Do you think Bitcoin should modify to POW + POS ? █████ Poll █████

[ijphlrnxewho]

Do you think Bitcoin should modify its source code from Proof of Work to Proof of Work (POW) and Proof of Stake (POS)?

Proof of Stake will give people a better reason to hold on to Bitcoin for years, and Bitcoin's price should be higher.

Please vote and reply to this thread why or why not.



----------------
Best Proof of Stake coins. Voting Poll
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=786993.0

[1715417592]

1715417592

[1715417592]

1715417592

[1715417592]

1715417592

[1715417592]

1715417592

[micky123]

i would love to have Bitcoin as POW + POS. That way my small stash of coins earn me something for keeping them. Investing BTC to earn some interest is just not possible in the current scenario, too many scammers and ponzi schemes around and i just dont feel safe investing atm.

Currently, i earn some kind of interest by loaning BTC to people, but the inherent risks are just too high, there is always the nagging fear that they might run away with my BTC. If i was earning some interest for my coins, i would very gladly leave them in my wallet and get out of loan sharking, lol! 

[kokojie]

Definite YES.

You don't let some miner from China control your personal finance, why let miners control your Bitcoin network? Bitcoin stakeholders should be the controller of Bitcoin network, not some random profit crazy mining farm from China. The PoW miner's only intention and purpose is to extract value out of Bitcoin eco-system.

[freebeer2go]

Yes, POW is wasteful and insecure (as shown by all the attacked and dead POW altcoins)

[1Referee]

Definite YES.

You don't let some miner from China control your personal finance, why let miners control your Bitcoin network? Bitcoin stakeholders should be the controller of Bitcoin network, not some random profit crazy mining farm from China. The PoW miner's only intention and purpose is to extract value out of Bitcoin eco-system.

Large mining farms all over the world are only heavily invested in hardware to do exact the same thing. It's not only China.

Changing something that Satoshi have created with a purpose is not a great idea.

[pawel7777]

i would love to have Bitcoin as POW + POS. That way my small stash of coins earn me something for keeping them. Investing BTC to earn some interest is just not possible in the current scenario, too many scammers and ponzi schemes around and i just dont feel safe investing atm.

Currently, i earn some kind of interest by loaning BTC to people, but the inherent risks are just too high, there is always the nagging fear that they might run away with my BTC. If i was earning some interest for my coins, i would very gladly leave them in my wallet and get out of loan sharking, lol! 

But that's one of the problems with PoS, it promotes hoarding and kills activity. Less activity leads to less adoption which leads to price decline.

Why non-innovative, ever-inflationary DOGE has similar market cap to innovative and non-inflationary NXT? Because people use DOGE, they tip, they gamble, they spend - that makes it alive.

ps I voted Yes, as I'd like the BTC devs to be more open-minded about implementing different protocol in the future, but I'm not convinced that PoS or PoW/PoS hybrid is the right solution.

[achimsmile]

But that's one of the problems with PoS, it promotes hoarding and kills activity. Less activity leads to less adoption which leads to price decline.

Marketcap isn't everything, it's merely a snapshot of how much people are willing to pay for a coin and can change rather quickly.

It's too early to judge that PoS kills activity. Quite the opposite: In Nxt, numbers of transactions per day steadily increased since July until today (around 3k per day now, which is not a lot compared to bitcoin, but still).

[kokojie]

Definite YES.

You don't let some miner from China control your personal finance, why let miners control your Bitcoin network? Bitcoin stakeholders should be the controller of Bitcoin network, not some random profit crazy mining farm from China. The PoW miner's only intention and purpose is to extract value out of Bitcoin eco-system.

Large mining farms all over the world are only heavily invested in hardware to do exact the same thing. It's not only China.

Changing something that Satoshi have created with a purpose is not a great idea.

Oh yes, the almighty Satoshi can do no wrong? Then why the hell are we paying the core devs for? let's just keep using the version of Satoshi Client from day one. All the changes to Satoshi's code is not a great idea?

What does it matter where the miner is? my point is still valid, why are you letting profit crazy miners at who knows where, control the Bitcoin network, but you the owner and stakeholder of some Bitcoins, have ZERO influence in the Bitcoin network.

[newIndia]

As long as u r in bitcoin, u r stuck to PoW. U can not convince the majority of nodes any more to PoS. GooD Luck

[Flashman]

Definite YES.

You don't let some miner from China control your personal finance, why let miners control your Bitcoin network? Bitcoin stakeholders should be the controller of Bitcoin network, not some random profit crazy mining farm from China. The PoW miner's only intention and purpose is to extract value out of Bitcoin eco-system.

SO BUY A FUCKING MINER.

"It's not MY responsibility to secure the network, but I'm going to whine about those who stepped up"

[pawel7777]

But that's one of the problems with PoS, it promotes hoarding and kills activity. Less activity leads to less adoption which leads to price decline.

Marketcap isn't everything, it's merely a snapshot of how much people are willing to pay for a coin and can change rather quickly.

It's too early to judge that PoS kills activity. Quite the opposite: In Nxt, numbers of transactions per day steadily increased since July until today (around 3k per day now, which is not a lot compared to bitcoin, but still).

I agree it's too early to make a judgement based on comparing any 2 coins. But you don't need empirical data to discuss differences between PoS/PoW designs. You only need common sense for that.

NXT is probably not the best example in this case. Since it's non-inflationary, the only income you get is your share in tx fees (afaik), which atm are very insignificant. Therefore from the average holder's point of view - it's probably better to use it and keep it alive.

Now what would happen if we switch BTC to PoS (with the same issuance model)? You think it would increase activity? You have @micky123 above saying he would stop investing. I know I wouldn't be keen on buying a coffee with my PoS coins and wouldn't touch my stash to tip or donate.

If your coins generate you more coins - you don't want to spend them. Simple.

Right now you have bitcoin hoarders, who (despite all the logic) wouldn't use their coins at all. If they're further incentivised to hoard - why would they change their approach?

[kokojie]

Definite YES.

You don't let some miner from China control your personal finance, why let miners control your Bitcoin network? Bitcoin stakeholders should be the controller of Bitcoin network, not some random profit crazy mining farm from China. The PoW miner's only intention and purpose is to extract value out of Bitcoin eco-system.

SO BUY A FUCKING MINER.

"It's not MY responsibility to secure the network, but I'm going to whine about those who stepped up"

lol, not sure if serious. So in order to hold Bitcoin and have influence in the network, I should go ahead and spend more money to buy a electricity wasting, heat+noise generating machine. Then waste more electricity.

or you know, SWITCH TO FUCKING PROOF OF STAKE, and Bitcoin stakeholders will always have 100% control of the network, instead of relying on profit crazy miners, who probably don't hold any Bitcoin, and only dump Bitcoin as soon as they get it. Plus, mother nature will thank you, since no electricity is wasted with Proof of Stake.

[kokojie]

But that's one of the problems with PoS, it promotes hoarding and kills activity. Less activity leads to less adoption which leads to price decline.

Marketcap isn't everything, it's merely a snapshot of how much people are willing to pay for a coin and can change rather quickly.

It's too early to judge that PoS kills activity. Quite the opposite: In Nxt, numbers of transactions per day steadily increased since July until today (around 3k per day now, which is not a lot compared to bitcoin, but still).

I agree it's too early to make a judgement based on comparing any 2 coins. But you don't need empirical data to discuss differences between PoS/PoW designs. You only need common sense for that.

NXT is probably not the best example in this case. Since it's non-inflationary, the only income you get is your share in tx fees (afaik), which atm are very insignificant. Therefore from the average holder's point of view - it's probably better to use it and keep it alive.

Now what would happen if we switch BTC to PoS (with the same issuance model)? You think it would increase activity? You have @micky123 above saying he would stop investing. I know I wouldn't be keen on buying a coffee with my PoS coins and wouldn't touch my stash to tip or donate.

If your coins generate you more coins - you don't want to spend them. Simple.

Right now you have bitcoin hoarders, who (despite all the logic) wouldn't use their coins at all. If they're further incentivised to hoard - why would they change their approach?

Stop spreading your false logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

[Flashman]

I should go ahead and spend more money to buy a electricity wasting, heat+noise generating machine. Then waste more electricity.

Right, and the government pays your transportation costs to go and do physical banking, and buys you new pants when you wear the pockets out with change.

Everything worth doing costs something, get over it.

[uvt9]

oh no not this subject again.

what a sad attempt to promote those shitty pos coins.

[kokojie]

I should go ahead and spend more money to buy a electricity wasting, heat+noise generating machine. Then waste more electricity.

Right, and the government pays your transportation costs to go and do physical banking, and buys you new pants when you wear the pockets out with change.

Everything worth doing costs something, get over it.

Sure, everything worth doing cost something, I could agree to that. But there is EXPENSIVE and CHEAP costs, yes?

You are insisting doing thing the expensive way, like building a railroad with shovels, while more advanced machinery is available to do it much more cheaply.

Not only you are choosing the expensive way PoW, it's also less secure and you let potentially non-stakeholding profit crazy miners control the Bitcoin network.

[pawel7777]

Stop spreading your retarded logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

Sunshine, let's keep some manners here, OK?

1% interest is less than inflation, does it pay to hold?

Ever heard of negative interest rates? Why did they do that?

http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/negative-interest-rates

Are you now saying that deflation is good for economy?

Besides, USD is a legal tender, so people will be spending it even if they don't want to. You can't really compare it to un-established crypto-currency.

[kokojie]

Stop spreading your retarded logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

Sunshine, let's keep some manners here, OK?

1% interest is less than inflation, does it pay to hold?

Ever heard of negative interest rates? Why did they do that?

http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/negative-interest-rates

Are you now saying that deflation is good for economy?

Besides, USD is a legal tender, so people will be spending it even if they don't want to. You can't really compare it to un-established crypto-currency.

Are you saying deflation is not good for economy? How is this relevant anyway? Proof of Stake can do both inflationary and deflationary, you can take your pick. For example, with Bitcoin, the PoS system can be implemented as deflationary, since Bitcoin is deflationary.

[_mr_e]

But that's one of the problems with PoS, it promotes hoarding and kills activity. Less activity leads to less adoption which leads to price decline.

Marketcap isn't everything, it's merely a snapshot of how much people are willing to pay for a coin and can change rather quickly.

It's too early to judge that PoS kills activity. Quite the opposite: In Nxt, numbers of transactions per day steadily increased since July until today (around 3k per day now, which is not a lot compared to bitcoin, but still).

I agree it's too early to make a judgement based on comparing any 2 coins. But you don't need empirical data to discuss differences between PoS/PoW designs. You only need common sense for that.

NXT is probably not the best example in this case. Since it's non-inflationary, the only income you get is your share in tx fees (afaik), which atm are very insignificant. Therefore from the average holder's point of view - it's probably better to use it and keep it alive.

Now what would happen if we switch BTC to PoS (with the same issuance model)? You think it would increase activity? You have @micky123 above saying he would stop investing. I know I wouldn't be keen on buying a coffee with my PoS coins and wouldn't touch my stash to tip or donate.

If your coins generate you more coins - you don't want to spend them. Simple.

Right now you have bitcoin hoarders, who (despite all the logic) wouldn't use their coins at all. If they're further incentivised to hoard - why would they change their approach?

Stop spreading your false logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

Exactly. And Nxt forging gets you something like 0.5%. It is far better and more profitable to use your nxt to invest or to spend. The goal of nxt forging is to have hundreds of nxt based businesses, all forging blocks to secure the network and protect their business with their running balance, rather then to have people getting rich off forging. For a smaller forger, forging allows you to have quite a few free transactions on the network.

[QuestionAuthority]

Definite YES.

You don't let some miner from China control your personal finance, why let miners control your Bitcoin network? Bitcoin stakeholders should be the controller of Bitcoin network, not some random profit crazy mining farm from China. The PoW miner's only intention and purpose is to extract value out of Bitcoin eco-system.

Those damn Chinese! All they know how to do is make everything Walmart sells and mine Bitcoin. We should develop a virus that attacks fried rice and egg rolls. lol

[jonald_fyookball]

if there was a proposal out here that security experts agreed was viable, sure.  But so far there isn't one.

[Daedelus]

if there was a proposal out here that security experts agreed was viable, sure.  But so far there isn't one.

lol 

[kokojie]

This poll is flawed anyway, since all the PoW miners would come and vote NO.

The poll should be conducted by only allowing Bitcoin stakeholders to vote, and weighted by the amount of their Bitcoin holding.

[Flashman]

The poll should be conducted by only allowing Bitcoin stakeholders to vote, and weighted by the amount of their Bitcoin holding.

Let's do it, Bitminter has about 2K in their pool wallet, as does DiscusFish... all Satoshi's coins were mined not bought so that's another million on our side...

[VectorChief]

By protecting the system from enemy outside PoS coins give too much freedom to enemy within.
PoW allows those two enemies fight each other on the open stage, thus balance between freedom and security is achieved. PoW+PoS is a slippery slope, as people are easily tricked into selling one for another.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xXYeNrW9k

[fenican]

POW is fine. The energy required to maintain the Bitcoin network is fairly trivial and energy is a competed market. If Bitcoin disappeared, electricity producers would compensate for any decrease in demand by lowering prices to a level that spurs people to keep their lights on a bit longer.

There would be no net benefit to the environment if Bitcoin disappeared tomorrow. It might actually harm the environment since more people would use bank notes produced from felled trees rather than electricity produced from Nuclear sources.

[jonald_fyookball]

POW is fine. The energy required to maintain the Bitcoin network is fairly trivial and energy is a competed market. If Bitcoin disappeared, electricity producers would compensate for any decrease in demand by lowering prices to a level that spurs people to keep their lights on a bit longer.

There would be no net benefit to the environment if Bitcoin disappeared tomorrow. It might actually harm the environment since more people would use bank notes produced from felled trees rather than electricity produced from Nuclear sources.

Agreed.  the benefit to introducing any POS element would be security, not environmentalism.

[Daedelus]

POW is fine. The energy required to maintain the Bitcoin network is fairly trivial and energy is a competed market. If Bitcoin disappeared, electricity producers would compensate for any decrease in demand by lowering prices to a level that spurs people to keep their lights on a bit longer.

There would be no net benefit to the environment if Bitcoin disappeared tomorrow. It might actually harm the environment since more people would use bank notes produced from felled trees rather than electricity produced from Nuclear sources.

Agreed.  the benefit to introducing any POS element would be security, not environmentalism.

So you would be happy if you could have both?

[jonald_fyookball]

POW is fine. The energy required to maintain the Bitcoin network is fairly trivial and energy is a competed market. If Bitcoin disappeared, electricity producers would compensate for any decrease in demand by lowering prices to a level that spurs people to keep their lights on a bit longer.

