[Q²C]

Lucre: Early Crypto Trading Algo

 

• Creation: Lucre (LCR) was developed by a team with eight years of algorithmic trading experience. The project was built on the philosophy of “Don’t HODL; Trade!” aiming to generate revenues in all market conditions by actively trading cryptocurrencies rather than just holding them.
• Objective: The primary goal of Lucre was to outperform the strategy of merely holding cryptocurrencies by allowing trading both long and short positions. This was intended to capitalize on market volatility, buying and selling at perceived opportunities.

 

• Trading Algorithm: The Lucre trading algorithm (Algo) was designed to run on the MetaTrader trading platform, which is known for its capabilities in Forex and CFD trading but was adapted here for cryptocurrency markets.
• LCR Token: Participants in the Lucre token sale received the LCR token, which tracked the performance of the trading algorithm. The price of LCR was meant to be updated regularly to reflect accurately the underlying value of the digital assets being traded by the algorithm.
• Market Operations: Initially, the Lucre Trading Algo was in an Alpha stage, trading only the BTCUSD derivative, with plans to include other cryptocurrencies later.

 

• Availability: Lucre (LCR) was not widely traded on known exchange markets, and current data suggests that its trading volume and market cap are minimal or non-existent.
• Current Status: As per the most recent data, Lucre Way (LCR) has a very low price, with significant decreases over recent periods, indicating it has not gained significant traction or sustained value in the cryptocurrency market.

 

• Lack of Adoption: The project did not seem to achieve widespread adoption or recognition within the broader crypto community, which might be due to various reasons including market saturation with similar trading algo projects, lack of trust, or failure to innovate beyond initial concepts.
• Market Fluctuations: The crypto market’s inherent volatility could have impacted Lucre’s strategy, especially if the algorithm did not adapt well to rapid market changes or if it was not robust enough against market manipulations or downturns.

 

 

Bitcoin’s Distributed Consensus Protocol

 

The distributed consensus protocol in Bitcoin is primarily achieved through a mechanism known as Proof of Work (PoW). Here’s a detailed explanation of how it works:

 

1. Transaction Broadcasting

Process: When a user initiates a transaction, it is broadcast to the Bitcoin network. Each node on the network verifies the transaction for validity (e.g., checking signatures, ensuring the sender has the funds).

 

2. Transaction Pool

Mempool: Valid transactions are collected into a pool known as the “mempool” where they wait to be included in a block.

 

3. Block Creation

Miners: Specialized nodes known as miners collect transactions from the mempool to form a block. Each block has a maximum size, which implicitly limits the number of transactions per block.

 

4. Proof of Work (PoW)

Hash Functions: Miners compete to solve a cryptographic puzzle that requires finding a hash below a certain target value (this is the “work” in Proof of Work). This hash is generated by hashing the block header, which includes:

A version number

The hash of the previous block

A Merkle root of the transactions in the block

A timestamp

The target difficulty (bits)

A nonce (number used once)

Difficulty Adjustment: The target difficulty is adjusted approximately every two weeks (or 2,016 blocks) to ensure that blocks are added to the blockchain roughly every 10 minutes on average, regardless of the total computing power of the network.

 

5. Consensus on Block Validity

Nonce Guessing: Miners increment the nonce in the block header, recalculating the hash until they find one that meets the target criteria. This process is computationally intensive and requires significant energy.

Block Found: When a miner finds a valid hash, they broadcast this new block to the network.

 

6. Network Verification

Validation: Other nodes on the network verify the new block:

Check if the Proof of Work is valid (the hash meets the target).

Ensure all transactions in the block are valid and not conflicting with any transactions in the blockchain.

Verify the block’s previous block hash matches the last block in their version of the blockchain.

 

7. Chain Growth

Longest Chain Rule: If multiple blocks are found at nearly the same time, nodes work on extending the longest (or heaviest, in terms of cumulative proof of work) chain they are aware of. This rule ensures that the network converges on a single version of history over time.

 

8. Incentives for Miners

Block Rewards: The miner who successfully adds a block to the blockchain receives a reward in newly minted bitcoins plus transaction fees from the transactions included in the block. This incentivizes miners to participate in the consensus process.

 

9. Security and Trustlessness

Decentralization: Since no single entity controls the majority of mining power, the network is decentralized, making it resistant to attack or manipulation.

Immutability: Once a block is deep enough in the chain, altering it would require redoing the work for that block and all subsequent blocks, which becomes prohibitively expensive and time-consuming.

 

This mechanism ensures that Bitcoin operates in a trustless environment where consensus emerges from the collective agreement on the state of transactions, secured by the economic incentive of mining and the computational difficulty of altering past transactions.