I think this is enough about network security, it has become irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I believe it's far easier to hack discus fish and ghash.io's web server, than to get 51 delegates to click on your malicious link and somehow you obtain their private node device access thru this link. You may believe differently, that's fine. Again, pools being hacked has happened many times in reality. 51 Bitshare delegates being hacked simultaneously has not happened. I will leave the discussion at this fact.
They don't need to be hacked simultaneously. Once one of them is compromised it is easy to compromise the other half of delegates. Very few people change their passwords often or use unique passwords for everything. Most peoples security is laughable. Even many computer geeks have flawed security behaviors as good security is tedious and time consuming. It is likely that some of them are already partially or completely compromised as we speak. Yes, lets move on because I also agree with you that Bitcoin is vulnerable as well. I don't see how hacking one delegate can lead to all other delegate being hacked, since I am actually one of Bitshares 101 delegates, and I have no information regarding other delegates, they are all anonymous to me. |
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These again, requires the person to actually click something, how do you get them to click on something is your first obstacles.
Even security experts are tricked into clicking on a link by accident from time to time. You are very mistaken into not realizing how vulnerable we all are when connected to the WAN. This is why I and other professionals use "sneakerware" security. Also the delegate's web browsing device is probably not even the same as their node device, which means all your phishing efforts might be useless.
Once one computer is infected than everything is vulnerable. A worm can travel and infect any device connected on your LAN and any thumb drive and external that is briefly connected to your infected machine. Even if you use an encrypted password manager a hacker can grab screenshots, viewing your copy paste history , or a key logger and will find all your passwords. You are done. I think this is enough about network security, it has become irrelevant to the discussion at hand. I believe it's far easier to hack discus fish and ghash.io's web server, than to get 51 delegates to click on your malicious link and somehow you obtain their private node device access thru this link. You may believe differently, that's fine. Again, pools being hacked has happened many times in reality. 51 Bitshare delegates being hacked simultaneously has not happened. I will leave the discussion at this fact. |
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Just have a look at the OP's post. The moment it hypes that altcoin he does hype he looses all credibility. First of all: One cannot consider investment in equipment as "money bleed". Go mine gold or uraniun without proper equipment investment... And, indeed, the Bitcoin network if perfectly fine with PoW. If, and only IF, there's any imbalance going on the network itself is able to regain its equilibrium, naturally. Learn: the economic equilibrium for the mining rate is reached when global electricity costs for mining approximate the value of mining reward plus transaction fees
Except even when coin supply is depleted, Bitcoin will still need to maintain the PoW expense, otherwise the network will become laughablely easy to attack. So it's not a valid comparison. This is more like if you hold gold, a 10% tax is charged every year, perpetually. |
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having OS security patches doesn't mean you can be hacked while firewalled. Mostly these vulnerabilities happen under a very specific scenario, mostly requiring you to visit a malicious website or use a specific application/setting.
Yes, and many hackers have a tool bag of exploits they can execute at their disposal when one fails. How do you hack 51 delegate's private computer without knowing their IP address, even assuming their computer all have vulnerabilities?
Their are many ways to hack the delegates without knowing any IP addresses: phishing attacks , creating malicious sites or landing pages that exploit 0 day vulnerabilities in java/javascript/flash/pdf/ect..., finding a flaw within bitshares itself, and how about starting by targeting these people: http://bitshares.org/community/team/All one has to do is compromise one of them and the rest are easily compromised afterwards. These again, requires the person to actually click something, how do you get them to click on something is your first obstacles. Hacking discus fish or ghash.io doesn't require the site admin to click anything, a newly discovered PHP/Apache/Mysql vulnerability may cause both of them to be hacked at the same time, since they already broadcast their IP and offers a route of entry. Also the delegate's web browsing device is probably not even the same as their node device, which means all your phishing efforts might be useless. I don't see how compromising one of bitshares developer's computer does anything. Also, again you'd need to find their IP address first or get them to click on something malicious you own (which I don't think you will be very successful at in a techie community). |
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See the difference now? you can't even obtain my private PC's IP address, without some serious big effort, probably NSA level surveillance is needed. Then you need to somehow attack my firewalled PC that does not offer any service to the outside, which is actually not as easy as you think, it's probably nearly impossible to do so.
