Peercoin Docs

11/2/21, 8:04 PM Peercoin Docs - Documentation of Peercoin Cryptocurrency
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Introduction to Peercoin
https://docs.peercoin.net/#/introduction-to-peercoin 1/85
Hello, and welcome to the Peercoin Documentation website. We hope to help you understand more
about this coin, its philosophy and technologies that runs behind it. Before getting too technical, we invite
you to dive a little bit into the history of Peercoin, learning why it was created, and the purposes behind it.
The key innovation of Peercoin is the invention of Proof-of-Stake, a blockchain consensus algorithm that
provides efficient, sustainable security and user governance, allowing for a trustless cryptocurrency
network with adaptive inflation and a core focus on securely storing all types of value.
Peercoin Genesis: 2012
Since the creation of Bitcoin (Nakamoto 2008), Proof-of-Work has been the predominant design of peer-
to-peer cryptocurrency. The concept of Proof-of-Work has been the backbone of mining and security
model of Nakamoto’s design. In 2012, Sunny King and Scott Nadal proposed an alternative form of
consensus that was both more secure, but also energy efficient. Proof-of-Work, however is subject to
centralized mining, large amounts of power consumption, and majority attacks. Centralized mining comes
about due to the increased profits and production from large scale mining operations. Proof-of-Stake
sought to provide sustainability and improved security through energy efficient staking and time-based
confirmations (coin age). Instead of electricity and computing power, time could be used as a verification
method that would prevent many of the issues plaguing Proof-of-Work consensus. Proof-of-Stake guards
the blockchain, keeping users safe, while dynamic Proof-of-Work mining provides economic competition
and maintains a balance in distribution. Dynamic mining and staking allow for around 1% inflation a year,
making it extremely practical for long term use.
Since its first block in 2012, Peercoin has remained one of the most energy effective, secure, and size
effective blockchains in existence. Many projects have been created using Proof-of-Stake or derivatives,
and all can be traced back to Peercoin's original model. Off-chain transactions are extremely compatible
with Proof-of-Stake, meaning future developments and scaling will be easy to develop and deploy with
Peercoin.
Peercoin University
Peercoin university is a community project aimed at less technical members of the community to grasp
and understand the complex topic of public blockchain.
Comparison with other blockchain networks
Peercoin is best compared with its sibling - Bitcoin; however in the following table we'll show how it
bodes against something vastly different like Ethereum. Peercoin was invented as response to increasing
doubts on Bitcoin's PoW consensus model with regards to its increasing centralization and conflict of
interests between miners. Peercoin can be understood as a Proof-of-Stake clone of Bitcoin, though that is
an oversimplification as Peercoin differs vastly - especially when it comes to economics and incentives of
the system.
Major differences between the two are the fee market, ie. the absence of it in Peercoin and
Peercoin's dedication to continual token distribution via PoW block rewards while the Bitcoin's
distribution rate (also PoW block rewards) is reduced geometrically every four years until it becomes zero.
Consensus algorithm
Peercoin is secured by Proof-of-Stake consensus. Proof-of-Work uses energy as a scarce resource as

means of selecting a block producer, while Proof-of-Stake uses time as a scare resource measured in
"coin age". Once a transaction has reached an age of thirty days, these coins become eligible for
participation in consensus. Mature UTXOs are used as proof of stake and are presented as evidence
throught the "coinstake" transaction of a new block. Reference client will try to find a new block once
every second. If block is accepted by the network, a reward will be given to the minter. After ninety (90)
days, a transaction reaches its maximum maturity and minting probability is at its highest. This minting
can be done by simple, low energy computers, such as a raspberry pi, making the process energy efficient
when compared to Proof-of-Work power consumption.
Another benefit of Peercoin's Proof-of-Stake mechanism is its monetary cost of attack. With Proof-of-
Work, and individual can attempt to generate and verify faulty blocks without holding the Proof-of-Work
coin or even a majority of the coin supply. Peercoin requires the malicious individual to hold Peercoin with
a coin age of thirty days minimum, as well as being required to hold a majority sum of the Peercoin
supply, increasing their risk massively. This makes such an attack economically unviable. The requirement
of those verifying the blockchain to hold a portion of the supply means investors are protected from
malicious outside sources who hold no coins. Those who hold Peercoin and use the network, share
interest in the security of the chain.
Distribution
Peercoin is continually distributed via PoW block rewards. At the time of writing there is 24,828,480.19
PPC issued with annual inflation of 2.3%.
The MAX_MONEY variable in the Peercoin source code is
nothing but a placeholder.
There is no final number of Peercoins issued, while inflation is steadily
diverging toward fixed 1%.
Peercoin PoW block reward is product of network Proof-of-Work hashrate: the
higher the network hashrate, the lower the block reward.
This mechanism is effectively "pegging" the
issuance of Peercoins to the development of SHA256 ASIC miners. Reasoning behind this decision is that
it's expected that development of SHA256 miners represents the level of advancement of general
cryptocurrency scene, at least that is something that is visible to the blockchain and can be encoded into
an algorithm.
Proof-of-Work reward formula is: difficulty == (9999 / (mint per block)) ** 4
Proof-of-Work coin mint rate is a function of difficulty, for every 16x in difficulty mint rate is halved.
Fee market
The fee market provides a mechanism to decide which transactions have priority over the others, and to
create economic incentives for the transaction validators who usually claim the fees as rewards.
Transaction fees are claimed by the block miner in both Bitcoin and Ethereum economic systems. This
provides the miners the incentive to validate and include transactions in the blocks they mine. If Alice
wants her transaction to be included in the next block, she should set transaction fee higher and pay
more then other network users, ie. outbid them. It is presumed that miners, as rational subjects, will first
include transactions which carry the most Bitcoin value. If Alice pays a transaction fee which is under the
average fee at the time she might wait for several blocks (or hundreds of blocks) to see her transaction
included and confirmed. So, it is obvious that the fee market serves as the incentive for miners to process
and include the transactions in the blocks they mine.
With Bitcoin's block size limit set to 1MB there exists
an artificial upward pressure on the price of transaction fees - incentivizing miners to validate the
transactions. This is especially important as Bitcoin's economy is expected to run on transaction fees
alone when the block subsidies eventually stop.
Peercoin's fees are fixed at 0.01 PPC per kb and are burned. This is equivalent to paying the transaction
fee to each Peercoin holder in proportion to their Peercoin holdings since the fee decreases the total
supply of Peercoins. This property eliminates the need for a fee market on Peercoin's network and allows
every transaction to get included in the very next block. Peercoin retains the 1MB block size limit as it is
based on the Bitcoin code, but it has no intricate need to keep it. The block size limit will definitely be
increased as Peercoin's network grows in usage. Peercoin developers have already hinted that Peercoin
will feature a dynamic block size in the near future.

Due to these economic properties of Peercoin a
question arises: Why do Peercoin miners bother processing the transactions?
From a spectator looking at this from a Bitcoin oriented perspective the answer is that Peercoin block
miners want to process transactions so they allow Peercoins to be burned - thus making their own stake
in the network more valuable.
However when the intricacies of PoS are learned it is understood that with
Peercoin minters (PoS miners) include transactions because it doesn't cost much to include them, while
producing empty blocks reduces the value of the blockchain, and therefore of their stake. The burned
fees are not really an argument as the effect on their holdings is negligible.
Bitcoin miners always start off
mining an empty block, otherwise they lose the time it takes to validate the transactions and signatures,
as time is money on the Bitcoin network. Only after they have validated the txns to include and have
computed the merkle root, they start mining blocks with txns.
While for PoS, the time advantage is
negligible as you can still use the stake hash of a few seconds ago. (hrobeers, 30.08.2017)
Block size limit and block time spacing
Bitcoin features the 1MB block size limits which serves to place the upward pressure on the transaction
fee price, Peercoin copies this parameter from the Bitcoin but it's economic model does not depend on
scarcity of the block space.
While block generation is a stochastic process, each chain is targeted to
generate blocks based on a real time interval. Bitcoin generates a block every 10 minutes, akin to Peercoin
PoS block generation, while Ethereum generates a block every 12 seconds. Peercoin PoW block
generation is coupled to PoS block generation as well as PoW hash power and is therefore difficult to
approximate, but the total block time of Peercoin can be empirically estimated to be around 8.5 minutes.
Considering this and the block size limit of 1MB, Bitcoin has a transaction per second (TPS) of about 7 tps,
Peercoin has an estimated 8 tps, and Ethereum has about 25 tps.
Features Bitcoin Peercoin Ethereum
p2p financial transactions / p2p financial transactions / Turing complete smart

Main use-case:
store of value store of value contracts
Consensus algorithm: PoW PoS PoW
Active since: 2009 2012 2015
PoW block reward / PoS Initial Coin Offering / PoW

Distribution method: PoW block reward
block reward block reward
Limited, until 21M tokens

Distribution: Unlimited. Unlimited.
exist in the system.
Fee market (~390 Static 0.01 PPC/kb (~0.2 Btc

Features
Transaction fee: Bitcoin Peercoin Ethereum
Fee market (~23 Gwei/byt
satoshis/byte) satoshis/byte)
Estimated transaction
7 tx/sec 8 tx/sec 25 tx/sec
bandwidth:
Block time: 10 minutes 8.5 minutes 12 seconds
Block size: 1MB 1MB Dynamic
Extra transaction data size 80 Byte

256 Byte
Dynamic
limit: (OP_RETURN) (OP_RETURN) (5 gas / byte)
Topology: Public blockchain Public blockchain Public blockchain
Table 1. Comparison of Crypto currency attributes

