It's about time to turn off PoW mining

[cbeast]

You guys are completely missing the point of Proof of Work. It's simple. It's proof that there is work being done. Get it? In physics W=P*t and is measured in units of energy. If you want to re-invent Proof of Work, you will have to change the laws of physics.

[inBitweTrust]

You guys are completely missing the point of Proof of Work. It's simple. It's proof that there is work being done. Get it? In physics W=P*t and is measured in units of energy. If you want to re-invent Proof of Work, you will have to change the laws of physics.

I think they understand that much, but merely wish all that electricity was accomplishing work other than securing the network.

Proof or Resource (hard drive space or Bandwidth) are examples that could be useful outside of calculating random numbers. PoR would constitute more useful work because those resources created could be re-used for other services. The problem with these approaches is technically PoR is still vaporware and no functioning system has been tested as of yet. Maidsafe has some detailed explanations - https://github.com/maidsafe/Whitepapers/blob/master/Project-Safe.md#appendix but those have yet to be tested.

[kingscrown]

I don't get how any of this refutes what I said. How do PoS coins have value then, in some cases in the multi million dollar range?

Exchanges can manipulate the price easily, they can create fiat money and cryptocurrency out of nothing in their database and maintain whatever exchange rate they want, but they don't really have any serious market depth, a large sell order can bring down the price dramatically. So it is important that major stake holders don't dump their coins, just like a typical stock

thats true and i assume some of them do that

[cbeast]

You guys are completely missing the point of Proof of Work. It's simple. It's proof that there is work being done. Get it? In physics W=P*t and is measured in units of energy. If you want to re-invent Proof of Work, you will have to change the laws of physics.

I think they understand that much, but merely wish all that electricity was accomplishing work other than securing the network.

Proof or Resource (hard drive space or Bandwidth) are examples that could be useful outside of calculating random numbers. PoR would constitute more useful work because those resources created could be re-used for other services. The problem with these approaches is technically PoR is still vaporware and no functioning system has been tested as of yet. Maidsafe has some detailed explanations - https://github.com/maidsafe/Whitepapers/blob/master/Project-Safe.md#appendix but those have yet to be tested.

Those resources are to unreliable to quantify. They will evolve into secure autonomous agents someday because there is no current way to decentralize the network distribution of the network distribution. It is simply too meta for a centralized (trusted group) service. As far as the PoS folks, I don't understand why they just don't support Bitcoin and create their own gold backed derivatives on the Bitcoin blockchain.

[CoinHoarder]

@inBitweTrust I think some of your ideas are good, but it may require that the Bitcoin community be open minded and willing to change the way Bitcoin functions including its incentive model and the amount of currency that will be created. I have my doubts whether they are/could be or not, as is evidenced by a lot of the old timers arguing up and down that there are no benefits to implementing PoS.

I agree that completely abandoning PoW and switching the consensus algorithm would cause a lot of discourse towards miners, mining manufacturers, and suppliers, so they probably shouldn't be completely phased out. There should be a way to marry the two ideas of PoW and PoS so that everyone is happy. I would like it if our debate started heading in that direction, as that is the real issue to figure out.

I would like to go over a few things first though. It seems you don't understand the benefits of DPoS, only mainly the negatives. That is understandable, because this thread is mainly people talking about the negatives of DPoS and I haven't had a chance to explain the benefits.

The whole voting process with DPoS is merely an unnecessary act of supererogation where the real goals aren't about creating a popularity contest, rather to develop methods of securing the network better through decentralization. If there is going to be a hardfork in bitcoin I want 100k "delegates"(nodes) not 100.

The point of DPoS is not to improve upon the security of PoW, but the point is to improve upon it in other ways meanwhile remaining sufficiently secure. All systems tend toward centralization whether planned (DPoS) or unplanned (PoW ASICs.) DPoS gives the end user as much control over that centralization as possible, where as the other systems (PoW ASICs & PoS in Nxt and Peercoin) the small players eventually have less control. DPoS is faster and scales better than other consensus algorithms, also there are reasons for voting and only having 101 delegates rather than having 1000 delegates as I will explain below.

