[ANN][KARM] Karma / ₭ / X11

[Chargin]

Please find below my explanation on why Karma's PoW (in particular) is flawed and needs PoS to assist it.

This is prompted in part by this thread.
http://karmashares.com/forums/index.php/topic,218.msg780.html#msg780

The main advantages of PoS are:
1. The network is more secure (I will elaborate on this under the heading - "why Karma's PoW in particular is dangerously weak");
2. The network costs far less to run (I'd call "saving the planet" good karma); and
3. It encourages people to take their Karma off exchanges unless they plan on selling it in the near future. There are billions of Karma sitting on exchanges, probably billions more not on the market just sitting in the exchanges accounts. I don't like concentrations of Karma because it won't take much in the wrong hands to crash its price.

The main disadvantages of going to PoS are:
1. It could be completely screwed up like with Whitecoin. They tried to transition to PoS but ended up with a low hash rate PoW system which was attacked (I note it was a PoW weakness attack not PoS).
2. People with mining rigs that don't want to buy coins can no longer mine for them. People can mine other coins and then purchase Karma however some people will be unwilling to take this extra step. Mining is becoming harder and harder for individuals so I think this point will become less valid over time.

Why Karma's PoW in particular is dangerously weak.

1. The table below shows that a large amount of Karma is needed to protect the network and demonstrates how the security of the network is getting weaker quickly. The network security is strongly correlated with the rewards under PoW. The gain from an attack is based on two things. The amount of currency currently on the market (seeking to buy the coin) for an instant reward and the total market value of the coin. Naturally therefore the percentage of coins used to secure the network every day is a strong indicator of security, it also allows a much smaller coin to be compared to a larger coin by ignoring market cap (obviously Bitcoin/Litcoin etc are far more secure than Karma due to their comparative sizes).

Currency	Cost of securing the network for 24 hours	Coin supply	Percent of coins used to secure network every day	Percentage under 2% PoS
Litecoin	29,700	29,092,817	0.1021%	0.0055%
Karma (now)	158,400,000	55,754,094,065	0.2841%	0.0055%
Karma (in a few weeks)	50,400,000	58,250,000,000	0.0865%	0.0055%
Karma (in 85 days)	28,800,000	61,750,000,000	0.0466%	0.0055%
Karma (in 155 days)	14,400,000	63,750,000,000	0.0226%	0.0055%

I believe October 2015 is the first reward halving for Litecoin, making Karma 1/4 as secure as Litecoin even if Karma had the same market cap as Litcoin after the end of the 155 days until then. As you can see from the table above Karma is only getting more insecure over time due to PoW rewards decreasing. PoS will not only be more secure, it will cost 75% less in Karma (not to mention electricity) to secure the network. After the table above Karma will get  weaker and weaker with the number of coins being used to protect the network decreasing compared to the total supply. The reason I'm basing my analysis on Litecoin not DOGE (which is the other main currency Karma is based off and will almost mirror the comparative security of Karma) is because I'd prefer not to follow in the footsteps of a coin that was made as a joke.

2. A large portion of Karma's hashing power is in one pool, if this pool were taken offline or somebody even took control of it then it would make Karma an excellent target.  I don't want to the write percentage of hashing power here because of just how bad it is. If somebody did take control of that pool to maliciously use it then Karma could be completely destroyed with ease because they would be able to maintain the attack for as long as they controlled the pool unless a white knight came to save Karma.

3. Karma does not have much hashing rate in total because the value of the coins is low. Unless Karma overtakes Bitcoin and all other PoW coins it will always suffer from this weakness. It is far more secure to be the biggest than the second biggest PoW coin because the hashing power can't simply be moved. Having said that as Karma's price increases it will be on more radars, which means the other weaknesses I've discussed will make it an excellent target.

Basically there are currently likely to be hundreds if not thousands of entities that have enough hashing power to take control of the Karma network which means they can create as many coins as they want, practically for free. The situation will get dramatically worse in 2 weeks, then again in 85 days, then again in 155 days. I think we should be looking to fix it well within the 85 days. One pool already has control of the network, aren't we just lucky nothing has happened yet?

