Proof of Min

[Anders]

So you mean such distributed time server would remove the need for mining entirely?

...  Your clock might be wrong.  ...

If the distributed clock server is wrong it will not work. My idea depends on the real-time clock being reliable.

[maxihatop]

> The other miners would check your nonce and see that it differs from the UTC timestamp and therefore reject your block.

How miners understand, which time message is valid?

I remind: I send fake time message, contains my nonce.  Time-server also will send valid time-message, contains it's own nonce.
Miner receives two time-messages. My message little earlier, message from server little late.

To which message it will be trust?

You can say now: "time server can sign message with public cryptography signature. And, fake message is impossible."

I will answer:

OK. If so, you propose centralized system, depends on single time-server with single signature.
If that server will be done, all your payment network will freeze.

In addition, your system give unlimited power to manipulate with blockchain for time server owner.
He can generate any blocks himself, without problems. And by this way - can create/cancel transations as he wish.

If so - maybe, we can just resign, move all coin accounts into TimeServer's computer?

[Anders]

> The other miners would check your nonce and see that it differs from the UTC timestamp and therefore reject your block.

How miners understand, which time message is valid?

I remind: I send fake time message, contains my nonce.  Time-server also will send valid time-message, contains it's own nonce.
Miner receives two time-messages. My message little earlier, message from server little late.

To which message it will be trust?

You can say now: "time server can sign message with public cryptography signature. And, fake message is impossible."

I will answer:

OK. If so, you propose centralized system, depends on single time-server with single signature.
If that server will be done, all your payment network will freeze.

In addition, your system give unlimited power to manipulate with blockchain for time server owner.
He can generate any blocks himself, without problems. And by this way - can create/cancel transations as he wish.

If so - maybe, we can just resign, move all coin accounts into TimeServer's computer?

The miners look for the distributed time server for the correct real-time UTC timestamp. Be it with NTP or some other protocol. Fraud miners will be unable to fake that. That's like a claim: today is the year 2015. And the distributed time server says: no, it's not, today is the year 2014.

[Anders]

Who will be allowed to set up NTP servers? Anybody! But the miners will connect to the established NTP servers. Reliable. Proven. Tested and with roots in the 1980s! Fraud time servers = rejected.

[Anders]

Generally if you can assume the existence of such a construct no mining is needed at all.

And where, pray tell me, is the incentive then for setting up Bitcoin servers? The miner reward is still needed. Unless there is either voluntary Bitcoin servers or servers run by governments. You want to stick with up to over one hour transaction times? Will not work in the long run. And even altcoins with only like 1 minute transaction time, doomed to failure.

My prediction is that a cryptocurrency regulated and run by governments can use something like PoM, with two-second transaction times and with zero transaction fees, and with a user ID system that removes the dark ages need to store coins "under the mattress".

[digitalindustry]

Generally if you can assume the existence of such a construct no mining is needed at all.

And where, pray tell me, is the incentive then for setting up Bitcoin servers? The miner reward is still needed. Unless there is either voluntary Bitcoin servers or servers run by governments. You want to stick with up to over one hour transaction times? Will not work in the long run. And even altcoins with only like 1 minute transaction time, doomed to failure.

My prediction is that a cryptocurrency regulated and run by governments can use something like PoM, with two-second transaction times and with zero transaction fees, and with a user ID system that removes the dark ages need to store coins "under the mattress".

interesting concept - (ignore my trust rating; people just hate me)

Why do you say that (traditional PoW crypto) with under 1 min block times are doomed?

just out of interest?

[Anders]

Generally if you can assume the existence of such a construct no mining is needed at all.

And where, pray tell me, is the incentive then for setting up Bitcoin servers? The miner reward is still needed. Unless there is either voluntary Bitcoin servers or servers run by governments. You want to stick with up to over one hour transaction times? Will not work in the long run. And even altcoins with only like 1 minute transaction time, doomed to failure.

My prediction is that a cryptocurrency regulated and run by governments can use something like PoM, with two-second transaction times and with zero transaction fees, and with a user ID system that removes the dark ages need to store coins "under the mattress".

interesting concept - (ignore my trust rating; people just hate me)

Why do you say that (traditional PoW crypto) with under 1 min block times are doomed?

just out of interest?

The Starbucks use case I posted was a bit funny, but there is truth to that I think. One solution is 0-confirmation transactions.

