An illustration of how a GHOSTDAG-style rule colours blocks blue or red. It is not live network data: the network is not running yet.
Blocks in parallel.
Miners can make blocks at the same time, and none is thrown away. Each block points back to the ones before it, and a A family of rules for ordering the blocks of a block-DAG. It colours each block blue or red, then lays every block into one order. rule puts them all in one order that every node agrees on. The work behind each block is Work that needs a lot of fast memory for every try, not only raw speed. Graphics cards have that memory. Machines built for one algorithm gain little over them., so a graphics card can compete.
Four steps to one order
A chain that takes one block at a time has to throw away every block that loses a race. A block-DAG keeps them all and puts them in order instead.
Made in parallel
Linked to its parents
Coloured blue or red
Laid into one order
Why some blocks are red
The colour is how the rule tells a block published on time from one that was kept out of sight.
Blue: seen in good time
Red: kept out of sight
Both are ordered
Memory-hard by design
Making a block means trying a puzzle again and again until an answer falls under a The number a block's hash has to fall below. Miners keep trying until one does.. Every try reads a lot of memory, and that is deliberate.
Your graphics card can compete
Special machines gain little
One algorithm only
Why it is built this way
Why security must not follow demand
Why a permanent tail
Why one billion
Still to be decided
These are still open. Nothing on this site assumes a value for them, and each goes into the specification before it appears here.
- How fast blocks are made
- The target rate at which blocks are made is not specified yet.
- How many blocks in parallel
- The ordering rule has a setting, called k, for how many blocks may be made in parallel before a block is coloured red. Its value is not specified yet.
- The hash function
- The proof of work is memory-hard. The exact hash function it uses is not chosen yet.
- The shape of the emission
- The curve the emission follows, and how the tail tapers, are not specified yet.
- The team allocation
- Its size and its vesting schedule are not decided yet. Both are published before the first block.
Every term, in plain words
Each word on this site that a newcomer might not know, explained in a sentence or two.
A shared record of payments, kept by many computers at once. Each copy checks the others, so no single party can quietly rewrite it.
A batch of payments added to the record together, sealed with the work that made it.
An earlier block that a new block points back to. A block names every block it has seen at the tips as its parents.
A block that no later block points back to yet: the newest edge of the record.
A directed acyclic graph of blocks. Blocks point back at earlier blocks, possibly several each, and following them never loops back to where you started.
A family of rules for ordering the blocks of a block-DAG. It colours each block blue or red, then lays every block into one order.
A block that is well connected to the rest of the graph, as blocks mined honestly and published promptly are.
A block that is not well connected to the rest, as a block kept back and published late would not be.
Making a block takes a large number of tries at a puzzle, and anyone can check the answer at once. The cost of the tries is what makes the record expensive to rewrite.
A short fingerprint of some data. Change one letter of the data and the fingerprint changes completely.
The number a block's hash has to fall below. Miners keep trying until one does.
Work that needs a lot of fast memory for every try, not only raw speed. Graphics cards have that memory. Machines built for one algorithm gain little over them.
The graphics card in a gaming or workstation computer. It does many small calculations at once and has its own fast memory.
A chip built to run one algorithm and nothing else. For many coins they are the only machines worth mining with.
New units paid to miners for the blocks they make. Apart from the team allocation, it is the only way new units come into being.
A small emission that carries on after the main emission has slowed, so miners keep being paid. It keeps tapering, so the total never passes the one billion cap.
Units made and handed out before a network opens to everybody. ATON has none.
A share set aside for the people building ATON. It is the one exception to the fair launch, and its size and vesting are published before the first block.
A schedule that releases an allocation a little at a time, rather than all at once.
A computer running the ATON software. It keeps a copy of the record and checks every block it receives.
Where every fact comes from
The consensus and protocol specification. It has the final word: the node does what is written there. If this site and the specification ever disagree, the specification is right and this site is wrong.
atheron-spec
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