(prices of transactions at the time of writing)
Important Links
Official Sites
• Peercoin.net
• GitHub
• Foundation
Forums
• Peercointalk
• Reddit
• Bitcointalk Thread
Chats
• Discord
• Telegram
Social Media
• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
News
• Team Updates
Blog
• Medium
Peercoin myths
• Forum
Tools
Block Explorers
Mainnet
• BitInfoCharts
• Chainz.CryptoID
• Mintr
• CoinExplorer
• PeerExplorer
Testnet
• PeerExplorer
• Chainz.CryptoID
Other
• Inflation
• Mempool
• Energy Statistics
• Testnet Faucet
The Peercoin Foundation
The Peercoin Foundation was publicly announced on May 13, 2018. 5.1
Mission
The Foundation was established with the simple mission of promoting and supporting the continued
education, development, and overall progression of the Peercoin project. It seeks to empower future
Peercoin team members by providing the tools necessary to perpetuate Peercoin's long standing
reputation for bringing world-first innovations to the Blockchain. 5.2
Funding
To accomplish its mission The Foundation raises funds from donations to the multi-signature address:
5.2
p92W3t7YkKfQEPDb7cG9jQ6iMh7cpKLvwK
Board of Directors
The Foundation is controlled by a Board of Directors. The membership is not known at this time.
Footnotes
5.1: https://talk.peercoin.net/t/update-15-the-peercoin-foundation-is-now-open-for-business/
5.2: https://peercoin.net/foundation
Purchase
How to buy Peercoin
There are many ways to buy Peercoin, although it may depend on your previous exchange access or
location.
You should have a Peercoin wallet set up previously to making a purchase so that you have a
place to store your Peercoin.
Fiat gateways
In order to purchase Peercoin directly with a bank wire or debit card, there are several options for direct
purchase, although these primarily support European wire transfers and purchases. If you want to directly
purchase with a card or bank transfer, you can use the following sites:
The list bellow is not regularly updated, to see the most recent data please visit:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/peercoin/markets/reported/
The Rock Trading
https://www.therocktrading.com/
TheRockTrading offers SEPA direct deposits and offers Peercoin directly
on the platform, while offering no trading fees on PPC.
AnycoinDirect
https://anycoindirect.eu/en/buy-peercoin
Supports EUR
LiteBit
https://www.litebit.eu/en/buy/peercoin
Supports EUR
Livecoin.net
https://www.livecoin.net/
Supports both USD/RUR/EUR deposits
If you are in the US, the above websites may not be available. You must use an exchange that accepts you
must buy a cryptocurrency like Bitcoin and transfer it to an exchange that lists Peercoin, which will be
discussed at a later time.
Coinbase
https://coinbase.com
CoinBase is one of the most popular broker sites and is arguably the most
commonly used for US based citizens.
Gemini
https://gemini.com
Gemini also offers fiat purchasing options for Bitcoin with bank wire options.
OkCoin
https://www.okcoin.com/lang/en-US/
Offers fiat deposits by wire to buy Bitcoin and other common coins.
It is strongly recommended to purchase Bitcoin as it has the most traded pairs for the exchanges that list
Peercoin which will be discussed in the section below. Once you have made a purchase, send those coins
over to your chosen exchange and make your purchase of Peercoin.
There are other websites that can be used to buy Bitcoin with a debit or credit card, and there are a
plethora of guides available on these sites. We suggest you find a reputable site with low fees and a large
number of positive user reviews over time.
Exchanges
If you already own cryptocurrency, the section about fiat gateways can be skipped since you most likely
already have one. Below is a list of exchanges which support Peercoin and where it can be traded actively.
Send your coins there and you will be able to purchase Peercoin.
PPC/BTC Pairs
The list bellow is not regularly updated, to see the most recent data please visit:
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/peercoin/markets/reported/
Bittrex
https://bittrex.com/Market/Index?MarketName=BTC-PPC
HitBTC
https://hitbtc.com/PPC-to-BTC
Livecoin
https://www.livecoin.net/
The Rock Trading
https://www.therocktrading.com/en/offers/PPCBTC
Each exchange comes with a variety of fees both in trading and withdrawals and user experience may
vary. As always, use strong passwords, 2FA, and cold storage as needed.
Once you have made your purchase, you can withdraw your coins to the wallet you have chosen.
Wallets
Official client implementation
Once you install official Peercoin client from peercoin.net, you’ll have access to three executables:
peercoind, peercoin-qt, and peercoin-cli.
Peercoin Wallet
peercoin-qt provides a combination full Peercoin network client and wallet. Peercoin-qt is highly
portable application written in QT5 framework.
From the Help menu, you can access a console where you
can enter the RPC commands so power-user features are still available.
peercoind
peercoind provides a full peer which you can interact with through JSON-RPC interface on port 9902
(9904 for testnet).
For more information on how to use the JSON-RPC interface see the developer documents
peercoin-cli
peercoin-cli allows you to send JSON-RPC commands to running instance of peercoind from the
command line.
For example:
peercoin-cli help
peercoin-cli getinfo
All three programs get settings from peercoin.conf in the Peercoin application directory:
Windows: %APPDATA%\Peercoin\
OSX: $HOME/Library/Application Support/PPCoin/
Linux: $HOME/.peercoin/
To use peercoind and peercoin-cli , you will need to add a RPC password to your peercoin.conf
file. Both programs will read from the same file if both run on the same system as the same user, so any
long random password will work:
rpcpassword=change_this_to_a_long_random_password
You should also make the peercoin.conf file only readable to its owner.
On Linux, Mac OSX, and other
Unix-like systems, this can be accomplished by running the following command in the Peercoin
application directory:
chmod 0600 peercoin.conf
Peercoin Core Wallet
Overview
Windows Installation
To install on Windows, you can find the download files here: https://peercoin.net/wallet.html. Once
download is complete, extract the contents of the folder. Depending on if your system is x32 or x64 bits,
choosing the relevant folder. Run the peercoin-win_setup.exe and you will be guided through the
installation process. Once finishes, the client can be launched by running "peercoin-qt.exe" from the
appropriate folder.
Mac Installation
To install for MacOS, you can find the download files here: https://peercoin.net/wallet.html. Once the
download is complete, extract the contents of the folder. Inside the extracted folder, double click the
"Peercoin-Qt.dmg" file to open the client.
Debian Installation
As of April 2018, Peercoin has official Debian repository hosted at https://peercoin.github.io/deb-repo/.

Repository is serving .deb packages for latest Debian stable, for amd64, arm64 and armhf hardware
architectures.
Adding the GPG key
wget -O - https://peercoin.github.io/deb-repo/peercoin.apt.key | sudo apt-key add

-
Adding the repository in the sources
sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://peercoin.github.io/deb-repo/ buster main' >>

/etc/apt/sources.list.d/peercoin.list"
sudo apt update
Installing the packages
sudo apt install peercoin-qt
Debian/Ubuntu Package Compilation Guide
If you want a more in-depth guide on the compilation of the client for a variety of systems, more can be
found here
General Notes
Wallet Encryption
When a wallet is first generated, it will be unencrypted. In order to encryt the wallet, one must go to
Settings > Encrypt Wallet. The client will then prompt the user for a password which will then be used to
verify transactions and unlock the wallet for minting in the future. It is important to make sure this
password is remembered as losing access means losing access to any coins held in that wallet. A wallet
must be encrypted in order to participate in minting.
Backups
It is strongly recommended that a backup of the wallet.dat is made and kept in a separate location in the
event of hardware failure or similar disaster. Choosing File > Backup Wallet, will present the user with the
option of where to export this file.
Wallet Overview
From this tab you can see the "Available", "Pending", and "Total" balance of your Peercoin wallet. On the
right side, you can see your "Recent transactions" as well which will show the most recent transactions
that have come into the wallet recently.
Send
The send tab is used to send Peercoin. The "Pay To" section is where a target address can be entered. If
you wish to label the address for future use, such as an exchange, you may add it to your address book.
Amount determines the quantity of Peercoin which will be sent in the transaction. If the wallet is
encrypted, the secure password must be entered before the send transaction can be finalized.
Receive
The Receive tab lists all wallet addresses attached to the Peercoin client. Generating a new address is as
simple as clicking the "New Address" button at the bottom of the screen. The "Sign Message" button can
also be used to verify ownership of a wallet. There is a tutorial on signing messages with the Peercoin
client here. The example addresses have been removed from the image for privacy sake.
Transactions
The Transactions tab gives a full history of recent transactions that have come in and out of the wallet
since its creation. It will list the Date, Type, Address, and Amount. This information can be exported as a
.csv using the "Export" button on the bottom right of the screen. The amounts have been removed from
the image for privacy sake.
Minting
The Minting tab is the fifth option and from here, you can see the coin age of your transaction. The
Address, Age, Balance, CoinDay, and MintProbability, are also displayed. Until the transaction reaches 30
days of age, it will be displayed in red, with a CoinDay of 0. In the picture above, you can see a transaction
that is red and is not eligible for staking due to it only having a an Age of 49. In the next 30 days, it has a
probability of minting of roughly 54.94%. In 4 days, that transaction will become eligible for minting and
change to green color. You can use the "Display minting probability within:" drop-down menu to estimate
the probability of minting during the next period. Once the 30 day period has passed, and the transaction
has become eligible for minting, go to Settings > Decrypt Wallet for Minting Only, and enter your wallet
password. If you have not already encrypted your wallet, you will be asked to do so. Once the wallet has
been unlocked for minting, leaving it running will allow for minting to occur. Making a transaction from
that wallet will disrupt the coin age and the maturation process will have to be repeated. Sending more
coins will not disrupt the coin age.
If you are interested in calculating the rough time until minting takes place, you can use this calculator:
http://poscalculator.peercointalk.org/
Once minting occurs, the initial batch of coins will have their coin age reset, and the coins earned from
minting will remain locked for 520 blocks, or roughly 3 days. After this period, the coins will be available
in the wallet. As a note, you do not need to leave your wallet running 24/7, as the time spent staking does
not increase the probability of minting taking place, as the highest coin age will always take precedence.
Holding longer also does not increase the minting reward.
Addresses
Addresses is the final tab and displays the addresses saved to the Address Book from the Send tab. This is
handy for managing repeat use addresses such as exchanges. The example address has been removed
from the image for privacy sake.
Creating a New Address
Creating a new address is very simple. Navigate to the "Receive" tab and select the "New Address"
button. A window with a "Label" and "Address" field will appear. Enter the name you want in the "Label"
field. You will be able to change this later. Leave the "Address" field blank. Click "Ok" to continue. If you
have already encrypted your wallet, you will need to enter your wallet password.
You can see the new address now available. If you want to change the name of the label of the address,
double click the name and you will be able to enter a new one.
Sending Peercoin
If you want to send Peercoin, navigate to the "Send" tab. We are going to send some Peercoins to the
address we created above. This page has three fields: "Pay To", "Label", and "Amount". Paste the address
you want to send Peercoins to into the "Pay To" field. Make sure to verify that this address is correct. If
you already have a label for this wallet, it will automatically fill in the "Label" field. If not, you can write
your own in and it will be saved in your address book (Under the "Address" tab). In the amount field,
insert the number of Peercoins you would like to send. There is a drop down menu which allows you to
determine if you want to send in denominations of "Peercoins", "MilliPeercoins", "MicroPeercoins". Make
sure that you have enough to pay for the transaction fee. When everything is finalized, press the "Send"
button to confirm the transaction. You will be prompted to confirm the transaction and must enter your
wallet password to verify the transaction. Once this is completed, you can view the transaction under the
"Transactions" tab.
Using the multisig
You can access multisig graphic interface in latest builds of Peercoin-qt. Open Peercoin-qt, click on File -
Multisig. Now you see Multisig interface.
How to create a multisig address using QT wallet
In this example, we'll go over creating 2/3 multisig address.

