Carboncoin In Brief - 1: Carboncoin Vs. Bitcoin
In early 2014, Carboncoin was repurposed to become an energy efficient alternative to Bitcoin. We did this because we felt first hand the enormous amount of heat being generated by the “mining” process. Due to the guilt we felt at having participated in what we saw fast becoming an environmental catatrophe, we sought to give it the potential to stimulate an indefinite flow of funding to biodiverse forestry projects (that’s unlimited money for planting trees), seeing that as being the best thing humanity can be doing to address the impending woes of consumption-caused climate change.
This article aims to, in as few words as possible, compare the Carboncoin Network to the Bitcoin Network so that any would be users can understand what we are doing and make an informed decision about whether to support us through either development or taking a position.
The idea for the comparison came from a similar one, featured in a prominent news source, of Bitcoin to the Tether project. We felt it useful to place Carboncoin on the same playing field to see how it compares.
We were determined to keep Carboncoin as similar to Bitcoin as possible while only fixing the things we saw were either really wrong with it, i.e. bad for the planet, or bad for its own progress once the first things had been dealt with.
So rather than focusing on the differences to start with let’s kick off with the elements of the Bitcoin project which we have been able to preserve while fixing the energy consumption problem.
1: Conservation of User Functionality
Any of the actions possible on the early versions of the Bitcoin are possible in Carboncoin. While we have not had to deal with the problems which have dogged the Bitcoin to do with transaction capacity (leading to the widely documented arguments around Segregated Witness (segwit), block size etc) we have our own version of the original Bitcoin client. Users of this are able to store coins associated with private keys, encrypt them for a better degree of security and transfer them to any other Carboncoin users.
In short you can do the same things with Carboncoin as you can with Bitcoins.
2: Conservation of Network Functionality
Every full client running on the Carboncoin network stores a complete Carboncoin blockchain so our ledger is distributed between all of the users. We have equivalent security measures available to us meaning that we have been able to maintain our blockchain since our genesis block, adding to our security features as necessary.
3: Conservation of Compatibility
Carboncoin works just like a first generation Proof of Work coin, that is to say that any open source services running on an existing Proof of Work network can be readily adapted to work on the Carboncoin blockchain.
We have demonstrated this with our android client, an adaptation of Schildbach’s original android wallet for Bitcoin.
4: Conservation of Complete Blockchain Storage (Size Issue)
While it has shown not to be a positive for proof of work coins in general, due to the rapidly increasing size of the blockchains stored on users computers, we feel it is important to note that we are aware of the issue in the event of any rapid increase in users base and transaction flow, and we estimate that were we to experience a similar flowrate as the largest cryptocurrencies we would have over a year to implement our solutions to this to avoid it becoming a problem for our users.
5: Conservation of Regulatory Advantages
As with Bitcoin, we have a truly anonymous issuer of tokens. The active team were able to manoeuvre the Carboncoin blockchain so that we could make the necessary security changes we needed to enable energy efficient operation without compromising on user security.
Coins have all been issued by the network that was initialised by this unknown person, with even greater degrees of randomness than with the original Bitcoin.
Carboncoin therefore is as borderless as the internet and exists as an entity unto itself.
6: Conservation of Accessibility
Anyone can download a free wallet and get hold of coins, without restriction. Carboncoin has maintained its availability on at least one third party market place (exchange) throughout the project, mobilising to add a new one the moment changes make our tenure on an existing one uncertain.
YoBit.Net - CarbonCoin (CARBON) Exchange
Buy and sell CarbonCoin (CARBON) on YoBit Exchange!
yobit.net
7: Conservation of Ethos
Carboncoin, while deviating on the fundamental tenet of the original that indefinite energy consumption is a worthy price to pay for the trustless operation of a digital network, carries the same approach to the global status quo, financial and otherwise. We want peace, we want fairness, and if required, non-violent disruption; but we have evolved to include “ensuring the long term survival of life on the planet as best we can” as the most important of our ethical objectives. The amount of philosophy that has occurred to enable us to place this at the forefront of our governance as safely as possible is non trivial, but is the subject of a future article.
www.carboncoin.cc/infographic.html
8: Conservation of Fixed Coin Total or Conservation of Network Effect
When we began to venture into the Cryptocurrency space we did so having identified the Network Effect as the primary means of coin appreciation. We stuck to our guns on this despite many calling to make the coins representative of some physical underlying, the fact remaining that Bitcoin worked as an abstract number floating in abstract space, and if that’s how Bitcoin succeeded that is how Carboncoin would do the same. There are 16 Billion Carboncoin.
More similarities may be added to this list but for now let’s turn to the differences.
1: Energy Consumption
Carboncoin currently runs on hundreds of watts of energy, and any would-be miner will find it cheaper to purchase coins outright by some orders of magnitude, rather than attempt to game the network operation to acquire a higher proportion of coins.
With Carboncoin mining takes place out of necessity to keep the network running and the transactions flowing. It is not proportionately rewarded and therefore competition is not incentivised. We keep it going because we feel it is our duty to, and we are able to with a few lightbulbs worth of energy.
2: Trust Built by Delivery of Service
As much as we saw Bitcoin enthusiasts persist with their argument that indefinite energy consumption was the only way to achieve trustless operation, the overwhelming truth remained that the use of Bitcoin was not happening because the majority of users understood the network infrastructure — instead it was occurring because it had delivered what it had said it would do for a significant amount of time.
As before mentioned we do not agree that trustlessness in network operation is a fair exchange for indefinite energy consumption, especially in the context of worsening climate change. Our approach will continue to be to build trust by proven and tested network operation in the long term.
We deliver digital value storage and transfer services. If that is something you desire then you can use us for it, until we are shown not to be doing, when it would be wise to stop, obviously.
3: Transaction Capacity
As it stands the current version of Carboncoin has over six times the transaction speed and capacity of the Bitcoin network. Two confirmations should take 3.3` minutes, just the right amount of time for a quick chat about helping the environment.
4: Governance
It is with no small amount of candour that I must admit the delivery of the governance of Carboncoin, due to it occurring to me as a matter of course, and therefore me believing it to be obvious, has been something that I have sorely overlooked delivering. It is only having watched recent calls for ethics to be included in computer science courses that I have realised that perhaps the greatest value presented by the Carboncoin is that very thing that struck me as being too obvious to write down.
In short, Carboncoin is a logical autocracy. To change the course of Carboncoin, to change the delivery of the objectives of it, you must put forward a stronger logical argument than those already extant for what it does. To those wishing to approach with arguments for using energy to artificially remove Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere, whether to use it for fuel or otherwise, instead of planting Biodiverse Forest at scale, I cite the First and Second Laws of Thermodynamics and wish you good luck in your endeavours!
We will present the tenets of the governance of Carboncoin as they exist now in an appropriate format imminently.
For the time being:
The existing version of Carboncoin, just by its use, does the same as Bitcoin, without wasting energy and while intending to deploy unlimited funding to supporting nature in mitigating climate change. It’s in our blockchain.
The specified future version of Carboncoin does this, only more effectively. When Carboncoin starts to work, the development of the future version will scale up. Our deadline: the blockchain size of the existing Carboncoin becoming a problem.
Let’s get to “enough trees” then have a good long discussion about what to do next.
