DECENTRALIZED crypto currency (including Bitcoin) is a delusion (any solutions?)

[Fuserleer]

Anyway thanks for the debate so far guys, I was intrigued and enjoying it until it dissolved into a pissing contest of childish proportions.

I sincerely apologize for that.

I wasn't going to post in this thread again, but I feel I should offer an explanation to most.

I can tolerate a lot, but have an absolute zero tolerance for some of the behaviors exhibited in this thread and I have to speak on it, as it goes unchecked far too often these days (not just here, but everywhere).

It was not my intention to escalate the thread to the point which it is at, I too was enjoying it.

Most around here by now should know that I can keep my composure under even the most intense of situation, I hardly ever lose my train of thought and resort to cursing, or abusive attacks on individuals, no matter how many times they hit me with a stick.  I keep my cool at all times, as it was in this thread.

However, I was merely mirroring the kind of behavior that TPTB exhibits everyday, and as we all saw he didn't like being spoken down to in the same fashion that he does to others, or indeed that he had to me nearly all day.  

I naively hoped that he would notice and get himself back in check, because there is no possible chance of any constructive conversation once it happens.....then it all exploded and I was past my patience.

I still maintain, despite my current disdain, that he is a talented and intelligent individual, but his personality gets in the way of what could be a very productive relationship with many like minded individuals and that is a shame.

He could be the smartest guy here, perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't but there is just too much noise to see it clearly and I wish he could just reign that part of him in.

I've tried on numerous attempts to coach him, and I get nothing back but abuse thus I give up trying.

Once again, apologies, I had the best of intentions and I just lost my patience.

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[TPTB_need_war]

However, I was merely mirroring the kind of behavior that TPTB exhibits everyday, and as we all saw he didn't like being spoken down to in the same fashion that he does to others, or indeed that he had to me nearly all day.

So you are the protector of society and are going to teach me a lesson. So prove it with your technology, launch, and marketing. Words don't count. We as a community need action. And now you've admitted you were trying to bait me. Ego is for little people in spades. Reread that document, pay attention to the description of the behavior of B listers taking note that is exactly what you are doing, and maybe you will learn how to graduate from being a B lister. I am hoping you can. I am not against you. I am against your wasteful ego measuring B lister attribute.

Do reread that article. And pay attention to that man with a 150+ IQ who is nearly double your age.

I strongly suspect you will rationalize to yourself that society will be worse off if people have behavior that you think is offensive. You imagine to yourself that the top performers in society are all perfectly humble and cordial in every moment and situation. Because your self-image and ego is that you are a better person because of having those attributes. Well the reality of life isn't so. Eric is sometimes an asshole (he and I even bumped heads), but he is damn smart and he accomplished some important feats for society. I could say similarly about smooth (except I don't know his specific accomplishments because he is anonymous). Better example is Linus Torvalds, who regularly calls people idiots, yet none of us would be creating crypto currencies if he hadn't created Linux.

And besides, I don't go around calling everyone an idiot. I get annoyed with time wasting fuckers and trolls. I am actually quite fair in my posting. I try to maintain high ethics and even criticize myself.

Actually what is going here psychologically is you are trying to demonize me to console your insecurity that I might have more power in some form or that I might be able to destroy (in public perception when in fact you need a mass adoption marketing plan any way, not this forum!) what you've worked on for 3 years. Hey once again, I am not trying to harm you. Reality will be what is. Both of us have to accept it. It isn't worth getting all bent out-of-shape due to insecurities. Battle them head on. Your programming is where you do that battle, not here in this forum.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Personally I would like to see CFB back in hear and hear more on the tangle debate as I have not seen his retort to the inevitability of the tangle diverging. That sounds like a game changer to me and if true will make IOTA a complete waste off effort as well as time and resources. Unless it is just a money grab which in that case it seems to be working.

TPTB_need_war and me tried to discuss Iota but failed to sync on the initial stage (definitions), so further debates didn't make any sense. This is why I ignore his critics of Iota/Tangle - we simply speak different languages.

