Thought experiment

[edrek]

I was having a kind of thought experiment...

Let's say that you create a new crypto-currency. Before the creation of the first genesis block you create 25 billion wallets with each 1 coin in it. The purpose of this would be that anyone on earth, could claim his 1 coin at anytime.

My question:

How would you prevent that someone claims more than 1 wallet?


PS: I didn't incorporate more details because this is not necessary for the question at hand.

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[pedrog]

I was having a kind of thought experiment...

Let's say that you create a new crypto-currency. Before the creation of the first genesis block you create 25 billion wallets with each 1 coin in it. The purpose of this would be that anyone on earth, could claim his 1 coin at anytime.

My question:

How would you prevent that someone claims more than 1 wallet?


PS: I didn't incorporate more details because this is not necessary for the question at hand.

It would require something unique and universal, like a passport, drivers license or national ID card, it depends on which country the person lives.

Works the same way as KYC on any exchange, poker site, betting site, etc, and it would be quite expensive.

[DannyHamilton]

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How would you prevent that someone claims more than 1 wallet?
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Forget about the wallets and coins.  Your thought experiment can be simplified.  Simply ask yourself:

"What is the most cost efficient and most effective way to uniquely identify a single person such that nobody else can pretend to be them and they can not pretend not to be themselves?"

Identification papers (passport, drivers license or national ID card, etc) can be copied, stolen, or faked.

The only answer I can come up with would be to require that the person be physically in your presence and that you find a way to reliably take a DNA sample from them.  Then fully sequence that DNA and store a hash of the result in a database.  Compare the results of each new person against all the results in your database.  Note that you may run into a problem with identical twins (triplets, quadruplets, etc).  In that case, you might require that they all be present together at the time of DNA extraction, and that if any are missing they will be excluded from the offer.

Obviously this would be a difficult and expensive thing to accomplish, but as a thought experiment it's the most reliable method I can think of.  You could reduce the costs if you were willing to accept that some people will be able to take advantage of the system.  How much effort and money you could save would depend on how much risk you were willing to accept of people gaining access to multiple wallets.

[dothebeats]

I was having a kind of thought experiment...

Let's say that you create a new crypto-currency. Before the creation of the first genesis block you create 25 billion wallets with each 1 coin in it. The purpose of this would be that anyone on earth, could claim his 1 coin at anytime.

My question:

How would you prevent that someone claims more than 1 wallet?


PS: I didn't incorporate more details because this is not necessary for the question at hand.

It would require something unique and universal, like a passport, drivers license or national ID card, it depends on which country the person lives.

Works the same way as KYC on any exchange, poker site, betting site, etc, and it would be quite expensive.

That would be the biggest dox this planet has ever seen just in case. Also, if it requires such verification, how would the people be motivated to collect their share of the crypto? But that is another story. The only thing to claim it  by every single person in this world is by submitting proof of identification like IDs and (possibly) hair samples for DNA testing (which is very expensive).

[AgentofCoin]

- snip -
How would you prevent that someone claims more than 1 wallet?
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Forget about the wallets and coins.  Your thought experiment can be simplified.  Simply ask yourself:

"What is the most cost efficient and most effective way to uniquely identify a single person such that nobody else can pretend to be them and they can not pretend not to be themselves?"

Identification papers (passport, drivers license or national ID card, etc) can be copied, stolen, or faked.

The only answer I can come up with would be to require that the person be physically in your presence and that you find a way to reliably take a DNA sample from them.  Then fully sequence that DNA and store a hash of the result in a database.  Compare the results of each new person against all the results in your database.  Note that you may run into a problem with identical twins (triplets, quadruplets, etc).  In that case, you might require that they all be present together at the time of DNA extraction, and that if any are missing they will be excluded from the offer.
...

I agree, this is the only verifiable way.

At the same time that the DNA sample is taken from the human,
"the sample takers" would also scan their Hand & Foot prints and their
Retinas, so that all four are hashed together.
 
Not only would the other three data points allow more precision when
distinguishing between twins/etc and clones, but also adds more
security layers for any other systems that are built upon this data later.
(In effect, this forms your "Living private key", which will make each
person ID-able and verifiable/accountable for every active interaction
in society. Since DNA can be easily attained by a few cells and without
needing the human's permission, at this point in time humans will wear
special fitting gloves and eye lenses to prevent passive "ID thefts" in
public. The lenses can shift within the electromagnetic spectrum and
perform functions like vision correction, night vision, and UV protection,
and do not need to be removed ever, even during sleep.)

Though the ultimate outcome of maintaining/using this type of data
and systems will be used to grant/restrict individual rights in daily ways
(ex. access accounts, access doors, access stores, access computers,
access transportation, etc) it will only be used for good within the human
populations that are maintained and monitored by AI.

