[ANN] [NoBlockchain cryptocurrency] Authoritative Network

[oPavlov]

Motivation:

Many people know that in blockchain and blockchain systems one of the most important things is consensus, agreement of machines and people about something according to established rules. But... Is it really true? And isn't that... A deception of oneself? In the article below, we will deal with this.

First of all, we will understand why we need consensus at all and what it is. Let us have one bank and one depositor, Bob, who has 1000 USD in his account. He sends a letter to the bank asking them to transfer all the money to his friend Alex's account. Everything is fine - the money is written off from one account and credited to another. In this case, there is no problem, and the new owner of the money decided to withdraw it at the same minute and everything is fine.

But what if the bank has two branches at once?

Bob's account still has the same 1000 USD, but now two friends, Alex and Alice, who are in both branches and are waiting for the money to arrive at the account to take it and leave. And two letters come to both branches, but in one of them 1000 USD go to Alex and in the other to Alice. And out of 1000 USD there are 2000. And for that not to happen - each branch of the bank must inform the rest of the bank that the money is written off and transferred to someone, then the second attempt to write them off won't work - the money is not in the account anymore. And who will get 1000 USD? In an ideal world to whom the letter came first, it is possible to choose the option and with the fact that the sender would be asked to explain to whom the transfer was still assigned. Still, it's a good thing there is no problem.

But this is still not the consensus that is used in modern cryptocurrencies.

What if the bank branches aren't really branches, they're just small private banks connected to a single payment system without a central server? Why not, it is quite a practice for different spheres. Only a system without a leader, just agreed on partnership agreements and send each other changes in the accounts of common customers, all right ... or not. If there will be an event as in an example above - who will decide who was right and to whom money will get? But time of arrival of this letter even in the modern superfast Internet can appear identical - after all there are a heap of delays, there is a time of processing by a server - it is impossible to take simply and decide who was the first, after all it is not clear what of letters has been sent first actually, up to the certain size of a scale of time. And so it has appeared that the letter on it that has come at the same time, completely identical, but with different addressees of means. Which of these two banks will be right when it starts to distribute to all other banks that now there are so many funds in the account of the specified client? How to understand who is right? What if one of the banks is a fraudster at all?

That's how the consensus systems came about. In the most popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin this PoW - proof of the power of the miner, calculating useless for the world, but useful for consensus hashes. There is also PoS, where the "bank" has the right to have more money in its account, and there is also dPoS, where delegates are chosen, who decide who is right, and the strength of the vote is equal to the amount of money in the account, but the delegates have already decided simply by the majority or by other rules. There are many other consensuals of varying degrees of equality and speed. And everything seems to be fine.

But there's a nuance...

When you come to the store you buy goods, and if the goods were bad, you can usually come and change it for a new one, or for money back. But maybe so that you bought something from the hands or on a trip, you may never again meet a seller who sold you the goods, so that the quality of the claims will not be particularly useful. Well, money - in fact, in today's world, money is not in your pocket, but in a bank, and you only have a key in the form of a card or even an entry in Apple Pay on your own phone. One touch and a "letter" leave through a chain of different providers and banks, writing off funds in one bank and writing them down in another, possibly in another country. And everyone trusts everyone. But what went wrong that there was a need for cryptocurrencies and consensus? This will explain this micro-game (just go back later, then the most interesting thing will begin):

https://ncase.me/trust/

The fact is that there are spheres where the case of interaction is that there is only one round of interaction, and anonymity makes it possible and true to make it one. As a result, the most effective way of working will be to deceive the partner and get more, because you will never meet again. Game theory is harsh, but fair. As a result, in this vein, you need a system that will bypass this problem, technically make you comply with these rules.

And everything would be fine, everything's fine, but...

Those people who interact with cryptocurrency now often use different tools in addition to the usual wallets, because ordinary wallets assume full synchronization, and somehow download and store terabytes of data is such a pleasure. As a result, people choose light wallets... or even web wallets, where you only need to enter your key or use a plugin to your browser and voila - everything works, from anywhere in the world, no worse than a regular wallet. However, there are no technical guarantees... because the guarantees are in a different plane. And yet it is a classic case of using cryptocurrencies and other products.

There are people who have never held cryptocurrencies on their accounts, but who are quite participants of the ecosystem. For example, traders and some investors. There are different ways in which people get their cryptocurrency directly into the account of the stock exchange, send funds to other stock exchanges, but eventually withdraw money also through stock exchanges, directly to the fiat, or through exchangers also to the fiat - dollars or yuanis - is no longer important, but by participating in this ecosystem, it is in no way a matter of consensus.

Exchangers, which are quite a lot - there is no consensus that guarantees you that when you transfer to the account of bitcoin - you will receive dollars on the card. And here you are, a programmer of cryptostartapa or freelancer, you withdraw your blood earnings of bitcoins or any other coins or tokens - and you will most likely get your earnings, but for a completely different reason, without consensus. Real estate for crypt, on smart contracts. Or anything else from the real world that is recorded in the virtual world. Nobody and never guarantees to you performance of obligations in the smart contract, and also on all planet that there was written down. However, strange as it may seem, it can work - only here absolutely for other reasons and the consensus here has nothing to do with it. And of course, the shares of the companies - no guarantors did not save those who invested in the ICO Scam in 2017, because someone sold cars and apartments and businesses for the sake of tokens. And the tokens really remained on the investors' account, consensus helped. But this did not save them from losses in any form, from, in fact, the stolen funds, it did not bring the expected profits. The tokens are still in their accounts, but the value is no longer there.

