The Fenton Files

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This page aims to capture some of the thoughts from Bruce Fenton and some of the core devs about RavenCoin, it's purpose and future. It's not comprehensive, just some of the interesting comments spotted on the community chats.

15 Mar 2018 - Telegram

When a coin is ready the exchanges want to list it and don't need to be convinced.

Usually they need lots of convincing because there are bagholders who want liquidity. That problem is not the same with Ravencoin because there are no founders shared or pre-mine. It changes the economics, metrics and motivation.

15 Mar 2018 - Discord

it will be great to have it widely on exchanges -- my humble personal opinion is that it's too early -- but I might be wrong. But certainly when the time is right I'd work hard to get the coin on major exchanges if it seemed it would be beneficial -- right now the grassroots nature has been very successful in attracting the people who are likely to really work to build this in to something amazing. However mine is only one opinion and anyone is welcome to pursue an exchange

15 Mar 2018 - Telegram

Bruce Fenton: Still working on roadmap & best way to communicate ideas and info --

The first Ravencoin annual meeting will be in October in NH - prior and up to then there will be several updates, roadmap etc and an organized plan for core development as well as 2nd layer/ 3rd party development that could be useful for the projects overall development.

So in other words we are working to release the roadmap type document (there might be a better way to describe than white paper or roadmap)

In addition will work with many community members on ideas for

1) ways to best complete the core dev portions of the roadmap - this is the main protocol on github

2) 2nd layer solutions and how they can be useful (such as use of LN and atomic swaps with assets on the Ravencoin chain or getting solidity working on Ravencoin by using RSK)

3) support, networking and ideas for 3rd party and or commercial projects and development which might help or support the project and ecosystem (for example mobile wallets, gaming apps, securities token issuance and other tools)

Any/ all of these 3 categories will be something anyone can contribute to and develop or use in any way they wish. Important to note that YOU DO NOT NEED PERMISSION to develop for profit apps or commercial or non-commercial apps, products or services using this code and blockchain. 😃

Anyone is welcome to contribute to the code, build second layer solutions, experiment and / or build for profit apps on this.

this is real open source and an exercise beyond even most of those projects in seeing how much collaboration can do. We are are all members of the team and everyone owns and participates fairly.

Bruce Fenton: Totally committed -/ people misunderstand "experiment" really ALL crypto is nearly experimental at this stage. Bitcoin is only 9 years old - there could be completely unforeseen factors which could wipe out this industry. I don't believe that, in fact I bet my career and savings that it won't -- but it really remains almost experimental as an industry. Ravencoin specifically is even more risky than say Bitcoin at this stage because it is new and unproven. There are many factors which could cause this to fail. That's what I mean by experimental.

14 Mar 2018 - Telegram

I think this chain makes a great base layer for other projects and tokens because it will be very flexible and easy to put other tools on

Polymath is chain agnostic

So hopefully will work on Ravencoin

13 Mar 2018 - Discord

This project is different from Cardano and EOS and actually should work well with either of those platforms because both have planned for something similar to atomic swaps to interact with assets like Bitcoin

12 Mar 2018 - Discord

We should create educational materials that pool owners can provide to their users - some people are mining Ravencoin and don't even know what the project is or its purpose. More information could be helpful.

It is very difficult for a company to duplicate this type of community and the sheer hours and dedication of the participants

open source has its own management built in - anyone can contribute and anyone can run the code or altered code

But look at the results

It's literally YOUR coin -- that's not a marketing slogan that's the real truth

This isn't owned by a company or centralized office

This discord IS the team!

Well it's your team -- it's open source. All these people here are part of the team - especially the ones who've contributed code and all. I certainly don't plan on stopping and I don't think you could get the main devs to stop even if you tried

There are no coins set aside or premined Every one came from mining

I had to acquire my Ravencoin same way as everyone else

I have about 3 mil Ravencoin

People are so used to pitches and ICOs that they expect a pitch but it's not like that in a project like this

This coin is very widely distributed- and has a robust and diverse mining community-- strong network

Everyone can contribute and every Ravencoin was originally acquired the same way: by fair mining

This project is different because it's already more distributed and built with the intention of having no leader

11 Mar 2018 - Discord

1) The algo was developed over probably a 3-6 mo time period by Tron Jesse and Joel they'd be able to tell you exact time

