More Bitshares Greed

[matt608]

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?

Someone having multiple delegate positions is not an attack.  It increases centralisation so is best avoided, but is not an attack.  Would you consider the moment gigahash.io briefly had over 51% of the hashpower on bitcoin an attack even though they didn't actually attack?  Having 5 delegates is no where near enough to even potentially attack the network so please refrain from making wild exaggerations.

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[DecentralizeEconomics]

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?

Someone having multiple delegate positions is not an attack.  It increases centralisation so is best avoided, but is not an attack.  Would you consider the moment gigahash.io briefly had over 51% of the hashpower on bitcoin an attack even though they didn't actually attack?  Having 5 delegates is no where near enough to even potentially attack the network so please refrain from making wild exaggerations.

I consider them both BROKEN AND NOT DECENTRALIZED!

The truth of the matter is that no one can be sure that he only controlled those five delegates.  He could very well still control multiple delegates.  As Stan Larimer says, If multiple delegates being controlled by one individual isn't an issue, then why is Bytemaster trying to figure out how many delegates he controls by asking the community?

[StanLarimer]

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?

...

The truth of the matter is that no one can be sure that he only controlled those five delegates.  He could very well still control multiple delegates.  As Stan Larimer says, If multiple delegates being controlled by one individual isn't an issue, then why is Bytemaster trying to figure out how many delegates he controls by asking the community?

Your question 1 would be a great question to bring to Friday's world-wide mumble session and ask Bytemaster himself in front of God and everybody.  These sessions are recorded so anybody can get a download of you putting Bytemaster on the hot seat.  They are usually wide ranging and full of info like what you are looking for.  I've tried my best to explain it for you, but as I said, I'm just an old retired rocket scientist.  I'm sure Bytemaster will do a better job.  I will say that our evolution from POW to POS to TAPOS to DPOS is well documented in the bitsharestalk.org forum discussions last spring.  Each step was done to eliminate problems discovered along the way.  DPOS was judged by all involved as the most highly evolved we have come up with to date.

That said, it's key innovation is IMHO
using the voting stake of all owners to select delegates
that can then be held accountable
by observable performance and public reputation.

Your question 2 points to a period in our early history where delegates did not get enough vetting because... it was early in our history.  Back then, some delegates got elected without proper vetting since it wasn't hard to get into the top 101.  Now it is increasingly harder to get elected as a delegate and every time a new vetted delegate takes her slot, a less vetted delegate is bumped.  So it's an on-going Darwinian distillation process where over time the delegates that survive at the top get vetted better and better and have reputations that are worth more and more, making them unlikely to risk those hard-earned reputations on misbehavior that can instantly be detected.  A Sybil attack at the delegate level would produce candidate with no reputation from vetting. Who would vote for it?  Right now our star developers have taken days or even weeks to accumulate enough votes. Further, it costs two week's non-refundable salary (about $1100 right now) to apply to be vetted as a delegate, making  any attempt to flood the system with nefarious delegates impractical and unaffordable. 

Finally, because of the competition, every delegate gets challenged from time to time by people who want their job. 

I went through such an aggressive rectal exam myself a few days ago:
"The worth of Stan's contribution to BitShares"
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=12851.msg169114#msg169114

Thus, we have engineered a system where it is very competitive to become a delegate, and only the most trusted best of the best survive.  Thus BitShares grows stronger every day.

[Newmine]

No one ever indicated any intention to leave for any reason.  Inconceivable. That's another total fabrication.

All of the funds donated have been spent carefully and documented on public spreadsheets.
They were spent in the most tax-efficient way possible with the understanding that time is of the essence in this industry.  Admittedly they didn't go as far as hoped due to the steady decline of Bitcoin's purchasing power, but they got the job done.  And we got innovation after innovation as a result.  In fact, there is a whole family of independent blockchain businesses based on the resulting BitShares Toolkit.  Check them out.

But a project leader needs to look after his team and make sure they are funded.  Expecially one with Bytemaster's grand vision.  There is much to do in a very competitive arena.  There is really no limit to what can be done with the BitShares model.   We are engineering a whole new alternative financial system - inside the secure and incorruptible confines of a blockchain.  The sooner we recognize the need for a sustainable growth funding model the faster we can get there.

