Not right at the moment - but it soon will be.

This will actually make it possible via the use of an AT (Automated Transaction or "Turing complete transaction") to create yourself a "savings account" which after being created won't even require you to have your computer on to earn extra NXT (depending upon your stake of course).

Okay - let's imagine two chains (and think of the numbers after each letter as being "weight"):

A(100) B(10) C(50) = 160 (total weight)

A(50) B(200) C(100) = 340 (total weight)

So although A(100) is better than A(50) once we have B(200) and C(100) added to it then it is of no use for A(100) to "suddenly appear".

Thus if you are going to "game the system" you need to be sure that you can win the game. Without collusion you will not achieve this.

The whole point of being able to "lease" your forging right would mean that a pool can't do that (effectively you end up with no pools otherwise).

Pools are not a bad idea as to achieve the high TPS we are wanting we are most likely going to need them.

Okay - so let's say that the best ticket for the next block should be #12345 and you have #12344 and someone else has #12346.

If #12345 is not transmitted then nodes will accept your ticket or the other ticket instead (remember that each node in the network can't *see* everything at once so both you and the other node after a certain amount of time waiting to see #12345 decide it isn't going to appear and "try your luck").

So your node will send out #12344 and the other node will send out #12346. The network is happy to build on one of those new chains (lets assume that the "lower" ticket closest is always the best) so now #12346 will be "penalised".

It hasn't hurt the network - it is fine to keep on building with your #12344 but it has now hurt #12346 as they can't forge for a day.

Also network latency makes it impossible for you to be sure whether in fact #12345 has been sent or not (due to timing it may well have but your slow internet connection means that you didn't see it on time).

So if #12345 actually had been broadcast but both you and the other forger just didn't see it quickly enough then now you are both penalised.

This is where you're misunderstanding things - although there is always a "best ticket" out there we can accept one that is "close enough" if we see it (this is why a lot of people are going to get penalised as they will be saying "try my ticket" but the network will end up choosing another "better ticket" as the best ticket was sent out after yours and others decided to pick it instead of yours).

The stake holder with the best ticket may not bother forging or assigning his/her forging rights to a pool.

So the network will *always* have another block to pick from so your "not forging" is not likely to "disturb" the network at all. The threat is that you and a band of conspirators are building a secret "best chain" offline ready to replace the last X blocks (i.e. the >50% attack).

Yes - this is also my opinion - so although I can see it might be useful as an "extra insurance" against possible collusion I am worried that it result in "less forging nodes" as those who only have 1 account and find themselves constantly being penalised are likely to prefer to allocate their forging rights to a pool rather than get frustrated.

As I stated to "game the system" you need a huge amount of forging power as you need to be able to create "multiple" blocks behind peoples back in order to have any hope of winning against those "playing fairly" (remember that the longest chain with the best tickets is the winner every time - so if enough honest players are out there then it would be rather hard to beat them).

So for a small player there doesn't seem to be much reason for the penalty (as there would need to be many such small players "in on" the deal to try and help with a fork) - with regards to the larger players it does make some sense (as an "extra" insurance).

IMO it isn't necessary to do it this way but I don't know the *exact* details of this TF so it is hard to be certain.

Secretly trying to create an alternative blockchain "behind our backs" would require a lot of collusion (although this does depend upon just how many pools we end up with).

I can see if we ended up with only a very small number of pools that controlled the vast majority of forging power then you would have a very real potential threat but if our forging power is spread much better than that then I don't see it is an issue (it would require a lot of different parties to collude and the chances of that would become lower according to the number of said parties).

Another idea does spring to mind though - maybe we should "only apply the penalty to forgers controlling more than x% of the stake" (unless we are worried about collusion happening between potentially thousands of smaller forging nodes). This would protect against the largest stake holders colluding whilst giving smaller stake holders more incentive to forge.

The most important thing we have to consider here is the "health of the network".

