The Ethereum Paradox

[bytemaster]

Somewhat relevant: https://steemit.com/blockchain/@dantheman/a-better-approach-to-turing-complete-smart-contracts

The performance difference is impressive. And it also allows for zero-fee txs/contracts (I guess until someone finds a way to spam it).

That is not the correct solution because of course it gives the spammer an asymmetrical advantage. And the problem with sharding is not just that messages between shards are multi-threading (this can actually be solved by requiring messages to be queued to the next block), but rather that then both shards have to verify the entire history chain of those cross-chard "transactions", which defeats the performance improvement of shards. Vitalik probably proposes to have shard validators trust each other with forfeitable deposits, but that like PoS destroys Nash Equilibrium. As well as I explained my video, external business logic can conflate shards even if cross-shard messages are restricted, leading to chaos, discontent when a shard validator set has lied (for profit obviously), and a drop in the value of the token. Bruce Wanker will be laughing again.

I finally realized the solution to last sentence in the prior paragraph, which I alluded to in my prior comment. It suddenly just popped into my mind when I listened to myself.

Dan Larimer is rushing and making mistakes:

Steem, on the other hand, easily survived the flood attacks thrown at it without disrupting service and all without any transaction fees!

Were those bandwidth DDoS attacks filtered by perimeter nodes, or validation attacks absorbed by validating nodes?

The price of GAS would go up until it stunted the growth of all three applications.

Incorrect. If the price of GAS would increase due to higher demand but the lesser amount of GAS needed would still reflect the unchanged cost of validating a script at that higher price.

The native implementation would cause all the same outputs given the same inputs, except it wouldn’t know how to calculate the GAS costs because it wasn’t run on the EVM.

It could simply compute its own cost based on some counters. If it knows its optimized implementation is less costly than the EVM, then it doesn't harm (i.e. remains compliant) by keeping the GAS if it is depleted before the script completes. Others verifying the depletion case would run the EVM, as this wouldn't cost them more than running native version. For non-depleted scripts, validators run their most efficient native version.

Require a proof-of-work on each script

Unless this is more expensive in resources than the cost of validating the script, then the attacker has an asymmetric DoS advantage. So all you've done is shifted the cost of paying the fee to generating the equivalent proof-of-work.

And unless each script consumer has access to a premium ASIC, then the attacker still has an asymmetric advantage. And if you say the script consumer can farm out this ASIC, then you've shifted the DoS attack to the said farm.

Local Blacklist / White list scripts, accounts, and/or peers

That is effective for bandwidth DDoS, but Nash Equilibirium can be gamed by an open system w.r.t. to submitting data for validation.

I just stumbled across this critique and wanted to add a response:

1. Users attempted to flood the steem network with transactions, validating nodes included transactions at the specified limit. 
2. There is a limited supply of computational power, thus people bid up the price they are willing to pay to transact and it results in increased profit margins due to the fixed (unchanged computational cost) of validating a script.  Just like BTC fees rise now that blocks are full, the cost to transact on ETH will rise once the single-threaded performance limit is hit.

Your remaining points about POW on each script and Nash Equilb are completely missing the point by getting lost in the weeds.

An attacker can submit a transaction for validation that fails after the allowed time (say 2ms).  The attacker generates the transaction but doesn't run it themselves, which gives them an advantage over the defender.

If the defender sets an arbitrary POW requirement on a per-connection basis, then they can force the attacker to perform a 2ms POW that is validated in 1 us before attempting to process the script.  The attacker would have to redo their POW for each peer they want to broadcast to.

Long-lasting connections can build up "trust" and reduce POW requirements for nodes that demonstrate they do not relay invalid transactions.  First violation of trust reverts back to POW.

Anyway, preventing SPAM is a trivial problem compared to attempting to scale ETH.

[iamnotback]

that noob don't know what he's talking about

The n00b is you. Read on...

I just stumbled across this critique and wanted to add a response:

1. Users attempted to flood the steem network with transactions, validating nodes included transactions at the specified limit.  
2. There is a limited supply of computational power

Well yeah if you have bounded set of validation computational resources with the bound enforced by whales, then you have a centralized monopoly lacking free market competition. Replicating VISA isn't interesting. I was referring to a decentralized blockchain, which your DPoS is not.

Your remaining points about POW on each script and Nash Equilb are completely missing the point by getting lost in the weeds.

An attacker can submit a transaction for validation that fails after the allowed time (say 2ms).  The attacker generates the transaction but doesn't run it themselves, which gives them an advantage over the defender.

If the defender sets an arbitrary POW requirement on a per-connection basis, then they can force the attacker to perform a 2ms POW that is validated in 1 us before attempting to process the script.  The attacker would have to redo their POW for each peer they want to broadcast to.

