Bitcoin Forum

https://forum.stanford.edu/events/2015davidmarzieresinfo.php


Any comments?

Just that this probably belongs in the Altcoins subforum and that I still wouldn't touch Ripple or Stellar with someone else's bargepole.  Just can't seem to shake the shady impression I get from them.  Plus the fact that their whole approach is to jump in bed with the banksters first and worry about what's best for everyone else later.  Yuck.

It doesn't belong to Altcoins subforum. They say that Bitcoin security is weak because it's unknown who miners and what their intents are.

I actually think it should reside in the Altcoin Subforum as well TBH. Stellar is a clone of the Ripple Source code with modifications, just like Altcoins: Litecoin/Darkcoin etc.

Their is no way that storing value on Stellars Network is more Secure than the storing that value on the Bitcoin network currently. The cost to weaken Stellars Network and the cost to weaken Bitcoins network are not comparable. Stellar's Coin Distribution is a bit better than I actually thought it would, after looking at their information online. However their currency appears too be centrally distributed and determined by some central authority other than 6% of the currency. (50% for the world via the direct signup educational program, 25% for nonprofits to reach underserved populations via the increased access program, 20% for the bitcoin program, 5% for operational costs and their is a fixed 1% inflation rate so your Stellar depreciates in value overtime.)

I think Doomad is right, we are just seeing 'Altcoins' with larger funding these days. I remember a year or so back these altcoins did-int have any companies/money behind them and most petered out quickly. I have a sinking feeling we are just now starting to see some of these massive overfunded scam coins come to fruition, Paycoin was a recent one I saw some newbies jump into thinking that its something innovative/new.

Another piece of information to anyone still reading, Stellar is created by an ex Mt. Gox employee, who knows, with Stripes involvement/funding it might actually be a moderately successful altcoin and end up like: Litecoin, Monero, Ripple, etc. and satisfy some need.

Edit: I had no idea Stellar was a fork of Ripple, thought it was a fork of Bitcoin.

It's not about Stellar. "First provably safe" implies that security of Bitcoin is questioned. Anyway, I noted your opinion, next time I'll be more explicit in an OP.

1. It's not the first of anything, it's the 600-somethingth altcoin.

2. Miner anonymity is a security strength, it's by design! Stellar is reinventing the wheel by making it square. Awful.

3. This belongs in the altcoins subsection.

This!

If its not about Stellar, can you make sure to remove the Bright Red Text marked "Stellar" Seems like your advertising that consensus protocol over Bitcoins.

I emphasized it intentionally so readers won't be confused by thinking that it's about Bitcoin.

So it's NOT about Bitcoin. It doesn't belong in the Bitcoin Discussion subforum.

Yep, flag it for the mods.

Is Stellar using a decentralized consensus mechanism? What I heard is that Stellar is distributed but decentralized.

I explained why it's about Bitcoin. I don't have ELI5 version, sorry.

Tell me the definition of "decentralized" and I'll answer your question. Different people have different meaning of "decentralized" and quite often confuse it with "distributed".

Why would this surprise you? Researchers that are influenced by the government say that Bitcoin security is weak. We lose quite a nice amount of decentralization if we knew who mines and why.
No, I don't think that this should be in the altcoin section either. Obviously it's a subtle attempt at undermining the security of Bitcoin.

In a decentralized p2p network, every node is equal in term of right and authorization and no node is superior to other nodes. In a distributed network, some nodes are special and have more right and authorization than other nodes.

There was a fork about half a year ago and the devs denied anyone else the opportunity to run a node to deal with it. Although I don't know what happened afterwards it was a centralized network for a while.

http://cointelegraph.com/news/113073/stellar-switches-to-centralized-system-after-node-issue-causes-accidental-fork

According to your definition Bitcoin is not decentralized, it's distributed. There are nodes that mine bitcoins and nodes that don't. The former can decide if one particular transaction can be included into the next block while the latter can't.

What did they change about Ripple that makes this one provably safe but Ripple not provably safe?

That is, what is the added safety feature that makes it safer than Ripple?

Or are they really saying that Ripple's protocol is provably safe so theirs also is?

-MarkM-

I noticed that the thread was moved to Altcoins. Not surprising, the moderators always do their best to keep critics of Bitcoin away of the main page...

I don't know the details. But I liked how they striked Bitcoin back by claiming that they are more decentralized than Bitcoin because in Bitcoin we can't choose who the validators are. An average bitcoiners actually has no a choice at all, he was just lucky when Deepbit and GHash.IO didn't abuse their power when they were controlling 51% of it.

#

normally here are tons of fanboys of stellar - maybe they can explain

Well... I'm sure they twiddled a few bits here and there, and I guess they spent the effort to prove that Stellar's federated byzantine agreement protocol is safe, first. :P

So the users choose who to trust. It's not centralization and it isn't resource testing, so I guess that is why you are interested. Does this open up a sybil attack angle?

I set up 1000 nodes, trade between myself, maybe even run a business. Other users look to my nodes for what is the 'right' chain. I do that for a while (12 months?) and then turn bad and double spend.

I guess you could wait until a large enough economy has built up where there are many large public bodies operating to mitigate this.


(Is this really about Economic Clustering?)

Folks at stellar love to say lots of shit without backing them up with facts. Where's the white paper? They're just trying to create buzz for their dying currency.

I've checked marketcap dynamics of Stellar and Bitcoin, the former is more alive.

lol it definitely isn't more alive than bitcoin. stellar markets are as illiquid as they get.

It is probably true that there is at this moment some level centralization for every crypto-coin to achieve the necessary security due to the limitation of the current technology. I guess that the difference is that some have higher level centralization than he others, and some cryptos prototype their centralization in the beginning and the some other cryptos form their centralization during the developing of their ecosystem after the launch. I guess that eventually the winners will be whoever are more efficient.  

Does it differ from the Ripple protocoll now ?

What always put me off about the Ripple protocoll is that validators have to trust each other and that those trust-lines have to be set manually.
Not only do validators need to trust each other, users also have to set trustlines to actually start using Ripple.
I mean sure that'll most likely make the network very secure since noone can just come an spread false data but it just doesn't right. It's not really decentralized either.

It still looks decentralized if you managed to pick validators that won't collude.
It's more secure because in Bitcoin a successful attack will invalidate some transactions, in Ripple/Stellar the attack will only break consensus putting the network on hold. What would you prefer - to see your money goes to another wallet or to see that system stops working?

Would picking validators be left up to the user or form part of the protocol?

The former.

The code and whitepaper have finally been released now by the way: https://www.stellar.org/blog/stellar-consensus-protocol-proof-code/

Thanks for posting it !