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Would you mind giving passers-by a 101 on Chia? Had never heard of it before. Recognise Bram's name obviously, but why is this interesting and valuable rather t

Would you mind giving passers-by a 101 on Chia? Had never heard of it before. Recognise Bram's name obviously, but why is this interesting and valuable rather than another shitcoin? Bram's name alone has no weight in this area from what I can tell

leppr 5y ago
The #1 argument against Bitcoin and Proof-of-work consensus in general is that it's harmful for the environment. Chia and other Proof-of-Space consensus coins promise environmentally-friendly consensus (because running the algorithm requires very little energy, and in theory it should be be unprofitable to produce or acquire hardware specifically for mining it), that is also decentralized. Despite the buzz around cryptocurrency prices, there have been very little new working decentralized consensus algos since 2009. Most alternatives (the shitcoins you're talking about) compromised on decentralization and/or security. Chia has the potential to be a strictly better Bitcoin on almost all points. (I'm neither an investor, nor a miner, nor do I own any of the coins, I've simply been enthusiastically waiting for its release since it was first announced)
- petmon 5y ago
  Is this competing with Bitcoin in the sense that maybe I could buy a coffee with it? Or is it competing with S3?
  - dazaidesu 5y ago
    they're targeting 20 tps which is roughly 5x bitcoin and pretty similar to ethereum's tps. they're planning to rely on layer 2 scaling because bram thinks sharding is a bad idea when it comes to security. it's definitely not competing with s3, just trying to be better than bitcoin in terms of decentralization, power usage & programmable money with chialisp & colored coins.
    - petmon 5y ago
      Wait, it's not like Filecoin, where the space is made available to other people? The storage is just being deliberately wasted? That sounds ridiculous.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    My impression is that the storage space is not actually capable of being used for anything. In other words, it is just as wasteful as existing cryptocurrency, just in terms of storage hardware instead of compute. It is becoming increasingly maddening to me that people still think this is a good idea.
- EarthLaunch 5y ago
  > it should be be unprofitable to produce or acquire hardware specifically for mining it If the coin becomes important or profitable, would this still be true? It seems like some of these coins replace direct energy use (coal/nuclear) with indirect energy use (create chips in factories from mined materials, all using coal/nuclear).
- wmf 5y ago
  Avalanche's proof of stake appears to be far more efficient that proof of space.
  - elseless 5y ago
    Proof-of-stake can never achieve the same trust model as proof-of-work. Proof-of-space-and-time can. See Andrew Poelstra ‘15: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/on-stake-and-consensus.pdf https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/on-stake-and-conse...
dchuk 5y ago
I definitely recommend this podcast episode to get started: https://www.modern.finance/chia-a-new-cryptocurrency-launching-soon-built-by-bram-cohen-founder-of-bittorrent/ https://www.modern.finance/chia-a-new-cryptocurrency-launchi... I’m a huge fan of both Kevin and Bram so this was a big geek fest for me. The tech is very compelling.

leppr 5y ago

The #1 argument against Bitcoin and Proof-of-work consensus in general is that it's harmful for the environment. Chia and other Proof-of-Space consensus coins promise environmentally-friendly consensus (because running the algorithm requires very little energy, and in theory it should be be unprofitable to produce or acquire hardware specifically for mining it), that is also decentralized. Despite the buzz around cryptocurrency prices, there have been very little new working decentralized consensus algos since 2009. Most alternatives (the shitcoins you're talking about) compromised on decentralization and/or security. Chia has the potential to be a strictly better Bitcoin on almost all points. (I'm neither an investor, nor a miner, nor do I own any of the coins, I've simply been enthusiastically waiting for its release since it was first announced)

petmon 5y ago
Is this competing with Bitcoin in the sense that maybe I could buy a coffee with it? Or is it competing with S3?
- dazaidesu 5y ago
  they're targeting 20 tps which is roughly 5x bitcoin and pretty similar to ethereum's tps. they're planning to rely on layer 2 scaling because bram thinks sharding is a bad idea when it comes to security. it's definitely not competing with s3, just trying to be better than bitcoin in terms of decentralization, power usage & programmable money with chialisp & colored coins.
  - petmon 5y ago
    Wait, it's not like Filecoin, where the space is made available to other people? The storage is just being deliberately wasted? That sounds ridiculous.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  My impression is that the storage space is not actually capable of being used for anything. In other words, it is just as wasteful as existing cryptocurrency, just in terms of storage hardware instead of compute. It is becoming increasingly maddening to me that people still think this is a good idea.
EarthLaunch 5y ago
> it should be be unprofitable to produce or acquire hardware specifically for mining it If the coin becomes important or profitable, would this still be true? It seems like some of these coins replace direct energy use (coal/nuclear) with indirect energy use (create chips in factories from mined materials, all using coal/nuclear).
wmf 5y ago
Avalanche's proof of stake appears to be far more efficient that proof of space.
- elseless 5y ago
  Proof-of-stake can never achieve the same trust model as proof-of-work. Proof-of-space-and-time can. See Andrew Poelstra ‘15: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/on-stake-and-consensus.pdf https://nakamotoinstitute.org/static/docs/on-stake-and-conse...

dchuk 5y ago

I definitely recommend this podcast episode to get started: https://www.modern.finance/chia-a-new-cryptocurrency-launching-soon-built-by-bram-cohen-founder-of-bittorrent/ https://www.modern.finance/chia-a-new-cryptocurrency-launchi... I’m a huge fan of both Kevin and Bram so this was a big geek fest for me. The tech is very compelling.