BitShares Forum
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: bytemaster on September 24, 2015, 03:34:12 pm
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The only relevant question imo is whether the 'best-selling' option, significantly adds to costs or security concerns.
BitShares is attempting to sell itself in the market and the "Customer is Always Right" so all technical concerns aside we have to market it well.
I think I have made a entirely defendable case that we do not need a large number of "witnesses" for the network to be secure... just like large speakers are not required to produce good sound. For a very long time people would buy the larger speakers even if they were technically inferior and more expensive.
So rationality is not the most important thing when figuring out how to build something that will sell.
This means we have two options:
1. Figure out how to sell the best technical approach
2. Adopt an inferior technical approach as a marketing gimmick.
So in the spirit of marketing gimmicks we need to identify the fallacy that others BELIEVE is good, and get them to accept BTS as equally good.
People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry. But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.
But perhaps a bigger issue we face is WHO are we selling to. Altcoin fanatics or the general public.
If the requirement is to build a FUNCTIONAL system then we have that and have already optimized all of the security conserns.
If the requirement is FORM over FUNCTION for sales reasons then we should debate what FORM sells the best independent of any security concern.
Perhaps all we need to do is add a nice FORM over our best FUNCTION in order to sell the best.
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If the product works well, is easy to use, solves problems that people face (or does something they need better than the alternatives), and the barriers to entry are easily overcome (on/off-ramps), then it will sell. We just don't want it to seem overly centralized because that is our edge over Ripple. But I agree most of the money in the system should be left for more important things rather than paying a bunch of unneeded extra witnesses. I think 21 would be a good number. See what others think.
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I don't think it's a big marketing issue. average user does not care about this technical stuff, and non-crypto users don't care at all as long as it works.
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I agree, 21 seems like a good number to me. I just dont agree with being wasteful at this critical time.
It needs to just work, be intuitive and user friendly.
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When I read the title I thought bytemaster was asking us where to sell his bitshares. :P
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But perhaps a bigger issue we face is WHO are we selling to. Altcoin fanatics or the general public.
My opinion, they're one in the same. At one point we were all considered the general public before becoming an Alt-fan.
WHY we became Alt-fans is the subject that should be reviewed for marketing purposes and/or FORM design.
BM, I'd be curious to know what FORM means in your mind and what you'd suggest to the public? (plus this may keep this thread from being derailed) :P
The easiest thing to sell is simply a product that just works! A product with a simple, easy to use interface and rock solid performance! This alone will sell the product and create buzz.
*Now I think of it, would it be a good idea to have a "customer testimonial' page with 5 star user rating?*
It's a tried and true cliche, but First Impressions Are Everything!
BTS has a second shot for this, so let's take advantage of it while it's hot! No need for gimmicks or "special" functions to market.
If we need to market anything in specific that BTS offers,
1) Regional Specific and Stable Digital Currencies
2) Decentralized Marketplace/Exchange
3) 1-3 Second Transfer Times
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If you're not targeting the altcoin market and want to break out into the real world - how will you convince banks and the establishment in general to put their trust and financing behind a system in which 8 'adversaries' working together can bring the entire thing to a grinding halt?
edit: and in the worst case at 0 cost
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We need to sell to businesses imo.
Getting a business on board brings many customers.
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@bytemaster:
I have confidence in your assessment a) of what it takes to secure the network and b) that there are points of diminishing returns (or worse) when it comes to bringing on additional witnesses that don't meet a minimum standard. So for me that just leaves the very important issue of perception. Having said that, how foolhardy would it be to diminish security in order to maintain the perception of greater security? So the question is, how do we satisfy a) those in this community who are better informed about the actual security needs of the Bitshares network AND b) crypto fans not in this community who might perceive a lack of security if we have less than 101 witnesses (or our detractors who would use the issue against us)?
I may have an idea. You mentioned today on another thread that full (non witness) nodes do play a role in securing the network, albeit not the primary role of producing blocks. With that in mind, I think having the right number of full nodes (hopefully at least 101 minus the number of witnesses), geographically dispersed and displayed on the network stats map along with the witnesses, could help with the perception issue and give us the cover we need to have the right number of witnesses (the "right number" meaning as many qualified witnesses as possible, with starting pay being not much more than enough to cover costs ~100-ish? but with prospects of much greater pay as BTS appreciates). Obviously it would still be ideal if we could maximize the number, and hopefully something closer to 31 would be feasible when you consider it's not that much more than 17, and that the software upgrades with 2.0 should lower the barrier to entry for some folks who are qualified but haven't had the patience to deal with the current software.
Finally, I think if we could also add SMS-based 2FA from the start (which is extremely user friendly and also easy to implement), we would be in VERY good shape from day 1 in terms of actual security, the perception of security, not to mention user-friendliness.
Thoughts?
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If the security is as good with 17 as with 100 then we just have to explain this to the buyer and that's it.
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Businesses are the key and i thought our focus already ?!
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I'm reminded of something Vitalik Buterin once said: "network effect follows developers". It's something that really stuck with me because it's so true. When you look at all the major platforms out there like iOS, Windows, Wordpress, etc, etc, you realize they're popular because it was easy for entrepreneurs and hobbyists to build stuff on top of them. I think the core team of developers should focus on making bitshares/graphene a platform that's easy to build on. End of the day, chains that have lots of 3rd party development (and thus utility), will win.
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I'm reminded of something Vitalik Buterin once said: "network effect follows developers". It's something that really stuck with me because it's so true.
This is completely true and be foremost for the most sucessful crypto. BM claims in a mumble session that Bitshares is going to be easy to develop on, or at least they are thinking about this everyday and are working towards this goal.
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I'm reminded of something Vitalik Buterin once said: "network effect follows developers". It's something that really stuck with me because it's so true. When you look at all the major platforms out there like iOS, Windows, Wordpress, etc, etc, you realize they're popular because it was easy for entrepreneurs and hobbyists to build stuff on top of them. I think the core team of developers should focus on making bitshares/graphene a platform that's easy to build on. End of the day, chains that have lots of 3rd party development (and thus utility), will win.
+5%
BitShares- The Financial OS
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The easiest thing to sell is simply a product that just works! A product with a simple, easy to use interface and rock solid performance! This alone will sell the product and create buzz. *Now I think of it, would it be a good idea to have a "customer testimonial' page with 5 star user rating?*
For those of you that really believe that there is a big mythical market of people that don't care how it works but that it works. Why don't we just run BitShares 3.0 from one computer in a safe haven jurisdiction with a great website and a couple of customer testimonials?
Chances are we won't be shut down for years and can surely become pretty big because the main market doesn't care how it works right? :o
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If you look at Bitcoin demographics
Yes there are some people that don't care how it works but that it works but I believe most users have some concept that Bitcoin is decentralised by thousands of computers worldwide mining for Bitcoin & processing transactions.
Then there is a smaller group of people who know Bitcoin centralizes into pools but believe hashers will switch if needed/incentives are there/6 years proven model. While there are only very few who understand the Bitcoin security model is very weak.
With 17 witnesses you would be creating the reverse, only the small group at the very centre would believe it's secure & adequately decentralised. We know some in this community and definitely the alt-coin market would believe it's not sufficiently decentralised for a variety of reasons. (While I believe the referral programme and partnerships are strong but I don't think BTS is going to expand so rapidly in the next 6 months that you can ignore the alt-coin market.)
I also believe while the mainstream market can be convinced to put their money in a widely decentralised system, they would view one processed by 17 people as too centralised too.
"Instead of using a centralized trading exchange, that offers great customer service, is insured by Lloyds of London and fully regulated, you can instead use BitShares which has none of those benefits and is run by 10 guys in the US, 5 in Europe and 2 in China."
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So though I understand we only have so many qualified witnesses, can only afford so many, voters can't vet too many, and at a certain level it decreases performance and even impacts security. I'm definitely in favour of pushing it to the highest reasonable threshold.
Geographical diversity is also a powerful marketing tool for decentralisation if our witness number is limited.
If you can say BitShares is processed from 20-30 countries, including many that hate each other. Then you can sell a decentralised global company and exchange that is resistant to interference or attack despite technically having a small amount of witnesses.
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If you're not targeting the altcoin market and want to break out into the real world - how will you convince banks and the establishment in general to put their trust and financing behind a system in which 8 'adversaries' working together can bring the entire thing to a grinding halt?
edit: and in the worst case at 0 cost
I think it is highly unlikely that you could convince 8 people to collude without the other 8 finding out about it.
It would mean that 8 times in a row you would have to be lucky that the person you start convincing eventually joins your conspiracy without telling anyone about your plans.
I'd guess it works like this: normally people trust those whom they consider experts in a given field. So our task is to have the support of "technical experts" that 17 is enough to make it safe.
The MaidSafe design requires just 4 copies of file chunks to store data safely on a decentralized network. At first I thought this number was way too small but then I read the experts' opinions and now I think 4 is OK if they so.
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I think it is highly unlikely that you could convince 8 people to collude without the other 8 finding out about it.
It would mean that 8 times in a row you would have to be lucky that the person you start convincing eventually joins your conspiracy without telling anyone about your plans.
And if those 8 people are really just one person?
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I think it is highly unlikely that you could convince 8 people to collude without the other 8 finding out about it.
It would mean that 8 times in a row you would have to be lucky that the person you start convincing eventually joins your conspiracy without telling anyone about your plans.
And if those 8 people are really just one person?
That's where the low number of witnesses helps us: it's much easier to verify that 17 witnesses are unique than to verify that 51 witnesses are unique.
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That's where the low number of witnesses helps us: it's much easier to verify that 17 witnesses are unique than to verify that 51 witnesses are unique.
If they are anonymous, it's impossible to verify uniqueness.
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I think the core team of developers should focus on making bitshares/graphene a platform that's easy to build on. End of the day, chains that have lots of 3rd party development (and thus utility), will win.
Bingo.
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That's where the low number of witnesses helps us: it's much easier to verify that 17 witnesses are unique than to verify that 51 witnesses are unique.
If they are anonymous, it's impossible to verify uniqueness.
Well, that's the thing, and to BM's point about choosing the witnesses. The location/servers/etc. can be in anonymous locations with anonymous IPs but the actual witnesses should at least be known to the Delegates.
Once the platform scales to beyond what can be run on a $100 dedicated server it's going to be pretty hard for a witness to stay hidden and still provide good service and confidence to the shareholders. Perhaps some mix of anonymous and known witnesses where 75% need to be known in a network of trust.
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@bytemaster, could you let me know if I understand your line of thinking correctly:
(1) 17 is not so good as 25 or 51 in terms of preventing an attack (because of reasons raised by monsterer and Empirical1.2)
(2) But 17 is much easier to work with than 25 or 51 when we are in a recovery mode and need to coordinate quickly.
Is it the reason you prefer 17 to something higher?
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@bytemaster, could you let me know if I understand your line of thinking correctly:
(1) 17 is not so good as 25 or 51 in terms of preventing an attack (because of reasons raised by monsterer and Empirical1.2)
(2) But 17 is much easier to work with than 25 or 51 when we are in a recovery mode and need to coordinate quickly.
Is it the reason you prefer 17 to something higher?
I picked 17 to be the most controversial LOW number I could to stimulate the biggest possible debate... and because it is prime.
The test network currently has more than 17 unique nodes on it. Like I said earlier I only want to set the pay rate high enough to make it a competition to get a slot. I also want to reserve as much of the available budget for development and maintenance as possible ;)
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@bytemaster, could you let me know if I understand your line of thinking correctly:
(1) 17 is not so good as 25 or 51 in terms of preventing an attack (because of reasons raised by monsterer and Empirical1.2)
(2) But 17 is much easier to work with than 25 or 51 when we are in a recovery mode and need to coordinate quickly.
Is it the reason you prefer 17 to something higher?
I picked 17 to be the most controversial LOW number I could to stimulate the biggest possible debate... and because it is prime.
The test network currently has more than 17 unique nodes on it. Like I said earlier I only want to set the pay rate high enough to make it a competition to get a slot. I also want to reserve as much of the available budget for development and maintenance as possible ;)
So it has nothing to do with the dilemma between being able to prevent an attack and being able to efficiently recover from one?
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If Bitshares marketcap gets large enough, do you want to go back to 101 witnesses? How large would that market cap have to be?
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The easiest thing to sell is simply a product that just works! A product with a simple, easy to use interface and rock solid performance! This alone will sell the product and create buzz. *Now I think of it, would it be a good idea to have a "customer testimonial' page with 5 star user rating?*
For those of you that really believe that there is a big mythical market of people that don't care how it works but that it works. Why don't we just run BitShares 3.0 from one computer in a safe haven jurisdiction with a great website and a couple of customer testimonials?
