[ANN] SpreadCoin | True Decentralization (No Pools) | Testing New Masternodes

[luigi1111]

There is a bounty of 3500SPR to break the no pool. Whoever has solid idea of how it can be done should try it out. Is a cycle that things are being built, being broken and then being built again. The MN codes that Mr. Spread is building is from scratch and not clone. Let him focus on that and someone else can try to break the no pool.

Well, I mean, ~1 BTC isn't much motivation for someone to actually go out and make a pool; talk, however, is cheap.

[girino]

There is a bounty of 3500SPR to break the no pool. Whoever has solid idea of how it can be done should try it out. Is a cycle that things are being built, being broken and then being built again. The MN codes that Mr. Spread is building is from scratch and not clone. Let him focus on that and someone else can try to break the no pool.

Well, I mean, ~1 BTC isn't much motivation for someone to actually go out and make a pool; talk, however, is cheap.

Well, if someone actually makes it, and it works, he will profit from the pools fees, or whatever the means he chooses to make his profit. So that's not only the 1 BTC he will be after.

[georgem]

There is a bounty of 3500SPR to break the no pool. Whoever has solid idea of how it can be done should try it out. Is a cycle that things are being built, being broken and then being built again. The MN codes that Mr. Spread is building is from scratch and not clone. Let him focus on that and someone else can try to break the no pool.

Well, I mean, ~1 BTC isn't much motivation for someone to actually go out and make a pool; talk, however, is cheap.

3500 SPR has nothing to do with 1 BTC.

Please don't confuse those two.

[luigi1111]

There is a bounty of 3500SPR to break the no pool. Whoever has solid idea of how it can be done should try it out. Is a cycle that things are being built, being broken and then being built again. The MN codes that Mr. Spread is building is from scratch and not clone. Let him focus on that and someone else can try to break the no pool.

Well, I mean, ~1 BTC isn't much motivation for someone to actually go out and make a pool; talk, however, is cheap.

3500 SPR has nothing to do with 1 BTC.

Please don't confuse those two.

That's nonsense. It's almost exactly 1 BTC worth presently. They are interchangeable.

[georgem]

There is a bounty of 3500SPR to break the no pool. Whoever has solid idea of how it can be done should try it out. Is a cycle that things are being built, being broken and then being built again. The MN codes that Mr. Spread is building is from scratch and not clone. Let him focus on that and someone else can try to break the no pool.

Well, I mean, ~1 BTC isn't much motivation for someone to actually go out and make a pool; talk, however, is cheap.

3500 SPR has nothing to do with 1 BTC.

Please don't confuse those two.

That's nonsense. It's almost exactly 1 BTC worth presently. They are interchangeable.

But then, who is doing the cheap talk here?
You just assume that you are going to make the pool work today, and get the money immediately?
Is that the reason you take the current BTC/SPR rate? 

Show results first, and then you can claim the bounty and its conversion rate!

Might take a few weeks or months, right?
That's why we express the bounty in SPR, because 3500 SPR will still be 3500 SPR no matter if someone succeeds today or in 6 months, IF EVER!

[imnyam]

Hey,
I can make android wallet for SpreadCoin. Need?
If yes, have any bounties for this?

[MyFarm]

Hey,
I can make android wallet for SpreadCoin. Need?
If yes, have any bounties for this?

elbandi is already working on it.

Besides an android wallet, would you be interested in creating something different for Spreadcoin?  If so, what would you enjoy doing?  I may be willing to pay a bounty.

[georgem]

Hey,
I can make android wallet for SpreadCoin. Need?
If yes, have any bounties for this?

Please visit http://www.spreadcointalk.org and post your offer in the subforum "Project Development"

http://spreadcointalk.org/index.php?board=6.0

We are in need of all kinds of developers.

[defunctec]

MrSpreads latest messages from spreadcointalk.org.

Recently a new idea about how to make pools was suggested, I think it was already discussed sometime before. The idea is that each miner will send collateral equal to the block reward to the pool. Miners then submit shares to the pool as usual, if any miner tries to steal the block reward then pool would use collateral of this miner to pay to other miners and cheating miner will gain nothing.

Stealing
Miners cannot steal coins in this scheme but can pool do this? Obviously pool has collected many collaterals and can just take them all and run away. But what if pool is operated by some publicly known persons, legally registered as an organization in, say, US, would pool operators be able to safely steal your coins without any risk to themselves? The answer is yes and here is how it can be done:
1. Pool operators would spend the block reward and anonymize it. If anonymous transactions are implemented by this time then this can be done directly using SpreadCoin, otherwise they will exchange it to something like Monero and anonymize it there.
2. After that pool operators would claim that miner has stolen the block reward and redistribute miner's collateral to other miners.
3. Nor miner nor pool operators can prove to anyone that they didn't stole the money. External observers will only see that block reward was not redistributed to other miners as usual but they cannot know who has actually stolen it - pool or miner.

This means that pool can safely steal money while miners can falsely accuse pool of stealing their money and such claims cannot be confirmed nor disproved by anyone.

