[VoterApathy] How To Make 51% Attacks A Lot Harder (without more people voting)

[Riverhead]

Well, this took a turn.

[Stan]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

Very good!  That was just a little tripwire experiment I conducted for my own purposes.  You were apparently the only one who noticed.

I don't know whether that was because it was completely obvious or completely opaque to everybody else.

Your statement is false, even the most impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator cannot know the values and desires of the population.  Even if he could gather a snapshot, by the time he could process it and issue an edict peoples desires will have changed.  In other words, it requires an all knowing, all powerful, God to do what you want.

Precisely. 

[Thom]

Your statement is false, even the most impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator cannot know the values and desires of the population.  Even if he could gather a snapshot, by the time he could process it and issue an edict peoples desires will have changed.  In other words, it requires an all knowing, all powerful, God to do what you want.

YES, and that type of thinking is dangerous!

[bytemaster]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

Very good!  That was just a little tripwire experiment I conducted for my own purposes.  You were apparently the only one who noticed.

I don't know whether that was because it was completely obvious or completely opaque to everybody else.

Your statement is false, even the most impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator cannot know the values and desires of the population.  Even if he could gather a snapshot, by the time he could process it and issue an edict peoples desires will have changed.  In other words, it requires an all knowing, all powerful, God to do what you want. 

[Stan]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

Very good!  That was just a little tripwire experiment I conducted for my own purposes.  You were apparently the only one who noticed.

I don't know whether that was because it was completely obvious or completely opaque to everybody else.

[r0ach]

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then

I'm confused on just what this statement is supposed to mean.  Is this some type of bible prophecy?  I don't get it.

[morpheus]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

This is actually quite interesting.  Is this proof that bitshares produces a Nash Equilibrium?  In a Nash Equilibrium, a player is only concerned with the other players strategy and not concerned at all with his/her own strategy.  The largest address is just under 360 mil bts while voters have pushed the threshold to control the network to 370 mil.  If we assume that the stakeholders as a whole are playing against the attacker, then Its as if the stakeholders have decided they need to take action if the number of votes to control the network is below the largest address and no action is required if the number of votes to control the network is above the largest address.  Im sure it is just coincidence but it is interesting. 

I'm not a big fan of classical game theory as I think there are too many variables involved, especially with more complex systems and mixed strategies, but I do believe that a no vote is a real vote and there is no such thing as voter apathy.  It is very far fetched to think that any attacker could gain financially by voting to control the network, but I suppose it is possible.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Sadly part of the mandate for dposhub was to help improve this. We had plans that included having users when they 'liked' and update it would literally cast their vote for that worker, or witness, or committee member.

@BunkerChain Labs , what is the status of the dposhub project?
Is it discontinued?

It was shelved for several reasons. While the feature I mentioned are useful to the discussion, the budget needed to bring it to life is too much to justify the current market. Crypto_p and I have put it aside for now. Sometime next year after completing some of the other projects now on the go there might be a revitalization depending on where BTS is at by then..its just going to cost quite a bit to get done and we couldn't justify it with the current market.

[Thom]

For those interested in voter apathy you should read https://bitsharestalk.org/index.php/topic,20753.0.html and the issues I posted about BSIP 5 on github.

[jakub]

Sadly part of the mandate for dposhub was to help improve this. We had plans that included having users when they 'liked' and update it would literally cast their vote for that worker, or witness, or committee member.

@BunkerChain Labs , what is the status of the dposhub project?
Is it discontinued?

[Empirical1.2]

All you need is the ability to make "voting power" expensive.
In Bitcoin, you need to buy expensive equipment
In BitShares you either need to buy stake or convince people to put trust into you and set you as a proxy.

What would buying 16% stake result in? Is there even 16% available in exchanges (for sale)?
Wouldn't that also lead to passive shareholders to claim their stake and read into voting. Maybe maybe not.
We will see sooner or later what will happen when the price goes up (for whatever reasons)

Alternatively, how would you convince people to trust you with their voting power? Isn't paying for votes perceived
as corruption? Would you vote for a president that pays you $20 right away? Do you think that people with a lot of
stake (face in the game) would take the offer as well?
Why would I want to give control over to someone that I do not trust, that may do no good to the value of my shares?

Any finally, if shareholders are unsatisfied by the voting distribution, it is in their hands to change it. Similar to what Bitcoin has seen with GHash.IO.

Furthermore, Just because the proxies have a lot of voting power does NOT necessarily mean that will use it to replace witnesses and even if that happend, all they can do is halt the network.

In the end, BitShares is way more flexible when it comes to governance even though it may be easier currently to get
dictatorship. But IMHO, it is a good thing that @bytemaster can stear the boat (for the moment) and protect it from
hostile take overs. What we have seen in BitShares 1 already is that someday, he will NOT have the power anymore to
stear the boat alone.

Well you mention Ghash, where we saw hashers will continue flocking to the most profitable pool even to the detriment of their own investment.

I believe the original premise of  was the Bitcoiners would flock to BitBTC for an annual even ultimately to the detriment of their investment.

So it stands to reason small BTS shareholders may be willing to proxy their vote for an annual  paid monthly even ultimately to the detriment of their investment, especially if they thought the pools/proxies intentions were good.

So an example of an attack...

'Hi guys, I think BTS should incentivise voting and give those that vote up to  a year funded through an annual inactivity fee for those that don't vote. Please proxy your vote to me, to give me more impact in making this change that will get more people to vote and make BTS more secure.. To demonstrate how effective this is, I will fund the  initiative myself and pay everyone that proxies their vote to me  p.a paid monthly. If I run out of money or fail in my attempt to help influence this positive change, please feel free to remove your vote. '

Then I may be able to acquire 13% stake for a monthly cost of 0.05% of total BTS. Then once acquired I elect witnesses and if it's not possible to print BTS and send it to the exchanges for sale, I will at least short BTS while the network is being attacked.