Chances are we won't be shut down for years and can surely become pretty big because the main market doesn't care how it works right? :o
----
If you look at Bitcoin demographics
Yes there are some people that don't care how it works but that it works but I believe most users have some concept that Bitcoin is decentralised by thousands of computers worldwide mining for Bitcoin & processing transactions.
Then there is a smaller group of people who know Bitcoin centralizes into pools but believe hashers will switch if needed/incentives are there/6 years proven model. While there are only very few who understand the Bitcoin security model is very weak.
With 17 witnesses you would be creating the reverse, only the small group at the very centre would believe it's secure & adequately decentralised. We know some in this community and definitely the alt-coin market would believe it's not sufficiently decentralised for a variety of reasons. (While I believe the referral programme and partnerships are strong but I don't think BTS is going to expand so rapidly in the next 6 months that you can ignore the alt-coin market.)
I also believe while the mainstream market can be convinced to put their money in a widely decentralised system, they would view one processed by 17 people as too centralised too.
"Instead of using a centralized trading exchange, that offers great customer service, is insured by Lloyds of London and fully regulated, you can instead use BitShares which has none of those benefits and is run by 10 guys in the US, 5 in Europe and 2 in China."
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So though I understand we only have so many qualified witnesses, can only afford so many, voters can't vet too many, and at a certain level it decreases performance and even impacts security. I'm definitely in favour of pushing it to the highest reasonable threshold.
Geographical diversity is also a powerful marketing tool for decentralisation if our witness number is limited.
If you can say BitShares is processed from 20-30 countries, including many that hate each other. Then you can sell a decentralised global company and exchange that is resistant to interference or attack despite technically having a small amount of witnesses.
+5%
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Why don't we have a vote, let everyone choose 17 or 33？ :'(Voting deadline should be 7 days in October
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The only relevant question imo is whether the 'best-selling' option, significantly adds to costs or security concerns.
BitShares is attempting to sell itself in the market and the "Customer is Always Right" so all technical concerns aside we have to market it well.
I think I have made a entirely defendable case that we do not need a large number of "witnesses" for the network to be secure... just like large speakers are not required to produce good sound. For a very long time people would buy the larger speakers even if they were technically inferior and more expensive.
So rationality is not the most important thing when figuring out how to build something that will sell.
This means we have two options:
1. Figure out how to sell the best technical approach
2. Adopt an inferior technical approach as a marketing gimmick.
So in the spirit of marketing gimmicks we need to identify the fallacy that others BELIEVE is good, and get them to accept BTS as equally good.
People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry. But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.
But perhaps a bigger issue we face is WHO are we selling to. Altcoin fanatics or the general public.
If the requirement is to build a FUNCTIONAL system then we have that and have already optimized all of the security conserns.
If the requirement is FORM over FUNCTION for sales reasons then we should debate what FORM sells the best independent of any security concern.
Perhaps all we need to do is add a nice FORM over our best FUNCTION in order to sell the best.
+5%
Those with the most money are not the ones screaming on reddit and bitcointalk.
Often what sells good is just what is different and also provides great potential for controversy which is very good! Controversy though requires a good command over a subtle yet dumbed down marketing language which we sucked at up to now.
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What about use 17 power-witnesses plus 101 regular-witnesses(or better a dynamic number)....
17 that get paid 80% of the total budget and get elected and the other 101(or what ever) get not elected but the code pick them up automatically depended on reliability, active feeds, latency,luck(?) etc. and they get 20% from the total budget...
I think marketing wise its inferior. It seems more decentralized than bts1.0 (but obviously it isn't)
PS1 Of course the powerwitnesses sign 80% of total blocks
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@bytemaster - this whole discussion is based on the misconception that 101 delegates would not operate at a loss, when clearly this is not the case and the inception of the bitshares 1.0 chain (and almost all other POS chains) proves this.
You and @stan have already spent the best part of 1 year arguing that 101 is the optimal amount of decentralisation, and now you propose to throw all that work away?
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@bytemaster - this whole discussion is based on the misconception that 101 delegates would not operate at a loss, when clearly this is not the case and the inception of the bitshares 1.0 chain (and almost all other POS chains) proves this.
You and @stan have already spent the best part of 1 year arguing that 101 is the optimal amount of decentralisation, and now you propose to throw all that work away?
+5%
that's why we must not fall in the trap to decide again (and with pressure) how much witnesses to use.
Let the number be dynamic and the decision be taken from the shareholders, the market, or the code.... or all together... but not only from one guru or a community that could be take a right decision now but prove to be wrong tomorrow when circumstances change... We must be more flexible!
(https://s3-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmetrouk2.files.wordpress.com%2F2015%2F04%2Fad_1659912491.jpg%3Fquality%3D80%26amp%3Bw%3D768%26amp%3Bh%3D512%26amp%3Bcrop%3D1%23038%3Bstrip%3Dall%26amp%3Bw%3D1000%26amp%3Bh%3D667&sp=673408c8f889d15707c0147d8f2714f7)
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I don't think anyone is proposing that we will not be selecting number of witnesses by voting in real time once the chain goes live. What we need to decide is number of initial witnesses and initial payrate. We also need to figure out how to best market our decision. We will be able to adjust number of witnesses quickly.
If you feel that we should have 1000 witnesses, then you can vote for 1000 witnesses. If you think 17 is enough then just vote for 17.
Xeroc also proposed having each witness run multiple keys from each node. That would increase the number without increasing the cost, but could perhaps be viewed as sneaky.
I also like (I think it was empricals) the idea to pay standby witnesses a lesser amount. We would have to find a good way to ensure that their nodes are active.
One attack vector that I haven't heard mentioned might have an effect on initial witness number. If someone was able to get the private keys of a majority of the init witnesses they could build an alternate history and attempt to get syncing nodes to download it. I am not sure if Tapos would prevent that. Would having more init witnesses help, or would we rather start with fewer inits in hands we trust?
At this point my proposal would be:
33 init witnesses paid 2 bts per block produced (20 total blocks per minute, 28,800 per day, 864,000 per month. 1,728,000 bts/$10278 fixed network cost per month at current price. 26,181/$309 a month per witness @33 witnesses
11 standy witnesses paid 300 bts per day
In regards to standbys we could randomly select each standby to produce 1 block per day. If they produce their block on time they are paid their daily salary. If they do not then they are not paid and need to have their votes removed. In this way we can build a talent bench without a major problem developing if we don't have one.
paying per block will increase pay per witness with fewer witnesses and reduce pay per witness with more witnesses.
edit. Also it wouldn't hurt to double check my maths.
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look at it this way:
whats the worst thing that can happen?
double spend a few blocks and then they are kicked out?
whats the best thing that can happen?
we are instantly profitible as a dac
I for one am willing to risk having one of my transactions getting sniped early on in order to prove to the planet that we are profitible. and really? what are the odds? i dont know but what I do know for sure is that the odds of a double spend decrease exponentially as soon as the news of our profitibity gets around which will definitely raise our cap as the worlds first profitible chain which would instantly allow us to add more nodes and thus more security
so imo the plan should to start wherever we are actually profitibble and just dont get carried with large transactions initially. and realisticly who is going to be performing gigantic transactions initially.
we have to look at the risk reward potential here. and the potential risk that those who built bts are going to suicide their investment is really pretty low. Realisticly
the chance to become the only profitible dac is so compelling that i say we should take the risk ( of BM and his friends stealing a few transactions and getting fired immediately). If we are correct, and the devs are not crooked, the. we win huge! If we are wrong, the. one of your transactions could get sniped
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look at it this way:
whats the worst thing that can happen?
double spend a few blocks and then they are kicked out?
8 block producers collude to produce a majority fork which freezes all transactions, including voting, rendering the chain useless.
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look at it this way:
whats the worst thing that can happen?
The worst thing that happens is nobody on the outside accepts a security model like that because it's not a valid solution. I explained why in detail here:
https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,18570.msg238946.html#msg238946
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but if the problem gets fixed and all we did was suffer some downtime, then how are my shares insecure of being stolen?
If our core forum members have been setting up a long elaborate con here to steal a few bucks and ruin their rep forever then so be it. Personally, i would rather know who the snakes are especially if there actually are 50% of our trusted delegates. I am not afraid of the red pill. If BM and friends are evil, then I would rather find out sooner rather than later. Those who would rather keep their head in the sand and allow these crooks to walk among us are loving that blue pill flavor imo.
realistically this discussion is moot as soon as the voting starts but i for one am voting for 15 delegates if it means that we are instantly profitible and that only the collusion of 8 of my "closest family members" stabbing me simultaneously in the back is the only
only
only way that i can be harmed in the slightest
et tu brute. then fall cesar
in other words, if i cant trust my own family then im fucked anyway, at least i can stop living the lie and bask in the truth ( that I should not have been hanging out here in the first place and that the loudmouths on bitcointalk have been correct in warning me all along that BM simply wants to steal a few bucks from me and ruin his lifes work
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but if the problem gets fixed and all we did was suffer some downtime, then how are my shares insecure of being stolen?
How much do you think your shares will be worth after this event?
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but let me ask you how much you think our shares would be worth after Max Keiser announces the existance of the world's first profitible Bitcoin? and coindesk and forbes and any news article who mentions our name has to proclaim this major human evolutionary milestone
then after you answered that question you can calculate how many more nodes we can afford for our security while maintaining our profitibility
The world's first profitable bitcoin, is bitcoin!
101 delegates existed at the start of bitshares - their profitability wasn't a concern then, and it shouldn't be now.
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that's why we must not fall in the trap to decide again (and with pressure) how much witnesses to use.
Let the number be dynamic and the decision be taken from the shareholders, the market, or the code.... or all together... but not only from one guru or a community that could be take a right decision now but prove to be wrong tomorrow when circumstances change... We must be more flexible!
+5% Let the market/shareholders decide.
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but let me ask you how much you think our shares would be worth after Max Keiser announces the existance of the world's first profitible Bitcoin? and coindesk and forbes and any news article who mentions our name has to proclaim this major human evolutionary milestone
then after you answered that question you can calculate how many more nodes we can afford for our security while maintaining our profitibility
Daniel has already said, part of the reason for suggesting the lower end of the viable range was that it could free up more funds for development and maintenance, the basic monthly costs of which are considerable, $40 000+ per month?
The extra $5000 per month for more witnesses is not going to make a significant difference to when BTS becomes profitable.
While you personally may 'trust your own family', the wider market, most agree wouldn't feel comfortable with 15 witnesses. Even BM acknowledges that to the market, more is better -
People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry.
For a relatively small expense we can attract far more users, which will result in BTS becoming profitable far sooner.
More users = more transaction fees = DAC income
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what about all witnesses to donate (the first 3 months of bts2.0 existents) their profit's to... immigrants around the world?
Imagine immigrants to say thank you on camera winking with their smart-phones with installed bts2.0 mobile wallets :)
(https://s3-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.M2274f64531e766fa482b5877fc4b357cH0%26pid%3D15.1%26f%3D1&sp=4885b46d0d6223a62cee5814d8f08b5a)
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what about all witnesses to donate (the first 3 months of bts2.0 existents) their profit's to... immigrants around the world?
Imagine immigrants to say thank you on camera winking with their smart-phones with installed bts2.0 mobile wallets :)
(https://s3-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.M2274f64531e766fa482b5877fc4b357cH0%26pid%3D15.1%26f%3D1&sp=4885b46d0d6223a62cee5814d8f08b5a)
you know what, that just might be a brilliant idea and i would personally donate to compensate our miners in the process.
The reason why its so brilliant is because this is the type of charitable stuff that our community is going to be doing eventually:
crowd sourced charity (as well as many other positive community actions)
its not a cheap marketing ploy as much as it is us behaving like we are going to behave forever
( weather we are profitible or not)
So, here, here, produce an initiative, set it up and watch the love and generosity from our community pour forth. What better fanfare for our launch. Lets show the world that we are a dac for the people!
We not only get to show the world what we are about and what we can do, but we are will be making a difference in their lives. It will be much harder to spin our community motives as selfish from then on. And considering the whole BTS AGS BS that is constantly flying around damaging our reputation and causing us to have a small markt cap and not be able to pay as many nodes as we would like to, this initiative would guarantee that we would have the moral high ground in any "bts people are greedy because of protoshare " or whatever negative press is ailing us.
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People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry. But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.
BitShares is supposed to be an exchange, so what people love is having all their trading needs fulfilled. If you go to the polo troll box no one cares how many block producers there are. What they care about is this:
-Liquidity
-Variety of markets accessible in one place
-Lending for shorting
-Talking to the community of traders (troll box)
-Beautiful trading GUI
We dont yet have any of those things.
