There are different ways of designing proof-of-stake. Some of the designs do not require collecting large number of signatures. Our design will be made public by the coming Sunday so in due time we welcome the crypto-currency/Bitcoin community to examine our design.
From the whitepaper: The block chain with highest total consumed coin age is chosen as main chain. I'd have to think about it a lot harder than I'm willing to right now to be absolutely sure, but that seems like a mistake to me. If peers have to fetch inputs and compute coin age to determine whether or not a chain is longest then it seems like that could be leveraged into a denial-of-service attack. Because an attacker could do minimal proof-of-work (or proof-of-stake) but then broadcast a chain with JUST a little-less consumed coin age than the current best chain. Their chain will be rejected, but their peers will waste time figuring out that it should be rejected. Also note that Bitcoin does NOT use total proof-of-work-performed to determine the best chain; it uses total proof-of-work-target. That's deliberate; if it used proof-of-work-performed, then if you happened to get lucky and found an extremely small block hash you could hold on to it, build on top of it, and only announce your "more proof of work" chain when the network chain's work started to catch up with your secret chain. To avoid the potential problem raised by Gavin, you might consider a mixed proof-of-work, coin-age target. (see the proof of stake wiki for my outline of this) |
|
|
|
|
As I understand it, you are not distributing txn fees to proof-of-stake 'miners'. Instead, you are destroying txn fees. Is that right?
I am concerned that proof-of-stake miners may fail to include txns in the blockchain, since inclusion does not benefit them.
Also, as I understand it, you can contribute stake without necessarily submitting significant work to accompany it. There are two issues with this:
1) It make double-spend attacks easier because they no longer have meaningful hardware and electricity requirements.
2) Stake-owners might create alternate histories. i.e. Say I utilize aged coins at block t to mine a block. At block t-1, my aged coins still exist and can be used to mine another block. If I have nasty inclinations, I could utilize my aged coins multiple times and create several different branches at block t. Subsequent miners would not be able to easily distinguish which one of these branches is the "correct" fork and thus add to them all.
If you require significant work to accompany stake (e.g. by making the proof-of-work difficulty target a decreasing function of the aged coin stake accompanying the work), then you could avoid problem 2 entirely. I suspect that you could also substantially alleviate problem 1 as well. I believe that incorporating a significant proof-of-work submission would substantially increase the number of aged coins you need to successfully carry out a double spend (fixing the probability of success and the number of blocks you are trying to roll back).
I hope that you will look for ways to address double-spends without relying on the stop-gap measure of checkpoints. Checkpointing is quite unpopular. Incorporating a larger proof-of-work component and requiring people to wait longer to have confidence in the irreversibility of high-value sends might be a better solution.
Anyways, delightful to see a beta and I hope people will play around with attacking it.
|
|
|
|
I suppose you could require that a proof-of-stake have a small, limited number of signatures-- requiring that stakeholders maintain a small number of large-balance addresses. That's bad for privacy and security, though.
Privacy is not a issue here. Although you may use multiple addresses with smaller balance, the fact that they are signing the same block reveals their common ownership Security is a problem, even people may use multiple addresses with smaller balance. This actually requires stakeholders to put those private keys in a hot wallet. A possible solution is to have separate keys for block-signing and transaction-signing. We may use the transaction-signing private key to validate the block-signing private key. There even could be a "pooled proof-of-stake mining" model. A pool operator will publish a transaction-signing public key. Individual workers will sign this public key with their transaction-signing private keys (which link to BTC addresses with balance). When a block is found, the pool operator will sign it with the block-signing private key, and the contribution from his workers will be counted as proof-of-stake. The operator will then pay his workers based on their contribution. Each block will allow only one signature and that would also solve your DoS problem. Signatures for transaction-signing public key may be stored in the blockchain. The size would be similar to normal transactions and fee is required to prevent DoS. If the worker wants to withdraw from the pool, he may revoke his signature by sending another record to the blockchain, or simply draw all BTC from that address. For lost coins, however, such revocation is not possible. Therefore, all signatures should be expired in a pre-determined manner (e.g. valid for only 10000 blocks). The security issue raised by large balance hot wallets could be dealt with as follows: 1) Create special account used for signing blocks account restricted to two valid functions: 1) Sign blocks using coins in special account 2) Release coins in special account to user-specified normal account (specified address set permanently when special account is created) 2) Special account is held in hot wallet. 3) User-specified normal account is held offline. |
|
|
|
There are different ways of designing proof-of-stake. Some of the designs do not require collecting large number of signatures. Our design will be made public by the coming Sunday so in due time we welcome the crypto-currency/Bitcoin community to examine our design.
This is correct. The current wiki ( https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof_of_Stake) lists two designs; one with lots of signatures, the other with no signatures at all. There are many other potential ways of incorporating stake. It would be nice to hear what Sunny King implemented. Maybe add something to the wiki entry when you make the design 'public'? |
|
|
|
Well, if this is true. The CEO of BFL (or the VCs who may be able to replace him) can own the network at trifling cost and there is jack shit anyone can do about it. You deluded idiots and your precious decentralization. What a fucking joke.