That led to the most recent and best innovation (and most obvious in hindsight). If BitShares is a decentralized company, then it ought to act like one.  Startups often pay their employees in equity. BitShares is a decentralized start-up. The ability to allow its employees to work for equity gives BitShares a unique advantage (until everyone else realizes this is the obvious way to grow the entire industry).  It  adds a few percent of new equity each year (far less than Bitcoin's inflation rate) to pay developers and marketers to grow the pie for all stakeholders - increasing the value of its equity.  This strategy ensures a sustainable funding model for robust growth -- as long as the shareholder continue to vote for it.  And why wouldn't they?  If they get even a few percent annual growth they are ahead of the game.  We expect it to be more like a few hundred percent.   Time will tell, but I think its a great bet.

Read all about our lessons learned here:  http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2014/12/26/Stop-the-Crowd-Sales-Long-Live-Crowd-Funding/

Read some of the many detailed posts at bytemaster.bitshares.org or listen to a few interviews with Max Wright at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtCVRIwcBYU&index=1&list=PLjgfpSQFJTLqbgHm8mkgPdD-ma7t0bRhK

That's the best way to judge this team's integrity for yourself and see that all of this is for real.  I hope to see you over at bitsharestalk.org once in a while.  You owe it to yourself. 

I think this post proves that Bytemaster and team were leaving BitsharesX based on the amount of share VOTE allocated for themselves:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10279.msg134898#msg134898

Here it is pasted too:

Once sentence on why VOTE would eclipse BTSX...

VOTE was shaping up to have all of the features of BTSX + DNS + Bazzar + VOTE's market strategy + all of the developers.  Why was it going to get all of the developers, because Adam had a 30% stake with which to hire us all and Agent 86 was making a compelling case of the need for dilution and developers with a major stake. 

Why... because BTSX was DAC Sun's chain, had a development budget that was capped, and had no ability to raise capital. 

Because people were starting to freak out that VOTE with that feature set and team would be a threat to BTSX and starting to dump BTSX on the mere rumor.

I think this sums of the greed.

Oh don't give me any DACSun crap. We all know DACSun was a facade for I3 legally and you guys were the only Devs working on BitsharesX and had no intentions of leaving previous to the realization of Adams allocation for VOTE.

We still have never been told what the "secret sauce" was for VOTE as stated here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10118.msg132054#msg132054

What was the marketing Plan B that apparently no one but you could see? https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10118.msg132005#msg132005

Wait, what happened to Kevin Harrington and the infomercial crap?

What about the bitUSD debit cards?

*i will post links in a bit...

I could keep going. Since you are technically calling me a liar when I am clearly not, I am going to up my propagandist campaign. I think it will be pretty easy to show the world how big of a bullshit artist you are.

[StanLarimer]

Here I will clean up a few remaining issues extracted from your post above.  (I've labeled them for reference.)

ISSUE 1.  I argue that it's IMPOSSIBLE to individually vet delegates as unique IN BITSHARES because DPOS is vulnerable to SYBIL ATTACKS.  This is not true for Bitcoin or NXT because you either have to own the hashpower or the stake.  The ownership of the hashpower or stake is what provides the resiliency against sybil attacks in these two systems.

ISSUE 2.Are you going to try to convince everyone that limiting forgers is in the best interest of decentralization?  NXT's PoS system DOES NOT LIMIT FORGERS!  There are over 101 forgers securing the NXT blockchain.

ISSUE 3.Bitshares is imposing a TAX which redistributes wealth from currency holders to businesses.  This is the very definition of Communism / Crony Capitalism.  Being a NXT stakeholder, I would be upset if my stake was subject to a TAX imposed AGAINST MY FREE WILL to fund businesses in which I have NO INTEREST!