Like BTC, there may also be outside influences, like .gov or banks or competitors that would like to target BTS for 0.05 - 0.13%  of stake. We already saw how Rune wanted to perform a hostile takeover of Bitcoin.

Extremely unlikely I guess, but that's the concept.

[monsterer]

Except that if everyone did this BTS would fall more than 1% and thus no one would do it. Hence, it is not profitable for people to proxy.

You've never heard of shorting?

IMO encouraging people to vote is not the answer; they will not vote en masse, which is what DPOS needed to survive. Moving forward I suggest we adopt some parts of NXT:

1. Auto elect N (staking) delegates ranked by effective stake
2. Allow individuals to lease their staking power to whomever they chose
3. Keep the same deterministic block production order

All you need is the ability to make "voting power" expensive.
In Bitcoin, you need to buy expensive equipment

That's a common error people make when comparing POS to POW. They are not equivalent in that way, because in order to vote in bitcoin you need to produce a block, and that is very, very expensive ongoing cost. In POS, once you have your stake, voting costs nothing.

[puppies]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

I think if you saw that kind of rush into BTS you would see others buying up as well.

I agree.  For a worst case scenario we would need to assume that they already own the required bts though.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

I think if you saw that kind of rush into BTS you would see others buying up as well.

[puppies]

It would currently take over 370 million bts to take over 51% of the witnesses.  Why in the name of God would someone throw away a million dollars to destroy bts?  Of course we could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  Btc could be crushed by someone with enough resources.  I'm not sure what all the hullabaloo is about.

[xeroc]

All you need is the ability to make "voting power" expensive.
In Bitcoin, you need to buy expensive equipment
In BitShares you either need to buy stake or convince people to put trust into you and set you as a proxy.

What would buying 16% stake result in? Is there even 16% available in exchanges (for sale)?
Wouldn't that also lead to passive shareholders to claim their stake and read into voting. Maybe maybe not.
We will see sooner or later what will happen when the price goes up (for whatever reasons)

Alternatively, how would you convince people to trust you with their voting power? Isn't paying for votes perceived
as corruption? Would you vote for a president that pays you $20 right away? Do you think that people with a lot of
stake (face in the game) would take the offer as well?
Why would I want to give control over to someone that I do not trust, that may do no good to the value of my shares?

Any finally, if shareholders are unsatisfied by the voting distribution, it is in their hands to change it. Similar to what
Bitcoin has seen with GHash.IO.

Furthermore, Just because the proxies have a lot of voting power does NOT necessarily mean that will use it to replace
witnesses and even if that happend, all they can do is halt the network.

In the end, BitShares is way more flexible when it comes to governance even though it may be easier currently to get
dictatorship. But IMHO, it is a good thing that @bytemaster can stear the boat (for the moment) and protect it from
hostile take overs. What we have seen in BitShares 1 already is that someday, he will NOT have the power anymore to
stear the boat alone.

[Empirical1.2]

The 0.13% BTS attack

Maybe you don't need 13% stake to attack BitShares maybe you only need 0.13%...

As a proxy offer to pay 1% interest per month to accounts that proxy their stake to you. That would be a lucrative 12%+ p.a

1 months interest payments on 13% of proxied stake would only cost you 0.13%...

Except that if everyone did this BTS would fall more than 1% and thus no one would do it. Hence, it is not profitable for people to proxy.  Now if you offered them 10% and the attack did less than 10% harm to BTS price then it would only cost 1.3% but even that is likely not profitable for the attacker because the network would quickly recover and the attacker would be out $100K or more.

I just posted this as a separate topic but I can't delete my own threads apparently.

Yes but your response supposes shareholders would know it was an incentive being offered for the purpose of an attack whereas it could be masked via multiple proxies and different intentions.

[bytemaster]

The 0.13% BTS attack

Maybe you don't need 13% stake to attack BitShares maybe you only need 0.13%...

As a proxy offer to pay 1% interest per month to accounts that proxy their stake to you. That would be a lucrative 12%+ p.a

1 months interest payments on 13% of proxied stake would only cost you 0.13%...

Except that if everyone did this BTS would fall more than 1% and thus no one would do it. Hence, it is not profitable for people to proxy.  Now if you offered them 10% and the attack did less than 10% harm to BTS price then it would only cost 1.3% but even that is likely not profitable for the attacker because the network would quickly recover and the attacker would be out $100K or more.

[Empirical1.2]

The 0.13% BTS attack

Maybe you don't need 13% stake to attack BitShares maybe you only need 0.13%...

As a proxy offer to pay 1% interest per month to accounts that proxy their stake to you. That would be a lucrative 12%+ p.a

1 months interest payments on 13% of proxied stake would only cost you 0.13%...

[Empirical1.2]

You would incentivize individuals to vote but not for any one particular proxy/initiative thereby getting them into the polling box where the majority should vote for the initiatives they actually agree with.

I think it's very unlikely that people who currently can't be bothered to select a proxy, will suddenly actively seek information and make informed voting decisions.
You'll have to pay a lot to change their attitudes so much. Convincing them to use proxies is much easier and cheaper and the final effect is almost the same, or even better as we avoid random voters.

If a beauty pageant wanted to get local town people to come in and vote for the prettiest girl, would they be better off...

A) Give $1000 to every voter that turns up and votes
B) Give $1000 to each girl for every guy they get to vote for them

Even if voters were lazy, I would say that A would increase voting but the prettiest girl would still win.
I would say that B would increase voting but the girl who passed the most money onto voters and had the best marketing of that voting reward may be more likely to win.

So B could give you a bad result. (Obviously replace prettiest girl for stronges initiative or best proxy.)

A very inadequate analogy. Proxies don't run against each other like those girls, they just facilitate the process of voting. 
It's a service that makes voting easy. Just like a bus makes moving around easier than walking on foot.

We are currently straggling to make people do a very simple thing - select a proxy.
According to you, we should aim to convince people to practice regular jogging while we are currently unable to make them even stand up.
Let's first learn to crawl before we attempt to run - as BM recently said.