You entirely missed the point which is that the asymmetry is relative to the other honest users which have to do this PoW and don't have access to a mining farm (or at least a very efficient ASIC) whilst the attacker may. Of course verifying a PoW solution is always asymmetrical to finding a PoW solution. So that could not have been my point.

Anyway, preventing SPAM is a trivial problem compared to attempting to scale ETH.

Neither are trivial problems if you want a truly decentralized blockchain. In fact, no one has yet solved these issues for a blockchain that doesn't become centralized due to economies-of-scale.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

that noob don't know what he's talking about

The n00b is you. Read on...

I just stumbled across this critique and wanted to add a response:

1. Users attempted to flood the steem network with transactions, validating nodes included transactions at the specified limit.  
2. There is a limited supply of computational power

Well yeah if you have bounded set of validation computational resources with the bound enforced by whales, then you have a centralized monopoly lacking free market competition. Replicating VISA isn't interesting. I was referring to a decentralized blockchain, which your DPoS is not.

Your remaining points about POW on each script and Nash Equilb are completely missing the point by getting lost in the weeds.

An attacker can submit a transaction for validation that fails after the allowed time (say 2ms).  The attacker generates the transaction but doesn't run it themselves, which gives them an advantage over the defender.

If the defender sets an arbitrary POW requirement on a per-connection basis, then they can force the attacker to perform a 2ms POW that is validated in 1 us before attempting to process the script.  The attacker would have to redo their POW for each peer they want to broadcast to.

You entirely missed the point which is that the asymmetry is relative to the other honest users which have to do this PoW and don't have access to a mining farm (or at least a very efficient ASIC) whilst the attacker may. Of course verifying a PoW solution is always asymmetrical to finding a PoW solution. So that could not have been my point.

Anyway, preventing SPAM is a trivial problem compared to attempting to scale ETH.

Neither are trivial problems if you want a truly decentralized blockchain. In fact, no one has yet solved these issues for a blockchain that doesn't become centralized due to economies-of-scale.

Good job for standing up to the Larimer Gang, but arguing with Dan is pointless except for the fact that you are pointing out the fallacies of DPoS to the uninitiated.  Dan and Stan Larimer's only goal in DPoS was to enrich themselves and their Chicom backers at the expense of everyone else.  They are sellouts pure and simple.

[iamnotback]

Re: Synereo, Rchain, Ethereum -- How do they relate

The longer Greg can stay involved with Vlad and Vitalik on Casper, the better. The longer they will be mired in technobabble nonsense. Please support Greg.

Greg is a reasonably smart mathematician trying to find use cases for his math which are nonsense. I am not a mathematician of his caliber, so definitely don't listen to me. Please support Greg and please keep him involved with Ethereum's Casper.

Greg is smart. I am not disputing that.

I guess it's over your head, must be nonsense then. Vlad and Vitalik must be retards"having fun doing Star Trek research" running a 1 billion dollar network.  RIP Ethereum.

ftfy

But you had the correct conclusion.

[iamnotback]

Two years after the following post by Paul Sztorc, Ethereum is still talking about PoS...

Notice the comments addressing Hearn in the very link you supplied, and Hearn's use of "hope", "there will eventually be something better", suggesting that there currently is not anything better. Ethereum is closer to the "doing" than "talking" stage, but not by very much. The best would be, of course, if someone would just (shut up and) actually do PoS.

[iamnotback]

Btw, the centralization (i.e. it can be gamed) flaw in Paul Sztorc's idea to use prediction markets to gather information or consensus amongst possibilities, is per the concerns he mentions in his conclusion and also analogous to the flaw of the consensus-by-betting of Ethereum's research on Casper, is that the determination of the outcome either requires a centralized oracle to declare it or it is self-referential so thus it devolves and distills down to the essence of "might makes right" aka Byzantine agreement voting. This is why so far only Satoshi's PoW solved the self-referential aspect by referring to an external burned resource (electricity) but this resource is also subject to power-law aggregation of economies-of-scale.

[mining1]

So your point is they haven't implemented POS yet and it's delayed part because of the dao hack and the attacks, part because it took longer than they expected. We know that, it is expected in 2018. Thing is, they're transparent about everything ethereum related, proffesional, and are building something that wasn't done before. They were so transparent about things you can't even suspect them of being dishonest or trying to enrich themselves by scamming everyone else, as opposed to some dev teams over there ( dash ) that hype the project themselves, which is immoral at best.

You're like those who kept saying that anything heavier than air can't fly, and several people around the world independently of eachother were trying to do the same thing while proving them wrong; building a working prototype. Either prove you're better or step aside. Seriously, you're like the average football player that hopes everyone else gets injured so you could have a chance to enter the field.