Well, yes, sort of. This has always been true. Didn't have to be BFL of course, but it was obvious for a long time that owning the network was within the grasp of anyone with a decent amount of money who could get ASICs designed and manufactured. However, as several people have pointed out already, what you need to bear in mind is that even if this is true we don't know how many THash/s worth of chips BFL would need to sell in order to reach this kind of pricing. We can guess, though, and it's not likely to be a small amount. Once you factor in that and the resulting increase in difficulty those prices will probably look rather less attractive. Read more carefully. The most profitable approach is to sell units en masse while quietly building up a larger cache of personal units. The fact that they profit from selling units to customers in no way implies that they cannot profit from turning these units into paperweights after the market is saturated. That is what I would do. |
|
|
|
But isn't this exactly what Bitcoin needs.... when the blockreward is gone, the speed of confirmations is totally dependant on transaction fees. For Bitcoin to be able to compete with PayPal or Credit Cards the transaction fees should remain low compared to the transaction size. The only way to achieve this is when 'miners' have access to ASICs at almost cost price that use little to NO energy, else the network will come to a screeching halt for only idealists will help process transactions that are costing them money
There's No way the network will survive on GPUs wthout a blockreward, transactions would simply be too costly to process
It doesnt matter one yota if transactions are processed by a a handful of slow 100W CPUs or a gazillion 0.001mW ASICs. All that changes is difficulty, and arguably, security of the network, though that argument can go both ways. That is not completely true, difficulty only changes to keep the time constant in which a block is mined, it has got nothing to do with the amount of energy that is spent on it With ASICs being more energy efficient than a CPU (not to mention a GPU) by a magnitude of XXX (no idea what the numbers are) it is less likely for a transaction fee to be lower than the actual energy cost spent on processing the underlying transaction. As mining is now NOT profitable in some parts of the world on a GPU when a 50 BTC reward is attached to a block, imagine what it will be like if there's only transaction fees incorporated in a block. By that time there need to be solutions that cost next to nothing to purchase and use as little energy as possible.... No, P4Man is correct. |
|
|
|
There will not be an equilibrium until asic per GH market prices approach variable production cost, which is probably ~100x lower than these announced prices. How long that will take is what is completely unpredictable, unless you are BFL's CEO and no competitor will emerge. But if you think you can accurately predict price/difficulty 24 months from now, be my guest. I wouldnt dare bet if its 3x or 100x what it is now.
But isn't this exactly what Bitcoin needs.... when the blockreward is gone, the speed of confirmations is totally dependant on transaction fees. For Bitcoin to be able to compete with PayPal or Credit Cards the transaction fees should remain low compared to the transaction size. The only way to achieve this is when 'miners' have access to ASICs at almost cost price that use little to NO energy, else the network will come to a screeching halt for only idealists will help process transactions that are costing them money There's No way the network will survive on GPUs wthout a blockreward, transactions would simply be too costly to process Exactly what bitcoin needs is proof of stake, of course. |
|
|
|
Wrong. Prices of GPUs are relatively stable and predictable, since demand comes desktop users, gamers etc, same for FPGAs. Therefore bitcoin price/difficulty is currently fairly predictable. Difficulty wont suddenly go up 10x unless BTC prices do.
ASIC is completely different. Its market value per GH is determined solely by bitcoin price/difficulty. And that difficulty will be determined almost entirely by ASIC price/$. See the feedback loop? Then factor in the extremely low variable cost of an asic and perhaps you can see the problem.
There will not be an equilibrium until asic per GH market prices approach variable production cost, which is probably ~100x lower than these announced prices. How long that will take is what is completely unpredictable, unless you are BFL's CEO and no competitor will emerge. But if you think you can accurately predict price/difficulty 24 months from now, be my guest. I wouldnt dare bet if its 3x or 100x what it is now.
Nice. Their optimal pricing problem depends very heavily on how forward-looking consumers and how much consumers know about their marginal costs. I expect several rounds of price decreases to exploit myopic purchasers. It would be nice to know marginal cost, so we can have some guess about where difficulty would eventually settle. Is there a way of estimating their marginal costs based on those for comparable products in the ASIC industry? |
|
|
|
Also, just buying bitcoins might be a better move. Imagine when the difficulty starts to double, quadruple, 10x, 20x.... Miner will have fewer bitcoins to sell. Supply starts to shrink. Demand stays relatively the same [or increases after anything like QE3]. Econ 101.
I hope you either flunked or have never taken Econ 101. If not, your instructor deserves a caning. |
|
|
|
If BFL made just one of these, they could earn $40k per week as 1/15th of the current network, so why sell them?