On your screen you see two tables, each
containing "Public key", "Address" and "Label".
1) First click "+ Add public key" button, this will make three input fields. Then enter number 2 in the
"Required signatures" field.
2) In the first table, we will first make input in "Address field". You can click book-like icon on the right
side to load address from your address book. When you do so, other fields will be auto-populated.
3) Your partners will need to do the same and copy their entries to you. When you exchange information
properly make final check to reduce chance of error and finally click on "Create multisig address" button.
4) Now multisig address is created, confirm that all of you got the same address.
5) Finally click "Add address to wallet" in lower right to have it listed in your address book.
That is it, now you have your 2/3 multisig address.
Creating a multisig address using the command line interface (debug console)
The multisig address is generated with the complete public keys of the participants.
Alice:
validateaddress "mw2pj33HMhRfRkKtceHcyKpPiGYkPdD4SM"
"isvalid" : true,
"address" : "mw2pj33HMhRfRkKtceHcyKpPiGYkPdD4SM",
"ismine" : true,
"isscript" : false,
"pubkey" : "02c16ff447129fae7374d97212cf9fcd88a744da87ff2985869065cd6d17ee5c0b",
"iscompressed" : true,
"account" : "Alice"
Bob:
validateaddress "mkLNecFNeiJgKjw6492nqDiQfKQs1JnLmE"
"isvalid" : true,
"address" : "mkLNecFNeiJgKjw6492nqDiQfKQs1JnLmE",
"ismine" : true,
"pubkey" : "025cc4b319284aabcdaef6e9a18af0bb73ac5d4b9f2556a214f30686b0173b316e",
"account" : "Bob"
Charlie:
validateaddress "mm8Fwn92RU8zvJmH7TCpaYL3v4PTyjN4xd"
"isvalid" : true,
"address" : "mm8Fwn92RU8zvJmH7TCpaYL3v4PTyjN4xd",
"ismine" : true,
"isscript" : false,
"pubkey" : "033ba42c942ff7e7fcf42ff604d6ef6c51826f9eea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e703",
"account" : "Trent"
createmultisig 2 '["02c16ff447129fae7374d97212cf9fcd88a744da87ff2985869065cd6d17ee5c0b",
"025cc4b319284aabcdaef6e9a18af0bb73ac5d4b9f2556a214f30686b0173b316e",
"033ba42c942ff7e7fcf42ff604d6ef6c51826f9eea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e703"]'
"address" : "2N582fRZZZm9hL4RH4sguG9SDDLZhu7eeng",
"redeemScript" : "522102c16ff447129fae7374d97212cf9fcd88a744da87ff2985869065cd6d17ee5c
}
How to spend from the multisig address
Reference Peercoin client is not capable of indexing the multisig addresses and showing their balance
because multisig addresses can be owned by keys which are not part of the wallet (friends, family,
backup). Thus the procedure to spend the funds from the multisig is a bit more complicated, more "low
level" then usual.
In the "Spend Funds" tab of the multisig dialog, on the left there is "Inputs" table. You need to provide
with the UTXO you want to spend. That is, the txid and output index. On the right side there is
"Outputs" table, where the desired outputs will be placed. Please note that you have to include the
change output and deduct the tx fee (0.01 PPC per kB).
After that is set, click on the "Create Transaction" button bellow, and copy the resulting hash to your
peers for further signing.
Finally paste the hash of fully signed raw transaction into "Sign Transaction" box
bellow and click send.
Spending from the multisig via command line interface
Bob creates a transaction to spend the coins that Alice sent to the multisig address.
The transaction will
have 360 PPC (Alice's coins) as input and 359.99 PPC as output (because of the mandatory 0.01 PPC
transaction fee; the transaction won't be accepted by the network without it).
Bob:
getrawtransaction "0ef16552d0dadaa150da34cfbc5380e82d59b5f328f967fb72104c43a1b99f74" 1
"hex" : "01000000197f5a530105a302fe97c3ab33581486fdb39296e8728d2dac7b06324a62ab83515c3
"txid" : "0ef16552d0dadaa150da34cfbc5380e82d59b5f328f967fb72104c43a1b99f74",
"version" : 1,
"locktime" : 0,
"vin" : [
"txid" : "d8d9305c5183ab624a32067bac2d8d72e89692b3fd86145833abc397fe02a305",
"vout" : 0,
"scriptSig" : {
"asm" : "30450221008054ee73403f401b2c10acdaed1e51e5345d35fb24574719d8a01203934c6
"hex" : "4830450221008054ee73403f401b2c10acdaed1e51e5345d35fb24574719d8a01203934
},
"sequence" : 4294967295
],
"vout" : [
{
{
"value" : 739.99000000,
"n" : 0,
"scriptPubKey" : {
"asm" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 9f99f0ec7288694065243d32bea766bf9a8d6021 OP_EQUALVERI

"hex" : "76a9149f99f0ec7288694065243d32bea766bf9a8d602188ac",
"reqSigs" : 1,
"type" : "pubkeyhash",
"addresses" : [
"mv4r9a4FXuDgSA5GaFtLGC9W5Db3XJUrLD"
},
"value" : 360.00000000,
"n" : 1,
"scriptPubKey" : {
"asm" : "OP_HASH160 824524d69e3c8f2ea66e39af89727bc0e8d3de4b OP_EQUAL",
"hex" : "a914824524d69e3c8f2ea66e39af89727bc0e8d3de4b87",
"reqSigs" : 1,
"type" : "scripthash",
"addresses" : [
"2N582fRZZZm9hL4RH4sguG9SDDLZhu7eeng"
],
"blockhash" : "05a7088c02f589ca91beb52ea9667955f7ee10a2433e56f2e11a058c2273bb70",
"confirmations" : 2,
"time" : 1398439709,
"blocktime" : 1398439709
createrawtransaction '[{"txid" :
"0ef16552d0dadaa150da34cfbc5380e82d59b5f328f967fb72104c43a1b99f74", "vout" : 1, "scriptPubKey" :
"a914824524d69e3c8f2ea66e39af89727bc0e8d3de4b87", "redeemScript" :
"522102c16ff447129fae7374d97212cf9fcd88a744da87ff2985869065cd6d17ee5c0b21025cc4b319284aabc
daef6e9a18af0bb73ac5d4b9f2556a214f30686b0173b316e21033ba42c942ff7e7fcf42ff604d6ef6c51826f9e
ea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e70353ae"}]' '{"mub5ke5cWP4nZW2VDgtAkFGA7UzSVhwese" : 359.99}'
0100000062815a5301749fb9a1434c1072fb67f928f3b5592de88053bccf34da50a1dadad05265f10e010000
First signature of the transaction

Bob signs the new transaction with the private key associated to the public key he used to create the
multisig address and sends the result to Alice.
Bob:
dumpprivkey "mkLNecFNeiJgKjw6492nqDiQfKQs1JnLmE"
cTxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxo5
signrawtransaction
"0100000062815a5301749fb9a1434c1072fb67f928f3b5592de88053bccf34da50a1dadad05265f10e010000
0000ffffffff01f0027515000000001976a9149a59a69866c7668acdd2b36491cfc18229d2348988ac00000000"
'[{"txid" : "0ef16552d0dadaa150da34cfbc5380e82d59b5f328f967fb72104c43a1b99f74", "vout" : 1,
"scriptPubKey" : "a914824524d69e3c8f2ea66e39af89727bc0e8d3de4b87", "redeemScript" :
ea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e70353ae"}]' '["cTxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxo5"]'
"hex" : "0100000062815a5301749fb9a1434c1072fb67f928f3b5592de88053bccf34da50a1dadad0526
"complete" : false
Second signature of the transaction
Let's imagine that Alice refuses to sign the transaction.

Bob sends the transaction with one signature to
Trent and asks him to validate it. Let's imagine that Trent decides that the transaction is legitimate.
Trent
signs the transaction with the private key associated to the public key he used to create the multisig
address.
Charlie:
dumpprivkey "mm8Fwn92RU8zvJmH7TCpaYL3v4PTyjN4xd"
cPxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxis
signrawtransaction
00b40047304402201dfd957507d6b48b777a6f5c31d85fb8d00513b79c55dbd902c7f6dee90bc4cc0220773f
05b481a9dbbc3153cb832acd994caef0d569de49d3b4a125b5f1e637836c014c69522102c16ff447129fae737
4d97212cf9fcd88a744da87ff2985869065cd6d17ee5c0b21025cc4b319284aabcdaef6e9a18af0bb73ac5d4b
9f2556a214f30686b0173b316e21033ba42c942ff7e7fcf42ff604d6ef6c51826f9eea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e
70353aeffffffff01f0027515000000001976a9149a59a69866c7668acdd2b36491cfc18229d2348988ac000000
00" '[{"txid" : "0ef16552d0dadaa150da34cfbc5380e82d59b5f328f967fb72104c43a1b99f74", "vout" : 1,
"scriptPubKey" : "a914824524d69e3c8f2ea66e39af89727bc0e8d3de4b87", "redeemScript" :
ea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e70353ae"}]' '["cPxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxis"]'
"hex" : "0100000062815a5301749fb9a1434c1072fb67f928f3b5592de88053bccf34da50a1dadad0526
"complete" : true
Send the signed transaction to the network
The transaction has the two required signatures, anyone can send it to the network.
sendrawtransaction
00fdfd000047304402201dfd957507d6b48b777a6f5c31d85fb8d00513b79c55dbd902c7f6dee90bc4cc0220
773f05b481a9dbbc3153cb832acd994caef0d569de49d3b4a125b5f1e637836c014830450220576a38baba9
c821a5dbfce6be50825322995041a052f8a76016928ee2741b542022100e95dcefd049628e8c422ee584eb1c
3feab3d00f7111a29a16f40353ff7de9648014c69522102c16ff447129fae7374d97212cf9fcd88a744da87ff298
5869065cd6d17ee5c0b21025cc4b319284aabcdaef6e9a18af0bb73ac5d4b9f2556a214f30686b0173b316e2
1033ba42c942ff7e7fcf42ff604d6ef6c51826f9eea3a04308379c2ade98fb9e70353aeffffffff01f002751500000
0001976a9149a59a69866c7668acdd2b36491cfc18229d2348988ac00000000"
fea9875ccac102897ff128c868027a05e3d2f9057569529c8e5e94f8d641bc47
How To Sign a Message Using the Peercoin Client
First, check that the address you want to use is loaded up into the wallet of your Peercoin client. You can
use the standard client. The list of your addresses can be found using the receive tab.
Once you are satisfied that the address is in the wallet (you can even copy it to your clipboard if you like),
open up the 'Sign message...' option of the 'File' menu.
At this point, you should be on the 'Sign Message' tab where you can paste in the address you want to
use, either via your clipboard or by clicking on the address book button.
Now you can type your message into the big blank box. It might be best to copy and paste this text from
a plaintext source in order to avoid any formatting issues. When you are done, hit the 'Sign Message'
button.
If it completed its function correctly, it will display in green 'Messaged signed.' Copy the signature using
the convenient button.
Just to be sure everything worked correctly, you can validate your signature. Go to the 'Verify Message'
tab and fill in all the fields. If everything looks good, and it comes back with a green 'Message verified.'
then you can share with anyone your signature, message, and address and they should be able to verify it
just the same.
Congratulations, you have now cryptographically signed and verified a message!
Hardware Wallets
Stakebox
Stakebox is a project by Peercoin Foundation and PiSupply to deliver cost and power efficient, user
friendly set-top box able to run a blockchain node.
Stakebox is a plug and play Pi with the Peercoin wallet
pre-installed.What is need is a keyboard and monitor to plug in to and you are ready to go.
StakeBox is a brand by Pi Supply, which is a world leading distributor of Raspberry Pi mini computers.
Installation
Beside ordering a pre-installed Stakebox from PiSupply website you can also make one yourself.
What do you need:

• Raspberry Pi (2 or newer)
• image downloaded from files.peercoin.net
• an SD card (4GB +)
• some spare time
Download the image from files.peercoin.net, use the Etcher to load it to the SD card.
Now follow the guide: https://www.stakebox.org/blogs/learn/getting-started-with-peercoin-stakebox.
Ledger Peercoin Tutorial
Ledger Live
If you wish to store Peercoin on the Ledger Nano or Ledger Blue, this tutorial will guide you through
using the Ledger Live program
Open the Ledger Live program and enter your password to unlock the wallet. In order to store Peercoin,
we first need to add the Peercoin wallet application to the Ledger device. If this is the first time you are
using a Ledger device, you will have to install the Bitcoin app first. Follow the same steps to add the
Bitcoin app, then do the same process for the Peercoin application. Select Manager from the sidebar and
make sure your device is connected, unlocked, and allows access when prompted by the Ledger Manager.
Once this is done, you will be presented with a variety of apps that can be added. Type in "Peercoin" to
find the Peercoin app. Click the "Install" button and you will be asked to confirm this on your Ledger
device. After a moment, the app will be done installing. Click "Okay" to proceed.
Once this is finished, the Peercoin app is now installed on your Ledger device. Now we need to add an
actual wallet account which we can do by clicking "Portfolio" to return to our starting screen. Once you
are on the main screen, click the "+" by the Accounts tab to add a new asset.
This will open the menu where you can search for the asset account you would like to add. Input
"Peercoin" and click continue. You will have to unlock your Ledger again and navigate to the Peercoin
app. To open it, press both buttons on the Ledger Nano device simultaneously. Once this is done, Ledger
Live will sync and you will have the option to name the newly created account.
Click continue until everything is finalized and completed. You now have the Peercoin app, and the
account added to your Ledger product and wallet.
Peercoin Paper Wallet Guide
You can find the source code for this wallet here: https://github.com/peercoin/peercoin-address-
generator/
If you are interested in generating a paper wallet for holding your Peercoin, this guide will walk you
through the process. First, navigate to this address: https://paperwallet.peercoin.net/
To being, click the large green Start button. This will begin the wallet generation process. In order to
ensure randomness, you will be asked to move your mouse cursor around for a period until a wallet
address is generated. This movement of the mouse adds entropy to the generation of an truly random
address
Once you have moved the mouse enough, the wallet will be generated and you will be presented with the
public and private key for the new wallet.
To export the wallet, click the green share icon on the left side of the QR code. You will then be presented
with the options displayed below.
Save .txt locally

This option will download the wallet as a text file.
Copy address/priv. key to clipboard
This
option will copy the address/priv. key to a clipboard where it can be pasted. Make sure your system is clean
and secure before exposing this information to potential threats like keystroke loggers.
Send via email
This
option will allow you to send the wallet information via email.
Save JSON data will
This option will
download the wallet information in JSON format.
Paper Wallet (print)
This option will open a print
dialogue from which the wallet can be printed or saved as a PDF. Paper wallets provide physical security
and backups for Peercoins that are to be left in cold storage.*
This concludes the tutorial on the paper wallet generator. This platform provides extra security for those
who wish to keep their Peercoin in a safe and physical location.
Unofficial client implementations
Coinomi
https://www.coinomi.com/
Coinspot
https://www.coinspot.com.au
CoinVault
https://www.coinvault.io/
Cryptonator
https://www.cryptonator.com/
HolyTransaction
https://holytransaction.com/
Ledger
https://www.ledger.com/
Magnum
Airdrop focused wallet
https://magnumwallet.co
UberPay
http://uberpay.io/
PeerAssets
PeerAssets offers the framework that enables communities and organizations to issue and transact
with blockchain assets.
PeerAssets is a Peercoin in-house developed blockchain token protocol. At the time of writing PeerAssets
is tailored to work with the Peercoin blockchain, however there are plans to port the technology to other
blockchains like Bitcoin and allow for cross-chain compatibility. PeerAssets is as minimalist as possible,
seeking to find the most efficient and affordable method for a blockchain to support tokenization.
PeerAssets transactions are standard Peercoin transactions, relayed by the standard nodes and processed
by miners as any other transaction. Unlike many similar protocols (Omni, CounterParty), PeerAssets does
not use so called "auxilary" tokens (Omni and XCP respectively), it only uses blockchain's native currency
which is used to pay transaction fees. PeerAssets protocol does not require hard nor soft fork of the host
network, but it requires development of a PeerAssets aware client. PeerAssets is also inspired by the
original idea of "Colored Coins" and uses OP_RETURN to write data on the blockchain, but offers some
optimizations to reduce amount of data written in the OP_RETURN and reducing blockchain bloat.
PeerAssets enables easy querying of the blockchain for relevant transactions via the use P2TH, which
allows development of very light clients and does not mandate the use of resource intense blockchain-
parsing nodes which are common with competing protocols.
PeerAsset protocol based assets can be utilized to represent any type of asset like bonds or equity.
PeerAssets can also represent real life objects, and by doing so confirm their existence on the blockchain.
PeerAssets was invented in 2016, and the whitepaper was released in April, 2016 by peerchemist .
Nomenclature
PeerAssets uses a somewhat different phrasing to describe the protocol and it's interactions. In
PeerAssets terminology assets are named “decks” and each transaction on the deck is called a “card”.
Decks and cards are types of transactions parsed by the PeerAsset client to understand the bigger picture
and calculate the cards balances and thus the state of the deck.
Deck - asset
Card - individual token
Transaction types
PeerAssets protocol has four elemental transaction types:
• Deck spawning transaction
Creates a new token at a given Peercoin address. Asset is described by:
• token name,
• descriptive metadata,
• how divisible the token is (number of decimals),
• the deck issue mode.
Deck issue modes can be understood as light smart contracts, speaking in modern crypto jargon as they
allow great flexibility when defining rules of token supply.
• Card issue transaction
Creates new tokens of deck at given Peercoin address.
• Card burn transaction
Destroys tokens and removes them from the supply.
• Card transfer transaction
Standard p2p token transaction, transfer a token from the address where they reside to a new address.
Tools
pacli
This command line program is useful as companion utility during PeerAssets development and testing. It
is built for console usage via intuitive and easy to learn set of commands. It stores the privkey in OS's
native keystore, which is automatically unlocked upon logging into active user session.
github: https://github.com/PeerAssets/pacli
pypeerassets
Official Python implementation of the PeerAssets protocol.
github: https://github.com/PeerAssets/pypeerassets
papi
PeerAssets API provider, implemented using pypeerassets.
github: https://github.com/PeerAssets/papi
deployed: https://papi.peercoin.net/api/v1/decks
Wallets
chizukeki
(work in progress)
A light, cross-platform Peercoin wallet with baked-in support for the PeerAssets.
code: https://github.com/peerassets/chizukeki
deployed: https://peerassets.github.io/chizukeki/
Future plans & research
The PeerAssets project has adopted RFC schema of sharing new ideas and establishing standards like the
Peercoin project.
RFC's are submitted on the PeerAssets github repo and peer-reviewed, after which code
experimentation and final implementation proceeds.
There is a number of interesting RFC which are currently discussed, such as:
PeerAssets Alias/Proof-of-identity protocol specification
Extension of PeerAssets protocol specifies using singlet PeerAsset deck to alias the Peercoin address
with any UTF-8 string with added secondary functionality of using descriptive information contained
in the PeerAssets token to allow proof-of-identity verification of the privkey owner.
PeerAssets on-chain voting protocol specification
PeerAssets on-chain voting protocol. Aim is to deliver a standardized way to organize and operate
peer-to-peer voting and opinion polls in fully decentralized and trustless fashion. Both vote and poll
initialization and counting must be done in completely decentralized and trustless fashion without
dependency on 3rd party services.
PeerAssets Data Audit Protocol
The primary purpose of this protocol is to record cryptographic hashes of successive revisions of
single-file documents in a public blockchain, in a manner which enables thin clients to easily query
and verify document histories. Such histories inherit useful properties from the underlying blockchain,
namely immutability and massive replication, and can therefore serve as proofs of existence.
Articles
Whitepaper
PeerAssets deck issue modes
The benefits of PeerAssets
[Tutorial] PeerAssets Peer to Peer (p2p) Transactions
[Tutorial] Basic Deck Creation with PeerAssets
Bootstrapping
What is it?
In computer technology the term (usually shortened to booting) usually

refers to the process of
loading the basic software into the memory of
a computer after power-on or general reset, especially
the operating
system which will then take care of loading other software as needed. 9.1
For Peercoin it means loading all of the block chain history from a special
file containing a snapshot of
block data.
This special file, named bootstrap.dat , allows the Peercoin client to

sync from your hard drive instead
of the internet. Using a
bootstrap.dat file is faster and reduces stress on the Peercoin network to
sync new nodes.
How do I make a bootstrap.dat?
Any synced client has the ability to make a bootstrap.dat file. Assuming
you're running linux you can
do the following to manufacture your own.
First, shutdown your client. Allow it to cleanly exit so we know
the block
data is settled.
Now, navigate to the directory ~/.peercoin/blocks in your terminal and

notice the files named
blk00000.dat , blk00001.dat , blk00002.dat , etc.
These are the raw block data files that can be
combined to form the
bootstrap.dat !
The command:
cat blk*.dat > bootstrap.dat
will produce the bootstrap.dat .

The file is often then compressed (zip'ed, tar/gzip'ed) and shared.
The same process can be executed on Microsoft Windows (7+):
CD C:\Users\<my_user>\AppData\Roaming\Peercoin
COPY /b blk0001.dat+blk0002.dat bootstrap.dat
Or on OS X:
cd "~/Library/Application Support/Peercoin/"
On linux and OS X you can create hash of the bootstrap:
sha256 bootstrap.dat
How do I use a bootstrap.dat?
Assuming you're on linux and you haven't started the Peercoin client before.
Make the directory ~/.peercoin if it doesn't exist and then move the
bootstrap.dat into the
~/.peercoin directory.
Start the Peercoin client. You should see the status Importing blocks from disk... if the client has
found the bootstrap.dat and is using it to
sync the block chain.
Footnotes
9.1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping
Proof-of-Stake
Peercoin uses both the Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake algorithms. The PoW algorithm is used to
spread the distribution of new coins. Up to 99% of all Peercoins is created with PoW. Proof-of-Stake is
used to secure the network: The chain with longest PoS coin age wins in case of a blockchain split-up.
Minting , as it is called in Peercoin to make a proof-of-stake block, is based on metrics of an unspent