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People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry. But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.
BitShares is supposed to be an exchange, so what people love is having all their trading needs fulfilled. If you go to the polo troll box no one cares how many block producers there are. What they care about is this:
-Liquidity
-Variety of markets accessible in one place
-Lending for shorting
-Talking to the community of traders (troll box)
-Beautiful trading GUI
We dont yet have any of those things.
Yes but they do care about getting GOX'ed. The advantages of decentralization are BitShares USP over centralized exchanges.
So if the average user doesn't 'think' you're adequately decentralized then you have no USP and no market.
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If the security is as good with 17 as with 100 then we just have to explain this to the buyer and that's it.
If we don't lose anything with 100 then we should stick to 100 and change it later if there is a need for optimization. I doubt that 100 vs 17 is a significant optimization and the cost in terms of perception isn't worth it.
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If we don't lose anything with 100 then we should stick to 100 and change it later if there is a need for optimization. I doubt that 100 vs 17 is a significant optimization and the cost in terms of perception isn't worth it.
The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
If you can't fill 101 positions immediately, it's better to have the same person fulfilling multiple ones until they can be handed off instead of the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates.
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
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look at it this way:
whats the worst thing that can happen?
double spend a few blocks and then they are kicked out?
8 block producers collude to produce a majority fork which freezes all transactions, including voting, rendering the chain useless.
FOR A DAY.
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
Not a bad idea... but it is effectively buying your way into power which is less accountable and has different risks.
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Can we just say we are letting the network decide the number and move on.
r0aches idea is interesting, but I would like to see how well proxy voting works towards fixing voter apathy before we increase the barriers to entry for witnesses. One of the common complaints about PoS coins is that they further concentrate stake in the hands of the largest holders through staking. DPOS has so far avoided that.
What does everyone think the witnesses should be paid per block?
Any input about empiricals idea to pay standby witnesses?
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
Not a bad idea... but it is effectively buying your way into power which is less accountable and has different risks.
I am confident you will find the "sweet spot" to combine this idea with the existing one...
What matters is ... the seed is now planted :)
(https://s3-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftse3.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.Ma54471167b262609069d656fc59faa29H0%26pid%3D15.1%26f%3D1&sp=6ff0553162c4abec6ad5871461ee283d)
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Any input about empiricals idea to pay standby witnesses?
+5% +5% +5%
of course we must pay standby delegates!
they must have a motive to update, be informed etc.
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Any input about empiricals idea to pay standby witnesses?
+5% +5% +5%
of course we must pay standby delegates!
they must have a motive to update, be informed etc.
That already exists. Competition.
Why not, if someone burns X amount of BitShares, they get Y amount of permanent votes? Y can be worked out maybe. And we still have some part of that collateral idea being used?
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Any input about empiricals idea to pay standby witnesses?
+5% +5% +5%
of course we must pay standby delegates!
they must have a motive to update, be informed etc.
That already exists. Competition.
If we paid the top 10 or so standby witnesses enough to rent a vps and randomly checked to ensure that they were updated and synced we could ensure that our talent bench had players ready to step in immediately. I think it would be a very good insurance policy, that would only cost us a few hundred dollars a month.
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
Not a bad idea... but it is effectively buying your way into power which is less accountable and has different risks.
It's the same security model, you've already bought your way into power by purchasing a bunch of stake to vote with. I am simply offering users the fastest, most seamless, least time consuming possible way to identify the best game theory candidates to serve them, then letting them do it automated if they desire.
Bitshares will never become anything if you don't understand the following point. Nobody uses Linux because Linux is a lifestyle, not a utility appliance to provide them benefit. Nobody will use Bitshares if it's required being a lifestyle to use. This is the only possible way to avoid Bitshares being a lifestyle.
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Any input about empiricals idea to pay standby witnesses?
+5% +5% +5%
of course we must pay standby delegates!
they must have a motive to update, be informed etc.
That already exists. Competition.
If we paid the top 10 or so standby witnesses enough to rent a vps and randomly checked to ensure that they were updated and synced we could ensure that our talent bench had players ready to step in immediately. I think it would be a very good insurance policy, that would only cost us a few hundred dollars a month.
Yes, you only need to incentive competition. But no need to pay all stand by witnesses. Otherwise they wouldn't be stand by witnesses right?
And all this talk mixing up witnesses with delegates is messing me up. People constantly throwing delegates and witnesses together when delegates will cease to exist and their roles will be spread through new positions (witnesses, worker). I end up confusing myself and probably other people trying to figure 2.0 out
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Keep it 101. Nobody outside Bitcoin and the altcoins gives two shits about bitshares. Those who do give a shit about the possibility of bitshares care very much about decentralization and distribution. Do not write your core audience and users off as not the people you are marketing to. There is no secret user base waiting for bitshares graphene to be released outside of the cryptocurrency community. You alienate them, bitshares will never be anything more than what it is now. Then again, you already own the code. So you will forever be compared to centralized solutions in some way or another.
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
absolutely the most realistic (economic motive based) solution I've heard yet. And isn't that what we are essentially developing:
a framework of economic incentives?
It's similar to the successful DASH model (pay to play).
It's just a brilliant baseline for competition among our miners (witnesses).
voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
Not a bad idea... but it is effectively buying your way into power which is less accountable and has different risks.
But only if there is zero voting participation, and at zero voting participation, we are at worse risk without this implemented. It's true. It's basically black swan protection in the event we suddenly experience massive widespread voter apathy. It's like our current government where the rich run it until the voters get pissed, and try to exercise the political process. In other words, people will understand this mechanism as a reflection of our own government structures.
A witness could put up a million bitUSD as collateral, but without the required votes, it buys him nothing. But someone who does not know the BitShares team, might see this collateral as proof that this guy isn't going to risk losing his collateral. It will have potential benefit. If Donald Trump wants to run for witness, and puts up $$$$$$, isn't that a good thing for us? More people active in the political process. You are never going to be able separate money from politics, so at least make a fair framework for honest competition, where capital has its place within the system, instead of pretending like money has nothing to do with politics. Lets be realistic, and set the rule set accordingly. Heads out of the sand. The world is corrupt, and money is at the heart of every political decision.
It's the same security model, you've already bought your way into power by purchasing a bunch of stake to vote with. I am simply offering users the fastest, most seamless, least time consuming possible way to identify the best game theory candidates to serve them, then letting them do it automated if they desire.
Exactly, because they will at least have some skin in the game, and it will cost them some money if they want to take down the system (instead of being able to do it for free). The marriage of politics and economics has always been inseparable. We should not deny this basic law of human nature, but embrace it within the elegant design of the BitShares monetary & political structure. Otherwise, we risk having a an unnatural hole, gap, or void within our political structure.
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what about all witnesses to donate (the first 3 months of bts2.0 existents) their profit's to... immigrants around the world?
Imagine immigrants to say thank you on camera winking with their smart-phones with installed bts2.0 mobile wallets :)
(https://s3-eu5.ixquick.com/cgi-bin/serveimage?url=http%3A%2F%2Ftse4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.M2274f64531e766fa482b5877fc4b357cH0%26pid%3D15.1%26f%3D1&sp=4885b46d0d6223a62cee5814d8f08b5a)
you know what, that just might be a brilliant idea and i would personally donate to compensate our miners in the process.
The reason why its so brilliant is because this is the type of charitable stuff that our community is going to be doing eventually:
crowd sourced charity (as well as many other positive community actions)
its not a cheap marketing ploy as much as it is us behaving like we are going to behave forever
( weather we are profitible or not)
So, here, here, produce an initiative, set it up and watch the love and generosity from our community pour forth. What better fanfare for our launch. Lets show the world that we are a dac for the people!
We not only get to show the world what we are about and what we can do, but we are will be making a difference in their lives. It will be much harder to spin our community motives as selfish from then on. And considering the whole BTS AGS BS that is constantly flying around damaging our reputation and causing us to have a small markt cap and not be able to pay as many nodes as we would like to, this initiative would guarantee that we would have the moral high ground in any "bts people are greedy because of protoshare " or whatever negative press is ailing us.
Vote 38 before its too late. I am exactly the guy who can do this. I could have given 1 person per week a phone and personalized help with your votes since 8 months. Give them shirts etc. *sigh*
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
Not a bad idea... but it is effectively buying your way into power which is less accountable and has different risks.
It's the same security model, you've already bought your way into power by purchasing a bunch of stake to vote with. I am simply offering users the fastest, most seamless, least time consuming possible way to identify the best game theory candidates to serve them, then letting them do it automated if they desire.
Bitshares will never become anything if you don't understand the following point. Nobody uses Linux because Linux is a lifestyle, not a utility appliance to provide them benefit. Nobody will use Bitshares if it's required being a lifestyle to use. This is the only possible way to avoid Bitshares being a lifestyle.
I don't think that "game theory candidates" is true. You have to demonstrate there is not a benefit to having the majority or a large portion of candidates under the control of 1. It is sort of a half-assed game-theoretical approach, but nothing says it is a optimal/un-exploitable solution.
Since I'm being a nitpicker.. one more. ;)
Linux arguably is not a lifestyle. To the contrary, a lot of people who use Linux are tired of Windows/Macs which have far more of a lifestyle component. (Having random CEOs or whoever else in charge of the direction of their OS instead of leaving it alone) This is not really important to your point, but us Linux users have to represent. It is nice having a nice stable OS with a frontend that does what I need and little more... and not subject to change at the whims of marketers or those looking to keep themselves employed.
I would have it at something like 33. 17 is too few and 101 might very well be too many at this market cap.
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I don't think that "game theory candidates" is true. You have to demonstrate there is not a benefit to having the majority or a large portion of candidates under the control of 1. It is sort of a half-assed game-theoretical approach, but nothing says it is a optimal/un-exploitable solution.
A flat rate only puts an upper limit on number of sybil nodes, while a bid system improves on it much further. The only thing needed is to lock the collateral and make it unable to be used for your sybil delegates to vote for each other. There are numerous different ways to accomplish this lock. This is not the most optimal way, but if you wanted to do a rush job for BTS 2.0, one of the more exotic methods would be to have some type of asset on the exchange people purchase at a 1:1 ratio, "delegate token" or whatever you want to call it, then the voting list sorts people by how many delegate tokens they have in their account and puts them at the top.
Like I said, not the best way to do it, but just thinking of a way it could be rushed for BTS 2.0 on time.
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
Its clear my opinion of fewer witnesses is in the minority. If we cant have that, then i think the next best option is this hybrid approach suggested ^^.
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@r0ach
The tradeoff with your approach is electing block producers solely because they are putting up the largest stake vs electing block producers that are most trusted by stakeholders, especially if larger stake-holding candidates are elected by default unless the user manually changes the vote. Some of the most trusted candidates may not have the largest stake. I like users having no vote by default and having to manually change their vote. This also works to reduce the effects of voter apathy because those who are most involved in the system and have the largest stake will make sure to vote.
Anyway, I don't think the cost/benefit of implementing your suggestion would be worth it at this point. What are the chances of a failure directly resulting from not implementing your solution vs the chances of failure if your solution were to actually be implemented. I don't think its going to make a difference at this stage. Perhaps it is something that can be explored at higher levels of adoption once the chain becomes profitable and there is plenty of money in the coffers to explore such a solution. At this point, the current solution is probably sufficiently decentralized for this stage in the game.
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I think altcoin user is a crowd easy to understand and accept BTS.
BTS must need normal user , but altcoin crowd is also needed
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What will you do about not having any witnesses from China or thailand or any country that purposely crnsors internet aswell as slows connections down to a crawl? A 1 second or heck even 10 second confirmation time wont work there will it?
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People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry. But what this really means is that people love having the ILLUSION of direct control.
BitShares is supposed to be an exchange, so what people love is having all their trading needs fulfilled. If you go to the polo troll box no one cares how many block producers there are. What they care about is this:
-Liquidity
-Variety of markets accessible in one place
-Lending for shorting
-Talking to the community of traders (troll box)
-Beautiful trading GUI
We dont yet have any of those things.
Exactly. Regular users won't get caught up in the nuts and bolts of how and why bitshares is more secure than a centralized exchange. They will know that the platform they are using runs on the bitshares protocol, therefore it is secure. Much like users look for the s on the end of http to know that the connection they have established is secure. They don't know why it is secure, they just know that all the experts say it is secure so they use it. The same will be true of bitshares, so the ones that need to be convinced first are the experts.