2) yes definitely there will be updates etc in coming months

The Ravencoin.org site is limited mostly to the core code and project -- the BitcoinTalk forum includes a lot more info like pools and mining software which is built by the community

10 Mar 2018 - Discord

Mining distributes and changes and goes up and down and with each iteration makes the network stronger and places the nodes and coins in the hands of those most interested in the tech and project

8 Mar 2018 - Discord

Well the fork is an upgrade fork not a project fork --- so it's not going to result in 2 coins. Hard forks after this will depend on lots of factors -- some things can only be done via hard fork - best way is as upgrades and with lots of notice and time for testing- Monero forks every six months for example

the fork adds the capability to create assets on the chain - once added then thousands of assets can be created & no new fork is needed for those no matter how complex or how many

It's healthy for multiple groups to discuss

We'd anticipate that some diverse communities will use the Ravencoin chain and capabilities -- example both banking and gaming. Ravencoin will be a great tool for issuing tokens and financial assets. It will also be a great tool for things like issuing a token for unique art and also for gaming. Lots of gaming apps.

If this project succeeds we'd end up with the gaming folks and the banking folks probably having different conferences.

8 Mar 2018 - Discord

( again a fair bit of chat between 8th and 7th Mar on Discord, captured what looked the most interesting, and skipped a fair bit )

Messy is the price you pay for decentralization We could make one "super professional" person be the head of all social media and Discord and the code etc. the more one person controls the more drawbacks And people will never agree anyway Who would want to be be mediator of disputes between miners and others etc.

Yes there are plans to make an org to more formally support development Anyone can do that also btw

7 Mar 2018 - Discord

There's no centralized "boss" who can tell people what kind of discords to set up. People seem to have some impression that there is some "they" who can tell mods of a Discord channel what to do. If you set up a Discord channel no one will have any power to tell you what to do either.

this is open source it's YOUR project. Are YOU willing to do the work to set up and run a Discord? If so then maybe people will join it.

Anyone can make a new discord. If it's awesome then people will use it.

Someone asked about forks via DM - there is a planned upgrade fork in 8 months or so. It will be well planned, tested and announced in advance so everyone can easily update miners with plenty of time. This will add the asset creation capabilities into the protocol - it will not affect existing balances or addresses in any way and will not change coin supply etc.

the Overstock info was covered - definitely never said Overstock wasn't involved, I said it's not a tZero project and that it isn't the same group as the Wyoming people - ostk is involved in the sense that the CEO is a huge supporter and he and the pres of Medici allow key employees to work on this project while on company time

Caitlin and the Wyoming folks aren't involved in dev or anything

6 Mar 2018 - Telegram

(Related to a question about the purpose of the coin, is it just a test for x16r)

Bruce Fenton: Please read the medium and watch the meetup - algo is only one part. Overall coin will work to help create and transfer assets on the chain

Bruce Fenton: Yes, hard fork is planned which will add more capabilities -- it won't be an airdrop - it will be in the form of an upgrade to the network that miners who wish to follow will need to update their binaries

( this has been mentioned in the first dev meet up to add token ability...many months away)

2 Mar 2018 - Discord

(lots of chat on discord - some of what we've caught here misses the context, and a bit of chat was skipped, but hopefully caught the most interesting, if you want the detail go to discord and find the chat)


I'd love to take a sec and address some incorrect info and misconceptions

1- Soros afaik does not own this coin and isn't involved in any way, I doubt he's heard of it

2- this is not an Overstock corporate project, they are generous in supporting lots of open source projects and allowing employees to work on them on company or personal time - I'm on the board of Medici, this is how Patrick heard of Ravencoin (I told him at dinner in Boston) we are thrilled that they like the project and allow key devs to work on it -

3- this is not a tZero project, is not being built for tZero, it's not the backend of tZero, there are no discussions about this integrating or trading on tZero and as far as I know the tZero folks are not even aware of it -- it's an entirely separate project

Now as far as the whole community discord issues: -- a lot of people are so used to scammy centralized ICOs that they might be new to open source and not know how it works. In open source everyone does what they want for their own interest be that intellectual curiosity, money or whatever. There are no rulers or CEOs and no one in the project works for other people.