[Peachy]

monsterer, I solved it. If you are serious to help me implement and don't need to be paid upfront in cash, you may contact me in PM and we can handle the formalities to see if we can work together. If so, I can reveal the design to you.

Same applies to anyone who is truly capable.

I am done here in public. I was going to give an overview and explain the advantages and tradeoffs compared to Bitcoin, but I've lost interest because of the level of stupid shit that goes on in forums.

I want results. I am so tired of wasting time.

So if you are truly the god you claim to be (based on the above statement) and have cracked the ultimate riddle, then why on earth would you waste your time around here with us mere mortals, peons and troglodytes? 

Wouldn't you be better off offline writing the code that will ultimately save mankind from the doom that only you are aware of as an all-seeing/all-knowing entity?

I posit the reasons you remain here are:

a) you don't actually believe you have cracked the solution (and are thus not worthy of your god-complex)

b) you don't possess the skills necessary to do what you claim.

c) a coward that is too scared to do the actual work required and merely wants to boast about how he could


Either way, the "gauntlet has been thrown" and any further replies to this (or any other thread) will be a supreme vindication of the above 3 reasons.

[TPTB_need_war]

This does need to elucidated unequivocally. I don't think it is my role to impact Iota's launch. Come-from-Beyond demonstrates a very high S/N ratio, he has brought important ideas to the community which have even aided my design, and who knows I might even want to work with him. Let him get a return on his investment. I have said enough for the time being. I can say more at a future date.

I don't think a general discussion about why you see blocks as essential will be seen as an attack on Iota. I'd also like to know for my own learning process what ambiguities in particular you are referring to with double spends in a generic system with multiple chains of POW.

I want to write that white paper.

I want to write that white paper.

That's good, but it's a shame you can't talk about the ambiguity; I think it's possible you may have overlooked something in your analysis. There again, I may be plainly wrong, but I am happy to be proved wrong.

For us to be sure that all chains would never end up creating a double-spend (i.e. that they watch each other in real-time) would require signing all transactions synchronously (one after the other, so the entire world has a simultaneity requirement to stand in a global queue to send a transaction), which is of course impractical.

So there will be windows of propagation wherein double-spends can be inserted in various places in the DAG that invalidate good transactions. The ambiguity is which of the double-spends is the valid one. You proposed a rule that selects the double-spend with the greatest succeeding cumulative proof-of-work, but it is possible this is also ambiguous. Can you really not graph scenarios to confirm this to yourself? I suspect your myopia is because you didn't do a holistic analysis. Incorporate the first paragraph above and then suddenly it becomes clear that the longest chain rule is ambiguous within the propagation window of asynchronous activity. Now do you start to see why it is impossible to resolve ambiguity without a block chain.

Fuserleer pay attention.

[TPTB_need_war]

I posit the reasons you remain here are:

I am an extrovert. Not all people are introverts who enjoy doing everything alone. I already did that and buried myself in my room for years alone to create WordUp and CoolPage. Perhaps I am lonely[1] and searching for my A lister philosophically compatible peers.

Also I gain understanding and clarity by writing down my thoughts and receiving interaction with others (the ones who are not time wasting fuckers). I don't characterize this as fear that my work is flawed. I view it was part of the process.

But again your post is typical B lister attitude. Who cares what I am doing and why. Carry on with your work. Our discussions here are to enumerate technological points. It doesn't matter what each of us are doing in our personal or work lives. I haven't asked you to invest in my project. I have encouraged Fuserleer to launch and I was originally of the attitude that I would casually get around to analyzing his white paper. Needlessly piss me off, then perhaps you motivate me to prioritize finding flaws in your future white paper. You'll picked the fight, not me.

And I never said I was god. I worked for a long time trying to find a solution to improve Bitcoin. I think I found it. We will see. That you see my activity as claiming I am god exemplifies that you are out-of-touch with reality. I haven't been boasting that I am omniscient in every facet.

I do know (99% confidence) that blockless designs will not be sound. If I am wrong, then I will be surprised.

