More Bitshares Greed

[ArticMine]

...
I like Monero's anonymity but dislike the amount of Bloat created, I mentioned Cryptonote over Monero due to liking the underlying idea of the tech over the specific Coin. Why NameCoin? I haven't heard anything on NameCoin in forever.

Bloat is a legitimate short term criticism of XMR; however bloat is inherent in ring signature technologies. So basically it would occur in any Cryptonote. The argument is that bloat will become irrelevant because of advances in technology will make the cost of data storage, data transmission, memory etc., even more trivial than today. For example for an extra 15 CAD a month I get unlimited upload and download data on my Internet connection. This would have been unheard of as recently as 2008 when Bitcoin was created. A good analogy is credit cards. When American Express and Diner's club introduced credit cards in the 1950's the data processing technology of the time, tabulating machines and punch cards, could handle only a minuscule percentage of the credit card transaction volume of today. It was only in the 1970's with the advent of the mainframe computer that credit cards became viable as a mass consumer product. As for Monero over other cryptonotes it has the largest market cap and none of the controversy surrounding Bytecoin. Comparing Monero to Bytecoin is like comparing Litecoin to Tenebrix.

I like Namecoin because it provides a viable decentralized alternative to the ICANN DNS secured by the Bitcoin proof of work via merged mining. It is also used by the OpenAlias project, https://openalias.org/, started by the XMR developers.

[1715018117]

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[1715018117]

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[Come-from-Beyond]

The more I look at proof of stake the more I see banks and wall street under a different name.

Your words reminded me that I was going to read "Animal Farm" by Orwell...

[Come-from-Beyond]

This is just a space holder answer...

I was bored and decided to get the answer by myself. I based my analysis on information from http://bitshares.org/documentation/group__dpos.html and came to a conclusion that our case is this:

The problem is to find an algorithm to ensure that
the loyal generals will reach agreement. It is shown that, using only oral messages, this problem is
solvable if and only if more than two-thirds of the generals are loyal; so a single traitor can confound
two loyal generals.

We can lower requirement on the number of honest delegates from 67 to 51 if we add an extra assumption that blocks reach all the delegates within 10 sec (it's equal to block gap in BitShares). Another way is to change how we choose the best chain, instead of plain "longest chain is the best" some kind of weighing is required, but I don't have a good suggestion yet.

This is how I "attacked" the system:
1. Rogue nodes colluded and didn't extend blockchain if the last block belonged to a delegate outside of their group.
2. I assumed that every honest delegate had 50% chance to get a block from a rogue delegate and the same chance to get a block from a honest one.
3. Latency varied from 0 to infinity.

PS: Using something else instead of "longest chain is the best" is a better approach than adding assumptions on latency. In this case the system will be less vulnerable to an eclipse attack.

[fluxer555]

Come-from-Beyond, I think some of that may be outdated, describing an older version of DPOS. Specifically,

- At all times no delegate may have more than 2% of the vote. Any transaction or block that would give a delegate more than 2% of the vote is to be rejected.

I could be somehow mistaken, but this does not seem to be the case.

[Come-from-Beyond]

Come-from-Beyond, I think some of that may be outdated, describing an older version of DPOS. Specifically,

- At all times no delegate may have more than 2% of the vote. Any transaction or block that would give a delegate more than 2% of the vote is to be rejected.

I could be somehow mistaken, but this does not seem to be the case.

I interpreted 2% vote limit as a way to force stakeholders to vote for at least 50 delegates. If it means that none of the delegates is allowed to generate more than 2% of blocks then the attack above will lead to exclusion of 33% of legit delegates and 33% of rogue delegates from block generation process (because they can't sign another chain if they already signed the attacker's one). And this leads to worse consequences. The attackers may get more than 33% of slots in the next top 66 delegates that will replace current leaders (assuming that it's easier to be in top 200 than in top 100).


Edit:

Such "rating grinding" attack (when rogue delegates commit suicide and force some honest delegates to be excluded too) is a neat feature for attackers. In this case no need to have 33 delegates, N attackers can be fired together with N+M honest delegates (the same way as 51% attack can be conducted with less than 51% of hashing power). Repeating this process the attackers may slowly increase percentage of occupied slots... Note that I don't know BitShares internals very well, if someone explained the process of firing of delegates it would help to assess how feasible "rating grinding" is.

[StanLarimer]

Yes, our documentation is always lagging behind the wavefront of progress.  If it ever catches up that means we've stopped progressing, I guess.  

Fact is, when all delegates are participating they each have uniformly less than 1%.

The only way to get more than that is to have delegates start dropping out.

