Multi-chain cryptocurrencies for greater censorship-resistance

[Abiky]

In crypto land, an emerging cryptocurrency project needs to have in mind security and censorship-resistance to be able to perform as intended. While Blockchain promises safe and reliable transactions, it depends on network participants' support to be able to stay that way. I have seen many small PoW blockchain networks experiencing a 51% attack because of their small hashrate compared to other big cryptocurrencies in the Blockchain space.

While many projects have proposed a solution to counterattack 51% attacks, none have come up with the idea of living across multiple blockchain networks (AFAIK). Imagine if a cryptocurrency would rely on various public blockchain networks for security? The more networks it relies on, the more secure and resistant it'll be against 51% attacks. For example, "Foocoin" could rely on both Bitcoin and Ethereum's network security to be able to protect itself against such a threat. By combining both cryptocurrencies' hashrate (BTC + ETH), it'll be nearly impossible for anyone to disrupt the "Foocoin" blockchain.

If new cryptocurrencies would rely on a multi-chain architecture like this in the first place, many undesired events would've been prevented. Do you think it's possible for cryptocurrencies to rely on multiple blockchain networks for security? Is it cost-effective? Will an existing blockchain network need to hard fork in order to adopt said model? What are your thoughts?

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[Heisenberg_Hunter]

I have never heard of such a unique idea but they would indeed create a hard fork for both the coins. The very idea of a blockchain is that each block will pave the way to the genesis block. When you have a split in chain just like the BCH hardfork, there would be a split off in blocks as well and both the coins would be following 2 different chains each one different from other right from transaction speeds and total supply. How could we combine 2 different coins which has separate features of its own? By writing up a code through which a newly developed coin will have the features of both bitcoin and ethereum? If we tend to do so, we are creating another alt coin but has never merged the 2 separate blockchains.

The small POW blockchains which you are speaking up are never really needed to this world and literally they would easily suffer the 51% attack quite frequently as they are far less miners contributing to the process! Hashrate is related to the miners progression over time and they have nothing to do with the particular coin blockchain.

For instance hackers can attack Foocoin by launching a 51% attack, since they can easily be destroyed and can never withstand such intense mining conditions or overlapping of chain. Rather there is a possibility of communicating between 2 blockchains by writing up a simple smart contract. Ideas like these are still in the development stage, but might hit the limelight sometime sooner.

Combining of 2 blockchains and creating up a new coin would always create a hard fork and if none of the miners are really willing to mine the coin, there would be absolutely null hashrate and they can be destroyed easily. Either way, thanks for always coming up with innovative thoughts and your topics are good to have a read.  

[Abiky]

I have never heard of such a unique idea but they would indeed create a hard fork for both the coins. The very idea of a blockchain is that each block will pave the way to the genesis block. When you have a split in chain just like the BCH hardfork, there would be a split off in blocks as well and both the coins would be following 2 different chains each one different from other right from transaction speeds and total supply. How could we combine 2 different coins which has separate features of its own? By writing up a code through which a newly developed coin will have the features of both bitcoin and ethereum? If we tend to do so, we are creating another alt coin but has never merged the 2 separate blockchains.

The small POW blockchains which you are speaking up are never really needed to this world and literally they would easily suffer the 51% attack quite frequently as they are far less miners contributing to the process! Hashrate is related to the miners progression over time and they have nothing to do with the particular coin blockchain.

For instance hackers can attack Foocoin by launching a 51% attack, since they can easily be destroyed and can never withstand such intense mining conditions or overlapping of chain. Rather there is a possibility of communicating between 2 blockchains by writing up a simple smart contract. Ideas like these are still in the development stage, but might hit the limelight sometime sooner.

Combining of 2 blockchains and creating up a new coin would always create a hard fork and if none of the miners are really willing to mine the coin, there would be absolutely null hashrate and they can be destroyed easily. Either way, thanks for always coming up with innovative thoughts and your topics are good to have a read.  

