Ercoin 1.0.2 has been released. This version adds support for a situation when there are no voters for the next set of validators, in which case the current set of validators is extended onto the next epoch. Since this is a pathological case, we treat it as an emergency workaround to let the chain run, expecting the normal voting process to be resumed.
All nodes need to upgrade.
Ercoin 1.0.1 has been released. This version fixes a bug which under some circumstances could cause old votes to reappear. Starting from the third epoch (third week of Ercoin operation), it may affect generated application hashes; nodes are encouraged to upgrade beforehand. Wallets should be unaffected.
Ercoin 1.0.0 has been released. The launch of the main network is scheduled to happen on 2020-01-23 00:00:00 UTC.
The initial proposed launch date of 2019-12-15 00:00:00 UTC was delayed because of some IBO-related issues and also to wait for the release of Tendermint 0.33. See the issues #8, #9 and #10 in the main repository for details.
Initial Burn Offering of Ercoin has been announced. Ercoin is a cryptocurrency with fair distribution, delegated proof of locked stake used as a consensus algorithm and Tendermint used as a consensus engine.
The initial distribution will be performed in a way that aims to be both fair (no entity privileged) and green (negligible CO₂ emission). Coins will be assigned proportionally to the amount of blackcoins destroyed (“burnt”) in a specific manner from the beginning of 8th of November 2019 (UTC) until the end of 7th of December 2019 (UTC). People outside the BlackCoin community will be able to participate in the Initial Burn Offering by spending bitcoins to purchase blackcoins that are already burnt, on the decentralized exchange Bisq.
Initial Burn Offering is similar in spirit to the way in which first cryptocurrencies were distributed (Bitcoin in particular), but more accessible (hardware purchases are typically not needed) and not as much wasteful. Therefore Ercoin community hopes to attract both people that are tired of ICO projects and people that are discouraged by wastefulness and environmental impact of cryptocurrencies that use proof of work as a method of distribution. CO₂ emission savings during the IBO can be estimated using an IBO visualization tool.
Besides distribution, Ercoin aims to distringuish itself by a unique set of technical and economical features. Delegated proof of locked stake is used as a consensus algorithm. This is a variant of proof stake in which voting power is proportional not only to the amount of coins owned, but also to the time for which the funds are locked (with a time cap applied). The purpose of this solution is to emphasize the role of long-term investors in decision making. Investors don’t need to perform validation themselves, but can instead delegate this duty to professional validator service providers.
There will be no inflation in Ercoin and therefore no arbitrary inflation tax. Costs of maintaining the network will be covered from fees. Fee amounts will be decided by the consensus of validators.
In place of smart contracts, Ercoin proposes transaction messages and accounts managed by multiple keys in arbitrary combinations. It is believed that these two features will cover many real-life applications like facilitation of automated services and private arbitration (via deposits managed by 2-of-3 signatures).
Besides Ercoin-specific features, there is a number of advantages coming from the usage of Tendermint, like fast confirmations and partially standarized API. Overall, Ercoin aims to be a cryptocurrency which is fairly distributed, efficient, easy to use, easy to integrate, useful in common business cases and also provides a sound economic model, contributing to the long term cryptocurrency value.
With the release of Ercoin 1.0.0 beta, it is time to announce Initial Burn Offering. The distribution of ercoins in the genesis block will be made proportionally to the amount of blackcoins burnt from the beginning of 8th of November 2019 (UTC) until the end of 7th of December 2019 (UTC) (block times are normative). The minimum required burnt amount per Ercoin address is 3 BLK. The total number of ercoins created will be 2.6 billion.
If everything goes well (which is by no means certain), the network will start on 15th of December (UTC). Before the real IBO, there will be a test IBO performed on BlackCoin testnet. See the roadmap for detailed schedule.
For detailed, technical rules, see the README in the main Ercoin repository.
Community-provided IBO explorers: ibo.laboratorium.ee.
Open the Ercoin wallet and generate a new account. Remember to back up the account.
Go to the “Genesis” tab in the wallet and create a genesis transaction. Do not select the “locked” option unless you know what you are doing.
There are at least two methods: directly burn blackcoins or pay someone to do it for you. Genesis transaction has to be associated with the burnt coins. One transaction may be “burnt” into blackcoin blockchain multiple times.
Regardless of the method, remember to fit into the time window (not too early, not too late)! You may want to start the burning with small amounts, to give yourself an opportunity to get assured that everyting works as expected before burning significant amounts of money.
First get a Blackcoin wallet that faciliates coin burning1 (“More wallet” since version 2.13.2.4-067783fa702 and “Original wallet” since version 1.2.5 should be good in this regard). Send the coins that you intend to burn to this address. Note that a wallet may need even a few days for initial sync!