Also, decentralization is only part of the security model. Quoting Satoshi, "Digital signatures provide part of the solution." Also, the ability to clone and fork at any point in time provides a certain level of security. So I am in the camp of fewer witnesses, at least at this stage, as I see more witnesses as costing more than they are worth.
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What will you do about not having any witnesses from China or thailand or any country that purposely crnsors internet aswell as slows connections down to a crawl? A 1 second or heck even 10 second confirmation time wont work there will it?
I'm pretty sure we currently have nodes operating from China on the test net with 3 second blocks.@r0ach
The tradeoff with your approach is electing block producers solely because they are putting up the largest stake vs electing block producers that are most trusted by stakeholders, especially if larger stake-holding candidates are elected by default unless the user manually changes the vote. Some of the most trusted candidates may not have the largest stake. I like users having no vote by default and having to manually change their vote. This also works to reduce the effects of voter apathy because those who are most involved in the system and have the largest stake will make sure to vote.
Anyway, I don't think the cost/benefit of implementing your suggestion would be worth it at this point. What are the chances of a failure directly resulting from not implementing your solution vs the chances of failure if your solution were to actually be implemented. I don't think its going to make a difference at this stage. Perhaps it is something that can be explored at higher levels of adoption once the chain becomes profitable and there is plenty of money in the coffers to explore such a solution. At this point, the current solution is probably sufficiently decentralized for this stage in the game.
I am also of the opinion that we should explore r0achs proposal after launch of bts 2.0. In addition to the down sides you pointed out it also requires us to set a default number of witnesses. I'm of the opinion that the number should be set by the network. If we set a default of voting for the top 101, we are almost stuck with 101.
If we can get the currently designed system to work well. With proxy voting and witness number set by the network I think we will be in better shape than if we need to go with r0aches proposal.
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What will you do about not having any witnesses from China or thailand or any country that purposely crnsors internet aswell as slows connections down to a crawl? A 1 second or heck even 10 second confirmation time wont work there will it?
I'm pretty sure we currently have nodes operating from China on the test net with 3 second blocks.@r0ach
The tradeoff with your approach is electing block producers solely because they are putting up the largest stake vs electing block producers that are most trusted by stakeholders, especially if larger stake-holding candidates are elected by default unless the user manually changes the vote. Some of the most trusted candidates may not have the largest stake. I like users having no vote by default and having to manually change their vote. This also works to reduce the effects of voter apathy because those who are most involved in the system and have the largest stake will make sure to vote.
Anyway, I don't think the cost/benefit of implementing your suggestion would be worth it at this point. What are the chances of a failure directly resulting from not implementing your solution vs the chances of failure if your solution were to actually be implemented. I don't think its going to make a difference at this stage. Perhaps it is something that can be explored at higher levels of adoption once the chain becomes profitable and there is plenty of money in the coffers to explore such a solution. At this point, the current solution is probably sufficiently decentralized for this stage in the game.
I am also of the opinion that we should explore r0achs proposal after launch of bts 2.0. In addition to the down sides you pointed out it also requires us to set a default number of witnesses. I'm of the opinion that the number should be set by the network. If we set a default of voting for the top 101, we are almost stuck with 101.
If we can get the currently designed system to work well. With proxy voting and witness number set by the network I think we will be in better shape than if we need to go with r0aches proposal.
Isnt firewall of china adding latency? Well going fwd they will introduce latencies anyway so will other countries, would it be port 80 traffic only then hmm? Seems odd, unless those people are unaffected I thought that it was w country wide thing.
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I don't think that "game theory candidates" is true. You have to demonstrate there is not a benefit to having the majority or a large portion of candidates under the control of 1. It is sort of a half-assed game-theoretical approach, but nothing says it is a optimal/un-exploitable solution.
A flat rate only puts an upper limit on number of sybil nodes, while a bid system improves on it much further. The only thing needed is to lock the collateral and make it unable to be used for your sybil delegates to vote for each other. There are numerous different ways to accomplish this lock. This is not the most optimal way, but if you wanted to do a rush job for BTS 2.0, one of the more exotic methods would be to have some type of asset on the exchange people purchase at a 1:1 ratio, "delegate token" or whatever you want to call it, then the voting list sorts people by how many delegate tokens they have in their account and puts them at the top.
Like I said, not the best way to do it, but just thinking of a way it could be rushed for BTS 2.0 on time.
I would think that the amount of capital to vote someone in is significantly more than the collateral people will be willing to put up to be a witness. So locking up the collateral to not vote is probably not that important.
The real question is whether the price to purchase a delegate is more than the harm than can be done. To me, that would be more of a game theoretical way of looking at it and that is a very hard question.
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R0ach;s idea of collateral + client auto voting for highest collateral witnesses unless you manually change it is very interesting.
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This thread is becoming massive.
And I want to post in it .
Not that I have anything important to ad or something.
The" Best Selling Option(s)" are the underpriced one, imho.
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The problem with a high number is voter apathy, so like i said, becoming a delegate should require you to submit a collateral bid, then the client is set to automatically vote for the highest 101 collateral bids unless you choose to manually vote.
+5% +5% +5%
Is nobody paying attention here?
r0ach makes one of the best suggestions/proposals I have heard lately!
We should evaluate them seriously.
PS I agree with the PR nightmare known as 17 delegates
PS2 PR was never his "big thing" :P
Not a bad idea... but it is effectively buying your way into power which is less accountable and has different risks.
is voter apathy really going to be a problem in these early days? I'm not so sure... I believe that, at this point, most people who own bitshares do so because they are actively following the project and know about 2.0. the problem with voting in 1.0 was that the software ran poorly, and voting was a pain in the ass. If voting is built into the GUI in an intuitive, easy way in 2.0, then everyone following this project is going to vote.
If that is the case, then this discussion doesn't actually matter so much, because no matter what the initial number of delegates, the community can change it as soon as the software is released.
On another note, I don't really like the idea of people being able to buy their way into delegate spots though collateral bids. how would that even work?
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I don't think that "game theory candidates" is true. You have to demonstrate there is not a benefit to having the majority or a large portion of candidates under the control of 1. It is sort of a half-assed game-theoretical approach, but nothing says it is a optimal/un-exploitable solution.
A flat rate only puts an upper limit on number of sybil nodes, while a bid system improves on it much further. The only thing needed is to lock the collateral and make it unable to be used for your sybil delegates to vote for each other. There are numerous different ways to accomplish this lock. This is not the most optimal way, but if you wanted to do a rush job for BTS 2.0, one of the more exotic methods would be to have some type of asset on the exchange people purchase at a 1:1 ratio, "delegate token" or whatever you want to call it, then the voting list sorts people by how many delegate tokens they have in their account and puts them at the top.
Like I said, not the best way to do it, but just thinking of a way it could be rushed for BTS 2.0 on time.
I would think that the amount of capital to vote someone in is significantly more than the collateral people will be willing to put up to be a witness. So locking up the collateral to not vote is probably not that important.
The real question is whether the price to purchase a delegate is more than the harm than can be done. To me, that would be more of a game theoretical way of looking at it and that is a very hard question.
i see where roach is coming from he thinks that later on people(countries) will be buying up delegates indirectly anyway so they have voting power, perhaps buying multiple.
However on the other hand the barrier of entry on being a witness just increased because of thr need to have more coins locked than anyone else competing. Does this matter?
If so then the right balance may still be to let it organically grow to a point where people end up purchasing their delegates at a higher cost because we need to achieve network affect first. This will let others become witnesses now and reduce barrier of entry until it organically grows out of that demographic of witnesses.
If barrier of entry to witness matters, then leave it as is.
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I don't think that "game theory candidates" is true. You have to demonstrate there is not a benefit to having the majority or a large portion of candidates under the control of 1. It is sort of a half-assed game-theoretical approach, but nothing says it is a optimal/un-exploitable solution.
A flat rate only puts an upper limit on number of sybil nodes, while a bid system improves on it much further. The only thing needed is to lock the collateral and make it unable to be used for your sybil delegates to vote for each other. There are numerous different ways to accomplish this lock. This is not the most optimal way, but if you wanted to do a rush job for BTS 2.0, one of the more exotic methods would be to have some type of asset on the exchange people purchase at a 1:1 ratio, "delegate token" or whatever you want to call it, then the voting list sorts people by how many delegate tokens they have in their account and puts them at the top.
Like I said, not the best way to do it, but just thinking of a way it could be rushed for BTS 2.0 on time.
exactly that is what I think about yesterday! Brilliant and easy to implement!
PS make it sense not to let the purchase ratio of the witness-asset 1:1 but let the market decide how valuable it is to get a witness?Let the market decide how much security they want :)
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@r0ach
The tradeoff with your approach is electing block producers solely because they are putting up the largest stake vs electing block producers that are most trusted by stakeholders, especially if larger stake-holding candidates are elected by default unless the user manually changes the vote. Some of the most trusted candidates may not have the largest stake. I like users having no vote by default and having to manually change their vote. This also works to reduce the effects of voter apathy because those who are most involved in the system and have the largest stake will make sure to vote.
Good points but all this could be solved quite easily in my opinion :)
What about to follow r0ach approach (it rhymes!) BUT with a little tweak!
The voting process should have a double or even triple impact over the auto-collateral process!.... ;)
Give the most power to the voters! They deserve it!
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If the security is as good with 17 as with 100 then we just have to explain this to the buyer and that's it.
If we don't lose anything with 100 then we should stick to 100 and change it later if there is a need for optimization. I doubt that 100 vs 17 is a significant optimization and the cost in terms of perception isn't worth it.
I don't think perception is important. When you buy a computer, the seller would say 'it has only 2 gb but because it's faster than the old 4 gb ram module it's better.'
100 is too much cause of voter apathy.
Be careful, I just woke up and am maybe not qualified to write here.
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It's better to start with a low number and let voters increase it over time. This will demonstrate the system working. It will always be easier to increase the number than decrease because people will always lean towards more being better no matter what the justification for less is. So I say 21 is a good starting point. People will vote to increase it for sure.
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I don't think that "game theory candidates" is true. You have to demonstrate there is not a benefit to having the majority or a large portion of candidates under the control of 1. It is sort of a half-assed game-theoretical approach, but nothing says it is a optimal/un-exploitable solution.
A flat rate only puts an upper limit on number of sybil nodes, while a bid system improves on it much further. The only thing needed is to lock the collateral and make it unable to be used for your sybil delegates to vote for each other. There are numerous different ways to accomplish this lock. This is not the most optimal way, but if you wanted to do a rush job for BTS 2.0, one of the more exotic methods would be to have some type of asset on the exchange people purchase at a 1:1 ratio, "delegate token" or whatever you want to call it, then the voting list sorts people by how many delegate tokens they have in their account and puts them at the top.
Like I said, not the best way to do it, but just thinking of a way it could be rushed for BTS 2.0 on time.
exactly that is what I think about yesterday! Brilliant and easy to implement!
PS make it sense not to let the purchase ratio of the witness-asset 1:1 but let the market decide how valuable it is to get a witness?Let the market decide how much security they want :)
That would be a huge mistake. I can't even imagine how much drama would ensue from people trying to corner the delegate token market. Bytemaster or somebody would buy a ton and then people would be calling it a pyramid scheme for the next 10 years. It has to be 1:1 if implemented that way. Since the currency inflates, if it's too hard to do a 1:1 peg for some reaosn, you could just issue 100 billion of them from the start and have them exchange at 1:1 ratio.
Anyway, it blows my mind people don't understand the current Bitshares voting system is broken. The fact that threads even exist called "Vote these delegates out" proves this. The collateral bid system not only fixes numerous other terminal flaws like voter apathy, it also fixes zombie delegates since you can just make each collateral bid not automatically roll over and have them expire.
I'm not a long time Bitshares fan or anything by the way. I consider all the current coins out there extremely lacking. My main interest in the Bitshares system is that it's base framework is the easiest to fix to create an actual valid system in terms of high TPS and sufficient game theory. If changes like this aren't done, it's just going to clumsily stumble along for years with a low market cap and constant "vote these delegates out" threads. The changes I mention aren't some random spur of the moment thing, it's changes I would make to not feel like I'm doing something stupid by investing in it. Changes that would also allow it to beat Bitcoin.
The changes are also taking into account that the system should run flawlessly if this website and Bytemaster ceased to exist at any time. The current system is far too bitshares website-centric. I want to remove as much of the human element as possible and automate as much as possible.
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My main interest in the Bitshares system is that it's base framework is the easiest to fix to create an actual valid system in terms of high TPS and sufficient game theory. If changes like this aren't done, it's just going to clumsily stumble along for years with a low market cap and constant "vote these delegates out" threads. The changes I mention aren't some random spur of the moment thing, it's changes I would make to not feel like I'm doing something stupid by investing in it. Changes that would also allow it to beat Bitcoin.