[1] Lonely within my field of computer science. And also I can't do nonstop sports all day and other activities I used to be able to do when I was younger or probably because when I wasn't suffering a chronic illness. I need my sports and outdoor activities. Miss them so much. For example, I don't feel all that great when I go to the beach unlike in past. Also there is the financial reality that I can't afford to waste the $20 for an all day trip to Samal Island and the other beaches nearby suck. Davao is pretty fucking boring if you can't do sports and chase girls.

[Spoetnik]

@Hueristic
Do you have any idea how frustrating it is trying to have a general over all discussion of Altcoins
with so called dev's divert an and all topic into a technical coin code matter ?
Hand waiving ?
Yeah technical hand waiving falls into that category.
I have seen goes roar into 100 full pages of technical babble to side step bigger issues.

Coin devs seem to think the context and the overall previous history of altcoins and bitcoin too is largely irrelevant.

Take the Anon issue.. i have proclaimed of ages it's simply not feasible.
I say quite simply if it runs it can be cracked.
And we have ammeter code dev's here who seem to think they can simply push you over with some technical scheme.
But the reality is no technical scheme has ever worked.. for very long.
Sooner or later it get cracked.

What we have in the altcoin scene is guys who had minor coding experience if any
BEFORE coming to Crypto and now they get an idea and jam it down our throats
arguing about being some holy grail etc.
These coin dev's we have in crypto are not qualified for fuck all.
And all of them have managed to find solutions to problems that don't exist.
If any of these Altcoins were even slightly better than Bitcoin it would be reflected in it's market price.
What's Monero worth ? Close to a buck ?
What is Bitcoin worth  $450 bucks ? ..case closed. ..that says it all right there.

[patmast3r]

This does need to elucidated unequivocally. I don't think it is my role to impact Iota's launch. Come-from-Beyond demonstrates a very high S/N ratio, he has brought important ideas to the community which have even aided my design, and who knows I might even want to work with him. Let him get a return on his investment. I have said enough for the time being. I can say more at a future date.

I don't think a general discussion about why you see blocks as essential will be seen as an attack on Iota. I'd also like to know for my own learning process what ambiguities in particular you are referring to with double spends in a generic system with multiple chains of POW.

I want to write that white paper.

I want to write that white paper.

That's good, but it's a shame you can't talk about the ambiguity; I think it's possible you may have overlooked something in your analysis. There again, I may be plainly wrong, but I am happy to be proved wrong.

For us to be sure that all chains would never end up creating a double-spend (i.e. that they watch each other in real-time) would require signing all transactions synchronously (one after the other, so the entire world has a simultaneity requirement to stand in a global queue to send a transaction), which is of course impractical.

So there will be windows of propagation wherein double-spends can be inserted in various places in the DAG that invalidate good transactions. The ambiguity is which of the double-spends is the valid one. You proposed a rule that selects the double-spend with the greatest succeeding cumulative proof-of-work, but it is possible this is also ambiguous. Can you really not graph scenarios to confirm this to yourself? I suspect your myopia is because you didn't do a holistic analysis. Incorporate the first paragraph above and then suddenly it becomes clear that the longest chain rule is ambiguous within the propagation window of asynchronous activity. Now do you start to see why it is impossible to resolve ambiguity without a block chain.

Fuserleer pay attention.

In that case can't you drop both of the transactions ? If it's truly impossible to form consensus on which of 2 conflicting tx is supposed to be apended/included then drop them both.
But maybe I'm thinking a little to simple here and am missing the bigger picture.

[TPTB_need_war]

This does need to elucidated unequivocally. I don't think it is my role to impact Iota's launch. Come-from-Beyond demonstrates a very high S/N ratio, he has brought important ideas to the community which have even aided my design, and who knows I might even want to work with him. Let him get a return on his investment. I have said enough for the time being. I can say more at a future date.

I don't think a general discussion about why you see blocks as essential will be seen as an attack on Iota. I'd also like to know for my own learning process what ambiguities in particular you are referring to with double spends in a generic system with multiple chains of POW.

I want to write that white paper.

I want to write that white paper.

