Proof of Transfer Archives

The economics behind STX miners’ motivation

November 8, 2020 3 Comments

As Stacks 2.0 is going mainnet on 14 January 2021, “The economics behind STX miners’ motivation” would be an interesting topic to deep dive into for the Stacks Protocol / Proof of Transfer. Miners are a distinct group within the blockchain ecosystem, their operation is fundamental to the integrity, decentralization of the blockchain infrastructure.

Mining in layman’s term is the very action where resources are consumed to produce a new resource(in blockchain context it would be to mint a new block). There are various form of mining in the blockchain ecosystem:

Name	Acronym	Miner action to mint new cryptocurrency
Proof-of-Work	PoW	Consume electricity towards computations to mint units of a new cryptocurrency.
Proof-of-Stake	PoS	Dedicate economic stake in a base cryptocurrency to mint units of the same cryptocurrency.
Proof-of-Burn	PoB	Destroy a base cryptocurrency to mint units of a new cryptocurrency.
Proof-of-Transfer	PoX	Transfer a base cryptocurrency to mint units of a new cryptocurrency.

Source: PoX Whitepaper

In the context of Stacks Protocol, which adopts the Proof of Transfer mechanism, here’s a summary of the key characteristics of STX mining and Stacking:

Blockstack, Community, Proof of Transfer

A Beginner’s Guide to setting up a testnet STX miner

November 7, 2020 No Comments

If you’re a complete beginner, with the intention of setting up a testnet STX miner for the first time using a Windows PC, you’re at the right place. Follow these easy step-by-step walkthroughs to get your STX miner set up and running!

Before you begin, check that you have the necessary software installed on your PC:

Rust, Microsoft C++ Build Tools 2019(C++ build tools), Git , node.js, curl and Python

Tutorials that I’ve relied upon while writing this walkthrough

Blockstack – Running a Testnet node – direct link
Blockstack – Mine Stacks Token – direct link

Once you have all software installed, power up your command prompt and insert your first command:

git clone https://github.com/blockstack/stacks-blockchain.git

#This is to download stacks blockchain files on to your computer

Bitcoin, Blockstack, DeFi, Proof of Transfer

DeFi on the Bitcoin Network

October 8, 2020 8 Comments

What is DeFi?

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) has been in the spotlight in recent months, with several DeFi projects gaining traction and their tokens soaring in prices have attracted a lot more attention. But what exactly is decentralized finance and what can it do that traditional finance couldn’t?

DeFi represents an ecosystem of financial applications that are built ontop of blockchain networks. Financial applications ranging from borrowing/lending, to owning fractional assets through tokenization and peer-to-peer transactions.

Blockstack, Proof of Transfer

A beginners guide to Proof-of-Transfer, Stacks blockchain and Stacking.

September 29, 2020 11 Comments

Bitcoin protocol, the world’s most secured blockchain network and the highest profile cryptocurrency(bitcoin) is where most people first learnt about blockchain technology. I’m certainly one of them, having stumbled upon bitcoin in 2016 and went down the rabbit hold to learn more about the mechanism powering the Bitcoin protocol. Blockchain technology which powers the Bitcoin protocol stretches across multiple domains such as cryptography, computer science, economics, finance and more. What makes the Bitcon protocol the most secured blockchain network is the underlying Proof-of-Work(PoW) consensus algorithm, which have the most nodes(miners) running the network in the industry. Miners compete against each other(by solving mathematical puzzles through computing power) to complete transactions on the Bitcoin network and be rewarded with bitcoin. The complexity of the puzzle increases as 1) users on the network increases, 2) increase in computing power as more miners decides to run the network, 3) and the increase in network load. The hash of each block contains the hash of the previous block, which increases security and prevents any block violation, thus the term blockchain. A quick look at Bitcoin protocol’s 2 main security metrics 1) Total Hashrate and 2) Network Difficulty, shows that they are at an all time high.