The changes are also taking into account that the system should run flawlessly if this website and Bytemaster ceased to exist at any time. The current system is far too bitshares website-centric. I want to remove as much of the human element as possible and automate as much as possible.
luckily bytemaster is open-minded and he makes changes whenever he sees value on it... I am very optimistic he will consider all this ideas. I personally like your approach r0ach :)
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I address these ideas on Mumble, but will state it again here.
1. Locking funds away only makes sense to someone expecting a Return on Investment for doing so.
2. That return on investment will have to come from witness pay (if honest) or from some backroom deal (if dishonest)
As a witness you have the ability to influence the price DOWN by misbehaving, but very little ability to influence the price UP. This means that locking funds away means you are exposed to the DOWNSIDE risk of any mistakes you make, but have nothing to gain except your witness pay of you do your job well.
Anyone with more than $50,000 locked up could do better elsewhere. Anyone with less than $50,000 locked up doesn't have much to lose if they are intent on attacking the network.
Put yourself in the shoes of a potential witness and ask yourself: "is this a good deal for me?" If the answer is no then the only witnesses you will attract are those who are deriving benefits from being a witness other than their witness pay. The witness cannot serve two masters, so will be loyal to where their pay comes from and not to the blockchain. Do you really want to encourage that?
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+5% Well said BM, even better and more concisely than on mumble.
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plus we want to differentiate ourselves from the DASH "pay to play" meme
BitShares - everyone is free to compete to be a miner/witness, especially the poor
No, this is not true, such as the example from today when someone asked me "what do I need to do to try and become a Bitshares miner/delegate?"
There is no valid answer to this question. What am I supposed to tell him? Go beg Bytemaster or some other random person he doesn't know to vote for them? There is no valid point of entry in becoming a delegate. The point of entry should not be entirely centralized around this website either. There should be a free market answer to this question that doesn't involve this website or begging some random guy they don't know.
You should be able to give an answer such as "purchase X amount of Bitshares and put up collateral" or something to that end.
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when someone asked me "what do I need to do to try and become a Bitshares miner/delegate?"
Show the community that you deserve to be a miner:
Tell us who you are, where you live, show us proof that you kick ass, or show us a picture of your gear, tell us your business plan, or impersonate Ken Code. Tell us what you plan to use all your mined BTS for. Be creative, or just be f'n cool, and make us laugh. Tell us who you know, drop some names. Have your famous friend sport a BitShares T-Shirt to the Grammys.
when someone asked me "what do I need to do to try and become a Bitshares miner/delegate?"
you tell them:
"simple...just do the exact same thing you do on a job interview for any job:"
sell yourself
Good miners are a dime a dozen today. You need to differentiate yourself from the rest. BitShares mining is all about being a good community member... we want good team players, dedicated fanatics, or people who just want to structure their political and financial lives/careers within the ecosystem.
It's supposed to be a "DAC". Your answer was not autonomous or decentralized at all. You need to think of a better answer. Especially one that doesn't entirely revolve around this website.
What if they only speak Japanese? What if they only speak Spanish?
Bitshares is currently designed to draw as little new people in as possible because there's no valid entry point in doing things like becoming a delegate. Whatever answer you give me should make the assumption that this website does not exist at all as well.
The collateral bid system is the only valid way I know of to bring new people into the system in this manner.
What if a govt entity goes after Bitshares like they did for Liberty Reserve and shut down this website? There has to be an automated way of replacing delegates with ease:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
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As a witness you have the ability to influence the price DOWN by misbehaving, but very little ability to influence the price UP. This means that locking funds away means you are exposed to the DOWNSIDE risk of any mistakes you make, but have nothing to gain except your witness pay of you do your job well.
In the current system, there is zero exposure to downside risk at all, which means there is nothing to lose by misbehaving. I find it difficult to see why that is better?
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when someone asked me "what do I need to do to try and become a Bitshares miner/delegate?"
Show the community that you deserve to be a miner:
Tell us who you are, where you live, show us proof that you kick ass, or show us a picture of your gear, tell us your business plan, or impersonate Ken Code. Tell us what you plan to use all your mined BTS for. Be creative, or just be f'n cool, and make us laugh. Tell us who you know, drop some names. Have your famous friend sport a BitShares T-Shirt to the Grammys.
when someone asked me "what do I need to do to try and become a Bitshares miner/delegate?"
you tell them:
"simple...just do the exact same thing you do on a job interview for any job:"
sell yourself
Good miners are a dime a dozen today. You need to differentiate yourself from the rest. BitShares mining is all about being a good community member... we want good team players, dedicated fanatics, or people who just want to structure their political and financial lives/careers within the ecosystem.
I think a prerequisite should be that the person must join the test network for a period of time and demonstrate they a proficient in managing a witness. After that a they can be released into the the pool of users that quality to be voted on for the witness role. Just like there are metrics to judge a poor performing witness, there should be metrics to prove worthy of being a witness.
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I think a prerequisite should be that the person must join the test network for a period of time and demonstrate they a proficient in managing a witness. After that a they can be released into the the pool of users that quality to be voted on for the witness role. Just like there are metrics to judge a poor performing witness, there should be metrics to prove worthy of being a witness.
Do you know how ridiculous this idea sounds? Do you think Bitcoin would exist at all if it was that easy for government agencies to shut it down? Their attack vector is to simply stand in front of the test net? I feel like I'm surrounded by crazy people.
Click this link and then re-write your post with a new solution that would prevent a government agency from taking it down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
The only viable method I know of is that collateral bid system for delegate selection. Nobody is going to invest in Bitshares if all a govt agency has to do is shut down this website to win.
The delegate replacement process has to be easy, seamless, and as autonomous as possible. Any solution people suggest that involves asking Bytemaster to let them be a delegate is completely asinine.
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What about bytemaster idea on the mumble session about a reputation system?...
so the witnesses could "win"/deserve his place putting his reputation on stake/risk instead of his money/bts...
As bytemaster mentioned, reputation has more value over collateral and it gives the opportunity to "poor" witnesses also to participate and not only "sharks" ...
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I address these ideas on Mumble, but will state it again here.
1. Locking funds away only makes sense to someone expecting a Return on Investment for doing so.
2. That return on investment will have to come from witness pay (if honest) or from some backroom deal (if dishonest)
As a witness you have the ability to influence the price DOWN by misbehaving, but very little ability to influence the price UP. This means that locking funds away means you are exposed to the DOWNSIDE risk of any mistakes you make, but have nothing to gain except your witness pay of you do your job well.
Anyone with more than $50,000 locked up could do better elsewhere. Anyone with less than $50,000 locked up doesn't have much to lose if they are intent on attacking the network.
Put yourself in the shoes of a potential witness and ask yourself: "is this a good deal for me?" If the answer is no then the only witnesses you will attract are those who are deriving benefits from being a witness other than their witness pay. The witness cannot serve two masters, so will be loyal to where their pay comes from and not to the blockchain. Do you really want to encourage that?
for anybody interested that's the part on the mumble session where bytemaster answered abouts r0ach approach ;)
https://soundcloud.com/liondani
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What about bytemaster idea on the mumble session about a reputation system?...
so the witnesses could "win"/deserve his place putting his reputation on stake/risk instead of his money/bts...
As bytemaster mentioned, reputation has more value over collateral and it gives the opportunity to "poor" witnesses also to participate and not only "sharks" ...
I'd rather have a secure system that runs on game theory than an insecure system designed for poor people...
Anything PoS derived is already an aristocracy in the first place. Trying to make it not one just removes the game theory elements that make it function at all. We already see how this works in Bitcoin, how it works in theory, but as soon as you introduce mining pools, a separate layer of abstration is applied that makes the system not function anything like the PDF describes.
If you wanted to introduce reputation in DPoS, it would have to be applied equally with stake then divided by two to average it or some other ratio instead of applying reputation as the last layer that takes precedent over everything else.
It's easy to create an inefficient Rube Goldberg machine once you get to the level of arbitrary reputation variables instead of simply relying on game theory. Blockchains work best when hedging finite resources as a backbone of the system. Collateral is a finite resource and reputation is a pseudo finite resource that's much easier to game than collateral. Due to this, if you were to introduce reputation at all, which I'm not sure it's a good idea, it would need to be something like a 30/70 split with stake being the 70% of the equation. Once again, they would need to be averaged on the same layer and not with reputation taking precedent as the last layer.
Next time you talk to Bytemaster in audio, have him address the Liberty Reserve issue as well. How if a govt entity comes after it, the system needs to be resilient in losing many delegates at once and recovering without having to go through a pope (bytemaster) annointing process. It needs to be able to recover with ease assuming this website and Bytemaster don't exist at all, meaning the delegate selection process needs to be much more automated. If someone passes a law against Bitshares, you need to be able to say, well, I'm not operating that, it just exists out there like a virus. Bitshares doesn't operate like a virus, that's the problem. It won't attract big dollars until it does because that means it can't be legislated out of existence with ease.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
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The changes are also taking into account that the system should run flawlessly if this website and Bytemaster ceased to exist at any time. The current system is far too bitshares website-centric. I want to remove as much of the human element as possible and automate as much as possible.
This quote is really something to think about. And so is this one...
Put yourself in the shoes of a potential witness and ask yourself: "is this a good deal for me?" If the answer is no then the only witnesses you will attract are those who are deriving benefits from being a witness other than their witness pay. The witness cannot serve two masters, so will be loyal to where their pay comes from and not to the blockchain. Do you really want to encourage that?
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@r0ach have you ever thought that even "collateral bid" is not more secure if the attack is organized from very wealthie/rich witnesses? (like Goldman Sachs or Soros :P)
I mean a entity for example that owns $1billion dollars in "savings", could easily damage the bts block-chain ...
In our eyes we would assume that they have much to loose compared with the "poor" witnesses when in reality their "big" stake on bts would be like nothing compared with their overall wealth (less than 1%).... So in reality they have nothing to loose compared with a "poor" witness that has for example at stake $10.000 from a total of $50.000.... Which one will secure the network better? Which one looses more? On this example obvious the "poor" witness will probably secure it better....Not?
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What about bytemaster idea on the mumble session about a reputation system?...
Reputation, (i.e trust) and anonymity is a recipe for scams. You cannot combine them safely because there are no consequences to behaving badly. Bitcointalk is completely full of examples of this combination failing over and over - in fact ripple even changed their 'trust lines' design due to a huge meta scam purpotrated by TradeFortreess (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207718.0), which was designed to show that such a system was inherently untenable.
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What about bytemaster idea on the mumble session about a reputation system?...
Reputation, (i.e trust) and anonymity is a recipe for scams. You cannot combine them safely because there are no consequences to behaving badly. Bitcointalk is completely full of examples of this combination failing over and over - in fact ripple even changed their 'trust lines' design due to a huge meta scam purpotrated by TradeFortreess (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207718.0), which was designed to show that such a system was inherently untenable.
But look at DNMs, they have reputation systems and they seem to work. Obviously they have scams too, lots of them. What I'm saying is, we should analyse both sides. I would agree, however, that Reputation + Identity could, in theory reduce the number of scams, however, let's see this from a scammers point of view. If you really want to scam, you will find a way to do it, fake IDs, etc, the problem here is how to get an identity that is unique and true.
For all we know if we use an identity and reputation system, identity X can be fake. Unless the person publicly reveals their info and shows his face, but with anonymity we can already do that if we want.
The question is do we want BitShares to be anon based or identity based? Isn't that what Identabit is trying to do? Unless we had both, identity to whoever wants it and anonymity to whoever wants to preserve it
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@r0ach have you ever thought that even "collateral bid" is not more secure if the attack is organized from very wealthie/rich witnesses? (like Goldman Sachs or Soros :P)
I mean a entity for example that owns $1billion dollars in "savings", could easily damage the bts block-chain ...
In our eyes we would assume that they have much to loose compared with the "poor" witnesses when in reality their "big" stake on bts would be like nothing compared with their overall wealth (less than 1%).... So in reality they have nothing to loose compared with a "poor" witness that has for example at stake $10.000 from a total of $50.000.... Which one will secure the network better? Which one looses more? On this example obvious the "poor" witness will probably secure it better....Not?
Your statement is making the assumption that the current system will work in the long run. There's currently no valid entry point for bringing new delegates into the system. They should not have to come through this website to become one, they should not have to beg people like Bytemaster to become one, they should not have to speak English to become one. That's far too much ambiguous friction for a distributed system to function. The way into the system has to be clearly defined and accessible in a step by step chart, it is currently not.
