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The core innovation in the original paper by Satoshi Nakamoto is Proof of Work: A system where people secure the scarcity of a decentralized digital quantity by
by shrimpx 9y ago
The core innovation in the original paper by Satoshi Nakamoto is Proof of Work: A system where people secure the scarcity of a decentralized digital quantity by spending compute power in order to be rewarded units of the same digital quantity.
Proof of Work is ultimately a set of well-balanced design decisions employing well-known technology. Maybe that's why people have a hard time seeing the novelty in it: they just see a bag of individual technologies and miss the delicacy of the design.
- roma1n 9y agoI may be misinformed, but I see proof of work schemes as something that will inevitably lead to a tremendous waste of energy -- the last thing we should do if we still want to inhabit this planet in a few decades. If a centralized authority is needed to reduce this waste, then so be it.
- shrimpx 9y agoIt's true. Alternatives like Proof of Stake, Delegated Proof of Stake, Proof of Importance, etc., try to fix the energy waste problem. They follow similar reasoning to Proof of Work, using financial incentives to keep miners honest. They don't require centralized authorities. However it's early days for Proof of Stake, we'll see how it develops.