The main challenge would be to "merge" the Blockchain's transaction history to a cryptocurrency that would live on multiple chains for added censorship-resistance. But maybe it's possible to leave the original chain as is, while relying on other crypto network's hashrate? The Blockchain could easily "notarize" blocks on other chains for added security against 51% attacks. Something like Komodo (KMD) does today with its dPoW consensus algorithm, could work with a multi-chain cryptocurrency of its kind. If it were me, I'd at least create a cryptocurrency that would rely on more than one chain for added protection against malicious actors. Komodo's design works, but it only relies on the BTC chain for security. A cryptocurrency that would rely on 2 or more Blockchain networks' hashrate would be impervious against many undesired situations. I believe this is hard to achieve, but not impossible.

Smaller blockchain networks on the market today, could hard fork to a hybrid consensus algorithm (PoW + PoS) in order to protect themselves against 51% attacks. There are so many ways to do this, limited to the developers' own imagination. I believe that the reason why many altcoins with a small network hashrate have been attacked previously, is because of developer negligence. If developers would take the effort to adopt models that would make their coin resistant against 51% attacks, they could've avoided many losses on the network. The Verge (XVG) cryptocurrency is a good example of a coin whose developers are negligent in every way. It's been attacked several times, yet developers haven't adopted a mechanism that would make the network stronger. Most of its code is simply copy and paste from another cryptocurrency, without true innovation or development at all.

I've seen that some altcoins use a concept called "merged mining" in order to gain another cryptocurrency's hashrate for their own advantage. This allows them to gain greater security against 51% attacks within cyberspace. People who mine "X" coin will also be mining "Y" coin, resulting in added protection for both blockchain networks. We'll have to see what happens over time as new flaws are discovered over time, within existing public blockchain networks. As long as developers focus on security/reliability, people will continue to use their cryptocurrency more thoroughly for daily payments. Just my opinion

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

Most of its code is simply copy and paste from another cryptocurrency, without true innovation or development at all.

Pretty much this. The 2017-2018 cryptocurrency concept was more or less like a get rich quick scheme such that if a non-developer just copy pastes the code of bitcoin with very little changes like the total supply and the block emission rate it would soar up in price when they reach the trading market. Sadly, the developers run away with the ICO money leaving the coin behind. When the investors tend to do a little research, they start to dump the coin. This was how the ICO coins came to an end at the end of 2018. Later on people started researching about the team before they simply threw their money inside the rabbit hole. Either way, there was a very late response for these scams which were taking place all over the 2 years and all was the result of people losing their hard earned money.

This was the primary reason for the shift of people towards coins which are practically usable in real world like Monero and Ethereum. I am still not sure how many more years these altcoins (except few promising one) will survive before almost everything is being replaced by bitcoin. On the other hand, satoshi has previously spoke about merged mining concept in one of his earlier post. Though through the merged mining concept, the altcoin can just be joining hands with the major network but when the miner tends to solve both the network coins, the one with lower difficulty gets solved first leaving the major network behind. These would all be linked to one single merkle tree.

There was a discussion between theymos and nanotube in the creation of such a coin which might be using a merged mining concept but not sure if they came out successfully. But later at one point of time, namecoin came into existence based on the discussion between satoshi and other devs. I am not sure, if the announcement was from a alt account of theymos, nanotube but they came with a imaginary name of Vincent Durham Check this out yourself.

I think it would be possible for BitDNS to be a completely separate network and separate block chain, yet share CPU power with Bitcoin.  The only overlap is to make it so miners can search for proof-of-work for both networks simultaneously.

The networks wouldn't need any coordination.  Miners would subscribe to both networks in parallel.  They would scan SHA such that if they get a hit, they potentially solve both at once.  A solution may be for just one of the networks if one network has a lower difficulty.

I think an external miner could call getwork on both programs and combine the work.  Maybe call Bitcoin, get work from it, hand it to BitDNS getwork to combine into a combined work.

Instead of fragmentation, networks share and augment each other's total CPU power.  This would solve the problem that if there are multiple networks, they are a danger to each other if the available CPU power gangs up on one.  Instead, all networks in the world would share combined CPU power, increasing the total strength.  It would make it easier for small networks to get started by tapping into a ready base of miners.