Other notes on why PoS would be particularly strong for Karma compared to PoW which would be great selling points for Karma.
1. Having PoS instead of PoW is good for the planet, you can't have a coin called Karma that uses so much electricity and creates so much landfill (those outdated ASICs have to go somewhere).
2. There is 8 billion Karma owned by Karmashares LLC available to protect the network. PoS will also allow Karmashares LLC to earn a return on that Karma without having to spend the principle which could have large impacts on prices.

Other comments/my suggestion
I have not compared things like confirmation times or re-target difficulty which also impact on the security and utility of a coin because these are more subjective. They should of course be re-examined if a change were being made, it is unlikely the creators of DOGE put much thought into this.  Exactly how the PoS works also needs to be carefully considered, I'd be in favour of people being required to leave their wallets open constantly or very regularly to earn interest so that coin age can't be used to make some Karma worth more than others under PoS.

My suggestion is to implement a joint PoS + PoW system that requires both requirements to be met for the transaction to be considered valid. I think the PoW component should be decreased until the cost reaches and is then is fixed at 20% of the cost of the PoS system given the environmental cost of securing a network is so high. This would allow the coin to be mine-able, environmentally friendly and secure. It would also make it the first coin (as far as I'm aware) with a PoW that increases over time (in line with the total number of Karma), although very slowly. I recommend against a PoS system which gives Karmashares instead of Karma because that over complicates things and people can't easily sell the Karmashares if they want to.

Chargin.

[1714200730]

1714200730

[AGcrypto]

Have you checked coinwarz karmala? I cant seem to EVEN find Karma. As if we are not existing. Well it maybe my browser acting up but it's the case on my end, I dont find Karma in their profitability computations.

This is our page http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/coins/karmacoin

but I'm not sure why we're not on the main list. Perhaps someone with a contact there can find out?

We are not on the main list because we are not in the BTC market on the main exchanges they use to pull their calculation info from. As soon as we get on the BTC/Karma exchanges on cryptsy, mintpal and a few others they use, we will then show up on the main page. The calculator is also off, the only thing that will give you is the actual diff and approximate number of coins you are expected to make per your hash. The BTC/Karma value is way way low on their calculator because our current value is closer to 2 but they cant update it because they don't have our current BTC/Karma value info from the exchanges so we are given a default 1sat as a multiplier.

[karmala]

chargin, it is ALL about risk. I guess that we would have had pow/pos mix since weeks if no risks would be associated with the transition. Are you able to code this or to oversee the associated risks of a wrong code base? The devs must decide if this is doable and the risks are barable. I would very much love to have a pow/pos mix! We need more devs who can look into this issue. I am not qualified to make a judgement on this matter though. 

[kosmost]

chargin, it is ALL about risk. I guess that we would have had pow/pos mix since weeks if no risks would be associated with the transition. Are you able to code this or to oversee the associated risks of a wrong code base? The devs must decide if this is doable and the risks are barable. I would very much love to have a pow/pos mix! We need more devs who can look into this issue. I am not qualified to make a judgement on this matter though. 

Coincidentally, I'll be talking with an economics/crypto guy in a few minutes about this and other issues. I'll post more on the forum, and link it from here.

[karmala]

chargin, it is ALL about risk. I guess that we would have had pow/pos mix since weeks if no risks would be associated with the transition. Are you able to code this or to oversee the associated risks of a wrong code base? The devs must decide if this is doable and the risks are barable. I would very much love to have a pow/pos mix! We need more devs who can look into this issue. I am not qualified to make a judgement on this matter though. 

Coincidentally, I'll be talking with an economics/crypto guy in a few minutes about this and other issues. I'll post more on the forum, and link it from here.

a coder?

[p4r4m0un7]

Have you checked coinwarz karmala? I cant seem to EVEN find Karma. As if we are not existing. Well it maybe my browser acting up but it's the case on my end, I dont find Karma in their profitability computations.

This is our page http://www.coinwarz.com/cryptocurrency/coins/karmacoin

but I'm not sure why we're not on the main list. Perhaps someone with a contact there can find out?