What are you talking about? Why does a hacker even need to know your IP before you are compromised? Your computer is full of security vulnerabilities. Why do you think it is constantly being patched? All someone needs to target you is your email address or to know what sites you prefer visiting. How do you hack 51 delegate's private computer without knowing their IP address, even assuming their computer all have vulnerabilities? having OS security patches doesn't mean you can be hacked while firewalled. Mostly these vulnerabilities happen under a very specific scenario, mostly requiring you to visit a malicious website or use a specific application/setting. Otherwise you could just pick a random IP address and hack into it? of course not, the reality is your private firewalled computer is very much safe even when you are connected to WAN, as long as you don't install virus/trojan yourself. |
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Any service that offers web server access, is automatically less secure than my private firewalled computer. (assuming I don't install trojan/viruses myself).
This proves you don't understand network security. Reality: When comparing your computer connected to the WAN to a server connected to the WAN they are both as secure as they are designed to be. "automatically" doesn't even enter into the discussion. Most servers are locked down far more than either OSX or Windows OS's even with firewalls. They have to be as they are more valuable targets. Most Bitcoin hot wallet "hacker attacks" are likely inside jobs where outside hackers are blamed for internal theft. lol, let's compare again: Web server: 1. IP address automatically revealed to the world 2. actively offers web access to the world, which is the route of entry for majority of internet based hack attacks. Private PC: 1. IP address can not be easily obtained 2. firewalled, no port will offer access from the outside See the difference now? you can't even obtain my private PC's IP address, without some serious big effort, probably NSA level surveillance is needed. Sure my computer is connected to the WAN, but how do you know this computer is mine? there's billions of devices connected to the WAN. Even if you somehow got my IP address, then you need to somehow attack my firewalled PC that does not offer any service to the outside, which is actually not as easy as you think, it's probably nearly impossible to do so. On the other hand, a web server actively broadcasts its IP address, and also actively offers a route of entry into the server by port 80, and possibly FTP too. Therefore, it's automatically less secure than my private PC, got it now? |
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Hack attack on DPoS:
* compromise the private and probably firewalled computers of 51 de-centralized delegates, WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. I can't even imagine how you would be able to obtain the IPs of these 51 delegates.
Hack attack on Bitcoin PoW:
* hack discus fish and ghash.io, (both offer web server access). and... done
discus fish and ghash.io probably have much better security than those 51 delegates but that is besides the point. The point is I agree that bitcoin is vulnerable, and that's why I repeatedly have claimed your suggestions would be 1 step forward and 2 steps back in the long term. you are introducing new attack vulnerabilities when we should focus on fixing bitcoins known existing vulnerabilities. What we need is a much larger and diverse pool of nodes and a much more diverse pool of miners that aren't using cloud mining or non-p2p pools. Any service that offers web server access, is automatically less secure than my private firewalled computer. (assuming I don't install trojan/viruses myself). It would be a big challenge for you to even find my real IP. (hint my forum ip is not my real ip, so hacking this forum does nothing) |
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The irrefutable argument about PoS:
A big business/nation/alliance/conglomerate etc. can start a MasterPal/DinersCharge/BricBux/EuroDAQ coin and market it as a PoS. Anyone can do it. All it takes is financial or political power to launch a PoS copy of your favorite flavor of pre-mine and market it. We already saw what marketing can do for copycat coins with Doge. Just wait until the big boys want to clone your pet PoS that you invested in development. They will take your code and not even say 'thank you.' They will put their brand on it and control it according to the regulations that they paid lobbyists to write. The genie is out of the bottle and there is nothing you can do to stop them from kicking sand on your puny little NXT or PPC.
oh sure, since it's too difficult to copy PoW, they will only copy PoS instead. Makes sense. |
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Except, in PoW, you don't even need to lease/buy/hijack 50%, you need roughly 10% of Bitcoin marketcap value to buy enough hardware to 51% attack Bitcoin. Basically if you could simultaneously hack discus fish and ghash.io, you could 51% attack Bitcoin today, right now.