ISSUE 4. Bitshares(TM) is a corporation based in the United States dealing, as you say, in "products" such as "currency and commodity derivatives" and "trading services".  From your explanation it seems that Bitshares is a trademarked "COMPANY, NOT A CURRENCY" selling "shares" that attempts to pass itself off as a currency to avoid US security regulations.

ISSUE 1.  I discussed this in my previous post.  Establishing a trusted reputation is much harder than establishing hashpower.  Competition to build a reputation - the most precious of commodities - is what makes the difference.  (This coupled with the certainty of getting caught misbehaving.)

ISSUE 2.  Without the reputation ingredient, more forgers are better because that's all you've got working for you is numbers.  Adding reputation and delegated authority to the "forgers" lets you get the same security with far fewer of them.  And actually, having too many forgers works against you because it waters down how well you can vet each one of them. 

ISSUE 3.  People voluntarily hold BitShares knowing that it operates like a startup company with employees working for newly issued equity.  People who don't understand that this is how most startups work, won't hold BitShares.  Those who do understand, will profit from its ability to fund its own growth.  It's a personal preference - invest accordingly.

ISSUE 4.  BitShares is not trademarked and is not a corporate creation of any government.  It is a free-space blockchain just like Bitcoin with zero footprint in fiat space.  References to it being like a company are metaphorical to help people constrained by the Bitcoin currency metaphor to break free from that perspective and see that other uses of blockchain technology are possible.

[StanLarimer]

Ok, this is actually turning out to be good!  You go collect all the misinformation that you can find or make up and I'll address them here one by one.  Over time, this thread will be come a great resource for people to consult when they want to know the answers to such things. Sort of like a Snopes for BitShares.  I'll try to link to it here where ever I find one of your postings - one stop shopping for answers! 

I have labeled your various issues for easy reference in your quote below and responded in-line.

ISSUE 1: I think this post proves that Bytemaster and team were leaving BitsharesX based on the amount of share VOTE allocated for themselves:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10279.msg134898#msg134898 

Bytemaster disclosed that the VOTE DAC's developer allocation would soon be the only source of funding for the developers in the new year forcing them to work on that more than BTSX.  VOTE was still inside the BitShares ecosystem and we were all obligated to work on it and the other DACs in the pipeline.  Thus we weren't leaving the BitShare's community, just debating where to focus our efforts next among its projects.  Out of this came several proposals to the community to find ways to combine the efforts - because each new DAC we were obligated to produce for them would be better than the last (we learn as we go) and thus would pose a threat to all our previous DACs.  Now we can provide all the features of all those DACs inside one super-competitive DAC - BitShares (BTS).

ISSUE 2: Oh don't give me any DACSun crap. We all know DACSun was a facade for I3 legally and you guys were the only Devs working on BitsharesX and had no intentions of leaving previous to the realization of Adams allocation for VOTE.

DAC Sun is indeed a Hong Kong company that was created by former members of Invictus and we acknowledged that our core developers were helping them like we do all users of the BitShares Toolkit.  Since then, those players have gone on to work on a variety of exciting new BitShares-boosting projects in China.

ISSUE 3: We still have never been told what the "secret sauce" was for VOTE as stated here: https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10118.msg132054#msg132054

We have since described much of the secret sauce in VOTE in many forum postings.  The same tools VOTE demonstrated to the California board of elections will be used to provide strong ID management features in BitShares and will give BitShares additional credibility for the average person who wants to come into crypto through the voting and polling features rather than the currency angle.  Understanding why we think this is so powerful and how we plan to fully leverage it is still a trade secret.

ISSUE 4:  What was the marketing Plan B that apparently no one but you could see? https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10118.msg132005#msg132005

"Plan B" grew to be a multifaceted series of complementary independent marketing initiatives that I outlined in this stickied post for all to see:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=11955.0

ISSUE 5: Wait, what happened to Kevin Harrington and the infomercial crap?

We had the extreme privilege of briefing Mr. Kevin Harrington of "shark tank" fame for over six hours at a St. Martin MasterMind session (a collection of smart and influential people) put on by Max Wright and several of his business partners who are still very active in our decentralized marketing community to this very day.  No commitments were made by Mr. Harrington at that time but he expressed great interest during subsequent social discussions. We shared a complete report of what happened at the Mastermind with our community and indicated how pleased we were at having the chance for such an extended interaction with him.

ISSUE 6:  What about the bitUSD debit cards?

Yes that is coming. It involves multiple deals with other companies and will be disclosed on their timetables, not ours.  Watch bitsharestalk.org for ongoing discussions of our progress at creating lots of on and off ramps to the BitShares ecosystem.

[StanLarimer]

I just found the mother lode of bitsharestalk.org postings answering the question of
why we believe DPOS is better than original POS
(which we still respect greatly).

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=5564.0

Bytemaster has indicated that he plans to boil this all down in a new posting coming soon at Bytemaster's Blog

bytemaster.bitshares.org

EDIT:  Here it is, written literally overnight...

http://bytemaster.bitshares.org/article/2015/01/07/The-Most-Decentralized-Proof-of-Stake-System/

[Newmine]

Ok, this is actually turning out to be good!  You go collect all the misinformation that you can find or make up and I'll address them here one by one.  Over time, this thread will be come a great resource for people to consult when they want to know the answers to such things. Sort of like a Snopes for BitShares.  I'll try to link to it here where ever I find one of your postings - one stop shopping for answers!  

I have labeled your various issues for easy reference in your quote below and responded in-line.

ISSUE 1: I think this post proves that Bytemaster and team were leaving BitsharesX based on the amount of share VOTE allocated for themselves:  https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10279.msg134898#msg134898  

Bytemaster disclosed that the VOTE DAC's developer allocation would soon be the only source of funding for the developers in the new year forcing them to work on that more than BTSX.  VOTE was still inside the BitShares ecosystem and we were all obligated to work on it and the other DACs in the pipeline.  Thus we weren't leaving the BitShare's community, just debating where to focus our efforts next among its projects.  Out of this came several proposals to the community to find ways to combine the efforts - because each new DAC we were obligated to produce for them would be better than the last (we learn as we go) and thus would pose a threat to all our previous DACs.  Now we can provide all the features of all those DACs inside one super-competitive DAC - BitShares (BTS).

Really? Because he posted this 2 days before the above post.
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10148.msg132915#msg132915
It is quite clear that before the merger was proposed, finances were in line for the year.

If Bytemaster was obligated to work on the DAC's, why was he not involved in the DNS previous to the merger, or NOTE/Play currently? VOTE was to be developed by other people just as NOTE/Play is and just as Toast was developing DNS/KeyID.

Bytemaster saw a chance for more money and threatened to jump ship and build a competitor to his original project. That's all I am pointing out. It seems each response of your gets more and more convoluted with circle talk, far fetched improbable qualifications and hypothetical justifications which is just fancy BS talk. Something you are pretty good at.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

Here I will clean up a few remaining issues extracted from your post above.  (I've labeled them for reference.)

ISSUE 4. Bitshares(TM) is a corporation based in the United States dealing, as you say, in "products" such as "currency and commodity derivatives" and "trading services".  From your explanation it seems that Bitshares is a trademarked "COMPANY, NOT A CURRENCY" selling "shares" that attempts to pass itself off as a currency to avoid US security regulations.

ISSUE 4.  BitShares is not trademarked and is not a corporate creation of any government.  It is a free-space blockchain just like Bitcoin with zero footprint in fiat space.  References to it being like a company are metaphorical to help people constrained by the Bitcoin currency metaphor to break free from that perspective and see that other uses of blockchain technology are possible.

ISSUE 4 Your website says different.





Bitshares' Logo Trademarked on BitsharesWiki


What's the deal Stan?  Is Bitshares trademarked or not?  If it is not trademarked why on all your logos are you using the TM mark?  The only reason you would be using TM while not "trademarked" is that you are applying for a trademark on the name.  If you are currently in the application process for trademarking Bitshares and it is your intention to do so, don't you think claiming Bitshares isn't trademarked is misleading?

Sounds like you're being disingenuous.

[FandangledGizmo]

You argue that 101 delegates is not decentralised enough but also argue that it's hard to individually vet delegates as unique. This process gets harder for the collective the more delegates you have. In a 500 delegate system it would be easier to get 251 fake delegates in place because the average shareholder simply couldn't process that many. With 101 we know who the majority are and at this stage are sometimes more happy with a high reputation, high trust individual having two positions. Over time the 101 number could change depending on what the free market deems optimal. I can't say it's immune from attack ever but it's the best decentralised system by far out there atm imo.

I argue that it's IMPOSSIBLE to individually vet delegates as unique IN BITSHARES because DPOS is vulnerable to SYBIL ATTACKS.  This is not true for Bitcoin or NXT because you either have to own the hashpower or the stake.  The ownership of the hashpower or stake is what provides the resiliency against sybil attacks in these two systems.

Bitshares DPOS is NOT "the best decentralized system by far out there".  This is an OUTRAGEOUS statement.  You are either misinformed or being disingenuous.  Are you going to try to convince everyone that limiting forgers is in the best interest of decentralization?  NXT's PoS system DOES NOT LIMIT FORGERS!  There are over 101 forgers securing the NXT blockchain.

Your last point about it being a communist system is wrong. Whereas Bitcoin's distribution makes miners money, our distribution will be spent on developing & marketing BitShares. Imagine if the $500 million spent on miners a year was spent on developing & marketing Bitcoin. I think it's a tragedy that some of the best Bitcoin developers have to worry about making rent. Our maximum dilution is much lower than Bitcoin and I expect shareholders will keep it much, much lower in practice.

Bitshares is imposing a TAX which redistributes wealth from currency holders to businesses.  This is the very definition of Communism / Crony Capitalism.  Being a NXT stakeholder, I would be upset if my stake was subject to a TAX imposed AGAINST MY FREE WILL to fund businesses in which I have NO INTEREST!

My favorite way to look at it is that BitShares are shares in a company just like Bitcoin are shares in a company.  (Just because I called Bitcoin a company in the classic article that introduced the concept of a Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) -- http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-and-the-three-laws-of-robotics/ doesn't suddenly make Bitcoin subject to securities laws.)

The fact of the matter is that Bitcoin and NXT are NOT shares in a company.  They are decentralized systems which have no incorporated entity behind them.  They are simply a token which are used between like-minded individuals.

Bitshares(TM) is a corporation based in the United States dealing, as you say, in "products" such as "currency and commodity derivatives" and "trading services".  From your explanation it seems that Bitshares is a trademarked "COMPANY, NOT A CURRENCY" selling "shares" that attempts to pass itself off as a currency to avoid US security regulations.

I spent a long time answering each of these questions in great detail further above.

Actually, you didn't answer all of these questions.

Since 101 delegates is just an arbitrary number that could have been 50 or 150, the fact that the number of independent delegates might vary if shareholders allow it is not a big deal.  To become a delegate, you really have to work to convince people to vote for you.  You have to develop a reputation.  You can destroy that reputation in 10 seconds by misbehaving - because everyone can see what you are doing.  We all instantly know if you signed a bad block - and we know who did it.

That's the big difference.  We know who did it.

From this statement, I am going to assume you believe multiple delegates being controlled by one individual, which is the very definition of a Sybil attack, isn't an issue.

Can you please explain then why Bitshares needs any type of consensus mechanism at all?  I assume you know the purpose of all consensus mechanisms is to prevent Sybil attacks.

With BitShares, a misbehaving delegate is instantly flagged to all shareholders who immediately wake up, vote him out, and go back to sleep.  It only takes one person paying attention to raise the alarm.  Then it takes several more trusted experts to verify the problem and post their opinion.  Then the rank and file owners respond and the problem is gone.  You can't do that with Bitcoin without inciting a damaging fork war - at huge cost to enforce any discipline at all.

How can you be SURE that you eliminate all delegates controlled by the misbehaving individual even if some of their delegates don't misbehave?

Can you please prove for all parties that this attack on your consensus mechanism, referenced to on YOUR FORUM at https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10937.0;all, has been thwarted and that this individual no longer controls a delegate?  Please provide verifiable blockchain proof.

