PROJECT OVERVIEW.
GoldCoin is an improved version of Litecoin currently using scrypt as a proof of work scheme. GoldCoin is faster than both BTC and LTC in terms of confirmation times and features an innovative 51% attack defense system.
The word “Gold” relays the meaning of value to every living breathing human being on earth. The founders decided to take the best name possible and co-create the best coin and greatest community even seen.
They believed that by building the best community possible, by working hard, innovating, and developing the coin to become resistant to attack and more secure than Bitcoin, that they would become the number one cryptocurrency eventually topping the charts and surpassing Bitcoin in market-cap.
BACKGROUND.
The mission of Goldcoin founders was to create a physical gold replacement by completing the vision of Satoshi and establishing the ultimate digital commodity. Their focus was on enhancing value-storage.
The founders believe that Satoshi Nakamoto’s original protocol had the ability to scale out-of-the-box and that on-chain scaling is crucial for the long term health of any cryptocurrency. Throttling the main chain and forcing transactions onto side networks weakens the system, changes economic incentives, and increases regulatory exposure of network participants.
In addition to preserving the principles of the original design, Goldcoin has several additional improvements to harden the network including the design of a 51% attack defense system, and their innovative GoldenRiver difficulty algorithm.
HOW IT WORKS.
Goldcoin’s Golden River difficulty adjustment algorithm is very different from KGW, KGW, DS, etc. DGW/KGW and their variants use something akin to a weighted moving average to determine the difficulty. Whereas Golden River uses median and average times in accordance with various pre-defined clauses in step cases to provide near-best case movement without a pre-determined curve.
The result is that while KGW and their variants are prettier to look at in their implementation, Golden River vastly outperforms them in cases where the difficulty needs to drop quickly. With Golden River the network difficulty can fall ~42% in a single block and still be accurate, in terms of the targeted block times, to the network hash rate. KGW and their variants perform something similar in function(they take much longer).. but they are vulnerable to certain types of attacks(namely time warp attacks). Furthermore those algorithms typically over-adjust upwards leading to network slow down, whereas Golden River is on the spot with these changes..
The calculation with Golden River uses the median of the last 60 blocks and the average of the last 120 blocks for its final value. It is extremely robust as a method, and in fringe cases where the network is under attack KGW may slow down for ~20 blocks, but Golden River will only slow down for a 1-3 blocks, before returning to normal block time value calculation.
A simpler explanation would be: Golden River is faster to adapt, and more secure than KGW and their variants, and along with the 51% defense enables it to be a true POW coin thus sticking to Satoshi’s original vision.
The 51% attack defence system works by spitting out orphan blocks when network hash rate increases too fast, too quickly. The aim is to avoid the concentration of network power and thus, in theory, avoiding a 51% attack on the integrity of the chain.
HOW ADVANCED IS IT?
Goldcoin has increased the block size to 2MB, and because of this upgrade and their faster block times, they currently have more than 10 times the transaction capacity of the bitcoin network. They have also improved the protocol’s difficulty adjustment algorithm, and added an innovative strip-mining defense system.
ROADMAP.
October 2017 [iOS app, Client upgrade].
In late October Goldcoin plans to have a completed iOS app ready for submission to the App Store. Work will also begin on a client upgrade that will improve mining and SPV wallet performance. This update will come in the way of a soft fork remaining 100% backward compatible with older clients.
December 2017 [Upgrade finalization, testnet].
In December, Goldcoin plan to run the new client on a private Testnet for testing and bug checking.
January 2018 [Upgrade rollout, SPV wallet].
When the client is fully tested, they will build and sign the binaries and roll out the upgrade. This roll out will be done in conjunction with a series of news articles and press releases. With a new client to support it, they will build an Electrum type wallet that will make for an enhanced experience by general users.
February 2018 [SPV wallet rollout].
Roll out of the new SPV wallet (thin client) with accompanying press release. This will complete the network upgrade and bring a complete set of tools for users that include an Android app, iOS app, and Electrum style light wallet.