You are referring to pools being attacked. Miners can easily switch their machines to a different pool in the event the pool was to be hacked, or they could solo mine. If someone were to lease enough hashpower to launch a 51% attack then your attack would no longer be effective once your lease is up. In order for a 51% attack to be effective an attacker needs to control 51% of the network for extended periods of time otherwise the "attack blocks" can simply be ignored Except ghash.io owns most of the hardware mining on the pool thru cloud mining, and discus fish is soon to offer cloud mining too. |
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Delegates are still voted in by stake, stakeholders could simply vote them out instantly if they are compromised (though good luck compromising 51 de-centralized delegates), Bitshares makes this a very fast and simple process. No attacker would be dumb enough to target the Delegates. They would still target the stakes.
Doesn't really matter how many stakeholders are hacked (just like Bitcoin, if you get hacked, you lose your coin), since the hacker is now the new stakeholder, even if a hacker controls 51%. The dis-incentive to attack is built in. Why would you attack the eco-system you hold 51% stake in? and destroy its reputation and value, and in the process destroy your own wealth??? it goes against human nature. (and again, good luck hacking enough stakeholders to get 51% stake, unless big stakeholders somehow are all morons, they will make it impossible for you to hack)
You are making the flawed assumption that delegates or stakeholders will be aware they are compromised. If they aren't aware than an attack can happen at any moment or could have already happened. Do you understand that there are ways to cheat in a DPoS framework without immediately arising suspicion that the protocol is compromised? Again you are making up these nearly impossible scenarios which PoS can be attacked, which I already told you, I agree PoS CAN be attacked ok? but it's much more difficult than PoW!!! Let's compare: Hack attack on DPoS: * compromise the private and probably firewalled computers of 51 de-centralized delegates, WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE. I can't even imagine how you would be able to obtain the IPs of these 51 delegates. Hack attack on Bitcoin PoW: * hack discus fish and ghash.io, (both offer web server access). and... done |
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If anything, I would think being bigger makes it much more difficult to attack.
No, with Bitshares because of centralization hacker only need to target delegates regardless of the size of DPoS market cap. Except, in PoW, you don't even need to lease/buy/hijack 50%, you need roughly 10% of Bitcoin marketcap value to buy enough hardware to 51% attack Bitcoin. Basically if you could simultaneously hack discus fish and ghash.io, you could 51% attack Bitcoin today, right now.
Sure, but with Bitcoin you have to buy or manufacture the equipment and spend the time and money setting up the large mining farms , and spend electricity to fake 1-3 transactions. With PoS or DPoS all you have to do is hijack or hack the centralized keyholders without actually spending any money or resources. Who knows how many Bitshares keyholders or Nxt large shareholders are already compromised at this moment. Delegates are still voted in by stake, stakeholders could simply vote them out instantly if they are compromised (though good luck compromising 51 de-centralized delegates), Bitshares makes this a very fast and simple process. No attacker would be dumb enough to target the Delegates. They would still target the stakes. Doesn't really matter how many stakeholders are hacked (just like Bitcoin, if you get hacked, you lose your coin), since the hacker is now the new stakeholder, even if a hacker controls 51%. The dis-incentive to attack is built in. Why would you attack the eco-system you hold 51% stake in? and destroy its reputation and value, and in the process destroy your own wealth??? it goes against human nature. (and again, good luck hacking enough stakeholders to get 51% stake, unless big stakeholders somehow are all morons, they will make it impossible for you to hack) Like I said, you can make up these scenarios about PoS all day long, just like I could make up these for PoW too. The difference is, your scenario doesn't actually happen in reality, and my PoW scenarios does happen. |
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Gaven's response was basically "they aren't big enough yet". I can't really see the logic behind "being bigger makes it easier to attack". Tiny PoW altcoins gets 51% attacked all the time, even sizable PoW like Dogecoin gets 51% attacked several times, while the biggest ones Bitcoin and Litecoin never got attacked.
