Bitcoin Is Having Its Moment But There Are Better Sustainable Currencies

[giveBTCpls]

In an scenareo where a super powerful individual or group wants to destroy a certain currency, POS isn't bulletproof and doesn't solve much. Big stakeholders can be bribed for a lot of money, so an evil individual would be able to buy the big stakeholders and thus being in a position to produce a massive sellout for cheap prices ruining the economy. With POS, they can buy an endless array of hashing power and conquer the network.
This is unfeasible but not technically impossible.

[Este Nuno]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

Seems like similar logic to what most people agree is an acceptable amount of risk with Bitcoin(>%50 attacks).

Up to a point. Nothing at Stake is a two stage thing. In the first stage, selfish forgers forge on every chain they see, to avoid losing fees from picking the wrong chain. In the second stage, someone mounts an attack; one which would have failed if forgers only forged on one chain, but succeeds because of the selfish multi-chain forging. Currently we aren't yet at stage one. Stage two, an actual attack, is therefore currently not possible.

With Bitcoin 51% attacks, there are also two stages. The first stage is to acquire 51% of the hashing power. The second stage is to use that power to attack. The difference is that Bitcoin has actually reached the first stage: there have been entities that could have attacked if they wanted to.

You're right in that the reason GHash.io didn't attack is that doing so would have destroyed their own business, and that's also the reason Nxt forgers don't forge on multiple chains.

So would you say that in general a Nothing at Stake attack would be significantly less likely than a >50% attack on a PoW network?

Has anyone ever seen any evidence of forgers forging on multiple chains on any network?

[giveBTCpls]

...

Silk Road, an online narcotics marketplace beloved of Bitcoin users,

Silk Road is a "beloved marketplace" for online narcotics. Just pitiful, really.
...

I never used it but Silk Road is/was "loved" by many people.
It is an amazing example of people using technology to allow the free market to operate.
Not "pitiful", but truly incredible...

If Silk Road 2.0 say it allowed BTC and say Monero... would you buy dodgy stuff with BTC or with Monero? Is BTC anonymous enough for such ends?

[djangocoin]

Does PoS stand for Piece of Shit?  

[Mowcore]

Does PoS stand for Piece of Shit?  

Close, it's actually Pile of Shit.



Jeff agrees.

[AliceWonder]

Well, a lot of people are in to Proof of Stake currencies which use very little energy compared to Bitcoin. Which obviously "wastes"(I use that loosely since it's a loaded term) a ridiculous amount of energy.

Proof of Steak imho gives an un-fair advantage to those with higher financial status, just like fiat systems do.

Old money has all the power.

[AliceWonder]

I personally like Quark, just started using it - so there is confirmation bias on my part, but to me it looks like a good currency that will do well long term.

Time will tell I suppose.

One of the benefits of Quark is I believe their developers really "get it" and understand what this is suppose to be about. Or least they "get" what I think this is suppose to be about.

[Nerazzura]

I personally like Quark, just started using it - so there is confirmation bias on my part, but to me it looks like a good currency that will do well long term.

Time will tell I suppose.

One of the benefits of Quark is I believe their developers really "get it" and understand what this is suppose to be about. Or least they "get" what I think this is suppose to be about.

What's your opinion that you can now mine QRK with GPU? What is the cost/benefit? Doesn't this mean that Quark is being taken seriously and popular or some wouldn't of got it working with GPU? Won't this be a game changer with the rich buying up GPU's and pushing the average Joe out?

[ThomasCrowne]

Well, a lot of people are in to Proof of Stake currencies which use very little energy compared to Bitcoin. Which obviously "wastes"(I use that loosely since it's a loaded term) a ridiculous amount of energy.

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

Proof of State...lmao.  Was this intentional?

[hua_hui]

Well, a lot of people are in to Proof of Stake currencies which use very little energy compared to Bitcoin. Which obviously "wastes"(I use that loosely since it's a loaded term) a ridiculous amount of energy.

POS is save energy and has no intrinsic value. BTC is mined through expensive mining rigs and consuming a lot of electricity. Its price is over $620 and stable. There are intrinsic value to support its high price.

[Brangdon]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

Seems like similar logic to what most people agree is an acceptable amount of risk with Bitcoin(>%50 attacks).

Up to a point. Nothing at Stake is a two stage thing. In the first stage, selfish forgers forge on every chain they see, to avoid losing fees from picking the wrong chain. In the second stage, someone mounts an attack; one which would have failed if forgers only forged on one chain, but succeeds because of the selfish multi-chain forging. Currently we aren't yet at stage one. Stage two, an actual attack, is therefore currently not possible.

