What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is peer-to-peer money. Nodes check the rules. Miners spend work to add blocks. A block that the chain keeps pays the coinbase inside it.

What is the Blake2b fork (B2)?

This chain uses Blake2b for proof of work, not SHA-256. The gear is the same family Sia ASICs already run. It is a separate chain from SHA-256 Bitcoin and from Siacoin. A normal Bitcoin exchange address is the other network unless that exchange says it takes this chain.

What is coinbase maturity (CBM)?

A coinbase cannot be spent until it matures. On this chain the long wait is 6480 blocks (about 45 days), in force from block 973440 through 979919. A pool payout is not spendable the moment the block is found.

What if coinbase maturity is increased in the code?

Maturity is a node rule, not a pool setting. If the network forks in a longer wait, it reaches every coinbase that has not already been moved, including ones mined before the change. Coins already spent stay spent. A longer wait does not change who was paid, and the pool cannot move those outputs early.

Changing the number only in pool code does nothing. The nodes that check spends have to run the new rule. If some nodes use the old number and some use the new one, one side can accept a spend the other rejects. That can split the chain.

What is mining?

Your machine tries numbers until the block hash is low enough. Each try is work. A share is work the pool can count. A block is work the whole network keeps. Most shares never become a block.

What is a pool, and why use one?

A pool adds many miners’ work and splits the coinbase of the blocks it finds. Alone, a small miner can go a long time with no block. On a pool, pay follows the work you submitted.

RIPTIDE uses a TIDES window of 8 of our finds: 7 confirmed plus the current one. Harder shares count more. The next split is the pie on the dashboard. Someone else’s block does not pay our coinbase.

DATUM, and the old SV1 door

DATUM is how you connect, and it is 0% on the normal doors. You run a gateway and your own Blake2b node. Your machines point at your gateway. The gateway builds the block from your node and only uses the pool to split the reward. The transactions in your block are the ones your node put in the template.

No public SV1 port.

The difference is who writes the block. On DATUM, many miners can mine many different templates, including their own filters. The old SV1 door used one pool template for everyone on it.

What is spam?

On DATUM, spam filtering is the gateway’s choice, not a network rule. It means transactions that gateway would rather not mine: dust, fake multisig used to hide data, and token stamps. This network does not keep large OP_RETURNs, so those are not the problem. A payment someone asked for is not spam just because the fee is small.

What are filters?

A filter chooses which of those transactions go into the block you mine. It does not delete them from the chain if someone else mines them. OP_RETURN, also called a data carrier, is one of those settings. You pick whether it is allowed and how large it may be.

A template filter leaves the mempool alone, so your node can still check other people’s blocks, and only the template you mine is thinner. A node-wide filter refuses the transaction at the mempool. Your own blocks stay clean, but when someone else mines the filtered transaction your node has to fetch it.

On DATUM the filter is yours, because the template is yours.

Renting, selling, and buying hashrate

Renting means you pay someone else’s machines to mine for a while. Order Blake2b hashrate, not SHA-256. Point it at your gateway. No public SV1 port. The site’s hashrate card is about the last 30 minutes. Details are on How to rent.

Selling is the other side. You list your Blake2b machines on a rental market. The buyer aims them. The market pays you. This pool only sees the shares if those machines are pointed here.

Buying the coin is not the same as buying hashrate. Hashrate is rented work. The coin is the money in a block. An exchange deposit works only if that exchange supports this Blake2b chain.

What happens on a fast block?

A new block starts a new job immediately. What that job pays depends on the gateway. The pool does not control the gateway.

• Empty. Stock DATUM sends an opening job with no transactions and one pool output, so miners are not idle while the full template is built.
• Pool only. The next job can include transactions and still pay a single pool output. A miner that has not switched yet can keep hashing that.
• Last split, then the pool’s own split. The RIPTIDE reuse-on build puts the previous split on the first jobs, then replaces it when this pool answers.
• Solo. Some gateways pay the miner, not the pool, for that short gap, and do not send those shares here. That is the gateway’s choice.
• Same people paid twice. If this pool finds two blocks before the window of 8 moves, both can pay the same list. We consider that a bonus double payment, and the block window shifts.

If the block found is a pool-only block, the pool holds the funds until coinbase maturity (CBM), then pays them out manually.

A few more

• Luck is blocks found against the blocks our work should have found. Short windows swing. Over 100% means more finds than expected.
• Orphan means a block we found that the chain did not keep. It does not pay.
• Your gateway sees your miners. The pool sees the gateway’s shares and the coinbase that gateway registered. The pool does not run your ASIC and does not choose your gateway’s jobs.
• Builds. Luke’s stock v0.5, our reuse-on build, and the StartOS sideload are listed on How to connect.

API

Writes go to http://riptide.maveth.ca:8125. The source address signs the message. Enable comes first. A later add, remove, or full replace is refused until then. Disable turns the address off and drops every destination. One address can list at most 256 destinations. The percents still cannot add up to more than 100. Percents are basis points in the signed text: 25% is 2500, 100% is 10000. The lines below are the exact text, including the final line break.

RIPTIDE owner-split v1
source: ADDRESS
enable

POST /api/enable
{"address":"ADDRESS","signature":"..."}

RIPTIDE owner-split v1
source: ADDRESS
disable

POST /api/disable
{"address":"ADDRESS","signature":"..."}

RIPTIDE owner-split v1
source: ADDRESS
add
DEST 2500

POST /api/splits
{"address":"ADDRESS","mode":"add","legs":[{"address":"DEST","percent":"25"}],"signature":"..."}

Add puts those destinations on the list already there, or changes the percent of one that is already on it. The total cannot pass 100%.

RIPTIDE owner-split v1
source: ADDRESS
set
DEST 10000

POST /api/splits
{"address":"ADDRESS","mode":"set","legs":[{"address":"DEST","percent":"100"}],"signature":"..."}

Set replaces the whole list.

RIPTIDE owner-split v1
source: ADDRESS
remove
DEST

POST /api/splits
{"address":"ADDRESS","mode":"remove","destinations":["DEST"],"signature":"..."}

POST /api/preview with the same body, and no signature, returns the exact message to sign. GET /api/status?address=ADDRESS is the lookup this page uses.