Merge branch 'master' of https://github.com/peercoin/docs

app/assets/docs/010-proof-of-stake.md

@@ -17,20 +17,20 @@ These metrics, along with two more data points serves as a basis to calculate a
 
 Every 6 hours the network calculates a new block modifier to be used for POS minting.
 
-The win in proof-of-stake minting, the calculated hash is compared to the current difficulty minus the coinage. The chances of finding a stake therefor improves when either the coinage increases or when the difficulty of the network decreases.
+The win in proof-of-stake minting, the calculated hash is compared to the current difficulty minus the coinage. The chances of finding a stake therefor improves when either the coin age increases or when the difficulty of the network decreases.
 
 ## Peercoin minting behaviour
 
-* Minting process can only start after 30 days of coinage.
-* Minting coinage is maxed out after 90 days. Which means that after 90 days the only variable left in PoS is the current difficulty.
+* The Minting process can only start after 30 days of coinage.
+* Minting coin age is maxed out after 90 days. Which means that after 90 days the only variable left in PoS is the current difficulty.
 * Minting is predictable and not random. For a given transaction, you can calculate the maximum network PoS difficulty over time for your transaction to be able to mint a PoS block.
 * Whenever this PoS difficulty is higher than the current network PoS difficulty your Peercoin client can mint a PoS block.
 * PoS blocks can be rejected (orphans) if several people mint a PoS block within a given window (2 hours also called timedrift). Only one (the chain with longest coin age) will be accepted.
-* Minting splits the transaction in two if coinage < 90 days.
-* PoS block reward is 1% annual. This 1% is factor of your coinage, and is not maxed out.
-* A transaction that just staked has its coins is locked for 520 confirmations (3-4 days).
+* Minting splits the transaction in two if coin age < 90 days.
+* PoS block reward is 1% annually. This 1% is a factor of your coin age, and is not maxed out.
+* A transaction that just staked has its coins locked for 520 confirmations (3-4 days).
 * Merging transactions, spending coins, etc. burns coinage (resets it to 0).
-* PoS reward is directly added to your transaction which staked (if this transaction is split in two because coinage < 90 days, the reward is equally distributed to both resulting transactions).
+* The PoS reward is directly added to your transaction which staked (if this transaction is split in two because coinage < 90 days, the reward is equally distributed to both resulting transactions).
 
 ## Peercoin v0.5 Proof-of-Stake protocol
 
@@ -39,26 +39,21 @@ The win in proof-of-stake minting, the calculated hash is compared to the curren
 ## Qualities of Proof-of-Stake Consensus
 
 ### Efficient
-Proof-of-stake in Peercoin is efficient because network security is not dependent on wasting massive amounts of electrical energy (proof-of-energy-burn). Instead minters invest their coins and time to emulate the PoW process. This is done by simply need to open up their wallet app, send coins to their address and let them sit while they are occasionally selected by the protocol to mint the next block. This process is both energy and cost efficient.
+The use of Proof-of-stake mining in Peercoin is efficient because network security is not dependent on the use of massive amounts of electrical energy (proof-of-energy-burn). Instead minters invest their coins and time to emulate the PoW process. This is done by simply opening up their wallet app, sending coins to their address and letting them sit there while they are occasionally selected by the protocol to mint the next block. This process is both energy and cost efficient.
 
 ### Aligning interests
-Because coin owners are the ones who produce new blocks in Proof-of-Stake, this means security providers and users of the network are ultimately the same group of people.
-No longer is there a separate group of security providers who only care about making profit and are not financially tied to the network itself. All security providers are forced to own a stake in the network through ownership of Peercoin. This causes everyone to have a similar financial interest in the long-term future of the network, which leads to much less conflict between factions with different ideas about how the blockchain should develop and evolve.
+Because coin owners also  produce new blocks in Proof-of-Stake, this means security providers and users of the network are ultimately the same group of people. No longer is there a separate group of security providers who only care about making profit and are not financially tied to the network itself. All security providers must own a stake in the network through ownership of Peercoin. As everyone has similar financial interests in the long-term future of the network this leads to much less conflict between factions with different ideas about how the blockchain should develop and evolve.
 
 ### User governance
-Because users in Peercoin have the ability to produce blocks, they also have the power to influence and determine the future direction of the network. User governance comes in pair with PoS consensus mechanism. Peercoin is the very first blockchain capable of allowing its protocol rules to be governed directly by its users.
+Because users in Peercoin have the ability to produce blocks they also have the power to influence and determine the future direction of the network. User governance goes hand in hand with the PoS consensus mechanism. Peercoin is the very first blockchain capable of allowing its protocol rules to be governed directly by its users.
 
 ### Global network
-As a direct consequence of resource efficient consensus mechanism, the number of people capable of participating in the block creating race is much expanded. Security providers are no longer drawn to geographical locations with cheap electricity. Due to how cost efficient proof-of-stake is to operate a node, minting nodes can be setup anywhere in the world. This allows Peercoin to maximize its level of decentralization and achieve global security from minting users all around the world.
+As a direct consequence of the resource efficient consensus mechanism the number of people capable of participating in the race to create new blocks is significantly expanded. In addition to this security providers are also no longer drawn to geographical locations with cheap electricity. Due to the cost efficiency of operating a proof-of-stake node minting nodes can be set up anywhere in the world. This allows Peercoin to maximize its level of decentralization and achieve global security from minting users all around the world.
 