That's good, but it's a shame you can't talk about the ambiguity; I think it's possible you may have overlooked something in your analysis. There again, I may be plainly wrong, but I am happy to be proved wrong.

For us to be sure that all chains would never end up creating a double-spend (i.e. that they watch each other in real-time) would require signing all transactions synchronously (one after the other, so the entire world has a simultaneity requirement to stand in a global queue to send a transaction), which is of course impractical.

So there will be windows of propagation wherein double-spends can be inserted in various places in the DAG that invalidate good transactions. The ambiguity is which of the double-spends is the valid one. You proposed a rule that selects the double-spend with the greatest succeeding cumulative proof-of-work, but it is possible this is also ambiguous. Can you really not graph scenarios to confirm this to yourself? I suspect your myopia is because you didn't do a holistic analysis. Incorporate the first paragraph above and then suddenly it becomes clear that the longest chain rule is ambiguous within the propagation window of asynchronous activity. Now do you start to see why it is impossible to resolve ambiguity without a block chain.

Fuserleer pay attention.

In that case can't you drop both of the transactions ? If it's truly impossible to form consensus on which of 2 conflicting tx is supposed to be apended/included then drop them both.
But maybe I'm thinking a little to simple here and am missing the bigger picture.

Don't forget a double-spend might not be identified until well after many derivative transactions depend on that spend. So you also have to kill all those innocent transactions too, which is death to a coin. You will think we can just wait for some window of time to be sure but...

We've already identified that there can't be just one chain, because we need asynchronous transactions. But these tangles will be diverse (if they are generated decentralized) and we can't ever know at any point in time how many chains there are in the next moment in time. Thus we have no way to define the bounds of the window in which to declare that any transaction has been confirmed. Without blocks, we have no way to count time. The Iota paper goes into complex math to try to argue that we can calculate a probability. It seems to me this will only work well by centralizing the servers not just in the start but ongoing. The precise eludication of the math and rational is going to take more effort, but I think you can see conceptually the issue.

In every design I contemplated, it always came back to the fact that without a single longest chain, we can't get consensus without centralization. This is will be no different for Iota, because otherwise it could violate the CAP theorem. CfB has stated that he doesn't agree the CAP theorem can be applied, because he has some narrow definitions and conceptualization of the CAP theorem.

Specifically you can't have these plurality of Partitions for asynchrony and also keep both Consistency and Access. Thus we must lose Partition tolerance or Consistency.

It is going to require some more effort to elucidate this, yet I am confident the CAP theorem will not allow a DAG to work.

I expect Fuserleer has employed very complex designs to convince himself he has worked around the fundamentals of CAP, so that is why I need to see all the details of his design to drill down. It will require holistic analysis.

I hope this is instructive to monsterer as to why you can't analyze a design piecemeal as he was trying to do with Fuserleer. It is pointless.

Drilling down to how to demonstrate my expectation for Iota is going to require some intensive study of their math and deep thought. I had not prioritized that now, because I don't think that is urgent for me for my goals. I am quite confident a DAG can not work without centralization. I am confident it creates a Tragedy of the Commons around Consistency, which require servers to unify on a policy which mimicks a block chain.

My apologies to CfB for stating this without having an unequivocal proof. He should expect this, since he knows the math and system is complex. Peer review analysis will require time. Many of us have other priorities.

[TPTB_need_war]

When thinking about asynchrony for a DAG, note if everyone wants to transact simultaneously (i.e. decentralized), they will all like to reference the longest chain, so you will have every transaction on its own partition (they can't reference each other and they don't want to queue up in line). The incentives are aligned to diverge, not converge.

How would the next set of transactions decide which of those transactions to reference. Reference all of them? So we need unbounded transaction size.

[monsterer]

double-spends can be inserted in various places in the DAG that invalidate good transactions.

How can double spends invalidate other transactions? That would only be possible if the LCR physically discarded the entire other chain. I don't see why this is necessary; indeed doing this violates one of the tenants of efficient consensus 'never discard work'.