"The intrinsic danger to accepting a zero confirmation transaction on the Bitcoin network, or any altcoin network, is that of the sender committing a double spend attack.  However, given the finite number of Bitcoin nodes at any given time, it is possible to use math and verify in real time that a second (double) spending does not and will not enter the Blockchain." -- http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/the-mathematically-secure-way-to-accept-zero-confirmation-transactions/2014/02/13

If zero-confirmation transactions can be made as fast as less than say four seconds and be safe enough, then ok, then even bitcoin would be good enough for ordinary purchasing use. I have my doubts though. If any cryptocurrency is to become mainstream I think real transaction times of around two seconds are needed.

[rugrats]

I've been meaning to put Anders on ignore for a while now.  This thread finally reminded me to do it.

I'm getting a bit bored with his poorly thought out, hey, let just do the following and all the problems of the world will be solved:

• Step 1. Collect underpants
• Step 2. ?
• Step 3. Profit

The number of newbies that show up here thinking that their ideas are brand new and nobody has bothered to think of them in the past 6 years just astounds me.

I'm not saying that a newbie can't come up with an original idea, just that most of them don't, and none of them seem to even consider the possibility that their idea isn't new and that they should learn a bit about what has already been discussed regarding their idea before they present it as revolutionary.

A fellow South Park aficionado, I see.

[Anders]

It would be fun to test the idea in practice on a small scale. Lots of tedious work needed though. And I would have to learn a lot in order to be able to implement even just a part of it.

As gmaxwell pointed out, there wouldn't even need to be any miners. For example if the incoming transactions get timestamped, then each block could contain an ordered list of all the transactions for the time interval. And the servers then simply add the new blocks to the block chain. If a fraud server adds a fake block then that block will be rejected by the honest servers. This means still 51% attack risk I guess.

Would zip compression help to reduce the size of the block chain? Probably a little bit at least.

How will the servers be compensated? They will not be. It would be more like BitTorrent.

[digitalindustry]

Generally if you can assume the existence of such a construct no mining is needed at all.

And where, pray tell me, is the incentive then for setting up Bitcoin servers? The miner reward is still needed. Unless there is either voluntary Bitcoin servers or servers run by governments. You want to stick with up to over one hour transaction times? Will not work in the long run. And even altcoins with only like 1 minute transaction time, doomed to failure.

My prediction is that a cryptocurrency regulated and run by governments can use something like PoM, with two-second transaction times and with zero transaction fees, and with a user ID system that removes the dark ages need to store coins "under the mattress".

interesting concept - (ignore my trust rating; people just hate me)

Why do you say that (traditional PoW crypto) with under 1 min block times are doomed?

just out of interest?

The Starbucks use case I posted was a bit funny, but there is truth to that I think. One solution is 0-confirmation transactions.

"The intrinsic danger to accepting a zero confirmation transaction on the Bitcoin network, or any altcoin network, is that of the sender committing a double spend attack.  However, given the finite number of Bitcoin nodes at any given time, it is possible to use math and verify in real time that a second (double) spending does not and will not enter the Blockchain." -- http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/news/the-mathematically-secure-way-to-accept-zero-confirmation-transactions/2014/02/13

If zero-confirmation transactions can be made as fast as less than say four seconds and be safe enough, then ok, then even bitcoin would be good enough for ordinary purchasing use. I have my doubts though. If any cryptocurrency is to become mainstream I think real transaction times of around two seconds are needed.

thanks for the feedback -

I think zero confirmations are possible for a number of reasons - common sense prevails, at a value point ( price) payment processors should/could roll with zero and use "insurance" to buffer the difference.

on a zero fee (core base) like Quark that makes sense as the payment processor can add more profit (though fees) ( the market will determine).

then anything that goes above the "zero confirm value"  has confirmations added , these would be any online or "non face to face" transactions.

to the degree that for example a some online businesses can ask for 20 Confirms - (QRK are 30 seconds)

so its a use case - value and common sense.



as for your idea - i say do it ! sounds like a great thing to test.

[Anders]

as for your idea - i say do it ! sounds like a great thing to test.

It would be fun to test but I know too little about how to actually implement it. And without miners the name would have to be changed to something like Proof of Nada. Or maybe miners are needed, because who else would mint the coins?