powcoins

Tool to obtain coins sent to PoW-faucet addresses on the Bitcoin signet network.

PoW-faucet addresses are:

• tb1pzczwmt4kenu8j0avnhpyefp3gph32w2syuym8p8qxs5ulxudus3sqmsj75 (10 block delay)
• tb1pjltmm4pj4ezm9tzgtu2yay9m3k6ceh60mv8fr9wwlhghx66a22pskuyl72 (4 block delay)
• tb1ppj5s6ueay0w8mme25t7xlaa32zysq73c6t8vgw2qne3z3dpezedq6phh7e (1 block delay)

Legacy addresses supported by default include:

• Not stratum compatible:
  • tb1pruektj90gg8nysa7yuk07w7ucwlywrf4p02lq3sz49f05xd00djscyt2fw (10 block delay)
  • tb1pffsyra2t3nut94yvdae9evz3feg7tel843pfcv76vt5cwewavtesl3gsph (4 block delay)
  • tb1pf2v25yk7m8mv203pvjusmk2a8r6tu8p59nhvwux86ck3s3pp0nkqt30dvt (1 block delay)
• Not a NUMS IPK:
  • tb1pqz9w3kxd49srhpl3s2xq8v0vgwwusw2x00eu53whhr4d6w3rl22qfe0pv2 (10 block delay)
  • tb1ppmdy6ngwh5n0lpg8h26rdu4qrk0slan4hku939n0qp0qfamqny7q0z6muc (4 block delay)
  • tb1pqslu565nh7kysxuatllz4z8k2m2qmhupewczytqu7fzscakmnscsxrjf79 (1 block delay)

These are secured via an OP_CAT construction that requires a combination of a CSV-delay and proof-of-work, such that the sooner you attempt to spend the funds, the more proof-of-work you have to provide. More details can be found in Delving Bitcoin post on the topic.

Usage

ASIC / stratumv1

Coins may be claimed by pointing a stratumv1 compatible miner at

• inquisition.bitcoin-signet.net:3333

Your username should be a valid signet address that you wish to receive coins for.

This pool distributes rewards based on hashrate, rather than solely to successful solvers, so should be usable independent of hashrate. Miners whose payout is under 1000 sats, will have their payouts combined and distributed amongst each other as a lottery.

The code used to implement this is:

• Bitcoin Inquisition for relaying OP_CAT compatible spends
• ./powcoins server from this repository for converting unspent powcoins into a block-template structure and successful block solves back into powcoin-claiming transactions
• ckpool for converting block-templates into sv1 work
• ./ckpayout from this repository for distributing the claimed coins to miners

CPU mining

In order to claim coins directly, you need to first run a Bitcoin Signet node in order to find what coins are available to be claimed. You can do this by running either Bitcoin Core or Bitcoin Inquisition, or other node software compatible with bitcoin-cli. Running Bitcoin Inquisition will allow the code to skip coins that have been claimed by other users but not confirmed in the blockchain.

Once this is running, you can setup a local watch-only wallet (by default called "powcoins") to track these coins by running:

$ ./powcoins setup-wallet

If bitcoin-cli is not in your PATH, you can specify how it should be invoked by adding the --cli="bitcoin-cli -signet" option.

Note that this requires scanning through recent blocks for available coins, so takes a little time.

Once the wallet is running, you can then attempt to claim coins by running a command like:

$ ./powcoins claim --relay-peer=inquisition.bitcoin-signet.net --max-difficulty=30 $ADDR

If your local Bitcoin signet node is running the Inquisition code and accepts OP_CAT spends, then you can remove the --relay-peer argument to have your transaction submitted locally via bitcoin-cli, and relayed in the usual manner instead.

Depending on your PATH, it may be necessary to set --cli as above, and also to specify the location of the bitcoin-util command with the --grind="bitcoin-util grind" option.

Because bitcoin-util grind is a CPU miner, the --max-difficulty figure is provided to avoid wasting energy if the only available coins have high difficulty. Each increment of max-diff (eg changing 30 to 31) will double the amount of (expected) work it takes to obtain a coin.