About VRX
VRX or Terminal Velocity RateX is an altcoin difficulty retarget system that, utilizing a several block depth scan, quickly adapts the implemented blockchain/altcoin’s mining or minting difficulty levels to ensure a narrow window around the desired block time… to learn more click the “Read Bluepaper” button below.
Terminal Velocity RateX [VRX]- Altcoin Difficulty Retarget System
Written by Jonathan Dan Zaretsky - [email protected]
Index
1. Introduction
2. Technical Aspects
3. Future Intentions
4. Conclusion
1. Introduction
VRX or Terminal Velocity RateX is an altcoin difficulty retarget system that, utilizing a several block depth scan, quickly
adapts the implemented blockchain/altcoin's mining or minting difficulty levels to ensure a narrow window around the
desired block time. This of course allowing for some inconsistencies in block spacing time due to significant increases or
decreases in hashrate or staking depending on whether the blockchain is Proof-Of-Work based or Proof-Of-Stake.
2. Technical Aspects
Simply put VRX indexes a previous set amount of blocks (typical reference implementations are set to the previous six
blocks) and then compares each of them against each other in relation to block their times thus determining a set spacing between
those blocks. The system then takes the determined block spacing and compares it against desired block spacing in what is
called "Check Round" similar to the other retarget systems available but adjusts on a different curve which adapts quickly
to large changes in the hashrate of the blockchain however also making sure to not adjust too much so as not to "stall" the
blockchain. There is one Check Round per pair of blocks indexed so in most cases as stated previously using a six block
count index depth VRX will have five Check Rounds. After VRX runs through its checks it then determines whether it should
change the difficulty either up or down depending whether the desired block time was overshot or rushed, the severity of which is
limited to a maximum of doubling the previous block difficulty or halving it. Finally an average is calculated between the
different pair calculated difficulty changes so that the most logical change in difficulty occurs that best suites the
blockchain and submitted for the mining/minting network.
3. Future Intentions
While already being currently a nice alternative to the typical difficulty adjustment systems future changes and updates
are planned for later releases such as:
- Proof-Of-Work difficulty skew for hybrid PoW/PoS blockchain systems
- Code cleanup and general revisions
- Create seperated PoW and PoS reference implementations
... among other updates not currently thought of or mentioned.
4. Conclusion
Overall this document's intention is provide a general understanding of what VRX is and what it does. The use of the VRX
system is still not widely tested or used and currently can only be found in Espers [ESP] and INSaNE [INSANE] blockchain
projects as of the writing of the docmentation. This VRX system will continue to evolve to become more robust and overall a
effective solution to the blockchain difficulty retarget problem.