When you have the coins sitting happily in your wallet, open “Help → Debug window → Console”. To burn the coins, type:
burn <amount> <genesis_transaction>, where <amount> is the amount of blackcoins you want to burn and <genesis_transaction> is created in step 2.
To participate in the IBO, you need to create an unspendable transaction output which carries genesis transaction created in step 2 as data. Neither you nor anybody else will be able to spend blackcoins associated with this output (they will be “burnt”), so you don’t really need a full-fledged wallet. When buying blackcoins, you can thereore tell the seller to not send them to an ordinary address, but to burn them for you instead, providing him with the genesis transaction created in step two.
On most exchanges you purchase blackcoins and then specify a traditional withdrawal address. This is not flexible enough to allow withdrawals to burnt outputs. However decentralized exchange Bisq has an asset named „burnt BlackCoin” (which can be found under the “sell BTC” tab).
Beware that validators are elected only by locked accounts (this is done to emphasize the role of long-term investors). If you decide to lock your account and find a competent provider of validator service, then he will be also competent enough to explain to you what to do to lock your account and vote (of course the reverse may be not true).
All dates & times are given in UTC.
| 2019-10-15 00:00:00 | Test IBO start |
| 2019-10-21 23:59:59 | Test IBO end |
| 2019-10-22 00:00:00 | Test fee voting start |
| 2019-10-28 00:00:00 | Test fee voting end |
| 2019-10-29 00:00:00 | Test genesis |
| 2019-11-08 00:00:00 | IBO start |
| 2019-12-07 23:59:59 | IBO end |
| 2019-12-08 00:00:00 | Fee voting start |
| 2019-12-14 00:00:00 | Fee voting end |
| 2019-12-15 00:00:00 | Genesis |
If your wallet does not faciliate coin burning, then it doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to burn the coins. This topic is however not covered in this document.↩
If you downloaded BlackCoin More before 2019-11-12, you may have a problem with the wallet creating burn transactions, but not broadcasting them. It can be bypassed by setting the -datacarriersize option to a higher value (150 should be sufficient).↩
Ercoin 1.0.0 beta has been released. This version brings the announcement of Initial Burn Offering which will be used to obtain initial distribution. See the linked announcement for detailed rules and instruction. We are also pleased to announce bug bounty programme. For Ercoin story, see the linked blog post.
Below is a selective list of changes since the last release. There are no plans to make any backwards incompatible changes before releasing the final 1.0.0 version, but this possibility cannot be completely excluded.
With the announcement of version 1.0.0 beta, we have a bug bounty programme to announce! The goal is to find bugs before Ercoin goes into production.
Reward: $1000
Construct transactions A and B such that:
Reward: $1000
Given an insufficient set os signing keys, construct a transaction that, in some circumstances, can be successfully executed.
Reward: $350
Construct a transaction that, under some circumstances, causes the node to crash either on CheckTx or on DeliverTx. Note: the crash needs to be caused by the transaction itself, not by some pathological application state which is unlikely to happen in production (like fee votes absent or all being equal to zero).
The bounties are mostly funded ($750 + $750 + $350) by Ergologic, Inc. Orlando, Florida, USA.
Each bug will be assigned to just one category. The total amount of rewards is limited. Bounties will be processed in the order of submission. After each recognition, it will be announced how it affects the budget and payable bug categories.
Bug cause must lay in the ABCI server. Note however that ABCI client (Tendermint) has its own bug bounty programme.
Bounties will be paid in Bitcoin. When converting USD to BTC, the price of Bitcoin will be the closing price from the day the bounty was acknowledged, as recorded on Coinpaprika.
To claim a bounty, open an issue in the repository of Ercoin’s ABCI server before 13th of December 2019 (UTC) and provide your payment address.
Bug categories and the above rules are subject to change, providing reasonable transparency.
Ercoin 0.1.0 has been released. The test network is scheduled to launch at 6 P.M. UTC on Friday, 29 March.
As the version number suggests, this is not a stable release, which means that we are not in production yet. The process of achieving version 1.0 and starting the main network will consist of several areas of activity, including:
When a satisfactory level in these areas is achieved, it is planned to announce Initial Burn Offering (IBO) — initial set of ercoins is going to be distributed proportionally to the amount of blackcoins burnt in some time window.
To learn about design goals and features, read the whitepaper.
Update (29 March):
Version 0.1.1 has been released which updates the entropy library. Launch of the test network will happen using a newly-generated genesis data which uses real entropy instead of the dummy one.