What about the big cryptocompanies? An interesting example with the Ethereum project, which made a big smart contract named DAO, which raised a lot of money... and who was robbed by a hacker because the contract didn't provide for some nuances, which made it possible to steal the funds, and that's it - according to the rules of the system. И... blockchain just forked out, rolled back the changes... in an immutable decentralized blockchain... a centralized solution for the company. When it's really necessary, any rules are suddenly canceled, and who will go against the decision of the central company developing the project, right? Someone went, of course, formed a Classic fork, which is still alive, but a couple of orders of magnitude weaker and almost no one needs, the influence behind it is not, the value too, the price of tokens is lower.

And of course, even if the rules don't change, there are always nuances. In dPoS consensus everything tends to oligopoly, flowing into monopoly or close to such power, are invented from the air by delegates, fully controlled by whom it is necessary and the project is governed as necessary. In PoS it is enough to buy on different accounts the necessary quantity of coins, nobody knows that the owner that one, and with PoW certainly it is difficult to mine all by itself, but if you the owner of a pool and your clients mine on pieces for you - you can easily do the necessary business on their behalf and to correct system as it is necessary for you.

There is of course a strong argument against this, the last line of defense in case any of the cryptocurrencies or cryptoprojects are controlled by someone in one or the cartel. The thing is, if you own a blockchain... it's not good for you to cheat. After all, you've spent so much energy on the way to the top that you just take and just crash the system, which usually brings you tokens through mining/stacking/delegation... No, it is more profitable for you to keep it working, sharpening with a file for yourself, but nevertheless not to interfere on a straight line. But... how does it differ from the usual corporation?

And everything comes down to the Theory of Games - when it is not profitable for you to deceive if you play a long game, and cooperation brings you good.

The industry has grown. But not because of the consensual protected money and that's all. No. The reason for growth is to expand financial instruments for ordinary people. For example, crowdfunding - there were projects that allowed us to raise money for something before. But there have never been so many convenient international instruments, and even without the requirements for verification, explanations of where the money comes from, crossborder currency control and that's all. The boundaries were erased. Similar to payments abroad. No, due to volatility and commissions, this is not always the best option, but in some cases it is very much the case. So much so that some states thus bypass the embargo on the part of other countries, especially remarkable is the history of Venezuela.

But everywhere, by and large, the principle of authority works. When you send money to someone through the cryptocurrency, you trust the owners of the cryptocurrency system, whether it is still a lot of owners or just one. When you exchange the cryptocurrency for a card, you trust the exchanger and his authority, and it doesn't matter how the cryptocurrency is organized - the main fulfillment of obligations by the exchanger. When you use a cryptocurrency exchange, you trust it because it has no authority, but it is an authority for you and you use its services according to its rules. When you suddenly buy or sell something for cryptocurrency, you trust a person on the other side and it doesn't matter how the payment process goes, as long as everything is within the conditions here and now. Whatever happens, no matter how it works, everything is built on trust and authority. The US dollar is very authoritative. The shop in front of your home may not be so much, but if there is suddenly an improper product - there is some probability that the product can be returned, in addition, there are laws that are complied with, depending on the country, in varying degrees, but if they are complied with - it is the overflow of authority from the state, where it is a guarantor. But here in the Bitcoin exchange for dollars on the card there are no guarantors, except for one - the Theory of the Games, which is not profitable to deceive you, especially if the exchanger exists long ago and the commission is quite recouped all the costs and satisfy the wishes of the owner. Only in this all consensus is not necessary at all and actually all is under construction on trust.

The cryptocurrencies themselves gave another bonus - the opportunity to make your token/asset/point/coin/action in a number of simple actions. But is it possible to give the opportunity to create your own assemblies without the need to carry consensus, not to be part of a decentralized (or not) system? About 10 years ago it would have looked ridiculous, not trustworthy... if it were a small company. In fact, yuanis, dollars, or the same shares are the same tokens in essence, debt receipts, futures, or anything else, and the debtor is a bank or other organization, starting with the appearance of the first coins to replace the physical pieces of gold. But the world has changed, the cryptocurrencies have given you the moral right to print your coins, even anonymous ones. And the role of blockchain here is only in the first step, in narrow cases, but it has benefited. Everything else - built on top of the Theory of Games with a strategy of no benefit in deception, the benefits of cooperation because it just brings more benefit, that's the reality at the moment.

Principle of operation: Centralized Asset Processing nodes linked by a decentralized network with a common protocol.

Consensus: Based on the Games Theory, a history feed.

Mining: None, but can be implemented by contract.

Commissions: The owner of the node pays the fee to the clients (unless otherwise specified in the contract).

Exchangers and Exchanges: Each node is an exchanger/exchange, with built-in functionality.

Smart contracts: Any modern programming language - C/C++, Ruby, Python, JavaScript (NodeJS), PHP.

Built-in Asset Types: Classic, unique, bills of exchange.

Integration: As an API microservice, NodeJS library, direct code change.

Integration with other blockchains: Bitcoin, integration with other blockchains is possible. Integration also includes direct exchange, futures and fundraising in the currency of the blockchain.

Data exchange protocol: Based on JSON-RPC, HTTP, with protection against duplicate messages.

Basic stack: NodeJS, MongoDB, Electron, Docker.

Features: Possibility to organize payments for data storage, video rendering, neural network training, one-minute cloud hosting of applications (not built-in functionality, but implemented by contracts).

Configuration and installation of the node:

> git clone
> nano .env
> docker-compose up --build

Node configuration is possible through the wallet in the administration mode through the GUI, or through the API directly.

Wallet: Sources or binary format for Windows, MacOS, Linux (Debian/Ubuntu).

Site: To be announced later.

Progress:

Nodes: ~60%
Wallet: ~40%

Details, progress and features will be announced later.