Thank you!

Actually that's more than I thought there would be.. (Using the smaller 28% figure..) 14.1% of the TOTAL supply of a currency, is still a very large number.. (More than Satoshi has in BTC..)

Err.. Is that why all the POS-ers are ignoring my question about how many 'Mining Coins', as a percent, they realistically think will be used mining a POS coin ? I have asked twice now..

The 51% POS attack, would never actually require 51% of the total supply, as many people seem to think. Just 51% of the Mining Coins.. and this will be a lot smaller.. just not sure how much smaller.. and it may still prove to be large enough to be considered unattainable.

Third and final time : Anyone ?

@Come-From-Beyond : I would love to know the percent used on NXT ? I'm sure no-one knows more than you on this topic ? (Except BCNext - if that's not you anyway..  ).. Or you Daedelus - you're well informed on POS matters ?

@koubiac - Hi, how many 'Mining Coins' do you think will be used, realistically,  as a percent of the whole ?

POS vs POW!!

Again!!!

hmm..

I did ask a few question in the Neucoin https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1003488.0 thread but no answers were forthcoming..

For me, there are issues with POS that many choose to ignore, or are ignorant about, simply because they think POW is wasteful..

I repeat :

1) Much is made of the 'wasted' and 'costly' electricity used to run the POW mining rigs.. People seem to think this number can increase 'INDEFINITELY' and somehow consume ALL the power in the world. LOL. This simply is not the case. The miners will spend what they can make from mining, they can't spend more.. or go out of business. The Market will determine what this will be. Personally, I don't see it as an issue, at all. The amount of energy Bitcoin mining uses is literally PEANUTS in the bigger scheme of things.  

Can someone explain a couple of POS queries.. ?

2) What if all the coins in a POS system are distributed evenly, the dream!, so that there are very few, if any, whales. Everyone thinks they have an insignificant amount, for mining purposes, but in truth they are ALL minnows. Who would mine ? Can't just lock up your funds if you are living hand to mouth..

3) If 10% of the stakeholders mine in POS, since I think 100% or even 50% seems unlikely, does that mean you need 5.1% to perform a 51% attack ?

4) In POS, can energy be expended searching more chain branches to find a valid chain on which you make more money ? If this is the case, won't future miners just spend money and expend energy until they spend slightly less than 1 block makes (same as POW) ?

5) Is this true : If a Cartel of POS stakeholders ever reach 51%.. That's it.. They can never be overtaken if they choose not to be. In POW this is not the case.

Thank you..

Here Here..!

1) Much is made of the 'wasted' and 'costly' electricity used to run the POW mining rigs.. People seem to think this number can increase 'INDEFINITELY' and somehow consume ALL the power in the whole world. This simply is not the case. The miners will spend what they can make from mining, they can't spend more.. or go out of business. The Market will determine what this will be. Personally, I really don't see it as an issue, at all.  

POS queries..

2) What if all the coins in a POS system are distributed evenly, yippee!, so that there are very few, if any, whales. Everyone thinks they have an insignificant amount, for mining purposes, but in truth they are ALL minnows. Who would mine ?  

3) If 10% of the stakeholders mine in POS, since I think 100% or even 50% seems unlikely, does that mean you need 5.1% to perform a 51% attack ?

4) In POS, can energy be expended searching more chain branches to find a valid chain on which you make more money ? If this is the case, won't future miners just spend money and expend energy until they spend slightly less than 1 block makes (same as POW) ?

..

Good Luck NeuCoin!

Err.. (Looks at Satoshi and rolls eyes..) If you don't think that Bitcoin has changed the world, we live on different planets. Not just the 'primus' - BITCOIN - but all the seeds and ideas that have sprouted around it. Decentralisation, crypto, financial freedom, self-governance, .. dare I say it.. REBELLION!! (..Raises arm fist clenched.. !)
 
And, if you don't think that a system designed, amongst other things, to process transactions assigning ownership of virtual coins from one address to another, can be considered successful given the number of said transactions that it is processing.. for a fee..for whatever reason.. again.. I live on Earth.   


Well (..sighs), I'll just have to make do with '..is more popular and people are using it..' .. Fine? HAPPY now..!?.


That's not what I think. Not sure about Satoshi either. He's keeping tight lipped.

Now.. Put that Gun Down.. and come and have a drink with SATOSHI and ME!! ..

..

 

We are about to reach 100,000 transactions per day average... I know..

That. is. a. lot..

If Satoshi were sitting opposite me.. lucky me.. I'd stand up, and propose a toast.

To SATOSHI! ... You crazy bastard - You've DONE IT!  You've only gone and changed the whole damn financial playing field for the betterment of ALL.. (Then we all stand up and laugh and drink and jump around and be merry)

Whatever 'else' is happening in Bitcoin, here it is, clear as day.. It works.

The Price doesn't matter. The regulation doesn't matter. The current difficulty-to-entry doesn't matter. The reports of people giving their coins to other people who then run off with them.. doesn't matter. 

None of it has had any effect on the slow, steady, build up of momentum.     
   
People are using it, for whatever they want, in a way that is so FREE, free as in FREEDOM, no-one really knows what to make of it.

I'll tell you what to make of it.

It's wonderful..

It's ALWAYS been like this.

Glad you got your Coins back.. 

Can't you just 'restore' the folder through time machine ?