 ### Network security is price independent
-Unlike proof-of-work where miners are completely dependent on the market price of a blockchain's native token to ensure profitability, Peercoin contains no such price dependency. Proof-of-stake minters are compensated as motivation to provide consistent security, however since this process is so inexpensive to perform minters actually have the ability to voluntarily operate a minting node without compensation if they want to.
-Even without compensation from the network, the process of minting helps to secure the blockchain and along with it a stakeholder's overall investment. The ability to decide which version of the protocol to run also gives a minter the opportunity to make their voice heard concerning future upgrades to the network. These are two important reasons a stakeholder may have to want to run a node for free, however compensation is automatically provided which makes it even better to participate. Voluntarily running a proof-of-work mining node is just not possible due to the requirement of being profitable enough in order to afford the associated costs of participating.
-Since 2012 though it has been proven that Peercoin is capable of sustaining its network security even during the lowest periods of demand where market price was close to zero. If the network is capable of surviving extremely stressful conditions like these then it can likely survive anything the market throws at it.
+Unlike proof-of-work where miners are completely dependent on the market price of a blockchain's native token to ensure profitability, Peercoin contains no such price dependency. Proof-of-stake minters are compensated as motivation to provide consistent security, however since this process is so inexpensive to perform minters actually have the ability to voluntarily operate a minting node without compensation if they want. Even without compensation from the network, the process of minting helps to secure the blockchain and along with it a stakeholder's overall investment. The ability to decide which version of the protocol to run also gives a minter the opportunity to make their voice heard concerning future upgrades to the network. These are two important reasons a stakeholder may have to want to run a node for free, however, compensation is automatically provided which makes it even better to participate. Running a proof-of-work mining node without compensation is just not possible due to the requirement of being profitable enough in order to afford the associated costs of participating. However, since 2012 it has been proven that Peercoin is capable of sustaining its network security even during the lowest periods of demand where market price was close to zero. If the network is capable of surviving extremely stressful conditions like these then it is likely to survive any challenges the market may present it with in the future.
 
 ### Higher Resistance to Censorship
-As explained above, the efficiency of proof-of-stake results in a blockchain network that can easily be secured by people all over the world who hold some amount of Peercoin. This global decentralized security makes the Peercoin network incredibly difficult to censor and shut down.
-It is similar to downloading files through a bittorrent network. In bittorrent network, many people around the world operate nodes where they hold a full copy of the file that is trying to be downloaded. Pieces of the file are downloaded from different nodes until the full file has finished downloading. If a government were to deem this file sharing illegal and attempt to shut down the torrent network, they would be forced to target every single node on the network no matter where they happen to exist in the world. Even then, there is nothing stopping more torrent nodes from popping up that share the exact same file. As long as one node exists that shares the file, it can be downloaded and spread to others.
+As explained above, the efficiency of proof-of-stake results in a blockchain network that can easily be secured by people all over the world who hold some amount of Peercoin. This globally decentralized security makes the Peercoin network incredibly difficult to censor and shut down. This is similar to downloading files through a bittorrent network. In bittorrent network, many people around the world operate nodes where they hold a full copy of the file that others are trying to download. Pieces of the file are downloaded from different nodes until the full file has finished downloading. If a government were to deem this file sharing illegal and attempt to shut down the torrent network, they would be forced to target every single node on the network no matter where they happen to exist in the world. Even then, there is nothing stopping more torrent nodes from being created that share the same file. As long as one node exists that shares the file, it can be downloaded and spread to others.
 
-Peercoin works in a similar way where minting nodes that process transactions can be operated from anywhere in the world as long as the minter has access to a computer, minimal electricity, some amount of Peercoin and an internet connection. Geographical decentralization of minting nodes makes it incredibly difficult to shut down the Peercoin network, but when the number of nodes around the world expands to thousands or even tens of thousands then it essentially becomes impossible to censor.
-In systems like these, individual nodes are usually called peers. Together they act as a peer-to-peer network. This is where Peercoin obtained its name. It was originally introduced by Sunny King as ppcoin, which stood for peer-to-peer coin. Shortly after it was renamed to Peercoin.
+Peercoin works in a similar way where minting nodes that process transactions can be operated from anywhere in the world as long as the minter has access to a computer, minimal electricity, some amount of Peercoin and an internet connection. Geographical decentralization of minting nodes makes it incredibly difficult to shut down the Peercoin network, but when the number of nodes around the world expands to thousands or even tens of thousands then it essentially becomes impossible to censor. In systems like these, individual nodes are usually called peers. Together they act as a peer-to-peer network. This is where Peercoin obtained its name. It was originally introduced by Sunny King as ppcoin, which stood for peer-to-peer coin. Shortly after it was renamed to Peercoin.