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> Handshake uses proof-of-work mining Uh, no thanks. If you insist on using a blockchain at least don't make it proof-of-work. It's 2022, and there are plenty

> Handshake uses proof-of-work mining Uh, no thanks. If you insist on using a blockchain at least don't make it proof-of-work. It's 2022, and there are plenty of production-ready non-PoW chains out there already. Please stop killing the planet.

intothemild 4y ago
I can't agree with this more.
josu 4y ago
PoW makes sense from a first principles approach [1]. I don't see Handshake growing into a trillion dollar network, so the security budget won't be that big, therefore I don't think it will be very energy intensive. Furthermore, if you calculate the economic impact of DNS hacks, the net impact of a decentralised PoW DNS implementation could even be positive. Wrt to non-PoW system, so far governance for those chains looks closer to a federation (where a few agents control the majority of the network) than to a really decentralised network. In that sense, a proof-of-stake DNS network wouldn't be that different from the current implementation. If such network ever takes off, I wouldn't be surprised if major ISPs, Cloudfare, Google, and a few other players end up owning the majority of the tokens. [1] Adam Back's 1997 Hashcash, designed to fight email spam and DDOS attacks was based on PoW.
- kenniskrag 4y ago
  small PoW networks are prone to takeovers. E.g. one actor decidea to use his asics to take over the network for a few blocks.
  - josu 4y ago
    This is a solved issue with Merge mining. Here a primer: https://blog.bitmex.com/the-growth-of-bitcoin-merge-mining/ https://blog.bitmex.com/the-growth-of-bitcoin-merge-mining/
    - kenniskrag 4y ago
      then someone has to mine two blocks? How are they linked together. E.g. I haven't much luck to mine a bitcoin block and will others put data inside the bitcoin blockchain for me? If it is the other way around there should be some kind of auth?
lfkdev 4y ago
No, PoW is still the most secure out there. This is an important topic and theres nothing wrong with using energy for this.
rvz 4y ago
> It's 2022, and there are plenty of production-ready non-PoW chains out there already. Yeah. Like Solana, Polygon, Helium, Celo, etc? Which they went down. Why would something that operates like a CA, DNS or TLDs be suitable on those 'production-ready' chains? PoW makes sense for this use case. > Please stop killing the planet. I agree. I'd rather have something useful burning the planet and is an improvement than something that is burning the planet for the benefit of more surveillance, censorship and spyware (Deep Learning, Machine Learning systems on user data) or something that is not useful at all to the current system. (Bitcoin) So perhaps we also should look at stopping running broken machine learning / deep learning models continuously on many data centers for 10+ years which that is also incinerating the planet.
- chriswarbo 4y ago
  > So perhaps we also should look at stopping running broken machine learning / deep learning models continuously on many data centers for 10+ years which that is also incinerating the planet. That's Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
  - rvz 4y ago
    No it isn't. I already agreed that PoW is burning up the planet especially with the uselessness of blockchains like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Dogecoin, that don't improve on the current system when used and thus have no use case. So that isn't 'whataboutism'. Nice try though.
  - jedimind 4y ago
    That's a Nonargument https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonargument https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonargument . Giving examples of technologies that can also be considered "a waste of energy" is a valid argument. Why is using energy playing graphics intensive games with high-end graphics cards not considered a "waste of energy"? It's a value judgment that lacks perspective. Dismissing some technology for its energy usage without providing a better alternative with similar or better properties is nescient. Some people at least try to provide "alternatives", but they don't have better properties or completely ignore what the technology was even trying to accomplish.
capableweb 4y ago
If I remember correctly, Handshake came into life somewhere around 2016, and was forked from Bitcoin, hence the reliance on PoW. Seems unlikely to change at this point. If you'd rather want to use something with PoS, then Ethereum Name Service (https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/) is probably your best bet as Ethereum is moving to PoS shortly and is a widely used chain.
pjc50 4y ago
Indeed. Proof-of-work is the "what if we put some CFCs in our leaded petrol" level of technological disaster generation.
deleted 4y ago
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intothemild 4y ago

I can't agree with this more.

josu 4y ago

PoW makes sense from a first principles approach [1]. I don't see Handshake growing into a trillion dollar network, so the security budget won't be that big, therefore I don't think it will be very energy intensive. Furthermore, if you calculate the economic impact of DNS hacks, the net impact of a decentralised PoW DNS implementation could even be positive. Wrt to non-PoW system, so far governance for those chains looks closer to a federation (where a few agents control the majority of the network) than to a really decentralised network. In that sense, a proof-of-stake DNS network wouldn't be that different from the current implementation. If such network ever takes off, I wouldn't be surprised if major ISPs, Cloudfare, Google, and a few other players end up owning the majority of the tokens. [1] Adam Back's 1997 Hashcash, designed to fight email spam and DDOS attacks was based on PoW.

kenniskrag 4y ago
small PoW networks are prone to takeovers. E.g. one actor decidea to use his asics to take over the network for a few blocks.
- josu 4y ago
  This is a solved issue with Merge mining. Here a primer: https://blog.bitmex.com/the-growth-of-bitcoin-merge-mining/ https://blog.bitmex.com/the-growth-of-bitcoin-merge-mining/
  - kenniskrag 4y ago
    then someone has to mine two blocks? How are they linked together. E.g. I haven't much luck to mine a bitcoin block and will others put data inside the bitcoin blockchain for me? If it is the other way around there should be some kind of auth?

lfkdev 4y ago

No, PoW is still the most secure out there. This is an important topic and theres nothing wrong with using energy for this.

rvz 4y ago

> It's 2022, and there are plenty of production-ready non-PoW chains out there already. Yeah. Like Solana, Polygon, Helium, Celo, etc? Which they went down. Why would something that operates like a CA, DNS or TLDs be suitable on those 'production-ready' chains? PoW makes sense for this use case. > Please stop killing the planet. I agree. I'd rather have something useful burning the planet and is an improvement than something that is burning the planet for the benefit of more surveillance, censorship and spyware (Deep Learning, Machine Learning systems on user data) or something that is not useful at all to the current system. (Bitcoin) So perhaps we also should look at stopping running broken machine learning / deep learning models continuously on many data centers for 10+ years which that is also incinerating the planet.

chriswarbo 4y ago
> So perhaps we also should look at stopping running broken machine learning / deep learning models continuously on many data centers for 10+ years which that is also incinerating the planet. That's Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
- rvz 4y ago
  No it isn't. I already agreed that PoW is burning up the planet especially with the uselessness of blockchains like Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin Gold, Dogecoin, that don't improve on the current system when used and thus have no use case. So that isn't 'whataboutism'. Nice try though.
- jedimind 4y ago
  That's a Nonargument https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonargument https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nonargument . Giving examples of technologies that can also be considered "a waste of energy" is a valid argument. Why is using energy playing graphics intensive games with high-end graphics cards not considered a "waste of energy"? It's a value judgment that lacks perspective. Dismissing some technology for its energy usage without providing a better alternative with similar or better properties is nescient. Some people at least try to provide "alternatives", but they don't have better properties or completely ignore what the technology was even trying to accomplish.

capableweb 4y ago

If I remember correctly, Handshake came into life somewhere around 2016, and was forked from Bitcoin, hence the reliance on PoW. Seems unlikely to change at this point. If you'd rather want to use something with PoS, then Ethereum Name Service (https://ens.domains/ https://ens.domains/) is probably your best bet as Ethereum is moving to PoS shortly and is a widely used chain.

pjc50 4y ago

Indeed. Proof-of-work is the "what if we put some CFCs in our leaded petrol" level of technological disaster generation.

deleted 4y ago

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