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Show HN: A Browser-based Blockchain
- larma 9y agoJust ask here if you need some test coins. I already mined a first block.
- fasouto 9y agoGot another block, reply and I'll send
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- ogrim 9y agoMay I have some at 3E170D763D985E557D9A07CCAB9BF99CBC3D8C47 ? Just started mining.
- kuschkufan 9y agoThanks! 4CE8DC8FECE59D7B4368DAE47925BBA34339461B
- larma 9y ago11.11 is pending.
- kuschkufan 9y agoreceived it, thanks!
- kenfoo 9y agoB362F9CDE89E7214A8F446E20AE5598A30411B10 .... thanks!
- ogrim 9y agoAttempting sending now. https://i.imgur.com/LaAd93C.png https://i.imgur.com/LaAd93C.png
- sphix0r 9y agoInteresting project! 4D46BD3FF956715279F0F614DB54D4D2D78CD1B0 many thanks!
- himlion 9y agoYes please: 2AAED653E447F0831BA5E6C49B68A3C45EEE0208 Thanks!
- himlion 9y agoGot some, thanks kind donator!
- tfeldmann 9y agoA3DD69ACE943B52F3B3C32E5CD964EEA3BA81E2F Thank you!!
- larma 9y agoYour Transaction is on the way.
- porter 9y agoI'd be interested in testing: A01059323A68F78E9A9B638C3D9553858EC44ED4
- geoah 9y agoMined 50 as well, reply with addresses :)
- alastair 9y ago08CB2993E1B8234AAC23C25B5EEF666EABCE712A thanks :)
- geoah 9y agoOn its way! [edit] Sent.
- Jabanga 9y agoHi 813C92CCE734F82BCB8643577EA0B237431237F1
- fasouto 9y agoD8AC3FBBE7D04B0C346DD5F4F5BD009E07F71BF9 thanks!!
- geoah 9y agoSent
- slice_of_life 9y ago295AD9F3C2F4371D0B86E235B3618D06482949B6
- sixpenrose16 9y ago
- alastair 9y ago08CB2993E1B8234AAC23C25B5EEF666EABCE712A - Thank you!
- larma 9y agoDone.
- owurkan 9y agoyes pls, AC7FC918644DFB2FF168DC9C9397B8829E2148A9
- cyborgx7 9y agoEF2D17124CF07DAA182017509BEAA73D964E8D18
- pmulv 9y agoNeat! 9D31E45488033A8CFE0B371A7E6CBFA4A090204B Thanks!
- anc84 9y agoCan you please use a different platform to perform this instead of polluting this comment thread?
- kumaranvpl 9y agoBB866C127626A893F2AF4E5C829757C0C567F3A2 - Send me some for testing
- fasouto 9y agoI've just sent you 5
- kumaranvpl 9y agoGot it. Thanks man. What can I do with these?
- elliottcarlson 9y agoNothing - it's a test chain and the coins can disappear at any time.
- carlosgj94 9y agoHey, still on time? I think is an awesome implementation! BF09BC3C46E808332F102B69FE585074AFEDF980
- fasouto 9y agoI've sent you 20
- carlosgj94 9y agoThaaanks! You made my day :D
- slice_of_life 9y agoKindly send some here: 295AD9F3C2F4371D0B86E235B3618D06482949B6 This is incredibly easy to get up and running with.
- disko 9y agoJust started mining, looks neat! Would love some coins as well: 290B39E31298A1EB5C6F53596E8015CA372869CC Thanks!
- derpydev 9y agoIf you're still offering, I'd love to test it out. 6ED123AD11CC9DFF874ED0622562F205957561C6
- asciimo 9y agoIncredible. A cryptocurrency exchange is born in a HN comment thread.
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- jsnk 9y agoD2A9396559858F674C13D96FB18ED8825EF6EF9C
- zaf 9y agoD6C7D83CF1754FA5565DD43D63A3B50C5809F395
- wyldfire 9y agoFAF349AA5FC5401F5D363546B679E800958300BF
- qmarchi 9y agoI've got some extra coins, I'm willing to trade pencils.
- znpy 9y ago65327F379B46603EB49B8F2D3B399F909E828E08
- krishna2 9y ago82BBE749262A07DF89E0045AF12929C31259374B
- chrisabrams 9y ago1E883119EF2B74EA2B225F9E74CBF17612BE3105 Just trying this out, but needs dem coins :O
- elionchin 9y ago2.42 sent
- eddietejeda 9y ago4D099860AA7E0FC395F1CF6E15297DBB0F7CB3AD
- elionchin 9y agoDone.