No need for contact. When we are back at BTC market on big exchanges - Mintpal and Cryptsy, we will be back on Coinwarz as well.
That was one of the reasons for me to insist the PoS transition. 99% of the miners are digging after they observe profitability of some coin. 99% of the miners I know are digging different coin everyday, because the profitability is changing. So, we can not expect the network to be secured by new miners until we reach 50-60 satoshi and this is for 110 000 block reward. When the reward is reduced to 35 000 we will need at least 150 satoshi price range. And this got nothing to do with the value of KARMA (not the price). I`ve read many posts that were talking about the concept of PoW and PoS, but in almost everyone of them I saw just emotions, instead of sense of reality. And this comes from people that are saying they were mining for years, which is really embarrassing, cause they obviously didn`t learn anything. But at the end, time will tell. No hard feelings.

P.S. Ooops, while I was writing, somebody posted almost the same.  

[AGcrypto]

Please find below my explanation on why Karma's PoW (in particular) is flawed and needs PoS to assist it.

This is prompted in part by this thread.
http://karmashares.com/forums/index.php/topic,218.msg780.html#msg780

The main advantages of PoS are:
1. The network is more secure (I will elaborate on this under the heading - "why Karma's PoW in particular is dangerously weak");
2. The network costs far less to run (I'd call "saving the planet" good karma); and
3. It encourages people to take their Karma off exchanges unless they plan on selling it in the near future. There are billions of Karma sitting on exchanges, probably billions more not on the market just sitting in the exchanges accounts. I don't like concentrations of Karma because it won't take much in the wrong hands to crash its price.

The main disadvantages of going to PoS are:
1. It could be completely screwed up like with Whitecoin. They tried to transition to PoS but ended up with a low hash rate PoW system which was attacked (I note it was a PoW weakness attack not PoS).
2. People with mining rigs that don't want to buy coins can no longer mine for them. People can mine other coins and then purchase Karma however some people will be unwilling to take this extra step. Mining is becoming harder and harder for individuals so I think this point will become less valid over time.

Why Karma's PoW in particular is dangerously weak.

1. The table below shows that a large amount of Karma is needed to protect the network and demonstrates how the security of the network is getting weaker quickly. The network security is strongly correlated with the rewards under PoW. The gain from an attack is based on two things. The amount of currency currently on the market (seeking to buy the coin) for an instant reward and the total market value of the coin. Naturally therefore the percentage of coins used to secure the network every day is a strong indicator of security, it also allows a much smaller coin to be compared to a larger coin by ignoring market cap (obviously Bitcoin/Litcoin etc are far more secure than Karma due to their comparative sizes).

Currency	Cost of securing the network for 24 hours	Coin supply	Percent of coins used to secure network every day	Percentage under 2% PoS
Litecoin	29,700	29,092,817	0.1021%	0.0055%
Karma (now)	158,400,000	55,754,094,065	0.2841%	0.0055%
Karma (in a few weeks)	50,400,000	58,250,000,000	0.0865%	0.0055%
Karma (in 85 days)	28,800,000	61,750,000,000	0.0466%	0.0055%
Karma (in 155 days)	14,400,000	63,750,000,000	0.0226%	0.0055%

I believe October 2015 is the first reward halving for Litecoin, making Karma 1/4 as secure as Litecoin even if Karma had the same market cap as Litcoin after the end of the 155 days until then. As you can see from the table above Karma is only getting more insecure over time due to PoW rewards decreasing. PoS will not only be more secure, it will cost 75% less in Karma (not to mention electricity) to secure the network. After the table above Karma will get  weaker and weaker with the number of coins being used to protect the network decreasing compared to the total supply. The reason I'm basing my analysis on Litecoin not DOGE (which is the other main currency Karma is based off and will almost mirror the comparative security of Karma) is because I'd prefer not to follow in the footsteps of a coin that was made as a joke.

2. A large portion of Karma's hashing power is in one pool, if this pool were taken offline or somebody even took control of it then it would make Karma an excellent target.  I don't want to the write percentage of hashing power here because of just how bad it is. If somebody did take control of that pool to maliciously use it then Karma could be completely destroyed with ease because they would be able to maintain the attack for as long as they controlled the pool unless a white knight came to save Karma.

3. Karma does not have much hashing rate in total because the value of the coins is low. Unless Karma overtakes Bitcoin and all other PoW coins it will always suffer from this weakness. It is far more secure to be the biggest than the second biggest PoW coin because the hashing power can't simply be moved. Having said that as Karma's price increases it will be on more radars, which means the other weaknesses I've discussed will make it an excellent target.