[yeezred]

what's the issue with running a monty python type simulation for the probability?

[iamnotback]

From my deep study of the range of plausible designs for a blockchain consensus system (and I studied much deeper than in than what is contained in that linked thread), I conclude that it is impossible to have a fungible token on a blockchain in which the consensus doesn't become centralized iff the presumption is that the users of the system gain the most value from the system due to its monetary function.

However, I was able to outsmart the global elite, because I realized that if the users of the system gained more value from the system for its non-monetary function and iff that value can't be financed (i.e. its value can be leeched off by control of fungible money), and if I provided a way for the users to provide the Byzantine fault DETECTION as a check-and-balance against the power of the whales and if I provided this in a way that is not democracy and is a crab bucket mentality Nash equilibrium, then I would have defeated the problems with the concept of fungible money.

The elite simply weren't aware of these concepts, because I invented them. Nash didn't know this.

And that is what I intend to launch with BitNet.

Quoting, because this post is too valuable  

More on that...

You could just remove the reward, any one can mine new block out of the mem pool, if two blocks or tx are in common, a determinstic algorithm could be used to select between the two.

I agree with you.  The error in most crypto is the reward, which gives rise to strategies that do not necessarily induce the desired properties.  I also think that the only viable kind of crypto currency is where the validation/consensus decision is taken on a voluntary basis, the "reward" being that the system in which you are invested, keeps running correctly.

However, you still need a kind of deterministic decision *that is hard to game* (because you can do "proof of work" like calculations to get the deterministic solution in your advantage).  This is why a kind of PoS signature scheme is necessary in my opinion.

@dinofelis, how many times do I have to repeat to you that voting is not free.

Ethereum's Casper shit is more of the same proof-of-stake (nothing-at-stake or centralization by economic weight, e.g. DPoS) nonsense. The betting stuff enables what Vitalik refers to as "dark uncles" or "dunkles", which Vitalik incorrectly thinks will solve the nothing-at-stake problem. Also Casper has the problem that all deterministic finality PoS and Byzatine agreement systems have, which is a 33% liveness threshold which if that many validators balk or stop processing, then the chain can't move forward without a hard fork.

The only way to replace PoW is with an Inverse Commons consensus protocol, which is my new invention.

And all together your comment also show that you dont see my perpective, and why the thing you point doesnt matter, and what I meant with checkpoint is that you would only need real pow consencus on this checkpoint to "harden" The chain if you want to enforce a particular order on the tx/block, but that would just be about one packet saying this block height is this block hash, and having a pow once in a while on this checkpoint instead of every block.

I invented that already in collaboration with @jl777 for Komodo in 2016. It is named dPoW (delayed proof-of-work).

CounterParty does something somewhat analogous as well.

And really it isn't a secure and sound solution, but more of a gimick. Because the local consensus still have to decide what to submit for checkpoints because the PoW system isn't validating every thing and can't resolve conflicting double-spending orderings that occurred between checkpoints.

[mining1]

Ethereum's Casper shit is more of the same proof-of-stake (nothing-at-stake or centralization by economic weight, e.g. DPoS) nonsense. The betting stuff enables what Vitalik refers to as "dark uncles" or "dunkles", which Vitalik incorrectly thinks will solve the nothing-at-stake problem. Also Casper has the problem that all deterministic finality PoS and Byzatine agreement systems have, which is a 33% liveness threshold which if that many validators balk or stop processing, then the chain can't move forward without a hard fork.

Major casper issues have already been solved, i think you're stuck with 2015 infos about casper. https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/minimal-slashing-conditions-20f0b500fc6c
https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/simple_casper.v.py
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ

Also casper does not assume rational attackers, so if a 51% attack happens in POS, at curent prices, the attackers would have to burn 100-500mil $. In which case they would rather do it now than later because it would cost them 10 times less. With ~30$ mil you can even attack bitcoin.

[Zocadas]

Ethereum's Casper shit is more of the same proof-of-stake (nothing-at-stake or centralization by economic weight, e.g. DPoS) nonsense. The betting stuff enables what Vitalik refers to as "dark uncles" or "dunkles", which Vitalik incorrectly thinks will solve the nothing-at-stake problem. Also Casper has the problem that all deterministic finality PoS and Byzatine agreement systems have, which is a 33% liveness threshold which if that many validators balk or stop processing, then the chain can't move forward without a hard fork.

Major casper issues have already been solved, i think you're stuck with 2015 infos about casper. https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/minimal-slashing-conditions-20f0b500fc6c
https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/simple_casper.v.py
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ

Also casper does not assume rational attackers, so if a 51% attack happens in POS, at curent prices, the attackers would have to burn 100-500mil $. In which case they would rather do it now than later because it would cost them 10 times less. With ~30$ mil you can even attack bitcoin.