If this type of technology is used with today's world population and
human governments that do not defer to AI governance, it will be
used by a few humans to oppress many humans indefinitely. Data
mining this data (DNA, Hand&Foot Prints, Retinas, etc) should not be
allowed or legalized until better system to prevent its abuse are created.

[Kaller]

Passport, license, ID in general doesn't work. They can be and are faked all the time.
The real way to verify someone's true identity is biologically... Fingerprint/DNA tests.
Each person is different in this regard.

[xJuturna]

- snip -
How would you prevent that someone claims more than 1 wallet?
- snip -

Forget about the wallets and coins.  Your thought experiment can be simplified.  Simply ask yourself:

"What is the most cost efficient and most effective way to uniquely identify a single person such that nobody else can pretend to be them and they can not pretend not to be themselves?"

Identification papers (passport, drivers license or national ID card, etc) can be copied, stolen, or faked.

The only answer I can come up with would be to require that the person be physically in your presence and that you find a way to reliably take a DNA sample from them.  Then fully sequence that DNA and store a hash of the result in a database.  Compare the results of each new person against all the results in your database.  Note that you may run into a problem with identical twins (triplets, quadruplets, etc).  In that case, you might require that they all be present together at the time of DNA extraction, and that if any are missing they will be excluded from the offer.

Obviously this would be a difficult and expensive thing to accomplish, but as a thought experiment it's the most reliable method I can think of.  You could reduce the costs if you were willing to accept that some people will be able to take advantage of the system.  How much effort and money you could save would depend on how much risk you were willing to accept of people gaining access to multiple wallets.

I can see it now, the new alt coin. DNA coin, pre-mined and a wallet created just for your convenience. Every person in the world has the right to one so in order to claim yours completely free, just send us a copy of you DNA STRANDZ. You just pay shipping  

Passport, license, ID in general doesn't work. They can be and are faked all the time.
The real way to verify someone's true identity is biologically... Fingerprint/DNA tests.
Each person is different in this regard.

Also fingerprints can be altered as well. Shoot even DNA may cause a problem in some individuals including identical twins etc etc

[gmaxwell]

find a way to reliably take a DNA sample from them

Some people are chimeric and some of their tissues have different DNA than others. e.g. due to combining with a sibling in the womb.

[ScriptDrop]

I love this and may use part of the idea with something we are working on.

-It would require a DNA sample and you still may have a few openings in the net, such as identical twins

It would be easier if you were comfortable with a success rate lower than 100%, like say 95%. That extra 5% would be much costlier to get.

[s2]

I've been thinking about this precise problem for a long time.  It's to effectively rid the sybil attack vector in order to do a fair distribution globally.

I went down the route of microminers to copy how Bitcoin solved the problem of sybil attacks.  The issue there is it doesn't really work on individuals since people can mass market these microminers to artificially increase their family size and thereby have more funds available to spend.

One solution was to mix in a degree of peer authentication a bit like a tangle.  I guess this is an area of ongoing research though...

[edrek]

I also thought about DNA but like many people mentioned it would be very expensive.

Than I thought about a system that could monitor different parameters (IP, IBAN, Computer, Smartphone, location, language...) that would remain secret. When the system would detect that someone is using 2 wallets it would destroy those 2 wallets. Making it counterproductive claiming more than one wallet. But I don't think such system is possible because it would be very complex and it could give many false positives.

The reason for this thought experiment is that I think wealth is not fairly distributed (duh) and a 'universal coin' could maybe reduce this problem (remember this is a thought experiment). Even with bitcoin (please don't be buthurt) people that join later have a big disadvantage and the biggest reasons for this is are: they didn't hear about it or couldn't access it or the price is to high for them. Giving everyone access to this 'universal coin' would partially solve those problems. Maybe with a staking system they could even have a sort of interest (like a saving account).

[s2]

Another issue to consider is that people who are wealthy will amount more wealth since they're able to do things like buy the property pushing the remaining house prices up thereby making more people have to pay rent which makes the home owners even wealthier again in a vicious circle.

To solve that you build more houses or impose taxes to make owning more property uneconomical to the wealthy... the same would need to be true for any coin to represent equal wealthy playing field.  Even if it was rebalanced each year people would simply move their value out of the coin into property, gold, bitcoin, etc.. and the cycle continues.

Not saying this is a solution, just highlighting the issues to overcome when making a fairer economy that allows for capitalism.

What is different this time however is we can do unthinkable things than before, e.g. each person can now own a stake in a fraction of a resource in realtime.  That opens some new opportunities to the ways economies can be run.  E.g. take the basics of an egg farmer.  He can now distribute 0.00000001% of an egg to every individual in the world.
A house builder could distribute say 0.0001% of a house to every individual.  Once someone owns 100% of an egg they can go to the egg farmer to redeem it.