There would be no net benefit to the environment if Bitcoin disappeared tomorrow. It might actually harm the environment since more people would use bank notes produced from felled trees rather than electricity produced from Nuclear sources.

Agreed.  the benefit to introducing any POS element would be security, not environmentalism.

So you would be happy if you could have both?

both what?

[Daedelus]

Security and environmentalism.

[jonald_fyookball]

Security and environmentalism.

no, I am not overly concerned with environmentalism, and don't believe there is much threat from consuming electricity.

[Daedelus]

Interesting.

[saddampbuh]

please add an option for pos only, pos + pow together is pointless, a token amount of interest is not an incentive to hold coins while mining is still creating 10% or whatever annual inflation

[amincd]

NO. PoW is compact. It's the most decentralized consensus protocol. PoW mining is embarrassingly parallel and potentially very anonymous, and that's what's needed to create a decentralized global consensus.

[Flashman]

Security and environmentalism.

no, I am not overly concerned with environmentalism, and don't believe there is much threat from consuming electricity.

Yup, if sucking juice is much threat, enviro-extremists need to start firebombing all those assholes with plug-in hybrids.

Fact is, anything that you turn on and off, especially at specific times of the day, sponsors fossil fuel power plants, because those are the ones that can most respond to sudden load increases and drops, utilities commonly have to fire up and idle gas and coal plants for such events as earth hour, and superbowl commercial breaks, so they can rev them up to full power the instant all the sheeple do the same thing at once, like turn the lights back on or make popcorn/hot drink.

The corollary of that is that anything that provides a steady constant load sponsors clean, efficient generation. Oddly enough, the sources that like just to put out a steady stream of power are things like hydroelectric projects, which oddly enough are the very cheapest sources of electricity, which oddly enough seem to be attracting bitcoin mining facilities to places like Washington State and Quebec where they have a lot of that stuff.

[crypt0xx]

Such as REDD coin? I believe it modified from pow to pos

[Daedelus]

Security and environmentalism.

no, I am not overly concerned with environmentalism, and don't believe there is much threat from consuming electricity.

Yup, if sucking juice is much threat, enviro-extremists need to start firebombing all those assholes with plug-in hybrids.

Fact is, anything that you turn on and off, especially at specific times of the day, sponsors fossil fuel power plants, because those are the ones that can most respond to sudden load increases and drops, utilities commonly have to fire up and idle gas and coal plants for such events as earth hour, and superbowl commercial breaks, so they can rev them up to full power the instant all the sheeple do the same thing at once, like turn the lights back on or make popcorn/hot drink.

The corollary of that is that anything that provides a steady constant load sponsors clean, efficient generation. Oddly enough, the sources that like just to put out a steady stream of power are things like hydroelectric projects, which oddly enough are the very cheapest sources of electricity, which oddly enough seem to be attracting bitcoin mining facilities to places like Washington State and Quebec where they have a lot of that stuff.

I think he is serious...

[fran2k]

Hard Fork with DPoS.

Then we will have 25x6x24x30 = 108k BTC / month

or 28 MUSD a month max for expenses in delegates.

We could use a random 1001 delegates. Then the bitcoin blockchain will have a max 28 kusd/month 1001 employes. For development, marketing and others.

Some delegates payment should be employed to buy all the mining hardware and put it at a museum.

The inflation will be lower as will be very difficult to reach 100% payment on all 1001 delegates.

[jonald_fyookball]

if you are actually serious, you might want
to read this post and those that follow: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=905385.msg9995601#msg9995601

[achimsmile]

Security and environmentalism.

no, I am not overly concerned with environmentalism, and don't believe there is much threat from consuming electricity.

Yup, if sucking juice is much threat, enviro-extremists need to start firebombing all those assholes with plug-in hybrids.

I think he is serious...

I don't know, is he serious? Are you serious Flashman?

Every human uses energy, and energy is limited. There's no need to be an environmentalist to see that we should not try to waste a lot of energy.

[achimsmile]

if you are actually serious, you might want
to read this post and those that follow: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=905385.msg9995601#msg9995601

You are right. I see DPoS as a trade between less decentralization but more transaction speed.

Nothng wrong with that, but I like 100% decentralized blockchains more.

[Lauda]

Voting yes would be a mistake.
Stop complaining about miners controlling the network. Anyone can mine,thus that's no real reason.

[crazyearner]

I voted yes for the simple fact it would help out where higher diffs are and would allow to control some of the greedy ones and remove some of the massive diff spikes that happen with POW. Even maybe to have a CAP on how much power can be put across the network and have better control over the entire network. Maybe have something new like a minable POS filed where so much power can be put towards it but only gets x amount compared to normal POW mining. Or it gets re worked and mastered into having multipul algorythems in the future would be nice. But still can only have 21 million total coins acros all algos

[jonald_fyookball]

Even maybe to have a CAP on how much power can be put across the network

I don't see how that would be possible.   How are you going to limit people from finding blocks?

[Flashman]

I don't know, is he serious? Are you serious Flashman?

Every human uses energy, and energy is limited. There's no need to be an environmentalist to see that we should not try to waste a lot of energy.

If you have a few million wasteful fuckers crammed into a metropolitan area with an ageing grid, yah, energy is limited, if you have a nice big dam and reservoir in the middle of nowhere, then energy is abundant. Thing is, all those millions of wasteful fuckers don't want to go live near the dam, so someone comes up with a scheme to finance the 100 thousand dollars a mile to get the hydroelectric to them and charge them out the arse for it. Plus they don't want JUST a nice steady flow of juice, they wanna come home and turn all their shit on at 5pm, so there also has to be a fossil fuel plant in there somewhere, coz you can't make water fall any faster than gravity wants it to for the hour or two every day that they want to zap their frozen dinners.

Anyway, renewable  and zero emission energy is abundant, getting it to where people like to be is a problem. Bitcoin ASICs don't want to live somewhere where theres a Walmart and Nightlife, thus don't need to have big thick high tension lines run across whole state(s) to supply them, they go near the abundant energy, they get it cheap. Scarcity is artificial, it's determined by grid and concentrations of demand, not sources.

[pawel7777]

Stop spreading your retarded logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

Sunshine, let's keep some manners here, OK?

1% interest is less than inflation, does it pay to hold?

Ever heard of negative interest rates? Why did they do that?

http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/negative-interest-rates

Are you now saying that deflation is good for economy?

Besides, USD is a legal tender, so people will be spending it even if they don't want to. You can't really compare it to un-established crypto-currency.

Are you saying deflation is not good for economy?...

Yes.

How is this relevant anyway? Proof of Stake can do both inflationary and deflationary, you can take your pick. For example, with Bitcoin, the PoS system can be implemented as deflationary, since Bitcoin is deflationary.

It's relevant to the "USD has 1% interest on savings accounts" argument you used.

Again:

If we switch bitcoin to pure PoS, without changing issuance model, what would prevent the majority from hoarding? It's a simple question.

[pawel7777]

But that's one of the problems with PoS, it promotes hoarding and kills activity. Less activity leads to less adoption which leads to price decline.

Marketcap isn't everything, it's merely a snapshot of how much people are willing to pay for a coin and can change rather quickly.

It's too early to judge that PoS kills activity. Quite the opposite: In Nxt, numbers of transactions per day steadily increased since July until today (around 3k per day now, which is not a lot compared to bitcoin, but still).

I agree it's too early to make a judgement based on comparing any 2 coins. But you don't need empirical data to discuss differences between PoS/PoW designs. You only need common sense for that.

NXT is probably not the best example in this case. Since it's non-inflationary, the only income you get is your share in tx fees (afaik), which atm are very insignificant. Therefore from the average holder's point of view - it's probably better to use it and keep it alive.

Now what would happen if we switch BTC to PoS (with the same issuance model)? You think it would increase activity? You have @micky123 above saying he would stop investing. I know I wouldn't be keen on buying a coffee with my PoS coins and wouldn't touch my stash to tip or donate.

If your coins generate you more coins - you don't want to spend them. Simple.

Right now you have bitcoin hoarders, who (despite all the logic) wouldn't use their coins at all. If they're further incentivised to hoard - why would they change their approach?

Stop spreading your false logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

Exactly. And Nxt forging gets you something like 0.5%. It is far better and more profitable to use your nxt to invest or to spend. The goal of nxt forging is to have hundreds of nxt based businesses, all forging blocks to secure the network and protect their business with their running balance, rather then to have people getting rich off forging. For a smaller forger, forging allows you to have quite a few free transactions on the network.

Did you basically repeat what I said to use as an argument against what I said?

[kokojie]

Stop spreading your retarded logic. USD has 1% interest on savings accounts, does it stop anyone from spending USD?

Sunshine, let's keep some manners here, OK?

1% interest is less than inflation, does it pay to hold?

Ever heard of negative interest rates? Why did they do that?

http://www.bloombergview.com/quicktake/negative-interest-rates

Are you now saying that deflation is good for economy?

Besides, USD is a legal tender, so people will be spending it even if they don't want to. You can't really compare it to un-established crypto-currency.

Are you saying deflation is not good for economy?...

Yes.

How is this relevant anyway? Proof of Stake can do both inflationary and deflationary, you can take your pick. For example, with Bitcoin, the PoS system can be implemented as deflationary, since Bitcoin is deflationary.

It's relevant to the "USD has 1% interest on savings accounts" argument you used.

Again:

If we switch bitcoin to pure PoS, without changing issuance model, what would prevent the majority from hoarding? It's a simple question.

How does USD stop people from hoarding? if inflationary currency is needed, then so be it, you can petition to change Bitcoin to inflationary. You can go ahead and push for your ideal model. It has nothing to do with PoS, since it can do both.

Bitcoin is also deflationary, how do you stop people from hoarding Bitcoin? How does PoW vs PoS have anything to do with this?

[inBitweTrust]

Bitcoin is also deflationary,

False. Bitcoin is disinflationary. ~10% inflation now, ~5% 2016 , ~2.5 2020, ~1.25% 2024, ect....
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/disinflation.asp

Nxt has 0 inflation now after the ICO, and Bitshares has moments of hyperinflation ~2Billion to ~2.5Billion (unknown when and if this will occur again)

you can petition to change Bitcoin to inflationary. You can go ahead and push for your ideal model. It has nothing to do with PoS, since it can do both.

Bitcoin is unlikely to ever remove PoW because of vested interests and security concerns, but I could potentially see a TaPoS layer one day added upon it to enhance security and confirmation speed. Discussing the possibility of convincing miners and vested interests from switching completely away from PoW or changing the 21 million limit appears to be an effort in futility.

Good news ..... Once miner block rewards are minimized , security may have to be supplemented with many other discussed means, thus there isn't some infinite energy drain that some PoW critics suggest. PoW will essentially be limited by profitability from transaction volumes and thus hashrate will only be increased based upon ASIC effieciency advancements or if we develop unlimited power from fusion tech(unlikely).

[Flashman]

but I could potentially see a TaPoS layer one day added upon it to enhance security and confirmation speed. Discussing the possibility of convincing miners and vested interests from switching completely away from PoW or changing the 21 million limit appears to be an effort in futility.

I'd think something like a sidechain, where 10,000 bitcoins are burned to create a million "new" coins, then y'all can play in PoS paradise and gradually use the value of the coin to buy more and more bitcoins into the PoS system. Then when you've got all the bitcoins, you can turn PoW off.

[inBitweTrust]

but I could potentially see a TaPoS layer one day added upon it to enhance security and confirmation speed. Discussing the possibility of convincing miners and vested interests from switching completely away from PoW or changing the 21 million limit appears to be an effort in futility.

I'd think something like a sidechain, where 10,000 bitcoins are burned to create a million "new" coins, then y'all can play in PoS paradise and gradually use the value of the coin to buy more and more bitcoins into the PoS system. Then when you've got all the bitcoins, you can turn PoW off.

Sidechain or not. No need for burning bitcoins, as someone could simply create a TaPoS blockchain that mirrored and synced the distribution of BTC and than have a wallet acknowledge both blockchains but have the TaPoS layer hidden where only BTC is used and the TaPoS layer acts to add another form of security that could have 1-30 second confirmation times in addition to PoW 10 min confirmation times.

I.E... pay for a cup of Coffee the confirmations start rolling in this way:
TaPoS 1 second confirmation, TaPoS 3 second confirmation, TaPoS 5 second confirmation, TaPoS 10 second confirmation, TaPoS 30 second confirmation, TaPoS 1 min confirmation, TaPoS 3min confirmation, TaPoS 5 min confirmation,TaPoS 7min confirmation, PoW Bitcoin 1st confirmation ~10min, TaPoS 13min confirmation, ect...

This would allow you to have instant confirmations and better security because now you are trusting full nodes and miners and you could detect a PoW 51% attack if the TaPoS confirmations weren't confirming while the PoW confirmations were.

You wouldn't even need a softfork or hardfork to accomplish this, just a TapoS blockchain and a wallet that acknowledged it.

[Zhan21]

Operators force centralization trend is getting worse, a large number of small miners exit. It is time to consider how to allocate .

[desired_username]

Can someone from the "change camp" please explain what they are expecting from such a change?

I suspect that altcoin sales people are brigading this poll.

[achimsmile]

Can someone from the "change camp" please explain what they are expecting from such a change?

I suspect that altcoin sales people are brigading this poll.

Less centralization by mining companies/pools , much less electricity wasted compared to PoW

[pawel7777]

How does USD stop people from hoarding?

Do you honestly need an explanation why stashing USD under your mattress is financially not a good idea?

...if inflationary currency is needed, then so be it, you can petition to change Bitcoin to inflationary. You can go ahead and push for your ideal model. It has nothing to do with PoS, since it can do both.

Bitcoin is also deflationary, how do you stop people from hoarding Bitcoin? How does PoW vs PoS have anything to do with this?

I'm not pushing for anything. I see some pros and cons with both PoS and PoW, while you seem to stuck with logic "PoW sucks because of mining costs, therefore PoS must be perfect".

Lets take this scenario:

1) You have X PoW bitcoins, which is x% of total existing bitcoins. Since new coins are issued every day, if you want to maintain your x% you have to be active. You'd have to buy/mine/invest/scam/steal/gamble/create new BTC business/lend out etc.

2) You have X PoS bitcoins. To maintain your X% of total BTC, you have to do nothing, you just need to stake up all your coins in the wallet and don't use them.

Which system promotes activity and which one discourages it?