transaction.
If we take a look at the number one spot of the rich list, transaction
c7293fc60c80bdcc374775d1f0734e0766465b905bae1a312fe487793be3b8f7 has among others the
following characteristics:
• The transaction appeared in block 376161 at timestamp 1531750952 (Unix time).
• The transaction in the block has an offset of 383 bytes. It is the third transaction in the block. The siz
e of the first two transactions in the block are respectively 78 and 224 bytes.
• The transaction timestamp is 1531750624. (As of Peercoin 0.11, the block timestamp is to be used in
stead of the transaction timestamp)
• The second recipient (index 1) received 1786301.06651300 Peercoins which, at the moment, is still u
nspent.
These metrics, along with two more data points serves as a basis to calculate a hash for POS minting:
• a future timestamp X (in Unix time notation) in which the stake could win;
• a block modifier that was set by the network 1830080 seconds (~21 days) earlier than X.
Every 6 hours the network calculates a new block modifier to be used for POS minting.
The win in proof-of-stake minting, the calculated hash is compared to the current difficulty minus the
coinage. The chances of finding a stake therefor improves when either the coin age increases or when the
difficulty of the network decreases.
Peercoin minting behaviour
• The Minting process can only start after 30 days of coinage.
• Minting coin age is maxed out after 90 days. Which means that after 90 days the only variable left in
PoS is the current difficulty.
• Minting is predictable and not random. For a given transaction, you can calculate the maximum net
work PoS difficulty over time for your transaction to be able to mint a PoS block.
• Whenever this PoS difficulty is higher than the current network PoS difficulty your Peercoin client ca
n mint a PoS block.
• PoS blocks can be rejected (orphans) if several people mint a PoS block within a given window (2 ho
urs also called timedrift). Only one (the chain with longest coin age) will be accepted.
• Minting splits the transaction in two if coin age < 90 days.
• PoS block reward is 3% + 0.25 PPC per solved block. See RFC0018 for more details RFC0018
• A transaction that just staked has its coins locked for 520 confirmations (3-4 days).
• Merging transactions, spending coins, etc. burns coinage (resets it to 0).
• The PoS reward is directly added to your transaction which staked (if this transaction is split in two b
ecause coinage < 90 days, the reward is equally distributed to both resulting transactions).
Peercoin v0.5 Proof-of-Stake protocol

Author: Mably
Last updated: 2015-09-15 Peercoin proof of stake protocol v0.5
Stake min age (30 days)
Block stake modifier selection interval (~9 days )

New kernel stake modifier
Used to compute next block stake modifier selection interval (~21 days)
Block 'from' Block 'modifier' New POS block

BLOCKCHAIN
Last connected block

Block 'modifier' prev
UTXOs from these

Tx blocks can't be Tx CoinStake
used as stakes as
they are too young Stake Modifier
Stake Tx relative to stake Tx
Generated
min age.
(new value)
Tx Tx
Time coinstake tx
Stake OutPoint + combined UTXOs
CreateCoinStake
Block 'modifier'
Block 'from' After a valid stake kernel hash has been
found, the coinstake tx will be created
using stake OutPoint, combined UTXOs
and the calculated coin age reward.
GetKernelStakeModifier
Gets the stake modifier of the first

block corresponding to the end of The computed
the stake modifier selection block stake modifier
Minting: interval.
re-check every second
(new coinstake ComputeNextStakeModifier GetNextTargetRequired
timestamp) for every The found stake modifier
stake available
Compute the stake modifier for the Next required PoS target have to
in the wallet
current block. The stake modifier value be recalculated each time a new
changes only every 6 hours. This is a PoS block is added to the
CheckStakeKernelHash rather complex calculation. blockchain.
Will determine if a valid kernel
hash meeting current POS target
Stake Tx Next required PoS target (difficulty)
can be found for this block 'from',
stake tx, coinstake tx time and
Block 'from' stake modifier. Coinstake timestamp
Qualities of Proof-of-Stake Consensus
Efficient
The use of Proof-of-stake mining in Peercoin is efficient because network security is not dependent on
the use of massive amounts of electrical energy (proof-of-energy-burn). Instead minters invest their coins
and time to emulate the PoW process. This is done by simply opening up their wallet app, sending coins
to their address and letting them sit there while they are occasionally selected by the protocol to mint the
next block. This process is both energy and cost efficient.
Aligning interests
Because coin owners also produce new blocks in Proof-of-Stake, this means security providers and users
of the network are ultimately the same group of people. No longer is there a separate group of security
providers who only care about making profit and are not financially tied to the network itself. All security
providers must own a stake in the network through ownership of Peercoin. As everyone has similar
financial interests in the long-term future of the network this leads to much less conflict between factions
with different ideas about how the blockchain should develop and evolve.
User governance
Because users in Peercoin have the ability to produce blocks they also have the power to influence and
determine the future direction of the network. User governance goes hand in hand with the PoS
consensus mechanism. Peercoin is the very first blockchain capable of allowing its protocol rules to be
governed directly by its users.
Global network
As a direct consequence of the resource efficient consensus mechanism the number of people capable of
participating in the race to create new blocks is significantly expanded. In addition to this security
providers are also no longer drawn to geographical locations with cheap electricity. Due to the cost
efficiency of operating a proof-of-stake node minting nodes can be set up anywhere in the world. This
allows Peercoin to maximize its level of decentralization and achieve global security from minting users all
around the world.
Network security is price independent
Unlike proof-of-work where miners are completely dependent on the market price of a blockchain's
native token to ensure profitability, Peercoin contains no such price dependency. Proof-of-stake minters
are compensated as motivation to provide consistent security, however since this process is so
inexpensive to perform minters actually have the ability to voluntarily operate a minting node without
compensation if they want. Even without compensation from the network, the process of minting helps to
secure the blockchain and along with it a stakeholder's overall investment. The ability to decide which
version of the protocol to run also gives a minter the opportunity to make their voice heard concerning
future upgrades to the network. These are two important reasons a stakeholder may have to want to run
a node for free, however, compensation is automatically provided which makes it even better to
participate. Running a proof-of-work mining node without compensation is just not possible due to the
requirement of being profitable enough in order to afford the associated costs of participating. However,
since 2012 it has been proven that Peercoin is capable of sustaining its network security even during the
lowest periods of demand where market price was close to zero. If the network is capable of surviving
extremely stressful conditions like these then it is likely to survive any challenges the market may present
it with in the future.
Higher Resistance to Censorship
As explained above, the efficiency of proof-of-stake results in a blockchain network that can easily be
secured by people all over the world who hold some amount of Peercoin. This globally decentralized
security makes the Peercoin network incredibly difficult to censor and shut down. This is similar to
downloading files through a bittorrent network. In bittorrent network, many people around the world
operate nodes where they hold a full copy of the file that others are trying to download. Pieces of the file
are downloaded from different nodes until the full file has finished downloading. If a government were to
deem this file sharing illegal and attempt to shut down the torrent network, they would be forced to
target every single node on the network no matter where they happen to exist in the world. Even then,
there is nothing stopping more torrent nodes from being created that share the same file. As long as one
node exists that shares the file, it can be downloaded and spread to others.
Peercoin works in a similar way where minting nodes that process transactions can be operated from
anywhere in the world as long as the minter has access to a computer, minimal electricity, some amount
of Peercoin and an internet connection. Geographical decentralization of minting nodes makes it
incredibly difficult to shut down the Peercoin network, but when the number of nodes around the world
expands to thousands or even tens of thousands then it essentially becomes impossible to censor. In
systems like these, individual nodes are usually called peers. Together they act as a peer-to-peer network.
This is where Peercoin obtained its name. It was originally introduced by Sunny King as ppcoin, which
stood for peer-to-peer coin. Shortly after it was renamed to Peercoin.
Mining
Peercoin uses both the Proof-of-Work and Proof-of-Stake algorithms. The PoW algorithm is used to
spread the distribution of new coins. Up to 99% of all peercoins is created with PoW. Proof-of-Stake is
used to secure the network: The chain with longest PoS coin age wins in case of a blockchain split-up.
Peercoin uses the hashcash double iterated SHA-256 algorithm for Proof-of-Work mining. This means
that any hardware that can mine Bitcoin can mine Peercoin as well.
To mine Peercoin, you need a mining software. Below is a list that is not official endorsed but have been
found to have a decent reputation.
• BFGMiner
• CGMiner
• EasyMiner
There are others, but this list can be used as a starting place. Each will request pool or solo information
and should come with the related support.
Peercoin Mining Pools
Peercoin network hashrate is too high to expect that solo-mining will work. It is recommended to join a
mining pool.
You can find the list of mining pools at the following websites:
• WhereToMine
• MiningPoolStats
Both lists are not verified or vetted, please do your own research before joining some pool.
Peercoin Mining Profitability
If you want to calculate the profitability of mining Peercoin, you can use this website:
https://www.coinwarz.com/calculators/peercoin-mining-calculator
Mining Confirmations
Once a block has been mined, 520 blocks must be passed for the mining to be confirmed. This is roughly
3.61 days of time.
Developers
Compiling
Compiling packages for Debian and Ubuntu
As Peercoin is made to run on range of platforms, from Amazon's server to low powered Raspberry Pi
Debian is perfect OS platform for deploying Peercoin nodes as it is renowned for multitude of supported
hardware architectures as well as security and stability.
For compilation of Debian packages we will be using pbuilder which is a automatic Debian Package
Building system for personal development workstation environments. 3.1 pbuilder aims to be an easy-to-
setup system for auto-building Debian packages inside a clean-room environment, so that it is possible to
verify that a package can be built on most Debian installations. The clean-room environment is achieved
through the use of a base chroot image, so that only minimal packages will be installed inside the chroot.
The following tutorial is written for the Ubuntu or Debian host, precisely Ubuntu 17.10 which is last stable
version of Ubuntu at the time of writing.
Prepare the tooling
sudo apt install pbuilder qemu-user-static ubuntu-keyring debian-archive-keyring
We'll also need keyring for the Raspbian, which a Debian fork made for the Raspberry Pi platform, so we
can compile packages for this ARM based mini-pc platform.
wget http://archive.raspbian.org/raspbian/pool/main/r/raspbian-archive-keyring/raspbian-archive-
keyring_20120528.2_all.deb
sudo dpkg -i raspbian-archive-keyring_20120528.2_all.deb
Now, set up the conf file for the pbuilder.
touch .pbuilderrc
gedit .pbuilderrc
Paste the following:
#!/bin/sh
set -e
PBUILDERSATISFYDEPENDSCMD="/usr/lib/pbuilder/pbuilder-satisfydepends-apt"
if [ "$OS" == "debian" ]; then
MIRRORSITE="http://ftp.no.debian.org/debian/"
COMPONENTS="main contrib non-free"
DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS=("${DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS[@]}"
"--keyring=/usr/share/keyrings/debian-archive-keyring.gpg")
: ${DIST:="wheezy"}
: ${ARCH:="amd64"}
if [ "$DIST" == "wheezy" ]; then
#EXTRAPACKAGES="$EXTRAPACKAGES debian-backports-keyring"
OTHERMIRROR="$OTHERMIRROR | deb $MIRRORSITE wheezy-backports $COMPONENTS"

