Using Litecoin To Protect Bitcoin Versus 51% Attacks - By Casascius

[CoinHoarder]

Mike Caldwell (Casascius) proposed an idea in the ALT coin subforums last year which I feel could be revisited. It is something that could help Bitcoin and Litecoin both by protecting Bitcoin and giving Litecoin more intrinsic value at the same time. He didn't receive a lot of good feedback, but Litecoin wasn't on a 6 month downtrend at that time, so I feel they may be more apt to it nowadays. This would make Bitcoin more secure, and I propose adding another chain to protect Litecoin down the road adding 3 layers of protection from different mining hardware. As long as the 3rd, 4th, etc... coins were PoW with different hashing algorithms than the coins already in the chain, it can exponentially add protection to 51% attacks by making someone that wanted to do one have to buy/develop SHA256, Scrypt, <insert coin here since we all know ASIC proof algorithms don't really exist.. or at least if they do it is buried in the ALT subforum and it isn't general public knowledge yet.> ASICs. There is no reason why this had to be used with only ASICs, you could use coins with algorithms that can only be mined currently on GPUs/CPUs/FPGAs/Etc.

I hope you guys are open to implementing this idea, as I think it is a great one. One of the best solutions to protecting against 51% attacks that doesn't seem like it would be too hard to implement.

I will quote Mikes' post here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=176556.0

Litecoiners: Idea to make Litecoin importance skyrocket in Bitcoin ecosystem
Today at 07:20:47 PM
 #1
Quick rant: I have always viewed Litecoin as a detraction from Bitcoin and have refused to make mass quantities of physical Litecoins as a result.  I have viewed Litecoin as nothing more than a hedge against Bitcoin seeing a 51% attack due to choice of SHA256 as an algorithm.

But:  I believe I have thought of an idea that would make Litecoin far more important and relevant in the Bitcoin/cryptocurrency ecosystem, by being as ready in wait as possible in case Bitcoin really does experience a 51% attack.

In a nutshell, I view a Bitcoin 51% attack as eventually possible, for one reason:  ASIC production efficiency scales far more than linearly with the amount of money an actor is willing to put into it; a bad actor with $1 billion to 51%-attack Bitcoin with its own custom ASICs will be far more than ten times as effective than ten bad actors with $100 million.

Anyway: here is the idea:  Add a mandatory merge-mining feature to Litecoin so that it is always "merge-mining" Bitcoins, just for pretend, in hopes that one day Bitcoin will have the option of "let's subscribe to the Litecoin chain" (as a secondary means of block validation) as a way to resolve a future 51% attack on Bitcoin's SHA256-based chain.

Here is sort of how it would work:

1. Add a new requirement to the Litecoin chain such that a valid Litecoin block must contain either a record of the most recent Bitcoin block header hash, or a repeat of the hash found in the prior Litecoin block (with a limit of repetitions).  Litecoin blocks that contain outdated Bitcoin intelligence should be disfavored by nodes capable of detecting that.  Further impose the requirement that Bitcoin block headers must be represented contiguously in the Litecoin chain - Bitcoin blocks cannot be skipped (which shouldn't be a problem, when Litecoin blocks happen 4x as often as Bitcoin)
2. In the event there is an active Bitcoin block chain fork, the requirement is loosened such that the Bitcoin block header hash requirement can be satisfied by any leg of the chain, not just the one Bitcoin considers valid.
3. Add a feature to Litecoin clients that allow Litecoin users to decide to prefer or not-prefer branches of a Bitcoin fork while one is in progress.  The default for this should always favor the Bitcoin leg with the most longevity, and should disfavor long chains that suddenly appear to replace a large amount of the known Bitcoin block chain.  The user/miner/pool-op should always have an easy way to have the final say, such as by pasting in a preformatted message either exiling or checkpointing Bitcoin blocks.

Anticipated benefits:

1. Bitcoin users would have a ready made remedy to a 51% attack that they can switch to:  Bitcoin users can simply add the requirement that if a Bitcoin block header hash makes it into the Litecoin chain, that its proof of work should be given a bonus.  Litecoin community could create and maintain pulls to the Satoshi client that cause it to subscribe to the Litecoin chain and incorporate it as intelligence toward block validation and resolving block chain forks.
2.  Bitcoin would have an easy way to add an emergency upper bound to block creation, just in case an enormous amount of power suddenly appeared.  By turning on an optional must-appear-in-Litecoin requirement, the Bitcoin community could switch on an upper bound of 1 block per 2.5 minutes if it was deemed necessary.
3. Litecoin would be seen as far more important than a wannabe bitcoin knockoff without added value by those who see it that way.
4. Bitcoin's blockchain would be re-democratized to CPU/GPU users without forcing the Bitcoin community to switch to scrypt, they'd have more decentralized influence on bitcoin than those with the means to buy/make ASICs
5. The legitimacy of Litecoins would increase greatly - people would see the value of Litecoins in their role of protecting Bitcoin, and would potentially vote for the longevity of Litecoin by offering to accept LTC for goods and services, thereby increasing their value.
6. I'd start making Casascius Litecoins if you guys did this and did it well.

