PoW vs PoS conundrum - presenting a new form of PoA.

[kiklo]

This is where I have to disagree, with an otherwise well written post.
Say I am a Business running my own Full Node Regardless of what the rest of the network does.
Even if an evil majority overwhelm the majority of Nodes, my Honest Full Node will still refuse/ignore their blocks that don't match the standards on mine.
Which means , my system will Refuse/Ignore their DoubleSpend attempts, meaning I will not be shipping product or services to them that they never really paid for.
It will keep the bad guys from stealing from me with Fake coins.  

Now if the evil majority keeps control of BTC, and I can no longer trust the BTC network
my choices become clear, immediately discontinue accepting any BTC for payment.
Back to Cash & Credit only or find a Crypto that can be trusted.

We are also perfectly in agreement, but you are not just a "full node runner", but a "disgruntled user".  And you perfectly illustrate what I wanted to say: you're running of a full node hasn't stopped "the bad guys" (that is to say, the miners who decided upon a change of rule and who have the large majority of mining power attached to THEIR full nodes).  It has just INFORMED you that the block chain that is mainly being mined doesn't correspond to the rules you want.  As such, you stop USING it, your node comes essentially to a grinding halt, and you not using it any more removes market cap from the coin.  But you didn't stop anything.

No offense , but the longer you type, the dumber you are getting.

LOL, It will Stop the Bad Guys from Stealing my Products or Services.

If all of the Business Disagree with the evil miners, and quit using the BTC Network,

Guess What that effectively Destroys the corrupt BTC network financial worth and provides an ECONOMIC pressure to keep them from doing evil things like increasing the reward to 1000 BTC per block.

In my case, I'm running a full node at home.  But it has an empty wallet.  I am a bitcoin user only for buying some bitcoin to spend them on some goods, I don't weight much on the market cap.  The day that the large majority consortium of miners decide upon a change of rules (and become "the bad guys") and implement those new rules in THEIR miner pool full nodes (in other words, the day that the "bad guys" decide on a hard fork), and I don't upgrade, because I am a "guardian of the immutability of the rules" with my empty full node, my full node will simply stop accepting blocks, *and that's it*.  Even if I had 100 000 such full nodes running, they would also simply stop accepting the forked chain, and come to a halt.  All users connected to those nodes would be informed that the blocks don't come any more.  In as much as they'd agree with the "bad guys fork", they'd have to connect directly to the few of their mining nodes.   And that's it.

As explained previously, full nodes enforce the consensus rules no matter what. However, lightweight nodes do not do this. Lightweight nodes do whatever the majority of mining power says. Therefore, if most of the miners got together to increase their block reward, for example, lightweight nodes would blindly go along with it. If this ever happened, the network would split such that lightweight nodes and full nodes would end up on separate networks, using separate currencies. People using lightweight nodes would be unable to transact with people using full nodes. If all businesses and many users are using full nodes, then this network split is not a critical problem because users of lightweight clients will quickly notice that they can't send or receive bitcoins to/from most of the people who they usually do business with, and so they'll stop using Bitcoin until the evil miners are overcome

This is the error in the reasoning here, of course.  If essentially all miners are the "evil ones" and they have an agreement with most of the users, then you can wait forever for these "miners to be overcome".   In other words, if the miners decide upon a hard fork, and hence become "evil miners" according to the above, no matter how many full nodes are refusing this hard fork, it won't change anything.

LOL, It will Stop the Bad Guys from Stealing my Products or Services.
You are basically arguing with https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Full_node , which was a collaboration of many BTC experts,
I suggest you waste your time by trying to convince the BTC Experts that they are wrong, as you have failed miserably trying to convince me.

 

[kiklo]

To me it looks that simple:

PoW
Most secure way, but expensive ( security = order  is expensive, think of entropy )
But does not really scale.
Use case is store of value.

PoS
Less secure ( a 51% attacker can rewrite the entire blockchain, ...) and less expensive.
Better scaling.
Use case is transaction.


Best use of both is in combination by side chains (PoS) settle into the PoW chain.

PoW is only as secure as who controls 51% of the ASICS.

PoS
Less secure ( a 51% attacker can rewrite the entire blockchain, ...) and less expensive.

Both PoS & PoW use Hard Coded Checkpoints built directly into the Software code, (Cheap Protection from Long Range History Attacks)
No Reorganization can happen past a checkpoint.  
So any wallet with even 1 checkpoint can never have it's entire blockchain rewritten.
Also some Coins employ a rolling checkpoint that will not reorg past a specific number,
Nxt is 720 blocks and Blackcoin is 500 blocks , after that number their chain is locked beyond rewrite.  