[jubalix]

Pos is probally going to happen sooner or later to BTC. The head wind of mining is an issue. Further PeerCoin has just implemented cold minting, which mean your coins can not be stolen even if they get the private key for minting (which would be the only one exposed to a hack). Your sending key is kept of line if you wish.

That right 2 keys, one for minting one for sending.

Peercoin is solving the problems, now.

The BTC argument is mining is an external factor vs minting in internal and so can not be checked. Sort of an unbounded out put from a bounded input argument, or no -ve feed back loop to keep it stable. I have not seen a rigorous proof for this assertion yet.

The next argument of BTC is that there is nothing at stake for POS, so you can mint n-chains at once. But who cares? This is just like merged mining, which happens now for POW. This doesn't make IXC coin or IOC the same value as BTC? So that argument falls flat as well.

Another argument is Hording. So what a bitcoin is very divisible or near enough not and issue


So there is not real argument that has been tendered that say we cant use POS

[hl5460]

That's impossible. It will make bitcoin a clone of peercoin.

[achimsmile]

Pos is probally going to happen sooner or later to BTC. The head wind of mining is an issue. Further PeerCoin has just implemented cold minting, which mean your coins can not be stolen even if they get the private key for minting (which would be the only one exposed to a hack). Your sending key is kept of line if you wish.

Same is already possible in Nxt since more than half a year. You can lease your forging power from your offline wallet to your online wallet, the private keys of your stash can completely remain on an offline machine.

[Daedelus]

Pos is probally going to happen sooner or later to BTC. The head wind of mining is an issue. Further PeerCoin has just implemented cold minting, which mean your coins can not be stolen even if they get the private key for minting (which would be the only one exposed to a hack). Your sending key is kept of line if you wish.

Same is already possible in Nxt. You can lease your forging power from your offline wallet to your online wallet, the private keys of your stash can completely remain on an offline machine.

True, this has been implemented in Nxt since April 2014.


When minting on n-chains at once (aka multibranch Forging), n grows exponentially with time. To keep signing each new branch attempting to get a better chain, POS will then tend towards becoming POW. So allowing multibranch forging is a positive for properly implemented POS.

Research papers available for anyone interested...

[jubalix]

That's impossible. It will make bitcoin a clone of peercoin.

that's not an argument to make something impossible.

[jubalix]

Pos is probally going to happen sooner or later to BTC. The head wind of mining is an issue. Further PeerCoin has just implemented cold minting, which mean your coins can not be stolen even if they get the private key for minting (which would be the only one exposed to a hack). Your sending key is kept of line if you wish.

Same is already possible in Nxt since more than half a year. You can lease your forging power from your offline wallet to your online wallet, the private keys of your stash can completely remain on an offline machine.

this sounds a bit different. How do you get the minting lease back? Is there a minting priv key with a time expire or something.

I am not familiar with this.

Ok read a bit. So you give over forging power to another hmmm ? address I guess? is that right. So you could just lease it out to another address and then it auto reverts after time expires. This mean your nxt is vulnerable when you send them only eg enter password to do this. So it seems a bit different in that respect.

Forging power is being split from the coin (nxt) rather than cold minting the coin insitu. I kind amounts to the same thing I guess. Eg I could give some one my priv peercoin minting key and they pay me. If the dont pay I just move my coin to a new address. Similarly with the next version the lessor has to actually pay they may not pay up, then you wait until the lease expires. I think the Peercoin version is cleaner as you are not locked in beyond the next sending block at any time. Nor do you ever have to enter your sending privkey exposed. In next you have to fire up your nrs and put passphrase in. Not a bigge though as you just have the right machine for the job.

[Daedelus]

Private key for minting = Online account (and its passphrase)
Sending key = Offline account (and its passphrase).

Offline transaction is prepared offline using the passphrase once a month (roughly) for the leasing. Prepared transaction is broadcast on the network. No exposure of offline key (passphrase) to the network.

How is it different? Is this live in Peercoin or still being discussed?

[Flashman]

Can someone from the "change camp" please explain what they are expecting from such a change?

It's all about stealing the wealth that people have entrusted to bitcoin, to reclone alts as bitcoin that people have specifically NOT entrusted wealth to.

Basically the formation of a quasi-state like entity to say "Hey, I see how you want your money to work, well tough shit, we're gonna take it away and do what WE want with it."

[achimsmile]

I think the Peercoin version is cleaner as you are not locked in beyond the next sending block at any time. Nor do you ever have to enter your sending privkey exposed.

You are not locked in beyond the next sending block with Nxt either. You prepare a lease transaction offline, switch machines, broadcast it. I do it all the time and it's quite easy with this little software: https://nxtforum.org/keystash-core-releases/

You can cancel the lease anytime you want and have full control over your funds, they are not locked. If you want you can send out funds from your cold wallet during the lease (will decrease forging power).

So, privkeys are not exposed, funds are not locked, and it's live on mainnet.

[jubalix]

I think the Peercoin version is cleaner as you are not locked in beyond the next sending block at any time. Nor do you ever have to enter your sending privkey exposed.

You are not locked in beyond the next sending block with Nxt either. You prepare a lease transaction offline, switch machines, broadcast it. I do it all the time and it's quite easy with this little software: https://nxtforum.org/keystash-core-releases/

You can cancel the lease anytime you want and have full control over your funds, they are not locked. If you want you can send out funds from your cold wallet during the lease (will decrease forging power).

So, privkeys are not exposed, funds are not locked, and it's live on mainnet.

the swapping machines bit as I stated yes ok this may be done for both.

You for nxt would have to do it from both ends though, eg you have to send the profits back some how so you have to log into the receiving address and send profits back. It's not a big issues, but seems a bit awkward. It's good for pooling though!

[achimsmile]

You for nxt would have to do it from both ends though, eg you have to send the profits back some how so you have to log into the receiving address and send profits back.

Well, you don't have to send profits back, but if you want to, you would log into your online machine and send the generated fees back from hot wallet to cold wallet.
In peercoin, would the offline wallet automatically recieve minted coins? Apart from that, the ideas look similar.

Is this already implemented in peercoin?

[MarketNeutral]

No, keep Bitcoin PoW.

If you want PoS, then use PeerCoin and let Sunny King be your king.

[Flashman]

Yah srsly, if it's about using and promoting PoS crypto, take your money and fuck off into one.

If it's about a money grab so bitcoins market cap serves your personal agenda, well... keep plugging.

[Daedelus]

Yah srsly, if it's about using and promoting PoS crypto, take your money and fuck off into one.

If it's about a money grab so bitcoins market cap serves your personal agenda, well... keep plugging.

If you think BTC/POW is secure in its position, why do you think talking about POS will have any effect on anything?

[kokojie]

Yah srsly, if it's about using and promoting PoS crypto, take your money and fuck off into one.

If it's about a money grab so bitcoins market cap serves your personal agenda, well... keep plugging.

Your post history indicates you are an investor of PoW Mining companies. Surely your opinion is neutral. YOU FUCK OFF, PoW miner shill.

[Flashman]

What? I've been a part of keeping bitcoin running the last 2 years and I'm the shill? What have you done for bitcoin lately?

[kokojie]

What? I've been a part of keeping bitcoin running the last 2 years and I'm the shill? What have you done for bitcoin lately?

PoW mining is NOT NEEDED to keep Bitcoin running, it's a waste and leech, its only purpose is extracting value out of Bitcoin.

I run a Bitcoin promotional website, and also run a Bitcoin full node. See my god damn signature.

[Flashman]

Whoop de woo, a full node, like I haven't been doing that since I started.

I am voluntarily participating in bitcoin as it was designed to work, shame on me.

[kokojie]

Whoop de woo, a full node, like I haven't been doing that since I started.

I am voluntarily participating in bitcoin as it was designed to work, shame on me.

PoW mining was useful for a time, since there wasn't yet any successful PoS systems running.

But now that time has passed, many PoS systems successfully running. No reason to keep buying VHS tapes, when Netflix streaming is available.

[Flashman]

So successful in fact that you resist moving to them and troll BITCOINtalk with incessant pleas to be just like them.

[inBitweTrust]

What? I've been a part of keeping bitcoin running the last 2 years and I'm the shill? What have you done for bitcoin lately?

PoW mining is NOT NEEDED to keep Bitcoin running, it's a waste and leech, its only purpose is extracting value out of Bitcoin.

I run a Bitcoin promotional website, and also run a Bitcoin full node. See my god damn signature.

Your coming off extremely judgmental and like you have a sense of entitlement to how Bitcoin should be designed and anything that isn't going your way is a "waste and leach" towards your vision of bitcoin.

Bitcoin was designed around PoW, perhaps it will change , perhaps not, but you have no place calling people shills or leaches when talking about them simply fulfilling Satoshi's design protocol.

Bitcoin is voluntary, and no one is imposing it upon you, like no one is imposing Bitshares upon us ... we are free to use either or both.
Throwing hissy fits because others don't agree with you doesn't help your cause either.

[calaber24p]

My problem with POW is mining centralization. If you thought that centralized pools were a problem, just wait until there are 1 or 2 asic producers who will chose to just mine instead of selling their products and keep their designs secret. At that point the barrier to entry for outsiders to design and create asics will be too high. Mining has "natural monopoly" written all over it.

[LeChatNoir]

Bitcoin will simply die POW, people who wants to really preserve their wealth can buy some of the top POS available, i did and i haven't regret so far.

[kokojie]

What? I've been a part of keeping bitcoin running the last 2 years and I'm the shill? What have you done for bitcoin lately?

PoW mining is NOT NEEDED to keep Bitcoin running, it's a waste and leech, its only purpose is extracting value out of Bitcoin.

I run a Bitcoin promotional website, and also run a Bitcoin full node. See my god damn signature.

Your coming off extremely judgmental and like you have a sense of entitlement to how Bitcoin should be designed and anything that isn't going your way is a "waste and leach" towards your vision of bitcoin.

Bitcoin was designed around PoW, perhaps it will change , perhaps not, but you have no place calling people shills or leaches when talking about them simply fulfilling Satoshi's design protocol.

Bitcoin is voluntary, and no one is imposing it upon you, like no one is imposing Bitshares upon us ... we are free to use either or both.
Throwing hissy fits because others don't agree with you doesn't help your cause either.

Again, when there's a leech on my leg, I kill the leech, instead of cutting off my leg. So as a stakeholder of Bitcoin, I will try to kill the Bitcoin leech, instead off cutting off my Bitcoin stake.

[Flashman]

My problem with POW is mining centralization.

Apart from the inconvenient fact of it not actually happening, this...

https://blockchain.info/pools

Is looking more decentralised than it has for 2 years or so.

[jonald_fyookball]

Whoop de woo, a full node, like I haven't been doing that since I started.

I am voluntarily participating in bitcoin as it was designed to work, shame on me.

PoW mining was useful for a time, since there wasn't yet any successful PoS systems running.

But now that time has passed, many PoS systems successfully running. No reason to keep buying VHS tapes, when Netflix streaming is available.

The thing is that while PoS systems may be working in practice on a small scale right now, the security experts are all claiming that poS really does not provide distributed consensus and one can see this for themselves.  

I myself am open minded and would open to poW +poS if viable.

But why are you so against PoW and mining?

[kokojie]

So successful in fact that you resist moving to them and troll BITCOINtalk with incessant pleas to be just like them.

lol, you are the one trolling, since this poll shows at least 50% people agrees with me and vote YES.

The NO votes are probably all miner shills like you, since they have to protect their mining interest. The YES votes don't need to protect any interest, but are truly people asking for change in Bitcoin.

[Daedelus]

The thing is that while PoS systems may be working in practice on a small scale right now, the security experts are all claiming that poS really does not provide distributed consensus and one can see this for themselves.  

Sources?

[QuestionAuthority]

This is a ridiculous idea. Let Bitcoin sink or swim as it exists now. Don't try to fix it. If it succeeds, we all own some and will profit. If it starts to fail we can always trade our btc for its successor. At this point, I don't even want it fixed. I think multiple coins may be necessary to do everything people want to do, one for anynomity, one for large international funds transfer, one for micropayments/tipping, and so on. The one that ends up being the most secure will end up taking the large dollar amount transfer business. Bitcoin can keep micropayments/tipping. Darkcoin may end up being the winner for privacy.

[Flashman]

Again, when there's a leech on my leg, I kill the leech, instead of cutting off my leg. So as a stakeholder of Bitcoin, I will try to kill the Bitcoin leech, instead off cutting off my Bitcoin stake.

So you are afraid of the current PoS currencies? Moving your wealth into them is as drastically equivalent to cutting off your leg? Why would that be?

[kokojie]

So successful in fact that you resist moving to them and troll BITCOINtalk with incessant pleas to be just like them.

lol, you are the one trolling, since this poll shows at least 50% people agrees with me and vote YES.

The NO votes are probably all miner shills like you, since they have to protect their mining interest. The YES votes don't need to protect any interest, but are truly people asking for change in Bitcoin.

I NO voted because it could be an issue with forking, we don't want two versions of bitcoin floating about.

Forking is a non-issue, Bitcoin has had multiple hard forks in the past. The community will choose the fork that are released and checkpointed by the core devs always.

[kokojie]

Again, when there's a leech on my leg, I kill the leech, instead of cutting off my leg. So as a stakeholder of Bitcoin, I will try to kill the Bitcoin leech, instead off cutting off my Bitcoin stake.

So you are afraid of the current PoS currencies? Moving your wealth into them is as drastically equivalent to cutting off your leg? Why would that be?

Of course it is, I owned Bitcoin since April 2011, it wouldn't be a drastic move to move my entire Bitcoin stake into an altcoin? don't be ridiculous. Pushing for change in Bitcoin is a much more sensible move for Bitcoin stakeholders. Though for you mining shill, moving to PoS it's a disaster of course, you can no longer leech value out of Bitcoin.

[Flashman]

I NO voted because it could be an issue with forking, we don't want two versions of bitcoin floating about.

Yah, I don't know why I'm bothering to argue really, I would be quite happy to instantly dump my coin in the PoS fork and double down on the PoW fork.

[inBitweTrust]

Again, when there's a leech on my leg, I kill the leech, instead of cutting off my leg. So as a stakeholder of Bitcoin, I will try to kill the Bitcoin leech, instead off cutting off my Bitcoin stake.

2 points :

1) You seem incapable to empathize with the arguments from others that PoW offers different and possibly better security benefits than PoS/DPoS
2) Using your analogy you are indeed cutting off the leg or at least taking a chunk of meat out with your approach to changing Bitcoin

You appear to me as someone who doesn't have much experience working on open source projects where people voluntarily contribute code. Unless you are the project coordinator or cheif github maintainer that has been earned through years of contributions in code you have no place to be making the demands you are making.

