Author Topic: Using Proof of Waste for Account Registration  (Read 13600 times)

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Offline gamey

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I'm a bit concerned with the amount of effort being made to make it super easy to register. Yes, mass adoption is great, but this is a great product that people will jump through a few hoops to join. How easy is it to get an E*Trade account?

The mass adoption of bitUSD and the consumer side of things (vs the trader) is a different story with different front ends. The consumer user of bitUSD shouldn't even need to know about, let alone understand, the underlying mechanisms.

How many card carrying customers of Visa and Mastercard have even the slightest idea how the back end works?

I completely disagree with your first paragraph and agree with the others.  I'm not sure how much effort would be put into this compared to most things.  It is the most critical area for adoption, especially if you want people to pay for things with it.  Since we don't have a 2nd wallet option yet, I assume we're still talking about the existing wallet... it is hard to discuss something that doesn't exist.

No one is suggesting that anyone understand the backend.  Just that they don't need to register an account and I argue that an address is not that different from an account number.  It sucks we can't call it an account number, because it has letters too.

If we're talking about a helper service then they can pay the 1 cent AFAIK and have other sources of info like IP address etc to remove spamming.
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Offline alphaBar

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I think I have a solution:

We create a transaction type that involves registering a "free-floating" account name and a password hash. This "free floating" name could then be "claimed" by any wallet by simply broadcasting a transaction that proves they are in possession of the password. This way, faucets and exchanges could pay for account registrations using the regular security mechanisms (captcha) and broadcast those names as free-floating registered accounts. Then a user would simply launch their client, enter the password they have chosen, and link the registered account name to their private keys. Here is a step-by-step illustration:

1) User launches their client which says "visit any of the following sites to register your account: BTSfaucet.com, BTSregister.com, Bter.com, etc. etc.
2) User visits one of those sites (possibly in a web view, or in their own browser)
3) The site has a captcha or requires email verification or whatever else to prevent spam. After passing the challenge, the site asks the user to select a username and a password (at least 10 characters - no need to be super-secure here). The site broadcasts a "free floating" account registration (including fee) and redirects the user back to their client ("Done! Now just open your client to claim your username").
4) The user returns to their client and enters the new username and password to generate a new transaction claiming the username (ie, linking the username to the private keys of that particular client).

The “chicken and egg” problem is not due to a lack of funds. Plenty of faucets and exchanges would pay for the .01 BTS necessary to register accounts. The real problem is the use of the “ugly hash” to receive that first transaction My solution solves this issue directly, without making payment-free registration (which is not necessary).

Offline House

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I'm a bit concerned with the amount of effort being made to make it super easy to register. Yes, mass adoption is great, but this is a great product that people will jump through a few hoops to join. How easy is it to get an E*Trade account?

The mass adoption of bitUSD and the consumer side of things (vs the trader) is a different story with different front ends. The consumer user of bitUSD shouldn't even need to know about, let alone understand, the underlying mechanisms.

How many card carrying customers of Visa and Mastercard have even the slightest idea how the back end works?

Good point... I think that charging $5 to register an account will end the "spam" and give them greater value.  Delegates and services that facilitate brining on legitimate new users can pay that "fee" on behalf of the user and then get reimbursed by delegates.   It would end "spam" "self-registration" but otherwise be the same cost to the DAC....

Would it it be reasonable to 'gift' back part of that so as not to look too greedy? Just asking

Offline bytemaster


I'm a bit concerned with the amount of effort being made to make it super easy to register. Yes, mass adoption is great, but this is a great product that people will jump through a few hoops to join. How easy is it to get an E*Trade account?

The mass adoption of bitUSD and the consumer side of things (vs the trader) is a different story with different front ends. The consumer user of bitUSD shouldn't even need to know about, let alone understand, the underlying mechanisms.

How many card carrying customers of Visa and Mastercard have even the slightest idea how the back end works?

Good point... I think that charging $5 to register an account will end the "spam" and give them greater value.  Delegates and services that facilitate brining on legitimate new users can pay that "fee" on behalf of the user and then get reimbursed by delegates.   It would end "spam" "self-registration" but otherwise be the same cost to the DAC....

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Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline gamey

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Uhh we need it as easy as possible when you are aiming for people to adopt this for everyday use.  People hire fulltime employees just to optimize webpages and bounce rates.  The more difficult you make getting an account, the more likely people are to bounce before buying funds.

Honestly I don't think people need usernames etc when doing this sort of mass adoption.  It was a neat feature for crypto geeks, but as time goes on it is less appealing to me from an investor's perspective. :(

Yeah, the drawbacks seem to be way more than the value it adds. Can usernames be made optional? If a user could send BTS to an ugly hash address and THEN register, that would be ideal. Whatever the system, it has to be dead simple or conversion will massively suck.

You can send funds to an ugly hash address.   But the goal is to eliminate that from the user experience.   We also want to eliminate delays.

My conclusion is that users will almost always be brought in via a helper service and that this thread was mostly to get the idea out of my head and discarded as well as spur ideas on how to make it easier for people to get into BTS.

So I guess the trick would be incentivising helper services in some way.

People have to send an address regardless.  I don't think that sending to a name is much different, it just puts the registration step in there.  People have been dealing with bank account numbers since they got their first bank account.  The idea of an address is nothing conceptually new.  Now it might be too long for people to easily write down or whatever, but otherwise it is like a bank account #, but with alpha characters too.
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Offline Riverhead


I'm a bit concerned with the amount of effort being made to make it super easy to register. Yes, mass adoption is great, but this is a great product that people will jump through a few hoops to join. How easy is it to get an E*Trade account?

The mass adoption of bitUSD and the consumer side of things (vs the trader) is a different story with different front ends. The consumer user of bitUSD shouldn't even need to know about, let alone understand, the underlying mechanisms.

How many card carrying customers of Visa and Mastercard have even the slightest idea how the back end works?

Offline jckj

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Recover keyhotee will be btTer. This was loTs of bTser's opinion u've ignored.

Offline Method-X

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Or if they have BTS on the exchanges, they can just withdraw the money to their BTS Active key directly (have BTER and BTC38 enabled this functionality yet btw?).

Ahh I understand now. This isn't a problem at all. Even non-tech users will put up with sending funds to an active key one time to get set up. I'm surprised Bter doesn't already allow this...

Offline arhag

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So I guess the trick would be incentivising helper services in some way.

There is no trick, we just need to pay for it with delegate pay. It will provide fantastic return on investment by making it really easy to get new users into the BitShares system. Plus it can provide valuable statistics like an estimate of how many unique users have at least tried out BitShares.

Offline Method-X

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Uhh we need it as easy as possible when you are aiming for people to adopt this for everyday use.  People hire fulltime employees just to optimize webpages and bounce rates.  The more difficult you make getting an account, the more likely people are to bounce before buying funds.

Honestly I don't think people need usernames etc when doing this sort of mass adoption.  It was a neat feature for crypto geeks, but as time goes on it is less appealing to me from an investor's perspective. :(

Yeah, the drawbacks seem to be way more than the value it adds. Can usernames be made optional? If a user could send BTS to an ugly hash address and THEN register, that would be ideal. Whatever the system, it has to be dead simple or conversion will massively suck.

You can send funds to an ugly hash address.   But the goal is to eliminate that from the user experience.   We also want to eliminate delays.

My conclusion is that users will almost always be brought in via a helper service and that this thread was mostly to get the idea out of my head and discarded as well as spur ideas on how to make it easier for people to get into BTS.

So I guess the trick would be incentivising helper services in some way.

Offline jckj

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Account number and applicable of the system decided the sucess of your ideas and our bts. So first make all the system include bts easy using ,stable and safe for users. At begaining for the system market plan the system should be free will be better   until the system and or bts have more than 100M accounts. Have my opinion clearly to  you for you ideas? i hope bts team should run quickly for an well user interface, easy application, faster, more satable and safe bts system.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2014, 05:29:31 am by jckj »

Offline arhag

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My problem with using POW is that I expect 90%+ users will be interfacing with the blockchain through mobile devices. If a viable solution cannot be found, I propose TITAN be removed as default. It seems to prevent adoption rather than promote it...
Can usernames be made optional? If a user could send BTS to an ugly hash address and THEN register, that would be ideal. Whatever the system, it has to be dead simple or conversion will massively suck.

TITAN isn't the problem in this case.  It is already possible to send money to the BTS Active key and still get all of the privacy benefits of TITAN (or more specifically stealth addresses).

I don't think this POW registration system is necessary. Who is it targeting anyway? The cryptocurrency community? Because regular users aren't going to want to max out their laptop/desktop CPU for at least an hour to register an account. They will want to use their mobile device to register an account in under a minute. So we need to pay for the centralized faucet anyway.

People in the cryptocurrency community who feel paranoid about providing a phone number for SMS verification should be comfortable enough to ask for a small BTS donation to their BTS Active key on the forums like they currently do. Or if they have BTS on the exchanges, they can just withdraw the money to their BTS Active key directly (have BTER and BTC38 enabled this functionality yet btw?).
« Last Edit: November 07, 2014, 05:24:58 am by arhag »

Offline bytemaster



Uhh we need it as easy as possible when you are aiming for people to adopt this for everyday use.  People hire fulltime employees just to optimize webpages and bounce rates.  The more difficult you make getting an account, the more likely people are to bounce before buying funds.

Honestly I don't think people need usernames etc when doing this sort of mass adoption.  It was a neat feature for crypto geeks, but as time goes on it is less appealing to me from an investor's perspective. :(

Yeah, the drawbacks seem to be way more than the value it adds. Can usernames be made optional? If a user could send BTS to an ugly hash address and THEN register, that would be ideal. Whatever the system, it has to be dead simple or conversion will massively suck.

You can send funds to an ugly hash address.   But the goal is to eliminate that from the user experience.   We also want to eliminate delays.

My conclusion is that users will almost always be brought in via a helper service and that this thread was mostly to get the idea out of my head and discarded as well as spur ideas on how to make it easier for people to get into BTS.

For the latest updates checkout my blog: http://bytemaster.bitshares.org
Anything said on these forums does not constitute an intent to create a legal obligation or contract between myself and anyone else.   These are merely my opinions and I reserve the right to change them at any time.

Offline Method-X

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Uhh we need it as easy as possible when you are aiming for people to adopt this for everyday use.  People hire fulltime employees just to optimize webpages and bounce rates.  The more difficult you make getting an account, the more likely people are to bounce before buying funds.

Honestly I don't think people need usernames etc when doing this sort of mass adoption.  It was a neat feature for crypto geeks, but as time goes on it is less appealing to me from an investor's perspective. :(

Yeah, the drawbacks seem to be way more than the value it adds. Can usernames be made optional? If a user could send BTS to an ugly hash address and THEN register, that would be ideal. Whatever the system, it has to be dead simple or conversion will massively suck.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2014, 05:16:42 am by MeTHoDx »

Offline gamey

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Uhh we need it as easy as possible when you are aiming for people to adopt this for everyday use.  People hire fulltime employees just to optimize webpages and bounce rates.  The more difficult you make getting an account, the more likely people are to bounce before buying funds.

Honestly I don't think people need usernames etc when doing this sort of mass adoption.  It was a neat feature for crypto geeks, but as time goes on it is less appealing to me from an investor's perspective. :(
I speak for myself and only myself.