I'd call the concept "marriage-mining".  By doing something like this, LTC gives a nod to BTC's importance while adding synergistic value to BTC that LTC can benefit from by association.

I have brought it up in the Litecoin forums here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=176556.0

I am interested to hear Bitcoiners opinions about it as well. I initially didn't like the idea, but towards the end of the thread on Bitcointalk I realized it could be a very good thing for BOTH Bitcoin and Litecoin. I've been really hard on Litecoin lately trying to get them to up their game, I am hopeful that if the Bitcoin community wanted this 51% protection that they would be willing to make it happen.

[DooMAD]

Judging by the previous thread, the main concern raised was that Litecoin didn't get any perceived benefit from it.  Although at this point, with the way it's performing on the market at the moment, I suppose it could do with a bit of shaking up.  Might give it the jump-start it needs.

Would there be much impact on the size of the blockchain if this were to go ahead?  I'm not a miner, so I can't really imagine what other potential drawbacks the idea might have.

Also, it's amusing the difference a year makes.  People in that thread were saying "Litecoin is going to get loads of publicity when it goes on gox", heh.  I guess they're pretty thankful now that it didn't.  

[Mats8500]

I actually think it benefits both.

It would make bitcoin more secure.

It would give more value to Litecoin.

Eventually, the concept could be expanded as well as mentionned.

[darkota]

This is a very stupid idea to be completely honest.

Litecoin is even more vulnerable to 51% attacks than Bitcoin. It's difficulty is Way lower, and if you guys haven't noticed, there are Scrypt ASIC. Meaning that the same issues 51% problem for Bitcoin, is also there for Litecoin and it's much easier to successfully 51% attack Litecoin than Bitcoin .

Litecoin is not the silver to anyone's gold, it's simply just another shit alt-coin...with not much of a community(Yes i have an account at litecointalk and there is Hardly any activity there), and absolutely no new features or innovation. Nothing, Nada, zip. Litecoin can be compared to Dogecoin in the lack of innovation and any new features and the constant downfall in price, but even Dogecoin has a robust, outstanding community, while Litecoin's community is more empty than the Saharan Desert.
 
What you need, is a coin that won't suffer as much from the same 51% attacks that threaten Bitcoin.

Litecoin is definitely not the answer, there's nothing special about it, it's on a decline to 1 satoshi, has no community, and it's 10000000x easier to 51% attack than Bitcoin....

[callumcoutts]

This is a very stupid idea to be completely honest.

Litecoin is even more vulnerable to 51% attacks than Bitcoin. It's difficulty is Way lower, and if you guys haven't noticed, there are Scrypt ASIC. Meaning that the same issues 51% problem for Bitcoin, is also there for Litecoin and it's much easier to successfully 51% attack Litecoin than Bitcoin .

Litecoin is not the silver to anyone's gold, it's simply just another shit alt-coin...with not much of a community(Yes i have an account at litecointalk and there is Hardly any activity there), and absolutely no new features or innovation. Nothing, Nada, zip. Litecoin can be compared to Dogecoin in the lack of innovation and any new features and the constant downfall in price, but even Dogecoin has a robust, outstanding community, while Litecoin's community is more empty than the Saharan Desert.
 
What you need, is a coin that won't suffer as much from the same 51% attacks that threaten Bitcoin.

Litecoin is definitely not the answer, there's nothing special about it, it's on a decline to 1 satoshi, has no community, and it's 10000000x easier to 51% attack than Bitcoin....

meh, use the myriadcoin codebase merged with the codebase from twister and the codebase from namecoin then, and then do the op.

[BittBurger]

Can we make Litecoin a "treechain" of Bitcoin?

[LiteCoinGuy]

its always good to have some Litecoin beside of bitcoin. people say : "oh litecoin value goes down"...you know what? every other alts has gone down also but with 90% or more (feathershit, dogeshit).