Basically there are currently likely to be hundreds if not thousands of entities that have enough hashing power to take control of the Karma network which means they can create as many coins as they want, practically for free. The situation will get dramatically worse in 2 weeks, then again in 85 days, then again in 155 days. I think we should be looking to fix it well within the 85 days. One pool already has control of the network, aren't we just lucky nothing has happened yet?

Other notes on why PoS would be particularly strong for Karma compared to PoW which would be great selling points for Karma.
1. Having PoS instead of PoW is good for the planet, you can't have a coin called Karma that uses so much electricity and creates so much landfill (those outdated ASICs have to go somewhere).
2. There is 8 billion Karma owned by Karmashares LLC available to protect the network. PoS will also allow Karmashares LLC to earn a return on that Karma without having to spend the principle which could have large impacts on prices.

Other comments/my suggestion
I have not compared things like confirmation times or re-target difficulty which also impact on the security and utility of a coin because these are more subjective. They should of course be re-examined if a change were being made, it is unlikely the creators of DOGE put much thought into this.  Exactly how the PoS works also needs to be carefully considered, I'd be in favour of people being required to leave their wallets open constantly or very regularly to earn interest so that coin age can't be used to make some Karma worth more than others under PoS.

My suggestion is to implement a joint PoS + PoW system that requires both requirements to be met for the transaction to be considered valid. I think the PoW component should be decreased until the cost reaches and is then is fixed at 20% of the cost of the PoS system given the environmental cost of securing a network is so high. This would allow the coin to be mine-able, environmentally friendly and secure. It would also make it the first coin (as far as I'm aware) with a PoW that increases over time (in line with the total number of Karma), although very slowly. I recommend against a PoS system which gives Karmashares instead of Karma because that over complicates things and people can't easily sell the Karmashares if they want to.

Chargin.

Good points, and I thank you for sharing them as i cant speak for others, but it has given me something to think about. With that said I believe some of the info you used to make your point is a little out dated as for there is no one pool that controls or dominates karma anymore. The net hash rate is about 1gh and you currently have the biggest pool down to 315mh you have another 200mh in the p2p network leaving about 500mh that is spread across solo miners, smaller pools and one more big switching pool which i cant remember the name off the top of my head but last i saw it had about 200mh. As of right now, there is no other scrypt or scrypt-N coin that is more profitable to mine than Karma at its current value/block ratio. Yea the block split that will happen in a couple of weeks will make Karma less interesting for miners to mine if the value of Karma doesn't go up. But the funny thing is Karma only has to go up to 6sat to make it equally if not a tad bit more profitable to mine than it is now. And when we hit the BTC market here in a few weeks 6sat is a joke for a coin of this caliber. We will be trading at multiples above 6sat making Karma by far the most valuable coin to mine of any algo. And in turn very secure as this will attract the big name pools to adopt Karma as well. As far as what happens in October, i predict the combo of new investors tripping over each other to buy shares as they finally realize that the LLC is the real deal in addition to the attention Karma will receive on the current/future projects will raise the value as to keep Karma the most valuable coin to mine. As we all know no one  can predict  what tomorrow brings and you should always do your own research and never invest what you can't afford to lose. But as a life long successful investor in a variety of income generators, from stocks, bound, real estate ect.. ect.. I would not have invested thousands in Karma and it's LLC if i didn't believe in its future and it success.

[karmala]

To everybody in here: Please help to tell coinmarketcap.com to fix the volume from Mintpal for Karma. Every day we go down in the low volume category. This is a BUG is a very bad signal to buyers. E.g. they state that we had only 30$ volume in the last 24 hours. In fact it was something like 1700$
 Please leave a reply here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.2940

[easteagle13]

To everybody in here: Please help to tell coinmarketcap.com to fix the volume from Mintpal for Karma. Every day we go down in the low volume category. This is a BUG is a very bad signal to buyers. E.g. they state that we had only 30$ volume in the last 24 hours. In fact it was something like 1700$
 Please leave a reply here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.2940

Done. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.new#new

[karmala]

To everybody in here: Please help to tell coinmarketcap.com to fix the volume from Mintpal for Karma. Every day we go down in the low volume category. This is a BUG is a very bad signal to buyers. E.g. they state that we had only 30$ volume in the last 24 hours. In fact it was something like 1700$
 Please leave a reply here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.2940

