Could PoW mining be more decentralized by giving rewards for other tasks?

[NiallW]

So for example, you could have rewards for solving blocks, but the also have another smaller reward that goes to anyone who is running a full node. this would create an incentive to people to keep their nodes runing even if their device has low hashpower

right now, im thinking about designing an altcoin that uses both PoW to mine and then uses something like PoS, where everytime a block gets enough confirmations to be added to the blockchain, one of the nodes that was online when the block was made, is picked at random and given a small reward (although nodes with higher stake would have better chance of winning). maybe it should be called "proof of node"? People mining this coin would get to choose between PoW, which requires hashpower, or PoN, which doesnt

are there any problems with this idea?

EDIT: changed incorrect terminology

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[monsterer2]

So for example, you have one node that mines blocks as per usual, but then also have a reward for non-hashpower dependent tasks, such as confirming blocks? The logic behind this is that these rewards would incentivize people who dont have high hashpower to help improve security by vastly increasing the number of nodes that can confirm blocks.

right now, im thinking about designing an altcoin that uses both PoW to mine and then uses something like PoS, where everytime a block gets enough confirmations to be added to the blockchain, one of the nodes that confirmed it is picked at random and given a small reward (although nodes with higher stake would have better chance of winning). maybe it should be called "proof of confirmation"? People mining this coin would get to choose between PoW, which requires hashpower, or PoC, which doesnt

are there any problems with this idea?

What do you mean by 'confirming' blocks? A confirmation is an additional block built on top of the one containing your transaction. You appear to mean validating? This is something which all nodes do.

[d5000]

There was a pretty cool concept called "Proof of Activity" that - as far as I know - was never fully implemented. It was also the inspiration for some early Proof of Stake algorithms.

You can read the concept in this whitepaper. You can see that there are some well-known names of the cryptocurrency community involved (like Charlie Lee).

Basically, the algorithm selects randomly a satoshi from all satoshis that are spendable (contained in UTXOs) at a given time, and looks if the owner of the satoshi is currently online (he must solve a small task to prove that) - if not, then he is not rewarded. That's also why the algorithm was called "Follow the Satoshi". People that own more Bitcoins, in this concept, have more chances to get selected, so it's actually a "proof of activity/stake hybrid".

Another coin that rewarded full nodes was Timekoin, but it had a completely different algorithm than Bitcoin.

[TexasHuck]

There was a pretty cool concept called "Proof of Activity" that - as far as I know - was never fully implemented. It was also the inspiration for some early Proof of Stake algorithms.

You can read the concept in this whitepaper. You can see that there are some well-known names of the cryptocurrency community involved (like Charlie Lee).

Basically, the algorithm selects randomly a satoshi from all satoshis that are spendable (contained in UTXOs) at a given time, and looks if the owner of the satoshi is currently online (he must solve a small task to prove that) - if not, then he is not rewarded. That's also why the algorithm was called "Follow the Satoshi". People that own more Bitcoins, in this concept, have more chances to get selected, so it's actually a "proof of activity/stake hybrid".

Another coin that rewarded full nodes was Timekoin, but it had a completely different algorithm than Bitcoin.

This is an amazing whitepaper and IT DOES solve several of the problems that BTC faces today.  Any idea as to why this project did not manifest?  Any news regarding a potential revival?

[aliashraf]

So for example, you could have rewards for solving blocks, but the also have another smaller reward that goes to anyone who is running a full node. this would create an incentive to people to keep their nodes runing even if their device has low hashpower

right now, im thinking about designing an altcoin that uses both PoW to mine and then uses something like PoS, where everytime a block gets enough confirmations to be added to the blockchain, one of the nodes that was online when the block was made, is picked at random and given a small reward (although nodes with higher stake would have better chance of winning). maybe it should be called "proof of node"? People mining this coin would get to choose between PoW, which requires hashpower, or PoN, which doesnt

are there any problems with this idea?

EDIT: changed incorrect terminology

Rewarding people just because they are online is not a very good idea imo and not a new idea.

But the title says '... giving rewards for other tasks' and it is what I  strongly support despite the fact that apparently the OP is not in line with the title

Although I can confirm that 'being on-line' is sort of a 'task' but it is a very light one and deserves almost zero reward.

Cryptocurrency and blockchain technology are just starting to mature and I think the protocol should become more sophisticated and different 'task's should be necessary to maintain the network and it will lead to a more sophisticated reward system, obviously.

As of 'proof of stake', despite its recent popularity and acceptance in the community, I think it is one of the most absurd ideas in the cryptocurrency ever. Paying interest to coin holders (being 'on-line' or not)? poof ...

For example, doubling the coins stored in the wallets (99% of wallets remain on-line when you incentivize this by paying interest) has no effect other than halving the price, and doubling the transaction volume.

As I said, you need more sophistication to have more efficiency in terms of decentralization and performance, but the trend in the community is keeping things simple .... why? They believe in magic.

[NiallW]

There was a pretty cool concept called "Proof of Activity" that - as far as I know - was never fully implemented. It was also the inspiration for some early Proof of Stake algorithms.

You can read the concept in this whitepaper. You can see that there are some well-known names of the cryptocurrency community involved (like Charlie Lee).

Basically, the algorithm selects randomly a satoshi from all satoshis that are spendable (contained in UTXOs) at a given time, and looks if the owner of the satoshi is currently online (he must solve a small task to prove that) - if not, then he is not rewarded. That's also why the algorithm was called "Follow the Satoshi". People that own more Bitcoins, in this concept, have more chances to get selected, so it's actually a "proof of activity/stake hybrid".

Another coin that rewarded full nodes was Timekoin, but it had a completely different algorithm than Bitcoin.

This is an amazing whitepaper and IT DOES solve several of the problems that BTC faces today.  Any idea as to why this project did not manifest?  Any news regarding a potential revival?

It seems like their was a similar thing done to increase bitcoin nodes although it look like they stopped once they reach 10000 nodes. Link
Although it would be very useful for smaller altcoins as a way of spurring early growth in their networks.

[kokojie]

There was a pretty cool concept called "Proof of Activity" that - as far as I know - was never fully implemented. It was also the inspiration for some early Proof of Stake algorithms.

You can read the concept in this whitepaper. You can see that there are some well-known names of the cryptocurrency community involved (like Charlie Lee).

Basically, the algorithm selects randomly a satoshi from all satoshis that are spendable (contained in UTXOs) at a given time, and looks if the owner of the satoshi is currently online (he must solve a small task to prove that) - if not, then he is not rewarded. That's also why the algorithm was called "Follow the Satoshi". People that own more Bitcoins, in this concept, have more chances to get selected, so it's actually a "proof of activity/stake hybrid".

Another coin that rewarded full nodes was Timekoin, but it had a completely different algorithm than Bitcoin.

This is an amazing whitepaper and IT DOES solve several of the problems that BTC faces today.  Any idea as to why this project did not manifest?  Any news regarding a potential revival?

Because anything remotely resembles Proof of Stake is considered blasphemy in the Bitcoin orthodox community.

[Qoheleth]

Another proposal was to embrace the fact that people seem to be storing data "on-chain", and make the financial incentive system revolve around that. A certain coin balance would be allowed to have up to a certain UTXO size, but these balances would gradually drain to pay the people storing the UTXO set (who would "mine"/get paid by proving to the network that they have the blockchain saved and publicly available to download).

These proposals, I'll reiterate, are most useful when discussing possible altcoins. There is a lot of momentum behind Bitcoin as a pure SHA256 proof-of-work thing; I think changing the proof of work would be too big a difference for people to keep thinking of the new consensus mechanism as still being Bitcoin.