- ripexz 9y ago0915B6F6E83B04457190ECF0E4EEDEEDBCFE1E2B Would love to be in the cool kids club
- elionchin 9y agoDone. 2.42 NIM
- schickling 9y agoThis seems really interesting! For someone without too much knowledge about blockchain and digital currencies: How does this compare to Bitcoin and Ethereum?
- Capira 9y agoIt is written in Javascript, communicates over WebRTC + WebSockets and therefore you can connect to the network from your browser without an intermediary. Additionally it is designed for light-clients (such as low-end devices) and transaction speed.
- slice_of_life 9y agoHow does this compare to BTC with regards to privacy? My thoughts: most regular users don't really care about privacy at the level that BTC promises. If people really cared that much about privacy, then social media platforms like FB wouldn't be where most people are today. Combine what I've said above with the easy on-boarding facility that Nimiq provides and I think this solution carries the day. This might be the 'style' with which most first time cryptocurrency users (emphasis on miners) get started with cryptocurrency. With mass adoption, computing and securing the network might be easier (read cheaper) than is the case with BTC as it stands. I really like what you've done.
- himlion 9y agoNetwork bandwidth just doubled. Don't think my thinkpad is going to mine any.
- codefined 9y agoInterestingly, I'm getting a significantly higher hash rate in Chrome than in Firefox (12,000 vs. 600). This is despite the fact that Firefox has a higher priority on my OS (High vs. Normal) and they're both using the same amount of CPU. What hash rates are you seeing on your machine/browser?
- shakna 9y agoI think it's a WebRTC problem. Chrome has no errors, but Firefox has: > ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details
- larma 9y agoThis is related to your local network. You will only be able to use Websockets for connections (which most nodes do not support) and not WebRTC. Go and fix your network, you likely have some UDP or NAT configuration issue (or a terrible ISP).
- shakna 9y agoYet WebRTC works for Chrome for the same device on the same network connection?
- luxcem 9y agoWorse here, with chromium I can get 20kH/s vs 200H/s on Firefox.
- Capira 9y agoyes Firefox is way slower in general. On a Macbook with Chrome I get about 12 kH/s
- geoah 9y agoOSX Chrome 10kH/s
- himlion 9y agoLinux chrome on a 4 year old thinkpad 10 kh/s
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoBefore anyone gets too excited because the page doenst make this clear, you are all mining on the Test block chain, not the release block chain, the coins are worthless, they are fine for playing around with though.
- larma 9y agoI think the disclaimer was pretty obvious with this.
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoI agree the disclaimer is obvious but its not obvious there is a disclaimer.
- Capira 9y agoThere is a disclaimer under the "Connect to Network" button stating "Testnet Mining does not create permanent Nimiqs." Do you think this we should make that more prominent?
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoI dont think it matters, just saying its easy to click through without seeing it, some people might leave it open thinking they are mining for real.
- kaffeemitsahne 9y agoWhat's preventing people from simply continuing to use this testnet? It's decentralized, after all.
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- geoah 9y agoIs the betanet app code available somewhere?
- Mao_Zedang 9y agoTop right of the page is a github link
- geoah 9y agoThe miner repo was empty and now has been removed, the core repo doesn't contain this app.
- Mao_Zedang 9y agohttps://github.com/nimiq-network/core/blob/master/clients/browser/index.html https://github.com/nimiq-network/core/blob/master/clients/br... Is this not it, I havent tried it.
- hopfog 9y agoI have a soft spot for removing barriers and making things accessible so this really resonates with me. With a single click of a button I'm connected to the network and have started mining. Pretty awesome! I also love how the P2P is visualized in a straight-forward way. I definitely think this will help demystify blockchain technology. You immediately realize that you're part of a decentralized network and that blockchain nodes are nothing else than other nodes like you.
- Capira 9y ago"demystify blockchain technology" is a perfect description for our intention! thanks!
- asciimo 9y agoIf this is an educational product then it would be even better to expose more details to the user. For example, the fundamental steps illustrated in the Blockchain Demo (https://anders.com/blockchain/ https://anders.com/blockchain/). A nimiq blockchain explorer would also be a nice feature.
- elionchin 9y agoA blockchain viewer (showing most recent blocks) is in the works for the Betanet and should go live soon. Full chain explorer will follow for the feature-complete Testnet.
- stefanv 9y agoWhat does "nimiq" means?
- larma 9y agoOn the bottom of the website it says: "Nimiq is an Inuit word used for an object or a force which binds things together."