When someone says "the devs should do__" or "the discord mod should do X" they are essentially saying "Hey, do work I want for free"

So for example, Kai is a community member who made this channel and can do whatever he wants. If he wants to convert it to a channel to discuss the Xmen comics that's his business. No one has the right to tell other people how to run things they create. They are welcome to create their own channel and do what they want.

Yes overstock owns Medici and I am on the Medici board. They contribute to open source projects and generously allow key employees to work on this project and others

yes roadmap is coming

This is the people's coin. It's more widely and fairly distributed than any project I know of. That's hard for people to get used to. Especially when they are accustomed to dealing with ICO marketers who are trying to continually sell a product because they make money from it. All Raven in the market was initially acquired the same way: by fair mining. So there isn't some centralized profit center driving artificial promotions.

one of the original ideas I had was to focus on RSK - Tron figured out better ways to accomplish what we needed but RSK remains an awesome project with tons of benefits for Ravencoin-- also it doesn't require core dev work because it can be built on top of the chain -- so hopefully someone will develop that asap - we are focused on core protocol for now

Would also be cool to see people mess with LN on the Ravencoin chain

like with Bitcoin the Github has authorized people : me, Tron, Jesse, Cade can accept pull requests. Also like Bitcoin people can make their own implementations OR can do forks Any miner can run what they choose

That's how Bitcoin and all other projects work. I don't know of any other model For foss

For the folks upset about the discord I'd definitely recommend reading The Cypherpunk Manifesto.

One of the most important overarching themes is that cypherpunks write code. That's it - we aren't marketers or employees of people who speculate. We are making a project that we think will be useful. That's it. No promises it will work. No guarantees of anything. In the Cypherpunk world you either write or run the code you like or you don't. It's that simple. If we as a community together build something awesome then it might have value in the world. We make no scammy ICO style promises about value etc. It's a completely different model from most new projects and takes a lot of understanding to get used to. Even today with Bitcoin over 9 years old many people don't understand the way development works in open source. This literally is YOUR project. As Gavin Andresen said about Bitcoin "If you want to build something and are waiting for permission you have it, go build"

I'm not a coder either -- I found a technicality: the Manifesto says you have to write code -- it doesn't say you have to be good at it or even skilled. :) So if you wrote a line of HTML or programmed a Wordpress blog you are indeed a (basic) coder-- so that's easy. He harder part is understanding and embracing the Cypherpunk ideals.

We are all coders which means we can all be Cypherpunks.

We cool now?

We plan annual meeting in October-/ meetups before then - there might be a cool farm we can use for a summer meetup in NH Definitely will be NH

We will also do meetups in Utah

We plan to have the ability to issue tokens be native to the protocol. Not a smart contract

Bitcoin has the ability to let users issue tokens by using Omnilayer or Counterparty- Ravencoin is building on this model and will have similar as well as more advanced features built in to the base code

It's a different way to approach the same problem

Ethereum ERC20 has been amazing - but this is a different type of model based on a different type of chain.

Tons of new use cases. Games, securities tokens etc

anonymous / privacy features are a great idea but not first phase part of immediate roadmap

Ideally if there are ways that can be bolted on to the existing Bitcoin protocol which can improve privacy that would be an awesome thing for contributors to work on Because if it works on Bitcoin it will work on Raven

There will be 2 levels with this because there is Ravencoin and there is the tokens Ideally both will be totally private with opt in non-privacy features for those tokens who want to add aml or whatever

I'm very interested in seeing if tokens can be put into their own LN channels - we think it will be possible

we had an in person meeting a few weeks ago. As roadmap is rolled out we will have more dev focused channels

Changing the way value is represented in the world is a worthy goal

It's got nostalgia -- that wasn't done for fun (though it is!) but because it worked for Bitcoin. Too many projects get away from this. EVERYONE knows that founders shares and foundation tokens and premines and "friends and family" rounds are crap. No one denies that true fair, free and open source projects are better... yet we see 1500 ICOs because people are greedy or lazy. This model is a good one that increases chances of success. If this had been done as an ICO we'd all have tens or hundreds of millions on paper - but nothing close to this community and dev can be bought.

for legal items this is just open source code. Tons of encryption messaging systems are open source -- And a hash is different