I don't think BTS being controlled by a handful of proxies will be great for marketing, even though higher voting numbers would be good. However I do agree with you that individual voting is harder than selecting a proxy.

I still think incentivising voters directly, (even if it's too select a proxy) is better than incentivising the proxies to get votes, because the first would get voters to select the best proxy while the second would get voters to select the best marketed &/or paying proxy.  Even though you found my analogy to explain why inadequate.

[jakub]

You would incentivize individuals to vote but not for any one particular proxy/initiative thereby getting them into the polling box where the majority should vote for the initiatives they actually agree with.

I think it's very unlikely that people who currently can't be bothered to select a proxy, will suddenly actively seek information and make informed voting decisions.
You'll have to pay a lot to change their attitudes so much. Convincing them to use proxies is much easier and cheaper and the final effect is almost the same, or even better as we avoid random voters.

If a beauty pageant wanted to get local town people to come in and vote for the prettiest girl, would they be better off...

A) Give $1000 to every voter that turns up and votes
B) Give $1000 to each girl for every guy they get to vote for them

Even if voters were lazy, I would say that A would increase voting but the prettiest girl would still win.
I would say that B would increase voting but the girl who passed the most money onto voters and had the best marketing of that voting reward may be more likely to win.

So B could give you a bad result. (Obviously replace prettiest girl for stronges initiative or best proxy.)

A very inadequate analogy. Proxies don't run against each other like those girls, they just facilitate the process of voting. 
It's a service that makes voting easy. Just like a bus makes moving around easier than walking on foot.

We are currently straggling to make people do a very simple thing - select a proxy.
According to you, we should aim to convince people to practice regular jogging while we are currently unable to make them even stand up.
Let's first learn to crawl before we attempt to run - as BM recently said.

[jakub]

Before we discuss any other means, why don't we start with the simplest thing available: let's encourage the users to vote in the GUI.

We can do it in three phases:

(1) If the system finds out you are not voting, it should display a red warning in the footer (just as we have it for the wallet backup reminder).
Voters apathy is a serious vulnerability for the blockchain, and I guess most people don't vote because they don't realize that.
And they don't realize that because we did not bother to tell them this in the first place.

(2) On the voting page there should be a clear instruction that the easiest way to vote is to select a proxy and offer a link to this forum board.

(3) We could enable a special flag associated with an account which would indicate that this account has officially declared to be a proxy.
This way we could have a list of proxies in the GUI (as we have the list of witnesses) and users would be able to choose a proxy even without referring to the forum.

EDIT: I've made a github post:
https://github.com/cryptonomex/graphene-ui/issues/630

[Empirical1.2]

Incentivising proxies might not be ideal as even though you may end up with more stake voting, which is a positive,  you will end up with very large proxies which is bad for marketing.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that we will end up with large proxies?
Isn't it more likely that we will end up with a large number of proxies?
It all depends how we structure the financial incentive] - e.g. we can pay more for the first 10M BTS of followers and less for the next 10M.

In that example the Proxy could make multiple accounts.

I would suggest the financial incentive should be even smaller, 100 000 BTS to encourage individual voting.

Even now we end up with a very small number of proxies, which centralizes power and makes BTS appear centralized. You could argue that if one of the proxies turned bad people would remove their support but this is the same as hoping hashers will leave a bad pool. Better to disincentize large pools in the first place imo & it's much better for marketing.

You would incentivize individuals to vote but not for any one particular proxy/initiative thereby getting them into the polling box where the majority should vote for the initiatives they actually agree with.

I think it's very unlikely that people who currently can't be bothered to select a proxy, will suddenly actively seek information and make informed voting decisions.
You'll have to pay a lot to change their attitudes so much. Convincing them to use proxies is much easier and cheaper and the final effect is almost the same, or even better as we avoid random voters.

If a beauty pageant wanted to get local town people to come in and vote for the prettiest girl, would they be better off...

A) Give $1000 to every voter that turns up and votes
B) Give $1000 to each girl for every guy they get to vote for them

Even if voters were lazy, I would say that A would increase voting but the prettiest girl would still win.
I would say that B would increase voting but the girl who passed the most money onto voters and had the best marketing of that voting reward may be more likely to win.

So B could give you a bad result. (Obviously replace prettiest girl for stronges initiative or best proxy.)

[jakub]

Incentivising proxies might not be ideal as even though you may end up with more stake voting, which is a positive,  you will end up with very large proxies which is bad for marketing.

How did you arrive at the conclusion that we will end up with large proxies?
Isn't it more likely that we will end up with a large number of proxies?
It all depends how we structure the financial incentive - e.g. we can pay more for the first 10M BTS of followers and less for the next 10M.

You would incentivize individuals to vote but not for any one particular proxy/initiative thereby getting them into the polling box where the majority should vote for the initiatives they actually agree with.

I think it's very unlikely that people who currently can't be bothered to select a proxy, will suddenly actively seek information and make informed voting decisions.
You'll have to pay a lot to change their attitudes so much. Convincing them to use proxies is much easier and cheaper and the final effect is almost the same, or even better as we avoid random voters.

[Empirical1.2]

How about rewarding  proxies based on stake voting through them?
Currently it's a hard and thankless task keeping up with all the witnesses and staying on top of all the proposals.
Why not make it someones BUSINESS to promote voting?

 
We are a financial platform so financial incentives are the most straight-forward tool available.
The best option is to incentivize proxies to actively look for followers - this way we will achieve our goal without the downside of getting random votes.

There seems to be no consistency in our behavior: we say we want something (which indicates we find it valuable) but at the same time we say we don't want to pay for it (which indicates we don't find it valuable).

Incentivising proxies might not be ideal as even though you may end up with more stake voting, which is a positive,  you will end up with very large proxies which is bad for marketing. The power distribution (perceived centralisation) will look worse than Bitcoin https://blockchain.info/pools?show_adv=no

Also whether you vote for proxy X will then be determined by how much of their earnings they pass on and how good they are at marketing themselves, vs. whether you think proxy X best serves BTS from your perspective.

