The state of crypto - The only serious thread on the subforum

[smooth]

Delegated proof of work, which Bitcoin is, doesn't.  It's no more fault tolerant than DPoS.

Hashcash POW is subject to sybil due to ASICs, this is clearly something that satoshi did not foresee, I agree.

The pool sybil is due to pool mining, not ASICs. Even before ASICs, there were pools nearing 50% hash rate, outcries, and pools subsequently "shrinking" (though that may have been a sham).

What ASICs do is concentrate mining (at least indirect control over it) in the hands of ASIC developers as a sort of hydraulic empire. That may break down as hashing ASIC technology becomes commoditized, which seems somewhat inevitable.

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[smooth]

The dreamer in me thinks that before either of those exotic scenarios, we'd have free & universal access to electricity, 'cos you know, Sun ... and non-destructive, non-pollutant energy storage methods ...  Anyhow ...

That's not even very much of a dream. Anyone off grid (or even on-grid when the grid has a surplus) with solar will likely have free electricity some of the time. I'm pretty sure that solar is getting cheaper faster than any other method of energy production, so this may be common soon.

[r0ach]

Assuming transaction fees provided the incentive

Well that's a stupid assumption and is the biggest and most challenging to fix design flaw in Bitcoin that I know about.

Space station mining doesn't really make a lot of sense given latency issues. Possibly low earth orbit would work. High earth orbit is probably okay for transactions but not mining. Anything beyond that will probably be separate blockchains. I don't know how Bitcoin maximalists cope with that inevitability.

Dumping heat in space is not easy or cheap either. Space is "cold" but without conduction you are limited to radiative cooling. This is a non-trivial design issue for spacecraft. Under the ocean is likely a better exotic outcome to propose.

Oh ffs smooth, it doesn't matter if the mining is occurring at the bottom of the ocean or in outer space.  Since energy price and climate aren't a constant, it still creates a constantly diminishing working set or complete monopoly.  This Rube Goldberg machine you've built on the ocean floor is just an additional bonus to the fact that delegated proof of work is providing no benefit to decentralization compared to DPoS in the first place.

[smooth]

Assuming transaction fees provided the incentive

Well that's a stupid assumption and is the biggest and most challenging to fix design flaw in Bitcoin that I know about.

Space station mining doesn't really make a lot of sense given latency issues. Possibly low earth orbit would work. High earth orbit is probably okay for transactions but not mining. Anything beyond that will probably be separate blockchains. I don't know how Bitcoin maximalists cope with that inevitability.

Dumping heat in space is not easy or cheap either. Space is "cold" but without conduction you are limited to radiative cooling. This is a non-trivial design issue for spacecraft. Under the ocean is likely a better exotic outcome to propose.

Oh ffs smooth, it doesn't matter if the mining is occurring at the bottom of the ocean or in outer space.  Since energy price and climate aren't a constant, it still creates a constantly diminishing working set or complete monopoly.  This is just an additional bonus to the fact that delegated proof of work is providing no benefit to decentralization compared to DPoS in the first place.

Of course it is. As I explained to you, (D)PoS can't form a consensus at all. PoW, whether delegatable or delegated or not, is strictly more powerful. Whether that difference in power is valuable or not is a different question, but you can't correctly argue that the two are equivalent.

Also, as myagui suggested and I clarified (and stated earlier), the "best" place to mine is not unique. There is specialization and different cost functions of scale in different locations and by different operators. Your idea of one miner in the perfect place makes as much sense as the old soviet union which had one enormous pipe factory which was theoretically the most efficient due to central planners' conceptions of economy of scale but in fact turned out to be a disaster because it not only wasn't producing the right pipes but wasn't even the right scale. (A hypothetical statement about the absurdity of unconstrained economies of scale; I don't know that the USSR literally had one pipe factory but I've read real examples of this fallacy actually being put into practice.)

You gave an example of this right in your post (climate). Since weather is not constant, the best place to mine is not constant. Unless you are going to have one miner who moves his gear around chasing the best weather to mine right now, you are going to have multiple miners who operate at different intensities at different times in different places. Likewise cost of electricity, space, construction, maintenance, security, management overhead, bandwidth, etc. There is just an enormous amount of multidimensionality that doesn't resolve to a single point once you get your head out of that asinine one dimensional "lowest energy cost" model.

[r0ach]

There is specialization and different cost functions of scale in different locations and by different operators. Your idea of one miner in the perfect place

Hey, all I did was re-use your own example of a giant, underwater Rube Goldberg machine PoW mining away with an unlicensed nuclear reactor.

[kelsey]

This thread is going in circles.


anyone willing to think outside the blockchain model for a p2p currency?

[smooth]

This thread is going in circles.


anyone willing to think outside the blockchain model for a p2p currency?

Can you be more specific?

All I can recall reading from you is how LTC is the best and how everything in cryptocurrency (including LTC?) is terrible.

What do you think is a good model?

[kelsey]

This thread is going in circles.


anyone willing to think outside the blockchain model for a p2p currency?

Can you be more specific?

All I can recall reading from you is how LTC is the best and how everything in cryptocurrency (including LTC?) is terrible.

What do you think is a good model?

i say litecoin is the best we have, but yeah always looking for better, again i think the whole blockchain idea is a dud (and you guys yourself point out the many flaws).

but i'm very much interested in the dev of a p2p currency, course i have random thoughts and ideas, and hoping others put up ideas to see if something can come out of it.

this section of the forums about alternatives to bitcoin. yet almost no one can get their head outside of the blockchain.

[kelsey]

on a seperate note but inline with the thread title.

whats peoples thoughts on this;

http://cryptovoter.com/

[GingerAle]

This thread is going in circles.


anyone willing to think outside the blockchain model for a p2p currency?

