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I just found this (on BitcoinTalk). TimeKoin seems to be an attempt at a cryptocurrency. There is a whitepaper and an about page, and I've skimmed through them, but I haven't been able to answer these simple questions:

  1. What problem is it trying to solve (that Bitcoin doesn't already solve)?
  2. How does it work? What is the difference/similarity in implementation from Bitcoin?
ripper234
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    From the "Final Summary" part of the whitepaper: The strength of this system is that vast amounts of CPU power are not required to maintain it. Could this be the main motivation for this coin? – ripper234 Jun 25 '12 at 06:55

3 Answers3

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Reading the whitepaper, it lists its features as:

  • Being decentralised
  • Disclosing of all information on balances and allowin everyone to check for fraud
  • Decentralised money creating with difficulty adjustment, but apparently it can be done "without requiring massive amounts of CPU speed" (although some parts of the whitepaper appear to contradict this)
  • Each transaction is secured with 1,536 bit OpenSSL RSA encryption, private keys will be used to decrypt them
  • Money is created by participating in the network, rather than performing the calculations (no exact explanation was given how this would prevent abuse)

In general, it appear to be an attempt at creating a Bitcoin-like currency that is to be not-computationally intensive no matter the size of the network. Other than that it appears to replace digital signature algorithms with encryption algorithms and doesn't appear to do much else.

As there is no real explanation of how will the system try fighting off abuse (say in a form of a botnet), or how exactly the reward system works without relying on computational power, I would currently label it as something that needs to get its facts straight and present them to be scrutinised. If I were to make a guess from the vague description I read, the system probably won't be as secure as Bitcoin. I'm guessing it tries to make all peers equal and reward them equally, which will probably never suffice.

ThePiachu
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  • "as something that needs to get its facts straight and present them to be scrutinised" --> this translates as "scam" to me. – o0'. Jun 27 '12 at 10:59
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    @Lohoris It has a potential of being a scam, but it can also be just a mistake on their part or an omission. I'd reserve the word "scam" for something that is actively working to steal people's money, while this still has some semblance of good intentions. – ThePiachu Jun 27 '12 at 12:08
  • If you play with people's money and you are so stupid you don't do it properly, you are still scamming them to me. The fact that you are stupid instead of plain evil is no justification... – o0'. Jun 27 '12 at 16:09
  • I don't get the RSA part. How would you secure transactions with RSA encryption? – CodesInChaos Aug 31 '12 at 19:30
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Another Point

  • Less Decimals (reduces database size)

  • Money is created by participating in the network, rather than performing the calculations (no exact explanation was given how this would prevent abuse)

I will clarify your point. You will still need to do some basic calculations to encrypt new coins. It is basically nothing.

Yes, you gain timekoins by participating in the network. But, generation rate is based on uptime. Once, you get elected to be allowed to generate you will only be able to generate one timekoin every 5 minutes (cycle). After one week of you will be able to generate 2 coins every cycle. After two weeks you will be able to generate 3 coins per cycle. Timekoin rewards people who have higher uptime.

If you are offline for two hours you will be deleted from the logs and you'll have to get elected again.

Protection against botnet

  • Lots of people will want to get elected at same time
  • they'll have to wait
  • After that wait they'll produce at a slow rate.
  • Most bots will not be online for 1 week+ straight.
CodesInChaos
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chriswen
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  1. Timekoin is not trying to solve anything related to bitcoin. It is a different way to use digital online encrypted currency. The website has technical documents to read, but the concepts and implementations can not be easily summarized into a few sentences.

  2. Transactions and Currency creation are two separate process. So transactions can be processed like clockwork every 5 minutes. Currency creation is created in slow, gradually growing amounts. Unlike bitcoin, where currency creation stalls transaction recording and vast amounts of electricity are needed to have peers compete against each other in a lottery fashion.

Similarity to Bitcoin:

A. Uses open p2p network to replicate transactions

B. Decentralized database of history transactions

C. Public viewable by anyone

Difference to Bitcoin:

A. Uses 1536 bit transaction encryption vs 256 bit for bitcoin

B. Transactions are protected by both RSA encryption and SHA hashing in a design modeled after naturally occurring quantum entanglement.

C. Transactions do not depend on currency creation, the network can function without any currency being created as long as currency exist to spend

D. Currency creation is a shared process among all server operators that participate, so there is no spending CPU/Electricity to fight over who creates currency.

E. Currency creation can dynamically expand and contract as the network needs the currency and is not limited to who can afford the most processing power.

F. Software is just an implementation of a concept, so anyone can create any kind of application or device to interface with the Timekoin network as long as it follows the rules of the network.

G. There is no cost to transactions, no micro fees, no decimal point transactions, everything is whole numbers.

H. The Timekoin concept for digital encrypted currency is very easy to understand, so easy that many people over-think it.

I. Built from the ground up with security as the guiding factor for both transactions and network health.

I could go on about the difference, but the website has a lot more to offer in this regard. http://timekoin.org/

KnightMB
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  • But then Timekoin rewards those with the most IP addresses. This is perhaps worse than BitCoin. Large organizations who have massive IP address allocations get the most coin. I assume this is IPv4 because if it was IPv6 then the problem would be much worse. – jcoffland Dec 13 '13 at 01:52