Whereas if you  awarded the the proceeds of the 5% annual inactivity fee on a monthly basis with rewards limited up to the first 100 000 BTS in that account...

You would incentivize individuals to vote but not for any one particular proxy/initiative thereby getting them into the polling box where the majority should vote for the initiatives they actually agree with.

Even if people split up their stake into smaller amounts to gain maximum benefit, BTS will get the marketing benefit of more stake voting frequently and the power distribution graph (Size of stake in each account - perceived centralization) will be far more distributed as well.

[jakub]

How about rewarding  proxies based on stake voting through them?
Currently it's a hard and thankless task keeping up with all the witnesses and staying on top of all the proposals.
Why not make it someones BUSINESS to promote voting?

 
We are a financial platform so financial incentives are the most straight-forward tool available.
The best option is to incentivize proxies to actively look for followers - this way we will achieve our goal without the downside of getting random votes.

There seems to be no consistency in our behavior: we say we want something (which indicates we find it valuable) but at the same time we say we don't want to pay for it (which indicates we don't find it valuable).

[Empirical1.2]

There are people who are passionate enough about BitShares to vote and do work to establish a reputation that others trust to vote for them.

What do we gain if we water down that trusted group with others who are merely paid to think for us?  How do we know that a paid voter is wise and actually doing her homework?

The average knowledge/passion/trustworthiness per vote would decrease.  Why would that be good?

Anything done to artificially increase the number of votes cast without increasing the knowledge behind those votes is just for show.  Which means that the %voting metric is a poor indicator.

Suppose we offered $100 per share to get people to vote just one time.  Naturally, turnout reaches 99%.  What have we done?  We have now locked in a bunch of random noise that averages out to the same thing plus a bias based on the sum of all disinformation, rumors and misconceptions.  Now, when conditions change, the resulting inertia of unattended one-time paid votes is much harder for the truly informed and motivated voters to make a change.

Isn't part of the premise of FMV that paying people to vote is beneficial at times?

Your example also references a one off voting payment not a continuous voting incentive.

A person with >5 million BTS  might feel he can make an impact and increase the value of his considerable stake by voting. A person with <100 000 BTS may feel neither of those but in order to make BTS more marketable than being susceptible to a 13% attack we would benefit from those sub 100 000 BTS holders voting. (Even though they may own stakes in 15 other projects and it's not currently worth their time/effort to vote.)

Many people don't bother to vote in local elections but if they were paid to turn up, they would. The majority wouldn't vote randomly but in favour of the parties and ideas they already support imo. So an incentive for frequent voting may actually make BTS more secure and not just be noise.

[triox]

There are people who are passionate enough about BitShares to vote and do work to establish a reputation that others trust to vote for them.

What do we gain if we water down that trusted group with others who are merely paid to think for us?  How do we know that a paid voter is wise and actually doing her homework?

The average knowledge/passion/trustworthiness per vote would decrease.  Why would that be good?

Anything done to artificially increase the number of votes cast without increasing the knowledge behind those votes is just for show.  Which means that the %voting metric is a poor indicator.

Suppose we offered $100 per share to get people to vote just one time.  Naturally, turnout reaches 99%.  What have we done?  We have now locked in a bunch of random noise that averages out to the same thing plus a bias based on the sum of all disinformation, rumors and misconceptions.  Now, when conditions change, the resulting inertia of unattended one-time paid votes is much harder for the truly informed and motivated voters to make a change.

I'm talking about paying proxies. Let them figure out how to  mobilize voters.

[Stan]

There are people who are passionate enough about BitShares to vote and do work to establish a reputation that others trust to vote for them.

What do we gain if we water down that trusted group with others who are merely paid to think for us?  How do we know that a paid voter is wise and actually doing her homework?

The average knowledge/passion/trustworthiness per vote would decrease.  Why would that be good?

Anything done to artificially increase the number of votes cast without increasing the knowledge behind those votes is just for show.  Which means that the %voting metric is a poor indicator.

Suppose we offered $100 per share to get people to vote just one time.  Naturally, turnout reaches 99%.  What have we done?  We have now locked in a bunch of random noise that averages out to the same thing plus a bias based on the sum of all disinformation, rumors and misconceptions.  Now, when conditions change, the resulting inertia of unattended one-time paid votes is much harder for the truly informed and motivated voters to make a change.

[triox]

A well informed vote from someone who has done the hard work to understand the issues is highly valuable.

A random (e.g. machine generated) vote is useless - it just increases the noise floor without changing the outcome.

Alas, rewarding voting yields mostly the latter, not the former.

How about rewarding  proxies based on stake voting through them?
Currently it's a hard and thankless task keeping up with all the witnesses and staying on top of all the proposals.
Why not make it someones BUSINESS to promote voting?

[monsterer]

Precisely.  That particular gambit is fixed by the ability to fork out the bad guys and continue on.

Again, you are either missing or misrepresenting the seriousness of this issue. A hard fork to fix something like this would likely destroy the value of the currency completely; it is not the same as a hard fork which adds a feature, and may well need to rollback a whole load of transactions as well, which may have knock on effects on regular users or exchanges, depending on how insidiously the attacker behaved.

At any rate, bitshares should be stronger than 13% attack resistent, don't you think?

[CoinHoarder]

So it seems the OP went right over everyone's head. Admittedly I am not certain it would work, but it seems like no one even got the concept. I was hoping BM would read the OP and comment as to whether it is feasible. I probably described it wrong, but I feel like it is a possible solution. Here is the most recent thread on Bitcointalk about the idea, along with a link to the first thread. I was against it at first because I didn't want Litecoin to be Bitcoin's "bitch", but I eventually came around to the idea... as you can see in the original and subsequent thread. Those threads explain the idea in more detail if you're having trouble getting what I was trying to say in the OP.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=677783.0
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=176556.0

That would required the MUSE chain to also validate transactions of the BTS chain to use the hash of the right fork.