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?

Doesn't NXT have leased forging? Where you delegate your forging power to a pool? So power like Bitcoin ends up being centralised around a handful of pools?
What % of active NXT do a few of them control at any given time?
How many of the pools are properly vetted?

I haven't looked at NXT for a while, so please explain if it works differently.

We can also vote for delegates with no/low dilution to the point that BitShares would be no inflation and profitable. BitShares holders instead currently vote for circa 1% annual inflation to fund development, infrastructure and marketing.  http://bitsharesblocks.com/delegates

Personally I like no dilution crypto-currency, but I can't see BitShares not growing very big very quickly by being able to fund itself at the early stage whereas other options seem pretty stagnant with no/low marketing and infrastructure development.

[chryspano]

Nice work so far guys, keep up the good work !

[DecentralizeEconomics]

You argue that 101 delegates is not decentralised enough but also argue that it's hard to individually vet delegates as unique. This process gets harder for the collective the more delegates you have. In a 500 delegate system it would be easier to get 251 fake delegates in place because the average shareholder simply couldn't process that many. With 101 we know who the majority are and at this stage are sometimes more happy with a high reputation, high trust individual having two positions. Over time the 101 number could change depending on what the free market deems optimal. I can't say it's immune from attack ever but it's the best decentralised system by far out there atm imo.

I argue that it's IMPOSSIBLE to individually vet delegates as unique IN BITSHARES because DPOS is vulnerable to SYBIL ATTACKS.  This is not true for Bitcoin or NXT because you either have to own the hashpower or the stake.  The ownership of the hashpower or stake is what provides the resiliency against sybil attacks in these two systems.

Bitshares DPOS is NOT "the best decentralized system by far out there".  This is an OUTRAGEOUS statement.  You are either misinformed or being disingenuous.  Are you going to try to convince everyone that limiting forgers is in the best interest of decentralization?  NXT's PoS system DOES NOT LIMIT FORGERS!  There are over 101 forgers securing the NXT blockchain.

Your last point about it being a communist system is wrong. Whereas Bitcoin's distribution makes miners money, our distribution will be spent on developing & marketing BitShares. Imagine if the $500 million spent on miners a year was spent on developing & marketing Bitcoin. I think it's a tragedy that some of the best Bitcoin developers have to worry about making rent. Our maximum dilution is much lower than Bitcoin and I expect shareholders will keep it much, much lower in practice.

Bitshares is imposing a TAX which redistributes wealth from currency holders to businesses.  This is the very definition of Communism / Crony Capitalism.  Being a NXT stakeholder, I would be upset if my stake was subject to a TAX imposed AGAINST MY FREE WILL to fund businesses in which I have NO INTEREST!

My favorite way to look at it is that BitShares are shares in a company just like Bitcoin are shares in a company.  (Just because I called Bitcoin a company in the classic article that introduced the concept of a Decentralized Autonomous Company (DAC) -- http://letstalkbitcoin.com/bitcoin-and-the-three-laws-of-robotics/ doesn't suddenly make Bitcoin subject to securities laws.)

The fact of the matter is that Bitcoin and NXT are NOT shares in a company.  They are decentralized systems which have no incorporated entity behind them.  They are simply a token which are used between like-minded individuals.

Bitshares(TM) is a corporation based in the United States dealing, as you say, in "products" such as "currency and commodity derivatives" and "trading services".  From your explanation it seems that Bitshares is a trademarked "COMPANY, NOT A CURRENCY" selling "shares" that attempts to pass itself off as a currency to avoid US security regulations.

I spent a long time answering each of these questions in great detail further above.

Actually, you didn't answer all of these questions.

Since 101 delegates is just an arbitrary number that could have been 50 or 150, the fact that the number of independent delegates might vary if shareholders allow it is not a big deal.  To become a delegate, you really have to work to convince people to vote for you.  You have to develop a reputation.  You can destroy that reputation in 10 seconds by misbehaving - because everyone can see what you are doing.  We all instantly know if you signed a bad block - and we know who did it.

That's the big difference.  We know who did it.