A. DPoS greatly reduces the cost of securing the network compared to other consensus algorithms, and thus has the potential to have cheaper transaction fees.
A1. The electricity required for all delegates combined is trivial when compared to the amount of electricity it takes to secure PoW networks.
A2. Having 101 delegates rather than 1000 reduces these costs even more so. Delegates (not unlike miners with PoW) need to be incentevized to do their job, the more delegates the more it will cost the network to validate transactions.
A3. Since there is exponentially less electricity required and transactions only need to be confirmed by 101 delegate nodes to be confirmed by 100% of the network through their delegates, DPoS transactions fees have the ability to be less than any other consensus algorithm.

B. DPoS is faster and scales better than other consensus algorithms due to it being more efficient.
B1. Due to the ability of having 101 delegates confirm all transactions for the entire network, transactions can be confirmed much faster and efficiently. In the time it takes Bitcoin to produce a single block a DPoS system can have your transaction verified by 20% of the shareholders, and by the time Bitcoin claims the transaction is almost irreversible (6 blocks, 1 hour) your transaction under DPoS has been verified by 100% of the shareholders through their delegates. This is both quicker and more efficient than other consensus algorithms.
B2. A transaction can be confirmed much faster and more efficiently when it only needs to be confirmed by 101 delegates rather than 1000 delegates, this is yet another reason to only have 101 delegates rather than 1000.

C. DPoS allows the user base to control who secures the block chain and thus who profits from that activity. This allows the user base to vote in core developers, developers working on core services, and community members that have other various projects that will enhance the value of the coin. With Bitcoin you have no control over who profits from the work of securing the network and cannot specifically give that job to someone that is improving the community or cryptocurrency in some way. One of Bitcoin's problems is funding projects that will enhance user experience, funding for core services, and funding core development. DPoS gives a way for the user base to do this without subjecting them to having to donate (although of course they can still donate if they like.)

[inBitweTrust]

A. DPoS greatly reduces the cost of securing the network compared to other consensus algorithms, and thus has the potential to have cheaper transaction fees than any other consensus algorithm. Sure , but there may be a different way that is just as cheap and more secure without the added task of voting.
A1. The electricity required for all delegates combined is trivial when compared to the amount of electricity it takes to secure PoW networks. My comments about DPOS were in context of comparing DPOS with POS or Proof of node.
A2. Having 101 delegates rather than 1000 reduces these costs even more so. Delegates (not unlike miners with PoW) need to be incentevized to do their job, the more delegates the more it will cost the network to validate transactions. Full nodes(or the new bitcoin delegates) need to be connected to the network and download the blockchain anyways. The incentives are : better security, Pride from support for the Protocol, and a percentage of the transaction fees that could cover their electricity usage and sometimes earn a profit.  
A3. Since there is exponentially less electricity required and transactions only need to be confirmed by 101 delegate nodes to be confirmed by 100% of the network through there delegates, DPoS transactions fees have the ability to be less than any other consensus algorithm. I think you are overstating the costs of electricity for being a node(delegate) and understating the costs in time wasted of stakeholders voting and delegates campaigning vs what I am proposing with PoS/PoN (not talking about PoW mining here).