Done. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.new#new

hey east, nice effort with big colourful screenshots. They cant overlook this one

[karmala]

Time to place your buy orders. Things are building up on mintpal. Last train from sub-100s. Weeeehhhh

[easteagle13]

To everybody in here: Please help to tell coinmarketcap.com to fix the volume from Mintpal for Karma. Every day we go down in the low volume category. This is a BUG is a very bad signal to buyers. E.g. they state that we had only 30$ volume in the last 24 hours. In fact it was something like 1700$
 Please leave a reply here:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.2940

Done. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199685.new#new

hey east, nice effort with big colourful screenshots. They cant overlook this one

Hehe you know everyone loves graphics! I hope they will adjust that error soon. 30$!

[karmala]

He, whoever has still this 46ltc order on 23 litoshis on Mintpal: Dream on, things have changed

[huige007]

Powerful of buying. Imminent outbreak

[karmala]

Powerful of buying. Imminent outbreak

silence before the storm.... Some hours ago the buying volume looked like an elephant sucking  up the sales

[karmala]

 go Karma! 98 on Mintpal, touched 100 on cryptsy

[easteagle13]

go Karma! 98 on Mintpal, touched 100 on cryptsy

Karmala stop it! you're making the buyer/seller nervous hahaha

[karmala]

go Karma! 98 on Mintpal, touched 100 on cryptsy

Karmala stop it! you're making the buyer/seller nervous hahaha

haha ok sorry everybody. I am just exited.

[Alphi]

Why Karma's PoW in particular is dangerously weak.

1. The table below shows that a large amount of Karma is needed to protect the network and demonstrates how the security of the network is getting weaker quickly. The network security is strongly correlated with the rewards under PoW. The gain from an attack is based on two things. The amount of currency currently on the market (seeking to buy the coin) for an instant reward and the total market value of the coin. Naturally therefore the percentage of coins used to secure the network every day is a strong indicator of security, it also allows a much smaller coin to be compared to a larger coin by ignoring market cap (obviously Bitcoin/Litcoin etc are far more secure than Karma due to their comparative sizes).

I believe October 2015 is the first reward halving for Litecoin, making Karma 1/4 as secure as Litecoin even if Karma had the same market cap as Litcoin after the end of the 155 days until then. As you can see from the table above Karma is only getting more insecure over time due to PoW rewards decreasing. PoS will not only be more secure, it will cost 75% less in Karma (not to mention electricity) to secure the network. After the table above Karma will get  weaker and weaker with the number of coins being used to protect the network decreasing compared to the total supply. The reason I'm basing my analysis on Litecoin not DOGE (which is the other main currency Karma is based off and will almost mirror the comparative security of Karma) is because I'd prefer not to follow in the footsteps of a coin that was made as a joke.

2. A large portion of Karma's hashing power is in one pool, if this pool were taken offline or somebody even took control of it then it would make Karma an excellent target.  I don't want to the write percentage of hashing power here because of just how bad it is. If somebody did take control of that pool to maliciously use it then Karma could be completely destroyed with ease because they would be able to maintain the attack for as long as they controlled the pool unless a white knight came to save Karma.

3. Karma does not have much hashing rate in total because the value of the coins is low. Unless Karma overtakes Bitcoin and all other PoW coins it will always suffer from this weakness. It is far more secure to be the biggest than the second biggest PoW coin because the hashing power can't simply be moved. Having said that as Karma's price increases it will be on more radars, which means the other weaknesses I've discussed will make it an excellent target.

Basically there are currently likely to be hundreds if not thousands of entities that have enough hashing power to take control of the Karma network which means they can create as many coins as they want, practically for free. The situation will get dramatically worse in 2 weeks, then again in 85 days, then again in 155 days. I think we should be looking to fix it well within the 85 days. One pool already has control of the network, aren't we just lucky nothing has happened yet?

I'm just trying to understand some of the points you made...

Firstly what is your understanding of how coins secure a PoW network?

Secondly what attack are you suggesting would allow a bad actor to take control over a pool indefinitely?

In response to your points..