Don't forget a double-spend might not be identified until well after many derivative transactions depend on that spend. So you also have to kill all those innocent transactions too, which is death to a coin. You will think we can just wait for some window of time to be sure but...

Ok, I see what you're saying, but you don't need to discard all transactions that link back to the double spend; only the derivative transactions which spend the outputs of the double spent transaction become invalid themselves. I don't think this is any different than in bitcoin where you have a double spend with derivative transactions which gets orphaned... You can wait for the same amount of POW to go by in the transaction steam as you would have in N bitcoin confirmations.

You proposed a rule that selects the double-spend with the greatest succeeding cumulative proof-of-work, but it is possible this is also ambiguous. Can you really not graph scenarios to confirm this to yourself?

I am having trouble seeing how this is possible, you are correct. What do you mean by 'succeeding cumulative proof-of-work'?

[altcoinUK]

If any of these Altcoins were even slightly better than Bitcoin it would be reflected in it's market price.
What's Monero worth ? Close to a buck ?
What is Bitcoin worth  $450 bucks ? ..case closed. ..that says it all right there.

You are quite right, of course these altcoins aren't better than Bitcoin and there is a precisely zero chance that any of these altcoins could overtake and replace Bitcoin. As you know better than anyone else here most of these altcoins are scams and the remaining few (which are happened to be not pure scams) are delusionally ideological projects, and never ever will be able to compete with Bitcoin.

Having said that, there are serious issues with Bitcoin. The decentralization is a myth, the government, law enforcement, central banks and large retail banks will be running the Bitcoin show soon including the control of mining which will be of course centralized. Otherwise miners will have to go to jail. The BTC protocol will be modified to implement those security measures and the BTC foundation will be assisting the government. Otherwise they will have to go to jail.

Therefore, it's quite understandable and in fact very noble that by recognizing the design issues of Bitcoin, its surrounding politics and understanding what the government does TPTB_need_war aims to design a better currency than Bitcoin is. It remains to be seen if he can succeed. At least he is trying.

[ArticMine]

...
If any of these Altcoins were even slightly better than Bitcoin it would be reflected in it's market price.
What's Monero worth ? Close to a buck ?
What is Bitcoin worth  $450 bucks ? ..case closed. ..that says it all right there.

There was a point in time just over six years ago when Bitcoin traded for under one tenth of a penny.

[TPTB_need_war]

Figure 1 on the paper cited by the Iota white paper seems to be incorrect in that it shows transactions 2 and 3 having that relative ordering in time. But that can't be known! There is no clock! The only ordering is the DAG itself, thus 2 and 3 should both be labeled 2! That is fundamental. That breaks all the assumptions about which is a double-spend.

How can double spends invalidate other transactions?

Same way they do in Bitcoin. Spending a double-spend before it is recognized as a double-spend. Two partitions may not be known to each other and then later they are, because there is no global LCR forcing us to know which chain is known. And we know due to asynchrony that transaction signers can't see all activity of all other signers simultaneously. The only way I see to resolve this is with centralized servers emulating a block chain.

Double-spends in DAGs are probabilistic which I don't think was reflected in your diagrams. The decisions about double-spends are not binary (yes/no). I am guessing that maybe you have not yet conceptualized the implications of asynchrony.

[monsterer]

Same way they do in Bitcoin. Spending a double-spend before it is recognized as a double-spend.

Only derivative transactions become invalid, not all chained transactions, that's an important point.

Two partitions may not be known to each other and then later they are, because there is no global LCR forcing us to know which chain is known. And we know due to asynchrony that transaction signers can't see all activity of all other signers simultaneously. The only way I see to resolve this is with centralized servers emulating a block chain.

Double-spends in DAGs are probabilistic which I don't think was reflected in your diagrams. The decisions about double-spends are not binary (yes/no). I am guessing that maybe you have not yet conceptualized the implications of asynchrony.

You can just wait for an amount of POW to be appended to the chain containing your transaction equivalent to N bitcoin confirmations. I don't see the difference.