fi
elif [ "$OS" == "raspbian" ]; then
MIRRORSITE="http://ftp.acc.umu.se/mirror/raspbian/raspbian/"
COMPONENTS="main contrib non-free"
"--keyring=/usr/share/keyrings/raspbian-archive-keyring.gpg")
: ${DIST:="wheezy"}
: ${ARCH:="armhf"}
elif [ "$OS" == "ubuntu" ]; then
MIRRORSITE="http://no.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/"
COMPONENTS="main restricted universe multiverse"
"--keyring=/usr/share/keyrings/ubuntu-archive-keyring.gpg")
else
echo "Unknown OS: $OS"
exit 1
fi
if [ "$DIST" == "" ]; then
echo "DIST is not set"
exit 1
fi
if [ "$ARCH" == "" ]; then
echo "ARCH is not set"
exit 1
fi
NAME="$OS-$DIST-$ARCH"
if [ "$ARCH" == "armel" ] && [ "$(dpkg --print-architecture)" != "armel" ]; then
DEBOOTSTRAP="qemu-debootstrap"
fi
if [ "$ARCH" == "armhf" ] && [ "$(dpkg --print-architecture)" != "armhf" ]; then
DEBOOTSTRAP="qemu-debootstrap"
fi
DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS=("${DEBOOTSTRAPOPTS[@]}" "--arch=$ARCH")
BASETGZ="/var/cache/pbuilder/$NAME-base.tgz"
DISTRIBUTION="$DIST"
BUILDRESULT="$HOME/pbuild-results/"
APTCACHE="/var/cache/pbuilder/$NAME/aptcache/"
BUILDPLACE="/var/cache/pbuilder/build"
HOOKDIR="/var/cache/pbuilder/hook.d/"
Make the directory where pbuilder will place the packages:
mkdir -p $HOME/pbuild-results
Bootstrap the chroots
Raspbian (buster):
sudo OS=raspbian DIST=buster ARCH=armhf pbuilder --create
Debian stable:
sudo OS=debian DIST=buster ARCH=amd64 pbuilder --create
Preparing for build
(compiling for Raspbian stretch in this example)
Download the latest .tar.gz from github.com/peercoin.
wget https://github.com/peercoin/peercoin/releases/download/v0.11.0ppc/peercoin-0.11.0.tar.gz
Debian build system is very strict about names, so we need to rename this to:
peercoin_0.11.0.orig.tar.gz
Extract the contests of the file using tar xf and cd to it.
Copy the debian directory from the contrib to this directory:
cp -r contrib/debian .
Some modifications
(this is just an extra step required for the Raspbian, to fix problem with autotools)
sed '/./configure --with-gui=qt5 --with-incompatible-bdb/s/$/ --with-boost-

libdir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf/' debian/rules
Building the package

11/2/21, 8:04 PM g p g Peercoin Docs - Documentation of Peercoin Cryptocurrency
OS=raspbian DIST=stretch ARCH=armhf pdebuild
And wait, it will take a while so go get a coffee or something. It's compiling by emulating ARM cpu in
QEMU.
The concept of pbuild and cross-platform compilations is that you pass it this environment variables like
"OS" and "DIST".
For example OS=debian and DIST=wheezy will use Debian Wheezy chroot, you can also pick architecture
by using ARCH= environment variable.
Footnotes
3.1: https://jodal.no/2015/03/08/building-arm-debs-with-pbuilder/
JSON-RPC API reference
Peercoin daemon offers JSON-RPC interface which can be used to control the daemon or integrate it with
software stack.
You can send commands to the daemon by using peercoin-cli tool.
There are two official wrappers for this interface, a PHP one and a Python2.7+ one.
Peercoin_rpc is a simple and minimal library made for communication with peercoind via JSON-RPC
protocol. It has a single dependency - a Python requests library and it supports both mainnet and
testnet peercoin network with authentication or SSL encryption. There is a single class to be imported
from the library - Client.
https://github.com/peercoin/peercoin_rpc
peercoin-php-rpc is a simple and minimal library made for communication with peercoind via JSON-
RPC protocol for PHP 7.1+. Easiest way to use is to use composer. Otherwise include RpcClient class in
your project an you are good to go.
https://github.com/peercoin/peercoin-php-rpc
List of JSON-RPC calls
Requires unlocked walle

Command Parameters Description Requires (yes/no)
unlocked walle
Command Parameters Description
(yes/no)
Returns an object
getinfo containing various state no
info.
Returns information about

getblock hash the block with the given no
hash.
Returns the number of

getblockcount blocks in the longest block no
chain.
Returns hash of block in

best-block-chain at
getblockhash block_num no
block_num ; 0 is the
genesis block
Returns an object about the

given transaction
containing:
"amount" : total amount of

the transaction
gettransaction txid "confirmations" : number of no

confirmations of the
transaction
"txid" : the transaction ID
"time" : time associated

with the transaction
Stores the wallet decryption

walletpassphrase passphrase timeout key in memory for no
timeout seconds.
If [account] is not specified,

returns the server's total
available balance.
getbalance [account] [minconf=1] no

If [account] is specified,
returns the balance in the
account.

(yes/no)
Returns the amount

received by address in
transactions with at least
[minconf] confirmations. It
correctly handles the case
where someone has sent to
the address in multiple
getreceivedbyaddress address [minconf=1] transactions. Keep in mind no
that addresses are only ever
used for receiving
transactions.
Works only for addresses in

the local wallet, external
addresses will always show
0.
Returns proof-of-stake and

getdifficulty no
proof-of-work difficulty
Returns data about each

getpeerinfo no
connected node.
Returns the list of addresses

getaddressesbyaccount account no
for the given account.
Returns a new address for

receiving payments.
If [account] is specified
getnewaddress [account] no
payments received with the
address will be credited to
[account].
Returns the account

getaccount address associated with the given no
address .
Returns the current address

for receiving payments to
this account.
getaccountaddress account If account does not exist, no

it will be created along with
an associated new address
that will be returned.

(yes/no)
amount is a real and is

rounded to 6 decimal
address amount
sendtoaddress places. Returns the yes
[comment] [comment-to]
transaction ID txid if
successful.
amount is a real and is

rounded to 6 decimal
places. Will send the given
fromaccount amount to the given
topeercoinaddress address, ensuring the
sendfrom yes
amount [minconf=1] account has a valid balance
[comment] [comment-to] using [minconf]
confirmations. Returns the
transaction ID if successful
(not in JSON object).
fromaccount amounts are double-

sendmany {address:amount,...} precision floating point yes
[minconf=1] [comment] numbers
Returns the number of

getconnectioncount no
connections to other nodes.
Returns raw transaction

getrawtransaction txid [verbose=0] representation for given no
transaction id.
Returns all transaction ids in

getrawmempool no
memory pool.
Returns up to [count] most

recent transactions skipping
the first [from] transactions
[account] [count=10]
listtransactions for account [account]. If no
[from=0]
[account] not provided it'll
return recent transactions
from all accounts.

(yes/no)
Returns an array of objects

containing:
"address" : receiving
address
"account" : the account of

the receiving address
"amount" : total amount

[minconf=1] received by the address
listreceivedbyaddress no
[includeempty=false] "confirmations" : number of
confirmations of the most
recent transaction included
To get a list of accounts on

the system, execute
peercoin-cli
listreceivedbyaddress
0 true
Returns an array of objects

containing:
"account" : the account of

the receiving addresses
[minconf=1] "amount" : total amount

listreceivedbyaccount no
[includeempty=false] received by addresses with
this account
"confirmations" : number of
confirmations of the most
recent transaction included
Returns Object that has

listaccounts [minconf=1] account names as keys, no
account balances as values.
Returns array of unspent

[minconf=1]
listunspent transaction inputs in the no
[maxconf=999999]
wallet.
Reveals the private key

dumpprivkey address corresponding to yes
address .
Adds a private key (as

returned by dumpprivkey)
privkey [label] to your wallet. This may
importprivkey yes
[rescan=true] take a while, as a rescan is
d l ki f i ti
done, looking for existing
transactions. Requires unlocked walle
(yes/no)
[{"txid":txid,"vout":n},...] Creates a raw transaction

createrawtransaction no
{address:amount,...} spending given inputs.
Produces a human-
decoderawtransaction hex_string readable JSON object for a no
raw transaction.
hex_string
Adds signatures to a raw
[{"txid":txid,"vout":n,"scriptP
signrawtransaction transaction and returns the yes
ubKey":hex},...] [
resulting raw transaction.
privatekey1 ,...]
Sign a message with the

signmessage address message yes
private key of an address.
address signature
verifymessage Verify a signed message. no
message
Submits raw transaction

sendrawtransaction hex_string (serialized, hex-encoded) to no
local node and network.
Return information about

validateaddress address no
address .
Encrypts the wallet with

encryptwallet passphrase no
passphrase
enforce is true or false to

enable or disable
enforcecheckpoint bool enforcement of no
broadcasted checkpoints by
developer.
Fills the key pool with new

keypoolrefill size yes
keys [default 100 new keys]
Returns list of temporarily

listlockunspent no
unspendable outputs.
Creates a multi-signature
nrequired
createmultisig address and returns a json yes
["key,"key"]
object.
Peercoin Developer Notes

Constants that may be useful when looking to integrate / develop with Peercoin.
Peercoin source code repository: github.com/peercoin/peercoin
Mainnet
Attribute Value
p2pkh Base58 prefix P
p2sh Base58 prefix p
p2pkh Base58 prefix (hex) 0x37
p2sh Base58 prefix (hex) 0x75
Magic bytes \xe6\xe8\xe9\xe5
WIF prefix 0xb7
Genesis hash hex (big-

0000000032fe677166d54963b62a4677d8957e87c508eaa4fd7eb1c880cd27e3
endian)
Genesis hash bytes (little- \xe3\x27\xcd\x80\xc8\xb1\x7e\xfd\xa4\xea\x08\xc5\x87\x7e\x95\xd8\x77\x46\x2a\xb6

endian) \x63\x49\xd5\x66\x71\x67\xfe\x32\x00\x00\x00\x00
Genesis tx hash hex 3c2d8f85fab4d17aac558cc648a1a58acff0de6deb890c29985690052c5993c2
\xc2\x93\x59\x2c\x05\x90\x56\x98\x29\x0c\x89\xeb\x6d\xde\xf0\xcf\x8a\xa5\xa1\x48\
Genesis tx hash bytes
xc6\x8c\x55\xac\x7a\xd1\xb4\xfa\x85\x8f\x2d\x3c
Default port 9901
Default RPC port 9902
BIP44 coin type 0x80000006
bech32 prefix pc
Testnet
Attribute Value
Attribute Value
p2pkh Base58 prefix m or n
p2sh Base58 prefix n
p2pkh Base58 prefix (hex) 0x6f
p2sh Base58 prefix (hex) 0xc4
Magic bytes \xcb\xf2\xc0\xef
WIF prefix 0xef
Genesis hash hex (big-

