buy and merge. They are not interested in new technologies and the saddest thing is that their level of knowledge in this is minimal. This community initially interests me a little. We are trying to use our EmerCoin to enter the real world. We create a service not only for exchanging coins, but also for solving problems that exist in the real world. We see problems, we see ways to solve them, and we are moving in this direction.
About the choice between PoW and PoS mining
For Bitcoin, “Proof-of-Work” is used, in which network security is guaranteed by the computing power of the participants. The probability of generating another block from an individual miner is directly proportional to its processing power. I doubt that Bitcoin will abandon PoW, because it is believed that nothing needs to be changed, because it will only get worse. Moreover, this does not raise the capitalization of bitcoins, that’s the whole answer. Although it would be worth it, because when selecting hashes, miners burn a large amount of energy.
We have PoW mining is a fallback, because PoS also has its own vulnerability. In fact, “Proof-of-Work” and “Proof-of-Stake” are different barriers against fraud, barriers of a different nature. The combined system is hybrid; it requires both. An attack on a hybrid system is much more difficult than a single one, because an “attacker” needs to collect resources of a different nature. We believe that this approach is the most correct. The concept of "Proof-of-work" protects against a genesis attack and some others. Honestly, initially we did just that, because Pircoin was made that way, which we took as a basis, and then we didn’t really understand this business. We took as a basis this promising option, remade some things, and that’s all. However, then we understood all the wisdom, the depth of Pircoin’s approach, which we transferred to EmerCoin. As often happens: first they did, and then they understood. There are coin options where one hundred percent PoS mining is used, for example, NxtСoin cryptocurrency. By the example of comparison with this coin, we understand that the version of our system is more correct.
About helping Stanford University
We help on a voluntary basis, i.e. sponsor the project. So why are we doing this? It is necessary to develop not only technological progress, but also the progress of life. You see, we all want to live long, and better and forever, and for this we need scientific research. This is exactly what Stanford University does: research and develop new drugs. Accordingly, they made such a program of assistance, through which we can sponsor precisely this area of science - biology. It happens like this: the computational power of the program participants' computers implements protein folding simulations, drug development, and other types of molecular dynamics.
People who participate with their processors in this program receive a small amount of EmerCoin from us. At the same time, a number of goals are achieved: firstly, through our efforts we can at least slightly help science, and secondly, we, therefore, slightly popularize EmerCoin. And thirdly, people using their processor can earn a certain amount of EmerCoin. The total capacity of the project is pretty good. We have about 500 people who do this with us, they get coins for it, we sponsor the project at Stanford University and everyone is happy.
The problem of issuing new domain zones
ICANN does not have alternative domain zones - they are “core”. And the alternative - there is no such analogue, in the sense - there is no universal regulatory body. Each alt-provider decides which zones and how it will serve. How is it solved? With us it’s simple. They decided to make a new zone - they added a corresponding entry to the configs of the purses serving the zones, and that’s all. Naturally, since we interact with OpenNIC, we need to officially inform them about the opening of the zone so that they send requests to the corresponding zones in wallets. And that’s it.
There would be no happiness, yes Roskomnadzor ...
After Roskomnadzor blocked many popular resources, the interest in the domain zones of Emercoin from the owners of the sites has grown significantly. Now the system has four popular sites. In addition to these four, of course, there are many more sites that are not particularly popular, which simply make no sense. And from popular resources: the first is flibusta.lib, it is the very first in our domain zones, the second is a rather large torrent tracker nnm-club.lib, then maxima-library.lib is the Russian online library and the last is coollib. lib.
On counteraction to the state
We are creating a new technology, that’s all. There is such a good poem about “Pirate Bay” and there is a funny phrase: “Well, let's say, playing the ball, the children broke the glass in a hurry, according to this logic, the ball makers answer.” So, here is about the same. We have created a certain distributed technology, no more. Regarding some sites - we ourselves do not create them, do not manage them and generally have nothing to do with it. For that matter, people created the Internet, and there are various sites in it that no one likes. Let’s then put all the creators of the global information computer network. Stupid, isn't it? And if we talk specifically about the persecutors, then it is necessary to prosecute only violators of the law. Moreover, according to the laws of the country in which I live, nothing threatens me. Relying on the whole world makes no sense. We create some technological solution that helps people. Creating new technologies, we focus more on the needs of ordinary people, rather than business.
On the attitude to cryptocurrencies and cryptotechnologies
Fifteen years ago, the Internet was treated like a toy and something completely unnecessary. Approximately, this is now the attitude to cryptocurrencies and cryptotechnologies. But there is one important thing - people have an interest, namely, certain groups within large organizations, for example, in banks, but this does not officially reach the level of official interaction or the introduction of regulations. It’s clear why. A large bank, of course, is heavily regulated, or rather, it supports a huge number of regulations and cannot officially interact, for example, with cryptocurrency, because this is not prescribed in the law. It is logical that now they collect information, but do not take specific actions. It is a reasonable approach from the point of view of serious financial circles.
Ordinary organizations are actively showing interest, but they have some kind of naive approach. In my experience there was a situation. Like, can you make cryptocurrency so that all mining gets to us? You can, of course, but they don’t think that you can put the server and “drive” there as you please, but you can’t make the system centralized and decentralized at the same time, in the end, the network will be overturned.
Demand for Emercoin
Of the latter: USA, China, India and Russia. By the way, the news about a possible ban on Bitcoin in Russia did not affect the interest in Emercoin, this is understandable. Whether the ban will be there or not is not yet clear. We in Russia have sites that accept payments in cryptocurrency, for example 7Pay.in, there are information sites or the Russian exchange btc-e. In principle, despite the fact that discussions are underway on this topic, there are a huge number of businesses that are associated with this, which do not hide this and are open to everyone.
If you could start from scratch ...
So, there are a number of technical parameters that I would change. Specifically, that now there is a 6% income, I would make 4%. From my point of view, this is a little unprofitable. You see, it will become good when the network develops and when the system stabilizes at the level of hundreds of thousands or millions of wallets. Now we have only a few thousand, and for the current stage this percentage is a little too big. Of course, this is not critical, but if there was an opportunity, I would change.
And so, we create new things, develop and, of course, change something, improve, but already in the process of real time.