View source for FAQ

Here are answers to some recurrent and general questions about Riecoin. Please read this page before asking anything in the Riecoin Discord or any other channel.

== General ==

=== What is Riecoin? ===

Riecoin is a decentralized and open source peer-to-peer digital currency, released in 2014. It is a fork of Bitcoin and also Proof of Work (PoW) based. In general, we tend to follow their principles, and reading the [https://bitcoin.org/en/faq Bitcoin FAQ] may answer some other questions you might have about Riecoin.

=== What makes it different from other altcoins? ===

It proposes an useful PoW for science. Computers supporting the Bitcoin network to make it secure by validating transactions are called miners, and must constantly solve a problem defined by the Bitcoin’s PoW type. This is a heavy task, consuming a lot of energy. In the Bitcoin and almost all other PoW altcoins cases, the problem is to find an hash that meets an arbitrary criteria. To solve this, miners are continuously generating random hashes until they find one meeting the criteria.

Riecoin miners are not looking for useless hashes, but prime constellations. These prime numbers are of interest to mathematicians and the scientific community, so Riecoin not only provides a secure payment network, but also valuable research data by making clever use of the computing power that is otherwise wasted. Additionally, work on its software may eventually lead to theoretical discoveries as developers and mathematicians improve it, for example by finding new algorithms for the mining software.

Mining is done using a CPU, so everyone can join and mine to support the network and earn coins in return without having to purchase specialized hardware which quickly become a waste once obsolete.

=== What is its purpose, its vision? ===

Riecoin aspires to become a borderless and widely accepted world currency that can efficiently be used for all kinds of payments or as a store of value, without having to rely on organizations that don't always act for the best of everyone.

We think that Bitcoin already fulfills most of the requirements for this and tend to follow its principles as we don't believe in features such as different systems like Proof of Stake nor so-called privacy mechanisms. However, it is also a shame that its PoW only consists on finding useless hashes. So unlike Bitcoin, Riecoin also aims to provide computational power for scientific research. As the mining power increases, it is conceivable to see the project include additional useful PoW algorithms to provide to more fields valuable scientific data and incentives to contribute to research.

Finally, Riecoin indirectly aims to provide more useful technologies taking advantage of its blockchain and PoW, like storing proofs of existence or contribute to global spam reduction by providing [[StellaPool|anti-spam tools]] requiring attackers to spend too much resources and making their attacks unprofitable (replacing annoying solutions like Captchas). The possibilities are infinite!

=== Who compose the Riecoin Team? How can I contact you? ===

Riecoin is a community project, so there is little sense to talk about a team as we don’t have paid developers or a concrete organization. By browsing the Riecoin discussion channels, you can find out who are currently and actively involved in the project.

If you want to propose something for the Riecoin project, please create an account in the [https://forum.riecoin.dev/ Riecoin Forum] and open a topic in the appropriate subforum. Your proposal will then be visible to the community after the approval of a moderator, and the discussion will be open.

=== I want to help, what can I do? I am an A and could provide X or Y for Riecoin, are you interested? ===

Anything that helps Riecoin to achieve its purposes is welcome.

You can read [[Contribute|this page]] to learn more. We are looking forward to seeing contributions!

=== How was the name ''Riecoin'' coined? What does the Riecoin logo represent? ===

The name ''Riecoin'' pays homage to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Riemann Bernhard Riemann], who did large contributions to mathematics and physics, and is considered by many to be one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. It also pays homage to Bitcoin, the cryptocurrency that started them all.

The logo is a stylized "r", and the curve in the background is a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Zeta_polar.svg graph] in the complex plane of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_zeta_function Riemann's Zeta function] <math>\zeta</math> for some values of <math>\frac{1}{2} + yi</math>. It was chosen during a [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=288065.0 contest] and the author is [https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=28640 Mick Bruce].

== Technical ==

=== How to start the wallet? How to configure the miner? How to beat a world record? ===

Read the guides proposed in [[Get Started]]. To attempt a new record, read this [[rieMiner/Search|guide]].

If you have technical issues, you can join Discord or any other Riecoin social network and ask there. But please first make sure to have followed correctly the instructions.

=== Where is the Riecoin Core repository? ===

Riecoin Core is hosted on the [https://github.com/riecointeam/riecoin/ RiecoinTeam/Riecoin] GitHub repository. '''Don't use riecoin/riecoin''' as it is outdated since years due to the abandonment of the original developer.

=== Can you explain the Riecoin's PoW in detail? The miner's algorithm? ===

The algorithm used by the miner to find blocks is explained [[Mining Algorithm|here]]. For more information about the PoW implementation, read the [[Protocol/Proof of Work|PoW]] guide. You can also read [[Stella]] to learn more about things like earning estimations.

==== How is the Hashrate computed? Why are the mining pools reporting inconsistent values? ====

In Riecoin, we are not looking for hashes, so the concept of "hashrate" does not make sense. A normalized value giving the "Mining Power", explained [[Stella|here]], must be used instead. Unfortunately, due to the omnipresence of hash based coins, and people using previous implementations giving nonsensical "hashrates", there is still a lot of confusion about this. We invite future Riecoin developers to be careful about this and make proper use of the Mining Power metric.

==== What makes Riecoin GPU/FPGA/ASIC resistant? ====

The current algorithm requires a lot of memory for more efficiency, and cannot be parallelized well without increasing a lot the memory usage, making hard to write efficient miners for GPUs or design specialized hardware.

Note that initially, Riecoin was actually never designed to be a CPU only coin. Its PoW just happened to be CPU friendly and this became a desirable property of this coin. And more importantly, we cannot know for sure that nobody will one day find a way to port the current algorithm for GPUs or even find a new one that would be FPGA/ASIC friendly. In this case, and depending on the consensus, Riecoin shall update its PoW with either different parameters or another mathematical problem in order to remain CPU only, or at worst with GPUs not getting significant advantages over CPUs.

There is however some FUD about this with bad miners with a lot of mining power using usernames like "GPUTestUnit1" in mining pools or changing the User Agent of the Riecoin Core node. We can confidently affirm that '''there is no efficient GPU miner out there''', these are attempts to make people think otherwise. Don't fall for their tricks and beware of persons that may propose you a "GPU" or "optimized" miner in exchange for money, they are scammers.

== Economy ==

=== How can I obtain Riecoins? ===

You can obtain Riecoins by mining or buying them from an [[Exchanges|exchange]]. [[Contribute|Contributing]] to the project may also earn you some coins as donations.

=== Can I buy goods with Riecoins? ===

Riecoin is not yet accepted by any merchant. We will update this once this changes.

If you own a store, you could be the first one to accept RIC as payment!

=== What happened with Poloniex? Why are they owning so many coins and what will happen to them? ===

Riecoin was listed during years on Poloniex, which was the main exchange for Riecoin trading, but for arbitrary reasons they started to freeze the wallets during months, and eventually delisted Riecoin. During these years, various people accumulated millions of RIC on the exchange wallet but never withdrew them.

The fate of these coins is unknown and subject to speculation. Some think that they can considered as burned as either it could be illegal for them to spend them, or it can be assumed that they don’t care about these coins or that they deleted their private keys after the delisting. Others think that these coins are threatening the Riecoin's future and something has to be done, as they could for example sell large amounts at any time, harming value growth and stability, or the simple fact of them holding coins could already deter a lot of investors and potential project growth.