Yes - it is part of BCNext's TF *plan* but IMO it isn't *necessary* and could actually harm the network health.

If you "do not forge your block" when your turn is supposed to be now (and which I understand applies to 3 or 4 nodes at the same time under TF) then you cannot forge for the next 1440 blocks.

Not unless everyone was doing that - under TF you are expected to have 3 or 4 nodes "competing" to forge for every block (and thus 2 or 3 are being penalised).

The incentive to forge is to make fees so it makes very little sense to "not forge" (I know at the moment we have many blocks with zero fees but I don't expect that to be the case down the track).

It won't matter whether they forge or not (others will) so no need for a penalty IMO.

Understand that when TF is completed you can expect to be penalised often as you will normally be competing with 3 or 4 other nodes (at least that is my understanding).

I know that I am simply going to be putting my NXT savings into an interest bearing AT (which I am going to write of course) which invests in a pool (with the ability to switch pools via an AM) rather than bother running a node myself (although in the long term I will probably end up investing in some hardware as well).

Another issue that I think needs to be carefully considered is the "penalty" for not forging.

I don't see it as being necessary in that any advantage of "not forging" would require significant amount of collusion IMO to be of financial benefit (maybe someone with some math skills can work on this).

And where I see it as being problematic is that our little hobbyists are quite likely to just switch off their forger for a day if they get penalized. It may even piss them off enough to "give up forging" once again potentially hurting our network.

So in summary I think that we "don't need it" and IMO we would be better off without it.

This makes a lot of sense.

Just to let you guys know that I have now created a Project on CIYAM Open for Nxt AT (https://ciyam.org/open/?cmd=view&data=20140224094608613000&ident=M100V136&chksum=eafb491f).

Any funds donated to the Project's (sorry but indeed it is a Bitcoin) address will be forwarded *under my control* to Project Tasks (so if you don't trust me then do not send funds to that address).

Another address can be found under the Project Area "General" (the only area at this stage) here: https://ciyam.org/open/?cmd=view&data=20140224094608613000&ident=M100V136&chksum=eafb491f and any funds sent to that address will be forwarded under Klee's control to Project Tasks.

There are no tasks created yet but that will come soon and if the funding committee are interested in creating Bitcoin addresses for any Project Tasks then they will be in charge of forwarding those funds to the successful "dibber".

Don't know what a "dibber" is? Just go to https://ciyam.org/open and read the blog entry.

I think it is going to be profitable for a few pools mostly and I predict that in the future most forging power will be locked up in ATs that act as "interest bearing accounts" (http://ciyam.org/nxt/nxt_dormant.html).

It is up to the community to make sure that we don't just end up with a small number of pools and a few hundred hobbyists.

It is up to the community as a whole to think about this potential threat (as that is all it is btw) and decide whether we are wanting to make technical changes or to simply work out practical ways to protect our network.

To paraphrase something that CfB said to me: "BCNext gave us a knife - it's up to us not to accidentally cut ourselves".

You need powerful computers to handle 1000+ TPS (a little Raspberry Pi isn't going to be handling large numbers of transactions even though it can forge) and this figure is not "pure marketing" but the very *point* of TF (i.e. BCNext's *plan*).

If it is just a "marketing slogan" then I'd vote to dump TF now as we might be better off without it.

The question is "forging with what"?

If let's say 100 powerful machines are shut down by an authority and the majority of stake holders are "rich old men" who aren't that technically savvy then you are now running a network of maybe a few thousand desktop computers (or even less powerful devices) that are run by hobbyists and that is not going to do 1000+ TPS.

I am not saying the network would *die* but that it would be *seriously damaged* in terms of the TPS it could process and that in itself could cause *panic*.

You have completely missed the point - once our "much hyped" 1000+ TPS has been slowed down to 10 TPS people are going to dump NXT and run (making the network even more fragile) rather than "go out and by a powerful computer to help restore the network" and that could turn out to be a catastrophic event.