- buttershakes 9y agoThis is a neat. However, there is nothing explaining fundamental operation I can find except the source code itself, and it seems to me that it suffers from pretty serious scale limitations. I.e its ability to deliver on the value proposition in its current form is low. Also, your proof of work is Sha256 which means that the moment this thing goes live and there is any value attached it won't work. You have to switch to a memory hard proof of work to even begin doing this. Finally, most of what you are trying to accomplish can already be done using SPV onto existing digital currency networks. Pushing the entire network into the browser doesn't really help. The cynic in me wants to say this is an ICO pump for people who don't know any better.
- larma 9y agore PoW: https://github.com/nimiq-network/core/issues/38 https://github.com/nimiq-network/core/issues/38
- Capira 9y agoI agree that our technical documentation is not strong and well presented yet. Have you read this? https://medium.com/nimiq-network/introducing-the-browser-based-blockchain-63d408add368 https://medium.com/nimiq-network/introducing-the-browser-bas...
- buttershakes 9y agoYeah I gave it a look. It is really light on details. I think you have to be clear why this is better than Ethereum, the fact that web browsers are nodes and are mining isn't really a feature. Having every node mine isn't very useful either, it is unlikely to increase the security of the network and has follow on effects for memory and cpu utilization for end users. Anyway, I'll look forward to hearing more about it, but given the high barrier to writing a secure, scalable blockchain I'm reserving judgement until there is enough information to do a more formal analysis.
- asciimo 9y ago> Partner with VISA payment services to create a VISA-to-Nimiq exchange (centralized in the first place). By Q4 2017? This sounds outrageous, if not impossible. This also seems to contradict your comment that "'demystify blockchain technology'" is a perfect description for our intention!" Your intention seems to be to build a mainstream, browser-based cryptocurrency. Good luck.
- daxfohl 9y agoWhere is their office? Looks like they're all working out of some beach house somewhere in the South Pacific.
- herve76 9y agoin Santa Teresa Costa Rica
- daxfohl 9y agoOkay, looks like this place: http://www.skyloftcostarica.com/ http://www.skyloftcostarica.com/. Wonder if that's full time or just a field trip.
- Jasseltov 9y agoThere you get an insight how hard they work on this project https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgOWWVinfY&list=PLuhSf5DE3FFQSP4NtO-rVJqd34WRVMv5O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOgOWWVinfY&list=PLuhSf5DE3F...
- solotronics 9y agoI love Santa Teresa, Pura Vida!
- wildbunny 9y agoThis is interesting - but how can a browser serve incoming connection requests?
- elionchin 9y agoWebRTC is a web protocol designed for peer to peer connections.
- joantune 9y agoOk, you have a roadmap, but I'm left with more questions than answers, e.g.: if a blockchain relies on every node having a ledger of the whole transactions, and bitcoin's ledger now occupies more than 100GB, then how is this supposed to work when the ledger becomes big? Also, how do the 'instant' transactions work?
- herve76 9y agoit uses the Mini Blockchain scheme https://cryptonite.info/files/mbc-scheme-rev3.pdf https://cryptonite.info/files/mbc-scheme-rev3.pdf
- Franciscouzo 9y agoYou only need the full blockchain to initially verify the proof of work chain, you can then run in pruning mode which requires having the latest blocks and unspent outputs.
- _jezell_ 9y agoI thought general opinion from security experts was browser based crypto is DOA...
- aruss 9y agoThere's nothing inherently wrong with browser-based crypto. Most issues arise when you try to e.g. replace like TLS with JavaScript to encrypt passwords before sending them to a server. SHA256 doesn't become broken simply because it's run in a browser.
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- gallerdude 9y agoSo far looks sweet, I have a small bit of advice. I'd double down on the simplicity aspect - for a lot of people cryptocurrency is a weird thing to get into and hard to understand. You guys have taken something as ultra-complex as mining and blockchain and stuck it in the browser, no small task. Make your focus a cryptocurrency for everyone - include demos of how cryptocurrency itself works.
- elionchin 9y agoThat is our mission exactly. We are starting with the community that actually has a more in-depth understanding for peer review.
- fiatjaf 9y agoWell, it is not good to do Proof-of-Work in the browser. It's inefficient and people will not keep mining if they have very small chances of getting a block. I don't know how this could be solved, maybe you should experiment with other forms of ledger consensus that would fit better in a browser environment and at the same would not exclude normal people from participating in benefit of specialized miners. The network part of this thing is amazing by itself.