With Bitcoin 51% attacks, there are also two stages. The first stage is to acquire 51% of the hashing power. The second stage is to use that power to attack. The difference is that Bitcoin has actually reached the first stage: there have been entities that could have attacked if they wanted to.

You're right in that the reason GHash.io didn't attack is that doing so would have destroyed their own business, and that's also the reason Nxt forgers don't forge on multiple chains.

So would you say that in general a Nothing at Stake attack would be significantly less likely than a >50% attack on a PoW network?

At the moment, for Nxt, yes. Because we don't have Nxt forgers forging on multiple chains, but we do have mining pools hovering close to 51%.

Has anyone ever seen any evidence of forgers forging on multiple chains on any network?

Not to my knowledge, no.

[cbeast]

"Nothing at stake" is in any case a chimera. It's a hypothetical beast that's never been seen in the real world. The idea makes some sense for currencies with a high block reward, but for a PoS currency that doesn't pay interest, like Nxt, the potential gains from forging on multiple forks are tiny, and not worth the loss of security. Remember that in PoS the forgers with the most to gain from shenanigans are also the ones with the biggest stake to lose if the currency does get broken. Upshot is that no-one forges Nxt on multiple forks today, and they likely never will.

Seems like similar logic to what most people agree is an acceptable amount of risk with Bitcoin(>%50 attacks).

Up to a point. Nothing at Stake is a two stage thing. In the first stage, selfish forgers forge on every chain they see, to avoid losing fees from picking the wrong chain. In the second stage, someone mounts an attack; one which would have failed if forgers only forged on one chain, but succeeds because of the selfish multi-chain forging. Currently we aren't yet at stage one. Stage two, an actual attack, is therefore currently not possible.

With Bitcoin 51% attacks, there are also two stages. The first stage is to acquire 51% of the hashing power. The second stage is to use that power to attack. The difference is that Bitcoin has actually reached the first stage: there have been entities that could have attacked if they wanted to.

You're right in that the reason GHash.io didn't attack is that doing so would have destroyed their own business, and that's also the reason Nxt forgers don't forge on multiple chains.

How would an attack destroy an NXT business if they are anonymous? How would you even know they are attacking?

[Catmoonglow]

What a stupid, misinformed and meaningless post.

[Kayex]

I think compared to the USD,
BTC isn't THAT reliable.
Of course, you can't really FRAUD BTC. (Not that I know of anyways)

USD is popular for laundering money.
I'm not sure what to say about this.

BTC is still more reliable than the other 'sustainable currencies'

[annoyingorange]

There is no possible way for bitcoin to fail because I am heavily invested into it. 

[jyakulis]

"nor is bitcoin that unique...."


It was designed to be that way and rightfully so, look at the bitcoin foundation and the centralization of mining.


"alternative options...."

what kind of no name off the cuff crapola is this article even suggesting? Who has even heard of these "alternatives"?


the "dark side" is all propaganda. Not dark enough if you ask me. Can we even get an audit of our national currency and no who and where it is going with names. Nope...



Additionally, with regard to commodity money and intrinsic value.

I think perhaps money needs to be classified as money. The innovation that is money.

Start coming up with what makes people value the innovation money...because there are a billion things that could "serve" as money that is also a commodity. The crux with commodity money is that it needs a centralized holder.


What makes money valuable:

easily divisible
easily used electronically
secure and safe
privacy
decentralized
good store of value
not easily replicated



Commodity money could have some of these properties, but would require a centralized holder or insurer. Who keeps track of the centralized holder? Well, history proves time and again that apparently no one.


I think it's hilarious that this currency (bitcoin) is worth as much as it is yet no one was forced to use it. Yet the dollar continually loses values year in and year out and it's backed by big aircraft carriers, oil deals that keep it's velocity high, and a public that's forced by a gun to use it. Yet they can't make it gain value. It's almost like central bankers are the dumbest people alive or that's how they want it to be. I'll go with option two. Because they are little sociopathic human parasites.

I wait for the day when a common working Joe gets up and spends his free time elaborating on how good the dollar is for the world. These people make me sick. Get me a barf bag or Jamie Dimon's lap.

[sugarfree]

Even though bitcoin is succeeding, it can't/shouldn't succeed because blah blah blah

"Bitcoin suffers two other major downsides, neither of them headline-grabbers but important nonetheless. First, the idea of an alternative currency isn't that new. Recent decades have seen waves of other examples, says Leander Bindewald, a currency expert at the New Economics Foundation, a London-based think tank. Think Local Exchange Trading Systems in the 1980s, Time Banking in the 90s, and "transition currencies" such as the Brixton Pound or online community exchange systems more recently."

pfff, well it's the first de-central, working one. So.... there's that.