Probably I should restart reading more history threads. 

[Abiky]

Pretty much this. The 2017-2018 cryptocurrency concept was more or less like a get rich quick scheme such that if a non-developer just copy pastes the code of bitcoin with very little changes like the total supply and the block emission rate it would soar up in price when they reach the trading market. Sadly, the developers run away with the ICO money leaving the coin behind. When the investors tend to do a little research, they start to dump the coin. This was how the ICO coins came to an end at the end of 2018. Later on people started researching about the team before they simply threw their money inside the rabbit hole. Either way, there was a very late response for these scams which were taking place all over the 2 years and all was the result of people losing their hard earned money.

This was the primary reason for the shift of people towards coins which are practically usable in real world like Monero and Ethereum. I am still not sure how many more years these altcoins (except few promising one) will survive before almost everything is being replaced by bitcoin. On the other hand, satoshi has previously spoke about merged mining concept in one of his earlier post. Though through the merged mining concept, the altcoin can just be joining hands with the major network but when the miner tends to solve both the network coins, the one with lower difficulty gets solved first leaving the major network behind. These would all be linked to one single merkle tree.

There was a discussion between theymos and nanotube in the creation of such a coin which might be using a merged mining concept but not sure if they came out successfully. But later at one point of time, namecoin came into existence based on the discussion between satoshi and other devs. I am not sure, if the announcement was from a alt account of theymos, nanotube but they came with a imaginary name of Vincent Durham Check this out yourself.

I think it would be possible for BitDNS to be a completely separate network and separate block chain, yet share CPU power with Bitcoin.  The only overlap is to make it so miners can search for proof-of-work for both networks simultaneously.

The networks wouldn't need any coordination.  Miners would subscribe to both networks in parallel.  They would scan SHA such that if they get a hit, they potentially solve both at once.  A solution may be for just one of the networks if one network has a lower difficulty.

I think an external miner could call getwork on both programs and combine the work.  Maybe call Bitcoin, get work from it, hand it to BitDNS getwork to combine into a combined work.

Instead of fragmentation, networks share and augment each other's total CPU power.  This would solve the problem that if there are multiple networks, they are a danger to each other if the available CPU power gangs up on one.  Instead, all networks in the world would share combined CPU power, increasing the total strength.  It would make it easier for small networks to get started by tapping into a ready base of miners.

Probably I should restart reading more history threads. 

Speaking of Monero, it has been constantly improving its PoW algorithm every 6 months to maintain ASIC resistance. While this is good for mainstream adoption, it harms the security of the underlying blockchain network. ASICs are what makes a cryptocurrency extremely resilient against 51% attacks. It's no wonder why Bitcoin has been the most secure cryptocurrency after all these years. It may be difficult for anyone to mine Bitcoin right now, but at least it's extremely secure against external attacks because it relies on ASICs for security. When you constantly change the PoW algorithm, you open the path for anyone to hack your blockchain network. After all, miners don't immediately migrate to the new PoW algorithm. This in turn, leads to a smaller hashrate on the network making it easy for anyone to attack the chain at will.

Merged mining works, but it's not used by most cryptocurrencies today. There's a new thing called "VeriBlock" which provides security to other coins by relying on Bitcoin's hashrate itself. I believe it works just like Komodo's dPoW algorithm. The only difference is that dPoW "notarizes" an alternate coin's blocks into the BTC blockchain, while that's not the case with "VeriBlock". Still, these are interesting concepts that could make altcoins stronger like never before. At least, the solution is there to "tackle" the problems of a 51% attack from small chains. But it's up to the developers themselves whenever they'd want to incorporate this into their blockchain or not.

I was not aware about "BitDNS" (which later became Namecoin) before, but it's good to know that Satoshi talked about a "Plan B" for Bitcoin in order to prevent 51% attacks on the Blockchain. I also need to read more on history threads to help expand my knowledge on the subject. One could be a lifetime on crypto without knowing it all.