From this statement, I am going to assume you believe multiple delegates being controlled by one individual, which is the very definition of a Sybil attack, isn't an issue.

Can you please explain then why Bitshares needs any type of consensus mechanism at all?  I assume you know the purpose of all consensus mechanisms is to prevent Sybil attacks.

With BitShares, a misbehaving delegate is instantly flagged to all shareholders who immediately wake up, vote him out, and go back to sleep.  It only takes one person paying attention to raise the alarm.  Then it takes several more trusted experts to verify the problem and post their opinion.  Then the rank and file owners respond and the problem is gone.  You can't do that with Bitcoin without inciting a damaging fork war - at huge cost to enforce any discipline at all.

How can you be SURE that you eliminate all delegates controlled by the misbehaving individual even if some of their delegates don't misbehave?

Can you please prove for all parties that this attack on your consensus mechanism, referenced to on YOUR FORUM at https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=10937.0;all, has been thwarted and that this individual no longer controls a delegate?  Please provide verifiable blockchain proof.

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?

Doesn't NXT have leased forging? Where you delegate your forging power to a pool? So power like Bitcoin ends up being centralised around a handful of pools?
What % of active NXT do a few of them control at any given time?
How many of the pools are properly vetted?

I haven't looked at NXT for a while, so please explain if it works differently.

We can also vote for delegates with no/low dilution to the point that BitShares would be no inflation and profitable. BitShares holders instead currently vote for circa 1% annual inflation to fund development, infrastructure and marketing.  http://bitsharesblocks.com/delegates

Personally I like no dilution crypto-currency, but I can't see BitShares not growing very big very quickly by being able to fund itself at the early stage whereas other options seem pretty stagnant with no/low marketing and infrastructure development.

Yes, NXT has leased forging, but as I mentioned in this thread, NXT does not force it upon its stakeholders.  There are greater than 101 forgers securing NXT's chain.  NXT's pools are just as "vetted" as Bitshares' delegates.  A main difference would be NXT doesn't charge ~$1100 to pool operators.

Now the Bitshares' cheerleaders will tell you, "What does it matter if the delegates are the same person?"  Surely, they jest.  The ENTIRE REASON behind ALL consensus mechanisms is to prevent SYBIL ATTACKS!  PoW does this with hashpower.  PoS does this with stake.  DPoS claims to be able to do this with "delegates", but this is impossible because multiple delegates can be controlled by one individual.  Some of you might say, well, with NXT's PoS, you can lease your forging power isn't that the same thing?  The difference is this.  NXT doesn't force the social construct onto the chain.  You DON'T have to lease your forging power to anyone!  There is NO reason to lease your forging power to anyone unless you want to receive the tx fees you earn on a more consistent basis at the cost of paying the forging pool operator a fee.  Leasing in NXT was created so you could lease your stake to YOURSELF and keep your main account offline.  Therefore allowing you to protect the network and not keep your main account open on your computer.

[DecentralizeEconomics]

I just found the mother lode of bitsharestalk.org postings answering the question of
why we believe DPOS is better than original POS
(which we still respect greatly).

https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php?topic=5564.0

Bytemaster has indicated that he plans to boil this all down in a new posting coming soon at Bytemaster's Blog

bytemaster.bitshares.org

Yes this is the old, unfounded and incorrect argument that all systems centralize at scale due to cost and therefore, we should design centralization into them.  I find it interesting that Bytemaster is advocating designing "centralization" into Bitshares via DPoS, but they keep claiming to everyone that Bitshares is "DECENTRALIZED".  Hmmm...

Of course this argument fails to take into account that most forgers will be running their computer anyway, especially the businesses who need to run their hardware 24/7/365.

This "theory" was debunked over on the NXT Forum.

[Daedelus]

Nice work so far guys, keep up the good work !

https://i.imgur.com/tkxePZu.jpg

You should take a longer, broader view.





Only a handful are defying Bitcoins fall, only one of them is in the top 10. As has been the case for a while now.

[juicyjuice87]

Nice work so far guys, keep up the good work !