[TPTB_need_war]

Two partitions may not be known to each other and then later they are, because there is no global LCR forcing us to know which chain is known. And we know due to asynchrony that transaction signers can't see all activity of all other signers simultaneously. The only way I see to resolve this is with centralized servers emulating a block chain.

Double-spends in DAGs are probabilistic which I don't think was reflected in your diagrams. The decisions about double-spends are not binary (yes/no). I am guessing that maybe you have not yet conceptualized the implications of asynchrony.

You can just wait for an amount of POW to be appended to the chain containing your transaction equivalent to N bitcoin confirmations. I don't see the difference.

Apparently because you have refused to see how the implications of asynchrony is different in Bitcoin and a DAG.

In a block chain the transactions arrive asynchronously but this is orthogonal to the confirmation. In a DAG, the two are merged.

[Come-from-Beyond]

You are quite right, of course these altcoins aren't better than Bitcoin and there is a precisely zero chance that any of these altcoins could overtake and replace Bitcoin. As you know better than anyone else here most of these altcoins are scams and the remaining few (which are happened to be not pure scams) are delusionally ideological projects, and never ever will be able to compete with Bitcoin.

Having said that, there are serious issues with Bitcoin. The decentralization is a myth, the government, law enforcement, central banks and large retail banks will be running the Bitcoin show soon including the control of mining which will be of course centralized. Otherwise miners will have to go to jail. The BTC protocol will be modified to implement those security measures and the BTC foundation will be assisting the government. Otherwise they will have to go to jail.

Therefore, it's quite understandable and in fact very noble that by recognizing the design issues of Bitcoin, its surrounding politics and understanding what the government does TPTB_need_war aims to design a better currency than Bitcoin is. It remains to be seen if he can succeed. At least he is trying.

While you are here, check https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=854280.msg13530000#msg13530000, please. I'm afraid you'll make appearance you didn't notice it.

[monsterer]

When thinking about asynchrony for a DAG, note if everyone wants to transact simultaneously (i.e. decentralized), they will all like to reference the longest chain, so you will have every transaction on its own partition (they can't reference each other and they don't want to queue up in line). The incentives are aligned to diverge, not converge.

In the event where N users all chose to send a transaction at exactly the same time, you will get this effect, but I wouldn't expect it to be persistent and divergent. You'll likely get small sprouts of divergence followed by convergence again as synchrony is broken... That's my intuition, but it would need to be simulated really to see how bad it gets.

The pathological case you mention could be avoided simply by varying the POW sent with each transaction by a small amount every send.

[arturh]

DECENTRALIZATION is a threat to the Corporations (and they are the government), thus if a DECENTRALIZED paradigm becomes popular, the government is going to attack it the same as they did Napster.

Thus if your block chain design is not truly permissionless, then you've accomplished nothing.

Ethereum, BitShares, etc are Napsters. Daniel can't figure out how to make something truly decentralized so he argues that we substitute politics and governance for

[TPTB_need_war]

When thinking about asynchrony for a DAG, note if everyone wants to transact simultaneously (i.e. decentralized), they will all like to reference the longest chain, so you will have every transaction on its own partition (they can't reference each other and they don't want to queue up in line). The incentives are aligned to diverge, not converge.

In the event where N users all chose to send a transaction at exactly the same time, you will get this effect, but I wouldn't expect it to be persistent and divergent. You'll likely get small sprouts of divergence followed by convergence again as synchrony is broken... That's my intuition, but it would need to be simulated really to see how bad it gets.

The pathological case you mention could be avoided simply by varying the POW sent with each transaction by a small amount every send.

Asynchrony will always be the case. It can't be an exceptional case. How can you get the world's transactions to all stand in line in a queue without a centralized server.

It is not when they send, it is when they begin composing their transaction. There is a latency between the time they start that, and the transaction has propagated so that the other transactions can see the update. Therefor they can't all stand in line. You seem to have no clue. I wish you would think more and post less.

How many global transactions will occur within that say few seconds. Sheesh.

Yes I do get frustrated when people don't grasp the most basic concepts and then I have already mentioned asynchrony several times but you haven't taken the effort to go think about it for a while until you realize why it is an issue.