People like Anonymint criticize Bytemaster as being a Steve Jobs, control freak type figure, and this critcism really shows here. It's far too painfully obvious he's unable to comprehend Bitshares without him existing to control it.
What is your suggestion for bringing new delegates into the system without the centralized bureaucracy that exists now? The only logical way is with some type of finite resource with game theory elements, just like PoW uses. Collateral is the only thing up for the task in a PoS system. It has to be used in some way for bringing new delegates in or the system might not function in the long run from not being automated enough to sustain itself.
The political process in general requires a central point of information distribution, whether it be a town square, website, or news channel. This means instead of game theory elements running the equation, you have a more arbitary information gate keeper(s) guiding the lemmings around to their doom by telling them which candidates do or don't exist at all, and which to vote for.
As for state sponsored attacks, Goldman Sachs probably doesn't have to touch the delegate system to implode the coin. They can probably just buy a bunch of coins, take out a huge short, then dump like mad men while simultaneously circulating some type of "security breach" rumor. They might even profit on it's demise. If they wanted to attack via the delegate system, they could probably easily make it in with or without the collateral bid system in place as well. Just like they can already afford to 51% attack Bitcoin....
If the goal is to harden the system against instant, overnight takeover by large amounts of money, you would need to make it so instead of all delegates being up for re-election all the time, delegate positions would last a specific time span like a senate term and only open up for vote/bids if they go offline for a certain amount of time or other metric. If Bitshares became really huge, delegates would probably be running double or triple redundancy servers in that case to avoid dos attack.
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What is your suggestion for bringing new delegates into the system and satisfying game theory metrics while making the assumption this website and Bytemaster don't exist? The only possible way is with some type of finite resource.
Similarly to how traditional companies work, applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.
I don't know. Are there many successful companies that instead of choosing a BOD which shareholders think are best for the job, chooses people based on how many shares they post as collateral?
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What is your suggestion for bringing new delegates into the system and satisfying game theory metrics while making the assumption this website and Bytemaster don't exist? The only possible way is with some type of finite resource.
Similarly to how traditional companies work, applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.
I don't know. Are there many successful companies that instead of choosing a BOD which shareholders think are best for the job, chooses people based on how many shares they post as collateral?
Bitshares has USD and gold pegs, just like Liberty Reserve, so your idea is a centralized solution that can easily be legislated against and taken down just like the previous Liberty Reserve?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
You're saying Bytemaster needs to vet all candidates? So when a govt agency passes legislation, he then needs to flee the country to some 3rd world country and vet candidates from there? Woops, that's what the Liberty Reserve people did, they went to Costa Rica and the US govt still got them heh. The system has to be automated like a virus to avoid legislation from one of 200 different countries thinking they control it.
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What is your suggestion for bringing new delegates into the system and satisfying game theory metrics while making the assumption this website and Bytemaster don't exist? The only possible way is with some type of finite resource.
Similarly to how traditional companies work, applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.
I don't know. Are there many successful companies that instead of choosing a BOD which shareholders think are best for the job, chooses people based on how many shares they post as collateral?
Bitshares has USD and gold pegs, just like Liberty Reserve, so your idea is a centralized solution that can easily be legislated against and taken down just like the previous Liberty Reserve?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
You're saying Bytemaster needs to vet all candidates? So when a govt agency passes legislation, he then needs to flee the country to some 3rd world country and vet candidates from there? Woops, that's what the Liberty Reserve people did, they went to Costa Rica and the US govt still got them heh. The system has to be automated like a virus to avoid legislation from one of 200 different countries thinking they control it.
Which part of 'applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.' was unclear?
Shareholders, plural, vet candidates not just Bytemaster. Various communication channels, plural, not just this website.
Decentralized voting and decentralized communication by shareholders to manage a decentralized company.
Yes, I'm familiar with Liberty reserve.
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Click this link and then re-write your post with a new solution that would prevent a government agency from taking it down: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberty_Reserve
Its ridiculous to compare bitshares to a centralized custodial model such as liberty reserve.
Nobody is going to invest in Bitshares if all a govt agency has to do is shut down this website to win.
They don't have to shut down this website to win. They have to gain enough votes to control 51% of the network, and that will buy them a day or two, until the community clones the system and introduces a new chain with all the attacker's shares revoked. It will be messy with some potential damage done, but the system will survive.
Any solution people suggest that involves asking Bytemaster to let them be a delegate is completely asinine.
Again, delegates have to gain shareholder approval, not Bytemaster approval. I appreciate your concern and I think you have some viable ideas, but some things you are saying is borderline fud.
I think you underestimate the importance of:
1) digital signatures
2) the ability of the system to clone/fork at will
The same goes for bitcoin, nxt, ethereum and even ripple. The consensus mechanisms of these systems are sufficiently decentralized, with ripple being the most centralized, but most likely still sufficiently decentralized. There is no need to find the holy grail of decentralization. Sufficiently decentralized is good enough. Of course this theory will be tested at higher levels of adoption and higher market caps, but I think it will hold.
Here are my thoughts on blockchain governance that I said a while back:
I like Mike Hearn's assessment of how blockchain governance works most efficiently and effectively. Basically, you have one core group of guys, or even one leader in some cases, who make most of the decisions and everyone for the most part just goes along with it and gives their input here and there. However, blockchain governance gives us one, last-resort, fail-safe measure to override the decisions of those core developers if we have to. In the case of bitcoin, there is a network of miners who can override the decisions of the core devs if need be and in bitshares the stakeholders have the power to override the decisions of the core devs, which is more efficient.
I like to think of it as insurance - it's something you purchase but hope you never have to use. Hopefully the tree out in my front yard never falls on my car but I'm going to buy insurance just in case it does and if by chance a huge storm comes up and blows that tree over on my car, then I will use my insurance to protect myself financially. It will be a big inconvenience and something I didn't want to have to do in the first place, but at least I was protected.
Same goes for bitshares. As a shareholder I would rather just vote for BM & Co to run the show. They created this project and got it to where it is today, so i dont see any better alternative. I probably won't change my vote for every little change that needs to be made or new feature that needs to be added. However, if the core devs attempt to completely compromise the system for any reason, then I can use my "insurance" to override their decisions along with all other stakeholders. It will be a huge inconvenience to figure out what is going on and how best to use my vote to protect the integrity of the system - and it will likely be ugly and get a little messy, but at least I am protected just in case and we as shareholders can prevent the destruction of the system by a small group of people. However, hopefully things go along business-as-usual and I don't have to take any action.
tl;dr I don't see voter apathy as a big problem, but voters who do not vote for a proxy should have votes expire or decay over time. Most of us will probably just vote for a proxy that goes along with cnx and the vision of bitshares and only use our voting power if serious issues arise. That will be the most efficient and effective way to run this blockchain.
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Which part of 'applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.' was unclear?
Shareholders, plural, vet candidates not just Bytemaster. Various communication channels, plural, not just this website.
Decentralized voting and decentralized communication by shareholders to manage a decentralized company.
Yes, I'm familiar with Liberty reserve.
Does Bytemaster look like an underground criminal mastermind to you? He's gonna fold like an accordion and run for the hills if Bitshares is legislated against. People aren't going to risk operating through "various communication channels" and going to prison. The political process can't function in that manner in the first place. The political process requires operating out in the open. The only way for the system to continue in that context is by being much more automated, such as the collateral bid system, where some Russian oligarch off in god know's where will pick up the slack that you've never met in your life.
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Which part of 'applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.' was unclear?
Shareholders, plural, vet candidates not just Bytemaster. Various communication channels, plural, not just this website.
Decentralized voting and decentralized communication by shareholders to manage a decentralized company.
Yes, I'm familiar with Liberty reserve.
Does Bytemaster look like an underground criminal mastermind to you? He's gonna fold like an accordion and run for the hills if Bitshares is legislated against. People aren't going to risk operating through "various communication channels" and going to prison. The political process can't function in that manner in the first place. The political process requires operating out in the open. The only way for the system to continue in that context is by being much more automated, such as the collateral bid system, where some Russian oligarch off in god know's where will pick up the slack that you've never met in your life.
In 2.0 anyone can make a proposal to do BTS development work & BM albeit a large holder is just one of a thousand, soon to be tens of thousands of shareholders. If there's legislation in any of our jurisdictions we can make a decision to sell our shares most likely to people in legal jurisdictions or where enforcement is harder & communication easier.
There will be countries where BTS is legal, thrives and communication is easy. As for the rest, shadow economies, companies and their employees make up 23% of global GDP & a decentralized company is much harder to shut down, so there will probably still be a future for BTS wherever it fills a need.
Argentina is a good example of where USD to Peso at black market rates is illegal but the practice is pervasive. With widespread selling and communication networks, the rates were even published in newspapers. It is perhaps a good template for how BTS might function in similar countries if it fulfils a similar need.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2548646/Tourists-crisis-hit-Argentina-using-black-market-favourable-exchange-rates.html
The only way for the system to continue in that context is by being much more automated, such as the collateral bid system, where some Russian oligarch off in god know's where will pick up the slack that you've never met in your life.
The current system is a decentralised version of what has worked well to create successful and competitive companies for hundreds of years.
Whereas the collateral bid system could make it very easy to attack BitShares imo because it's unlikely our current trusted and talented witnesses could put up more than 500k BTS each as collateral, so it would allow attackers to be voted in by apathetic shareholders who we know outnumber active ones with as little as 8 million BTS in a 31 witness system vs. the cost of needing to buy 300 million + BTS currently, plus the large loss you would take trying to sell such a big position rapidly after having voted in your bad witnesses but prior to an an attack.
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The current system is a decentralised version of what has worked well to create successful and competitive companies for hundreds of years.
+5% He's right. Start with what's been proven to work and iterate from there.
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Which part of 'applicants for the BOD make their case through various communication channels and shareholders evaluate them and vote.' was unclear?
Shareholders, plural, vet candidates not just Bytemaster. Various communication channels, plural, not just this website.
Decentralized voting and decentralized communication by shareholders to manage a decentralized company.
Yes, I'm familiar with Liberty reserve.
Does Bytemaster look like an underground criminal mastermind to you? He's gonna fold like an accordion and run for the hills if Bitshares is legislated against. People aren't going to risk operating through "various communication channels" and going to prison. The political process can't function in that manner in the first place. The political process requires operating out in the open. The only way for the system to continue in that context is by being much more automated, such as the collateral bid system, where some Russian oligarch off in god know's where will pick up the slack that you've never met in your life.
In 2.0 anyone can make a proposal to do BTS development work & BM albeit a large holder is just one of a thousand, soon to be tens of thousands of shareholders. If there's legislation in any of our jurisdictions we can make a decision to sell our shares most likely to people in legal jurisdictions or where enforcement is harder & communication easier.
There will be countries where BTS is legal, thrives and communication is easy. As for the rest, shadow economies, companies and their employees make up 23% of global GDP & a decentralized company is much harder to shut down, so there will probably still be a future for BTS wherever it fills a need.
Argentina is a good example of where USD to Peso at black market rates is illegal but the practice is pervasive. With widespread selling and communication networks, the rates were even published in newspapers. It is perhaps a good template for how BTS might function in similar countries if it fulfils a similar need.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2548646/Tourists-crisis-hit-Argentina-using-black-market-favourable-exchange-rates.html
The only way for the system to continue in that context is by being much more automated, such as the collateral bid system, where some Russian oligarch off in god know's where will pick up the slack that you've never met in your life.
The current system is a decentralised version of what has worked well to create successful and competitive companies for hundreds of years.
Whereas the collateral bid system could make it very easy to attack BitShares imo because it's unlikely our current trusted and talented witnesses could put up more than 500k BTS each as collateral, so it would allow attackers to be voted in by apathetic shareholders who we know outnumber active ones with as little as 8 million BTS in a 31 witness system vs. the cost of needing to buy 300 million + BTS currently, plus the large loss you would take trying to sell such a big position rapidly after having voted in your bad witnesses but prior to an an attack.
+5% response.
This collateral proposal I think is flawed in the premise of what the collateral accomplishes. The added security that is being sought was aptly talked about in the last hangout a few days ago regarding political will.
We might gain some lessons from dogie on this one. :)
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@r0ach have you ever thought that even "collateral bid" is not more secure if the attack is organized from very wealthie/rich witnesses? (like Goldman Sachs or Soros :P)
I mean a entity for example that owns $1billion dollars in "savings", could easily damage the bts block-chain ...