B. DPoS is faster and scales better than other consensus algorithms due to it being more efficient. Read response in A3 and keep in mind we are not discussing DPoS vs PoW but why DPoS isn't needed vs another PoS system
B1. Due to the ability of having 101 delegates confirm all transactions for the entire network, transactions can be confirmed much faster and efficiently. In the time it takes Bitcoin to produce a single block a DPoS system can have your transaction verified by 20% of the shareholders, and by the time Bitcoin claims the transaction is almost irreversible (6 blocks, 1 hour) your transaction under DPoS has been verified by 100% of the shareholders through their delegates. This is both quicker and more efficient than other consensus algorithms.
B2. A transaction can be confirmed much faster and more efficiently when it only needs to be confirmed by 101 delegates rather than 1000 delegates, this is yet another reason to only have 101 delegates rather than 1000.
Due to network confirmation speeds and scalability problems you would have to have an alogrithm that took a random sample of active nodes (delegates) if the node pool grew too large. Unlike with DPoS there wouldn't need to be voting and this alogrithm could even be designed where it functioned dynamically in the amount of delegates it sampled per the confirmation verified - I.E. first confirmation 100 nodes confirm in 3 seconds, Second confirmation another random 100 nodes confirm in 10 seconds, Third confirmation 1k nodes confirm in 30 seconds, .... 7th confirmation 10k nodes confirm in 5 min .... 10th confirmation a PoW miner confirms the first transaction in ~10 min. Merchants and individuals would each have different risk assesments of how long they waited before trusting a confirmation. Buying a cup of coffee would usually be fine with a 3 sec confirmation.

C. DPoS allows the user base to control who secures the block chain, and thus who profits from confirming transactions. This allows the user base to vote in developers and community members that have projects that will enhance the value of the coin. For instance, there are several delegates in BitsharesX that use their profits from confirming transactions to fund various projects which supports the expansion of the infrastructure and development of services around the cryptocurrency. With Bitcoin, you have no control over who profits from the work of confirming transactions and cannot specifically give that job to someone that is improving the community or cryptocurrency in some way.

This is more of a concern for small alts than Bitcoin.
Bitcoin has already grown large enough where companies and developers freely contribute to the codebase. Projects like Lighthouse will also help fund new features users want - http://www.coindesk.com/new-decentralized-crowdfunding-platform-reshape-bitcoin-landscape/  

Remember the development of BTSX is being propelled right now by ~50,000usd a week average in spending eating away at the initial group investment. This is going to run out soon and than you will really begin a slow down in promotion and development of Bitshares.

[johnyj]

I don't get how any of this refutes what I said. How do PoS coins have value then, in some cases in the multi million dollar range?

Exchanges can manipulate the price easily, they can create fiat money and cryptocurrency out of nothing in their database and maintain whatever exchange rate they want, but they don't really have any serious market depth, a large sell order can bring down the price dramatically. So it is important that major stake holders don't dump their coins, just like a typical stock

The same could be said about Bitcoin...

Exchange manipulation: Mt. Gox & The willy report; Suspicious volume from Chinese exchanges; All Bitcoin exchanges are centralized and prone to manipulation. There could be widespread manipulation going on right now, and you have no way of knowing if there is or isn't.

If large major Bitcoin stake holders dump their stake, then the price would tank due to liquidity being astronomically smaller than the market cap. Bitcoin due to its liquidity is less prone to this than any other coin.. PoW or PoS, but this is just an arbitrary numbers game and has nothing to do with electricity being burned, PoW, or PoS.

It is true that centralized exchanges are always the weakness of the cryptocurrency ecosystem, so I prefer to use decentralized trading platform like localbitcoins, you can feel the real supply and demand on that platform

[CoinHoarder]

@InBitweTrust

I think you were confused in regards to my last post. I wasn't debating you or your ideas, I was stating the benefits of DPoS over PoW since everyone seems to be so focused on the negatives and I hadn't got a chance to go over all the positives.

[inBitweTrust]

@InBitweTrust

I think you were confused in regards to my last post. I wasn't debating you or your ideas, I was stating the benefits of DPoS over PoW since everyone seems to be so focused on the negatives and I hadn't got a chance to go over all the positives.

Sure, I understand why DPoS is a slight improvement on PoS coins like Nxt (~70 large stakeholders)  and BTSX at least forces 100 delegates to make a decision and those 100 delegates have equal power unlike with Nxt.

My point is why do you need voting at all? Why add that unneeded level of complication and the wasted time of voting and delegate campaigning? It just seems like DPoS is a patch on traditional PoS that adds other problems which don't need to be added in the first place.

Yes, there would have to be some anti-spam and botnet measures built in but you don't need voting to accomplish this.

[CoinHoarder]

@InBitweTrust

I think you were confused in regards to my last post. I wasn't debating you or your ideas, I was stating the benefits of DPoS over PoW since everyone seems to be so focused on the negatives and I hadn't got a chance to go over all the positives.

Sure, I understand why DPoS is a slight improvement on PoS coins like Nxt (~70 large stakeholders)  and BTSX at least forces 100 delegates to make a decision and those 100 delegates have equal power unlike with Nxt.

My point is why do you need voting at all? Why add that unneeded level of complication and the wasted time of voting and delegate campaigning? It just seems like DPoS is a patch on traditional PoS that adds other problems which don't need to be added in the first place.

Yes, there would have to be some anti-spam and botnet measures built in but you don't need voting to accomplish this.

I already went over one of the benefits of voting:

DPoS allows the user base to control who secures the block chain, and thus who profits from confirming transactions. This allows the user base to vote in developers and community members that have projects that will enhance the value of the coin. For instance, there are several delegates in BitsharesX that use their profits from confirming transactions to fund various projects which supports the expansion of the infrastructure and development of services around the cryptocurrency. With Bitcoin, you have no control over who profits from the work of confirming transactions and cannot specifically give that job to someone that is improving the community or cryptocurrency in some way.

Your argument that people are already doing this with Bitcoin is moot, because it is a benefit over the PoW/PoS model because how much of the profits from Bitcoin mining/PoS forging do you think are going back into benefiting the community rather than into someone's pocket? Voting allows you to use the necessary costs of confirming transactions for the greater good instead of wasting it.

In PoS bad Share Holders can still mess with the system *some* of the time. In DPoS bad shareholders have very little influence over operation of the network assuming the majority are not deceived.

Some people will only vote for delegates whom have revealed their identity, this helps give incentive to delegates not to attack the block chain if their identity is known and to prevent people from running more than one delegate.

[devphp]

Try to pass a law to make NXT the legal tender and see how much that will cost you

You're delusional if you think any government will make Bitcoin legal tender. They won't. Any crypto currency is in direct competition with fiat money, who in their sanity would cut off the branch they are sitting on? I hope I don't need to post the definition of legal tender here. The most crypto currencies can have a hope for is that some governments consider them a form of private money like they did in Germany. Legal tender? No, that would be suicide for any government.

[cbeast]

The Second Proof of Stake Whitepaper:

I'll suggest an improvement on DPoS. Essentially the problem solved with delegates is to mitigate the risk of stakeholders themselves controlling the network. Unfortunately, it's still possible for the delegates themselves to actually be the stakeholders themselves secretly using a nom de plume.

Therefore I propose that these delegates then in turn form caucuses that elect representatives that run for election to represent their stakeholders. This can be a bicameral process that offers stakeholders real choice in their representation. These representatives should operate in a bicameral manner consisting of those that serve six year terms (staketors) and those that serve two year terms (staketives). Transactions can be processed by either type of representative, but any single staketor can stop any transaction that is deemed unworthy. To mitigate the risk of this happening too often, stakeholders can hire stakiests to influence the staketors by buying them gifts and taking them on exotic vacations.

Of course, this new and improved DPoS which I will call the Democratic Republic Proof of Stake or DRPoS (pronounced derpus) will revolutionize the entire cryptocurrency universe. You're Welcome!

[krach]

The Second Proof of Stake Whitepaper:

I'll suggest an improvement on DPoS. Essentially the problem solved with delegates is to mitigate the risk of stakeholders themselves controlling the network. Unfortunately, it's still possible for the delegates themselves to actually be the stakeholders themselves secretly using a nom de plume.

Therefore I propose that these delegates then in turn form caucuses that elect representatives that run for election to represent their stakeholders. This can be a bicameral process that offers stakeholders real choice in their representation. These representatives should operate in a bicameral manner consisting of those that serve six year terms (staketors) and those that serve two year terms (staketives). Transactions can be processed by either type of representative, but any single staketor can stop any transaction that is deemed unworthy. To mitigate the risk of this happening too often, stakeholders can hire stakiests to influence the staketors by buying them gifts and taking them on exotic vacations.

Of course, this new and improved DPoS which I will call the Democratic Republic Proof of Stake or DRPoS (pronounced derpus) will revolutionize the entire cryptocurrency universe. You're Welcome!

DERPUS! UNIMAGINE EVERYTHING!

[Oscilson]

In future, bitcoin will become a by-product of heating devices, eliminate the electricity waste concern

So mining will alternate between north and south hemisphere.

[cbeast]

It will be EXTREMELY interesting to see if bitcoin can keep up with the new crypto currencies which will make it look outdated. BITSHARES, SAFECOIN, ETHEREUM, SKYCOIN

There is a few more, which i think will rock the boat aswell.

Yes. EXTREMELY considering that many of the derivative coins are based on Bitcoin or operate as a side chain for Bitcoin.

[krach]

It will be EXTREMELY interesting to see if bitcoin can keep up with the new crypto currencies which will make it look outdated. BITSHARES, SAFECOIN, ETHEREUM, SKYCOIN

There is a few more, which i think will rock the boat aswell.
Yes. EXTREMELY considering that many of the derivative coins are based on Bitcoin or operate as a side chain for Bitcoin.

You forgot a few: Syscoin,Viacoin,Counterparty,NXT,BitsharesX,NuBits (its new),Ethereium, Smartcoin, Assetcoin, SuperStablecoin, PoScoin2.0, Dogeparty
This does not include sidechains of each project of which assets can be pegged to the value of the side chain created tokens when delegates have approved said asset tokens.

[p2pbucks]

No matter POW or POS , BTSX Pegged asset is a joke . BTSX gives you a illusion that it could pegged any assets , usd/gold/oil  , as a result btsx price would go up if pegged successfully.
But in fact , now 3i team are trying to manipulate the bitusd price as they called price feed . This is not what the decentralized free market is . So .. doomed to fail 

[inBitweTrust]

I already went over one of the benefits of voting:

DPoS allows the user base to control who secures the block chain, and thus who profits from confirming transactions. This allows the user base to vote in developers and community members that have projects that will enhance the value of the coin. For instance, there are several delegates in BitsharesX that use their profits from confirming transactions to fund various projects which supports the expansion of the infrastructure and development of services around the cryptocurrency. With Bitcoin, you have no control over who profits from the work of confirming transactions and cannot specifically give that job to someone that is improving the community or cryptocurrency in some way.

Your argument that people are already doing this with Bitcoin is moot, because it is a benefit over the PoW/PoS model because how much of the profits from Bitcoin mining/PoS forging do you think are going back into benefiting the community rather than into someone's pocket? Voting allows you to use the necessary costs of confirming transactions for the greater good instead of wasting it.

In PoS bad Share Holders can still mess with the system *some* of the time. In DPoS bad shareholders have very little influence over operation of the network assuming the majority are not deceived.

Some people will only vote for delegates whom have revealed their identity, this helps give incentive to delegates not to attack the block chain if their identity is known and to prevent people from running more than one delegate.

I think you are really overstating how much development is being encouraged and done by the ongoing voting process. The development is primarily being done by the initial investment of  5,624.7 BTC investment (http://www1.agsexplorer.com/ ) . This fundraising retroactively paid for all of the development costs by the creators and has been blowing through 50k a week where it appears they will be running out of this capital soon (possibly in 26 weeks).  
Bitcoin has already grown to a size where a mixture of prestige , challenge, donations, and vested interests will contribute as many large open source projects, and I don't see the same happening with BTSX. Do you really believe the paltry sums from transaction revenue spread across 100 delegates(many of which won't contribute towards dev)  will support dev work in BTSX once the initial large investment runs dry?

