-
Notifications
You must be signed in to change notification settings - Fork 13
Home
Welcome to the Slimcoin wiki!
Slimcoin is a energy-saving, fast-confirming and novel cryptocurrency. It's the first cryptocurrency using Proof of Burn for block generation and currency distribution. Another highlight is the DCrypt algorithm, which is one of the most difficult algorithms to implement in an ASIC and suitable for CPU and GPU mining.
This wiki complements the Slimcoin project web site and contains user documentation and other information about the currency.
The current stable version is v0.6. Download the distinct versions at the Releases page. Or checkout the master branch of the Slimcoin Github repo for bleeding-edge code.
A legacy version, v0.3.2, still works but already misses some newer features. For Windows, download it here. For Linux, you should compile the source code (Instructions). For productive use, download the newest code of the v0.3.2 branch.
Development in Slimcoin is open to everyone. If you want to participate with development, you can read the Developer's Page.
You can also browse the Proposals section if you want to contribute to the growth of Slimcoin's infrastructure or just need some inspiration.
Transaction format - The Slimcoin transaction format is similar but a little bit different from Bitcoin's.
Proof of Burn is an energy-saving, long-term-investment-rewarding decentralized consensus mechanism proposed by Iain Stewart as early as 2012. Slimcoin is the first cryptocurrency to implement it as a block generation method and was created in May 2014 by an pseudonymous developer (he used the name "slimcoin" on Bitcointalk, "John Smith" on Github and "P4Titan" on Reddit).
In Proof of Burn, you transfer coins to a unspendable address in exchange for a probability to find Proof-of-Burn blocks and get block rewards regularly.
You can describe Proof of Burn as virtual mining: For every coin you burn, you "buy" a virtual miner that has a virtual hashrate correlated to the cost of the burnt coins.
Thus the more coins you burn, the higher the chances you find Proof-of-Burn blocks. It's not necessary to burn all the coins together: your "score" (probability to find a block) will also rise when you burn coins periodically.
This "score" is called Effective Burnt Coins. To avoid a disproportionate benefit for early adopters, after a participant burns coins, its Effective Burnt Coins value is lowered each block. It starts with 100% of the amount of coins burnt and decays until reaching zero in about a year. That means that you will have a long time to recover your destroyed coins via block rewards.
At a first glance, the idea of Proof of Burn can sound a bit unconventional. But the concept has advantages over both Proof of Work and Proof of Stake.
One of the primary advantages is that PoB allows participation for people without access to expensive mining equipment. Users can simply burn coins and get rewards while validating transactions. This was highlighted by the original Slimcoin developers when they added Proof of Burn.
There are key differences to Proof of Stake. First, those who already own coins do not simply get even more coins almost without risk, only holding them. As a PoB investor, you dedicate explicitly coins for the validation process and are rewarded for that - like if you invest in mining equipment, only with far less hassle. Second, you can participate with less coins: a PoB investment is typically smaller than the PoS investment you need to achieve similar rewards.
A not-so-obvious advantage is that Proof of Burn rewards longer term involvement and can help stabilize the currency ecosystem. When you burn coins, it takes some time until you will recover your investment. But once you reach the tipping point, you get a steady flux of income. PoB investors will be incentived to stabilize the network staying online with their Slimcoin client 24 hours a day and perhaps to contribute additional efforts to make the currency a success. Additionally, burnt coins are no longer part of the available coin supply, they can't be sold. This can accentuate Slimcoin's scarcity.
Slimcoin combines Proof of Burn with Proof of Stake and Proof of Work. Proof of Work, currently the most proven consensus mechanism, works as a safety net for the system. Proof of Stake ensures users with high investments get their share of power. Combined with Proof of Burn's unique advantages, this converts Slimcoin into one of the most democratic and decentralized existing cryptocurrencies.