Well, yeah... that's the point of the proposal. Each Bitshares chain would work together to make each separate chain more resilient.

Furthermore, BitShares already favours the longest leg (which happens to be the leg with highest witness participation and thus "highest degree" of consensus
Maybe I still don't get the magic behind the idea

So does Bitcoin/Litecoin (for which the idea was originally conceived for)...  the idea is that when an attacking fork occurs that there be an option to NOT favor the longest leg and instead favor the honest leg that is recorded on the other chains.

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

Well, duh.... but if I say 13% attack hardly anyone knows what I'm talking about, yet if I say 51% attack then everyone knows what I am talking about.


For the record I like DPoS, and I think it is one of the features that makes Bitshares attractive. It is definitely unfortunate that hardly anyone votes. I think we should force centralized exchanges to vote by taking our business elsewhere if they refuse to vote. That is one easy thing we could do.

[Stan]

A well informed vote from someone who has done the hard work to understand the issues is highly valuable.

A random (e.g. machine generated) vote is useless - it just increases the noise floor without changing the outcome.

Alas, rewarding voting yields mostly the latter, not the former.

[Stan]

And if it did that, then all the inactive voters would come out with torches and pitchforks to fix it.

Until things start going in a direction they don't like, many of us are content to let it ride.

A decision not to vote is a vote for the status quo.  That is not the same as being centralized.

I'm afraid it is much more serious than you think.

This one account could vote in all its own delegates which then sit there refusing to process transactions. Votes are transactions, so you would never be able to vote them out.

This would bring the entire chain to a standstill forever until the dev team introduce a hard fork to rewind the chain.

Precisely.  That particular gambit is fixed by the ability to fork out the bad guys and continue on.

The most efficient solution is one run by an impeccably trustworthy benevolent dictator.  That Day is coming, but until then we can allow just about anybody to serve in the role as long as their feasible actions are strictly limited and we have the ability to detect, correct, and block any misbehavior.

Until that time, a valid voting decision is to tolerate the current set of dictator(s) as being a suitably constrained most efficient solution.  Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose, so any modicum of actual impeccability and trustworthiness they may possess are reinforced.

When considering the suitability of DPOS, you need to consider the whole design, not just the voting mechanism in isolation.

[jakub]

Voting has its usefulness (as it increases the overall security of the network) so it should be rewarded.
What if we introduced a special dividend, something like 2-3% p.a. for those who do vote for at least 10 witnesses? (either directly or indirectly via a proxy).
It would have to come from dilution but it will only hurt those who don't care anyway.

If we say decentralization is important for us then we need to pay for it. Problem solved.

[Chronos]

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in a centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Good point. In fact, BTS is in a bit of a stranglehold with Cryptonomex, through no fault of its own:

• The majority of voters can vote in new worker pay via dilution
• Cryptonomex (and/or like-minded founders) controls a majority of "active" votes, partly due to voter apathy
• Therefore, Cryptonomex can vote in worker pay for itself (which it does)

So, as a matter of opinion, you might conclude that significant trust must be placed in Cryptonomex not to over-dilute, in the same manner that citizens trust their central bankers.

It's not easy to "fix" this.

[TravelsAsia]

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

My only thought on this matter is that if we had more ways to get voting better communicated to end users, we would see more participation.. right now its just an area that has been less of a priority in development over other things.

That might work for people that spend a lot of time on the forums, I would argue that most people don't want to be that engaged. I think there's too much of an assumption that everyone is as hardcore as the people that are always posting on the forums.

 I like where Monsterer is coming from.

[monsterer]

And if it did that, then all the inactive voters would come out with torches and pitchforks to fix it.

Until things start going in a direction they don't like, many of us are content to let it ride.

A decision not to vote is a vote for the status quo.  That is not the same as being centralized.

I'm afraid it is much more serious than you think.

This one account could vote in all its own delegates which then sit there refusing to process transactions. Votes are transactions, so you would never be able to vote them out.

This would bring the entire chain to a standstill forever until the dev team introduce a hard fork to rewind the chain.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I am stating a hard truth here in the hopes that it will get the powers that be to think about the problem more clearly.

I'll say it again:

At this very moment, 1 single bitshares account could vote out all the delegates and install its own for whatever purposes they liked. That means 1 account controls the entire network, which is far, far more centralised than bitcoin, nxt or any other cryptocurrency except maybe ripple.

The hard truth is that anybody and everybody can buy more BTS and change this at ANY TIME.

We have proxy voting now and a lot of people have choosen to do this instead of being more engaged. Again.. its the stakeholders CHOICE. NOBODY forced them to take or not take those actions. No ONE OR TWO OR THREE holders could force them to take those actions.

Half the people arguing for changes in this thread to voting have already admitted to giving up their stake in BTS so it's kinda moot to be taking advise from non-stakeholders on how to get voters to be more engaged.

My only thought on this matter is that if we had more ways to get voting better communicated to end users, we would see more participation.. right now its just an area that has been less of a priority in development over other things.

Sadly part of the mandate for dposhub was to help improve this. We had plans that included having users when they 'liked' and update it would literally cast their vote for that worker, or witness, or committee member.

Engagement like this needs to become common place where the content and the action are on the same screen.

Coming up with other crazy schemes is just unnecessary. We just need a better delivery method for what we got that we know can and does work.

[Stan]

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I am stating a hard truth here in the hopes that it will get the powers that be to think about the problem more clearly.

I'll say it again:

At this very moment, 1 single bitshares account could vote out all the delegates and install its own for whatever purposes they liked. That means 1 account controls the entire network, which is far, far more centralised than bitcoin, nxt or any other cryptocurrency except maybe ripple.

And if it did that, then all the inactive voters would come out with torches and pitchforks to fix it.

Until things start going in a direction they don't like, many of us are content to let it ride.

A decision not to vote is a vote for the status quo.  That is not the same as being centralized.

[Stan]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Far less centralized and far less dilution that Bitcoin.