 

[dinofelis]

You seem to have a problem in argumenting. 

This is where I have to disagree, with an otherwise well written post.
Say I am a Business running my own Full Node Regardless of what the rest of the network does.
Even if an evil majority overwhelm the majority of Nodes, my Honest Full Node will still refuse/ignore their blocks that don't match the standards on mine.
Which means , my system will Refuse/Ignore their DoubleSpend attempts, meaning I will not be shipping product or services to them that they never really paid for.
It will keep the bad guys from stealing from me with Fake coins.  

Now if the evil majority keeps control of BTC, and I can no longer trust the BTC network
my choices become clear, immediately discontinue accepting any BTC for payment.
Back to Cash & Credit only or find a Crypto that can be trusted.

We are also perfectly in agreement, but you are not just a "full node runner", but a "disgruntled user".  And you perfectly illustrate what I wanted to say: you're running of a full node hasn't stopped "the bad guys" (that is to say, the miners who decided upon a change of rule and who have the large majority of mining power attached to THEIR full nodes).  It has just INFORMED you that the block chain that is mainly being mined doesn't correspond to the rules you want.  As such, you stop USING it, your node comes essentially to a grinding halt, and you not using it any more removes market cap from the coin.  But you didn't stop anything.

No offense , but the longer you type, the dumber you are getting.

LOL, It will Stop the Bad Guys from Stealing my Products or Services.

If all of the Business Disagree with the evil miners, and quit using the BTC Network,

Guess What that effectively Destroys the corrupt BTC network financial worth and provides an ECONOMIC pressure to keep them from doing evil things like increasing the reward to 1000 BTC per block.

"if all businesses disagree with the evil miners" is not a case I'm discussing.  I'm discussing the case where miners and users AGREE to change the rules, but ONLY a vast majority of non-mining full nodes don't and want to be "guardian of the protocol".

LOL, It will Stop the Bad Guys from Stealing my Products or Services.
You are basically arguing with https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Full_node , which was a collaboration of many BTC experts,
I suggest you waste your time by trying to convince the BTC Experts that they are wrong, as you have failed miserably trying to convince me.

 

The argument of authority has no value.  It is not because "bitcoin experts" tell you something, that it has to be that way.  What those "bitcoin experts" are writing is perfectly true, under assumptions that I don't make, namely that there is a symbiosis between mining, nodes and users.  I make the explicit, and rather artificial hypothesis that non-mining full nodes are NOT agreeing with the consensus between users and miners.  As this is not the hypothesis that your bitcoin experts make, what they say is not relevant to my gedanken experiment.

[dinofelis]

Both PoS & PoW use Hard Coded Checkpoints built directly into the Software code, (Cheap Protection from Long Range History Attacks)
No Reorganization can happen past a checkpoint.  
So any wallet with even 1 checkpoint can never have it's entire blockchain rewritten.
Also some Coins employ a rolling checkpoint that will not reorg past a specific number,
Nxt is 720 blocks and Blackcoin is 500 blocks , after that number their chain is locked beyond rewrite.  

 

But then the "authority" is the software writer, no ?  Why doesn't that software writer, who has visibly authority on the "check points" to write them in the code or not, keep the whole block chain and does all the signing off of the blocks ?  Then there's no reason to even do PoS.  The software writer can then be the central authority that has the "block chain" on his web site.
I'm talking about the hard-coded check points IN THE CODE other than the check on the genesis block here.

In the case of check points GENERATED by the wallet, there is a fundamental problem with wallet-generated "check points", in the following sense: in the case they are valid, they are useless, and in the case they are useful, they don't exist.  Let me explain. 

If you have a running wallet for a long time, you can of course regularly make BACKUPS of the block chain.  Now, it can be strange that suddenly, the block chain is re-written since 2 years ago.  You clearly see that there's something fishy.  Imagine a new bitcoin block chain being propagated which is totally different since 2014, even if it has more PoW than the one you have, you know there's something fishy.  *but that is because you already were running in 2014 !*  So only wallets running since 2014 can actually SEE that things were changed after the fact.  You can see your "backup" of your wallet of 2015 as a "check point".   Sure.

The point, however, is to a newcomer, he cannot know.  He simply sees a block chain, and another one, which diverge since 2014.  One (the modified one) has more PoW than the other one.   If I have to GENERATE ancient check points for both chains, I can of course, but they will not learn me anything.  Each chain, by itself, will give rise to perfectly valid but different check points in the past.