Litecoin is still the silver of the cryptoworld and the second best alt out there.

[BanksWorstFear]

I thought of the idea when the 51% gigahash issue came up most recently. Apparently not that many else did as litecoin's price didn't swing up to any noticeable effect.

[CoinHoarder]

The crypto world would be a better place if we worked together. It is odd that both sides here (Bitcoin and Litecoin) are not interested in working together to do this.

I found it pretty disturbing most people in the Litecoin community didn't want to do it. I guess it's gonna take a $0.50 Litecoin before they will do anything. One of their biggest slogans right now is "we help with Bitcoin development", but IMO if they truly wanted to help Bitcoin then they would be more open to implementing this.

[darkota]

The crypto world would be a better place if we worked together. It is odd that both sides here (Bitcoin and Litecoin) are not interested in working together to do this.

I found it pretty disturbing most people in the Litecoin community didn't want to do it. I guess it's gonna take a $0.50 Litecoin before they will do anything. One of their biggest slogans right now is "we help with Bitcoin development", but IMO if they truly wanted to help Bitcoin then they would be more open to implementing this.

Dude, Litecoin is already freaking dead.

It has had no updates/features/anything added by it's developer

It has an extreme lack of community, Dogecoin's puts it to shame

It has no first mover status

It has no adoption by any major organizations/companies at all


Leave that dead coin alone please. No one wants to affiliate a shit alt-coin like Litecoin, with Bitcoin.

[CoinHoarder]

The crypto world would be a better place if we worked together. It is odd that both sides here (Bitcoin and Litecoin) are not interested in working together to do this.

I found it pretty disturbing most people in the Litecoin community didn't want to do it. I guess it's gonna take a $0.50 Litecoin before they will do anything. One of their biggest slogans right now is "we help with Bitcoin development", but IMO if they truly wanted to help Bitcoin then they would be more open to implementing this.

Dude, Litecoin is already freaking dead.

It has had no updates/features/anything added by it's developer

It has an extreme lack of community, Dogecoin's puts it to shame

It has no first mover status

It has no adoption by any major organizations/companies at all


Leave that dead coin alone please. No one wants to affiliate a shit alt-coin like Litecoin, with Bitcoin.

Shut up already bro. Anyone that cares knows your opinion after you repeated it the first 500 times. This thread is about securing Bitcoin and saving Litecoin.

[fryarminer]

I think Casascius' idea is a great one! How can it be implemented? Who do we need to convince?

[Ron~Popeil]

I actually think litecoin is a good compliment to bit coin. The complete lack of activity around it is somewhat mysterious to me. It will probably fall to third in market cap before the end of the year.

I think the idea could work and benefit both coins but we kind of need a peep or two from their developers to even consider it.

[CoinHoarder]

I think Casascius' idea is a great one! How can it be implemented? Who do we need to convince?

The Bitcoin and Litecoin development teams would need to work together.

[EcuaMobi]

This is a very stupid idea to be completely honest.

Litecoin is even more vulnerable to 51% attacks than Bitcoin. It's difficulty is Way lower, and if you guys haven't noticed, there are Scrypt ASIC. Meaning that the same issues 51% problem for Bitcoin, is also there for Litecoin and it's much easier to successfully 51% attack Litecoin than Bitcoin .

Litecoin is not the silver to anyone's gold, it's simply just another shit alt-coin...with not much of a community(Yes i have an account at litecointalk and there is Hardly any activity there), and absolutely no new features or innovation. Nothing, Nada, zip. Litecoin can be compared to Dogecoin in the lack of innovation and any new features and the constant downfall in price, but even Dogecoin has a robust, outstanding community, while Litecoin's community is more empty than the Saharan Desert.
 
What you need, is a coin that won't suffer as much from the same 51% attacks that threaten Bitcoin.

Litecoin is definitely not the answer, there's nothing special about it, it's on a decline to 1 satoshi, has no community, and it's 10000000x easier to 51% attack than Bitcoin....

Even if both coins can be 51% attacked, it'd be more difficult to attack both coins at the same time.
If somebody successfully attack Bitcoin, he would need to perform the same attack to Litecoin too, so it's verified. Quite difficult.

Be it Litecoin or another alt coin, I think it's a great idea.

[CoinHoarder]

This is a very stupid idea to be completely honest.

Litecoin is even more vulnerable to 51% attacks than Bitcoin. It's difficulty is Way lower, and if you guys haven't noticed, there are Scrypt ASIC. Meaning that the same issues 51% problem for Bitcoin, is also there for Litecoin and it's much easier to successfully 51% attack Litecoin than Bitcoin .

