Patchcoin Forum

Announcing the first v0.1.0 release of Patchcoin, a cryptocurrency with a fixed supply and proof-of-stake consensus.

Like Bitcoin, Patchcoin has a fixed supply of 21,000,000 coins, except secured by the proof-of-stake consensus pioneered by Peercoin.

Patchcoin's supply remains constant by matching the transaction fees paid with the staking reward for each block.

The entire supply of Patchcoin can be claimed for free by active Peercoin holders as of block height 795,000. Make an automated claim in the Patchcoin client wallet for 10 PTC per 1 PPC, up to a maximum of 50,000 PTC per Peercoin address. Instructions are below this announcement.

Claims will be available for 180 days from today. Afterwards, if a small amount of Patchcoin remains, they may be auctioned to fund future development.

That said, our focus is helping Peercoin holders claim every PTC before this occurs. You can track claims in real time in the Patchcoin client wallet.

Our code is open-source and available on Github (https://github.com/patchcoin/patchcoin).

Join our community at patchcointalk.org (https://patchcointalk.org/) and help build a sustainable replacement for Bitcoin.

Our thanks to @noface for his inspired work on Patchcoin. 

IMPORTANT: only @patchcoin, @noface, and @arthur are associated with the Patchcoin project on this forum. All communication will be done publicly through these accounts.

Questions and Answers

1. How do I make a Patchcoin claim with my Peercoin?

• Go to the "Transactions" tab of the Patchcoin client wallet.
• In the left search box titled "Enter address, transaction id, or label to search", enter your PPC address.
• In the bottom right field you will see your PPC address, the PPC amount held, and the eligible PTC claim amount. Right-click on your address and select "Claim address". You will see a generated PTC address.
• Open your Peercoin client wallet. Under "File", select "Sign Message". Select your PPC address. Copy the PTC address from the previous step into the message field. Click "Sign Message" at the bottom.
• Copy the resulting signature and then return to the Patchcoin client wallet. In case you closed the previous window, right click your PPC address again in the bottom right field, select "Claim address" and then enter the signature.
• Click "Publish Claim" to submit the claim. You should see your claim enter the queue in the top right field.
• Note that claims may take several hours or days to arrive if there is a high volume of claims submitted after release. Your Patchcoin should arrive if there is supply remaining to be claimed, if you owned PPC at block height 795,000.

2. How does Patchcoin maintain a fixed supply of 21,000,000 coins?

• Patchcoin's design sets transaction fees burned in a block equal to the staking reward paid. This results in an equal balance between a coin sink (transaction fees) and inflation (staking rewards).
• Bitcoin will also rely on transaction fees once all 21,000,000 BTC have been mined.
• Patchcoin does not have to subsidize expensive mining operations like Bitcoin does.

3. Why should I stake Patchcoin when rewards could be zero?

• Staking with Patchcoin is not predictable like Peercoin. Patchcoin staking is more like a lottery ticket, where the rewards are variable and can be large or small.
• Staking rewards will grow as network usage does, aligning the interests of stakers and Patchcoin users.

4. Why is my claim capped at 50,000 PTC per PPC address?

• The claims cap will initially prevent the coin concentration seen on the Peercoin top 100 addresses list (https://chainz.cryptoid.info/ppc/#!rich).
• The top 50 Peercoin addresses hold more than 50% of all Peercoin, which in our view is a concentration risk for a pure proof-of-stake network.
• The claims cap means that at least 210 Patchcoin addresses are required to hold a majority of PTC upon release, and this number should increase over time as PTC is sold, traded, and shared, similar to Bitcoin.
• The claims cap limits the impact of large and/or defunct exchanges claiming PTC.
• There are just over 55,200 eligible Peercoin addresses. The claims cap means that about 55,100 addresses are eligible to receive more PTC than the PPC used to claim them. Put another way, about 99.8% of Peercoin addresses are eligible to receive a greater number of PTC than their PPC address holdings.

5. How does the 180 day claims period work?

• For the first 180 days, we have set the genesis key to only spend to addresses that are permitted by the claims made. That is, the genesis key can only make stake transactions, not normal ones.
• This is an important trust and security measure to prove that Patchcoin developers are not able to secretly send themselves PTC that are not backed by a PPC claim.

6. Why give away the entire Patchcoin supply to Peercoin holders?

• It is important that Patchcoin is widely distributed for its network security. Since August 2012 Peercoin has made use of proof-of-work to fairly distribute its coin supply.
• Patchcoin will benefit from Peercoin's proof-of-work stage and transition to the future with pure proof-of-stake.

7. What amount is the Patchcoin development team claiming?

• Patchcoin's development team will claim a small amount of PTC through the client wallet claims process after this release announcement. This is the same process as everyone else.
• The development team has recently purchased its PPC to make our claim, supporting the price of PPC.
• The total amount claimed by the Patchcoin team will be far smaller than the top individual Peercoin addresses or Satoshi Nakamoto's presumed stake in Bitcoin.

8. How can I monitor ongoing claims?

• There is a progress bar at the top of the "Transactions" tab in the client wallet that shows how many PTC have been claimed.

9. What does the "Patch" name mean?

• A "patch" can mean several things. In the realm of computing, it refers to a small update or correction to a program. A patch can also be a collectable.
• Patchcoin is intended to be both. It is a fix for Bitcoin's increasing mining centralization and energy destruction, as well as a collectable token.
• The Patchcoin logo also can be viewed in different ways. Viewed 3D, the logo contains hexagonal blocks representing a blockchain. Viewed 2D, the logo resembles an embroidered patch. In both instances a subtle "p" is seen in the center.

10. Is this Peercoin 2.0?

• No, Patchcoin is not Peercoin 2.0 and has no affiliation with the Peercoin development team.
• Our claims system will allow Peercoin holders to make a Patchcoin claim while supply remains.

11. Is Patchcoin a competitor to Peercoin?

• No. Patchcoin and Peercoin are connected in a familial way, with a shared background, values, and purpose, but each having its own unique characteristics.
• Patchcoin is a direct competitor to Bitcoin and other fixed-supply cryptocurrencies.

12. Does Patchcoin use less energy than Bitcoin?

• Yes, Patchcoin uses far less than 1% of the energy of Bitcoin because it uses proof-of-stake consensus, not proof-of-work.

13. Where can I learn more about proof-of-stake and the benefits of Peercoin's underlying technology?

• Peercoin University (https://www.peercoin.net/university/)
• Peercoin's forum at talk.peercoin.net (https://talk.peercoin.net)

14. Is Patchcoin listed on an exchange?

• Not yet. Our goal is to list Patchcoin on a major exchange with high liquidity.
• The faster our community grows, the better chance this will happen.

15. Where can I trade Patchcoin?

• Check out the Trading section of patchcointalk.org (https://patchcointalk.org).

16. What's the point of Patchcoin? I still like Peercoin better.

• Some people will prefer Peercoin's inflationary model. We would still encourage you to claim your PTC and then sell or trade for more PPC.

17. How can I get involved?

• We are an open-source community. Our Github is public (https://github.com/patchcoin/patchcoin).
• If you have an idea, want to build something, or see a problem: share it on our forum at patchcointalk.org (https://patchcointalk.org)