2 years and you still fail to grasp the elementary difference between 'immutable' and 'shareholder directed' in terms of trust required

Edit, Also perception is important. I think the general perception is that BTC is more decentralized than it is, among other things because there is a belief that hashers will quickly switch pools if they need too.

As we learned back in the ProtoShares days, hashers will continue to support a slightly more profitable pool even if it blatantly refuses to include any transactions.

The max dilution rate of both is immutable, but BTS shareholders can dial it to zero.  The max rate of Bitcoin is also the min rate and it all gets wasted, while whatever the much smaller BTS rate becomes gets spent on what the shareholders think is most useful.

There is no comparison.

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I agree with you about the hashers, this is not the widely held perception though.

The problem is if BTS is perceived as centralized & those centralized shareholders can direct and increase dilution then that requires a lot more trust.

As we saw with the merger, diluting BTSX for DNS and Vote lost us value, so we can see shareholders can make poor decisions with dilution and to date haven't been able to use it for anything that's been able to rapidly grow BTS vs. more 'wasteful' competitors like many hoped.

The same perceived centralized power group also had to pay themselves salaries to carry on working on BTS, including yourself, however BTS continued losing value during that time, so even though you and others were working far in excess of the value of that salary, it wasn't translating into added value for the DAC/shareholders. So from that perspective, dilution in a DAC still has to prove itself as well.

So when a small group, due to voter apathy/other has the power to direct dilution including towards mergers, this requires a great deal more trust than a dilution rate that has already been pre-defined and given BTS have thus far failed to make gains vs. competitors, trusting a fairly centralized group with that power, when you feel you are an insignificant sized shareholder,  requires even more trust going forward imo. 

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I think you also get careless sometimes, primarily out of enthusiasm and as a result create a credibility problem for BTS.

A long term member like me, could be more supportive & focus on the positives, but unfortunately it's in my nature to focus on things I see as weaknesses and I realize I probably rank around the newmine's and tonyk's of this world that criticize & find fault too much at times.

Some good points. 

It might be good to distinguish between "voter apathy" and "voter satisfaction".  If I'm happy with how something is being run, or even neutral, I may not bother to vote.  I only come out of my cave to vote when something has me riled up. 

We all sit somewhere on the continuum between pessimistic on the left and optimistic on the right.  So anyone to the left of my position seems overly pessimistic and vice versa.  Entrepreneurs are inherently optimistic or we would never attempt anything. 

We all need to recognize that the more constructive and optimistic we are, the better for everybody's net worth.

Success is about attracting new entrepreneurs and users and a positive outlook is helpful in doing that.

I've never seen many successful coaches give a pessimistic "pep talk" in the locker room at half time.  Slamming doors and throwing chairs however, seems to be fair game...

This forum is our team's locker room.

[monsterer]

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I am stating a hard truth here in the hopes that it will get the powers that be to think about the problem more clearly.

I'll say it again:

At this very moment, 1 single bitshares account could vote out all the delegates and install its own for whatever purposes they liked. That means 1 account controls the entire network, which is far, far more centralised than bitcoin, nxt or any other cryptocurrency except maybe ripple.

[Empirical1.2]

So, I don't think it's a case that people are happy with the current level of centralization but that they don't feel they can't individually help change it or they would rather sell and invest in other options they perceive as not being as centralized.

So in other words, you assume that those who sell are those who would like to vote but never did as they got disappointed that others don't vote.
Quite risky hypothesis.

This one looks to me more likely:
Shareholders don't vote because they don't perceive decentralization important enough.

Not necessarily like to vote, they may be apathetic too, but want a system that provides greater decentralization by design without them having to do anything.

Also people don't like investing in the first place in 'decentralized' blockchains that are perceived to be 'centralized'. So for example some people would say NXT was only given to 73 people, I'm not investing in that. Or that had a huge premine, I don't want to invest in that...

So it stands to reason that once they perceive the blockchain they are currently invested is/has become too centralized they may choose to sell. 

Especially because in BTS the possibility exists to pay yourself a salary or pay yourself a contract, perhaps grossly overcharging for it.
Whereas in other systems they often receive the same pre-defined pay relative to work so centralization is fairly moot from that perspective.

I usually think through my answers a bit more,  just responding very quickly today  

[jakub]

So, I don't think it's a case that people are happy with the current level of centralization but that they don't feel they can't individually help change it or they would rather sell and invest in other options they perceive as not being as centralized.

So in other words, you assume that those who sell are those who would like to vote but never did as they got disappointed that others don't vote.
Quite risky hypothesis.

This one looks to me more likely:
Shareholders don't vote because they don't perceive decentralization important enough.

[Empirical1.2]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Far less centralized and far less dilution that Bitcoin.

2 years and you still fail to grasp the elementary difference between 'immutable' and 'shareholder directed' in terms of trust required

Edit, Also perception is important. I think the general perception is that BTC is more decentralized than it is, among other things because there is a belief that hashers will quickly switch pools if they need too.

As we learned back in the ProtoShares days, hashers will continue to support a slightly more profitable pool even if it blatantly refuses to include any transactions.

The max dilution rate of both is immutable, but BTS shareholders can dial it to zero.  The max rate of Bitcoin is also the min rate and it all gets wasted, while whatever the much smaller BTS rate becomes gets spent on what the shareholders think is most useful.

There is no comparison.

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I agree with you about the hashers, this is not the widely held perception though.

The problem is if BTS is perceived as centralized & those centralized shareholders can direct and increase dilution then that requires a lot more trust.

As we saw with the merger, diluting BTSX for DNS and Vote lost us value, so we can see shareholders can make poor decisions with dilution and to date haven't been able to use it for anything that's been able to rapidly grow BTS vs. more 'wasteful' competitors like many hoped.

The same perceived centralized power group also had to pay themselves salaries to carry on working on BTS, including yourself, however BTS continued losing value during that time, so even though you and others were working far in excess of the value of that salary, it wasn't translating into added value for the DAC/shareholders. So from that perspective, dilution in a DAC still has to prove itself as well.

So when a small group, due to voter apathy/other has the power to direct dilution including towards mergers, this requires a great deal more trust than a dilution rate that has already been pre-defined and given BTS have thus far failed to make gains vs. competitors, trusting a fairly centralized group with that power, when you feel you are an insignificant sized shareholder,  requires even more trust going forward imo. 

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

I think you also get careless sometimes, primarily out of enthusiasm and as a result create a credibility problem for BTS.

A long term member like me, could be more supportive & focus on the positives, but unfortunately it's in my nature to focus on things I see as weaknesses and I realize I probably rank around the newmine's and tonyk's of this world that criticize & find fault too much at times.

[Empirical1.2]

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in a centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

BitShares is as decentralized as its shareholders want it to be.
If they wanted more decentralization they could easily achieve it with a couple of mouse clicks.

That's the difference between DPOS and any other system: the shareholders of other systems have to live with whatever level of decentralization happens to exist in their system.
Whereas in our case it's the shareholders' choice.

Personally I don't agree with the current choice (I wish there was more voting and thus more decentralization) but I respect this choice as shareholders' will.

I'm not sure, as BM acknowledges...

People LOVE the idea of having 10000 potential block producers with no barrier to entry. 

So, I don't think it's a case that people are happy with the current level of centralization but that they don't feel they can't individually help change it or they would rather sell and invest in other options they perceive as not being as centralized.

[Stan]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Far less centralized and far less dilution that Bitcoin.

2 years and you still fail to grasp the elementary difference between 'immutable' and 'shareholder directed' in terms of trust required

Edit, Also perception is important. I think the general perception is that BTC is more decentralized than it is, among other things because there is a belief that hashers will quickly switch pools if they need too.

As we learned back in the ProtoShares days, hashers will continue to support a slightly more profitable pool even if it blatantly refuses to include any transactions.

The max dilution rate of both BTC and BTS is immutable, but BTS max is much smaller and shareholders can dial it to zero.  The max rate of Bitcoin is also the min rate and it all gets wasted, while whatever the much smaller BTS rate becomes gets spent on what the shareholders think is most useful.

There is no comparison.

I agree that this is not widely understood, but that is not a knock on DPOS, just on our ability to overcome false narratives that occur when even our long term members get careless about what they say.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in a centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

BitShares is as decentralized as its shareholders want it to be.
If they wanted more decentralization they could easily achieve it with a couple of mouse clicks.

That's the difference between DPOS and any other system: the shareholders of other systems have to live with whatever level of decentralization happens to exist in their system.
Whereas in our case it's the shareholders' choice.

Personally I don't agree with the current choice (I wish there was more voting and thus more decentralization) but I respect this choice as shareholders' will.

Well stated! 

[jakub]

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in a centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

BitShares is as decentralized as its shareholders want it to be.
If they wanted more decentralization they could easily achieve it with a couple of mouse clicks.

That's the difference between DPOS and any other system: the shareholders of other systems have to live with whatever level of decentralization happens to exist in their system.
Whereas in our case it's the shareholders' choice.

Personally I don't agree with the current choice (I wish there was more voting and thus more decentralization) but I respect this choice as shareholders' will.

[Empirical1.2]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Far less centralized and far less dilution that Bitcoin.

2 years and you still fail to grasp the elementary difference between 'immutable' and 'shareholder directed' in terms of trust required

Edit, Also perception is important. I think the general perception is that BTC is more decentralized than it is, among other things because there is a belief that hashers will quickly switch pools if they need too.

[Stan]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Far less centralized and far less dilution that Bitcoin.

[Empirical1.2]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

Good luck convincing many friends to buy shares in a centralized blockchain with shareholder directed dilution 

Whether BTS is overly centralized is debatable, but if that was the perception, your solution wouldn't work as few would invest.
Besides consensus mechanisms and share distribution, this is also why initial distribution is also a contentious topic and has to a degree hamstrung NXT and while less severe, also continues to cause DASH PR issues too.

[BunkerChainLabs-DataSecurityNode]

Buy and hold more BTS.

Vote with it.

Tell your friends to do the same.

Problem solved.

[monsterer]

DPOS was a nice experiment, but the requirement for active voting was a big oversight. Much simpler to just plain remove it all and go with a much simpler system, which simply ranks by stake.

and suddenly you loose all the nice advantages of dpos, namely, the fact that only those that WANT to produce blocks may produce blocks.
With your approach we are back at square NXT and can't achieve 3secs blocks .. period

I don't think you've understood what I wrote at all. Namely:

1. Only those who chose to stake would be ranked
2. Keep the deterministic block production order

Basically, all you lose is the bad part, which is the elected delegates. Keep stake voting for proposals, of course.

[jakub]

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

Could you name this account "controlling 100% of the chain"?

[xeroc]

DPOS was a nice experiment, but the requirement for active voting was a big oversight. Much simpler to just plain remove it all and go with a much simpler system, which simply ranks by stake.

and suddenly you loose all the nice advantages of dpos, namely, the fact that only those that WANT to produce blocks may produce blocks.
With your approach we are back at square NXT and can't achieve 3secs blocks .. period

[monsterer]

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

As unpopular as the penalty fee was, perhaps only the removal of dilution & re-introduction of the 5% inactivity penalty fee for not voting at with BTS balances will improve it. (Ideally with FBA's the majority of that fee can be used for voter rewards.)

DPOS was a nice experiment, but the requirement for active voting was a big oversight. Much simpler to just plain remove it all and go with a much simpler system, which simply ranks by stake.

[Empirical1.2]

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

As unpopular as the penalty fee was, perhaps only the removal of dilution & re-introduction of the 5% inactivity penalty fee for not voting with BTS balances will improve it. (Ideally with FBA's the majority of that fee can be used for voter rewards. So you have both a penalty if you don't vote and a reward if you do.) 

Depending how it's applied, it could also get stake of the centralised exchanges.