I think it better to increase the block size and let the miners earn more so that they will better protect the network.

[RoomBot]

What a roller coaster ride~!

$30 Million: Ether Reported Stolen Due to Parity Wallet Breach

http://www.coindesk.com/30-million-ether-reported-stolen-parity-wallet-breach/

[Zocadas]

What a roller coaster ride~!

$30 Million: Ether Reported Stolen Due to Parity Wallet Breach

http://www.coindesk.com/30-million-ether-reported-stolen-parity-wallet-breach/

It seems it is better t use the old test wallet instead of innovative wallet.

[Haterreact]

forks after forks,hacks after hacks , still ethereum is second most value in cryptoworld. thats not an easy feat to achieve.

[Traxo]

but I haven't seen many lessons learned from this research, or even PLT research, adopted in the Solidity language.

[AlexGR]

forks after forks,hacks after hacks , still ethereum is second most value in cryptoworld. thats not an easy feat to achieve.

The more centralized a coin is, the more it can draw institutional investors who feel safer compared to more anarchic, or chaotic, decentralized alternatives.

However cryptocurrencies weren't invented (at least originally) with the intention to rival the investment in bank stocks and the likes.

[korchenkov]

I have news for you folks. Vitalik Buterin is not a human being. He is an alien from a galaxy on the other side of the universe. He came here through a portal to save our world.

[neerajimittal]

Ethereum is a system of redundantly executed code, a general purpose CPU mirroring the functionality of the worlds most inefficient botnet without parallelization.  Unless blockchain scaling is either huge or infinite, the validation and redundancy of simple transactional data, which Bitcoin attempted to solve in a distributed manner, is far more useful in a cost benefit analysis rather than open ended computational redundancy.  In other words, Bitcoin is an ASIC for a specific purpose, and struggles to fulfill that role even with a streamlined design.  Ethereum, on the other hand, has introduced an objectively less efficient design to try and conquer even more problems.

[Collider]

But will ETH reach 10 USD?

Guys, look, 2 years ago we did not trust that ETH could reach 10USD.
Now, we still do not trust in the further growth, right? And that is bad, we have to be optimistic  .

[Traxo]

Ethereum's Casper shit is more of the same proof-of-stake (nothing-at-stake or centralization by economic weight, e.g. DPoS) nonsense. The betting stuff enables what Vitalik refers to as "dark uncles" or "dunkles", which Vitalik incorrectly thinks will solve the nothing-at-stake problem. Also Casper has the problem that all deterministic finality PoS and Byzatine agreement systems have, which is a 33% liveness threshold which if that many validators balk or stop processing, then the chain can't move forward without a hard fork.

Major casper issues have already been solved, i think you're stuck with 2015 infos about casper. https://medium.com/@VitalikButerin/minimal-slashing-conditions-20f0b500fc6c
https://github.com/ethereum/research/blob/master/casper4/simple_casper.v.py
https://github.com/ethereum/wiki/wiki/Proof-of-Stake-FAQ

Also casper does not assume rational attackers, so if a 51% attack happens in POS, at curent prices, the attackers would have to burn 100-500mil $. In which case they would rather do it now than later because it would cost them 10 times less. With ~30$ mil you can even attack bitcoin.

@anonymint tells me in private chat that Vitalik hasn’t solved anything. Here are some of his initial thoughts:

https://medium.com/@shelby_78386/i-dont-see-how-it-s-plausible-for-parallel-forks-of-the-hash-chain-to-be-finalized-concurrently-cb57afe9dd0a
https://medium.com/@shelby_78386/first-apparently-youre-not-aware-that-the-casper-slasher-design-work-appears-to-be-fundamentally-c2a72d18f5fa
https://medium.com/@shelby_78386/the-caveat-though-is-that-when-the-attacker-can-fork-the-vested-interests-of-some-of-the-users-9340dd037a61
https://medium.com/@shelby_78386/ftfy-for-the-both-to-be-finalized-then-at-least-%E2%85%94-of-the-validator-set-of-the-parent-block-must-6da5da9197cc
https://medium.com/@shelby_78386/my-analysis-of-vitaliks-logic-doesn-t-allow-for-new-stakers-to-restart-the-stalled-chain-91016ee63587

And he says a new blog is coming that will detail many more flaws in the plans for sharding in Ethereum.

I have news for you folks. Vitalik Buterin is not a human being. He is an alien from a galaxy on the other side of the universe. He came here through a portal to save our world.

Again from @anonymint:
"After reviewing the above links, I think you will be sad to learn that Vitalik is human, fallible, and apparently quite inept at designing a new blockchain consensus algorithm."