Lol. That has convinced me to buy Btsx. Thanks for sharing!  I love you 2Kool4skewl

[Este Nuno]

You didn't answer these questions:

1 - How is DPoS an "improved" version of PoS seeing that it is clearly a more centralized consensus mechanism?
2 - How does Bitshares rationalize that it is "decentralized" when it is susceptible to and previously undergone a Sybil attack, where actually, Bytemaster voted ONE person into FIVE delegate positions?

Someone having multiple delegate positions is not an attack.  It increases centralisation so is best avoided, but is not an attack.  Would you consider the moment gigahash.io briefly had over 51% of the hashpower on bitcoin an attack even though they didn't actually attack?  Having 5 delegates is no where near enough to even potentially attack the network so please refrain from making wild exaggerations.

Hmm, I don't know. I'm pretty unbiased here and somewhat interested in Bitshares in general, but reading what happened there looks like a pretty clear case of a Sybil attack. Having one guy secretly holding five delegate positions until he was outed by his former group sounds like it fits that definition to me. That's assuming the intention of DPoS is one delegate = one person(or more). Don't have to attack the network itself to succeed in gaining more delegates through a Sybil attack.

I think theoretically you could get a pretty reasonable amount of confidence in 101 DPoS delegates if each delegate was forced to provide significant proof about their real identity including live streaming. Tax documents, IDs and such too. I'm someone who supports the right to stay anonymous in general and I don't put a lot of stake in people providing their real name and such. But some really invasive protocol to prevent Sybil attacks seems like it could plausibly work.

[sumantso]

In NXT and in any PoW, all a pool has to do is offer low rent, or rewards on finding block and everybody would go there. That is a very dangerous option and DPoS forcing the responsibility to be shared between 101 delegates makes it much more difficult to grab 51% of the network.

In NXT/PoW - one individual or group can set up 2-3 pools with incentives and take control. The problem is much more severe in PoW as the shareholders and miners don't overlap fully.

In DPoS - one individual or group has to set up 51 delegates with incentives to take control. Depending on the number of already present known, trusted delegates it may even be impossible. For instance if somebody were to try this now, BM, toast and a few others would be kept voted in regardless. If we can have 51 known, trusted delegates there is no issue.

[sumantso]

That's assuming the intention of DPoS is one delegate = one person(or more).

Its not written in stone but thats what we implicitly assume and expect to be. Keep in mind that the network is in bootstrap phase, and right now this gets some leeway.

I think theoretically you could get a pretty reasonable amount of confidence in 101 DPoS delegates if each delegate was forced to provide significant proof about their real identity including live streaming. Tax documents, IDs and such too. I'm someone who supports the right to stay anonymous in general and I don't put a lot of stake in people providing their real name and such. But some really invasive protocol to prevent Sybil attacks seems like it could plausibly work.

Same issue here, that its in its early days. Right now I can name around 20 delegates who are publicly known and have been working diligently for a long time. Over time if it can go to 51 then there is no problem.

I can also foresee that shareholders won't be favourable to anonymous delegates in general. I don't expect 51 anonymous delegates to get voted in, no matter the incentives, over the older, known and trusted delegates.

[ThomasVeil]

In NXT/PoW - one individual or group can set up 2-3 pools with incentives and take control. ...

In DPoS - one individual or group has to set up 51 delegates with incentives to take control.

Good point.
I actually think DPoS is a smart system at this early time. It will force the forgers to behave well, and support the network.
The issue I see is that politics around delegates will create problems on the social side - like politicking and profiteering. We're seeing it now - and it will get exponentially worse with every price rise.
Regular PoS will get more decentralized with a price rise - as the need to pool will go down.

[sumantso]

Regular PoS will get more decentralized with a price rise - as the need to pool will go down.

The need to pool is based on the need to have a predictable income and reduce variance. The incentive stays the same regardless the level of decentralization. If anything having several big holders mean they are likely to forge on their own rather than feel a need to pool.

One advantage PoS has over PoW is that for pooling the coins have to be left elsewhere which is a big security risk and will play on the mind of the stakeholders.