Economy
This scheme assumes that block reward is cheap so that it is not a problem for miner to obtain this amount. This claim is somethat of dubious.

If you can find blocks consistently then you don't need pool and associated risk of stealing your collateral. If you cannot find blocks consistently then collateral is probably exceeding the amount you will ever mine or is close to it, if you can easily just buy such amount why would you bother with mining?

If SpreadCoin price is low then there are less people mining it and solo-mining even for small miners is possible and they don't need pools. Currently even with one GPU you can find 1 block in 1-2 days, with small mining farm you will be able to find blocks regularly. If price is high then collateral is also expensive.

The other aspect is that requirement for such collaterals if massively adopted would move the price up, this would make this collateral not so cheap.

But what if the pool doesn't have 100% control over the collateral, but the money is on some kind of multisig address?

Something like an "automated escrow" as described in this video:

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

No party can just run away with the money this way. They both have to fullfill their contract so that the collateral goes back to them.

This means, that not only does every miner need to deposit a collateral, but the pool ALSO needs to pay a collateral.
The pool will probably even need to match every collateral that every single miner has payed.

Let's assume 100 miners in 1 pool.
Every miner has to pay a collateral of X, so all miners in sum will pay 100 X.
So the pool needs to balance that and add another 100 X.

Now all the miners and the pool are equally invested and will both have to lose the same amount when they play foul.

Why we do not want pools in the first place? Because they put too many control in a too few hands. If they are cooperating (or were hacked, or one pool controls more than 50%) they can e.g. perform double-spending attack. If you you will design some system where miners should monitor pools for not misbehaving then it would not be bad at all, it may be even good, we will get both protection from possibly malicious pools and consistent payments for miners.

I still don't see how what you described will work.

[imnyam]

Hey,
I can make android wallet for SpreadCoin. Need?
If yes, have any bounties for this?

elbandi is already working on it.

Besides an android wallet, would you be interested in creating something different for Spreadcoin?  If so, what would you enjoy doing?  I may be willing to pay a bounty.

I can make iOS, Blackberry, WP and web wallet.
If you have any ideas I can take for their implementation.

[georgem]

"Pool using Collateral" discussion at spreadcointalk.org started by Mr. Spread himself.

Please join, and you can discuss with Mr. Spread directly.

http://spreadcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82.0

[tacotime]

MrSpreads latest messages from spreadcointalk.org.

I'm not sure MrSpread's argument makes economic sense... Coinbase or BTC-e could also steal all their clients coins at any time, and have way more coins than a single pool ever will. However, pools are a business with real revenue and profit, which is lost in the event of theft for a small tangible reward. Certainly exchanges do run off with coins, but it seems like much fewer coins will ever exist on the pool, disincentivizing the pool from stealing the deposits. As has already been mentioned, all deposits can also be stuck in multisigs with a trusted third party (e.g. 2-of-3 multisig escrow), so that in the event that either the pool or the miner wants to try to steal the deposit, they can not.

At this point I think there is no reason that I can see that a pool cannot be made, the difference with Bitcoin, etc is that such a pool would be bonded mining as opposed to there being no fee for entry in BTC.

I think the issue more right now is that the value of making a pool simply isn't there. It cost almost $20k USD in bounties to get a pool running for CryptoNote coins when we did so with Monero, alongside the possibility of making fees from miners.

[georgem]

MrSpreads latest messages from spreadcointalk.org.

I'm not sure MrSpread's argument makes economic sense... Coinbase or BTC-e could also steal all their clients coins at any time, and have way more coins than a single pool ever will. However, pools are a business with real revenue and profit, which is lost in the event of theft for a small tangible reward. Certainly exchanges do run off with coins, but it seems like much fewer coins will ever exist on the pool, disincentivizing the pool from stealing the deposits. As has already been mentioned, all deposits can also be stuck in 2-of-2 multisigs with the pool owner and the miner, so that in the event that either the pool or the miner wants to try to steal the deposit, they can not.

At this point I think there is no reason that I can see that a pool cannot be made, the difference with Bitcoin, etc is that such a pool would be bonded mining as opposed to there being no fee for entry in BTC.

But Coinbase and BTC-e are not pools, they are exchanges/onlinewallets. That's awholenother beast.

A pool can only steal as much as it takes a miner to realize there's something wrong. So if a miner checks the statistics even just once a day, the damage a stealing pool can do is very limited in size. And the damage of reputation a pool might have from this is much higher than the actual profit that stealing might bring them.

[tacotime]

But Coinbase and BTC-e are not pools, they are exchanges/onlinewallets. That's awholenother beast.

A pool can only steal as much as it takes a miner to realize there's something wrong. So if a miner checks the statistics even just once a day, the damage is very limited in size. And the damage of reputation a pool might have from this is much higher than the actual profit that stealing might bring.

(Sorry, should have been 2-of-3 multisig, corrected it)

And the pool cannot steal anything if you're in a 2-of-3 escrow with say, the mediator being a trusted third party (reputable person on this forum, whatever).

So... yeah. I don't think that currently the software is 100% "pool impossible" or anything, it's more "bonded pool mining amenable, with increased incentives for solo mining".