1) The fast rate at which this coin was distributed has been our biggest problem. Both in terms of the sheer number of coins being pumped out so quickly and also the rate at which the reward drops off leaving miners with little incentive to hang on for the long haul. This is a problem with many other coins too (as you pointed out with Doge coin)

2) No attacker has any financial incentive at all to completely destroy a coin. The goal of any attack is to take temporary control of the majority of the network so that they can either A) take all the mineable coins for themselves and dump them on exchanges, or B double spend coins that they already control. Attacks such as 51% and Time warp cannot steal or spend your coins, they do not affect users of the network in any way other than to cause problems for transactions while they have control of the network.. to my knowledge it is not possible for a 51% attack to fundamentally break a coin or its network, although it can shake peoples confidence in the system and cause many sleepless nights for the devs. If someone did manage to shut down or take over a pool believe me it wouldn't take long for the miners to notice and then switch over to another pool (hopefully P2Pool where that sort of thing cannot happen)  

3) this weakness applies to all Altcoins that use PoW and is reflected in their respective market caps. Not only that but it is an issue that affects PoS as well when you think about it.. because a small cap PoS coin is very vulnerable to market manipulation and someone gaining 51% of the coin supply. In PoW if someone controls 51% of the network they can only mess with the network while they have control. This can only be temporary because the network can react and correct the situation.. in PoS if someone gains 51% of the coin supply they have control indefinitely, there is nothing anyone can do to take control from someone who has 51% of the coin supply other than for that person to give it up voluntarily. for example.. if some government agency or criminal network hacked the largest stakeholder and seized their wallet which had more than 51% of the coins.. then that organization would effectively be able to print their own coins at virtually no cost.

Ask yourself this... would you buy coins from a network that was controlled by a the government or a criminal syndicate? in my view this is effectively game over for the coin if it ever were to happen. if the same thing happened on a PoW network.. I doubt anyone would be worried too much because the organization that controlled 51% of a PoW coin cant simply print as many coins as they like and if they had control of 51% of the network then they wouldn't for long.

All in all you have some good points about the weakness of Karma.. I certainly agree that there will be some big challenges to be faced by the karma community over the coming months (especially as the block reward begins to drop down to a trickle)

but these issues aren't exclusive to Karma or even to PoW. Ultimately the thing that matters most about the success of a coin is its Network effect (i.e. the amount of individual people who use the coin and how evenly it is distributed)

PoW can lead to centralization of power through the centralizing of mining but the same can be said for PoS. PoS actively promotes the centralization of power by rewarding those who do not spend their coins.. i.e. those who hoard.

I agree that a hybrid solution would probably work best given the circumstances. Whether that be Mixed PoS/PoW OR Merged mining. My preference has always been for Merged mining as the easiest to implement and most efficient solution, but I do also understand why people are asking for PoS.

[Chargin]

Why Karma's PoW in particular is dangerously weak.

1. The table below shows that a large amount of Karma is needed to protect the network and demonstrates how the security of the network is getting weaker quickly. The network security is strongly correlated with the rewards under PoW. The gain from an attack is based on two things. The amount of currency currently on the market (seeking to buy the coin) for an instant reward and the total market value of the coin. Naturally therefore the percentage of coins used to secure the network every day is a strong indicator of security, it also allows a much smaller coin to be compared to a larger coin by ignoring market cap (obviously Bitcoin/Litcoin etc are far more secure than Karma due to their comparative sizes).

I believe October 2015 is the first reward halving for Litecoin, making Karma 1/4 as secure as Litecoin even if Karma had the same market cap as Litcoin after the end of the 155 days until then. As you can see from the table above Karma is only getting more insecure over time due to PoW rewards decreasing. PoS will not only be more secure, it will cost 75% less in Karma (not to mention electricity) to secure the network. After the table above Karma will get  weaker and weaker with the number of coins being used to protect the network decreasing compared to the total supply. The reason I'm basing my analysis on Litecoin not DOGE (which is the other main currency Karma is based off and will almost mirror the comparative security of Karma) is because I'd prefer not to follow in the footsteps of a coin that was made as a joke.

2. A large portion of Karma's hashing power is in one pool, if this pool were taken offline or somebody even took control of it then it would make Karma an excellent target.  I don't want to the write percentage of hashing power here because of just how bad it is. If somebody did take control of that pool to maliciously use it then Karma could be completely destroyed with ease because they would be able to maintain the attack for as long as they controlled the pool unless a white knight came to save Karma.

