Source links:
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/1046886450601398393
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/996761363894509568
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/909907923084382218/996054649410953226
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/909907923084382218/996047610651627551
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/909907923084382218/995774105712337026
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/991123684385361951
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/990897783475163136
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/990893756591001640
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/990739452622163989
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/990736859791523850
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/955793396268687380
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/610815395527393301/954060451145203813
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/610815395527393301/953621816205799445
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/939960107771518996
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/939913692722659358
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/909907923084382218/924705390309019720
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/916662870379491328/920271238088253450
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/909907923084382218/911015989792108574
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/599153231305637890/907943846699204621
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/599153231305637890/906770708586197002
https://discord.com/channels/599153230659846165/599153231305637890/895617582856548372
Question: Hashdag wrote in Medium article that they bought 'mining equipment' for the PoW to have an early advantage. What it was, why there's no any additional info?
Answered by Ori Newman:
Where was no specific answer given because the mining algorithm has no name. We just tried to cooperate with a mining company and develop an algorithm that will be very easy for them to develop ASICs for. I can guarantee to you that it had no slight relation to the current used mining algorithm (k-heavyhash).
Less than 3% of the total supply (840,000,000 KAS). See here
When Kaspa was designed (before the mainnet launched) the team thought that oPoW would be valuable in reducing waste and saw the potential in it and how it could potentially be more decentralized than the current ASIC mining. oPoW is also as secure as SHA256. The value proposition of energy-efficiency will materialize only when specific optical hardware became a thing, until then community members can still mine with CPUs/GPUs. To develop the hardware for this a external group (not connected to Kaspa) needed funding and funding required a live network to sustain it. Kaspa volunteered to be that network (made the first move). Later on the group developing hardware for oPoW dissolved and DAGlabs as a for profit entity also dissolved. As a result there was ultimately no premine or hardware specific to the developers or any insider group. Anyone could mine equally when the network launched (see above answers). Additionally the developers alone didn't just choose to use oPoW ,the community voted on it before the mainnet launched.
Why Kaspa is a fair launch coin, screenshot 1
Why Kaspa is a fair launch coin, screenshot 2
Michael Sutton's POV on the fair launch situation
Ori Newman's POV on the fair launch situation
Ori Newman's answer about DAGLabs' mining hardware
Answered by Yonatan Sompolinsky:
DAGLabs raised overall roughly 8M$.
The project's initial business plan was to develop OPoW-like ASICs and sell and distribute their hashrate, as I described in some medium post. I thought of it as a good middle ground between decentralization and sustainability.
The fact that this plan failed is indeed a failure of DAGLabs as a for profit entity. The reason it failed was a combination of the immaturity of OPoW ASIC tech, and (my, together with Polychain's) assessment that pure fair launch is the only path to give Kaspa (and, in fact, any PoW coin) true chance at growing to meet its goals/dreams.
If you think Polychain's support of this is weird or even suspicious then you probably hadn't had the chance to engage with crypto VCs. As I said in Kaspa's Telegram group, crypto space has seen way more bizarre instances than a VC supporting fair launching over no launching.
See also screenshots.
Additionally, when the Kaspa mainnet went live in November 2021 there was already a decent size community. Anyone could have mined at that time.
Shai Wyborski and Michael Sutton have put together an elaborate step-by-step guide to locally cryptographically verify the chain integrity. Anyone who has concerns about the integrity of the chain (or is just looking for a fun way to spend an afternoon) is welcome to follow. That tutorial is available either in the form of a Jupyter notebook or a PDF. The steps therein allows anyone to cryptographically verify that: