Changes to the Alogrithm Prohibited or disputed?

[Billbags]

Bitcoin is POW last time I checked.

Thank you for offering your opinion, not everyone agrees that is a defining characteristic of Bitcoin that should never be changed.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Prohibited_changes

"Disputed

    Adding alternatives to Proof of Work such as Proof of Stake. This could change core bitcoin too much, but with widespread agreement of some sort might be possible."

If you carefully read my comments instead of having a knee jerk reaction you will see that I am not even suggesting we change away from PoW either. I am merely suggesting we discuss it and be open to learning.

Who is the aurthor of that quote?

[inBitweTrust]

Who is the aurthor of that quote?

I gave you the link already, the author is clearly listed in the wiki - eldentyrell

[Billbags]

Who is the aurthor of that quote?

I gave you the link already, the author is clearly listed in the wiki - eldentyrell

Bitcoin White Paper
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

HTML Copy
http://nakamotoinstitute.org/bitcoin/

RPOW is used to solve the Byzantine General’s Problem, a problem in ordinary computing that demonstrates through “game theory” how a group of potential co-operators can come to THE BEST CONSENSUS even with the possibility of having malicious operators among them. 
http://cryptome.org/rpow.htm
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/courses/cs614/2004sp/papers/lsp82.pdf

[inBitweTrust]

Bitcoin White Paper
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Understood, Your vote has been counted. 100% PoW is a foundational characteristic of Bitcoin according to your opinion and you never want to see it changed even if a better alternative is discovered, one or multiple 51% attacks are successful, and/or other alts are surpassing Bitcoin because they have superior qualities.

Now back to the discussion at hand regarding other individuals opinions, praise or criticism of Vitalik's proposal, and a discussion of hypothetical scenarios when and why we would want to diverge from PoW.

[jonald_fyookball]

There was this recent thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=860194.0

Which makes some pertinent points.  

Essentially, the arguments posted there can be
summarized as "proof of work is working just fine
and can't really be improved."

Economically, we can't really save money/energy
because people will always compete and spend
resources to make profits.

Centralization/Decentralization is more debatable
IMO.

But, seems that PoW is the simple, straightforward,
proven way to go, and can't be made more "efficient."

I would however be interested in seeing if 51% attack
vectors could be addressed somehow with other elements.

[inBitweTrust]

There was this recent thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=860194.0

Which makes some pertinent points.  

Essentially, the arguments posted there can be
summarized as "proof of work is working just fine
and can't really be improved."

Economically, we can't really save money/energy
because people will always compete and spend
resources to make profits.

Centralization/Decentralization is more debatable
IMO.

But, seems that PoW is the simple, straightforward,
proven way to go, and can't be made more "efficient."

I would however be interested in seeing if 51% attack
vectors could be addressed somehow with other elements.

PoW is efficient? Perhaps, you intend to suggest PoW is efficient for a secure distributed system?

This article http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/   seems to suggest PoW is superior because of the initial distribution effect and the costs of creating bitcoin are almost as much as the costs to produce them which benefits the community because it allows for a fair distribution based upon investment.

I agree with these sentiments but they present a Fallacy of Limited Choice by not exploring other methods of meeting these goals while increasing security efficiently.

For example: An algo could be designed with vitalik's proposal where a hybrid PoW/ TaPoS algo is used where full nodes or p2p miners are incentivized with part of the block reward and less of an emphasis is placed upon burning more electricity.

[jonald_fyookball]

There was this recent thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=860194.0

Which makes some pertinent points.  

Essentially, the arguments posted there can be
summarized as "proof of work is working just fine
and can't really be improved."

Economically, we can't really save money/energy
because people will always compete and spend
resources to make profits.

Centralization/Decentralization is more debatable
IMO.

But, seems that PoW is the simple, straightforward,
proven way to go, and can't be made more "efficient."

I would however be interested in seeing if 51% attack
vectors could be addressed somehow with other elements.

PoW is efficient? Perhaps, you intend to suggest PoW is efficient for a secure distributed system.

This article http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-and-mining/   seems to suggest PoW is superior because of the initial distribution effect and the costs of creating bitcoin are almost as much as the costs to produce them which benefits the community because it allows for a fair distribution based upon investment.

I agree with these sentiments but they present a Fallacy of Limited Choice by not exploring other methods of meeting these goals while increasing security efficiently.

Efficient?  Not more so than other schemes, but not less so.   Dynamics of competition mean that the amount spent on security will be roughly equivalent to the rewards given, regardless of the security model.
 

[inBitweTrust]

Efficient?  Not more so than other schemes, but not less so.   Dynamics of competition mean that the amount spent on security will be roughly equivalent to the rewards given, regardless of the security model.
  

It is precisely Vitalik's point in the paper that you can secure a protocol more efficiently and whether or not the community chooses to invest the same amount to attain a higher level of security is a discussion we can choose to have.

I.E... could a hybrid approach which incentivized the creation of more nodes, p2p pool mining, and a more resilient network be superior vs the current trend of centralization in pool mining and a precipitous drop off in nodes?

[tss]

Bitcoin White Paper
https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf

Understood, Your vote has been counted. 100% PoW is a foundational characteristic of Bitcoin according to your opinion and you never want to see it changed even if a better alternative is discovered, one or multiple 51% attacks are successful, and/or other alts are surpassing Bitcoin because they have superior qualities.

Now back to the discussion at hand regarding other individuals opinions, praise or criticism of Vitalik's proposal, and a discussion of hypothetical scenarios when and why we would want to diverge from PoW.

when? never.

why? because.

[jonald_fyookball]

Efficient?  Not more so than other schemes, but not less so.   Dynamics of competition mean that the amount spent on security will be roughly equivalent to the rewards given, regardless of the security model.
  

It is precisely Vitalik's point in the paper that you can secure a protocol more efficiently and whether or not the community chooses to invest the same amount to attain a higher level of security is a discussion we can choose to have.

I don't know if that is the thrust of his argument, but if so, I don't think he demonstrated that.  His idea of requiring security deposits may in fact address the NaS issue in that people can no longer vote on multiple chains simultaneously without penalty...but what would stop people from trying to prepare chains in advance and then only pay the deposit when they have a winning chain?  If that happens, then you are back to square one:  People will be spend spending money to build CPUs (or ASICS or whatever) to find better chains, and you will be back to the level of people spending the same amount as the rewards.

[L.Detweiler]

@ op

If you want to get consensus from the people about a good bitcoin subject that really needs to be addressed:

The 51% issue and actual possible solutions listed below that actually exist and need to be implemented.

Better way to mine:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281180.0

Proof of idle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN2TPeQ9mnA

[inBitweTrust]

I don't know if that is the thrust of his argument, but if so, I don't think he demonstrated that.  His idea of requiring security deposits may in fact address the NaS issue in that people can no longer vote on multiple chains simultaneously without penalty...but what would stop people from trying to prepare chains in advance and then only pay the deposit when they have a winning chain?  If that happens, then you are back to square one:  People will be spend spending money to build CPUs (or ASICS or whatever) to find better chains, and you will be back to the level of people spending the same amount as the rewards.

I am not suggesting that his proposal is any good or without flaws. I am not even suggesting we diverge from 100% PoW either. However, we need to be open to learning new things and questioning our own biases from time to time.

His paper addresses your concerns with not only deposits but also TaPoS and exponential subjective scoring to address all these possible attack vectors.

[inBitweTrust]

@ op

If you want to get consensus from the people about a good bitcoin subject that really needs to be addressed:

The 51% issue and actual possible solutions listed below that actually exist and need to be implemented.

Better way to mine:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=281180.0

Proof of idle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QN2TPeQ9mnA

Yes, I am familiar with these proposals and think they are great ideas thus is the reason I have been suggesting incentivizing p2p mining pools. This is only one facet of Bitcoin's problems however.

[jonald_fyookball]

I don't know if that is the thrust of his argument, but if so, I don't think he demonstrated that.  His idea of requiring security deposits may in fact address the NaS issue in that people can no longer vote on multiple chains simultaneously without penalty...but what would stop people from trying to prepare chains in advance and then only pay the deposit when they have a winning chain?  If that happens, then you are back to square one:  People will be spend spending money to build CPUs (or ASICS or whatever) to find better chains, and you will be back to the level of people spending the same amount as the rewards.

I am not suggesting that his proposal is any good or without flaws. I am not even suggesting we diverge from 100% PoW either. However, we need to be open to learning new things and questioning our own biases from time to time.

I Agree.

His paper addresses your concerns with not only deposits but also TaPoS and exponential subjective scoring to address all these possible attack vectors.

Actually, I don't think it did address my concern.

The bit about ESS is mostly describing how splitting the network would be avoided.
And there's some stuff in there about the consequences of the deposits
(what he's referring to as "inefficieny of sacrafice"), but that is something different.

My concern is that "miners" will try to compete to gain more rewards by
gaming whatever PoS algorithm is in operation...and they will use greater
and greater resources to do so, until is no longer profitable.  Therefore,
there is no efficiency advantage. 

In other words, take away NaS, but what you are left with is
good old fashioned competition.

If you feel he addressed that concern, please reiterate the solution for me.

[inBitweTrust]

My concern is that "miners" will try to compete to gain more rewards by
gaming whatever PoS algorithm is in operation...and they will use greater
and greater resources to do so, until is no longer profitable.  Therefore,
there is no efficiency advantage.  

In other words, take away NaS, but what you are left with is
good old fashioned competition.

If you feel he addressed that concern, please reiterate the solution for me.

In his proposal the escalating competition you speak of drives up the value of the coin by more "virtual miners" freezing more assets as deposits and in turn lowering the prices of goods and services for everyone else all without needing to buy specialized asics or burn a ton of electricity.

The costs for security are therefore used in the service as insurance and deflationary benefits and may stabilize the currency a bit more.

[jonald_fyookball]

My concern is that "miners" will try to compete to gain more rewards by
gaming whatever PoS algorithm is in operation...and they will use greater
and greater resources to do so, until is no longer profitable.  Therefore,
there is no efficiency advantage. 

In other words, take away NaS, but what you are left with is
good old fashioned competition.

If you feel he addressed that concern, please reiterate the solution for me.

In his proposal the escalating competition you speak of drives up the value of the coin by more "virtual miners" freezing more assets as deposits and in turn lowering the prices of goods and services for everyone else all without needing to buy specialized asics or burn a ton of electricity.

But what if they don't freeze the assets until they find the chain they want?  Kind of like selfish mining?

[inBitweTrust]

But what if they don't freeze the assets until they find the chain they want?  Kind of like selfish mining?

A selfish mining attack can only be successful with a large enough mining pool and why specifically Vitalik's proposal would make this form of attack much more difficult to carry out as no one person owns that amount of stake, not even Satoshi. Another solution is deposits can be taken before, instead of when broadcasting the transaction to prevent this attack.

[jonald_fyookball]

But what if they don't freeze the assets until they find the chain they want?  Kind of like selfish mining?

A selfish mining attack can only be successful with a large enough mining pool and why specifically Vitalik's proposal would make this form of attack much more difficult to carry out as no one person owns that amount of stake, not even Satoshi. Another solution is deposits can be taken before, instead of when broadcasting the transaction to prevent this attack.

(Selfish mining in the sense that people are working on chains in private.)

Taking deposits in advance wouldn't address the "issue" either because they
could still work on the chains in private.  The deposits have nothing
to do with that, they just prevent the NaS issue.

To me its not really a "problem" per se, but the implication is that
there's no free ride with proof of stake, at least as far as I can see.

People will still expend energy to come up with the
best solutions and the energy expenditure
won't go down.

[inBitweTrust]

(Selfish mining in the sense that people are working on chains in private.)

Taking deposits in advance wouldn't address the "issue" either because they
could still work on the chains in private.  The deposits have nothing
to do with that, they just prevent the NaS issue.

To me its not really a "problem" per se, but the implication is that
there's no free ride with proof of stake, at least as far as I can see.

People will still expend energy to come up with the
best solutions and the energy expenditure
won't go down.

Perhaps we are talking past each other but how do TaPoS/deposit miners expend the same or more energy than PoW miners under the same attack?
With Vitalik's proposal their isn't an exponentially increasing dynamic difficulty using more physical resources but only a increasing difficulty either penalizing the miners or taking more deposits, all of which use practically no energy.

[jonald_fyookball]

(Selfish mining in the sense that people are working on chains in private.)

Taking deposits in advance wouldn't address the "issue" either because they
could still work on the chains in private.  The deposits have nothing
to do with that, they just prevent the NaS issue.

To me its not really a "problem" per se, but the implication is that
there's no free ride with proof of stake, at least as far as I can see.

People will still expend energy to come up with the
best solutions and the energy expenditure
won't go down.

Perhaps we are talking past each other but how do TaPoS/deposit miners expend the same or more energy than PoW miners under the same attack?
With Vitalik's proposal their isn't an exponentially increasing dynamic difficulty using more physical resources but only a increasing difficulty either penalizing the miners or taking deposit, all of which use practically no energy.

I don't really know to be honest, and I suppose it would depend on the specific PoS implementation...
but essentially, its back to the NaS problem of people preparing multiple chains.   The only difference
is that the deposits prevent you from broadcasting them all immediately...but miners could still
spend extra resources and go "outside" the intended system (in a similar way that selfish mining
can happen in Bitcoin outside the intended methodology)..and when that happens, people start spending
extra resources (computing power).

I don't know under what circumstances this would/could happen or not, just putting it
out there as a possible reason why there might ultimately be no efficiency win -- and this
is what the truthcoin article is saying as well.