So what's left ?  Wel, the hard-coded check points in the code.  But imagine now that there are different wallets from different devs that one can download.  Some wallets have the hard-coded check point of the first chain, other wallets of the second chain.  Depending on the wallet I decide to install, I will accept one chain or the other.  On the authority of the programmer of the wallet.  And we're back to square one.

PoS needs checkpoints, because it is inherently "free of stake", or almost so.  In fact, there is a small, unwanted PoW stake to faking PoS.  It goes as follows:

Suppose that I possess 20% of all coins in a PoS coin.  Now, at a certain point, I make a transaction of 15% of my holdings, and I buy a luxury ship with it.  Of course, once this transaction is signed into a block, I only have 5% of stake any more.  But for blocks BEFORE that transaction, I have 20% of PoS. 

I can hence sign blocks NOT containing my transaction from a point before that transaction, using the normal PoS mechanism, in competition with the actual chain.   The problem is of course, that I only have 20% chance to sign a block.  So on average 4 out of 5 blocks cannot be signed by me.  At least, if the pseudo-random function works well, and assigns me as a signer 1 out of 5 times.   However, that pseudo-random function depends on the content of the signed blocks in many cases.  So I can apply a kind of PoW to change those blocks (including or excluding other people's transactions) until that block happens to generate ME again as the signee.  I have, on average, to try 5 different blocks to do so, if I have a stake of 20%.  So I need to perform about 5 times the normal work of others to sign off the entire rest of the chain, because "by coincidence" I'm always an allowed signee in the PoS lottery.

[hv_]

To me it looks that simple:

PoW
Most secure way, but expensive ( security = order  is expensive, think of entropy )
But does not really scale.
Use case is store of value.

PoS
Less secure ( a 51% attacker can rewrite the entire blockchain, ...) and less expensive.
Better scaling.
Use case is transaction.


Best use of both is in combination by side chains (PoS) settle into the PoW chain.

PoW is only as secure as who controls 51% of the ASICS.

PoS
Less secure ( a 51% attacker can rewrite the entire blockchain, ...) and less expensive.

Both PoS & PoW use Hard Coded Checkpoints built directly into the Software code, (Cheap Protection from Long Range History Attacks)
No Reorganization can happen past a checkpoint.  
So any wallet with even 1 checkpoint can never have it's entire blockchain rewritten.
Also some Coins employ a rolling checkpoint that will not reorg past a specific number,
Nxt is 720 blocks and Blackcoin is 500 blocks , after that number their chain is locked beyond rewrite.  

 

Please do your math correct and calc how much it costs to rearrange same amount of blocks within PoW vs PoS under a 51% attack.

Tip: Include hardware / longterm investment here (bitcoin Asics can mostly been profitable used ONLY to mine bitcoin) and separate this from fungible investments.

PoS is not that secure.

[kiklo]

You seem to have a problem in argumenting.  

Yep,
the problem is you're too stupid to know when you lost.  
Which was a few posts ago actually.  

 

FYI:
This one to be exact https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1744718.msg17498545#msg17498545 .

[kiklo]

Please do your math correct and calc how much it costs to rearrange same amount of blocks within PoW vs PoS under a 51% attack.

Tip: Include hardware / longterm investment here (bitcoin Asics can mostly been profitable used ONLY to mine bitcoin) and separate this from fungible investments.

PoS is not that secure.

Man , the stupid is running wild today.

Hard Coded Checkpoints research them , they completely protect a blockchain,
which is why PoW & PoS BOTH used them.

The Current BTC Transactions History of the last 12 hours (probably more)  can be rewritten on a whim by the Chinese Mining Pools.
(You call that secure.)  

I tell you like I tell the other theory mongers in these forums, PoS is so insecure and so easy for you to break,
Cut the BS, Pick one and show me , otherwise, I am just going to assume you are flaccid in your argument like good old Dino is.
(Feel Free and try and Destroy ZEIT it is proof of stake , it will be a good laugh for me.)

 


FYI:
Since we know for Certain the last 12 hours of Transaction History of BTC can be overwritten,
To prove PoS is less secure than POW, You are going to have to overwrite the last 15 hours or so of a PoS coin.
Like I said Take your best shot at ZEIT , I can always use a good laugh.

Hey does this Prove Proof of Stake is More Secure than PoW , when you can't do it.  

[dinofelis]

You seem to have a problem in argumenting. 

Yep,
the problem is you're too stupid to know when you lost. 
Which was a few posts ago actually. 

 

Really ?  Again, I challenge you to start up 100 000 bitcoin nodes on amazon using different rules, and see how much you can make the bitcoin network comply to your modifications (if you consider your modifications the actual rules you want to  "guard"), against the will of the users and the miners, which will show you the "power" of a non-mining full node majority.

