Proof of Work VS. Proof of Stake (Bitcoin - PPCoin)

[matauc12]

They moved this topic to the alt crypto board because it mentions alt cryptos? What I'm trying to get at is the idea of proof of stake for bitcoin.
What would it take to get proof of stake implemented in bitcoin? A surge in the value of ppcoin would be a start. But what if ppcoin fails? Will the idea be perceived as a bad one for bitcoin?

I agree with your disagreement. Your thread is obviously not about alt coin discussion and much more towards bitcoin itself... Did the mod even read your post or read it and plain stupid or read it and is just a purist Nazi? Under the circumstances I hope he just didn't read...

[Notanon]

4x the block generation speed, which is useful for smaller transactions and to take the load off bitcoins block size limitations, and an encryption method which is more ASIC-resilient and less likely to be 51% attacked as a result, would indicate some thought out innovations with the design of Litecoins. If both were introduced at the same time, Bitcoin would've died off years ago and Litecoin would reign supreme instead.

I keep seeing people not knowing much history of altcoins claims as if scrypt hash was litecoin's 'innovation'. It was done by ArtForz and first debut was in tenebrix. coblee just copied it.

https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/History-of-cryptocurrency

Fair enough. So why Tenebrix die off?

[tacotime]

4x the block generation speed, which is useful for smaller transactions and to take the load off bitcoins block size limitations, and an encryption method which is more ASIC-resilient and less likely to be 51% attacked as a result, would indicate some thought out innovations with the design of Litecoins. If both were introduced at the same time, Bitcoin would've died off years ago and Litecoin would reign supreme instead.

I keep seeing people not knowing much history of altcoins claims as if scrypt hash was litecoin's 'innovation'. It was done by ArtForz and first debut was in tenebrix. coblee just copied it.

https://github.com/ppcoin/ppcoin/wiki/History-of-cryptocurrency

Fair enough. So why Tenebrix die off?

No long term incentive to mine it (no block reward halving was implemented)

[giszmo]

Well I see a slight chance to get POS into Bitcoin if it was introduced over a period of years so that mining hardware producers can adapt to that change or rather find their peace with it.
Why halfing the block reward won't cut it to not have several nuclear power plants produce the energy for mining follows from the price 1000-folding in the same time we cut the reward in half. This halfing just doesn't cut it. I would guess bitcoin will trade for $10,000 before we next half the reward. This will mean that one day of block rewards will be worth more than all the ASIC companies invested together to get started. Do we really want to have this mad amounts of money into POW mining?

[Craftyman]

Can someone explain to me in layman's terms what proof of stake means exactly?

[tacotime]

Can someone explain to me in layman's terms what proof of stake means exactly?

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age) rather than by mining competitively to solve blocks through a lottery system (proof of work).

The main problem with it is that it seems to introduce vulnerabilities, and the major advantage is that it's more power efficient and makes a chain somewhat more resistant to a PoW 51% attack.

[fundamentals]

Can someone explain to me in layman's terms what proof of stake means exactly?

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age) rather than by mining competitively to solve blocks through a lottery system (proof of work).

The main problem with it is that it seems to introduce vulnerabilities, and the major advantage is that it's more power efficient and makes a chain somewhat more resistant to a PoW 51% attack.

Finally an informative answer

[Dabs]

Wouldn't that encourage people to hoard coins? So I keep getting more blocks as I have more coins (or more stake.)

[Impaler]

Yes, but the an even stronger incentive is created when a coin is expected to appreciate in value as BTC has been doing recently.

[romerun]

according to the history, how could trc priced higher than ppc ? It has no innovation or even author and has just born half a year.

[nameface]

according to the history, how could trc priced higher than ppc ? It has no innovation or even author and has just born half a year.

I don't understand what TRC has to offer?! Is it just a crappy LTC? If yes, it's WAY overvalued and PPC should overtake it pretty fast.

[matauc12]

Wouldn't that encourage people to hoard coins? So I keep getting more blocks as I have more coins (or more stake.)

Certainly I believe it creates a balance between spending for just so not the lose value (fiat) and store of value (gold). After a while remember, not that many coins will be added in circulation, but there still always will be, so people have incentive to hoard to gain value, but with the ever increasing value, you have an incentive to spend (basically creating another means of supply/demand through the currency itself)

[herzmeister]

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age)

So this coin would essentially be totally controlled by MtGox (i.e. their reserves).

[nameface]

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age)

So this coin would essentially be totally controlled by MtGox (i.e. their reserves).

Mt.Gox doesn't trade PPCoin.

