BitShares Forum
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: luckybit on April 26, 2014, 06:19:32 pm
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https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=585780.0
Achieving consensus through crypto-random leader election
One of the main issues with the solution of the Byzantine Generals’ problem implemented by Satoshi Nakamoto as the very base of the crypto-currency Bitcoin, the Proof-of-Work mechanism, is the perpetual power race it implies. One cannot be satisfied by this solution, and should work around to find another way to achieve consensus which does not rely on massive resources waste.
Recently, in have been reading a bunch of articles exploring technical innovations in order to set up the basis of the next generation of crypto-currencies and I came up with the idea of a decentralized protocol that will choose one node to forge the next block based on the mathematical properties of signatures.
Basic concept
Each block will be forged by a random node picked in the subset of registered nodes.
Review?
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Randomness and nodes is prone to sybil...
This is effective a variant on the trustee approach.
What source of deterministic randomness are they using that doesn't allow one node to control which node will be the next 'random' node?
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Hi, why does achieving consensus implies on massive resources waste in bitcoin?
Why is that? whats the idea behind that?
Randomness and nodes is prone to sybil...
This is effective a variant on the trustee approach.
What source of deterministic randomness are they using that doesn't allow one node to control which node will be the next 'random' node?
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Hi, why does achieving consensus implies on massive resources waste in bitcoin?
Why is that? whats the idea behind that?
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Achieving consensus in Bitcoin relies on massive resource waste because it uses Proof of Work. In order to prove that you've done the work, you actually have to do the work. Therefore, Bitcoin consensus relies on lots of people doing lots of work.
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Hi, why does achieving consensus implies on massive resources waste in bitcoin?
Why is that? whats the idea behind that?
...
Achieving consensus in Bitcoin relies on massive resource waste because it uses Proof of Work. In order to prove that you've done the work, you actually have to do the work. Therefore, Bitcoin consensus relies on lots of people doing lots of work.
Proof of Waste. Most Proof of Work algorithms aren't working on anything useful. The tokens generated as useful but the work isn't.
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And the level of waste is proportional to the value of a bitcoin. I think it is safe to say we'll never be able to trust bitcoin status in China in any reasonable way going forward. The same with Russia. However if for whatever reason the price shot up again, we'd see a roughly equivalent increase in wasted resources. So BTC's "success" is tied into this waste.
It really is a mess. POW was a great way for initial distribution and still does a decent job at this, but IMO it has outgrown its place.
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I understand that, but why does bitcoin uses proof of work?
Whats the reason the inventor adopted this architecture?
Whats the objetive of proof of work?
Hi, why does achieving consensus implies on massive resources waste in bitcoin?
Why is that? whats the idea behind that?
...
Achieving consensus in Bitcoin relies on massive resource waste because it uses Proof of Work. In order to prove that you've done the work, you actually have to do the work. Therefore, Bitcoin consensus relies on lots of people doing lots of work.
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I understand that, but why does bitcoin uses proof of work?
Whats the reason the inventor adopted this architecture?
Whats the objetive of proof of work?
The best answer is it works.
If you were starting out the first cryptocurrency, how would you get it to work ? Mining allowed anyone to grab a piece in the early days. If the author had used POS or something, it is possible it would have been an invention that died off like a lot of code.
Now after it has blown up and has this huge marketcap, we have this whole arms race thing. Before that resources were wasted on GPUs. That however is a problem that occurred after success. The author had to have success first. I'm not sure other distributions mechanisms would or could have worked. The other ways pretty much prevent new comers from being a part of it, whereas mining keeps divying up yet to be created currency. That alone may have very well been what drove bitcoin to a critical mass. That and it simply works !
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I understand that, but why does bitcoin uses proof of work?
Whats the reason the inventor adopted this architecture?
Whats the objetive of proof of work?
Hi, why does achieving consensus implies on massive resources waste in bitcoin?
Why is that? whats the idea behind that?
...
Achieving consensus in Bitcoin relies on massive resource waste because it uses Proof of Work. In order to prove that you've done the work, you actually have to do the work. Therefore, Bitcoin consensus relies on lots of people doing lots of work.
I think Satoshi wanted Bitcoin to be decentralised. He wanted tens of thousands of people running Bitcoin nodes so that it would be very hard to shut down or control. POW was designed to reward and incentivise those people to run their nodes. I don't think he realised that instead of running nodes they would all point their hashing power to centralised mining pools which defeats the purpose and makes POW a very expensive waste.
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I understand that, but why does bitcoin uses proof of work?
Whats the reason the inventor adopted this architecture?
Whats the objetive of proof of work?
Hi, why does achieving consensus implies on massive resources waste in bitcoin?
Why is that? whats the idea behind that?
...
Achieving consensus in Bitcoin relies on massive resource waste because it uses Proof of Work. In order to prove that you've done the work, you actually have to do the work. Therefore, Bitcoin consensus relies on lots of people doing lots of work.
I think Satoshi wanted Bitcoin to be decentralised. He wanted tens of thousands of people running Bitcoin nodes so that it would be very hard to shut down or control. POW was designed to reward and incentivise those people to run their nodes. I don't think he realised that instead of running nodes they would all point their hashing power to centralised mining pools which defeats the purpose and makes POW a very expensive waste.
Without pools you would have the people with PH or 100's TH monopolizing the generation of BTC in more of a way than the pools. I am sure Satoshi predicted that would happen if the thought of pools never entered their minds. Which to me is centralizing it around a few major players too.
At least with the pools I get some BTC instead of waiting 2 years with luck to mine a block.
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The objective of proof of work is to generate consensus on which transactions have gone through, and thus who holds what balance, without relying on a single central authority. It solved this problem quite well at the time, though as it caught on centralization became a problem due to economies of scale, and more efficient methods were discovered for solving the same problems.
POW based blockchains really were a great breakthrough, but we can do better now.