Sorry guys. I’m on a business trip so only saw this last night. I’d like to clarify some technical details.

First, it’s incorrect to say the Reddcoin network is down. The network works as it should: nodes relay block and transaction information to each other and most importantly all the nodes on the network agree on one single longest chain, which is the cornerstone of our decentralised network. There is no magic switch to turn our decentralised network off or on. Being a truly decentralised crypto-currency is what Reddcoin Project is all about.

Second, minting a block is an action carried out by each staking node (staker) independently. All the information required to create a coinstake transaction and its corresponding PoSV block is available locally after being relayed on the network. When hundreds or thousands of stakers compete to mint the next block, there is no coordination required among them. Not only no coordination, it’s actually a fierce competition in nature.

So what could be causes? I can think of three potential reasons:

  • A software bug that exists in all Qt wallets that prevent all clients from successfully finding a PoSV block. I’ve looked through debug.log file and seen nothing suspicious.
  • Some major stakers went temporarily offline. If this is the case, block difficulty will drop gradually and it is indeed.
  • Pure bad luck. Block interval follows geometric distribution. PoSV has been working with zero problem for 5 months now, producing over 200K blocks since inception. It’s statistically quite possible that we see a fat tail by now, even one that looks very unusual.
  • A combination of some of the above.

I’m keeping an eye on this and will investigate more when I’m back next week. But one thing is indisputable: we always need more stakers! I’m finalising the technical details of PoSV 2.0 which will distribute the interests given up by inactive wallets to active stakers. I’ll write up a design document and start a discussion in the next couple of weeks. It’ll be part of our Social X release.

https://www.reddcointalk.org/topic/205/regarding-the-few-long-block-intervals-on-reddcoin-network