"Nor is Bitcoin actually that unique. Dogecoin, Litecoin, Darkcoin, Namecoin, Peercoin and a myriad of other cryptocurrencies like them are all based on a similar premise and adopt similar technologies. It's just the narrative around Bitcoin – its mysterious founder, its claims to disruption, its decision to set the total issuance of Bitcoins at a fixed amount, and so on – that cause it to stand out, Bindewald claims."

Oh put all your money in Doge, go ahead. It's just as secure and innovative. /s

[Brangdon]

Up to a point. Nothing at Stake is a two stage thing. In the first stage, selfish forgers forge on every chain they see, to avoid losing fees from picking the wrong chain. In the second stage, someone mounts an attack; one which would have failed if forgers only forged on one chain, but succeeds because of the selfish multi-chain forging. Currently we aren't yet at stage one. Stage two, an actual attack, is therefore currently not possible.

With Bitcoin 51% attacks, there are also two stages. The first stage is to acquire 51% of the hashing power. The second stage is to use that power to attack. The difference is that Bitcoin has actually reached the first stage: there have been entities that could have attacked if they wanted to.

You're right in that the reason GHash.io didn't attack is that doing so would have destroyed their own business, and that's also the reason Nxt forgers don't forge on multiple chains.

How would an attack destroy an NXT business if they are anonymous? How would you even know they are attacking?
[/quote]Any attack that reduces the value of NXT reduces the value of the attacker's NXT holdings. If you own 51% of NXT, you are primarily attacking yourself. Even if you only own 1%, you are still devaluing your own holdings.

Aside from that, I don't really understand your question. What does anonymity have to do with it? Is an attack that no-one is aware of even an attack? Did something get garbled when you applied GHash.io's mining business to Nxt forging?

[defaced]

Proof of State coin is not a decentralized currency.

This sentence is wrong in so many ways.

It's insufficiently specific, but existing examples which require developer controlled block signing or closed source software don't really pass a sanity check as decentralized tools— though they're often marketed as such.

You may find this enlightening: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Agreed completely.

[cbeast]

Up to a point. Nothing at Stake is a two stage thing. In the first stage, selfish forgers forge on every chain they see, to avoid losing fees from picking the wrong chain. In the second stage, someone mounts an attack; one which would have failed if forgers only forged on one chain, but succeeds because of the selfish multi-chain forging. Currently we aren't yet at stage one. Stage two, an actual attack, is therefore currently not possible.

With Bitcoin 51% attacks, there are also two stages. The first stage is to acquire 51% of the hashing power. The second stage is to use that power to attack. The difference is that Bitcoin has actually reached the first stage: there have been entities that could have attacked if they wanted to.

You're right in that the reason GHash.io didn't attack is that doing so would have destroyed their own business, and that's also the reason Nxt forgers don't forge on multiple chains.

How would an attack destroy an NXT business if they are anonymous? How would you even know they are attacking?

Any attack that reduces the value of NXT reduces the value of the attacker's NXT holdings. If you own 51% of NXT, you are primarily attacking yourself. Even if you only own 1%, you are still devaluing your own holdings.

Aside from that, I don't really understand your question. What does anonymity have to do with it? Is an attack that no-one is aware of even an attack? Did something get garbled when you applied GHash.io's mining business to Nxt forging?

A 51% attack is against a specific pseudonymous target. The only sane reason to waste a lot of money attacking a target is to reverse its transactions. That's one reason why nobody in Bitcoin bothers to do a 51% attack, because it costs money even though there are plenty of potential targets that get mentioned frequently, i.e. Satoshi Nakamoto, Mark karpeles, the FBI's SR stash, etc. They are known addresses in the blockchain. If that happened, it would not kill Bitcoin, but would make people realize how powerful mining pools are and that they should be avoided. Once they had the power to do that, they could target anyone, so it must not happen again. This is similar to nuclear war. It happened once and hasn't happened since.

In NXT, there is little cost if everyone wanted to attack a specific person, it would be quite easy. Mob rules. There would be no mining pools to blame. Nobody would know who is innocent and who is guilty because it only takes 51%. This is why anonymity is crucial. Nobody can be targeted if they can't be traced. The same thing goes for attackers, they are also anonymous. If an attack happens, good luck, they are behind 7 proxies. If a target was found out, and a lynch mob of at least 51% was convinced to attack the target, how would anyone know who to blame? If it was a business that managed to aggregate 51%, how would you even know it was an attack and not a normal orphaning since there are no IPs to compare blocks like GHash.io. There is no electricity cost to bring a bunch of miners in, just get a bunch of coin and attack your enemy. Then sell the coin anonymously. Your enemy is defeated and it cost very little compared to the same attack in Bitcoin.