Why not sell them? Assume that you control less than half of mining power and sell units for at least double the marginal cost of production. When you sell one unit, you use the associated profit to pay for one unit for company use. Continue doing this and the company will end up controlling exactly 50% of the network, the associated capital cost will be passed on to customers who control the other 50%. Alternatively, you could not sell any units and incur all of the capital cost of obtaining 50%. IF you're running a business, why would you throw money away like this? Perhaps the question should be: why will customers buy them? As long as there is just one competitive hardware supplier, this supplier can expropriate their customers' mining investments at discretion. Why is BFL offering trade-ins? Likely they realize they stand to gain more from safeguarding their reputation for the time being because the market is far from saturated. Now they are much better positioned to drive all GPU owners out and sell units en masse. Once the market is saturated, there will be no value left in preserving their reputation. Then, assuming they are good businessmen, they will expropriate. |
|
|
|
|
Well, if this is true. The CEO of BFL (or the VCs who may be able to replace him) can own the network at trifling cost and there is jack shit anyone can do about it. You deluded idiots and your precious decentralization. What a fucking joke.
|
|
|
|
But, sorry, I don't believe that these models take such complex side effect into account.
Clearly, you didn't read the article carefully enough. Question: Is your broken window "fallacy" hypothesis falsifiable using empirical data? It is not a hypothesis. It is an economic argument http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_windowIf not, then it is pseudoscience. If it is falsifiable, then it is science. It is that simple. Its not that simple. I would agree that the Austrians, in methodological considerations, overemphasize the case against quantitative measurements in economics. But in fact they also make falsifiable predictions - for example they predict the economic failure of socialism. By the way I'm not an Austrian, similar to http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/whyaust.htm except that I have a higher opinion about the Austrian theory of the business cycle than Caplan. I don't disagree that they make falsifiable predictions (but doesn't almost all pseudo-science). However, the issue is with the pseudo-scientific reliance on confirmation rather than refutation. If we are right, then it confirms our predictions. If we are wrong, well our theory does not admit empiricism. The person you link to (as primarily representing your views) actually seems pretty sensible and therefore I feel like I am not being fair to you. Sorry about that, I will save my abusive language for people more deserving. |
|
|
|
But, sorry, I don't believe that these models take such complex side effect into account.
Clearly, you didn't read the article carefully, since it discusses models incorporating fully optimizing forward-looking agents (i.e. agents who anticipate that deficit spending implies an increased future tax burden and therefore increase their current savings accordingly) As for your example, if you find a way of defining "harmful", "speculation", and "fair price" so that they are objectively measurable, then these terms can be part of a scientific theory. As these words are commonly used, they are not objectively measurable and thus are not going to yield falsifiable predictions. As always, the psuedoscience/science distinction boils down to whether a theory generates predictions that can be falsified through empirical tests/ Question: Is the broken window "fallacy" falsifiable? If not, then it is pseudoscience. If it is falsifiable, then it is science. It is that simple. Has any Austrian economist tried to refute the broken window fallacy using empirical data... |
|
|
|
But, sorry, in comparison Keynesian macroeconomics is much more pseudoscience. It is simply the broken window fallacy transformed into a theory.
I think you are referring to the hypothesis that increasing the gov't budget deficit increases short-term GDP growth. This is a difficult and unresolved empirical question. Here is a review which describes the modern scientific literature on the subject. http://relooney.info/0_New_11268.pdfRegardless of your interpretation of the evidence (it's mixed), the term pseudoscience does not apply. Pseudoscience rejects or accepts hypotheses irregardless of empirical evidence. The psuedoscientific approach is only advocated by Austrians. |
|
|
|
The rejection of cardinal utility follows from the subjectivist methodology.
Why do Austrians mull over 70 year-old debates instead of engaging with contemporary economics? |
|
|
|
The video describes the use of experiments in development economics. These are analogous to randomized trials in medicine. They both aim to establish an empirical basis for solving problems, based on reproducible, randomized trials. Evidence-based approaches to economics are explicitly rejected by the Austrian school. Would you trust a doctor who rejected evidence-based medicine? If not, then why would you trust an Austrian economist? |
|
|
|
I am an economist. You are exactly right. Austrian = pseudoscience. The local inhabitants have a high school level understanding of economics (if that) and are adamantly opposed to learning more. Ron Paul should be an embarrassment. When people promote Ron Paul, I can only think of my 1 year-old removing her diaper and playing with the contents.
Your posts would be considered more seriously if you provided actual arguments rather than the childish behaviour you're exhibiting. I find it particularly problematic if you use an ad hominem while simultaneously claiming your opponent is unscientific. Austrian economics explicitly rejects the scientific method. It relies on deductive reasoning, but explicitly rejects mathematical deductive reasoning. If you want to call that science.... fine. You can have your faith-based anti-math whatyamacallit, and I'll take the scientific method. PS Go back to your compound, you home-schooled, gun-wielding, bible-reading piece of shit. |
|
|
|
You didn't learn about austrian economics in school? We didn't spend a ton of time on it, but econ was a required high school course for me.
Jesus Christ! They teach Austrian economics in school! Where? Who can I report these bastards too? Bet your school schedule looked like this.... 9-10 Austrian Economics 10-11 Intelligent Design 11-12 Chastity-Based Education 12-1 Gun Safety 1-2 Civil War Revisionism 2-5 Opening Day of Hunting Season -> kids have afternoons off to kill game |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
