Bitcoin Forum

The PoW mechanism used by major cryptocurrencies today, is known to become extremely centralized over time. This is attributed to the formation of mining pools which control most of the cryptocurrency's hashrate. If there was an efficient method to prevent this from happening, then PoW would've achieved a greater degree of decentralization over time. I've seen solutions like BetterHash and even Magi's M7M algorithm, but they're not perfect.

Which is why, I'm starting to wonder what is the most effective way to prevent mining pools? This I want to know, since I'm deeply interested in launching a cryptocurrency that takes decentralization in mind. Any recommendations or suggestions will be highly appreciated.

it is already discovered - POS. a lot of wallets distributed over the world,  full decentralization.
there is no other way to make it work, imho

or there is - I know that when the new coins is born it is possible to mine it solo not with the pool.
so in order to remove pool you may start the coin, which would accept from one ip address fixed hashrate say from one CPU and no more.
no matter how many gpus or asic you have, the hashrate from one IP is fixed, such system could be decentralized I think

what about spreadcoin?
been a while since i looked at that old coin, but w.e they do works
as it dosent have pools, solo only, for YEARS, so it must be possible

Yes Spreadcoin, that sure brings back memories. As far as I remember it was very effective at preventing any mining pools.

Here is the official ANN,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=715435.0

There is a whitepaper there which discuses the details on how it prevented pools from running. From what I can tell they needed some private key from coinbase transactions and it wasn't possible to use a pool.

Unfortunately it looks like the project might be dead according to the price,
https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/spreadcoin/

lol ell that to all those that deposit their income on a exchange, that exchange is centralized THAT pos mining coin, SPREADCOIN is not immune to pool, the owner of a pool can just let the miners sign the block, and would look like a p2pool or something

An inevitable fate for any coin that tries to be exclusive.

PoS works like a charm, but it also has its issues. There's the "Nothing at Stake" problem, and the "rich becoming richer". I guess that there's no system that's perfect. What matters is that decentralization is preserved in the highest degree possible. I came across a cryptocurrency called "Magi" (XMG) which makes use of a PoW algorithm called "M7M" which reduces the chances of profit for mining pools. The higher the network hashrate is, the lower the block reward will be. There will be no concerns of a 51% attack though, since the cryptocurrency has adopted a hybrid model for consensus (PoW + PoS). Maybe this will be an ideal model for my future cryptocurrency. But I'll keep looking for the best solution out there, in order to minimize (or eliminate) mining pool's influence on the Blockchain. :)



I'm surprised to see an old altcoin with a unique model for preventing mining pools, not getting the attention it deserves today. I believe that it's the only cryptocurrency that has successfully eliminated mining pools in their entirety. This is good for the decentralization and censorship-resistance of the Blockchain. It would be great if Bitcoin would've adopted such model in order to reduce the chance of a 51% attack by Bitmain. But this would require a hard fork, which I doubt it'll reach consensus among greedy miners within the industry.

All in all, I hope that Spreadcoin would experience a "resurrection" in development and innovation in order to increase mainstream adoption like never before. I think that I'll be using this one for my own crypto project. Thank you for this! :)