Do you really think you will impose your rules by just firing up 100 000 bitcoin nodes ?

[kiklo]

You seem to have a problem in argumenting. 

Yep,
the problem is you're too stupid to know when you lost. 
Which was a few posts ago actually. 

 

Really ?  Again, I challenge you to start up 100 000 bitcoin nodes on amazon using different rules, and see how much you can make the bitcoin network comply to your modifications (if you consider your modifications the actual rules you want to  "guard"), against the will of the users and the miners, which will show you the "power" of a non-mining full node majority.

Do you really think you will impose your rules by just firing up 100 000 bitcoin nodes ?

I challenge you to quit being an Asshat , you lost get over it. 

 

[dinofelis]

I challenge you to quit being an Asshat , you lost get over it. 

I think you are falling in the self-referential trap of PoS.  It is not because you claim that I lost, that I did.  But given the fact that you think that you are the stake holder deciding on who lost, you take your own signing off of the statement that I lost as the true chain, don't you

The point is that *you* lost since quite a while, but because you didn't even get the gedanken experiment that I proposed.  Now *I* sign off this statement because I think that I'm the stake holder here and I take THAT as the true chain.  How are we going to find out now what is the true chain ?

In your chain, you think you have the stake to sign that I lost the discussion, and in my chain, I think that I have the stake to sign that you lost the discussion.  How are we going to differentiate between my statement that you didn't get the point, and your statement that I didn't get the point ?   Is just stating so sufficient ?  Visibly not.

But, again.  If you have users and miners agreeing on set of rules A on one hand, and on the other hand a vast majority of full non-mining nodes agreeing (only) on rules B, then, the chain that is going to "work" is the chain with rules A, and B will get you nowhere.  As such, those full nodes, in agreement amongst themselves in majority, but in disagreement with users and miners, CANNOT GUARD the network from adopting rules A.

[kiklo]

You Lost on this post  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1744718.msg17498545#msg17498545 .

Everything else has just been your pathetic attempts at diffusion and sad ramblings.


 

FYI:
You're staring to remind me of this guy. 

[hv_]

Please do your math correct and calc how much it costs to rearrange same amount of blocks within PoW vs PoS under a 51% attack.

Tip: Include hardware / longterm investment here (bitcoin Asics can mostly been profitable used ONLY to mine bitcoin) and separate this from fungible investments.

PoS is not that secure.

Man , the stupid is running wild today.

Hard Coded Checkpoints research them , they completely protect a blockchain,
which is why PoW & PoS BOTH used them.

The Current BTC Transactions History of the last 12 hours (probably more)  can be rewritten on a whim by the Chinese Mining Pools.
(You call that secure.)  

I tell you like I tell the other theory mongers in these forums, PoS is so insecure and so easy for you to break,
Cut the BS, Pick one and show me , otherwise, I am just going to assume you are flaccid in your argument like good old Dino is.
(Feel Free and try and Destroy ZEIT it is proof of stake , it will be a good laugh for me.)

 


FYI:
Since we know for Certain the last 12 hours of Transaction History of BTC can be overwritten,
To prove PoS is less secure than POW, You are going to have to overwrite the last 15 hours or so of a PoS coin.
Like I said Take your best shot at ZEIT , I can always use a good laugh.

Hey does this Prove Proof of Stake is More Secure than PoW , when you can't do it.  

Yes, cant fix stupid. So you say your hard coded nodes do all nice.

I give up. You win your pos coins. Go for!

[kiklo]

Yes, cant fix stupid. So you say your hard coded nodes do all nice.

I give up. You win your pos coins. Go for!

Well you are smarter than Dino, at least you know when to quit.   


 

[dinofelis]

You Lost on this post  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1744718.msg17498545#msg17498545 .

You don't win an argument by quitting it and declaring yourself a winner, you know.  As I pointed out, that has too much of a self-referential PoS attitude .

You didn't "win" any argument, because you never considered the gedanken experiment I proposed to you, and you are always including *something else* in your counter argument, hence not debunking my statement at all.
You only win an argument by pointing out the LOGICAL errors in the presented argument of the opponent with correct logical arguments.  No ad hominem, no self-referential declarations of victory, and no argument of authority is part of the class of logical arguments.

My gedanken experiment, which I agree, is artificial, proves clearly the futility of non-mining nodes BY THEMSELVES as "guardians of the rules": you can fire up 100 000 such nodes which "guard another set of rules", and that vast majority doesn't do zilch to the consensus, even if they all scream that their rules are not followed.  As such, non-mining nodes, even if they make up the vast majority, don't impose ANYTHING.  Which was my statement.  I never said anything else.