- postozoan 9y agoI like how it starts you up instantly and how simple mining, helping the network and transactions seem to be. Really well done. I found a quick block too and sending/receiving transactions and getting the confirmations seems nice and fast. As a user it makes me pretty happy. However, turning your coins 'permanent' somehow doesn't seem nearly as intuitive. I have no real idea how these coins are now tied to me. I found my block on chrome, and launching the site in incognito mode / firefox doesn't show the funds in my wallet. This would make me worry about deleting my browser history/cookies/etc and I'd have no idea how to access these coins on another computer. How do I go about making these coins tied to me beyond some form of browser storage, and why isn't that process explained somewhere? Right now it feels like a mild breeze might erase my wallet and the coins in it. Is this something that'll be dealt with in the future?
- bbcbasic 9y agoThis is good until the ASICS come in force and make mining in the browser useless.
- elionchin 9y agoThis is the Betanet. We will not use sha256 as in our Mainnet. We are already working on a WebAssembly implementation of a memory hard ASIC resistant POW.
- bbcbasic 9y agoThanks, but while ASICs may not be a threat, in general finely tuned beefy machines might be? So that running this in a browser would be as efficient as mining litecoin in a browser?
- deavmi 9y agoThe next alt coin
- nyxtom 9y agoI like the idea of reducing the barrier to entry in the multitude of markets, but I'm also a bit cynical in that any web-based wallet seems extremely risky to me in terms of the potential for attacks and stolen coins.
- fslkjhjdfhgj4j 9y agoLeft this running all day at about 30kh/s and got 200 coins Couple of hints: * Have a way of backing up your private keys! Many people delete browser local storage and this is not a safe or long term place for them to live! NAG THE USER TO DO THIS. 99% of the people here betanet will lose their keys, fo sure * Consider hierarchical deterministic (HD) generated keys, so a single seed can generate all future keys * Consider brainwallet seed (must be long, suggest at least 256 bits entropy), custom dictionary words Most cryptocurrencies use secp256k1 or ed25519 for ecdsa/xeddsa as their curve, this is using P-256. Satoshi was suspicious of the NIST curves, thats why he didn't use P-256 for bitcoin. You will need something better than SHA256 for PoW function too, others have identified memory hard hash as idea. Look at Momentum (ProtoShares), EtHash (Ethereum) and CryptoNight (Bytecoin/Monero) as approaches to this. All have rolled their own in this space, keep you tx hashes standard but use something creative for PoW function.
- Capira 9y agoThanks a lot for your feedback! The protocol we've deployed in our Betanet is not final. The Betanet is just about getting early community feedback and testing in the wild. There will be lots of breaking changes. We will not use NIST curves in our mainnet for the reasons you mentioned. We are working on an implementation of ed25519 in WebAssembly. We will not use sha256 as in our mainnet. We are already working on a WebAssembly implementation of a memory hard POW. We want to bring blockchain technology to the masses. So in the long run we are explicitly targeting users who are not yet familiar with cryptocurrencies. Following from that we will put a lot of effort in creating user interfaces that take users by the hand and explain important aspects like "How to keep your private key secure".
- imaginenore 9y ago17% CPU utilization when mining. You need to multithread that. Or better yet, implement it in a WebGL shader.
- s_ngularity 9y agoLooks like they've already added GPU mining as a MainNet milestone. (https://github.com/nimiq-network/core/issues/39 https://github.com/nimiq-network/core/issues/39)
- chenster 9y agoSo is this a mining program inside the browser? Can someone please explain?
- elionchin 9y agoYes. You connect and sync to the Nimiq Network through your browser and run Block mining inside your browser. No installation necessary.
- eriknstr 9y agoThat's pretty cool. Will you also make a native miner?
- chenster 9y agoWhy another cryptocurrency? I can't keep track!!
- elionchin 9y agoBecause this one is built with one thing in mind: making it so simple that your mom can use it. Even the combined market cap of all Cryptocurrencies to date still only represents a small fraction of our financial transactions and monetary system (http://virtualrealitytimes.com/2017/05/30/chart-bitcoin-versus-other-wealth http://virtualrealitytimes.com/2017/05/30/chart-bitcoin-vers...). This is far from mainstream by any means. Nimiqs browser-based approach and clear focus on ease of use brings blockchain technology to everyone, everyday.
- kristianp 9y agoLets get this out of the way now: what are the block size rules as transaction numbers increase?
- elionchin 9y agoThe Mini Blockchain Scheme is being implemented and should be coming into effect later this week: https://cryptonite.info/files/mbc-scheme-rev3.pdf https://cryptonite.info/files/mbc-scheme-rev3.pdf
- fiatjaf 9y agoIs it possible/easy to compile stellar-core to the browser? If we could do it and use the networking module/part of this Nimiq it would be awesome.