I think you are stuck on discussing the benefits of DPoS vs PoW or DPoS vs current iterations of PoS.  I already agreed with you there are some benefits (and drawbacks as well).

The discussion has now turned to if we wanted to integrate a change to bitcoin than lets make sure the change is the right one. I see DPoS as an unnecessary process to accomplish the goal of adding security from the inherent weaknesses in PoS v1 coins. There are different ways of securing the network and increasing decentralization as I just proposed with a "Proof of Node" concept that doesn't involve the wasted time and complexity of a popularity contest.

Having "Full nodes" automatically become delegates where a minimum stake needed to prevent a botnet of delegate nodes forming would do the trick and insure there was a much larger pool of delegates at less of a cost to secure (less barriers to entry and thus more competition to become a delegate).

Are you suggesting there aren't the right incentives within this scheme vs DPoS? Many people already run full nodes who aren't miners without getting paid to do so, so I don't see how bitcoin couldn't dramatically increase from the current 20k-50k+ nodes(Hard to say exactly how many nodes exist as many come on and off line) to something much higher.  

[delulo]

Having "Full nodes" automatically become delegates where a minimum stake needed to prevent a botnet of delegate nodes forming would do the trick and insure there was a much larger pool of delegates at less of a cost to secure (less barriers to entry and thus more competition to become a delegate).

There is a difference between a (full) node and a block producer (miner with POW, forger with NXT POS, delegate with DPOS). Full nodes can not prevent a 51% attack.
With your proposal above you would have the problem that the biggest stakeholders would distribute their stake among many accounts so that all accounts are above the defined threshold you mentioned. This in the end would equal NXT proof of stake. Not bad but no problem solved. 

[inBitweTrust]

Having "Full nodes" automatically become delegates where a minimum stake needed to prevent a botnet of delegate nodes forming would do the trick and insure there was a much larger pool of delegates at less of a cost to secure (less barriers to entry and thus more competition to become a delegate).

There is a difference between a (full) node and a block producer (miner with POW, forger with NXT POS, delegate with DPOS). Full nodes can not prevent a 51% attack.
With your proposal above you would have the problem that the biggest stakeholders would distribute their stake among many accounts so that all accounts are above the defined threshold you mentioned. This in the end would equal NXT proof of stake. Not bad but no problem solved.  

Thanks for your criticism, keep it coming .....

I have explained that I do indeed see value in PoW for securing bitcoin so am not suggesting one migrate completely over to a PoS variant but possibly solve some of bitcoins current shortcomings with a hybrid approach of consensus. Suggesting we remove PoW from Bitcoin I believe is ultimately futile regardless, as everyone admits there is too much momentum and vested interests in PoW.

In this proposal of a hybrid confirmation system where some confirmations come from delegates(nodes consisting of miners and users) and some confirmations came from PoW (kept the same with average 10 min confirmations) a 51% would be more difficult to pull off because having a majority of the hashing power alone wouldn't be enough and one would have to control both a large stake and a large amount of nodes on separate IP's ranges. The technical aspects of accomplishing this hybrid approach would need to be teased out and tested heavily but there are several methods for accomplishing this.

The direct differences of this "Proof of Node" scheme and Nxt are significant. With Nxt your vote is based upon your stake where 10-15 large whales at the moment control a majority of the funds and can mount a 51% attack. With this Proof of Node every delegate has an equal vote despite the amount of stake like in DPoS and using simple techniques like having a minimum stake requirement within the node and requiring each node to exist on a different IP range would mitigate any risks of a botnet of nodes being created. So what I'm suggesting is just a simpler version of DPoS that accomplishes the same goals but more securely and with less costs.