[20kevin20]

Would merging two coins' network into one to prevent 51% attacks mean the difficulty for mining any of the coins would also be merged (hence increased, as it's all added together)? If two networks merge, will there even be the possibility of mining only one of the two (or more) coins or would it mean you can only mine all of them at once?

It's a very interesting concept indeed. As the posts above said, most small hashrate coins are successfully attacked because the team behind them don't give a damn about protecting the coins. I've had absolutely no respect for XVG especially after their stupid and cringy PornHub & McAfee move.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

Speaking of Monero, it has been constantly improving its PoW algorithm every 6 months to maintain ASIC resistance. While this is good for mainstream adoption, it harms the security of the underlying blockchain network.
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This in turn, leads to a smaller hashrate on the network making it easy for anyone to attack the chain at will.

Speaking from a trading perspective, at one point of time in 2017 Monero was good to be considered as an alternative to Bitcoin in terms of anonymity and using the CryptoNote algorithm but practically speaking almost all the altcoins are losing its potential to withstand the market. There has been various de-listings of XMR from exchanges and there aren't hardly any news to support the stability for a longer run.

Though Bitcoin is harder to mine with the current difficulty they re-adjust based on the price actions. When a miner feels like he is no longer able to run into profits from his mining activity, they would be leaving the network for other miners and subsequently we would be seeing a drop in difficulty.

But ASIC resistant on the other hand could be a positive move from the XMR dev team to make the coin more decentralized. ASIC mining would make the coin community rely on a particular company to mine their coins thereby encouraging centralization. We should be very well aware of CZ trying to manipulate the whole network by hiring miners to reverse his binance loss from the hack. If a rich person tend to change the working of a currency to the way he likes, isn't considered to be unhealthy for the whole market and the coin?

[crypto595]

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[Abiky]

Would merging two coins' network into one to prevent 51% attacks mean the difficulty for mining any of the coins would also be merged (hence increased, as it's all added together)? If two networks merge, will there even be the possibility of mining only one of the two (or more) coins or would it mean you can only mine all of them at once?

It's a very interesting concept indeed. As the posts above said, most small hashrate coins are successfully attacked because the team behind them don't give a damn about protecting the coins. I've had absolutely no respect for XVG especially after their stupid and cringy PornHub & McAfee move.

It's best to avoid cryptocurrencies with negligent developers behind it, since you'd risk getting your funds manipulated easily across the Blockchain. Verge is a good example of a "useless" coin with no future, because of its negligent developers. They could've easily avoided many 51% attacks on the Blockchain, yet it's the date where it lacks a real solution to the problem. You get nothing by having a variety of merchants accepting the coin, if the same lacks security above all else. Remember, that it's all about censorship-resistance/decentralization than convenience.

Merging two or more coins will definitely increase the mining difficulty of underlying blockchain networks. It's beneficial for all sides as blockchain networks combine into a "single chain". When we combine small blockchain networks with medium-to-large ones, we get unparalleled security against 51% attacks. Luckily, we have many solutions on the Blockchain industry for cryptocurrencies with a small network hashrate. Solutions like VeriBlock, dPoW, Merged Mining, and even a multi-PoW consensus algorithm (like it's the case with DigiByte and Myriadcoin) are able to "tackle" the existent problems of a 51% attack. The problem lies on the developers themselves than anything else. If they don't care about security/decentralization, the coin can become an easy target for hackers. It's best to avoid any cryptocurrency which doesn't focus on security to prevent undesired losses.

Speaking from a trading perspective, at one point of time in 2017 Monero was good to be considered as an alternative to Bitcoin in terms of anonymity and using the CryptoNote algorithm but practically speaking almost all the altcoins are losing its potential to withstand the market. There has been various de-listings of XMR from exchanges and there aren't hardly any news to support the stability for a longer run.

Though Bitcoin is harder to mine with the current difficulty they re-adjust based on the price actions. When a miner feels like he is no longer able to run into profits from his mining activity, they would be leaving the network for other miners and subsequently we would be seeing a drop in difficulty.

