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Exactly. This is also why I think the trend to be "ASIC-resistant" is misguided and should be considered harmful. All GPU-mined coins (except the hashrate-domi

by mrb 8y ago

Exactly. This is also why I think the trend to be "ASIC-resistant" is misguided and should be considered harmful. All GPU-mined coins (except the hashrate-dominant one: Ethereum) are massively vulnerable to majority attacks because of the huge pre-existing installed based of GPU miners. As I said in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17173774 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17173774 the only solid defense is for each coin to implement an ASIC-friendly algorithm that is unique to this coin, so there is no risk of 51% attacks from a pre-existing installed based of miners.

VectorLock 8y ago
Or use something other than proof-of-work.
- Natanael_L 8y ago
  I've yet to see anything other than PoW that's got all four; * genuine decentralization * reliably generates a concensus with global supermajority, little or no forking (objective chain selection) * fault tolerant network, minimal fragility / auto recovering, can't be permanently crashed / hijacked * requires no human intervention Everything I've seen so far in terms of PoS violates at least one of the above. Hashgraph doesn't deal with concensus (it offload that to other layers), Ripple doesn't really deal with decentralization, Algorand is fragile, most PoS require human intervention besides often having several other faults. Also there's probably more criteria like these that matter.
  - VikingCoder 8y ago
    So? "Genuine decentralization" / and "consensus" are not necessary to make a useful currency. There's also massive cost and risk with the currencies that do implement those criteria. We should all be open to different alternatives that WORK, and not reject them out of hand just because they're not implemented in such a way that they have attributes we LIKE.
    - Natanael_L 8y ago
      Dropping global concensus means you're back to small regional currencies. With centralization you get things like Ripple. Both problematic / unstable in the long term.

by mrb 8y ago

VectorLock 8y ago

Or use something other than proof-of-work.

Natanael_L 8y ago
I've yet to see anything other than PoW that's got all four; * genuine decentralization * reliably generates a concensus with global supermajority, little or no forking (objective chain selection) * fault tolerant network, minimal fragility / auto recovering, can't be permanently crashed / hijacked * requires no human intervention Everything I've seen so far in terms of PoS violates at least one of the above. Hashgraph doesn't deal with concensus (it offload that to other layers), Ripple doesn't really deal with decentralization, Algorand is fragile, most PoS require human intervention besides often having several other faults. Also there's probably more criteria like these that matter.
- VikingCoder 8y ago
  So? "Genuine decentralization" / and "consensus" are not necessary to make a useful currency. There's also massive cost and risk with the currencies that do implement those criteria. We should all be open to different alternatives that WORK, and not reject them out of hand just because they're not implemented in such a way that they have attributes we LIKE.
  - Natanael_L 8y ago
    Dropping global concensus means you're back to small regional currencies. With centralization you get things like Ripple. Both problematic / unstable in the long term.