Some Problems I See With Bitcoins (And A Proposed Solution)

[Ente Erstickenfickër]

Whenever I see a post whose subject line says Bitcoin won't work, I automatically know their post count is in the single digits before I even look.

By the time their post count reaches the triple digits, they're converted and enthusiastic.

Welcome to the community in advance.

haha!  every once in a while you see these geniuses popping up in the newb forum thinking they know the answer to everything.  No offense to OP, but I've seen it a dozen times.

We see that Bitcoin comes with plenty of hubris to spare. Is that a requirement covered in the Nakamoto paper or just another lost design assumption?

[casascius]

"proof of work is a waste" - a common argument advanced by numerous people in their first ten posts.

The proof of work IS the leap that makes it all work.  Without an understanding of why the proof of work is important, there is absolutely no understanding the fundamentals of bitcoin.

Without proof of work, there is nothing stopping from someone creating thousands of virtual validators that look identical to a thousand real ones, similar to how a computer can look like ten computers through the magic of virtualization.  What good is 2/3 of the vote, if I can have as many votes as I want?

[SgtSpike]

"proof of work is a waste" - a common argument advanced by numerous people in their first ten posts.

The proof of work IS the leap that makes it all work.  Without an understanding of why the proof of work is important, there is absolutely no understanding the fundamentals of bitcoin.

Without proof of work, there is nothing stopping from someone creating thousands of virtual validators that look identical to a thousand real ones, similar to how a computer can look like ten computers through the magic of virtualization.  What good is 2/3 of the vote, if I can have as many votes as I want?

Well, if you think about it, it'd just turn into more of the same.  You can't have as many votes as you want, but you could have many millions, billions, or trillions of votes.  But at some point, you'll max out hardware.  And then, you're back to having proof of work, or voting by power level of hardware.

It'd be the same amount of "work" for farms of computers around the world, just executed in a worse, different manner.

FWIW, I still believe Bitcoin isn't quite right.  I think block rewards should go on forever, and I have advocated that since very early on.  I see a currency that just stops growing causing deflation and hindering economic growth.  An ideal currency would have no inflation or deflation, and that only happens if you have a constant minting that will eventually equalize with the amount of coins lost on accident + the growth of the world's population.

But, I still think Bitcoin is a great project, and fully support it.  It's still the best that is available.

[Ente Erstickenfickër]

We see that Bitcoin comes with plenty of hubris to spare. Is that a requirement covered in the Nakamoto paper or just another lost design assumption?

Who's we? Are you a monarch?

What I see is one or two old users at bitcointalk.org that are impatient with new users introducing the same argument that has been discussed to death already. This is typical behavior for any forum. Amusing how you link it to Bitcoin though.

Personally, I thought they were rather tame, but perhaps we should get out the cattle prods to keep them in line?

LOL! Such impatient little squirmers, look at them. First we meet the Lead Assclown, then the punk ass bitch starts making threats. Welcome to the message board for the Gamma Minus Club. You guys are a waste of oxygen, not to mention time.

[Ente Erstickenfickër]

I attempted to post this on StackExchange, but was told to come here. So here it is:

I've been thinking a lot about bitcoins lately, and I've discovered some problems with the theory behind them.

1Q) How much will transaction fees eventually be?

2Q) There is a lot of wasted computational power, due to the requirement for "proof of work." Assuming they found a fix for #1, this would still drive the transaction fees to be a LOT higher then they would otherwise need to be.

3Q) Banking information is propagated freely to anybody and everybody. If you wanted to figure out how much money your friend (or worse, your enemy) has, and all of their transactional data, it really wouldn't be that hard. This isn't a huge problem, but this information ideally should be on a "need to know" basis.

After those questions came to mind, I did lots of research on the theory and did lots of thinking. I believe I have an extremely simple solution to all of these problems:

We redefine what it means to bitcoin mine. We scrap the entire idea of "proof of work," as well as blocks. All nodes that define themselves as bitcoin miners must now tell every other node that they are a miner, or "validator" if you will.

3A) When a client posts a transaction, that transaction is propagated ONLY to all validators, and NOT to other clients. Clients should not know about the transaction history of other clients.

2A) All validators must validate the transaction, and then post their results to all other nodes. If it is determined (by each individual node) that 2/3 majority of the validators have validated the transaction, then the transaction is deemed to be valid. There is no "proof of work" and clockcycles are no longer wasted.

1A) The reward (transaction fee) is equally split among all validators. Since each individual node knows how many registered validators there are, it can easily calculate a minimum transactional fee. Transaction fee = (time to process transaction) * (cost per time to process).

What do you guys think, does this make sense at all?

You got your answer, these mooks are too busy trying to make money running this scam to be bothered with hard questions. You would have thought we just walked into the Church of Scientology  

[Ente Erstickenfickër]

We see that Bitcoin comes with plenty of hubris to spare. Is that a requirement covered in the Nakamoto paper or just another lost design assumption?

Who's we? Are you a monarch?

What I see is one or two old users at bitcointalk.org that are impatient with new users introducing the same argument that has been discussed to death already. This is typical behavior for any forum. Amusing how you link it to Bitcoin though.

Personally, I thought they were rather tame, but perhaps we should get out the cattle prods to keep them in line?

LOL! Such impatient little squirmers, look at them. First we meet the Lead Assclown, then the punk ass bitch starts making threats. Welcome to the message board for the Gamma Minus Club. You guys are a waste of oxygen, not to mention time.

The "threat" was against the old members of the forum. You understood that, correct? And it was a joke. Sheesh...

Seeya, wouldn't want to be ya.

[casascius]

What should we expect, from someone naming themselves "suffocating duck f*cker"

[DeathAndTaxes]

Your analysis (like most newbies w/ 10 posts) is flawed.

Understand what the proof of work accomplishes and why it is necessary and it will be obvious why your "solution" would be dead before it started.

Hint #1) The blockchain requires consensus
Hint #2) Mining is a vote but instead of 1 person = 1 vote, it is 1 hash = 1 vote
Hint #3) Why can't we just use 1 person = 1 vote in an anonymous network?

PS.  Most people don't believe Bitcoin is perfect.  I believe a proof of work could be more efficient by including a proof of stake component.

[Goomboo]

Bitcoin is really complicated and I'm still trying to wrap my head around it...good thinking on the stuff though