Hypothetical New Cryptocurrency version 0.1

[Meni Rosenfeld]

You should understand that preventing sybil attacks is basically the core open problem in p2p network security research, and no one has any idea how to do it without either a centralized identity issuer, or via extremely wasteful constant resource-tests (as in bitcoin).

So there are 3 options:
1) Your scheme falls into one of two above: central identity issuer, or waste of resources.
2) Your scheme falls outside them and is totally broken.
3) Your scheme falls outside them and is correct.  Congratulations, you should write it up, publish it in IPTPS, and collect the best paper award.  Perhaps a PhD too.

I'm going a bit off-topic, but as long as we're here... Can you briefly describe where in this taxonomy fall proof of stake ideas of myself et al (eg this comment)? The general idea is to make sure that those with the ability to game the system are those with the least incentive to do so. The motivation is to enable high transaction security for those willing to wait long enough, with only a small amount of wasteful proof-of-work.

[hashcoin]

I'm going a bit off-topic, but as long as we're here... Can you briefly describe where in this taxonomy fall proof of stake ideas of myself et al (eg this comment)? The general idea is to make sure that those with the ability to game the system are those with the least incentive to do so. The motivation is to enable high transaction security for those willing to wait long enough, with only a small amount of wasteful proof-of-work.

Well your "proof-of-stake" doesn't have anything to do with issuance.  You are assuming coins have already been issued, and then just suggesting using digital signatures by current holders as a way of maintaining the transaction ledger.

Indeed that's reasonable, and also pretty straightforward.  I didn't read your thread carefully but there is more to it than just using signatures; you need to atomically commit transactions to ensure all honest participants agree on the current ledger state.  The basic primitives in distributed systems to do that is a distributed consensus procedure (aka "Byzantine agreement") and state machine replication.

Szabo wrote up a sketch of such a system long ago; it explains the correct way to do what you want.
http://szabo.best.vwh.net/securetitle.html


The problems I was referring to don't come up in maintaining the ledger for transfers, but rather in the mechanism for issuance of new coins/property.  Once you already have a notion of a "participant", "voter", or "owner", maintaining the ledger is just a straightforward application of distributed consensus.  The problems arise when you want to add new participants/voters/owners.

But I bet you already understand this.  In fact, I'd guess you came up with proof-of-stake and then realized "hey wait, proof-of-stake makes transfers much simpler".   Equivalently, what you actually realized is "hey wait, that means issuance is a much, much harder problem than transfers".

[Meni Rosenfeld]

The problems I was referring to don't come up in maintaining the ledger for transfers, but rather in the mechanism for issuance of new coins/property.  Once you already have a notion of a "participant", "voter", or "owner", maintaining the ledger is just a straightforward application of distributed consensus.  The problems arise when you want to add new participants/voters/owners.

Ok, I misinterpreted the scope to which your comments applied.

Equivalently, what you actually realized is "hey wait, that means issuance is a much, much harder problem than transfers".

Well, I didn't ponder much how difficult issuance is, because I don't think it is ultimately consequential, at least for a currency like Bitcoin. Once every coin passed hands hundreds of times, facilitating trade each time, will it really matter to whom it was originally issued?

[The Electric Monk]

I wonder if there's some way to make a currency that always has the same value.  Not just equivalent to today's EU or US currency, but adjusts according to cost of living over the years.  So if you buy one at $1 today, it's still worth whatever that $1 + inflation would be in the future.  It couldn't be limited like BTC, because if it were limited it's value might increase.

[mjcmurfy]

I wonder if there's some way to make a currency that always has the same value.  Not just equivalent to today's EU or US currency, but adjusts according to cost of living over the years.  So if you buy one at $1 today, it's still worth whatever that $1 + inflation would be in the future.  It couldn't be limited like BTC, because if it were limited it's value might increase.

Isn't one of the primary goals of bitcoin to provide a refuge for those who disagree with government sponsored inflation?

The cost of living is increasing because of all those extra USD being issued by Ben Bernanke. What you are suggesting, essentially, is to inflate the currency in line with the inflation of fiat currencies, so that it's value gets debased also.

That goes against everything that bitcoin was set up to achieve.

[Minsc]

OP

Give us full details.  If people like it and start it for you, then it will happen.

[Synaptic]

To be frank, it is extremely unlikely that someone who does not know core CS (e.g. what "Byzantine Agreement" or "Sybil Attack" mean) would have a correct solution.  There is simply no way one could simultaneously have the ability to architect distributed systems and not be able to write it out precisely as code.

My suggestion is you simply describe your scheme so the CS folks here can explain to you why it is broken, and you can learn from it.  You should understand that preventing sybil attacks is basically the core open problem in p2p network security research, and no one has any idea how to do it without either a centralized identity issuer, or via extremely wasteful constant resource-tests (as in bitcoin).

So there are 3 options:
1) Your scheme falls into one of two above: central identity issuer, or waste of resources.
2) Your scheme falls outside them and is totally broken.
3) Your scheme falls outside them and is correct.  Congratulations, you should write it up, publish it in IPTPS, and collect the best paper award.  Perhaps a PhD too.

In particular, we have known since the very beginning[1] that central identity issue or waste of resources are all one can do in particular natural models.  You would need an entirely new model.  

You might also find this useful, a scheme I described that makes the coin generation set by vote.  My scheme falls into (1), as it is still wasting resources: http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=24929.0

[1]  http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download;jsessionid=2275703DE2E08EC0E7CEF3321E53506A?doi=10.1.1.17.1073&rep=rep1&type=pdf

EDIT: This is the first time I've written a post in this kind of condescending tone.  Mostly it's because of the fact that on the one hand, you  recognize 99% of people on this forum are get-rich-quick retards, and on the other, in this thread you are basically behaving in the same way.  You have an irrational faith in something that you are not an expert in,  have not had vetted by anyone, and refuse to even discuss/describe so that others may attempt to reason with you.  You have basically come here and announced that you've struck gold and are going to make it big, but just need someone to code it up (reminds me of the million "I have an idea for an iphone app" crap from MBAs).  Anyway, I'd encourage you to look through my posts and recognize I (and the other CS folks here) could probably offer quite a bit of help to you if you're willing to be rational and explain your system in a complete and coherent manner.  But until you do that, your posts of "why isn't anyone interested?" are laughable.  Noone has anything to say because you've provided absolutely no information to respond to.

Really.  Go back and read your "I'm so clever I have a scheme for a perfect crypto-currency;l but I just need a coder" posts earlier in this thread.  Then go to the main discussion and read some of the "We are all going to be rich when bitcoins are $1M each because we got in early; but we just need to get more new buyers".  Then realize the logic in both cases is identical.

Ah, this is a great post!

I hand't seen, it got lost under other posts before I noticed it.

I'll respond appropriately when I have some time!

Thanks