Litecoin is not the silver to anyone's gold, it's simply just another shit alt-coin...with not much of a community(Yes i have an account at litecointalk and there is Hardly any activity there), and absolutely no new features or innovation. Nothing, Nada, zip. Litecoin can be compared to Dogecoin in the lack of innovation and any new features and the constant downfall in price, but even Dogecoin has a robust, outstanding community, while Litecoin's community is more empty than the Saharan Desert.
 
What you need, is a coin that won't suffer as much from the same 51% attacks that threaten Bitcoin.

Litecoin is definitely not the answer, there's nothing special about it, it's on a decline to 1 satoshi, has no community, and it's 10000000x easier to 51% attack than Bitcoin....

Even if both coins can be 51% attacked, it'd be more difficult to attack both coins at the same time.
If somebody successfully attack Bitcoin, he would need to perform the same attack to Litecoin too, so it's verified. Quite difficult.

Be it Litecoin or another alt coin, I think it's a great idea.

Yes, good explanation. If you go to the thread on the Litecoin forums, the posters are acting like they don't need this or Bitcoin. I am hoping the Litecoin developers can take a step back and look at the big picture more rationally than the posters there.

[darkota]

This is a very stupid idea to be completely honest.

Litecoin is even more vulnerable to 51% attacks than Bitcoin. It's difficulty is Way lower, and if you guys haven't noticed, there are Scrypt ASIC. Meaning that the same issues 51% problem for Bitcoin, is also there for Litecoin and it's much easier to successfully 51% attack Litecoin than Bitcoin .

Litecoin is not the silver to anyone's gold, it's simply just another shit alt-coin...with not much of a community(Yes i have an account at litecointalk and there is Hardly any activity there), and absolutely no new features or innovation. Nothing, Nada, zip. Litecoin can be compared to Dogecoin in the lack of innovation and any new features and the constant downfall in price, but even Dogecoin has a robust, outstanding community, while Litecoin's community is more empty than the Saharan Desert.
 
What you need, is a coin that won't suffer as much from the same 51% attacks that threaten Bitcoin.

Litecoin is definitely not the answer, there's nothing special about it, it's on a decline to 1 satoshi, has no community, and it's 10000000x easier to 51% attack than Bitcoin....

Even if both coins can be 51% attacked, it'd be more difficult to attack both coins at the same time.
If somebody successfully attack Bitcoin, he would need to perform the same attack to Litecoin too, so it's verified. Quite difficult.

Be it Litecoin or another alt coin, I think it's a great idea.

Yes, good explanation. If you go to the thread on the Litecoin forums, the posters are acting like they don't need this or Bitcoin. I am hoping the Litecoin developers can take a step back and look at the big picture more rationally than the posters there.

Exactly, they don't want help. Litecoin is dead, leave it alone.

[CoinHoarder]

Exactly, they don't want help. Litecoin is dead, leave it alone.

Well... I guess I agree with you here, it appears like that is true. I am hoping that the developers can see the value of the idea and convince the Litecoin sheep to follow them.

I would leave it alone, but I still have some family and friends tied up in Litecoin.. don't think they want to sell at such a loss. My friend has 5 figures tied up.

[chaoticbrain]

Well theoretically if you had the processing power to attack bitcoin, couldn't you just attack litecoin, and change the rules around including bitcoin hashes, or whatetever, before attacking bitcoin ? 

[ShakyhandsBTCer]

The crypto world would be a better place if we worked together. It is odd that both sides here (Bitcoin and Litecoin) are not interested in working together to do this.

I found it pretty disturbing most people in the Litecoin community didn't want to do it. I guess it's gonna take a $0.50 Litecoin before they will do anything. One of their biggest slogans right now is "we help with Bitcoin development", but IMO if they truly wanted to help Bitcoin then they would be more open to implementing this.

Dude, Litecoin is already freaking dead.

It has had no updates/features/anything added by it's developer

It has an extreme lack of community, Dogecoin's puts it to shame

It has no first mover status

It has no adoption by any major organizations/companies at all


Leave that dead coin alone please. No one wants to affiliate a shit alt-coin like Litecoin, with Bitcoin.

Shut up already bro. Anyone that cares knows your opinion after you repeated it the first 500 times. This thread is about securing Bitcoin and saving Litecoin.

Well if the only viable use for LTC is to secure BTC then it's value would likely be near zero. If it's value is near zero then it's miners would have little incentive to continue to mine for the network.