This community gets stronger every day. We have cycles of newbies, idiots, scammers then true believers, geniuses, OGs and cypherpunks. The later replace the former. We get stronger each day. It's an amazing community. Did you see how fast the chat changed once the new channel was created? No force in business or the global economy can match the power of a good open source project. Can you imagine if Kai and everyone else where employees of some centralized thing? It would never, ever be as robust and quick to adapt and change. Raven the Trickster from myths and legends is a shapeshifter and creator who uses Ravens environment and surroundings to adapt and make new things. That spirt is a great embodiment of open source.

that was me -- I said that I like Bitcoin to be Bitcoin -- I'm early adopter and board member of Bitcoin Foundation As a crypto user I want a strong chain to issue assets on -- Bitcoin is definitely a strong chain but it's devs are (and should be!) focused on being digital gold or digital cash or whatever. As a Bitcoin hodler and user I don't want Bitcoin devs to be messing about with optimizing for tokens -- that's hard enough. So this is why a use case specific blockchain is a good idea maybe : it combines the strength and ridiculously awesome code base of Bitcoin with a dev community which is focused on optimizing the code for a different use. The hope is that by providing this platform it builds into something with significant advantages over other chains.

2 Mar 2018 - Telegram

I think the surprising aspect was how fast interest gained -- but one shouldn't mistake this as not having a plan or roadmap. This has been planned and thought about for years. Some of the key ways this is showing already are reflected in the strength of the network and number of nodes, users, community. As for funding, development is well funded, many people and companies have invested significantly into dev. The community has funded many significant parts of dev and is growing and stronger every day. The coin is less than 60 days old. The attention to this coin brings lots of good community strength and new devs, volunteers etc. one drawback is that publicity also brings people who don't care about the tech or want some sort of fast results or something. Development will take time


28 Feb 2018 - Telegram

Some additional ways to help Project Ravencoin and the Ravencoin network.

- Download the executables from GitHub for your OS (located in the binaries section) and run Raven-qt.exe

- by running the Raven-at.exe wallet on every PC you own you automatically help strengthen the network

- join a pool and actively mine - this is especially effective if you have a powerful system with a gpu (so far Nvida)

- if you know a developer ask them to consider contributing to GitHub https://github.com/RavenProject/Ravencoin there will be more and more need for dev help as we go

- talk about code, utility, building stuff and plans more than other external factors

- if you know others interested in open source projects, maybe they will download the wallet, mine or contribute

- share or post links to ravencoin.org and the twitter ravencoin

- review bounties and work to complete some

- support the community bounties

- build independent apps on top of this chain (nearly everything that can or has been developed for Bitcoin from wallets to second layer projects to paper wallet generators can be implemented on the Ravencoin chain relatively easily) immediate advantages of this chain: low cost, fast 1 minute blocks, asic resistant, widely distributed

- keep active in the community, share ideas, communicate and follow the project's evolution

- read the Cypherpunk Manifesto

- learn about tokenization of securities and protocols which move things value using blockchains

- share what you learn with others: make posts, blogs, videos and tutorials

This project belongs to you. There is no owner, there is no premine, no ICO, no special founders tokens sale or presale, there is no controller. It's yours...the early members of the community and others who join. We make from it what we put in.

The Inuit, Tlinglit, Tahitian, Chukchi, Sioux and the Haida among others call Raven the magical keeper of secrets, the trickster, friend of the First Men and Creator of the World. An idea or force able to shift, change and create something from nothing. In open source the power of the crowd can do amazing things. Look at what we have accomplished in less than 60 short days: a fairly issued, widely distributed coin with a very solid network and code bass.

This is your coin, whatever you put into it is what it becomes. This will be fun.


26 Feb 2018 - Telegram

guest appearance from Tron here talking about the algo a little

Tron: It isn't one algorithm each block. It is 16 algorithms where 8 bytes (16 nibbles) determine the order of the hashing. 16 algos are used in a chain every block. The order of those 16 algos are detemined by the hash of the previous block which is unpredictable.

Tron: They'd need to handle 16 algos and adapt the order based on the hash of the previous block. It isn't ASIC proof, but if someone were to create such a thing, then we'd change some algo, or change the order starting at block X to allow the software to be changed. ASICs are not welcome.

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