00000001f757bb737f6596503e17cd17b0658ce630cc727c0cca81aec47c9f06
endian)
Genesis hash bytes (little- \x06\x9f\x7c\xc4\xae\x81\xca\x0c\x7c\x72\xcc\x30\xe6\x8c\x65\xb0\x17\xcd\x17\x3e\x

endian) 50\x96\x65\x7f\x73\xbb\x57\xf7\x01\x00\x00\x00
Genesis tx hash hex 3c2d8f85fab4d17aac558cc648a1a58acff0de6deb890c29985690052c5993c2
\xc2\x93\x59\x2c\x05\x90\x56\x98\x29\x0c\x89\xeb\x6d\xde\xf0\xcf\x8a\xa5\xa1\x48\
Genesis tx hash bytes
xc6\x8c\x55\xac\x7a\xd1\xb4\xfa\x85\x8f\x2d\x3c
Default port 9903
Default RPC port 9904
BIP44 coin type 0x80000006
bech32 prefix tpc
Transaction format
Peercoin transaction format is indendical to a Bitcoin transaction format with the exception of included
transaction timestamp.
Property Description Bytes
Version transaction version number 4
Timestamp transaction timestamp 4
Input-counter number of transaction inputs 1-9
List of inputs list of transaction inputs varies
Output-counter number of transaction outputs 1-9
List of outputs list of transaction outputs varies
block number or Unix timestamp when the transaction

Locktime 4
finalizes
As of Peercoin 0.11, timestamp is no longer required and transaction format is exactly the same as Bitcoin.
The only exception is that version is now 3 .
Version transaction version number 4
Input-counter number of transaction inputs 1-9
List of inputs list of transaction inputs varies
Output-counter number of transaction outputs 1-9
List of outputs list of transaction outputs varies
block number or Unix timestamp when the transaction

Locktime 4
finalizes
Bootstrapping
What is it?
In computer technology the term (usually shortened to booting) usually

refers to the process of
loading the basic software into the memory of
a computer after power-on or general reset, especially
the operating
system which will then take care of loading other software as needed. 9.1
For Peercoin it means loading all of the block chain history from a special
file containing a snapshot of
block data.
This special file, named bootstrap.dat , allows the Peercoin client to

sync from your hard drive instead
of the internet. Using a
bootstrap.dat file is faster and reduces stress on the Peercoin network to
sync new nodes.
How do I make a bootstrap.dat?
Any synced client has the ability to make a bootstrap.dat file. Assuming
you're running linux you can
do the following to manufacture your own.
First, shutdown your client. Allow it to cleanly exit so we know
the block
data is settled.
Now, navigate to the directory ~/.peercoin/blocks in your terminal and

notice the files named
blk00000.dat , blk00001.dat , blk00002.dat , etc.
These are the raw block data files that can be
combined to form the
bootstrap.dat !
The command:
will produce the bootstrap.dat .

The file is often then compressed (zip'ed, tar/gzip'ed) and shared.
The same process can be executed on Microsoft Windows (7+):
CD C:\Users\<my_user>\AppData\Roaming\Peercoin
COPY /b blk0001.dat+blk0002.dat bootstrap.dat
Or on OS X:
cd "~/Library/Application Support/Peercoin/"
On linux and OS X you can create hash of the bootstrap:
sha256 bootstrap.dat
How do I use a bootstrap.dat?
Assuming you're on linux and you haven't started the Peercoin client before.
Make the directory ~/.peercoin if it doesn't exist and then move the
bootstrap.dat into the
~/.peercoin directory.
Start the Peercoin client. You should see the status Importing blocks from disk... if the client has
found the bootstrap.dat and is using it to
sync the block chain.
Where can I download a bootstrap.dat?
We've put some recent copies on our file server :)
• Mainnet bootstrap.dat.zip SHA256

66c494e0c2a4c78ba19f14a3781ca77f1b8b16f3833fb85c10959ee991764a4c | torrent | magnet
• Mainnet bootstrap.dat.tar.gz SHA256

bac807186735347e2c7ccbfecb3d91045de32246258a7ba3e3d0a9c2a10b8ff0 | torrent | magnet
• Testnet bootstrap.dat.zip SHA256

1312aaaf0d8466b6f7006bac60a5cad4daf36e1241f791924e45bc5959ff2452 | torrent | magnet
• Testnet bootstrap.dat.tar.gz SHA256

15f0e40a7e99083b2ed27c78d37d0f201fd6c744537cf643925d0aae84395896 | torrent | magnet
Footnotes
9.1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bootstrapping
Marketing
Graphics
A variety of Peercoin graphics are available here: https://github.com/peercoin/media
Brand Identity
Please use these color codes on your Peercoin related websites whenever possible. This will help us keep
the Peercoin ecosystem and its branding and visuals consistent.
Green:
#3cb054
RBG: 24, 69, 33
CMYK: 66, 0, 52, 31
White: #ffffff
The Peercoin text logo uses the following font:

Font: FF Mark
Type: Mark-Medium
Website:
http://www.ffmark.com/
The Peercoin website and wallets use the Roboto font for its content.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is the Peercoin project?
Peercoin's chain started on August 19th, 2012 at 18:00:00 UTC. There was no premine and the launch of
the project was announced nine days before it went live. You can read the original announcement thread
here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=101820.0
How can I mine Peercoin?
Peercoin uses the SHA256 cryptographic hash function. Any hardware that can effectively mine Bitcoin
can be used to mine Peercoin.
Why a 1% minting return on staking? Why isn't there a hard limit on the total
number of Peercoin's? Doesn't this disqualify Peercoin as a deflationary
currency?
Peercoin has a 1% inflation rate to allow for participant determined growth over time. Fully deflationary
currencies cannot be used as mediums of exchange, but rather solely stores of value. By allowing for a
manageable inflation rate, Peercoin remains scarce while allowing for growth determined by participation.
This also helps offset coins that are removed from circulation through lost wallets or malevolent
destruction.
Why a fixed transaction fee?

Peercoin's fixed transaction fee filters out spam transactions which have damaged chains like Bitcoin. It
also allows for predictable sending fees, which may become rapidly unpredictable on chains where fees
can rapidly change leaving transactions in limbo for several days. This allows for first come, first serve
transactions as well. Peercoin is able to scale without worrying about valuation effecting the usability. In
version 0.7, the transaction fee is being lowered from 0.01 Peercoin to 0.001 Peercoin.
How can the Peercoin network survive without miners providing PoW security,
especially during times of low interest?
Proof of work serves to distribute coins through as an inflationary mechanism. The Peercoin network is
secured by coin age and proof of stake. With pure proof of work chains, holders have little ability to
secure the chain with the high cost of mining equipment being a barrier to entry. Any Peercoin holder can
protect their investment by allowing a transaction to mature and leaving the wallet open for minting
keeps the network secure and has done so since Peercoin's inception.
I just moved Peercoins to my wallet and it says I have a zero percent chance of
minting in the next 30 days. Why is that?
Peercoin transactions must mature 30 days or roughly 4320 blocks before they can become eligible for
minting. This number is updated roughly every six hours. Once the 30 day period passes, your coins will
become eligible and the minting probability should adjust accordingly.
How many confirmations are required on the Peercoin network for a

transaction?
Six confirmations for a transaction to be verified. Each block takes about 10 minutes.
I just minted some coins but it says they are unavailable at the moment. Why is
that?
Once a transaction mints, it takes 520 confirmations before these become unlocked. This is done to
prevent spoofed minting. Each block on the Peercoin network takes about 10 minutes and so it takes
5,200 minutes or around 3.6 days for the minted coins to become available.
Checkpoints
Checkpoints are chosen block heights for which the checksum is saved the Peercoin client. With the help
of checkpoints, your client is able to identify if it has downloaded the correct blockchain or if an attacker
attempts to provide it with a chain featuring "fake history".
Deep chain reorganizations
If a single miner has more resources than the entirety of the rest of the network, this miner could pick
an arbitrary previous block from which to extend an alternative block history, eventually outpacing
the block history produced by the rest of the network and defining a new canonical transaction
history.
This is called a “chain reorganization,” or “reorg” for short. All reorgs have a “depth,” which is the number
of blocks that were replaced, and a “length,” which is the number of new blocks that did the replacing.
Deep reorganizations of the blockchain can be result of an attack on the network, whether it's PoS or
PoW network. Just about 15h before this article is written there was an attack on Ethereum-Classic (a PoW
network) which resulted in rollback of some 100 blocks and multiple double-spend attempts. Read more
Checkpoints serve to protect the history of the blockchain and prevent deep chain reorganization. Most
of public blockchains use checkpoints, usually in the form of a "hardened checkpoints" which are hard-
coded in the source code of the client. No blockchain reorganization is allowed deeper than the last
known checkpoints.
Nothing-at-Stake
Deep chain reorganizations are theoretically easier to accomplish on a Proof-of-Stake system as an

attacker can fabricate the history "for free", this is commonly referred to as Nothing-at-Stake attack and is
probably the most criticized element of all the Proof-of-Stake systems.
As of time of the writing Peercoin uses both centrally broadcast checkpoints which are signed with the
developer's private key and hardened checkpoints encoded in the client itself.
Alternative public PoS
blockchains have approached the matter in somewhat different manner, like NXT and it's 720 block anti-
rollback protection, Decred with PoW based timestamping 1 and few alternative proposals like
checkpointing against the Bitcoin network by periodically etching messages into the Bitcoin blockchain.
We are confident that the Nothing-at-stake attack is orders of magnitude less likely to occur then it's
usually portrayed in the mainstream "blockchain" media.
It's incredibly expensive to construct and
organize the attack.
Why is Peercoin still keeping the checkpoints?
Checkpoints system is probably the most criticized design choice of Peercoin, frequently used to
undermine the project.
Common myth is that Peercoin concesus is not safe without the centralized checkpoints, but that is
absolutely not true.
As of version 0.2, centrally-broadcasted checkpointing is no longer a critical part of the protocol.