The consensus is made by "miners", where I understand by miner: the entity that *decides* upon which chain to build and hence also runs a (mining) full node ; people selling mining power to that miner (people owning asics) ; and users.

If these three classes of entities agree upon a set of rules, then THAT consensus will prevail.  Whatever the non-mining full nodes NOT BELONGING TO ONE OF THESE CLASSES may use as rules.

What is artificial in my gedanken experiment is of course to separate the USERS from the non-mining full nodes.  Most of the time, those running full nodes are also users.  And users ARE important in the consensus, because they determine the market cap, and hence also the revenues of the miners, and hence of course the miners will not go against the users.

In all your counter examples which are valid by themselves, you have to include or "disgruntled users" or "disgruntled miners" or "disgruntled mining power owners" with the full nodes you consider, to "show" that these nodes keep the consensus, and as such, your demonstration failed each time, because it didn't single out the non-mining non-user related full node as the consensus keeper, at all.

Again my proof that a large majority of non-mining, non-user related full nodes doesn't impose the consensus is simple: fire up 100 000 of them on amazon, and make them impose another rule set.  It won't work.  So their majority doesn't imply consensus. QED.

[John Titor]

People need to stop wasting their time debating Kiklo, he is clearly an idiot.

[kiklo]

@Dino,

I know, I won the argument and you lost.  
Logic gives me the ability to determine reality from your personal delusions.

I have come to understand your reasoning is completely flawed, when your ego is involved.  

See that is the advantage to being logical instead of emotional,
I won the argument and you can never accept it, so there is no point to listening to your future whining on that subject ,
any response you want to make from now on relating to that subject is always this post. (The one that proved you wrong.)  
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1744718.msg17498545#msg17498545


 

[kiklo]

People need to stop wasting their time debating Kiklo, he is clearly RIGHT!

Here fixed that for you , Newbie.  

If you Love Dino Soooo Much, Maybe you should ask him out on a date.  


 

[dinofelis]

@Dino,

I know, I won the argument and you lost.  
Logic gives me the ability to determine reality from your personal delusions.

I have come to understand your reasoning is completely flawed, when your ego is involved.  

See that is the advantage to being logical instead of emotional,
I won the argument and you can never accept it, so there is no point to listening to your future whining on that subject ,
any response you want to make from now on relating to that subject is always this post. (The one that proved you wrong.)  
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1744718.msg17498545#msg17498545


 

Zero argument in this post.

The post you link to is no argument against my statement, because it starts with the premise that the *users* are not in agreement with the *bad miners*, an assumption that I explicitly do not make.  As I pointed out several times, each time that you think you have an argument for "non mining full nodes" to be "guardians of the rule set A", you give IN FACT an argument why it are USERS or MINERS that are the guardians of the rule set A (over the rule set B that the 'bad guys', that is to say, the miners and the users, actually want).

Until you explain me where my ultimate proof is logically flawed, you have lost the argument.  My proof goes as follows: if you think that non-mining full nodes impose the rule set, and bitcoin is now running on rule set A with, if I'm not wrong, something like 6000 full nodes, then fire up 100 000 full nodes with rule set B on Amazon, and see how the network will now comply to rule set B, the vast majority of the "guardians of the rules" according to you.

My statement in that gedanken experiment is that your 100 000 nodes will not get one single block, and will certainly not enforce their rules on the network.  As such, they have no power to do so.

All your arguments showed that full nodes DO INFORM their owners.  But in as much as these informed people are not miners, or are not users (that is, they do not determine the market cap), this fact doesn't influence the consensus.

Essentially, the consensus is made between the miners (building the block chain, using their mining nodes) and the users (setting the market cap).  How many OTHER full nodes are running that haven't anything to do with either, doesn't matter apart from some better network properties.

[kiklo]

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1744718.msg17498545#msg17498545
You Lose. 

 

[coinfusion]

.........
My statement in that gedanken experiment is that your 100 000 nodes will not get one single block, and will certainly not enforce their rules on the network.  As such, they have no power to do so.
.........

Of course full nodes that don't mine will never get a block.  'Good' non-mining full nodes could enforce the rules, though, but only if it somehow happens that at least one 'good' node is between every conspiring 'evil' mining node so they would not be able to propigate blocks to eachother. Last I saw (which was a while ago), the large pools have a special semi-private "relay network" for their mining full nodes they use, and they could always directly connect to eachother. Users that actually want to get their transaction into a block (since non-mining full nodes don't make blocks) would have to connect to an evil node. There's also nothing stopping the 'evil' guys from popping 100 000 non-mining evil nodes on the network to make it easier for users to connect to the evil-net.