Proof of Activity Proposal in Litecoin

[coblee]

I came up with an alternative Proof of Stake proposal that I might consider implementing for Litecoin:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=102355.0

Please replay to that thread if you have thoughts on the proposal. And reply here if you have thoughts about why we should or should not implement this in Litecoin.

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[markm]

BBQcoin has supposedly been abandoned by its creator so maybe it rather than litecoin should be used for experiments like this?

Time enough to think about whether it has proven itself well enough for the actual litecoin to consider adopting it once it has shown itself a good idea in BBQcoin or some other "orphaned" altcon that uses litecoin style hashing.

Also, as long as the topic of making changes to litecoin has come up, does it include merged mining support at least to the extent bitcoin does, that is, even if for some arbitrary political / propaganda reason it wants to be elitist like bitcoin by refusing to be any but the primary chain when merged mining, does it at least do that much, so we can add proper full merged mining to other scrypt chains and mine them alongside litecoin?

-MarkM-

[coblee]

BBQcoin has supposedly been abandoned by its creator so maybe it rather than litecoin should be used for experiments like this?

Time enough to think about whether it has proven itself well enough for the actual litecoin to consider adopting it once it has shown itself a good idea in BBQcoin or some other "orphaned" altcon that uses litecoin style hashing.

Also, as long as the topic of making changes to litecoin has come up, does it include merged mining support at least to the extent bitcoin does, that is, even if for some arbitrary political / propaganda reason it wants to be elitist like bitcoin by refusing to be any but the primary chain when merged mining, does it at least do that much, so we can add proper full merged mining to other scrypt chains and mine them alongside litecoin?

-MarkM-

Since no one is using bbqcoin, it makes little sense to implement it on that coin. It would be easier to implement it on Litecoin testnet and test it there.

As for merged mining, I don't like it. I think it hurts both chains: it basically adds inflation to the primary chain and destroys the value of the merged chain. So I won't be adding merged mining support to Litecoin.

[markm]

Hmm okay, then maybe a nice upgrade to BBQcoin would be to put back in the ability to at least be the primary chain in merged mining.

If they used a recent bitcoind and added in scrypt maybe it already has that; but if they simply copied litecoin instead of using latest bitcoin with all the latest fixes, then like litecoin presumably it doesn't have it.

Maybe when it is the primary chain lots of other scrypt chains merged mine with, BBQcoin will experience more usage...

-MarkM-

[ThiagoCMC]

Please coblee, stay closest as possible with mainline Bitcoin source code and ideologies...
Just my 2 bitcents...   =P

[VelvetLeaf]

I'm afraid that adding new feature will potentially add unseen vulnerabilities to the network, you may want to look what will happen in PPCoin in a month before you add that feature.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures

[coblee]

I'm afraid that adding new feature will potentially add unseen vulnerabilities to the network, you may want to look what will happen in PPCoin in a month before you add that feature.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Common_Vulnerabilities_and_Exposures

Of course, that's why I'm trying to make it as simple as possible. The less complexity I introduce, the less likely that there will be a hidden vulnerability. And also the reason why I'm asking for comments. The more people that looks at this, the more likely that someone will find problems with it. The last thing I want to do is work on this in secret and expect to have come up with a perfect solution by myself.

[interlagos]

My major concern with this is that vast majority of coins might reside in cold wallets and won't be able to participate in signing. So this technique encourages users to hold large amounts of coins online without password protection or otherwise prompt user to enter password while he/she might be asleep.

Also miners/pools might be hesitant to accept this change where they would share the profit with some random guy on the network.

Other than that I read the proposal and I find it interesting to at least keep brainstorming it.

[Greedi]

If they used a recent bitcoind and added in scrypt maybe it already has that; but if they simply copied litecoin instead of using latest bitcoin with all the latest fixes, then like litecoin presumably it doesn't have it.

BBQ was an complete copy of Litecoin

[interlagos]

My major concern with this is that vast majority of coins might reside in cold wallets and won't be able to participate in signing. So this technique encourages users to hold large amounts of coins online without password protection or otherwise prompt user to enter password while he/she might be asleep.

Also miners/pools might be hesitant to accept this change where they would share the profit with some random guy on the network.

Other than that I read the proposal and I find it interesting to at least keep brainstorming it.

One more concern about the whole idea - the "black hole" effect.
If one person or small group of wealthy persons gain control of both hash power and large amount of coins
(one usually leads to another) they eventually can overtake the network and take full control of it.
We might end up with Rothschilds of Bitcoin/Litecoin who will be able to build the best chain of any length almost for free.

With just mining to protect the network, wealthy people usually tend to get lazy and they would need to SPEND their precious coins on a new hardware only to gain ever decreasing amount of coins which might not be profitable in the end. While new generations of energetic people with little wealth will be eager to work on advanced mining equipment and BUILD the stuff themselves to get the remaining coins and thus maintain a healthy network.

Again considering that only a fraction of all coins will be in online wallets, all the attacker needs to do is to have enough coins for signatures to compete with the live wallets on the network, not the whole coinage in existence.

[iddo]

Yes, proof-of-stake becomes less secure than pure proof-of-work if the majority of stakeholders is malicious. The underlying assumption is that the majority of stakeholders is honest, and that stakeholders wouldn't want to see the value of their coins depreciate when the network is attacked.

There is a proposal to have signing key delegation, so that stakeholders could participate without online wallets (see the other thread mentioned in the OP).

[tgsrge]

i have only skimmed through the thread but this mostly seems to be a renamed PoS with some minor modifications.


so unless my opnion changes significantly after reading the thread fully, for the time being i will have to agree with ThiagoCMC.

bitcoin is the only succesful example of a cryptocurrency we have so far. bitcoin was able to make it with the same issue. if bitcoin can make it litecoin can too.