[monsterer]

I would just have the system pick the top N forging accounts (by stake) and use those automatically as the delegates.

Any guarantee that top stake holders or collateral holders run witness nodes?
The problem is some of those accounts aren't currently voting.

Notice I used the qualifier 'forging' in the description

[Empirical1.2]

My ideas for improving the voting were the following, apparently the second has been debated by BM and Agent86 and it was concluded it would make BTS less secure but here they are...

1. Let a large group of standby witnesses produces a small % of blocks. (To make collusion harder )

In a system with 31 active witnesses and 70 standby witnesses. Let Standby witnesses randomly produce 25% of the blocks.

As a result I think this would mean that instead of needing 16/31 active witnesses to collude that you would need 21/31 active witnesses to collude. 

This has the added benefit of giving standby witnesses a monthly pay of $40 & motivation to stay active and compete.

This has the added benefit of letting us still market a 101 witness system but where the most trusted are producing the vast majority of blocks.

2. Let stake only be allowed to vote for 45% of active witnesses (To make it more expensive to attack BTS)

The  system always votes for the wintess(es) (among all the wittnesses that you trust) with the lowest total vote count & let stake only be allowed to vote for 45% of active witnesses.

The net result should be the very top witnesses having less votes but the bottom witnesses have about the same as in the current system.

However it should now become up to 2X as expensive to attack BTS.

As an attacker with 12-15% stake could only vote in 45% of block producers and then they would need another 12-15% of BTS stake to get them over the 51% mark.

[abit]

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

Time to throw the referral system back to the flames of hell from which it came and implement a collateral bid system where the client automatically votes for the top 101 accounts that put up the most collateral denominated in BTS?

I would just have the system pick the top N forging accounts (by stake) and use those automatically as the delegates.

Any guarantee that top stake holders or collateral holders run witness nodes?
The problem is some of those accounts aren't currently voting.

[monsterer]

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

Time to throw the referral system back to the flames of hell from which it came and implement a collateral bid system where the client automatically votes for the top 101 accounts that put up the most collateral denominated in BTS?

I would just have the system pick the top N forging accounts (by stake) and use those automatically as the delegates.

[r0ach]

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

Time to throw the referral system back to the flames of hell from which it came and implement a collateral bid system where the client automatically votes for the top 101 accounts that put up the most collateral denominated in BTS?

[monsterer]

51% is a gross overestimate. Try a 13% attack; that's what bitshares is currently vulnerable to.

DPOS was designed without the realisation of  what voter apathy would actually mean for the security of the chain. Instead of being the most decentralised currency, it is currently the least decentralised with one account controlling 100% of the chain.

[xeroc]

That would required the MUSE chain to also validate transactions of the BTS chain to use the hash of the right fork.
Furthermore, BitShares already favours the longest leg (which happens to be the leg with highest witness participation and thus "highest degree" of consensus
Maybe I still don't get the magic behind the idea

[CoinHoarder]

Debating PoW vs PoS (yet again) on Bitcointalk today made me think of something that I think would be neat. It was an idea proposed by Mike Caldwell (Casascius) for Litecoin in 2013, and I think it could work for Bitshares chains. It requires cooperation from both (or in our case multiple) chains, which is why it never really took off for Bitcoin/Litecoin. However, considering the close relationship that already exists in between Bitshares chains the politics of it may work out, and I think it is a great idea if we can make it work.

It seems like this idea (or something similar) can help the Bitshares ecosystem be more resilient to 51% attacks. BTS, MUSE, PLAY, Etc... (which I hereinafter refer to as Bitshares chains) can "backup" each other. I edited the original post to cut out the opinion pieces, for readability reasons, and to make it easier to understand as far as how it would work in the Bitshares ecosystem.  Obviously,  all of the below subject to change after review from those smarter than I, and honestly I wrote this without giving it much thought but I am positive it could be made to work. I am busy with other things- I just wanted to make sure the Bitshares community knew of this idea.

A General Overview:

I believe I have thought of an idea that would make each Bitshares chain more secure, and far more important & relevant in the Bitshares/cryptocurrency ecosystem... by each Bitshares chain being ready in wait in case any certain Bitshares chain experiences a 51% attack. Add a mandatory "merge-mining" feature to each Bitshares chain so that it is always "merge-mining" all other Bitshares chains. All chains should have the option of "let's subscribe to a different Bitshares chain(s)" as a secondary means of block validation, which in turn would be a way to resolve future 51% attack on any certain Bitshares chain.

How It May Work:

1. Add a new requirement to all Bitshares chains, such that a valid Bitshares chain's block must contain either a record of the most recent block header hash of all other Bitshares chains, or a repeat of the hash found in the prior Bitshares chain's block (with a limit of repetitions.) Bitshares blocks that contain outdated Bitshares chains' intelligence should be disfavored by nodes and/or delegates capable of detecting that. Further impose the requirement that all Bitshares chains' block headers must be represented contiguously in each Bitshares chain. Each Bitshares chains' blocks cannot be skipped by all other chains and must be recorded in each chain's blockchain.

2. In the event there is an active block chain fork on any certain Bitshares chain, the requirement is loosened such that the block header hash requirement of the Bitshares chain under attack can be satisfied by any leg of the chain, not just the leg that the Bitshares chain under attack considers valid.

3. Add a feature to all Bitshares chains' clients that allow Bitshares users to decide to prefer or not-prefer branches of a certain Bitshares chain's fork (while one is in progress.) The default for this should always favor the Bitshares leg with the most longevity, and should disfavor long chains that suddenly appear to replace a large amount of the known Bitshares chains' block chain that's under attack. The stakeholders/delegates should always have an easy way to have the final say, such as by pasting in a preformatted message either exiling or checkpointing a certain Bitshares chains' blocks.

Anticipated Benefits:

1. Each Bitshares chains' stakeholders would have a ready made remedy to a 51% attack that they can switch to, and thus be far more resilient to 51% attacks.
2. Each Bitshares chain would be seen as far more important and valuable (by those who do not see it that way.)