In our eyes we would assume that they have much to loose compared with the "poor" witnesses when in reality their "big" stake on bts would be like nothing compared with their overall wealth (less than 1%).... So in reality they have nothing to loose compared with a "poor" witness that has for example at stake $10.000 from a total of $50.000.... Which one will secure the network better? Which one looses more? On this example obvious the "poor" witness will probably secure it better....Not?
This is why claims of game theory should be very suspect. Yes a collateral system aligns incentives, but do not confuse it with game theory. At least not any of the game theory I ever learned.
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interesting. ....it appears that the community does not want to give up dynamic control of their miners to a central authorative algorithm (the protocol) even in the event of extreme voter apathy. why do you insist on clinging to this freedom? why do you seek such control over your own destiny? wouldn't you prefer that your government (the smartchain) handle this potential terrible threat for you? Does not the thought of personally choosing some evil miners terrify you? why do you insist on taking personal responsibility for your mistakes? don't you want to be able to blame someone else when something bad happens? Just let Goldman handle the mining and nothing bad can ever be your fault. you do not have to vote. you still have the right to remain silent.
I personally have different views for companies vs. currencies. I like immutable currencies and am not opposed to algorithmic solutions for simple crypto-currencies. Gold has successfully outlasted all attempts at human controlled currency for many obvious reasons.
I'm also not opposed to the idea of some fall-back system for BTS but don't think the collateral bid system is a good solution.
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the community does not want to give up control
Gold has successfully outlasted all attempts at human controlled currency
until now
www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwj_rsqp-5nIAhXFWD4KHdBsCkA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbullion.directory%2Fcern-scientists-create-230m-dollars-gold-in-lab%2F&usg=AFQjCNHcpjSqjeHY7fxPRhcms9q7xiIlog
wait... no... pay no attention to this fact... it is false ;D
Yeah was an April 1st ;)
Gold's long term future isn't certain though, Asteroid mining, Sea-Water gold extraction, nuclear transmutation etc.
The point is though that when humans control a money supply they invariably find reasons to inflate it and destroy it's value over time.
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until now
www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB4QFjAAahUKEwj_rsqp-5nIAhXFWD4KHdBsCkA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbullion.directory%2Fcern-scientists-create-230m-dollars-gold-in-lab%2F&usg=AFQjCNHcpjSqjeHY7fxPRhcms9q7xiIlog
wait... no... pay no attention to this fact... it is false ;D
Yeah was an April 1st ;)
Thank god. I almost ...
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All the tons of discussions on this forum means nothing compared to this one. So I couldn’t thing of more important issue to discus.
Its DPos mechanism. It makes foundation of Bitshares core value proposition. It is like basis for building. If the thing is positioned wrong whole building will be domed to fall.
Many things has changed over million years of human development. From knowledge to technology to organization of society.
But one thing remains constants all along. It is human nature.
Game Theory is best so far in providing logical system for explaining complex human dynamics.
So I am surprised how people ignore r0ach valid points.
Regarding the Ops question I suggest Tribe analogy.
Our system relies basically on its social structure, individual influence and trust in proven individual behavior. Now with its 17 witnesses (Council of Elders) it reassembles tribe structure ….and we all know the chef. :)
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All the tons of discussions on this forum means nothing compared to this one. So I couldn’t thing of more important issue to discus.
Its DPos mechanism. It makes foundation of Bitshares core value proposition. It is like basis for building. If the thing is positioned wrong whole building will be domed to fall.
Many things has changed over million years of human development. From knowledge to technology to organization of society.
But one thing remains constants all along. It is human nature.
Game Theory is best so far in providing logical system for explaining complex human dynamics.
So I am surprised how people ignore r0ach valid points.
Regarding the Ops question I suggest Tribe analogy.
Our system relies basically on its social structure, individual influence and trust in proven individual behavior. Now with its 17 witnesses (Council of Elders) it reassembles tribe structure ….and we all know the chef. :)
I don't think anyone is ignoring his *valid* points. I have yet to see acknowledgement of the counter arguments to his proposal which are ALSO based on game theory.
With proxy voting you can have 1000 proxies all of which wield meaningful influence.... but ultimately it will turn into a multi-party system on many issues as people will tend to align along different philosophies.
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I don't think anyone is ignoring his *valid* points. I have yet to see acknowledgement of the counter arguments to his proposal which are ALSO based on game theory.
I am sorry because I didnt made my self clear about "valid points":
" The changes are also taking into account that the system should run flawlessly if this website and Bytemaster ceased to exist at any time. The current system is far too bitshares website-centric. I want to remove as much of the human element as possible and automate as much as possible."
and
" It's supposed to be a "DAC". Your answer was not autonomous or decentralized at all. You need to think of a better answer. Especially one that doesn't entirely revolve around this website. What if they only speak Japanese? What if they only speak Spanish?
Bitshares is currently designed to draw as little new people in as possible because there's no valid entry point in doing things like becoming a delegate. Whatever answer you give me should make the assumption that this website does not exist at all as well."
and
" What if a govt entity goes after Bitshares like they did for Liberty Reserve and shut down this website? There has to be an automated way of replacing delegates with ease:
The delegate replacement process has to be easy, seamless, and as autonomous as possible. Any solution people suggest that involves asking Bytemaster to let them be a delegate is completely asinine."
It is not the point about his solution but about critics he made about current system.
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Liberty Reserve is a poor analogy.
I have the answer.
Embed the source code ON THE BLOCKCHAIN. Make all pulls go onto the blockchain proper. There ya go. We're halfway there.
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I don't think anyone is ignoring his *valid* points. I have yet to see acknowledgement of the counter arguments to his proposal which are ALSO based on game theory.
All your counter arguments are from the POV of the well behaved witness, not from the perspective of the adversary - this even extends to your argument that securing the DPOS blockchain costs X times less than in POW therefore it is X times more efficient, when the actuality is that just costs X times less to attack it.
POS, for all its flaws, has a maximal game theoretical disadvantage to an adversary being the best block producer - they have the most to lose and yet can attack the most easily. In DPOS, such an attack can cost 0, in the case where a block producer has social engineered their way into power.
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I don't think anyone is ignoring his *valid* points. I have yet to see acknowledgement of the counter arguments to his proposal which are ALSO based on game theory.
All your counter arguments are from the POV of the well behaved witness, not from the perspective of the adversary - this even extends to your argument that securing the DPOS blockchain costs X times less than in POW therefore it is X times more efficient, when the actuality is that just costs X times less to attack it.
POS, for all its flaws, has a maximal game theoretical disadvantage to an adversary being the best block producer - they have the most to lose and yet can attack the most easily. In DPOS, such an attack can cost 0, in the case where a block producer has social engineered their way into power.
I have made arguments for why there would be no incentive for well behaved witness. Providing incentive for good behavior is at least as important as providing distinctive for bad behavior. Let remove all of the smoke and mirrors and simply assume the following:
1. To be a witness you must pay $300 per month
2. If you misbehave then you must pay $100,000
How many witnesses would sign up? How secure would the network be? This is what has been proposed to be more secure. Sure the $300 you must pay are in OPPORTUNITY COST but opportunity cost cannot be ignored.
The cost to attack POW is not the cost they advertize ($414K per day for BTC). The cost to attack any system is to attack at its weakest link, not its strongest. For $18,000 per day in transaction fees you could completely cripple the bitcoin network until all of the wallets out there raised fees. Then once they raise fees you pull off your attack until the wallet providers lower fees... then attack again. For $18,000 per day you could easily make competing mining pools unprofitable.
So the argument that it costs X times less to attack it is wrong on its face. What does it cost to "attack" a swiss bank and get them to change their policy to censor/limit transfers?
You must compare COST to ATTACK vs VALUE of DAMAGE. VALUE of DAMAGE is measured by how long the attack can be sustained and how costly it is to recover.
The COST to ATTACK BTC may be $18,000 per day, but the attack can continue indefinitely. As the attack progresses the value of BTC will fall which will make the attack cheaper to maintain.
In DPOS the COST of a DIRECT attack is much higher $1.5M dollars for BitShares 0.9 to gain control of all delegates via "frontal attack" compared with going after 51% of BTC.
In DPOS2 the COST of a DIRECT attack is even higher due to proxy voting and collateral voting raising the barrier
The cost to attack BTS2 is the cost of getting a TRUSTED community member to TURN on the community. While some men/women are easily bought, other men/women have integrity that cannot be bought.
The cost to attack BTC is the cost of getting a TRUSTED mining pool operator to TURN.
If we assume that the cost of getting a mining pool to turn is similar to getting a witness to turn, then the fact that we have more witnesses means it costs more to get 50%
We know that many mining pools charge 0% while others charge 1%. At 1% with 20% of BTC the mining pool has INCOME of $50K per month, but also has expenses.
What we can conclude from this is that if witnesses had a combined income equal to that of the mining pools, then the cost to corrupt them would be the same.
If we keep witness pay at 50,000 BTS per month (as proposed) and had 17 witnesses (as proposed) and BTS grew to be the size of BTC then they would each earn over $70K per month with far lower expenses.
From this I can conclude that the security of DPOS is greater while the cost is LESS which makes if much more efficient.
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The cost to attack POW is not the cost they advertize ($414K per day for BTC). The cost to attack any system is to attack at its weakest link, not its strongest. For $18,000 per day in transaction fees you could completely cripple the bitcoin network until all of the wallets out there raised fees. Then once they raise fees you pull off your attack until the wallet providers lower fees... then attack again. For $18,000 per day you could easily make competing mining pools unprofitable.
So the argument that it costs X times less to attack it is wrong on its face. What does it cost to "attack" a swiss bank and get them to change their policy to censor/limit transfers?
You must compare COST to ATTACK vs VALUE of DAMAGE. VALUE of DAMAGE is measured by how long the attack can be sustained and how costly it is to recover.
The COST to ATTACK BTC may be $18,000 per day, but the attack can continue indefinitely. As the attack progresses the value of BTC will fall which will make the attack cheaper to maintain.
In DPOS the COST of a DIRECT attack is much higher $1.5M dollars for BitShares 0.9 to gain control of all delegates via "frontal attack" compared with going after 51% of BTC.
In DPOS2 the COST of a DIRECT attack is even higher due to proxy voting and collateral voting raising the barrier
The cost to attack BTS2 is the cost of getting a TRUSTED community member to TURN on the community. While some men/women are easily bought, other men/women have integrity that cannot be bought.
The cost to attack BTC is the cost of getting a TRUSTED mining pool operator to TURN.
If we assume that the cost of getting a mining pool to turn is similar to getting a witness to turn, then the fact that we have more witnesses means it costs more to get 50%
We know that many mining pools charge 0% while others charge 1%. At 1% with 20% of BTC the mining pool has INCOME of $50K per month, but also has expenses.
What we can conclude from this is that if witnesses had a combined income equal to that of the mining pools, then the cost to corrupt them would be the same.
If we keep witness pay at 50,000 BTS per month (as proposed) and had 17 witnesses (as proposed) and BTS grew to be the size of BTC then they would each earn over $70K per month with far lower expenses.
From this I can conclude that the security of DPOS is greater while the cost is LESS which makes if much more efficient.
I have written a blog post with pretty much the same type of arguments regarding POW vs DPOS security in a more structured form.
Maybe you find it useful to have these arguments in structured form for ppl who don't know the exact context of this conversation here:
http://consensus-analytics.com/pow-vs-pos-a-comparison-of-security-costs-in-open-distributed-ledger-protocols/
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In DPOS the COST of a DIRECT attack is much higher $1.5M dollars for BitShares 0.9 to gain control of all delegates via "frontal attack" compared with going after 51% of BTC.
Yes, but only a fool would attempt a direct attack when social engineering is free. One elected block producer can perform double spends continuously, and at zero cost until they get voted out, which in the new system is 24 hours minimum. In POW, the cost of a double spend is super linear in the number of blocks.
The cost to attack BTC is the cost of getting a TRUSTED mining pool operator to TURN.
This is inaccurate. The cost of attacking BTC is the opportunity cost which the pool suffers (their margins) and THEN it is the cost of producing X blocks, which is super linear in the number of blocks.
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http://bytemaster.github.io/update/2015/09/29/Bitcoin-is-100x-less-secure-than-commonly-believed/
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In DPOS the COST of a DIRECT attack is much higher $1.5M dollars for BitShares 0.9 to gain control of all delegates via "frontal attack" compared with going after 51% of BTC.
Yes, but only a fool would attempt a direct attack when social engineering is free. One elected block producer can perform double spends continuously, and at zero cost until they get voted out, which in the new system is 24 hours minimum. In POW, the cost of a double spend is super linear in the number of blocks.