If anything, I would think being bigger makes it much more difficult to attack.
PoW alts are very vulnerable because any mining pool or large miner can easily create a 51% attack for a brief moment and than point their resources miners back to securing litecoin or bitcoin . PoS can be attacked by either covertly leasing, buying or hijacking the 50% of the original stakeholders assets. This takes time and an organized effort, thus the bigger these currencies get the more incentive their is to fund such an effort. Except, in PoW, you don't even need to lease/buy/hijack 50%, you need roughly 10% of Bitcoin marketcap value to buy enough hardware to 51% attack Bitcoin. Basically if you could simultaneously hack discus fish and ghash.io, you could 51% attack Bitcoin today, right now. PoS CAN be attacked, of course I agree, but it's still much more difficult to attack than PoW, therefore it's a better alternative to PoW. Buying 51% stakes in a PoS will cost you astronomical amount of resources, while buying hardware to 51% a PoW is easy and won't push up price. I have already explained all of these points earlier in this tread. Again, you have to question why these attack theories doesn't happen to PoS altcoins in reality, but does happen to PoW altcoins. "Not big enough yet" is not the answer, I assure you. |
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This is a great theory, but still doesn't explain why it haven't happened in reality. You can make up scenarios and theories all day of "what may happen", but when it doesn't actually happen in reality, you have to question your theory, not question reality.
Gavin already addressed your question about why it hasn't already happened in reality. The fact that an attack has yet to occur historically is no way to design a secure protocol either. The fact that you are even using this as an argument shows you aren't serious about security or PoS flaws. Yes, in Network and Information security one must analyze and prepare for all hypothetical attack vectors. This is the reason most Bitcoin proponents who understand Information Security still suggest Bitcoin is "fragile", 7k average active nodes is too few, and how they would prefer other implementations like libbitcoin to exist alongside Bitcoincore that interact with the blockchain. Gaven's response was basically "they aren't big enough yet". I can't really see the logic behind "being bigger makes it easier to attack". Tiny PoW altcoins gets 51% attacked all the time, even sizable PoW like Dogecoin gets 51% attacked several times, while the biggest ones Bitcoin and Litecoin never got attacked. If anything, I would think being bigger makes it much more difficult to attack. |
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Enlighten me then, why is it that when PoS is taking over in Peercoin, and checkpointing is fading out at the same time? I can only form a logical conclusion of PoS don't need checkpointing from my observation.
You aren't addressing the cited flaws in the research paper. Here it is if you fear clicking on the link: What is wrong with this mechanism for consensus? On a high level, by tying our stake to (temporarily) sacrificed cryptographic resources, we are begging the question of consensus on who is in possession of what resources. Proof of stake advocates attempt to evade this accusation by pointing out that false histories can only be created by stakeholders, and their power is limited to a short interval of time (the time when they are the chosen signers) during which they are incentivized not to do so. Therefore conflicting histories simply will not appear, and we can appeal to synchronicity of the network to obtain consensus on the one existing history. The problem with this argument is simple: the “short interval of time” is only short as mea- sured by the consensus history, which only corresponds to a short interval in real time if there exists a consensus history. So we are still begging the question. In fact, if a stakeholder later
irreversibly sells his stake for some resource outside the system (e.g. at an exchange), he no
longer has incentive not to fork the history (or worse, expose his keys and let others fork the
history) at the point in consensus time when he had control.This is a bit abstruse. We can illustrate it with an example. Suppose that at some early point in consensus time, a single person has the ability to extend history. (For example, they have control over every key which a new block is required to be signed by.) This may have happened organically, if this person’s keys were chosen randomly by the stake-choosing algorithm, but it could also happen if this person tracks down the other keyholders and buys their keys. This may happen much later in consensus time (and real time), so there is no reason to believe these keyholders are still incentivized to keep their keys secret. Alternately, they may have revealed the keys through some honest mistake, the chances of which increase as time passes, backups are lost, etc. Now, we have a consensus history and an attacker who is able to fork it at some early time. To actually replace the entire consensus history, he needs to produce an alternate history, starting from his fork, which is longer than the existing history. But every block needs a new random selection of signers, so is this possible? The answer is absolutely yes: we have been using this word “random”, but in fact we have required consensus on the set of signers (otherwise forks would trivially happen), so even a random selection must be seeded from past consensus history. Therefore, an attacker with enough past signing keys can modify the history he has direct control over, causing future signer selections to always happen in his favour. (It is likely he needs to “grind” through many choices of block before he finds