That's what it's for.. ?

Does a successful computer virus count ?

That's harsh.. Sorry to hear that. If it's any consolation, we've all lost coins at some point..

And I think you'll find your experience is quite common amongst new Bitcoin users (not using Blockchain.info.. which makes it super simple).. it has a steep and unforgiving learning curve. All the best things in life do 

Welcome to the CLUB!

ps If you ran a mac and had a time machine backup, it 'might' be possible.. ?

Yes I see. Thanks.  In effect, the 'bootstrap number' I've been talking about, is now 'PART OF THE PROTOCOL'. 

Although - if the initial stake holders ever sold their private keys once those accounts were empty, or lost / hacked / QC cracked, then maybe you could cause a little heart ache..

ok. The highest difficulty being the 'Chain with the most Stake involved' is nice for sorting out chain forks on the valid chain. But I don't think that helps with the 'bootstrap' scenario, as an attacker can fake as much stake as he wants on his 'fake' chain. 'Fake as much Stake'.. lol..

Also - the Economic Clustering, which as I understand it involves putting the hash of a previous block that must be on any chain this txn  is added to, does indeed help reach consensus on the valid chain. But again an attacker could fake as much or as little activity as he wanted on his fake chain. Thus in a bootstrap scenario, I'm not sure that helps either.

?

Hi there,

Can I clear up a few questions floating around ? Not sure if there are answers or not.. So just thought I'd ask outright..

When connecting to a POS network, a bootstrap number must be collected from a trusted source ? Say a recent block hash from the current valid chain. (You may already have one, but I'm referring to either NEW users or users reconnecting after a non-negligent period of time)

Once you have connected to the Network, it seems that everything runs smoothly. That's great! 

Now, if you have connected to an INVALID / BOGUS POS network, when someone on the actual valid network connects to me and says 'Hey - THIS is the valid Network' there is no way for me to know which network is valid ? (Based on looking solely at the 2 POS chains in contention) I would need to ask someone I trust ? There may of course be 100's of competing chains, all saying ' I'm the valid chain! ' not just 2.

It seems that long range / short range attacks are a non-event ATM, but the current troubling aspect, for me at least, is the inability to rectify connecting to a bogus network at start up. If that is the case ?

What I mean is, in a POW network I can look at various chains, and see that one has more work than the other. Simple. Even if I do connect to the wrong network, I can always tell when I see the real thing. In POS I cannot ?

I do not see this as an ' IT'S BROKEN if this is the case ', but I do think this is a 'fundamental' issue that troubles many of us..

It would appear analogous to The Silk Road's Onion address changing every week, and having to re-find the valid address, or risk using an FBI honey pot trap. Yes obviously I can ask my friends what address they use, assuming they have used the site in the last week or so, but anyone who has tried to find that particular TOR address, knows that it is not 100% straight forward.. Does that make sense ?

be gentle.. 

I was thinking that what you really want is as LARGE an initial user base as possible. You need some way of reaching AS MANY users as possible.

You can't give them away for free as that is too easy to game.

Mining / NXT asset / BitcoinTalk IPO etc etc seem too limited to 'Crypto Scene'

How do you get ordinary 'Joe Blogs' involved..

Sooo..

I would do an android/iOS app.

Sell them in the app, with in-app purchase. Say $0.69 a coin (The minimum in-app amount - it doesn't matter how many coins you get). YES - you would make some money, but there is no way round that. So would Apple and Google by the way.

Then at the end of a specified period of time(a Month ?), allocate based on how many coins sold in total. (That's why it doesn't matter how many actual coins you get, you get a percent of the total. As you did in that now infamous original NXT thread with BCNext.. I was there.. ;-)

This way, hopefully, many 10's of thousands of users can buy some of this initial stock.

Easy boys..

OP wants his pound of flesh, and has at least brought an original idea to the table, always good. This 'Lottery' thing.

May I ask - If I try and find GOLD in my backyard.. Does that count as a lottery ?

I mean, we could all go out into our gardens, (if you have one), and dig a big hole and look for Gold. If you find some.. YOU WIN!

I had to buy a shovel to play.

Hi CIYAM,

Congratulations on AT! You've obviously put a lot of effort into it and it's a wonderful project. Thank you.

I've been coding for over 20 years and I still have difficulty writing actual code in AT machine code.. Sorry.. gave up machine code on my Spectrum 48k.. ;-p (ld hl 16384.. etc.. )

Is there any chance of converting a higher level language, say like java, into AT commands ?

Could we come up with a parser which converts a minimal java.lang subset into AT ?

I believe you mentioned this in some other thread but i can't find it..

The mini-blockchain scheme, as used in Cryptonite, uses a ledger of account / amount entries, so storing a distributed database is known to work.

It uses POW to secure the chain and then throws the txns away, keeping the database and the block headers(as a proof chain). The hash of the database is added in each block header to ensure everyone agrees.

Is this similar to your idea ?

As someone who spends his life coding in front of a 3 screen setup (and I'm ashamed to say the screens are different sizes..  ), may i say :

That. Is. Bad. Ass.

I keep my coins in a Brain Wallet. Love it.

What I am wondering is if publishing the address actually makes it an easier to crack ? I would think not..

But if so - why ?

Surely the big 'crack farms' just check any hash they create with the 150,000 or so valid addresses on the chain.