Not sure what this would be called yet and how it would play out with incentives to work but moves more towards a barter trade without money which is probably a fairer society.

At the moment it seems too complex to implement in reality but could make a great PhD thesis.

[Last of the V8s]

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, DNA analysis has revolutionized forensic science, and has become a dominant tool in law enforcement. Today, DNA evidence is key to the conviction or exoneration of suspects of various types of crime, from theft to rape and murder. However, the disturbing possibility that DNA evidence can be faked has been overlooked. It turns out that standard molecular biology techniques such as PCR, molecular cloning, and recently developed whole genome amplification (WGA), enable anyone with basic equipment and know-how to produce practically unlimited amounts of in vitro synthesized (artificial) DNA with any desired genetic profile. This artificial DNA can then be applied to surfaces of objects or incorporated into genuine human tissues and planted in crime scenes. Here we show that the current forensic procedure fails to distinguish between such samples of blood, saliva, and touched surfaces with artificial DNA, and corresponding samples with in vivo generated (natural) DNA. Furthermore, genotyping of both artificial and natural samples with Profiler Plus® yielded full profiles with no anomalies. In order to effectively deal with this problem, we developed an authentication assay, which distinguishes between natural and artificial DNA based on methylation analysis of a set of genomic loci: in natural DNA, some loci are methylated and others are unmethylated, while in artificial DNA all loci are unmethylated. The assay was tested on natural and artificial samples of blood, saliva, and touched surfaces, with complete success. Adopting an authentication assay for casework samples as part of the forensic procedure is necessary for maintaining the high credibility of DNA evidence in the judiciary system.

http://www.fsigenetics.com/article/S1872-4973(09)00099-4/abstract

afaik this assay has not been adopted by law enforcement anywhere, and don't get me started on fingerprints. Juries are still too easily bamboozled, and criminals almost always leave compunding forensic trails.
the 'assay' may also be more of a kite sent out by some company to feel for interest. (Who paid for the above 'research'?)

another datapoint to distinguish an individual might be gait - we all have a different walk, or so 'they' say
another is your GPG fingerprint

finally, Neal Stephenson's 'The Diamond Age' is a great antidote to socialist leanings.

[bitKaBoom]

Passport, license, ID in general doesn't work. They can be and are faked all the time.
The real way to verify someone's true identity is biologically... Fingerprint/DNA tests.
Each person is different in this regard.

yes they can be but it still work in the other ways. and it can help in this way

[currypto]

PGP key signatures that creates a web of trust. Who's to say you are not a clone? DNA also changes over time (although not significantly).

If 100 of your close friends/peers say you are you, then that should be enough...Right? Well...
What if 1000 of someone else's friends say otherwise?

Now it comes down to who has existed first.

If my web-of-trust exists first, I am effectively the real me.

[AGD]

OK. Let's say we got over this DNA problem and everybody has 1 coin. Now Alice transfers his coin to Bob (because Bob threatened her with a baseball bat for example) . As a result Alice is poor and Bob is the richest guy on earth.

[Mushroomized]

PGP key signatures that creates a web of trust. Who's to say you are not a clone? DNA also changes over time (although not significantly).

If 100 of your close friends/peers say you are you, then that should be enough...Right? Well...
What if 1000 of someone else's friends say otherwise?

Now it comes down to who has existed first.

If my web-of-trust exists first, I am effectively the real me.

Isn't this effectively what CIVIC aims to do? (https://www.civic.com/) Acting as an middleman between trusted identiy verification services and other services that require your ID. It's funny to think that something as "simple" as giving everyone on the planet one dollar or whatever would be so complex. Tons of people dont even have computers too- so thats a big issue for distributing something like this. I think it would require a really big team of people working together all over the planet to distribute this. I hope if a system like this is ever created that it's used to help give everyone food.

[currypto]

I hope if a system like this is ever created that it's used to help give everyone food.

I think gamification of "giving everyone food" would be more effective. Like that online game where you play with rice and you earn rice for people in third world countries.

I wonder if we could do something similar with mining, or if miners could encourage higher fees to do such a thing.

[Mushroomized]

I hope if a system like this is ever created that it's used to help give everyone food.

I think gamification of "giving everyone food" would be more effective. Like that online game where you play with rice and you earn rice for people in third world countries.

I wonder if we could do something similar with mining, or if miners could encourage higher fees to do such a thing.

It'd be funny if there was a tax on online games or something, or an altcoin that held a % of all transactions for a food based charity. Or any charity really. and the charity voting was based on the network.

Anyway this was a fun experiment, and the deeper question of giving stuff to everyone on earth im sure is something that's been addressed forever.. so I hope if something like this happens its for food and water first : )

[kalich]

In this way no need to mine. Just create new coin address to get 1 coin. Interesting idea but I think coin cost will be about zero.
The idea of limitation of new address creation in a network will not work for sure.