one which lets him keep control of the signer selection. In effect, he has replaced proof-of-stake with proof-of-work, but a centralized one.) Further, this ability to control the future selection of stakeholders (and even the set of stake-holders, by controlling which transactions appear in blocks) has serious consequences. This is because even without a deliberate attacker, the signers who extend the history at every point have an incentive to direct the history toward one in which they have more stake (and there- fore more reward), which causes the system to trend toward centralization. They may do this by skewing the stake selection of future blocks, or more insidiously by censoring transactions which (may eventually) increase the set of stakeholders. This is a great theory, but still doesn't explain why it haven't happened in reality. You can make up scenarios and theories all day of "what may happen", but when it doesn't actually happen in reality, you have to question your theory, not question reality. BS. They are all protected by centralized checkpoint. There's no checkpoints in Bitshares, users will be able to opt out checkpoints in Peercoin 0.5, and I don't know enough about NxT checkpointing to comment. |
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Enlighten me then, why is it that when PoS is taking over in Peercoin, and checkpointing is fading out at the same time? I can only form a logical conclusion of PoS don't need checkpointing from my observation.
You aren't addressing the cited flaws in the research paper. Here it is if you fear clicking on the link: What is wrong with this mechanism for consensus? On a high level, by tying our stake to (temporarily) sacrificed cryptographic resources, we are begging the question of consensus on who is in possession of what resources. Proof of stake advocates attempt to evade this accusation by pointing out that false histories can only be created by stakeholders, and their power is limited to a short interval of time (the time when they are the chosen signers) during which they are incentivized not to do so. Therefore conflicting histories simply will not appear, and we can appeal to synchronicity of the network to obtain consensus on the one existing history. The problem with this argument is simple: the “short interval of time” is only short as mea- sured by the consensus history, which only corresponds to a short interval in real time if there exists a consensus history. So we are still begging the question. In fact, if a stakeholder later
irreversibly sells his stake for some resource outside the system (e.g. at an exchange), he no
longer has incentive not to fork the history (or worse, expose his keys and let others fork the
history) at the point in consensus time when he had control.This is a bit abstruse. We can illustrate it with an example. Suppose that at some early point in consensus time, a single person has the ability to extend history. (For example, they have control over every key which a new block is required to be signed by.) This may have happened organically, if this person’s keys were chosen randomly by the stake-choosing algorithm, but it could also happen if this person tracks down the other keyholders and buys their keys. This may happen much later in consensus time (and real time), so there is no reason to believe these keyholders are still incentivized to keep their keys secret. Alternately, they may have revealed the keys through some honest mistake, the chances of which increase as time passes, backups are lost, etc. Now, we have a consensus history and an attacker who is able to fork it at some early time. To actually replace the entire consensus history, he needs to produce an alternate history, starting from his fork, which is longer than the existing history. But every block needs a new random selection of signers, so is this possible? The answer is absolutely yes: we have been using this word “random”, but in fact we have required consensus on the set of signers (otherwise forks would trivially happen), so even a random selection must be seeded from past consensus history. Therefore, an attacker with enough past signing keys can modify the history he has direct control over, causing future signer selections to always happen in his favour. (It is likely he needs to “grind” through many choices of block before he finds one which lets him keep control of the signer selection. In effect, he has replaced proof-of-stake with proof-of-work, but a centralized one.) Further, this ability to control the future selection of stakeholders (and even the set of stake-holders, by controlling which transactions appear in blocks) has serious consequences. This is because even without a deliberate attacker, the signers who extend the history at every point have an incentive to direct the history toward one in which they have more stake (and there- fore more reward), which causes the system to trend toward centralization. They may do this by skewing the stake selection of future blocks, or more insidiously by censoring transactions which (may eventually) increase the set of stakeholders. This is a great theory, but still doesn't explain why it haven't happened in reality. You can make up scenarios and theories all day of "what may happen", but when it doesn't actually happen in reality, you have to question your theory, not question reality. |
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I am not the best person to discuss the technical details here, but how do you explain PoW altcoins are easily 51% attacked to death. But then PoS altcoins all avoided this fate, and most of them (the non scammy ones), works and works well. Clearly when put in a equal competition (altcoins), the PoS system came out on top in an equal competitive environment (without early start advantage etc...).
