Sexcoin is in the final phases of testing the next client. The Core client is based on Litecoin 0.10.4.0.
This is a repost of this announcement. All information is still pertinent.
There will be a "soft fork" to enable some new features, and miners are going to be most affected.
The most significant changes:
- Sexcoin will now have a self-reported "Age-Verification" feature, which is carried on the transaction level and written to the block-chain (more on that soon)
- Coin-control is implemented
- Block versions are being pulled straight to version 4, up from version 1 via "Super-majority" soft-fork
- Bloom filtering and other enhancements for thin clients, inherited from litecoin, will be implemented.
- Multi-Sig and other Script enhancements will be inherited.
- There is a proper 'testnet' in operation to test client and transaction code. As of this writing, dnsseeding for testnet will not be available, but the dev team has standing test nodes and a block explorer. This will be documented in the near future
- We will be providing pre-compiled versions for Win32, Win64 and OSX at a minimum.
- The Android version will also be availble shortly after the new Core release to take advantage of the new blockchain features.
As an added bonus, the dev team has a version of P2Pool available which should work "out-of-the-box" for anyone wanting to run a P2Pool. We do not have a pre-compiled widows version of this yet, but hope to be able to provide that in the near future.
We need help letting miners and exchanges know of the upcoming upgrade.
IF YOU MINE on a pool that is NOT LISTED, please let your pool-op know!
IF YOU TRADE somewhere that is not listed, please let your exchange admins know!- We're running the final builds on the new releases.
- Not many miners have switched
- A bootstrap file is available for download to ease the pain of downloading a new blockchain
Notes on the new upgrade:The new client uses a new database backplane for the blockchain. This means that you
will need to download a new copy of the blockchain even if you are upgrading.
Make
CERTAIN you create a backup of your wallet before running the upgrade. The wallet also uses a new database schema, and will automatically be converted when you run the client for the first time. IF anything goes wrong, the easiest course is to shut down your client, copy the wallet.dat backup into your data directory and restart the program to let it upgrade the wallet again.
Bootstrap file is available for anyone wanting to download it in preparation for the release:
https://github.com/sexcoin-project/sexcoin-bootstrapThe bootstrap file is
ONLY BLOCK DATA. We haven't officially released the new client.
It is available so you can download it
in preparation for the new client.
- Download bootstrap.dat.gz OR bootstrap.dat.zip from github or mirrors.
- Verify the integrity of the compressed bootstrap.dat file with the checksums.
- Decompress to obtain bootstrap.dat.
- Put it into the Sexcoin datadir. This is the same folder that contains wallet.dat and the blocks folder.
- Delete bootstrap.dat.old when syncing is finished if you wish to recover some storage space.
If you are starting a brand new client, you may need to:
- run the installer
- start the client just long enough so that it builds the directory structure
- shut it down
- copy the bootstrap.dat file into the data directory
- then start it back up
Age Verification and SexcoinI wanted to take a minute and fill in some information about the age verification feature in the new client. Age verification is a self-reported verification that is carried IN the transaction and written to the block-chain. This is accomplished through creating a flag field in the existing transaction version field. In effect, the high-byte of the transaction version carries the flags and the low-byte carries the transaction version.
We had a lot of discussion about the validity of 'self-reported' age-verification, and whether it was really worth putting into the client at all. The decision to write the feature in was accepted because self-reporting does provide merchants and end-users a certain amount of protection. If you doubt this, go to porn.com, and initiate a bitcoin purchase. This is processed with a button certifying your age. Pair that with the number of sites you can access with a button-click, and you can see that it does hold weight. In effect, the sender is certifying they are of age. As a merchant, the client has lied to you if they are not, so the client is culpable of fraud.
Also, the way we've implemented the verification actually implies that "better" is on the way. We've been looking at services like Sho-Card and a couple of others that offer very strong verification, and we have left room in the code to be able to 'fold-in' third-party verification schemes in the future. This is what we REALLY want to see.
I think the real power of this layout is that the flag is
carried in the transaction, so it can be confirmed any time, by anyone (de-centralized ) in the future that age-verification was provided by looking up the transaction via the block-explorer.
Finally, I want to mention that age-verification offers protection both ways, and in some sense can make the coin useful in tangent with other payment schemes. I do picture a cam-to-cam scenario where both parties send age-verified coins to each other, providing an electronic signature that both are of age. Another scenario would be sending sexcoin with age-verification flags set as a side-transaction, with the bulk of the "traded-value" being doge or litecoin.