The cost to attack BTC is the cost of getting a TRUSTED mining pool operator to TURN.
This is inaccurate. The cost of attacking BTC is the opportunity cost which the pool suffers (their margins) and THEN it is the cost of producing X blocks, which is super linear in the number of blocks.
Compromising one witness does not give you unlimited ability to perform a double spend attack. To perform the "double-spend" they would have to broadcast the transaction 1 block before their turn, then skip the block that included their first transaction and produce a block that contained an alternative transaction... *AND* have cooperation of the next witness which would have to be in on it because that next witness would have seen the original block/transaction first and would therefore ignore the bad witnesses' block.
This means that you need at least 2 witnesses to attempt a double spend and you could only do it any time those two witnesses were randomly selected to follow one another.
Lastly you could only perform the double spend attack as part of an anonymous transaction (ie: paying someone who does not know your identity) and the transaction and the other party would have to accept single confirmation transactions and then take some kind of irreversible action. As a result meta-exchange, block trades, and exchanges would require several witnesses to sign (up to 51% of the witnesses). Because most witnesses will be publicly known with real identities and reputations on the line, the risk of criminal charges for a provable intentional double spend that is not rectified is enough to prevent it from happening altogether.
The opportunity to execute large, anonymous transactions involving irreversible actions in less than 10 seconds will be vanishingly small. Once it was detected everyone would be on notice to wait 10 seconds until 10 of 19 witnesses have signed and to vote out the attackers. Therefore, you could probably pull off the double spend "ONCE", the profit earned would be small compared to the value of the income from the witnesses.
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Using the profitability metric, the security of the blockchain depends upon whether or not it is more profitable to be a censorship free mining pool or to start censoring transactions
The profitability of attacking the chain is related to the cost of a double spend vs the amount you can double spend in one go.
You continue to ignore the point about double spending in DPOS being free in the worst case.
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Compromising one witness does not give you unlimited ability to perform a double spend attack. To perform the "double-spend" they would have to broadcast the transaction 1 block before their turn, then skip the block that included their first transaction and produce a block that contained an alternative transaction... *AND* have cooperation of the next witness which would have to be in on it because that next witness would have seen the original block/transaction first and would therefore ignore the bad witnesses' block.
Nope... Here is why, and this is a good example of why Nothing At Stake still applies to DPOS.
* Assume I am an evil block producer
* I have identified the merchant I wish to attack by probing, or latency analysis or any other means whereby I know I can reach them more quickly than a general network broadcast
* I produce two blocks at the same height, one fake block which I send directly to the merchant and another which I intend to broadcast
* He accepts my fake block, and I subsequently broadcast the real block to the network, performing the double spend
The reason this works is because block production has 0 cost. In POW this is very much harder because producing a block has a very high cost. This is the essence of the nothing at stake attack.
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Compromising one witness does not give you unlimited ability to perform a double spend attack. To perform the "double-spend" they would have to broadcast the transaction 1 block before their turn, then skip the block that included their first transaction and produce a block that contained an alternative transaction... *AND* have cooperation of the next witness which would have to be in on it because that next witness would have seen the original block/transaction first and would therefore ignore the bad witnesses' block.
Nope... Here is why, and this is a good example of why Nothing At Stake still applies to DPOS.
* Assume I am an evil block producer
* I have identified the merchant I wish to attack by probing, or latency analysis or any other means whereby I know I can reach them more quickly than a general network broadcast
* I produce two blocks at the same height, one fake block which I send directly to the merchant and another which I intend to broadcast
* He accepts my fake block, and I subsequently broadcast the real block to the network, performing the double spend
The reason this works is because block production has 0 cost. In POW this is very much harder because producing a block has a very high cost. This is the essence of the nothing at stake attack.
Four things you assume:
1. A merchant that accepts a block as final when there are 2 competing blocks
2. The witness is not publicly known and subject to legal action (they would be caught)
3. That if a witness was intentionally producing double blocks that the network participants wouldn't immediately require at least 2 blocks of confirmation.
4. That merchants would irreversibly ship an item with one block of confirmation.
Like I said, any merchant is free to determine the risks involved and set their policy accordingly. If the risk of an evil witness exists then a merchant will simply wait a few seconds and the risk will quickly approach 0.
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The amount of basic double-spend protection is equal to the net present value of all future witness pay after you are caught.
Assuming 50,000 BTS per month ($300 at todays prices) then the net present value of the witness position over 10 years (assuming 5% APR) is $28,284.41.
So who in their right mind would do business with an anonymous party when there are anonymous witnesses for an amount over $1000 and be unwilling to wait 10 seconds?
Hence... it will not happen.
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http://bytemaster.github.io/update/2015/09/29/Bitcoin-is-100x-less-secure-than-commonly-believed/
I am lowering my offer for doing the CEO on this peace to 5% of the links having my affiliate code.
In other words - good job!!! +5%
Which will of course means that the majority will find something very very wrong with this post. I do not know what exactly, but I am pretty confident they will.
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Four things you assume:
1. A merchant that accepts a block as final when there are 2 competing blocks
2. The witness is not publicly known and subject to legal action (they would be caught)
3. That if a witness was intentionally producing double blocks that the network participants wouldn't immediately require at least 2 blocks of confirmation.
4. That merchants would irreversibly ship an item with one block of confirmation.
Like I said, any merchant is free to determine the risks involved and set their policy accordingly. If the risk of an evil witness exists then a merchant will simply wait a few seconds and the risk will quickly approach 0.
1) Why wouldn't a merchant accept my block? The system will show the transaction as confirmed. The network won't even contain my other transaction at that time from his perspective
2) Who says block producers must be onymous?
3) It would be too late by then
4) Shapeshift.io/metaexchange/blocktrades.us/polonix - transactions are listed as 'confirmed' at 1 confirmation, nominally
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Monster you are being intentionally difficult. Just because a merchant can choose to trust all witnesses does not mean he has to. Once the attack happened once everyone would move to requiring more than one confirmation. You are effectively insisting that front doors are not secure because everyone leaves them unlocked. As soon as there is a crime spree the doors will lock up.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Monster you are being intentionally difficult. Just because a merchant can choose to trust all witnesses does not mean he has to. Once the attack happened once everyone would move to requiring more than one confirmation. You are effectively insisting that front doors are not secure because everyone leaves them unlocked. As soon as there is a crime spree the doors will lock up.
On the contrary, I am describing a very real possibility. Simply assuming that if such an attack took place, everything will just work out for the best and magically adapt is naive. Better to have preventative measures in place a priori.
Moving forward, I propose that the blockchain (and RPC APIs) only show a transaction confirmed at 2 blocks deep minimum, not 1 as it is currently, as I have clearly demonstrated this is not safe.
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I propose that the blockchain (and RPC APIs) only show a transaction confirmed at 2 blocks deep minimum, not 1 as it is currently, as I have clearly demonstrated this is not safe.
as bytemaster stated/mentioned with this precaution you will be much safer with a near zero probability to get successful attacked!
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Monster you are being intentionally difficult. Just because a merchant can choose to trust all witnesses does not mean he has to. Once the attack happened once everyone would move to requiring more than one confirmation. You are effectively insisting that front doors are not secure because everyone leaves them unlocked. As soon as there is a crime spree the doors will lock up.
On the contrary, I am describing a very real possibility. Simply assuming that if such an attack took place, everything will just work out for the best and magically adapt is naive. Better to have preventative measures in place a priori.
Moving forward, I propose that the blockchain (and RPC APIs) only show a transaction confirmed at 2 blocks deep minimum, not 1 as it is currently, as I have clearly demonstrated this is not safe.
In our documentation for exchanges we have recommended using the DELAYED node to delay 10 blocks before processing anything just to be safe.
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Monster you are being intentionally difficult. Just because a merchant can choose to trust all witnesses does not mean he has to. Once the attack happened once everyone would move to requiring more than one confirmation. You are effectively insisting that front doors are not secure because everyone leaves them unlocked. As soon as there is a crime spree the doors will lock up.
On the contrary, I am describing a very real possibility. Simply assuming that if such an attack took place, everything will just work out for the best and magically adapt is naive. Better to have preventative measures in place a priori.
Moving forward, I propose that the blockchain (and RPC APIs) only show a transaction confirmed at 2 blocks deep minimum, not 1 as it is currently, as I have clearly demonstrated this is not safe.
In our documentation for exchanges we have recommended using the DELAYED node to delay 10 blocks before processing anything just to be safe.
To clarify ... there is an extra binary that behaves like a full node, only connects to a trusted full node and delays all blocks y N blocks ..
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Is it possible to have some sort of whitelist for users to specify trusted sources of funds? So for example, two users that trust each other could whitelist one another to enable immediate transactions between them. Whereas a transaction originating from an untrusted source might require additional blocks depending on preferences specified by the user. Aside from trusting the other party or not, the size of the transaction would obviously be another factor and it seems that users should have the ability to determine how many blocks they want to wait based on a mix of factors. Does this make sense?
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Is it possible to have some sort of whitelist for users to specify trusted sources of funds? So for example, two users that trust each other could whitelist one another to enable immediate transactions between them. Whereas a transaction originating from an untrusted source might require additional blocks depending on preferences specified by the user. Aside from trusting the other party or not, the size of the transaction would obviously be another factor and it seems that users should have the ability to determine how many blocks they want to wait based on a mix of factors. Does this make sense?
Yes .. this is already available and should be used by gateways for withdrawals ..
transaction sources not in your white list or on your blacklist will be unable to send funds yourway
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Is it possible to have some sort of whitelist for users to specify trusted sources of funds? So for example, two users that trust each other could whitelist one another to enable immediate transactions between them. Whereas a transaction originating from an untrusted source might require additional blocks depending on preferences specified by the user. Aside from trusting the other party or not, the size of the transaction would obviously be another factor and it seems that users should have the ability to determine how many blocks they want to wait based on a mix of factors. Does this make sense?
Yes .. this is already available and should be used by gateways for withdrawals ..
transaction sources not in your white list or on your blacklist will be unable to send funds yourway
You are mistaken Xeroc. Whitelist is only used for controlling who may own a particular UIA. Normal users cannot whitelist other users (you must be a lifetime member). The reason is that the white lists could quickly become a vector of attack when you consider potential long-term memory requirements of tracking it all. This is a parameter the committee members can change, but is defaulting to only lifetime members can use whitelists.
Whitelist does not impact who you can send or receive funds from. Though it should be possible for the wallet to flag operations that interact with a whitelisted or blacklisted account.
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You are mistaken Xeroc. Whitelist is only used for controlling who may own a particular UIA. Normal users cannot whitelist other users (you must be a lifetime member). The reason is that the white lists could quickly become a vector of attack when you consider potential long-term memory requirements of tracking it all. This is a parameter the committee members can change, but is defaulting to only lifetime members can use whitelists.
Whitelist does not impact who you can send or receive funds from. Though it should be possible for the wallet to flag operations that interact with a whitelisted or blacklisted account.
Thanks for the clarification ..
So a gateway can receive bitUSD even from those people that are not whitelisted ..
A gateway that trade USD : bitUSD can then not really make much use of whitelisting because they can receive bitUSD from anybody .. even those that are not verified ..
That leads to the need for gateways to force their customers to only use their validated (whitelisted or not) account when sending bitUSD to the gateway .. and they need to send back those funds from users that are not verified properly .. ok .. got it
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Normal users cannot whitelist other users (you must be a lifetime member).
So this means a lifetime member can add other uses to their account's whitelist IIUC. But this only serves the purpose of broadcasting reputation/trust or whatever .. nothing technical comes with a user-whitelist, correct?
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Normal users cannot whitelist other users (you must be a lifetime member).
So this means a lifetime member can add other uses to their account's whitelist IIUC. But this only serves the purpose of broadcasting reputation/trust or whatever .. nothing technical comes with a user-whitelist, correct?
Except it restricts who can own a UIA.
The Issuer of the UIA can name the accounts that are considered "whitelist authorities" then "whitelist authorities" can then mark all of the accounts they know.
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Normal users cannot whitelist other users (you must be a lifetime member).
So this means a lifetime member can add other uses to their account's whitelist IIUC. But this only serves the purpose of broadcasting reputation/trust or whatever .. nothing technical comes with a user-whitelist, correct?
Except it restricts who can own a UIA.
The Issuer of the UIA can name the accounts that are considered "whitelist authorities" then "whitelist authorities" can then mark all of the accounts they know.
Ok .. this would be the KCY/AML-service-provider feature then .. got it
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remember when we solved both the voter apathy and liquidiy and profitability and potential hostile takeover bid problems with one simple fix?