I think we'll see non-clone coins being broken after two things happen: 1. They become valuable enough for attackers to bother, and there is some way for them to cash out. 2. The attackers have some time to do what they need to do to mount an attack-- write code, deploy botnets, hack into some big exchange(s), get their hands on some early-adopter's wallet backups, or whatever. Once the tools and techniques are developed, then I think we'll see what we see in PoW 51% attacks: attacks against even mostly-worthless clonecoins, because if they've already got the tools then they might just attack for the lulz. I'm surprised you count peercoin a PoS success-- they're still running with centralized checkpoints, aren't they? In peercoin 0.4 (current available version), yes still checkpoints. Though Sunny King has stated in 0.5 (future version coming out soon, hopefully), checkpoint will become optional and user can opt out checkpoints. Btw, at least 90% PoW altcoin use checkpoints too, otherwise they get instantly 51% attacked to death. Actually I think having checkpoints in Peercoin is due to the PoW part of the network. Since PoS is now taking over in Peercoin, producing majority of the blocks, checkpoints is no longer needed.You THINK? Please read and learn the basic knowledge on this topic before you think. I'm quite sure you didn't read the article I cited, or you simply don't care and just want to promote the coins that you have invested in. Enlighten me then, why is it that when PoS is taking over in Peercoin, and checkpointing is fading out at the same time? I can only form a logical conclusion of PoS don't need checkpointing from my observation. Btw, am I pumping Peercoin now? lol, I guess if you mention any altcoin in a discussion, you are pumping it... I have no fxxking connection with PPC's dev. How do I know their intention? You should ask them to provide a reason, not me. Then there's nothing to discredit my conclusion. The document from Gavin does explain "potential scenarios" where PoS may fail. But still it does not explain why PoS haven't failed in reality, not a single one of them failed, even the scammy ones. Non of them were 51% attacked successfully. I can think of multiple scenarios where PoW will fail too, and a ton of PoW altcoin has indeed failed due to these scenarios in reality. |
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I am not the best person to discuss the technical details here, but how do you explain PoW altcoins are easily 51% attacked to death. But then PoS altcoins all avoided this fate, and most of them (the non scammy ones), works and works well. Clearly when put in a equal competition (altcoins), the PoS system came out on top in an equal competitive environment (without early start advantage etc...).