Can someone explain the PPCoin block reward more indepth.

[phelix]

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age)

So this coin would essentially be totally controlled by MtGox (i.e. their reserves).

this  ?

[giszmo]

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age)

So this coin would essentially be totally controlled by MtGox (i.e. their reserves).

An ideal proof of stake chain would allow you to mine with just your standard client ticking the "generate coins" checkbox. This checkbox could default to checked if you hold more than x coins assuming a trade off between some moderate computation costing moderate amounts of energy and noise and the chance of contributing to the network security within the next week/month.

MtGox would not control Bitcoin if Bitcoin was POS as MtGox does not control 51% of all coins. By far they don't.

MtGox would have to pay interest on coins stored with them as else people would not hold larger stashes of coins there. Same would apply to any hosted wallet.

[nameface]

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age)

So this coin would essentially be totally controlled by MtGox (i.e. their reserves).

An ideal proof of stake chain would allow you to mine with just your standard client ticking the "generate coins" checkbox. This checkbox could default to checked if you hold more than x coins assuming a trade off between some moderate computation costing moderate amounts of energy and noise and the chance of contributing to the network security within the next week/month.

MtGox would not control Bitcoin if Bitcoin was POS as MtGox does not control 51% of all coins. By far they don't.

MtGox would have to pay interest on coins stored with them as else people would not hold larger stashes of coins there. Same would apply to any hosted wallet.

this

[tacotime]

Blocks are given to you based on obtaining and keeping coins for a certain duration (coin age)

So this coin would essentially be totally controlled by MtGox (i.e. their reserves).

An ideal proof of stake chain would allow you to mine with just your standard client ticking the "generate coins" checkbox. This checkbox could default to checked if you hold more than x coins assuming a trade off between some moderate computation costing moderate amounts of energy and noise and the chance of contributing to the network security within the next week/month.

MtGox would not control Bitcoin if Bitcoin was POS as MtGox does not control 51% of all coins. By far they don't.

MtGox would have to pay interest on coins stored with them as else people would not hold larger stashes of coins there. Same would apply to any hosted wallet.

Yeah.  The 51% problem still exists for PoS systems, but you just need 51% of all the coins available to fork the chains instead of 51% of the network hash power.  The tradeoff is that 51% forks of PoS coins are not readily reversible, eg, if your PoS chain has a 30 day waiting period before claiming PoS blocks and you obtain 51% of all coins then wait, then decide to fork the chain, removing any amount of blocks in the chain up to the last 30 days still leaves you, the original forker, with 51% of the coins and perfectly able to commit the same exploit again.

PoW, by contrast, can just roll back a few hours because sustained 51% attacks appear to be extremely rare and also extremely costly.

But the bigger problem with PoS is double spends by creating short PoS block spams of length six or so.

[herzmeister]

MtGox was symbolic. Think banking cartel, "the rich" and governments. So what's the difference to today?

Also I wouldn't even be so sure if it's more energy efficient. Maybe distributed specialized hardware (ASICs) is better than every John Doe with a few coins running their computers instead of just keeping paper wallets, despite all their coins together not even adding up to 50% anyway.

[giszmo]

MtGox was symbolic. Think banking cartel, "the rich" and governments. So what's the difference to today?

Also I wouldn't even be so sure if it's more energy efficient. Maybe distributed specialized hardware (ASICs) is better than every John Doe with a few coins running their computers instead of just keeping paper wallets, despite all their coins together not even adding up to 50% anyway.

It's not only about electricity. ASICs are a huge step forward for the environment as ASICs cost so much to build (for now) that the overall calculation
profit = mining output - mining effort = mining output - electricity costs - hardware costs - bandwidth costs
with profit close to zero and mining output being 25Ƀ per 10 minutes:
3600Ƀ/day = electricity costs + hardware costs + bandwidth costs
make the equation's big post shift away from electricity to the hardware costs.
With POS the equation should be:
3600Ƀ/day = Ƀ holding "costs" + electricity costs + hardware costs + bandwidth costs

People would invest less into electricity (that destroys the environment) and hardware (that also ends up on the waste dump very quickly) and more into Bitcoin itself to protect Bitcoin. The perfect solution to achieve this might not be available yet but I find it very intriguing to search that solution.

My problem with a heavy POS dependency from the start is the bootstrapping. How should this coin be evenly distributed ever? Therefore I hope Bitcoin slowly adapts POS at some point years from now to stop the sin of wasting tons of uranium on securing what could be secured with tons of Bitcoins as well.