3. Karma does not have much hashing rate in total because the value of the coins is low. Unless Karma overtakes Bitcoin and all other PoW coins it will always suffer from this weakness. It is far more secure to be the biggest than the second biggest PoW coin because the hashing power can't simply be moved. Having said that as Karma's price increases it will be on more radars, which means the other weaknesses I've discussed will make it an excellent target.

Basically there are currently likely to be hundreds if not thousands of entities that have enough hashing power to take control of the Karma network which means they can create as many coins as they want, practically for free. The situation will get dramatically worse in 2 weeks, then again in 85 days, then again in 155 days. I think we should be looking to fix it well within the 85 days. One pool already has control of the network, aren't we just lucky nothing has happened yet?

I'm just trying to understand some of the points you made...

Firstly what is your understanding of how coins secure a PoW network?

Secondly what attack are you suggesting would allow a bad actor to take control over a pool indefinitely?

In response to your points..

1) The fast rate at which this coin was distributed has been our biggest problem. Both in terms of the sheer number of coins being pumped out so quickly and also the rate at which the reward drops off leaving miners with little incentive to hang on for the long haul. This is a problem with many other coins too (as you pointed out with Doge coin)

2) No attacker has any financial incentive at all to completely destroy a coin. The goal of any attack is to take temporary control of the majority of the network so that they can either A) take all the mineable coins for themselves and dump them on exchanges, or B double spend coins that they already control. Attacks such as 51% and Time warp cannot steal or spend your coins, they do not affect users of the network in any way other than to cause problems for transactions while they have control of the network.. to my knowledge it is not possible for a 51% attack to fundamentally break a coin or its network, although it can shake peoples confidence in the system and cause many sleepless nights for the devs. If someone did manage to shut down or take over a pool believe me it wouldn't take long for the miners to notice and then switch over to another pool (hopefully P2Pool where that sort of thing cannot happen)  

3) this weakness applies to all Altcoins that use PoW and is reflected in their respective market caps. Not only that but it is an issue that affects PoS as well when you think about it.. because a small cap PoS coin is very vulnerable to market manipulation and someone gaining 51% of the coin supply. In PoW if someone controls 51% of the network they can only mess with the network while they have control. This can only be temporary because the network can react and correct the situation.. in PoS if someone gains 51% of the coin supply they have control indefinitely, there is nothing anyone can do to take control from someone who has 51% of the coin supply other than for that person to give it up voluntarily. for example.. if some government agency or criminal network hacked the largest stakeholder and seized their wallet which had more than 51% of the coins.. then that organization would effectively be able to print their own coins at virtually no cost.

Ask yourself this... would you buy coins from a network that was controlled by a the government or a criminal syndicate? in my view this is effectively game over for the coin if it ever were to happen. if the same thing happened on a PoW network.. I doubt anyone would be worried too much because the organization that controlled 51% of a PoW coin cant simply print as many coins as they like and if they had control of 51% of the network then they wouldn't for long.

All in all you have some good points about the weakness of Karma.. I certainly agree that there will be some big challenges to be faced by the karma community over the coming months (especially as the block reward begins to drop down to a trickle)

but these issues aren't exclusive to Karma or even to PoW. Ultimately the thing that matters most about the success of a coin is its Network effect (i.e. the amount of individual people who use the coin and how evenly it is distributed)

PoW can lead to centralization of power through the centralizing of mining but the same can be said for PoS. PoS actively promotes the centralization of power by rewarding those who do not spend their coins.. i.e. those who hoard.

I agree that a hybrid solution would probably work best given the circumstances. Whether that be Mixed PoS/PoW OR Merged mining. My preference has always been for Merged mining as the easiest to implement and most efficient solution, but I do also understand why people are asking for PoS.

Thanks for your comments.

I've got a pretty good idea how PoW works so you don't need to worry about that.

I'll let you use your own imagination on how a bad actor could take control of a pool indefinitely. There are other scenarios however that are far more likely so it is not really a major concern.

I'd be far less worried about somebody trying to gain a 51% supply of a PoS coin (or even 5% of a PoS coin) than 51% of the hash rate. They would have far more invested in it and have increased the price so much to get that many coins in the first place they would be shooting themselves in the foot to risk shaking people's confidence in the coin.