PascalCoin

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Pascal Coin (PASC) is a decentralized virtual currency presented without an ICO, and positioning itself as an altcoin for people, not creators.

Contents

Description

Pascal coin (sometimes written as “Pascalcoin”) (PASC) is a proof-of-work cryptocurrency that introduces new cryptographic structure called Safebox. It was developed by Albert Molina and Herman Schoenfeld. Developers announced the coin on August 12, 2016. The codebase is written in the Pascal programming language and is open source. This crypto had no premine or ICO. The main idea behind the development was to simplify the usage of cryptocurrency for the average user.

By implementing the Safe Box, Pascalcoin aims to develop a Visa-like network with a theoretical limit of transactions speed close to 72 000 transactions per second. It provides users with a simple account name (e.g. 12345-54), making it easier to use than classic cryptocurrencies.

PascalCoin plans to implement a hashing algorithm called Random Hash to power its proof-of-work. It is a low-memory GPU- and ASIC-resistant hash algorithm. It is developed to provide users with CPU mining, which is the most egalitarian way of mining. Approachability of the CPU and difficulties related to cost of building CPU mining ASICs make the cryptocurrency suitable for the mass adoption. However, current hashing function of the Pascal coin is SHA2- 256D.

The architecture of the Pascal coin makes it possible to develop a second layer on top of it. That is a foundation for smart contracts, sidechains and monetized APIs. The roadmap of the project mentioned the establishment of the POS-based layer on top of the current network.

Pascal coin may be used both for the secure transactions and public transactions. Users are offered to link a name/email/company name to the account and receive transactions of data, currency and so on, directly to the account of the Pascal coin network.

The development of the coin is active, developers performed many commits in September and October 2018.

Here are technical specifications of the coin:

  • Max supply is 42 million coins
  • Hashing function is SHA2- 256D
  • Block time is 5 minutes
  • Block reward is 40 PASC

PascalCoin Price

The live PascalCoin price is available on COIN360 widget:

Technology

The developers managed to achieve the main goal of the project — PascalCoin does not save the history of operations in the network, but transfers all the information to a new cryptographic structure. New blocks are placed in a special SafeBox storage, which has each individual secret key. Each account is synchronized with other nodes. Each subsequent wallet created is a p2p node.

The Safe Box is a technology that manages a ledger balance. The developers of The Safe Box as a spreadsheet. Each row of the spreadsheet represents an account (PASA – Pascal account) and each column indicates some property of that account (i.e. PASC balance, public key, etc).

To contain all the necessary data PascalCoin uses the SafeBox where it places all the current account balances and blocks connected as a blockchain. Pascal Coin uses an interesting feature to achieve high scalability. In the network of Pascalcoin, blocks are deletable past the checkpointing height of 100. Checkpoint is a compressed SafeBox archive and is stored in the blockchain. It means that in every taken moment of the functioning of the Pascal сoin network there is not more than 100 blocks necessary to maintain the network. When the new node starts participating in the network, it only has to download the latest checkpoint and several blocks, making it much more comfortable to use than other cryptocurrencies.

The accounts in the SafeBox are grouped in segments. And the SafeBox contains a checksum created as an aggregate hash of all Account Segment hashes. This value is known as the SafeBox Hash and is attached after the last Account Segment in the SafeBox. Each new SafeBox references the previous one in order to be valid. However, blocks in the blockchain are not directly linked to the previous blocks. Blocks are referencing the SafeBox Hash, that is linked to the previous block via the account segments stored in it.

Safe Box helps to perform something like a blockchain pruning, by deleting unnecessary blocks from the network, making it lighter and easier to work with.

According to the developers, the maximum size of the SafeBox is up to 500 MB.

Complete safety from double spending is preserved: investors do not need to wait for confirmation of payments for small purchases. Cryptocurrency is able to work with the same amount of memory for an unlimited amount of time. Every 100 blocks are removed, new blocks created always move to the end.

A special feature of PascalCoin is that the investor will not be able to create an account on his own. It can only be earned by mining PASC or received as a gift from the participants. If someone manages to get 1 block, he receives 5 new accounts, one of which earned coins. The remaining 4 can be donated or sold.

Advantages and disadvantages

As the creators of the cryptocurrency are quite financially successful people, it is conditionally possible to consider that this project was not created to get-rich-quick. This information is common to most services that provide information about the virtual currency. Speaking about the advantages of PASC, note:

  • The lack of a clear premine and ICO.
  • Availability of a basis for large contracts (second level architecture).
  • Only the owner of the SafeBox account has access to the Account. It contains the key and the account balance. The size of the SafeBox is always under control.
  • Fast synchronization.
  • Short, easy to remember addresses.
  • Possibility to return lost coins (but users should wait for 4 years).

Among the shortcomings for some users are the lack of russified interface of the official site. For example, a detailed WhitePaper cannot be appreciated precisely because of the lack of translation. There are three main disadvantage of the virtual currency:

  • The need for long mining to get an account, or the need to buy it, the price range varies from 0.5 to 1 USD.
  • The presence of the wallets for Windows and Linux only.
  • High equipment requirements for mining coins, a meager number of pools.

About a year ago it was reported that the unique, according to the creators, principle of Pascal Coin, is a model used for a long time by BitShares.

Where to buy

It is possible to buy Pascal Coin on several cryptocurrency exchanges – Poloniex, BKEX, QBTC, SimpleSwap.

PascalCoin Wallets

There is an option to use a wallet on Poloniex online. Pascal coin has its wallet software, which can be downloaded from its official website. It is available for Windows, Linux and Android. Wallets for the Mac OS and iOS are under development.

Pools

So far only 2 PascalCoin pools have been created: Coinotron and Nanopool. With regard to Nanopool, a minimum payout of 5PASC is offered for 110 new confirmed blocks. Users can get coins on the wallet, and immediately on the exchange. However, Nanopool has most of the hashing power and is discouraged to use due to the possible decentralization.

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See Also on BitcoinWiki