It's
purpose is to defend the network during the initial growth period, and to help ensure a smooth upgrade
path, however it was largely kept because of inertia and low interest for the Peercoin blockchain in period
between early 2015 and late 2016. The checkpoints exist solely as a security measure: if something terrible
were to happen, we have the checkpoints as a backup.
As of version 0.6 the official client allows for opting-out of the checkpoints entirely, while checkpoint
system itself will likely be obsoleted and removed after the process of re-basing Peercoin against modern
Bitcoin-core codebase is complete.
As of version 0.10 support for checkpoints has been from official Peercoin client.
Footnotes
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake#Criticism
Protocol versions (changelog)
Peercoin protocol versions do not represent Peercoin client versions, however client hosted at
www.github.com/peercoin/peercoin is considered Peercoin reference implementation.
Peercoin protocol
version are marked using the following format:
v{major_version}.{minor_version}
where:
• v is prefix (stands for "version")
• major_version is for capital improvements to the core concepts or complete redesigns
• minor_version is for evolutions of the protocol defined in the original whitepaper
v0.6
released: 25.10.2017
type: softfork
• BIP34: block height in coinbase
• BIP65: OP_CHECKLOCKTIMEVERIFY
v0.7
relased: 22.01.2019
type: hardfork
• rfc-0007
• rfc-0008
v0.8
relased: 29.07.2019
type: hardfork
• rebase to bitcoin-core 0.16.3
• Compact blocks support (BIP152) with upgraded protocol version to 70015
• HD wallet support (BIP32)
• rfc-0006
• mainnet fork is scheduled for 1st of October 2019, activating BIPS 62, 68, 112, 113 and 141
v0.9
type: hardfork
• RFC-0019: PoW Block Spacing
• RFC-0018: PoS Rewards Adjustment
• RFC-0017: Limit Effective Coinage to One Year
• RFC-0015: Reduce Time Drift
• allow staking=0 command to disable minting (nominting=0 also works)
• ability to filter out mint transactions in the QT wallet
v0.10
type: softfork
Rebased to latest Bitcoin-core codebase.
v0.11
type: hardfork
• RFC-0014: Remove Transaction Timestamp
• RFC-0022: Proof-of-Work reward cap
• make splitting coins during minting optional
Peercoin legal risks memo
The Peercoin Foundation has hired U.S. based attorney at law to estimate the position and the legal
treatment of Peercoin under U.S. Federal securities laws.
This is a digest of the delivered documents made for unofficial and public use.
You may refer to this document for educational and informative purposes.
Summary
In brief, Peercoin, though an innovation, is at very low risk of being classified as a security. Peercoin is one
of the original cryptocurrencies, there was never an
initial coin offering, premine or sale of coins and there
is/was no central authority or issuer. It is a decentralized p2p network based on a hybrid proof of work
and proof of stake algorithm. There is a very low risk the Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”), or
another regulatory agency or plaintiff would recharacterize Peercoin as a security.
Securities Analysis of Peercoin
1. Investment of Money
There was never an investment of funds to launch Peercoin such as a token sale or initial coin offering.
Peercoins are generated by the users validating transactions through the Hybrid Algorithm. Users secure
their own Peercoins and the Peercoin Network. Thus, the first prong of Howey is most likely not satisfied
as there was no initial coin offering or token sale. Peercoins were produced from the Hybrid Algorithm
since the first block of the Peercoin blockchain, which was 2012-08-19 at 18:19:16.
2. Common Enterprise
The Peercoin Foundation was legally established in 2017 by the Peercoin community, approximately 5
years after the Peercoin Network was launched.
The Peercoin Network did not require pooling of assets
and the Peercoin Foundation did not accept any bitcoin, ethers, virtual currency or fiat currency in
an
initial coin offering, token sale or premine. The purpose of the Peercoin Foundation is to advance the
Peercoin project.
The Foundation does not require anyone to send funds to us nor the Peercoin Network.
Specifically, the Network handles Peercoin transactions, balances and issuance through a hybrid SHA-256
proof-of-work scheme and proof-of-stake system designed to address vulnerabilities that could occur in
a pure proof-of-work system. No one party controls the peer to peer Peercoin blockchain network or the
Hybrid Algorithm.
The eventual success of the Peercoin project depends on the open-source Peercoin community.
Specifically, horizontal commonality likely does not exist because the Peercoin project existed before the
Foundation was established and the Network has been sufficiently decentralized for some time. Anyone
can run the Hybrid Algorithm to secure the Network. In addition the Foundation does not take custody of
any funds belonging to any Peercoin user or the Network.
Vertical commonality likely does not exist
because the Peercoin Foundation contributions are under the open source MIT License and the
Network/Peercoin community are not bound to the Foundation’s efforts.
3. Expectation of Profits from the Efforts of Others
As per section 1 and 2 above, there was not an initial coin offering or token sale and likely not a common
enterprise. The Peercoin project is an open network
that anyone can contribute to at any time by
dedicating their compute power to run the Hybrid Algorithm to secure the Peercoin Network. Only if
compute power
is dedicated to secure the Peercoin Network, can a party receive fees in Peercoin, very
similar to the Bitcoin network. Peercoin was inspired by bitcoin,
and it shares much of the source code
and technical implementation of bitcoin. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the “CFTC”)
stated
that “Bitcoin and other virtual currencies are . . . properly defined as commodities.” The CFTC’s
position bolsters the likelihood that Peercoin would
not satisfy the final prong of the Howey test, as an
item cannot both be a commodity regulated by the CFTC and a security regulated by the SEC.
Peercoin
and the Network existed without an issuer or promoter receiving capital from third parties in an initial
coin offering, or any other offering or token sale.
While it is possible for investors to speculate on the market rate of Peercoin, any profit derived from
market speculation is based on the success of the open
source Peercoin community or other events
exogenous to our efforts.
Pseudonymous users created Peercoin and like Bitcoin, the identity of the
person(s) who started Peercoin is unknown. It is a community based project of which its success depends
on the community, of which anyone can join.
Thus, the Peercoin would likely not satisfy the final prong of
Howey.
Conclusion
Since there was never an initial coin offering or token sale with the expectation of profit derived from
others, Peercoin likely fails the Howey test and therefore does
not constitute a security.
Press Mentions
• 30-JAN-2019 - Bdratings - Peercoin — An Old Tardigrade
• 11-MAR-2018 - Bitfalls - Peercoin Explained: The Proof of Stake Pioneer
• 10-DEC-2014 - Investopedia - The 5 Most Important Virtual Currencies Other Than Bitcoin
• 19-JUL-2014 - CoinReport - A Little Altcoin Sanity: Peercoin
• 19-JAN-2014 - CoinTrader - Could Peercoin and “Proof-of-Stake” Turn Bitcoin Into The Myspace of C
ryptocurrency?
• 29-NOV-2013 - HITC - Nine bitcoin alternatives for future currency investments
• 29-NOV-2013 - VICE Motherboard - Beyond Bitcoin: A Guide to the Most Promising Cryptocurrencie
s
• 24-NOV-2013 - New York Times - In Bitcoin’s Orbit: Rival Virtual Currencies Vie for Acceptance
• 20-NOV-2013 - WSJ - Fastcoin? Peercoin? Bitcoin Opens Door to New Currencies
• 20-NOV-2013 - Forbes - So What's So Special About Bitcoin?
• 19-NOV-2013 - CNBC - Who needs bitcoin? Check out these virtual currency alternatives
• 18-NOV-2013 - GeoffTalk - Crytocurrencies and Hayek’s Competing Currencies Have Come to Life
• 27-SEP-2013 - 比特时代 (btc38) - 网友点评分析：虚拟货币“八大金刚”排座次
• 26-AUG-2013 - Bitcoin Magazine - What Proof of Stake Is And Why It Matters
• 23-AUG-2013 - Let's Talk Bitcoin - The Archetypes of Virtual Currency
• 22-AUG-2013 - The Mises Circle - The Problem with Altcoins
• 02-AUG-2013 - Coder Blog - Technical Basis of Digital Currencies
• 29-JUL-2013 - Make Tech Easier - 4 Popular Bitcoin Alternatives and How They Compare to Bitcoin
• 15-JUL-2013 - CoinDesk - Bitcoin developer Jeff Garzik on altcoins, ASICs and bitcoin usability
• 26-JUN-2013 - Bitcoin Magazine - Coinsetter: Will a Better Virtual Currency Make Bitcoin Obsolete?
• 25-JUN-2013 - The Guardian - Bitcoin's successors: from Litecoin to Freicoin and onwards
• 24-JUN-2013 - The Mises Circle - The Proof-of-Work Concept
• 13-JUN-2013 - Mercator Advisory Group - Alternative Currencies: Is There Staying Power?
• 10-JUN-2013 - The Daily Dot - Beyond Bitcoin: A guide to the new digital currencies
• 09-JUN-2013 - Tom's Hardware - All About Bitcoin Mining: Road To Riches Or Fool's Gold?
• 07-MAY-2013 - BTC Pedia - How To Mine PPCoin (PPC) With Your PC
• 07-MAY-2013 - Wired UK - Wary of Bitcoin? A guide to some other cryptocurrencies
• 06-MAY-2013 - Techcitement - Digging Deeper Into The Bitcoin Mine
• 23-APR-2013 - golem - Alternativen zu Bitcoin
• 23-APR-2013 - t3n - 3 Bitcoin-Alternativen: Litecoin, PPCoin und Namecoin im Überblick
• 17-APR-2013 - Geek Park - 防贬值、抑通胀、低能耗——PPCoin 能超越 Bitcoin 吗？
• 16-APR-2013 - Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Drei Alternativen zu Bitcoin
• 15-APR-2013 - Gold Resource - Gold vs Bitcoin
• 15-APR-2013 - MIT Technology Review - Bitcoin Isn't the Only Cryptocurrency in Town

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11/2/21, 8:04 PM Peercoin Docs - Documentation of Peercoin Cryptocurrency

Feel free to navigate through any section of interest.

Peercoin Genesis: 2012

Comparison with other blockchain networks

Peercoin is secured by Proof-of-Stake consensus. Proof-of-Work uses energy as a scarce resource as

Proof-of-Work reward formula is: difficulty == (9999 / (mint per block)) ** 4

will feature a dynamic block size in the near future.

Block size limit and block time spacing

Features Bitcoin Peercoin Ethereum

p2p financial transactions / p2p financial transactions / Turing complete smart

Consensus algorithm: PoW PoS PoW

Active since: 2009 2012 2015

PoW block reward / PoS Initial Coin Offering / PoW

Limited, until 21M tokens

Fee market (~390 Static 0.01 PPC/kb (~0.2 Btc

Block time: 10 minutes 8.5 minutes 12 seconds

Block size: 1MB 1MB Dynamic

Extra transaction data size 80 Byte

limit: (OP_RETURN) (OP_RETURN) (5 gas / byte)

Topology: Public blockchain Public blockchain Public blockchain

Table 1. Comparison of Crypto currency attributes

The Peercoin Foundation

How to buy Peercoin

The Rock Trading

discussed at a later time.

The Rock Trading

Official client implementation

OSX: $HOME/Library/Application Support/PPCoin/

chmod 0600 peercoin.conf

Peercoin Core Wallet

As of April 2018, Peercoin has official Debian repository hosted at https://peercoin.github.io/deb-repo/.

Adding the GPG key

wget -O - https://peercoin.github.io/deb-repo/peercoin.apt.key | sudo apt-key add

Adding the repository in the sources

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb https://peercoin.github.io/deb-repo/ buster main' >>

sudo apt update

Installing the packages

sudo apt install peercoin-qt

Debian/Ubuntu Package Compilation Guide

Creating a New Address

Using the multisig

How to create a multisig address using QT wallet

In this example, we'll go over creating 2/3 multisig address.

That is it, now you have your 2/3 multisig address.

How to spend from the multisig address

Spending from the multisig via command line interface

"asm" : "OP_DUP OP_HASH160 9f99f0ec7288694065243d32bea766bf9a8d6021 OP_EQUALVERI

"asm" : "OP_HASH160 824524d69e3c8f2ea66e39af89727bc0e8d3de4b OP_EQUAL",

First signature of the transaction

Second signature of the transaction

Let's imagine that Alice refuses to sign the transaction.

Send the signed transaction to the network

How To Sign a Message Using the Peercoin Client

Congratulations, you have now cryptographically signed and verified a message!

What do you need:

• image downloaded from files.peercoin.net

• some spare time

Now follow the guide: https://www.stakebox.org/blogs/learn/getting-started-with-peercoin-stakebox.

Ledger Peercoin Tutorial

Peercoin Paper Wallet Guide

Save .txt locally

Unofficial client implementations

Airdrop focused wallet