But ASIC resistant on the other hand could be a positive move from the XMR dev team to make the coin more decentralized. ASIC mining would make the coin community rely on a particular company to mine their coins thereby encouraging centralization. We should be very well aware of CZ trying to manipulate the whole network by hiring miners to reverse his binance loss from the hack. If a rich person tend to change the working of a currency to the way he likes, isn't considered to be unhealthy for the whole market and the coin?

Monero has experienced various de-listings of exchanges because it's a privacy coin itself. Considering that governments are requiring ID verification within centralized exchanges, privacy coins like Monero and Zcash are much harder to track and enforce KYC/AML regulations. After all, transactions are obfuscated from the general public (especially Monero). The excuse of governments is that privacy coins are used for malicious purposes like money laundering and terrorist financing. But the truth is that most criminals use Fiat instead because it's stable and accepted by anyone in the world (not to mention that it's also anonymous in its physical form). As long as governments are against privacy coins, we'll continue to see exchanges de-listing them as time goes by.

Speaking of ASIC-resistance, Monero seems to be doing a pretty good job. This is great for decentralization, but constantly changing the algorithm every 6 months will make it harder for miners to keep track of the latest changes on the Blockchain. They'd need to change their devices (depending on the algorithm used) every 6 months which is not very convenient, in my own opinion. AFAIK, Monero hasn't experienced a 51% attack yet so I think it'll do fine for many years to come. The real issue will be unpopular coins on the market with a small dev team and community. If they'd want to survive for a long time, they'd need to adopt one of the aforementioned solutions to protect themselves against 51% attacks. Otherwise, people will lose trust in small coins day-by-day as they're constantly targeted by hackers in cyberspace.

[Heisenberg_Hunter]

It's best to avoid cryptocurrencies with negligent developers behind it, since you'd risk getting your funds manipulated easily across the Blockchain.

Truly speaking, most of the ICO coins were closed source and developers were trying to scam the investors with the launch of coins. At the end of 2017, I came across Oyster Protocol and most of it's team along with the head dev were quite anonymous but the project as a whole was very much promising. They were one among the famous 'get rich quick coins' during the bull run. Within 2 weeks - 4 weeks of launch, the coin traded from as low as $0.005 to as high as $4 at the December peak. Bounty hunters earned few hundred thousand dollars through shitposting but at the end of 2018, the lead anonymous dev increased the coin supply all of a sudden and tanked the coin completely in Kucoin and ran away with millions of funds.

ICO trends were once a smart way to scam newbie investors and right now either the investors have become matured after losing thousands of dollars or they have ran away from the cryptocurrency market. We wouldn't be seeing much interest towards these ICO coins/ Altcoin markets and all would be diminishing as years passes by.

Monero has experienced various de-listings of exchanges because it's a privacy coin itself.
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Otherwise, people will lose trust in small coins day-by-day as they're constantly targeted by hackers in cyberspace.

I like the core idea behind the CryptoNote tech and this is one among the reasons I still vouch for Monero and its developers. I am aware of the fact that they are highly anonymous and being used by dark markets for transactions but doesn't common people deserve the privacy of using these coins? I hate dark markets and people selling illegal and dangerous stuffs through Dark Web but some still consider this as a way of freedom. Physical Terrorism financing is quite different while comparing to the Cyber Terrorism or dark markets selling illegal goods to various countries.

In Physical terrorism, terrorists travel through various countries from a particular epicenter for terrorism by masking themselves as visitors of the country thereby using the various fiat currencies available in the particular attacking country. But cyber terrorism like conducting crimes through internet is highly discouraging and privacy centric coins like Monero are still being used for those. I am certainly afraid that privacy centric coins or cryptocurrencies in general might pave way to the ease of Cyber War in future.

We are currently experiencing a Bio War kind of stuff through the COVID-19 pandemic and there are reports China has faked the real death numbers. But this doesn't end here as we would be experiencing a Cyber War when Internet has taken over our life to an extent were we cannot live it even for a single day. There are villages in various parts of world still existing without Internet but this wouldn't be the case for long term.