The bigger issue will come when someone decides to multipool SpreadCoin, I'd guess... so you'd mine for a bit on their server for free to generate your initial bond (mining whatever currency is currently profitable), then that bond enables you to mine SpreadCoins but the payout is in BTC. Miners tend to be bottom feeders and will mine whatever is consistently bringing in cash, if the automated multipool is set up correctly I believe you can amortize the risk enough to remain profitable. But for the moment this is a lot of effort.

[georgem]

I think the issue more right now is that the value of making a pool simply isn't there. It cost almost $20k USD in bounties to get a pool running for CryptoNote coins when we did so with Monero, alongside the possibility of making fees from miners.

That's our conclusion too.

Is it theoretically possible? Yes.

Is it feasible? Not really, because who in his right mind would be ok with those uneconomic incentives.

[thelonecrouton]

Hey,
I can make android wallet for SpreadCoin. Need?
If yes, have any bounties for this?

elbandi is already working on it.

Besides an android wallet, would you be interested in creating something different for Spreadcoin?  If so, what would you enjoy doing?  I may be willing to pay a bounty.

I can make iOS, Blackberry, WP and web wallet.
If you have any ideas I can take for their implementation.

Something like this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.betty8080.mynewmasternodes ?

[luigi1111]

There is a bounty of 3500SPR to break the no pool. Whoever has solid idea of how it can be done should try it out. Is a cycle that things are being built, being broken and then being built again. The MN codes that Mr. Spread is building is from scratch and not clone. Let him focus on that and someone else can try to break the no pool.

Well, I mean, ~1 BTC isn't much motivation for someone to actually go out and make a pool; talk, however, is cheap.

3500 SPR has nothing to do with 1 BTC.

Please don't confuse those two.

That's nonsense. It's almost exactly 1 BTC worth presently. They are interchangeable.

But then, who is doing the cheap talk here?
You just assume that you are going to make the pool work today, and get the money immediately?
Is that the reason you take the current BTC/SPR rate? 

Show results first, and then you can claim the bounty and its conversion rate!

Might take a few weeks or months, right?
That's why we express the bounty in SPR, because 3500 SPR will still be 3500 SPR no matter if someone succeeds today or in 6 months, IF EVER!

And 1 BTC will still be 1 BTC today or in 6 months. I don't understand what you're trying to say.

Why would someone be motivated more (compared to value today) by expected future value of a bounty if his actions necessary to obtain that bounty are likely to reduce the value proposition of the deliverable for the bounty?

[georgem]

Why would someone be motivated more (compared to value today) by expected future value of a bounty if his actions necessary to obtain that bounty are likely to reduce the value proposition of the deliverable for the bounty?

I understand that this is your assumption.
But my assumption is the exact opposit.
A workable escrow pool with collateral that can run profitable for 30 days is not going to happen. It will be horribly expensive, dangerous and will not be profitable.

And if YOU want to disprove that, it should be YOU who has to pay for this experiment.

The bounty is just a little present, we are not going to pay you for your expenses, if that is what you would like!  

In the contrary, your expenses are what will cause you to give up such an experiment, and we are firmly counting on that.

[luigi1111]

Why would someone be motivated more (compared to value today) by expected future value of a bounty if his actions necessary to obtain that bounty are likely to reduce the value proposition of the deliverable for the bounty?

I understand that this is your assumption.
But my assumption is the exact opposit.
A workable escrow pool with collateral that can run profitable for 30 days is not going to happen. It will be horribly expensive, dangerous and will not be profitable.

And if YOU want to disprove that, it should be YOU who has to pay for this experiment.

The bounty is just a little present, we are not going to pay you for your expenses, if that is what you would like!  

In the contrary, your expenses are what will cause you to give up such an experiment, and we are firmly counting on that.

"I" don't want to set up a pool. I'm interested in the discussion of whether it is possible/feasible/economical.

You make it sound like I or someone else has this desire to make a pool to "kill" the coin. I don't believe that is the case, at least right now.

As far as I know, the point of the bounty is to provide incentive for someone to at least attempt to break the antipool measures set up on the belief that putting the coin "through the fire" is better for its long term health.

My point is only that there is very little incentive to (attempt to) implement a pool. That doesn't mean someone won't try anyway though.

The discussion remains interesting regardless.

[georgem]

My point is only that there is very little incentive to (attempt to) implement a pool. That doesn't mean someone won't try anyway though.

The discussion remains interesting regardless.

Yes, the discussion is highly entertaining and fruitful.

And if there is very little incentive to implement a pool, then spreadcoin wins by default.  
Because that's what we want to prove, that it is so uneconomical and complex to try and setup such an experimental pool, that you will have a very hard time to even find someone who is willing to do that.
(after a short effort estimation they will all say: "Not worth it")

That's the whole point: we are not going to artificially create a beneficial incentive for this experiment by offering a very high bounty. Why should we?

That would be like doing a kickstarter to collect 1 Billion $ for the FED so they can try and do a successful double spend on bitcoin.

The free market says it's unfeasible!