PAI Newsletter ? - April 27, 2020

PAI Newsletter ? - April 27, 2020


In this
fourth edition of the revamped PAI Newsletter, we’ll explore more details about PAI Hybrid Consensus, PAI Coin Pool, and what the future holds for Project PAI. ?


Reminder ☝ PAI Forum is the best way to reach the team and connect with other PAI Coin enthusiasts. If you haven’t already, sign up now. We’ve had a 17% increase in users over the past two weeks. ?
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New Frequently Asked Questions



Here, we’ll present and answer some new frequently asked questions we’ve been hearing from community members. If there’s something else you want to know, just ask on PAI Forum!

PAI Coin Pool

Why is the pool hash rate shown on PAI Coin Pool different from PAIChain.info?


As you probably know, PAI Coin Pool currently supports Off-Chain Mining. This means that, while the Lucky Hashes submitted by users running PAI Miner are counted by PAI Coin Pool for the purpose of calculating block reward payouts, they’re not actually used to append new blocks to the blockchain. The “System Total” hash rate that you see on PAI Coin Pool reflects this off-chain hash rate, the aggregate of hashes submitted by all of the PAI Miner apps that PAI Coin Pool users are running at the current time. It’s relevant to how much PAI Coin a user can earn by mining through PAI Coin Pool, but it’s completely unrelated to the PAI Blockchain itself (for now).


On the other hand, the hash rate displayed in the upper right corner of PAIChain.info reflects the rate at which hashes are generated for the purpose of actually appending blocks to the PAI Blockchain and verifying real PAI Coin transactions. The origin of this true hash rate is the collection of whitelist miners that support the network.


Since, for now, PAI Coin Pool is mining off-chain, the PCP and PAIChain.info hash rates do not match. Whenever PAI Hybrid Consensus is launched, however, the mining whitelist will be removed, PAI Coin Pool will transition to mining on chain, and the PAI Coin Pool System Total hash rate will equal the hash rate shown on PAIChain.info.


Will PAI Coin Pool support other blockchains in the future?


Currently, there are no plans to support other blockchains.


Is mining being done off-chain or on-chain?


Currently, mining through PAI Coin Pool is off chain. This means that, while the Lucky Hashes submitted by users running PAI Miner are counted by PAI Coin Pool for the purpose of calculating block reward payouts, they’re not actually used to append new blocks to the blockchain.


This will change once the PAI Hybrid Consensus mechanism is launched and whitelist mining is phased out. For PCP users, though, the switch from off-chain to on-chain mining will be seamless and transparent—the process of mining via the PAI Miner app will not change.

PAI Hybrid Consensus


How will Hybrid Consensus be launched?

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Hybrid Consensus is a fundamental change to the PAI Coin protocol. It changes the basic rules by which transactions are verified. This change is not backwards compatible, and therefore, requires what’s called a hard fork of the blockchain. At a pre-specified block height, which is yet to be determined, all peers that have updated to the new version of PAI Coin Core will reject candidate blocks which do not conform to the Hybrid Consensus protocol.


This will effectively cause two blockchains to exist in parallel: the current, original PAI blockchain, using Bitcoin-style PoW Consensus, and the new, then-“official” PAI Blockchain, using PoW/PoS Hybrid Consensus.


Once Hybrid Consensus is launched, how will mining and staking work? Is any equipment needed for mining?


Following the launch of Hybrid Consensus, users will have two options to mine and stake:


  1. By proxy, via PAI Coin Pool
  2. Directly, via PAI Coin Core (for advanced users)

In either case, you shouldn’t need any special equipment to participate.


PAI Coin Pool will be updated to mine on-chain, so that mining will be as simple as it is now — download the PAI Miner application and run it on your computer. The only difference will be that the Lucky Hashes your miner submits will be used to construct valid candidate blocks for addition to the PAI Blockchain.


Regardless of whether or not you specifically generate the block that becomes part of the blockchain, all participating PCP miners will be rewarded with a proportional fraction of the block reward whenever PAI Coin Pool, as a whole, finds a block. Smaller, but more frequent, block rewards are the main benefit of participating in a pool versus solo mining directly.


If you still prefer to try your hand at solo mining, you would do so by cloning and compiling the open-source PAI Coin Core software that will be available on the Project PAI GitHub.


Can big mining companies with a lot of ASICs take over the network?

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No, the PoW/PoS Hybrid Consensus mechanism uses a SHA-3 hash function. An ASIC that computes SHA-3 does not exist, to our knowledge (although one could theoretically be built). That levels the playing field and allows regular users to fairly participate in mining using standard computing equipment.

Weekly Updates

Last week, the team continued working on PAI Coin Pool optimizations, plugging away at PAI Hybrid Consensus, and began an effort to migrate PAI Forum to a new framework.

PAI Forum and PAI Pass

The new PAI Forum will be launched in May. In connection with the transition, PAI Forum may be unavailable in early May. Once the new PAI Forum is launched, information about the implementation of the PAI Pass SSO will be made available through the new PAI Forum.

PAI Coin Pool

Last week, the team continued work on a referral system ? and started work on sign-up bonuses ?.


  • Backend for Referral Rewards for staking - Complete ✅
  • Internal Sign-up Bonus API - Complete ✅
  • Backend for Referral Rewards for mining - In Progress
  • User behavior monitoring - In Progress
  • Admin UI - In Progress

These features are planned to be ready in early May.

PAI Hybrid Consensus

Here’s a snapshot of some of the commits / PRs by our developers last week:


Questions?

Sound off on PAI Forum ?

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Thank you for your support!