I think we'll see non-clone coins being broken after two things happen: 1. They become valuable enough for attackers to bother, and there is some way for them to cash out. 2. The attackers have some time to do what they need to do to mount an attack-- write code, deploy botnets, hack into some big exchange(s), get their hands on some early-adopter's wallet backups, or whatever. Once the tools and techniques are developed, then I think we'll see what we see in PoW 51% attacks: attacks against even mostly-worthless clonecoins, because if they've already got the tools then they might just attack for the lulz. I'm surprised you count peercoin a PoS success-- they're still running with centralized checkpoints, aren't they? In peercoin 0.4 (current available version), yes still checkpoints. Though Sunny King has stated in 0.5 (future version coming out soon, hopefully), checkpoint will become optional and user can opt out checkpoints. Btw, at least 90% PoW altcoin use checkpoints too, otherwise they get instantly 51% attacked to death. Actually I think having checkpoints in Peercoin is due to the PoW part of the network. Since PoS is now taking over in Peercoin, producing majority of the blocks, checkpoints is no longer needed.You THINK? Please read and learn the basic knowledge on this topic before you think. I'm quite sure you didn't read the article I cited, or you simply don't care and just want to promote the coins that you have invested in. Enlighten me then, why is it that when PoS is taking over in Peercoin, and checkpointing is fading out at the same time? I can only form a logical conclusion of PoS don't need checkpointing from my observation. Btw, am I pumping Peercoin now? lol, I guess if you mention any altcoin in a discussion, you are pumping it... |
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I am not the best person to discuss the technical details here, but how do you explain PoW altcoins are easily 51% attacked to death. But then PoS altcoins all avoided this fate, and most of them (the non scammy ones), works and works well. Clearly when put in a equal competition (altcoins), the PoS system came out on top in an equal competitive environment (without early start advantage etc...).
I think we'll see non-clone coins being broken after two things happen: 1. They become valuable enough for attackers to bother, and there is some way for them to cash out. 2. The attackers have some time to do what they need to do to mount an attack-- write code, deploy botnets, hack into some big exchange(s), get their hands on some early-adopter's wallet backups, or whatever. Once the tools and techniques are developed, then I think we'll see what we see in PoW 51% attacks: attacks against even mostly-worthless clonecoins, because if they've already got the tools then they might just attack for the lulz. I'm surprised you count peercoin a PoS success-- they're still running with centralized checkpoints, aren't they? In peercoin 0.4 (current available version), yes still checkpoints. Though Sunny King has stated in 0.5 (future version coming out soon, hopefully), checkpoint will become optional and user can opt out checkpoints. Btw, at least 90% PoW altcoin use checkpoints too, otherwise they get instantly 51% attacked to death. Actually I think having checkpoints in Peercoin is due to the PoW part of the network. Since PoS is now taking over in Peercoin, producing majority of the blocks, checkpoints is no longer needed. |
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I don't like PoW precisely because I'm heavily invested in Bitcoin. Would you be happy if your 401k account charges you 10% expense each year? This is what PoW is costing Bitcoin owners
Certainly, and I will even admit that many of your criticisms are valid. What you fail to address properly is the innate weaknesses with PoS and DPoS however. This isn't about that though.... the real question is why you are still mostly invested in BTC and claiming that "PoW is dead" and pumping Bitshares? Why don't your actions match your rhetoric? If it is costing you get out and we will soon follow if Bitshares is superior. I don't think you understand. Why would I get out if I'm still confident that Bitcoin will rise up? but my point is, for example, this year Bitcoin could have had a 20% increase in value, but with the PoW cost dragging it down, you are looking at a much smaller increase in value. But my investment would still increase in value, why would I get out instead of attacking the problem that is dragging my investment returns down? Bitshares still has a long way to go to overtake Bitcoin, 3-4 years minimum, there's no hurry to get into Bitshares, I'm already invested in Bitshares anyway. If Bitshares does overtake Bitcoin, my current investment in Bitshares is more than enough to give me insane returns. |
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Is there a rebuttal from the PoS crowd to this: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf... other than "sure, the original PoS ideas were flawed, but the latest MegaUberPoS system gets it right and nobody has figured out exactly how to break it!" I am not the best person to discuss the technical details here, but how do you explain PoW altcoins are easily 51% attacked to death. But then PoS altcoins all avoided this fate, and most of them (the non scammy ones), works and works well. Clearly when put in a equal competition (altcoins), the PoS system came out on top in an equal competitive environment (without early start advantage etc...). Currently top 6 marketcap: 1. Bitcoin (PoW) (early start) 2. Litecoin (PoW) (early start) 3. Ripple (not PoW nor PoS, possibly a scam) 4. BitsharesX (PoS) (DPoS) 5. NxT (PoS) (possibly scam distribution) 6. Peercoin (PoS) (PoW initial distribution) |
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