If you truly want bitcoin to change consensus mechanisms than you either need to start contributing to the open source repo and interacting with devs in a positive way or indirectly by hiring or befriending the devs directly.

whining on a web forum is not going to produce results and may even be counter productive.

[onemorebtc]

So successful in fact that you resist moving to them and troll BITCOINtalk with incessant pleas to be just like them.

lol, you are the one trolling, since this poll shows at least 50% people agrees with me and vote YES.

The NO votes are probably all miner shills like you, since they have to protect their mining interest. The YES votes don't need to protect any interest, but are truly people asking for change in Bitcoin.

i voted no and i stopped mining a looong time ago.
i just dont think any pos system offers the same security as pow does.
and i like to keep my money secure..

if you store your gold open in your garden please dont force me to do the same because i prefer to use power to secure mine

[kokojie]

Again, when there's a leech on my leg, I kill the leech, instead of cutting off my leg. So as a stakeholder of Bitcoin, I will try to kill the Bitcoin leech, instead off cutting off my Bitcoin stake.

2 points :

1) You seem incapable to empathize with the arguments from others that PoW offers different and possibly better security benefits than PoS/DPoS
2) Using your analogy you are indeed cutting off the leg or at least taking a chunk of meat out with your approach to changing Bitcoin

You appear to me as someone who doesn't have much experience working on open source projects where people voluntarily contribute code. Unless you are the project coordinator or cheif github maintainer that has been earned through years of contributions in code you have no place to be making the demands you are making.

If you truly want bitcoin to change consensus mechanisms than you either need to start contributing to the open source repo and interacting with devs in a positive way or indirectly by hiring or befriending the devs directly.

whining on a web forum is not going to produce results and may even be counter productive.

Don't be ridiculous, only developers can influence change in Bitcoin? All the non-coding Bitcoin community can just shut up then?

[Flashman]

Of course it is, I owned Bitcoin since April 2011, it wouldn't be a drastic move to move my entire Bitcoin stake into an altcoin? don't be ridiculous. Pushing for change in Bitcoin is a much more sensible move for Bitcoin stakeholders. Though for you mining shill, moving to PoS it's a disaster of course, you can no longer leech value out of Bitcoin.

So your position is that PoS is proven, but not actually proven enough that YOUR money should be at risk?

[kokojie]

So successful in fact that you resist moving to them and troll BITCOINtalk with incessant pleas to be just like them.

lol, you are the one trolling, since this poll shows at least 50% people agrees with me and vote YES.

The NO votes are probably all miner shills like you, since they have to protect their mining interest. The YES votes don't need to protect any interest, but are truly people asking for change in Bitcoin.

i voted no and i stopped mining a looong time ago.
i just dont think any pos system offers the same security as pow does.
and i like to keep my money secure..

if you store your gold open in your garden please dont force me to do the same because i prefer to use power to secure mine

Just the opposite, PoW is really lacking in security, PoS offers hundreds time better security. PoW altcoins are a joke to attack and kill. No PoS altcoin has fallen to attacks yet.

[kokojie]

Of course it is, I owned Bitcoin since April 2011, it wouldn't be a drastic move to move my entire Bitcoin stake into an altcoin? don't be ridiculous. Pushing for change in Bitcoin is a much more sensible move for Bitcoin stakeholders. Though for you mining shill, moving to PoS it's a disaster of course, you can no longer leech value out of Bitcoin.

So your position is that PoS is proven, but not actually proven enough that YOUR money should be at risk?

No, it's more of a: Berlin has better subway system, I don't quit my job, uproot my family and move to Berlin, I influence change in my home town to have the same subway system. Got it?

[onemorebtc]

Just the opposite, PoW is really lacking in security, PoS offers hundreds time better security. PoW altcoins are a joke to attack and kill. No PoS altcoin has fallen to attacks yet.

your opinion

and "it hasnt been broken yet" is not an acceptable argument for security

[inBitweTrust]

Again, when there's a leech on my leg, I kill the leech, instead of cutting off my leg. So as a stakeholder of Bitcoin, I will try to kill the Bitcoin leech, instead off cutting off my Bitcoin stake.

2 points :

1) You seem incapable to empathize with the arguments from others that PoW offers different and possibly better security benefits than PoS/DPoS
2) Using your analogy you are indeed cutting off the leg or at least taking a chunk of meat out with your approach to changing Bitcoin

You appear to me as someone who doesn't have much experience working on open source projects where people voluntarily contribute code. Unless you are the project coordinator or cheif github maintainer that has been earned through years of contributions in code you have no place to be making the demands you are making.

If you truly want bitcoin to change consensus mechanisms than you either need to start contributing to the open source repo and interacting with devs in a positive way or indirectly by hiring or befriending the devs directly.

whining on a web forum is not going to produce results and may even be counter productive.

Don't be ridiculous, only developers can influence change in Bitcoin? All the non-coding Bitcoin community can just shut up then?

We are taking about changing the consensus mechanism from PoW to PoS/DPoS ... of course only the devs can accomplish this. We are talking about code here. If you read my statement non-developers can only indirectly influence devs.

[Daedelus]

i just dont think any pos system offers the same security as pow does.

What makes you think this?

[kokojie]

Just the opposite, PoW is really lacking in security, PoS offers hundreds time better security. PoW altcoins are a joke to attack and kill. No PoS altcoin has fallen to attacks yet.

your opinion

and "it hasnt been broken yet" is not an acceptable argument for security

Wait what? proven broken vs not broken yet, is not an argument for security? So you will choose the proven broken, vs the not yet broken? You will choose an already cracked ecryption algo, over AES-256?

[onemorebtc]

We are taking about changing the consensus mechanism from PoW to PoS/DPoS ... of coarse only the devs can accomplish this. We are talking about code here. If you read my statement non-developers can only indirectly influence devs.

the point is *ANY* dev can do this change. thats the beauty for oss... it doesnt matter if its gavin or your friend peter

the question is whom the users will follow...

i would just sell my pos bitcoin for real ones

[inBitweTrust]

i just dont think any pos system offers the same security as pow does.

What makes you think this?

This has been discussed Ad Naseum... start with Vitalik's multiple articles before he settled upon PoW for ethereum:

https://blog.ethereum.org/

or some research papers like:
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00945053/document

[onemorebtc]

i just dont think any pos system offers the same security as pow does.

What makes you think this?

1) security experts telling this (yes, i know there are people knowing more than me)

2) it sounds unreasonable to make a system that could secure itself.

3) its not proven. the principles btc is build upon are old and well studied. its easy to understand the security implications. thats not the case with pos

4) i strongly believe in the argument that you need an external pysical property (like time with btc) to prove consensus

[Daedelus]

or some research papers like:

Nxt forging algorithm: simulating approach (Oct 2014)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/243341106/nxtforging-1 (scroll down to read)

PoS forging algorithms: formal approach and multibranch forging (Nov 2014)
https://nxtforum.org/consensus-research/multibranch-forging-approach/
(https://www.scribd.com/doc/248208963/Multibranch-forging)

PoS forging algorithms: multi-strategy forging and related security issues (Dec 2014)
https://github.com/ConsensusResearch/articles-papers/blob/master/multistrategy/multistrategy.pdf

Simulation Tools for Forging Algorithms
https://github.com/ConsensusResearch/

[Daedelus]

So we have arguments from authority and strong beliefs.

[Flashman]

Wait what? proven broken vs not broken yet, is not an argument for security? So you will choose the proven broken, vs the not yet broken? You will choose an already cracked ecryption algo, over AES-256?

So now you say your leg is proven broken, you think the rot has set in, it could be gangrenous and you're worrying about the leech on it instead of cutting the damn thing off already?

[inBitweTrust]

So we have arguments from authority and strong beliefs.

There is good evidence to support both security models as evidenced through testing and research analysis. We don't have enough data to make conclusive statments at this time. Anyone that is suggesting that PoS/DPoS is more secure than Bitcoins PoW is making an assumption and ignoring any countering evidence.


https://blog.ethereum.org/

or some research papers like:
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00945053/document

[onemorebtc]

So we have arguments from authority and strong beliefs.

add tested...
if a pos system runs a few years with the same marketcap as btc i might change my mind.

but yes it boils down to strong believe and authority. but the same is true for pos

(its a little more than strong believe as i studied sha256 myself and mined by hand to be sure - thats what i meant with its easy to understand)

[Daedelus]

So we have arguments from authority and strong beliefs.

There is good evidence to support both security models as evidenced through testing and research analysis. We don't have enough data to make conclusive statments at this time. Anyone that is suggesting that PoS/DPoS is more secure than Bitcoins PoW is making an assumption and ignoring any countering evidence.


https://blog.ethereum.org/

or some research papers like:
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00945053/document

These are opinion. Don't forget: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Jonald and another said/think POS isn't secure. I have made no comment on POW. Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

[Flashman]

if a pos system runs a few years with the same marketcap as btc i might change my mind.

That is my big reservation, that the market for current PoS coins is so thin and fragile that any serious attempt at attacking them would leave you owning a bunch of nothing, so why bother? It's like trying to steal paper money by burning the bank down.

[Daedelus]

if a pos system runs a few years with the same marketcap as btc i might change my mind.

That is my big reservation, that the market for current PoS coins is so thin and fragile that any serious attempt at attacking them would leave you owning a bunch of nothing, so why bother? It's like trying to steal paper money by burning the bank down.

But you would prove they are insecure. That would be worth much more.

[inBitweTrust]

These are opinion. Don't forget: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Jonald and another said/think POS isn't secure. I have made no comment on POW. Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Yes, opinions from security analysis and experts which is based upon reason , logic and evidence. These experts create models and run mathematical simulations to test their hypothesis.. but i guess to you one opinion is as good as anothers.

[onemorebtc]

But you would prove they are insecure. That would be worth much more.

no... if i would knew a way i would wait until the liquidity is high enough to enable me cashout an high enough amount.

...most thieves cannot cashout immeditaly. they have to wait (maybe with a pos annon coin this will change, dont know if there is one)

edit: changed on word and added last sentence

[Daedelus]

These are opinion. Don't forget: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Jonald and another said/think POS isn't secure. I have made no comment on POW. Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Yes, opinions from security analysis and experts which is based upon reason , logic and evidence. These experts create models and run mathematical simulations to test their hypothesis.. but i guess to you one opinion is as good as anothers.

Where are the models?

I posted the POS models that back those papers above. You can repeat and verify the results, if you were so inclined.

[Daedelus]

But you would prove they are insecure. That would be worth much more.

no... if i would knew a way i would way until the liquidity is high enough to enable me cashout an high enough amount

If you destroy the POS idea, money is likely to flow into back to bitcoin as they all die, no?

[inBitweTrust]

These are opinion. Don't forget: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Jonald and another said/think POS isn't secure. I have made no comment on POW. Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Yes, opinions from security analysis and experts which is based upon reason , logic and evidence. These experts create models and run mathematical simulations to test their hypothesis.. but i guess to you one opinion is as good as anothers.

Where are the models?

I posted the POS models that back those papers above. You can repeat and verify the results, if you were so inclined.

I gave you the links with both references and direct research if you were so inclined to read it.

https://blog.ethereum.org/

or some research papers like:
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00945053/document
https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

[onemorebtc]

btw: please just do it!
just fork bitcoin add pos to it and initialize it with current balances. you have the opportunity to even reduce blockchain size.

this doesnt change the fact that i'd sell my posbtc. but why not just do it and let the hole btc community vote what they want to use?

whatever and whoever will make this change: the effect will be the same.

btw or just use clam. they did this....

[Daedelus]

These are opinion. Don't forget: https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Jonald and another said/think POS isn't secure. I have made no comment on POW. Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Yes, opinions from security analysis and experts which is based upon reason , logic and evidence. These experts create models and run mathematical simulations to test their hypothesis.. but i guess to you one opinion is as good as anothers.

Where are the models?

I posted the POS models that back those papers above. You can repeat and verify the results, if you were so inclined.

I gave you the links with both references and direct research if you were so inclined to read it.

https://blog.ethereum.org/

or some research papers like:
https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-00945053/document
https://download.wpsoftware.net/bitcoin/pos.pdf

Where are the models? Or is it just their opinion?

[Bitcoin Wiki, 2014] Bitcoin Wiki "Proof of Stake" page.
https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Proof of Stake. Retrieved on 02/05/2014.
[Eyal and Sirer, 2013] Eyal I. and Sirer E.G. (2013) "Majority is not enough: Bitcoin mining
is vulnerable", arXiv: 1311.0243.
[Kroll et al., 2013] Kroll J.A., Davey I.C. and Felten E.W. (2013) "The economics of Bitcoin
mining, or Bitcoin in the presence of adversaries", Mimeo.
[Krugman, 2013] Krugman P. (2013) "Adam Smith hates Bitcoin". NYTimes blog.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/12/adam-smith-hates-bitcoin/
[Nakamoto, 2008] Nakamoto S. (2009) "Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system".

For the sake of simplicity and with a slight lack of rigor...

With a simple (one could say simplistic) model...

The idea is to bluff to scare people into selling for nothing... there is a reason this paper didn't gain any traction.



Geoff's pos.pdf paper even admits that there is no rigour in his claim.

Is it possible to obtain a distributed consensus without provably consuming some resource
outside of the system?
Intuitively, the answer is no, but there is no rigorous argument for this claim.

Intuitively, the sun goes around the earth. You can even watch it happening..



Vitalik has discussed Nxt's POS algo with the devs on nxtforum.org and was satisfied that it was adequate. He thought he could improve it but he would wouldn't he..  

[inBitweTrust]

btw: please just do it!
just fork bitcoin add pos to it and initialize it with current balances. you have the opportunity to even reduce blockchain size.

this doesnt change the fact that i'd sell my posbtc. but why not just do it and let the hole btc community vote what they want to use?

whatever and whoever will make this change: the effect will be the same.

btw or just use clam. they did this....

They won't because either they want others to do the heavy lifting for them or they aren't really interested in bitcoin anyways and this is just an indirect way to plug their project..

FYI... both NXT and Bitshares are losing ground to bitcoin and weakening during the last 6 months so they are getting more desperate.

[Daedelus]

(I will check in again later)

[jonald_fyookball]

PoW mining was useful for a time

Why are you against mining and Pow anyway?

[inBitweTrust]

Vitalik has discussed Nxt's POS algo with the devs on nxtforum.org and was satisfied that it was adequate. He thought he could improve it but he would wouldn't he..  

Vitalik still went with PoW despite the wastefulness and all the research into TaPoS and weak subjectivity. Why is that ?

You need to understand that I have a nuanced position and think there are both strengths and weaknesses on both sides.

