Previously, the code was using big rational numbers for work values which
resulted in carrying way too much precision around (and ultimately a lot
of extra memory and computation to carry that precision). This commit
converts the work values to big integers and calculates them with integer
division. This is acceptable because the numerator is multiplied by 2^256
which is higher than the maximum possible proof of work. Therefore
anything after the decimal is superfluous precision for the purposes of
chain selection.
Also, add a check for negative difficulty values when calculating the work
value. Negative values won't occur in practice with valid blocks, but
it's possible an invalid block could trigger the code path, so be safe and
check for it.
Rather than converting the proof of work limit to its compact
representation multiple times during operation, do it once at package
initialization time and export it via the chain parameters.
This commit modifies the code to use params based on the active network
which paves the way for supporting the special rules and different genesis
blocks used by the test networks.