If we go below 90 delegates, the yellow "caution flag" comes out on all wallets warning users to trade with caution.
If we go below 80 delegates, the red flag comes on warning users to stop trading.

This also alerts the remaining delegates (many of whom are developers) that there is a problem that may need to be worked out by the various fall-back consensus mechanisms that we have been talking about.

I'll have to give the rating grinding concept a little more thought. 
Thanks for helping out in the what-if department.

[Come-from-Beyond]

If we go below 90 delegates, the yellow "caution flag" comes out on all wallets warning users to trade with caution.
If we go below 80 delegates, the red flag comes on warning users to stop trading.

You should adjust numbers a little. I would change 80 to 67, in this case cost of double-spending will be equal to cost of network disruption. Humans can see the flags and open Twitter or BitsharesTalk to get more info, DACs don't have these means of communication. If DACs stop functioning when less than 80 delegates are working then 22 rogue delegates can easily break business processes controlled by DACs.

[jabo38]

To cover operating expenses a crypto currency network must charge transaction fees.

Why? If usage of a cryptocurrency network generates extra profit itself then fees can be as small as it's enough for fighting spam. Hashcash could be used to remove fees completely.

 Someone has to be paid to validate blocks and run the network.  How they get paid and who pays them is something else entirely.  I suggest that a system is not sustainable unless income from some source is greater than what is paid to block validators which is greater than the cost of validation.   How does a network generate extra profit itself (aside from appreciation) without fees.  If appreciation is how it accumulates value, then it would require dilution to pay fees.  If you expect some users to subsidize others then that is a group trap and depends upon charity, especially a scale.  

Uhhhhm, If I run a Ripple node whether I process 1,000,000 transactions or 1, the fees paid to me will be exactly 0.  Yes, people making a transaction have to spend a fee, but those fees are all burnt and do not go back to the nodes.  So yes, there is at least one way to make a blockchain run without someone being paid directly to validate blocks on a per transaction or per block rate.  As CfB mentioned hashcash is another.  I also know a dev that has been working on a third model where no fees are paid, but instead people running nodes will get special privileges in the system that others won't.  One who isn't just thinking about money all the time just need open their mind to find lots of possibilities.  Here is an example.  Lets say I am running an anon coin.  I can make a rule that only a node that has been active on the network for the last 24 hours can actually send anon transactions, all other nodes on the network less than 24 hours can of course still send and receive, but can't send anonymously. Here is another example, lets say I run a network and anybody that has been running a node for 24 hours will get 10 tokens.  Each transaction costs exactly 1 token.  All tokens are non-transferable.  So now to use the blockchain a person needs to run their node every once in a while for 24 hours and then they get 10 free transactions. I call that proof-of-participation. It is fairly easy to design a system that isn't just focused on money.  

[Agestorzrxx]

The title got be kidding.

[Newmine]

Stan,

No dark clouds of conspiracy here. I am just pointing out that every major change as of late is only to the benefit of the I3 Teams wallets.

An oldie, but a goodie.

[StanLarimer]

Heh, yeah.

The whole team has been operating at below minimum wage all year trying to make something they can sell to earn a living.

Very greedy indeed.

While you are digging up old inner city spray paint, here's the rest of them, lovingly preserved in the BitShares Loves Puppies thread.  Buried among all the nasty FUD are some real jewels - serious answers produced back when we weren't sure whether this forum took its trolls and other vandals seriously or not.

Troll Chest

Finally, lest they be lost forever, we add links to our favorite troll graveyard.
In addition to some outrageous (even funny) troll FUD, these contain some serious discussions among the foul droppings.

Communist BitShares Wealth Redistribution is Theft
BitShares? interesting ! bullish
Even though BTS devs are greedy, it's still better tech than NXT and NuBits
Is BitShares a Blog or a Bitcoin 2.0 project?
Nubits vs Bitshares vs Bitbay
BitShares is Dead
Where are those Bitshares' Shills?
JOIN OR DIE! United We Stand... Divided We Fall!

[testz]

Come-from-Beyond, your presence here is quite refreshing. Thank you.

+1
Totally agree. 

[Newmine]

Heh, yeah.

The whole team has been operating at below minimum wage all year trying to make something they can sell to earn a living.

Very greedy indeed.

While you are digging up old inner city spray paint, here's the rest of them, lovingly preserved in the BitShares Loves Puppies thread.  Buried among all the nasty FUD are some real jewels - serious answers produced back when we weren't sure whether this forum took its trolls and other vandals seriously or not.

Troll Chest

Finally, lest they be lost forever, we add links to our favorite troll graveyard.
In addition to some outrageous (even funny) troll FUD, these contain some serious discussions among the foul droppings.

Communist BitShares Wealth Redistribution is Theft
BitShares? interesting ! bullish
Even though BTS devs are greedy, it's still better tech than NXT and NuBits
Is BitShares a Blog or a Bitcoin 2.0 project?
Nubits vs Bitshares vs Bitbay
BitShares is Dead
Where are those Bitshares' Shills?
JOIN OR DIE! United We Stand... Divided We Fall!

Stan I had no idea the minimum wage in Virginia was $56,000 per year (based on the BTS you have received over the last 6 months not including what you have forgot to conveniently disclose regarding the 67 million BTS you still control).

I wanted to provide some transparency on our year end bonuses:

Toast, Nathan, Valentine, Vikram, Stan, and James Caffe, Dan N.  (all of whom have 100% pay delegates) have received 3M BTS severance / bonus from Invictus
Ben (Drltc) and Agent86 have received 1M BTS severance / bonus (also have 100% pay delegates)

This ends I3's responsibility to continue funding these individuals whom are now free agents working to support the BitShares ecosystem.   I trust each of these individuals to continue contributing to BitShares because they believe in the cause and to get their delegate pay.     Each of these individuals also has a large vesting balance that will mature over the next 2 years which should keep them loyal to the project as a whole.

As you know delegate pay is not sufficient to cover their salaries in the coming year.  This bonus is an incentive to get the value of BTS up to both maximize the value of their bonus and to ensure they can continue to earn what they need from delegate pay.   

Any profits earned by Invictus are taxed at 35%.  For efficiency sake we needed to pay everyone in 2014 with at least 65% efficiency. 

This means that a large number of BTS that I use to vote with are now distributed among the core developers. 

There remains about 67 M BTS that is being held in reserve to cover 2015 expenses I3 may face including any taxes, accounting, legal, fees, or fines we may face in the year(s) ahead.  At todays market cap that represents about $1 million held in reserve.   Some of those funds are ear-marked for marketing performance-based bonuses.  The funds will also be used to provide free office space anyone who wants to come to blacksburg to work on BitShares. 

Overall we raised about $3.6 million in AGS donations and now that these bonuses have been paid we have spent $3.6 million in 2014.    We had a large capital-loss on our BTC holdings and an offsetting capital gain on our BTS holdings.    Of the money we spent, 10% went to China, 10% went to US Marketing (conferences, videos, website, travel), 7% on FMV.   Our largest expense category was developer salaries and grants including ~$100K for Toast and ~$100K for HackFisher as well as salaries for over a dozen different developers.   

Early next year I will have Stan prepare a breakdown on what categories the $3.6 million in AGS donations were spent on as a final report. 

In 2015 we hope to raise the bar in both efficiency, productivity, and transparency.   

Anything said in this post are rough estimates from memory and are not official statements.  The numbers may be completely wrong.

Just a reminder:  the AGS donations had NO STRINGS ATTACHED.   I did my best with the funds to further my own objectives of securing life, liberty, and property for all.   If you are unhappy with how we managed the money I am sorry, I suggest you focus on how the government is wasting far more than I did.    I am a mere software engineer with a grand vision who was learning a lot as I went.   

Happy New Years Everyone!

Did you forget that on December 31, you each received 3 million BTS, worth $21,000 today and whole lot more back then. Plus you have received 916,000 BTS since, which is equal to $7000 at today's price.

Let's not forget about that 67 million BTS you are using to pay yourselves for 2015. Yes, 2015. That is this year and 67 million BTS is equal to $469,000 at today's prices. Oh, and I rounded these numbers down immensely.

You can lie all you want but I will continue to call you out for those lies.

Nice try.

[StanLarimer]

"He has no honor."

[ChetnotAtkins]

And what about the millions of dollars in BTC you received as 'donations' for AngelShares? And what about all the funds you received from Protoshares?

'operating at below minimum wage'... you have to be kidding.


The fact that you guys change the name of your scheme and your companies' name every couple of months will eventually not be enough to protect you from law enforcment and neither will silly memes and center-aligned text.

[Newmine]

"He has no honor."

No comment on your lies?

Your silence speaks volume.

[StanLarimer]

Your silence speaks volume.

Yes it does.  
You're just not getting the message.

 

[Pheonike]

Its funny how DE and Newmine always seem to omit the fact about all PTS being returned to the donors

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,11289.0.html

[Newmine]

Its funny how DE and Newmine always seem to omit the fact about all PTS being returned to the donors

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,11289.0.html

Are you retarded? They gave it back after they share dropped the BTS on themselves rendering the PTS worthless at the time they returned it. Stop selling lies or get your facts straight.

[Newmine]

Your silence speaks volume.

Yes it does.  
You're just not getting the message.

 

No, I get the message. You are a liar.