[onemorebtc]

They won't because either they want others to do the heavy lifting for them or they aren't really interested in bitcoin anyways and this is just an indirect way to plug their project..

FYI... both NXT and Bitshares are losing ground to bitcoin and weakening during the last 6 months so they are getting more desperate.

you are right... markets collapsing and sorting out black sheeps
afterwards we can do businness again

[jonald_fyookball]

Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Even Vitalik admits there is a fundamental flaw in PoS which is essentially
the nothing-at-stake issue, meaning anyone can attempt stake grinding
to extend the chain at essentially no cost.  Vitalik's article on
"weak subjectivity" attempts to solve this issue by requiring minters
to post security deposits, but this doesn't really help because one
can still fake the deposit and/or extend block history.  It also opens another attack vector where
stake holders can start to block security deposits from others and monopolize
the network.
 
Please note I'm not saying "because Vitalik said so"...You can understand
the logic for yourself with regards to how conensus and blockchains
work.  (If you don't , just ask and I will explain).

I do take all this with a grain of salt because in practice
PoS systems appear to be doing fine such as NXT, however
that doesn't necessarily mean they are secure or wouldn't be attacked if
the incentive was greater. 

[Flashman]

The "TL;DR" for me is that everything else can be simulated and faked by sufficient ingenuity, except large amounts of computational power (Given a strenuous test against the network, not figures on a website like fake cloud hashing)  Hash is no BS.


PoS schemes to me roughly translate to trusting people not to lie, because they bribe them slightly not to.

[achimsmile]

Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Even Vitalik admits there is a fundamental flaw in PoS which is essentially
the nothing-at-stake issue, meaning anyone can attempt stake grinding
to extend the chain at essentially no cost.  Vitalik's article on
"weak subjectivity" attempts to solve this issue by requiring minters
to post security deposits, but this doesn't really help because one
can still fake the deposit.  It also opens another attack vector where
stake holders can start to block security deposits from others and monopolize
the network.
 

You only read papers that fit your agenda, and when they don't, you interpret them in a way that makes them fit. "Weak subjectivity" may indeed be necessary, but please go on: How would you grind stake for free? Your pos.pdf doesn't state any specifics, but this paper here uses hard math to state that long range attacks are not possible, and short range attacks are very hard (for Nxt) and the worst case is that the will delay blocks, or the attacker will get some fees:

https://nxtforum.org/consensus-research/the-paper-on-long-range-attack-nothing-at-stake

Vitalik talks about a time frame from where you receive funds to where you are able to mint/forge. How would you fake deposits?

[achimsmile]

PoS schemes to me roughly translate to trusting people not to lie, because they bribe them slightly not to.

Code does not lie.

[Flashman]

Code does not lie.

10 Print "The sky is green not blue"
20 GOTO 10

Disproven, next.

[jonald_fyookball]

Where is the proof POS is insecure that isn't argument from authority or strong belief?

Even Vitalik admits there is a fundamental flaw in PoS which is essentially
the nothing-at-stake issue, meaning anyone can attempt stake grinding
to extend the chain at essentially no cost.  Vitalik's article on
"weak subjectivity" attempts to solve this issue by requiring minters
to post security deposits, but this doesn't really help because one
can still fake the deposit.  It also opens another attack vector where
stake holders can start to block security deposits from others and monopolize
the network.
 

You only read papers that fit your agenda, and when they don't, you interpret them in a way that makes them fit. "Weak subjectivity" may indeed be necessary, but please go on: How would you grind stake for free? Your pos.pdf doesn't state any specifics, but this paper here uses hard math to state that long range attacks are not possible, and short range attacks are very hard (for Nxt) and the worst case is that the will delay blocks, or the attacker will get some fees:

https://nxtforum.org/consensus-research/the-paper-on-long-range-attack-nothing-at-stake

Vitalik talks about a time frame from where you receive funds to where you are able to mint/forge. How would you fake deposits?

I try to stay open minded.  If something is good
and works, I would advocate it for Bitcoin.
I did advocate PoS at one point before I learned
more about it.  I still advocate that PoW+PoS
would be a good thing for Bitcoin given the
right implementation.

I followed your link to the "multistrategy.pdf"
paper.  I have seen this paper before.

Please note it says:

Following
this section it is reasonable to get the impression that this problem
actually matters

 

(this problem = nothing at stake problem)

and:

The open question for the future work are... ...the ways to avoid N@S attack if any

Regarding the stake grinding attack, suppose you must
keep coins for 1000 blocks with a security deposit in
order to mint.  You buy coins at block 1000, keep them
till block 2000, get your deposit back, and
sell them at block 2001, and then broadcast
a fake chain from block 2000.   

[Daedelus]

You're repeating yourself. Your misrepresentation has been debunked once.

I don't have the time/energy to fully digest what the paper
is saying, but the conclusions of the author seem to say that
Nothing at stake is a real problem that hasn't been solved.

As we have all the algorithms developed to simulate N@S attack we
present result in the separate paper along with possible ways to resist it.
Giving some results now we present not the full picture of the problem. Fol-
lowing this section it is reasonable to get the impression that this problem
actually matters and we concentrate to possible solutions at the moment....


...The open question for the future work are: (1) the PoS consensus depen-
dence on the measure function (2) the ways to avoid N@S attack if any (3)
the optimal confirmation length investigation (4) the optimal multibranch
depth investigation.

Actually, the td;dr version is:

- multibranch forging gives measurable possibility to earn more fees. I guess Nxt should not ignore it in long-term as the profitable activity will be implemented by somebody sooner or later

- there's no long-range attack against a blockchain V. Buterin described, only short-range. The short-range attack doesn't allow double-spending but gives multibranching forger possibility to earn more fees in singlebranch environment by producing few blocks in a row. However producing few blocks in a row could be an issue too (e.g. evil forger may postpones orders submissions etc) but not critical at the moment.

- not explicitly stated in the paper but easily derived, a long delay between blocks not only annoying but also a security problem as it's the moment for short-range attack could happens

- we have formally defined nothing-at-stake attack(again, using Buterin's informal definition) and made initial simulations. We haven't included their results in paper as they are seems to be too raw, but I can reveal them here: N@S attack could happens only in short-range, e.g. for within 20 blocks for 10% stake, so with 30 confirmations we haven't observed the successful attack. Also please note the attack has pretty unpredictable nature for attacker, so he can hardly enforce it, even in theory(in practice it's even harder to get it done properly). The correlation with stake size is still the open question, but it's nearly impossible to attack a proof-of-stake currency with "1% stake even" as stated by Buterin

So yes, there máy be problems with certain forms of N@S, and that needs to be researched. Research means keeping an open mind, not cherrypicking and taking out the last sentence and twisting it to mean what you want to mean.

They do nót say "Nothing at stake is a real problem that hasn't been solved." They say "We have made a simulation that produces a N@S as described and we are going to find out what it does."

You have seen the paper but it is still obvious you haven't read it.

There is a fourth paper being written with the results, as jonald well knows. The authors aren't worried about N@S being a problem.

[jonald_fyookball]

You're repeating yourself.

That's true.

Your misrepresentation has been debunked once.

No, it hasn't.

[Daedelus]

You're repeating yourself.

That's true.

Your misrepresentation has been debunked once.

No, it hasn't.

Cool story bro

[jonald_fyookball]

You're repeating yourself.

That's true.

Your misrepresentation has been debunked once.

No, it hasn't.

Cool story bro

 

The paper says in plain English that Nothing at Stake is a problem
as I quoted above. 

You can sit there and say "nuh uh" till you're blue in the face
for all I care.  Anyone can read the paper and make their own
judgement.

[Daedelus]

[Anyone interested in the discussion Jonald is trying to repeat can read the link above]

Tl:dr

Thread states A and B.

Jonald says "see, it says A"

You say "It also says B"

Jonald "It clearly says A"

You "It says A and it says B"

Jonald "In plain english, it says A"...


And you can go around in circes until you're blue in the face. Then repeat yourself a few weeks later  Jonald, you are misrepresenting what the authors are saying by excluding what you don't like.

I refer you to the thread above in response to you next post  I am tired.

[Flashman]

Whatever we think it proves, the "still working on it" implication should be a clear signal that PoS is immature, and as such, why should the devs take the Karpeles approach ? ....

[VectorChief]

It is important to recognize the differences between two systems (PoW and PoS) and equally validate both of them on their own right. Only from that perspective we would be able to make a neutral choice. As was mentioned before, converting one system to another will take that choice away from us. Would you like to paint everything blue?

In short the differences are as follows:
PoS - tends towards privatization of the whole system as rich get richer and at the same time automatically acquire more control.
PoW - forces rich to compete for control on a common ground judged by a neutral algorithm thus automatically taxing them.

All in all, PoW is more suitable for global money system as (enough degrees of freedom for) competition is built-in, while PoS is better for private hierarchical organizations and businesses that require outside competititon to stay robust, because acquisition of 51% stake depends solely on major stakeholders' permission to sell, while 51% of hashing power in PoW is permission-less.

Satoshi gave people tool for freedom, and yet they urge to build yet another fiat zoo with it.
How bitcoiner of you!

[achimsmile]

Regarding the stake grinding attack, suppose you must
keep coins for 1000 blocks with a security deposit in
order to mint.  You buy coins at block 1000, keep them
till block 2000, get your deposit back, and
sell them at block 2001, and then broadcast
a fake chain from block 2000.   

The protocol does not allow you to forge for 1440 blocks, from the moment when you bought your stake. (security margin)
The protocol forbids blockchain reorgs of more than 720 blocks.

Your chain would violate the protocol and not be accepted.

This is a real world example.

You could argue that a fake chain <720 would be enough to do nasty stuff (which is right).


I don't quite get the magic that happens between buying and:

broadcast a fake chain

In your example, if you bought 51% (good luck!), and waited 1440 blocks, you could not build a fake chain during that time because you're not allowed to produce any blocks... so, you have 1 blocks time to build a longer chain (and be sure to trick the algo so that you're always the one to be selected for generating the next block... again, good luck!)

tl:dr

PoS is safe.

[achimsmile]

the "still working on it" implication

Where did you get that? And I didn't know technological advances were bad.

[achimsmile]

In short the differences are as follows:
PoS - tends towards privatization of the whole system as rich get richer and at the same time automatically acquire more control.
PoW - forces rich to compete for control on a common ground judged by a neutral algorithm thus automatically taxing them.

I disagree

Please tell me where Nxt tends towards privatization,
and tell me if big mining companies are private companies.

[inBitweTrust]

One undeniable bit of evidence Bitcoin has is the fact that it has been extremely secure after 6 years and a market cap of 4-10billion for over a year thus has maintained much higher level of scrutiny from both hackers and security researchers alike vs any other alt.

[inBitweTrust]

Please tell me where Nxt tends towards privatization,
and tell me if big mining companies are private companies.

Nxt started extremely centralized and remains so. 7 to 10 people have over 50% of the coins .
http://charts.nxtcrypto.org/cDistribution.aspx
https://web.archive.org/web/20140825040132/http://charts.nxtcrypto.org/

[Flashman]

And I didn't know technological advances were bad.

Oh good, I've got this home power system you can try out for me, uses thorium, there's a few unresolved questions about spontaneous criticality, but we can probably handwave them away if it holds off for the duration of your participation.

[jonald_fyookball]

Regarding the stake grinding attack, suppose you must
keep coins for 1000 blocks with a security deposit in
order to mint.  You buy coins at block 1000, keep them
till block 2000, get your deposit back, and
sell them at block 2001, and then broadcast
a fake chain from block 2000.   

The protocol does not allow you to forge for 1440 blocks, from the moment when you bought your stake. (security margin)
The protocol forbids blockchain reorgs of more than 720 blocks.

Your chain would violate the protocol and not be accepted.

This is a real world example.

You could argue that a fake chain <720 would be enough to do nasty stuff (which is right).


I don't quite get the magic that happens between buying and:

broadcast a fake chain

In your example, if you bought 51% (good luck!), and waited 1440 blocks, you could not build a fake chain during that time because you're not allowed to produce any blocks... so, you have 1 blocks time to build a longer chain (and be sure to trick the algo so that you're always the one to be selected for generating the next block... again, good luck!)

tl:dr

PoS is safe.

We were talking about Vitalik's proposal; now you seem
to be referring to NXT.  Difficult to have a debate about
it if we keep switching implementations.

You do realize you do not need 51% of resources
to do a re-org, right?  It's just that at 51%, you
are guaranteed to succeed.

Also, why do you say you only have 1 block time
to build a longer chain?  You would have up
to 720 blocks to do it.  Obviously, if you're
an attacker, you would want to do it as fast
as you can to maximize your chances of success.

So you have to wait 1440 blocks;  Since NXT's
blocks are 1m, that means you can attempt
the attack once a day with the same amount
of stake.

Arguably, you could make it safer by increasing
the security margin.  However, that would basically
give more stake to fewer people, who could attack
less often but with greater chances.

[onemorebtc]

The protocol forbids blockchain reorgs of more than 720 blocks.

without knowing too much about nxt this sounds attackable.

if i can control the network access from a new node (because for him its not an reorg he just sees to chains).
pow prevents this by using work which the new user can verify.

what does pos in this case?

[achimsmile]

One undeniable bit of evidence Bitcoin has is the fact that it has been extremely secure after 6 years and a market cap of 4-10billion for over a year thus has maintained much higher level of scrutiny from both hackers and security researchers alike vs any other alt.

That's a good point, bitcoin is proven many times, over a long time.

I wonder how many years it takes until people begin to consider PoS as secure.

[onemorebtc]

One undeniable bit of evidence Bitcoin has is the fact that it has been extremely secure after 6 years and a market cap of 4-10billion for over a year thus has maintained much higher level of scrutiny from both hackers and security researchers alike vs any other alt.

That's a good point, bitcoin is proven many times, over a long time.

I wonder how many years it takes until people begin to consider PoS as secure.

i'd say its more about market cap than time...
i wouldnt trust a pos system if it ran for ten years but only deals with ten dollars max

[inBitweTrust]

One undeniable bit of evidence Bitcoin has is the fact that it has been extremely secure after 6 years and a market cap of 4-10billion for over a year thus has maintained much higher level of scrutiny from both hackers and security researchers alike vs any other alt.

That's a good point, bitcoin is proven many times, over a long time.

I wonder how many years it takes until people begin to consider PoS as secure.

We already do consider it relatively secure, many have for a while. The disagreement lies within other factors like fair distribution mechanism PoW facilitates because miners are forced to sell most of their block reward to cover costs and the degree of security which is unresolved because no one has enough data.

Despite the costs and inefficiencies Vitalik has still settled upon PoW for ethereum and he really wanted badly to use TaPoS with weak subjectivity.

[onemorebtc]

We already do consider it relatively secure

i dont
who is "we"

[inBitweTrust]

We already do consider it relatively secure

i dont
who is "we"

This topic has been discussed to death over the last 2 years. I notice at least 30% are open to PoS security model having both security benefits and weaknesses compared to PoW.

Every variation of PoS has nuances that can get very complicated when you start studying them . I good place to start if Vitalik's blog and than start reading the research papers.

[onemorebtc]

We already do consider it relatively secure

i dont
who is "we"

This topic has been discussed to death over the last 2 years. I notice at least 30% are open to PoS security model having both benefits and weaknesses compared to PoW.

i've read most of this discussions and my impressions differs.
but anyhow its an experiment. if there is a better solution to the byzantine generalis problem than bitcoin i'd welcome it.

[achimsmile]

We were talking about Vitalik's proposal; now you seem
to be referring to NXT.  Difficult to have a debate about
it if we keep switching implementations.

Nxt uses "weak subjectivity" too in the form of the "security deposit length" he talks about, so it should not be a problem.

You do realize you do not need 51% of resources
to do a re-org, right?  It's just that at 51%, you
are guaranteed to succeed.

Yes, just did it ot of convenience. Same as in PoW systems

and it depends on the length of the re-org  
The longer the reorg, the more unprobable it is to succeed with less than 51%

Also, why do you say you only have 1 block time
to build a longer chain?  You would have up
to 720 blocks to do it.  Obviously, if you're
an attacker, you would want to do it as fast
as you can to maximize your chances of success.

I was just following your example where you try to sell your stake after 1 block of being eligible to forge.
Agree with the rest, reorg is only possible up to 720 blocks.

So you have to wait 1440 blocks;  Since NXT's
blocks are 1m, that means you can attempt
the attack once a day with the same amount
of stake.

yes, attempt.

Arguably, you could make it safer by increasing
the security margin.  However, that would basically
give more stake to fewer people, who could attack
less often but with greater chances.

Don't know if it would be safer, but why would it give more stake to fewer people?

[inBitweTrust]

i've read most of this discussions and my impressions differs.
but anyhow its an experiment. if there is a better solution to the byzantine generalis problem than bitcoin i'd welcome it.

Look at the poll above which shows almost 50% of people open to a PoW + PoS Bitcoin hybrid. They are open to it because PoS has certain advantages.(I would argue disadvantages as well)

Nxt is ultimately doomed because its legacy history of a botched ICO and centralization problems which haven't gotten better.... and this is reflected in it loosing ground to Bitcoin and other currencies regardless of how bad they are doing themselves.

[Alty]

I voted yes.

A hybrid system would be great for btc and probably secure the network in a less centralized fashion as many many more nodes contributed to PoS mining.

I doubt that the bitcoin community / foundation / core devs would ever have the balls to make it happen though.

[Flashman]

I doubt that the bitcoin community / foundation / core devs would ever have the balls to make it happen though.

The proxy for balls is market cap, PoS supporters with balls will inevitably support a PoS coin that will supplant bitcoin "any day now".

[inBitweTrust]

I voted yes.

A hybrid system would be great for btc and probably secure the network in a less centralized fashion as many many more nodes contributed to PoS mining.

I doubt that the bitcoin community / foundation / core devs would ever have the balls to make it happen though.

They don't need to make anything happen. I already mentioned one example that requires no soft/hard fork at all and simply requires a wallet that many would happily adopt.

Sidechain or not. No need for burning bitcoins, as someone could simply create a TaPoS blockchain that mirrored and synced the distribution of BTC and than have a wallet acknowledge both blockchains but have the TaPoS layer hidden where only BTC is used and the TaPoS layer acts to add another form of security that could have 1-30 second confirmation times in addition to PoW 10 min confirmation times.

I.E... pay for a cup of Coffee the confirmations start rolling in this way:
TaPoS 1 second confirmation, TaPoS 3 second confirmation, TaPoS 5 second confirmation, TaPoS 10 second confirmation, TaPoS 30 second confirmation, TaPoS 1 min confirmation, TaPoS 3min confirmation, TaPoS 5 min confirmation,TaPoS 7min confirmation, PoW Bitcoin 1st confirmation ~10min, TaPoS 13min confirmation, ect...

This would allow you to have instant confirmations and better security because now you are trusting full nodes and miners and you could detect a PoW 51% attack if the TaPoS confirmations weren't confirming while the PoW confirmations were.

You wouldn't even need a softfork or hardfork to accomplish this, just a TapoS blockchain and a wallet that acknowledged it.

[jonald_fyookball]

So you have to wait 1440 blocks;  Since NXT's
blocks are 1m, that means you can attempt
the attack once a day with the same amount
of stake.

yes, attempt.

yes, and with little to no cost.

Arguably, you could make it safer by increasing
the security margin.  However, that would basically
give more stake to fewer people, who could attack
less often but with greater chances.

Don't know if it would be safer, but why would it give more stake to fewer people?

Because everyone who is transacting, moving coins,
or just got them won't be able to forge.  So those
people's stake won't be part of the proof of stake
consensus.

[VectorChief]

In short the differences are as follows:
PoS - tends towards privatization of the whole system as rich get richer and at the same time automatically acquire more control.
PoW - forces rich to compete for control on a common ground judged by a neutral algorithm thus automatically taxing them.

I disagree

Please tell me where Nxt tends towards privatization,
and tell me if big mining companies are private companies.

Privatization in a sense that if I want to have more say in what gets into blockchain and what doesn't (censorship, accounts freezing) I need to ask major stakeholders' permission to sell me their stake. If they refuse I am out of luck.

If less than 51% of PoS stake is floating on the exchanges for free trade, then the system remains semi-private. In PoW even if no one wants to sell me ASICs I still have an option to fund my own development team and create my own equipment, thus avoiding political censorship, sanctions and so on. PoW allows you to disagree.

That's the gist of it.

[Flashman]

Also, you do get a little autonomy with PoW ASIC mining, you can switch to other SHA256 coins or rig rental if you "disagree" with bitcoin for some reason, and get instantly compensated. You don't have to take a "hit" in that your coins are not mature, moving between PoS coins, and waiting it out every time you think one has a better deal than another.

In that sense there is a bit of a "lock in" problem with a PoS coin, like a cellphone contract, theoretically you can dump it, but it costs you. This in turn will build external distrust of particular coins, "Is it really popular, or are people just scared to move out of it?"

[QuestionAuthority]

This thread is funny to watch. You're all talking about the issue as if you have the ability to change Bitcoin. Those people exist on GitHub and the TBF forum. They communicate about the issues over there. Those people have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Bitcoin will not move away from the current PoW system. Unless you're all talking about a new coin that you're going to call Bitcoin then I'm confused about what's happening here.

[inBitweTrust]

This thread is funny to watch. You're all talking about the issue as if you have the ability to change Bitcoin. Those people exist on GitHub and the TBF forum. They communicate about the issues over there. Those people have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Bitcoin will not move away from the current PoW system. Unless you're all talking about a new coin that you're going to call Bitcoin then I'm confused about what's happening here.

Technically all it takes is one dev (that can come out of nowhere) and a majority of users to switch. The chances of this happening are infinitesimally small though and for good reason.

[QuestionAuthority]

This thread is funny to watch. You're all talking about the issue as if you have the ability to change Bitcoin. Those people exist on GitHub and the TBF forum. They communicate about the issues over there. Those people have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Bitcoin will not move away from the current PoW system. Unless you're all talking about a new coin that you're going to call Bitcoin then I'm confused about what's happening here.

Technically all it takes is one dev (that can come out of nowhere) and a majority of users to switch. The chances of this happening are infinitesimally small though and for good reason.

Yeah, I guess so. It's still funny to watch the debates from the users. Trust me, when the debates are between the power players I watch them with quiet intent.

[jonald_fyookball]

This thread is funny to watch. You're all talking about the issue as if you have the ability to change Bitcoin. Those people exist on GitHub and the TBF forum. They communicate about the issues over there. Those people have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Bitcoin will not move away from the current PoW system. Unless you're all talking about a new coin that you're going to call Bitcoin then I'm confused about what's happening here.

Yes of course, we are all armchair pundits here but trying to make points why (or why not)
changing the protocol would be a good idea.

[QuestionAuthority]

This thread is funny to watch. You're all talking about the issue as if you have the ability to change Bitcoin. Those people exist on GitHub and the TBF forum. They communicate about the issues over there. Those people have stated, in no uncertain terms, that Bitcoin will not move away from the current PoW system. Unless you're all talking about a new coin that you're going to call Bitcoin then I'm confused about what's happening here.

Yes of course, we are all armchair pundits here but trying to make points why (or why not)
changing the protocol would be a good idea.

I know. I'm in that crowd.

[ab8989]

The technical and security issues are just one of many issues.

Another completely different issue is that does PoS coin have market pull?
Does the PoS message resonate with people at large?

As I understand it the current value of bitcoin comes in quite a big part from hope that bitcoin is going to the moon and even in extreme cases perhaps even some countries adopt bitcoin as their official currency.

The message of PoS has not been tested how much pull there is and I firmly believe that the market pull for PoS coin is much less than PoW coin.

The PoS message sounds way too much like telling people they should buy into a coin that is secured by Rockefellers and Rotschilds.
Some people that were in on it early on and now they are just sitting on their pile of millions doing nothing. Guess what. People do not like Rockefellers or Rothschilds. Sure if you hope you are going to become the Rockefeller or Rotcshild of the new economy you love the idea but nobody else does.

If we then think of some country they see it the other way around. A country thinks some 20 year old George or Mary in their basement are not convincing enough to be the basis to put the security of the whole economy of the country on.

The anonymity of the whoever secures the PoS coin works both ways and neither is good. The anonymity allows people to think simultaniously that the whole security is based on some bunch of 20 year guys in their basement and also at the same time that they are Rockefellers. That just is not going to be a succesful message to sell  and without a resonating message the coin is going nowhere fast.

In PoW this is not such a problem because in PoW marketing message these issues are not in front and center as they are in PoS case.

I believe PoS people understand this problem and therefore PoS people are not really convinced their own superior PoS coin is going to go places on its own. Therefore instead of selling their own coin they are in bitcointalk to convince bitcoin to surrender and die to make way for PoS. That is only way PoS can get places. But I believe that is going to be the high point of PoS if that happens and it is downhill from there.

Not everything technically superior is going to sell well.
There are lots of things that are technically brilliant but market still does not care about them.

[achimsmile]

The PoS message sounds way too much like telling people they should buy into a coin that is secured by Rockefellers and Rotschilds.

in PoW = The Bitmains and spondoolies
edit: I meant the Ghash.ios and Disqus Fishes

What's the difference?
Ah yes, largest mining pools control even a bigger share than largest stakeholders.

[oyasumi]

POW is a breakthrough,but not a good idea.
POW need hash computing,
and,
many computer work,but just one computer's working is effective at one time.
compare to bank,the cost of POW is much more higher.

POS is better,but not enough.
POS do not need hash race,but also one computer's working is effective at one time.
and,
it is not fair to miner,
the output does not connect to hardware input.
only miner who has many coins is going to mine,
it will lead to concentrate.

[oyasumi]

one block gives miner 25 new coins now,
so the system's cost is undertake by people who buy bitcoins,not people who use bitcoins.
but new coin's production rate is reducing,
more and more people will find the cost of bitcoin is too higher.

[Fernandez]

I don't see how a hybrid system makes much of a difference. In future if the Bitcoin holders decide they don't want to be controlled by the cartel, it can move to a pure PoS.

[achimsmile]

POW is a breakthrough,but not a good idea.
POW need hash computing,
and,
many computer work,but just one computer's working is effective at one time.
compare to bank,the cost of POW is much more higher.

POS is better,but not enough.
POS do not need hash race,but also one computer's working is effective at one time.
and,
it is not fair to miner,
the output does not connect to hardware input.
only miner who has many coins is going to mine,
it will lead to concentrate.

Why?

PoW: Miner with most money invested in mining gear gets most coins = rich get richer
PoS: Stakeholder with most money invested in stake gets most coins = rich get richer ( not so much, only 0.5% per year in Nxt)

[oyasumi]

POW is a breakthrough,but not a good idea.
POW need hash computing,
and,
many computer work,but just one computer's working is effective at one time.
compare to bank,the cost of POW is much more higher.

POS is better,but not enough.
POS do not need hash race,but also one computer's working is effective at one time.
and,
it is not fair to miner,
the output does not connect to hardware input.
only miner who has many coins is going to mine,
it will lead to concentrate.

Why?

PoW: Miner with most money invested in mining gear gets most coins = rich get richer
PoS: Stakeholder with most money invested in stake gets most coins = rich get richer ( not so much, only 0.5% per year in Nxt)

The point is the cost of hardware.

If people use  virtual currency million times per second,the money spend on computing device、I/O device、electricity bills must not be ignored.

Hardware cost/total cost higher,profit rate lower.the money spend on hardware is same,so rich investors will get higher profit rate(PoS only).

[achimsmile]

POW is a breakthrough,but not a good idea.
POW need hash computing,
and,
many computer work,but just one computer's working is effective at one time.
compare to bank,the cost of POW is much more higher.

POS is better,but not enough.
POS do not need hash race,but also one computer's working is effective at one time.
and,
it is not fair to miner,
the output does not connect to hardware input.
only miner who has many coins is going to mine,
it will lead to concentrate.

Why?

PoW: Miner with most money invested in mining gear gets most coins = rich get richer
PoS: Stakeholder with most money invested in stake gets most coins = rich get richer ( not so much, only 0.5% per year in Nxt)

The point is the cost of hardware.

If people use  virtual currency million times per second,the money spend on computing device、I/O device、electricity bills must not be ignored.

Hardware cost/total cost higher,profit rate lower.the money spend on hardware is same,so rich investors will get higher profit rate(PoS only).

Exactly! mining is costly. large mining firms have cheaper rates per miner or kwh compared to most private persons. they are the only ones that get rich. Or have you ROIed on recently purchased hardware?

Why throw money out of the window for miners if you can just stake. Same chances for everyone per bought coin.

The process just looks more efficient to me.

[pawel7777]

The PoS message sounds way too much like telling people they should buy into a coin that is secured by Rockefellers and Rotschilds.

in PoW = The Bitmains and spondoolies
edit: I meant the Ghash.ios and Disqus Fishes

What's the difference?
Ah yes, largest mining pools control even a bigger share than largest stakeholders.

The difference is that dominating pools/miners change all the time. Right now it's Discuss Fish, not too long ago it was GHash, before that BTC Guid, Eligius, Slush etc.

They had significant % share in hashrate but lost it to others.

If you have PoS holder controlling significant % of all coins - there's nothing you or anyone can do about it. Unless he willingly give up some of his stake, he will remain with his % and will be slowly increasing his market share.

[Flashman]

Exactly! mining is costly. large mining firms have cheaper rates per miner or kwh compared to most private persons. they are the only ones that get rich. Or have you ROIed on recently purchased hardware?

Well, given "reasonable" electricity rates, 10c a kilowatt or better, hobby scale miners do have the advantage that a couple of kilowatts of heat is fairly easy to disperse, and may actually be useful during the cold months. Whereas industrial scale miners need to pay to get rid of the heat, effectively doubling what they pay overall in electricity.

However there is also the problem of which manufacturer is delivering reliably at this point in time.

[achimsmile]

The PoS message sounds way too much like telling people they should buy into a coin that is secured by Rockefellers and Rotschilds.

in PoW = The Bitmains and spondoolies
edit: I meant the Ghash.ios and Disqus Fishes

What's the difference?
Ah yes, largest mining pools control even a bigger share than largest stakeholders.

The difference is that dominating pools/miners change all the time. Right now it's Discuss Fish, not too long ago it was GHash, before that BTC Guid, Eligius, Slush etc.

They had significant % share in hashrate but lost it to others.

If you have PoS holder controlling significant % of all coins - there's nothing you or anyone can do about it. Unless he willingly give up some of his stake, he will remain with his % and will be slowly increasing his market share.

It does not matter if Disqus Fish or Ghash.io has >20% of the hashpower.

And almost all stakeholders changed (at least the coins are now in different addresses) in my PoS coin.

The hardest fact for me is just:

https://blockchain.info/pools

vs.

https://nxtblocks.info/#section/blockexplorer_charts (click on "blocks")

Despite all "rich getting richer", there are more parties (or accounts) involved in block generating of my PoS coin.

[achimsmile]

Well, given "reasonable" electricity rates, 10c a kilowatt or better, hobby scale miners do have the advantage that a couple of kilowatts of heat is fairly easy to disperse, and may actually be useful during the cold months. Whereas industrial scale miners need to pay to get rid of the heat, effectively doubling what they pay overall in electricity.

Good counter example

[johnyj]

Wrong place, this poll should run at POS forum 

[achimsmile]

The PoS message sounds way too much like telling people they should buy into a coin that is secured by Rockefellers and Rotschilds.

in PoW = The Bitmains and spondoolies
edit: I meant the Ghash.ios and Disqus Fishes

What's the difference?
Ah yes, largest mining pools control even a bigger share than largest stakeholders.

The difference is that dominating pools/miners change all the time. Right now it's Discuss Fish, not too long ago it was GHash, before that BTC Guid, Eligius, Slush etc.

They had significant % share in hashrate but lost it to others.

If you have PoS holder controlling significant % of all coins - there's nothing you or anyone can do about it. Unless he willingly give up some of his stake, he will remain with his % and will be slowly increasing his market share.

It does not matter if Disqus Fish or Ghash.io has >20% of the hashpower.

And almost all stakeholders changed (at least the coins are now in different addresses) in my PoS coin.

The hardest fact for me is just:

https://blockchain.info/pools

vs.

https://nxtblocks.info/#section/blockexplorer_charts (click on "blocks")

Despite all "rich getting richer", there are more parties (or accounts) involved in block generating of my PoS coin.

Since we are talking about BTC going PoS,

We have to look at bitcoin richlist to see that the richest address would only produce 1% of all blocks.
Sounds much better than the >20% of Disqus Fish, or not?

[pawel7777]

It does not matter if Disqus Fish or Ghash.io has >20% of the hashpower.
...

Sure. But what does matter is if any of them gains too much power, there are actions you can take to change the current state.

What doesn't matter are the stats you've quoted. They don't show "persons or accounts" they show "accounts" only.

How many people control what stake? You don't know and you'll never know, until the biggest holders reveal themselves and prove their holdings.

Who in the right mind, holding 40%, 50% or 60% of coins, would keep them all in one wallet? Would you?

And that's another problem with PoS.

Also, remember that we're discussing bitcoin as PoS, so comparing to NXT can be pointless (all the NXT coins have already been issued etc). And we need to look also at theoretical long-term threats.

[kokojie]

The technical and security issues are just one of many issues.

Another completely different issue is that does PoS coin have market pull?
Does the PoS message resonate with people at large?

As I understand it the current value of bitcoin comes in quite a big part from hope that bitcoin is going to the moon and even in extreme cases perhaps even some countries adopt bitcoin as their official currency.

The message of PoS has not been tested how much pull there is and I firmly believe that the market pull for PoS coin is much less than PoW coin.

The PoS message sounds way too much like telling people they should buy into a coin that is secured by Rockefellers and Rotschilds.
Some people that were in on it early on and now they are just sitting on their pile of millions doing nothing. Guess what. People do not like Rockefellers or Rothschilds. Sure if you hope you are going to become the Rockefeller or Rotcshild of the new economy you love the idea but nobody else does.

If we then think of some country they see it the other way around. A country thinks some 20 year old George or Mary in their basement are not convincing enough to be the basis to put the security of the whole economy of the country on.

The anonymity of the whoever secures the PoS coin works both ways and neither is good. The anonymity allows people to think simultaniously that the whole security is based on some bunch of 20 year guys in their basement and also at the same time that they are Rockefellers. That just is not going to be a succesful message to sell  and without a resonating message the coin is going nowhere fast.

In PoW this is not such a problem because in PoW marketing message these issues are not in front and center as they are in PoS case.

I believe PoS people understand this problem and therefore PoS people are not really convinced their own superior PoS coin is going to go places on its own. Therefore instead of selling their own coin they are in bitcointalk to convince bitcoin to surrender and die to make way for PoS. That is only way PoS can get places. But I believe that is going to be the high point of PoS if that happens and it is downhill from there.

Not everything technically superior is going to sell well.
There are lots of things that are technically brilliant but market still does not care about them.

WTF are you talking about? PoW and PoS are not crypto currency, they are just ways to process transactions. One way uses electricity+hardware waste as proof, we can call it Proof of Waste (PoW). The other way uses stakeholder's stake as proof, which is Proof of Stake (PoS).

PoW gives control of the network to centralized non-stakeholding profit crazy mining farms, they could potentially easily hold 51%+ hash rate in one organization. This has already happened multiple time in the past, when slush or Ghash.io held 51% hash power.

PoS gives control of the network to 100% of the stakeholders and completely decentralized.

You don't have to have a reward in PoS mining, just like there's negative financial reward for running Bitcoin full nodes, but 7000+ people are running them.

You can just set the PoS reward to barely cover the expense of running a full node, it's not for rich getting richer at all.

[samuel999]

I think it should, just too much scandal surrounding the mining as well as electricity waste.

[achimsmile]

Sure. But what does matter is if any of them gains too much power, there are actions you can take to change the current state.

What doesn't matter are the stats you've quoted. They don't show "persons or accounts" they show "accounts" only.

How many people control what stake? You don't know and you'll never know, until the biggest holders reveal themselves and prove their holdings.

Who in the right mind, holding 40%, 50% or 60% of coins, would keep them all in one wallet? Would you?

And that's another problem with PoS.

Where's the difference between PoS and PoW here? Hashpower controlled by one party split between multiple pools is just as much possible in PoW.

And we need to look also at theoretical long-term threats.

Could you elaborate?

[achimsmile]

You can just set the PoS reward to barely cover the expense of running a full node, it's not for rich getting richer at all.

That's what most people don't realize. PoS reward is just a measure to prevent blockchain spam. Even large stakeholders in non inflationary PoS systems don't make much money from forging.

[Flashman]

Ghash.io held 51% hash power.

Please provide a reference for the point in time where Ghash.io actually had 51%

Edit: Ah, nevermind, my memory of the event was that they faced increasing pressure approaching 50% and throttled back in time, but I see they did actually exceed 51% for a short time before throttling effective, and thereafter committed to 40% maximum.

[pawel7777]

Sure. But what does matter is if any of them gains too much power, there are actions you can take to change the current state.

What doesn't matter are the stats you've quoted. They don't show "persons or accounts" they show "accounts" only.

How many people control what stake? You don't know and you'll never know, until the biggest holders reveal themselves and prove their holdings.

Who in the right mind, holding 40%, 50% or 60% of coins, would keep them all in one wallet? Would you?

And that's another problem with PoS.

Where's the difference between PoS and PoW here? Hashpower controlled by one party split between multiple pools is just as much possible in PoW.

Highlighted the difference for you (in the post you quoted).
So you agree the PoS doesn't have any advantage in this matter?

Don't forget pools are just pools, they don't necessarily own any power. When things get ugly miners can choose to switch to other pool (P2Pool) or even create a separate one.

If the problem exist in PoS, all you can do is switch to other coin.

You can just set the PoS reward to barely cover the expense of running a full node, it's not for rich getting richer at all.

That's what most people don't realize. PoS reward is just a measure to prevent blockchain spam. Even large stakeholders in non inflationary PoS systems don't make much money from forging.

Yeah, I didn't realise that. You're saying that by staking 1 PoS coin I'll get the same (small) reward as someone with 1,000,000? If so - that's brilliant. If not - that's completely irrelevant to ab8989's post (to which kokoije replied).

[mistercoin]

I think this would be great. But do I see it ever happening? Nope.

[achimsmile]

But what does matter is if any of them gains too much power, there are actions you can take to change the current state

Look, Ghash.io had >51%, and you are telling me that mining is better because miners would switch pools?... Then how did it get this large?

It just looks like there are no actions you can take to change the centralized mining situation either, because miners will go where fees are the lowest / pool is stable etc.
that's why we observe >%20 hash power in a single pool. You say that in theory, miners could switch pools. Yes, a dangerously large stakeholder also could split/sell part of his stake, but it seems like they both wouldn't.

Don't forget pools are just pools, they don't necessarily own any power. When things get ugly miners can choose to switch to other pool (P2Pool) or even create a separate one.

When a pool is too large, it can do all kinds of nasty stuff. Validating blocks = power!

Yeah, I didn't realise that. You're saying that by staking 1 PoS coin I'll get the same (small) reward as someone with 1,000,000? If so - that's brilliant. If not - that's completely irrelevant to ab8989's post (to which kokoije replied).

I just said otherwise a few posts ago:

Same chances for everyone per bought coin.

[pawel7777]

Look, Ghash.io had >51%, and you are telling me that mining is better because miners would switch pools?... Then how did it get this large?

It just looks like there are no actions you can take to change the centralized mining situation either, because miners will go where fees are the lowest / pool is stable etc.
that's why we observe >%20 hash power in a single pool. You say that in theory, miners could switch pools. Yes, a dangerously large stakeholder also could split/sell part of his stake, but it seems like they both wouldn't.

Look, Ghash doesn't have 51% anymore. Look, Slush or Eligius, who were major pools are not such anymore. Look, now you're complaining about Discus Fish who were irrelevant not too long ago.

According to your theory (highlighted), such changes are not possible. So how did that happen?

When a pool is too large, it can do all kinds of nasty stuff. Validating blocks = power!

But you/miners or even pool itself could take actions before it gets too big.

Yeah, I didn't realise that. You're saying that by staking 1 PoS coin I'll get the same (small) reward as someone with 1,000,000? If so - that's brilliant. If not - that's completely irrelevant to ab8989's post (to which kokoije replied).

I just said otherwise a few posts ago:

Same chances for everyone per bought coin.

So your/kokoije's posts were pointless and didn't address ab8989's concerns?

----------------------

OK. To summarise, I'm not here to say PoW is better. I'm really happy that PoS coins exist. I joined this thread hoping for some constructive discussion. Ffs I even voted YES in the poll.

I'm not very familiar with PoS, so asked few questions. But it seems impossible to get any straight-forward answers here, other than hysterical reaction and arguments like "PoS is great because mining sucks".

I'll try again. This time let's do an exercise and pretend that PoW and mining doesn't exist and have never existed. Lets focus entirely on PoS and its design (no PoW or mining arguments). 3 simple questions:

1) Since anyone can own infinite number of wallets/addresses, how would you even know whether the coin is currently centralised or not? Is there anything more than just hopes and belief?

2) If at any point in the future (when the coin is established) it is revealed and proven that one person/entity/government owns say 40% and plays on maximising his stash. What can be done to prevent him from increasing his stake to 50% by simply stashing. Can anything be done or is it 'Game Over'?

3) Assuming PoS coin not fully issued from the start. There is a clear and strong incentive to hoard ('stake'). Who would spend such coin (sacrificing possible gains) and why? What would keep it alive? Is there anything more than hopes that majority of holders will see the 'greater good' and kept regularly spending some portion of their holdings? Even if that happens, aren't those who break out and don't spend rewarded even more?

[kokojie]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

[jonald_fyookball]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

and GHash is 10% of the total nowadays.

[fonenumba]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

ghash is also only ~15% of the network now and is no longer a dominating player. There is no longer a "danger" that ghash will attempt a 51% attack as they have much too far from 51% of the network.

BItcoin is moving away somewhat from pool mining to large corporate farm mining

[sandykho47]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

ghash is also only ~15% of the network now and is no longer a dominating player. There is no longer a "danger" that ghash will attempt a 51% attack as they have much too far from 51% of the network.

BItcoin is moving away somewhat from pool mining to large corporate farm mining

GHash will be like BTC Guild who used to have big mining percentage
Even AntPool already bigger than GHash now

[achimsmile]

Look, Ghash doesn't have 51% anymore. Look, Slush or Eligius, who were major pools are not such anymore. Look, now you're complaining about Discus Fish who were irrelevant not too long ago.

According to your theory (highlighted), such changes are not possible. So how did that happen?

You misunderstood me. It does not matter if the pool is called GHash.io or XY, point is that mining pools are too big and miners still tend to mine with big mining pools. Currently bitcoin is controlled by 4 mining pools (together >51%)

So your/kokoije's posts were pointless and didn't address ab8989's concerns?

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. ab8989's concerns are that "market pull" of PoS is small... sounds like an argument with unclear or subjective assumptions.

it seems impossible to get any straight-forward answers here, other than hysterical reaction and arguments like "PoS is great because mining sucks".

Noone said that. Facts were presented. Do you agree with following statements?:

• If anyone controls >51% of block generating in a blockchain currency, they can double spend. Such a system is centralized.
• GHash.io controlled >51% at one point
• Currently, 4 mining pools control >51% of hashing power
• There is not a single PoS with market cap over 1M where 4 accounts produce >51% of all blocks.
• Multiple mining pools could in theory be controlled by one party, as could multiple PoS accounts.

Although nothing can be proven because of the last bullet, the above statements indicate that block generation process of existing PoS  systems is more decentralized.

1) Since anyone can own infinite number of wallets/addresses, how would you even know whether the coin is currently centralised or not? Is there anything more than just hopes and belief?

See last bullet

2) If at any point in the future (when the coin is established) it is revealed and proven that one person/entity/government owns say 40% and plays on maximising his stash. What can be done to prevent him from increasing his stake to 50% by simply stashing. Can anything be done or is it 'Game Over'?

Same as would happen when a malicious government controls 40% hashpower (40% is already enough to do "51%" attacks  ): Game Over. It does not matter if the situation in PoW can change, if a party wants to attack, they only need a few days max of 40% until they succeed with double spending it to death.

It is unclear which one would cost more, but if you look at market dynamics and price, it looks like buying 40% of a PoS version of Bitcoin would be a tad more expensive than building a 40% mining farm.

3) Assuming PoS coin not fully issued from the start. There is a clear and strong incentive to hoard ('stake').

Most PoS coins issue all coins at once.


Edit: This is my last post on the topic. I think that our views are not compatible, and that no one will change his point of view. It does not make sense to go on.

[pawel7777]

Edit: This is my last post on the topic. I think that our views are not compatible, and that no one will change his point of view. It does not make sense to go on.

Thanks for replying. Lets leave it like that, further discussion would be just posting the same all over again.

But for the record - I don't have a problem in changing my point of view if presented with reasonable arguments. That's my superpower. I've done it many times before.

In fact, when I first posted in this thread I was slightly in favour of migrating bitcoin to PoS, but now I think I'll rather stick to PoW.

Still keeping an open mind about other solutions tho.

[achimsmile]

Edit: This is my last post on the topic. I think that our views are not compatible, and that no one will change his point of view. It does not make sense to go on.

Thanks for replying. Lets leave it like that, further discussion would be just posting the same all over again.

But for the record - I don't have a problem in changing my point of view if presented with reasonable arguments. That's my superpower. I've done it many times before.

In fact, when I first posted in this thread I was slightly in favour of migrating bitcoin to PoS, but now I think I'll rather stick to PoW.

Still keeping an open mind about other solutions tho.

Good. I know what you mean, I used to like PoW at first, even had two miners (1 of them ROIed)

[FandangledGizmo]

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

Moving to POS would be an improvement. BTC's inflation is a drag in a bear market and I noticed LTC fell 3X more last year than BTC and it has 3X more inflation, so it could be a factor.

Volatility is the major problem & probably has the biggest impact on Crypto price though.

Businesses work on tight margins, they can't hold crypto due to volatility so a sale in crypto equals a sale of crypto. Imagine if everytime you bought something from a shop, the shop didn't keep & circulate that money but sold it immediately for Yen. This is what happens atm. It makes Bitcoin non-viable imo.

Only highly inflationary countries could consider utilising Bitcoin on a reasonable scale. (Which is why Argentina and Venezuala are often cited in studies as most likely to adopt it.)

This is what BitShares BitAssets, solves. http://bitshares.org/the-value-proposition-of-bitshares-part-ii-bitassets/

A dollar stable asset, you can send globally, in 10 seconds for 1 cent regardless of size. http://whatisbitusd.com/

Stable BitAssets are what I'm expecting to transform crypto in 2015, though I agree no/low inflation POS systems are an improvement.

[kokojie]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

and GHash is 10% of the total nowadays.

Good job missing the point.

GHash had 51% yes?
Ghash is mostly cloud mining yes?

It has already happened in the past, there's absolutely nothing to stop it from happening again in the future. PoW is centralized and insecure, with the additional drawback of causing Bitcoin value loss and energy+hardware waste.

[QuestionAuthority]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

and GHash is 10% of the total nowadays.

Good job missing the point.

GHash had 51% yes?
Ghash is mostly cloud mining yes?

It has already happened in the past, there's absolutely nothing to stop it from happening again in the future. PoW is centralized and insecure, with the additional drawback of causing Bitcoin value loss and energy+hardware waste.

But aren't the people of the world supposed to hold hands and sing "end oppression using Bitcoin"? Bitcoin self corrects because we all love each other and won't allow one evil power to take over. Even if someone gets all the control they won't do anything because they will not profit then, right? lol


Let's praise Bitcoin and save the world

[VectorChief]

Miners CAN NOT switch if GHash decides to act maliciously. Since GHash is mostly cloud mining nowadays, the hashrate is actually owned by GHash and then resold to miners.

and GHash is 10% of the total nowadays.

Good job missing the point.

GHash had 51% yes?
Ghash is mostly cloud mining yes?

It has already happened in the past, there's absolutely nothing to stop it from happening again in the future. PoW is centralized and insecure, with the additional drawback of causing Bitcoin value loss and energy+hardware waste.

But aren't the people of the world supposed to hold hands and sing "end oppression using Bitcoin"? Bitcoin self corrects because we all love each other and won't allow one evil power to take over. Even if someone gets all the control they won't do anything because they will not profit then, right? lol

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_1AobnciMN0k/TI1uX5Q-S_I/AAAAAAAAAAM/y-i5y8oPoT4/s1600/world.gif
Let's praise Bitcoin and save the world

+1
We are in it together, that's how we win!

[venij]

Proposal:  Protocol level rotation between PoW and PoS blocks with separate difficulties. Example – Block A is found under bitcoin’s current PoW system with a difficulty of ~12billion (difficulty A) in a majority ASIC mining environment. Block B will then be found under a PoS environment that requires the coin-age of the blockfinder to be included and consumed in the block. Block B would be subject to a separate difficulty B such that a combined effort of CPU mining and coin-age (say difficulty / coin-age or difficulty to the coin-age root) could also be adjusted to similar 5 or 10 minute intervals.

How it fixes problem in PoW: “51%” are based on the knowledge that the attacking party will eventually be able to control all blocks that are added to the blockchain. Interjecting a separate PoS system between blocks makes this impossible. At the same time, it frees PoW miners to work in their best interest and capture even upto 100% of the mining pool distribution.

How it fixes the problem in PoS: So called nothing-at-stake attacks are based on the assumption that any self-interested minter would continue to mint all forks of the chain in an effort to maximize his potential rewards (due to very low cost of minting). To the limit of such a case, all branches of the blockchain are continuously mined, and no single version is provably authentic. Interjecting a separate PoW system between blocks provides the resource intensive requirement to prevent the blockchain from spiraling out of control.

Side-thoughts
 – part of the original reason for PoS was to avoid the electricity cost of PoW. PoW miners could be setup to run on standby (only listening to the network communication) after a PoW block was found. Upon communication of a PoS block, they would again run at full speed. That savings vs. costs of thermal cycling or lost mining time could be optimized per mining hardware.
 - block times could be modified for 5 minute averages (5 mins PoW + 5mins PoS = 10 minute overall) so that PoW rewards stay consistent during the cutover.
 - As mentioned, a hard-fork or side chains using "burned" coins could be used for implementation

[jonald_fyookball]

i had the same idea... and have considered some of the consequences/implications...please feel free to start another thread on this topic specifically and i'll happily contribute. too much noise here...let me know.

[CryptoCurrencyInc.com]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

[QuestionAuthority]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

And then the devs/Bitcoin Foundation still won't do it.

[kokojie]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

No, it needs to be a Bitcoin stake weighted vote, since the "No" votes are probably mostly PoW miners who hold no Bitcoins.

It could be implemented as a feature in the protocol, ie. "vote with your Bitcoin". All the exchanges can provide api access for easy voting, or just install qt client and vote with it.

[onemorebtc]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

No, it needs to be a Bitcoin stake weighted vote, since the "No" votes are probably mostly PoW miners who hold no Bitcoins.

It could be implemented as a feature in the protocol, ie. "vote with your Bitcoin". All the exchanges can provide api access for easy voting, or just install qt client and vote with it.

....or just build it and see how many people use it? thats the same voting as you describe...

[jonald_fyookball]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

No, it needs to be a Bitcoin stake weighted vote, since the "No" votes are probably mostly PoW miners who hold no Bitcoins.

It could be implemented as a feature in the protocol, ie. "vote with your Bitcoin". All the exchanges can provide api access for easy voting, or just install qt client and vote with it.

unless there is near total consensus, it won't happen because some people will still use the old system and you can't
have two systems called Bitcoin. 

[onemorebtc]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

No, it needs to be a Bitcoin stake weighted vote, since the "No" votes are probably mostly PoW miners who hold no Bitcoins.

It could be implemented as a feature in the protocol, ie. "vote with your Bitcoin". All the exchanges can provide api access for easy voting, or just install qt client and vote with it.

unless there is near total consensus, it won't happen because some people will still use the old system and you can't
have two systems called Bitcoin. 

thats the reason i want someone to build it: doubled coins for me
and look at clam: they did it, but obviously most people trust in pow

[CryptoCurrencyInc.com]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

And then the devs/Bitcoin Foundation still won't do it.

If the votes are high enough, then people can launch a twitter public campaign to present it to the devs.
After all, what support Bitcoin is the community, not the devs.

[VectorChief]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

And then the devs/Bitcoin Foundation still won't do it.

If the votes are high enough, then people can launch a twitter public campaign to present it to the devs.
After all, what support Bitcoin is the community, not the devs.

This has been a highly debated topic for the last few months on this forum. But closer examination of the subject has revealed that these two types of consensus mechanism have different long-term dynamic characteristics and therefore need to stay separate.

[QuestionAuthority]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

And then the devs/Bitcoin Foundation still won't do it.

If the votes are high enough, then people can launch a twitter public campaign to present it to the devs.
After all, what support Bitcoin is the community, not the devs.

We only disagree on the definition of "Bitcoin community".

[CryptoCurrencyInc.com]

Just a friendly reminder, this voting poll allows you to change your vote. But, your vote can only be count as one.

[pawel7777]

If the votes are high enough, then people can launch a twitter public campaign to present it to the devs.
After all, what support Bitcoin is the community, not the devs.

? So why do you want to submit anything to the devs?

Just gather enough people, prepare a fork (CLAM style) and you got yourself a PoS BTC. It's that simple.

[kokojie]

This poll needs at least 5000+ votes to know for sure what the entire Bitcoin community feel about changing Bitcoin to Proof of Stake + Proof of Work.

No, it needs to be a Bitcoin stake weighted vote, since the "No" votes are probably mostly PoW miners who hold no Bitcoins.

It could be implemented as a feature in the protocol, ie. "vote with your Bitcoin". All the exchanges can provide api access for easy voting, or just install qt client and vote with it.

....or just build it and see how many people use it? thats the same voting as you describe...

Again, if my city's subway system is bad, I don't go ahead and build a new subway system in the city. There's a vast amount of existing supporting infrastructure, it's not simple as "go build your own". Unless you could build your own city subway.

[ab8989]

There are some realities what is going to happen if there is a switch.

1) The design, implementation and testing is going to take a long time. Think a year or two. Bitcoinv2 better be almost perfect in many ways.
2) The current bitcoinv1 still needs development and support during this time
3) If miners are going to be made obsolete they might not take that year laying down. They are going to do something but what?
4) There is going to be competition. Competing teams are going to emerge with their own proposal.
5) We need competition of different proposals. There are a million details to be sorted out. It is not as simple as just go to PoS.
6) Innovators are different people than who maintain old designs. Sorry if whoever is offended by this.
7) Old bitcoinv1 is still going to exist after the switch whether you like it or not or whatever is done to prevent this.
8 )Old bitcoinv1 and new bitcoinv2 are going to compete for whoever wins in the long run.

There are others as well, but I think there is now enough.
In my opinion these are not negotiable. These are something that will 100% happen.
You have a choice how you try to deal with these facts.

A) Ignore them and be surprised when you find them happening.
B) Try work against them and lose the battle.
C) Work with them and embrace them.

I very much promote for the option C) as both A) and B) are utter maddness.

Working along the option C) there are multiple possible scenarios but it could go something like this.

1) Multiple altcoin innovators present their competing proposals for new bitcoin
2) Multiple of these proposals are implemented and tested separately running them as bonafide altcoins.
3) Community vote which of them seems to be working best.
4) Losing proposals do not accept the vote but decide go ahead regardless.
5) There is a big bang and the competing altcoins are restarted from bitcoin blockchain situation as bitcoinv2s.
6) These multiple bitcoinv2s coins battle it out against themselves on the market and also against bitcoinv1
7) ....
8  )PROFIT ( or not ).

Working with options A) or B) could go something like this.

1) Community vote what to do.
2) The current bitcoin devs do not like what community voted and they quit.
3) New official bitcoin devs are recruited to work on innovating bitcoin2
4) They do not know the bitcoinv1 code and something happens which needs fix in bitcoinv1 and it does not get done.
5) 10 competing proposal emerges for bitcoin v2 that seems better than what the official new bitcoin dev team invented and they get angry why are they being undermined and there is a huge war of egos.
6) The current bitcoin miners invent some funny things to do when the projected bitcoinv1 shutdown draws closer and they are being forced out of business.
7) Chaos.
8 ) ....
9) NO PROFIT.

Alternative scenarios are welcome.

[fonenumba]

If the votes are high enough, then people can launch a twitter public campaign to present it to the devs.
After all, what support Bitcoin is the community, not the devs.

? So why do you want to submit anything to the devs?

Just gather enough people, prepare a fork (CLAM style) and you got yourself a PoS BTC. It's that simple.

CLAMs are not a fork of bitcoin. The only relation that CLAM has with bitcoin is that they were airdropped to holders of bitcoin who had unspent inputs in their address(es) (as well as to holders of DOGE)

[Daedelus]

or some research papers like:

Nxt forging algorithm: simulating approach (Oct 2014)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/243341106/nxtforging-1 (scroll down to read)

PoS forging algorithms: formal approach and multibranch forging (Nov 2014)
https://nxtforum.org/consensus-research/multibranch-forging-approach/
(https://www.scribd.com/doc/248208963/Multibranch-forging)

PoS forging algorithms: multi-strategy forging and related security issues (Dec 2014)
https://github.com/ConsensusResearch/articles-papers/blob/master/multistrategy/multistrategy.pdf

Simulation Tools for Forging Algorithms
https://github.com/ConsensusResearch/

Summary of discussion on research of the described POS attacks to date. Looks very positive for POS.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=897488.msg10152632#msg10152632

Anyone wanna change their vote?