Can you be more specific?

All I can recall reading from you is how LTC is the best and how everything in cryptocurrency (including LTC?) is terrible.

What do you think is a good model?

i say litecoin is the best we have, but yeah always looking for better, again i think the whole blockchain idea is a dud (and you guys yourself point out the many flaws).

but i'm very much interested in the dev of a p2p currency, course i have random thoughts and ideas, and hoping others put up ideas to see if something can come out of it.

this section of the forums about alternatives to bitcoin. yet almost no one can get their head outside of the blockchain.

you a fan of the DAG thing?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1177633.0

smooth had another link somewherezzzzz....

[kelsey]

This thread is going in circles.


anyone willing to think outside the blockchain model for a p2p currency?

Can you be more specific?

All I can recall reading from you is how LTC is the best and how everything in cryptocurrency (including LTC?) is terrible.

What do you think is a good model?

i say litecoin is the best we have, but yeah always looking for better, again i think the whole blockchain idea is a dud (and you guys yourself point out the many flaws).

but i'm very much interested in the dev of a p2p currency, course i have random thoughts and ideas, and hoping others put up ideas to see if something can come out of it.

this section of the forums about alternatives to bitcoin. yet almost no one can get their head outside of the blockchain.

you a fan of the DAG thing?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1177633.0

smooth had another link somewherezzzzz....

first i've heard of it, quick read still a bit muddy on it but will look further.

[monsterer]

The system is currently designed to create a constantly diminishing working set

The reason this seems to be true is due to the adjusting difficulty. Difficulty must adjust with increase in mining power, otherwise it becomes easier to sybil attack the network and otherwise the block rate would increase, leading to even more inconsistent confirmation times. The consequence is centralisation, but not as the primary design.

[monsterer]

The pool sybil is due to pool mining, not ASICs. Even before ASICs, there were pools nearing 50% hash rate, outcries, and pools subsequently "shrinking" (though that may have been a sham).

Actually, I say the reverse is true: ASICs represent one CPU, but have disproportionate voting power, that is the essence of sybil.

With 1C1V, pools represent the aggregation of CPUs, which is the very best case you can hope for - linear scale. Of course, they still do represent a different kind of sybil, which is bad in its own right.

[smooth]

The pool sybil is due to pool mining, not ASICs. Even before ASICs, there were pools nearing 50% hash rate, outcries, and pools subsequently "shrinking" (though that may have been a sham).

Actually, I say the reverse is true: ASICs represent one CPU, but have disproportionate voting power, that is the essence of sybil.

No the essence of sybil is that you can make one appear to be many (and get more votes or whatever benefit it is from appearing to be many). You can't do that with ASICs. One is just one.

Everyone is using ASICs now so there isn't really anything disproportionate about it.

[monsterer]

No the essence of sybil is that you can make one appear to be many (and get more votes or whatever benefit it is from appearing to be many). You can't do that with ASICs. One is just one.

Everyone is using ASICs now so there isn't really anything disproportionate about it.

An ASIC is one. One chip, custom designed to only do hashes. That's disproportionate power in its essence.

[smooth]

No the essence of sybil is that you can make one appear to be many (and get more votes or whatever benefit it is from appearing to be many). You can't do that with ASICs. One is just one.

Everyone is using ASICs now so there isn't really anything disproportionate about it.

An ASIC is one. One chip, custom designed to only do hashes. That's disproportionate power in its essence.

That's silly. It's like saying that everyone has to do hashes with pencil and paper.

The reason ASICs are a problem is that very few people have the ability to develop and manufacture them so it is a cocentration of power. There is not really a sybil attack, since no one is claiming otherwise. We are perfectly well aware there are only a few ASIC developers and there will probably be fewer in a year or two.

[r0ach]

State of Crypto v0.05 changelog
-------------------------------
Added to Bitcoin section:

M)  Satoshi didn't solve the Byzantine generals problem:  http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1183043.0

[patmast3r]

...
- Your money would be in some form of lock mechanism while pooled staking. This can bring accessibility or even 3rd party trust issues.  Might function only as a savings account and not a liquid day to day currency.
...

I don't believe this is true for a lot if not all of POS implementations. You can move your coins at will even if you are forging (or whatever it is called in your favorite coin )
Of course this may not be true for POS-Pools where multiple people throw their funds together allthough there are systems that even cover that use case.

[ffmad]

Interesting post.

On the Monero part, you're talking of "CryptoNote" as it was the anon tech, but the tech is Ring Signatures.

Shadow has Ring Signatures too and is based on Bitcoin. So it's not a 'CryptoNote' but share the same mechanism of Anonymity.

Maybe you should look again at that part 

[r0ach]

Interesting post.

On the Monero part, you're talking of "CryptoNote" as it was the anon tech, but the tech is Ring Signatures.

Shadow has Ring Signatures too and is based on Bitcoin. So it's not a 'CryptoNote' but share the same mechanism of Anonymity.

I didn't add Shadowcoin for a few reasons:

1)  I forgot it existed

2)  It's a standard proof of stake coin so it already falls under all the pros and cons there

3)  If I added Shadowcoin, I would probably also have to add Darkcoin.  Since Shadowcoin was flash mined, I would end up having to spend hours trying to determine the distribution of Shadowcoin vs Darkcoin vs Monero.  I would end up wasting all my time making the thread on the minor intricacies of the anon sector.  I knew I would be forced to deal with the annoying anon sector eventually, I just didn't feel like doing it yet, so I listed the anon market leader at the time in comparison to everything else.

4)  Most of the threads on the forum for a long time have been about Darkcoin vs Monero vs random anon coin of the week already.

5)  I planned to expand the original post much more, so I will probably get around to it eventually.