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> And is there truly no alternative way to get there that is cheaper in terms of computing power? If you discover one then please let us know. Right there ther

by runeks 13y ago

> And is there truly no alternative way to get there that is cheaper in terms of computing power? If you discover one then please let us know. Right there there is no known alternative to proof-of-work when trying to reach consensus in a distributed system.

maxerickson 13y ago
There's no proof that you need a distributed system to have a reliable public ledger. There is at least some chance that a big awful corporation is more trustworthy than a plurality of miners.
- runeks 13y ago
  > There is at least some chance that a big awful corporation is more trustworthy than a plurality of miners. Definitely. But it's about central points of failure, not trustworthiness. The trustworthiness of a company is irrelevant if the government decides to confiscate all its assets.
  - maxerickson 13y ago
    For people doing transactions, I'm pretty sure trustworthiness is what it is about. Very few people in the US or EU have concerns about the government seizing assets held on their behalf (you can reply that they should have such concerns, but as a practical matter they do not).
foobarqux 13y ago
Peercoin (eventually) uses proof of stake.
- runeks 13y ago
  Bitcoin developer gmaxwell disagrees: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6798997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6798997 > In PoW when you attempt to mine you must expend energy and so you should only mine on a consensus which is likely to be the surviving one if you want your work to not be wasted. In PoS the same is not true, and an optimally rational PoS miner will attempt to concurrently mine all forks which he does not hate. > Originally the signed blocks in PPC were supposed to be a bootstrap mechanism until most of the mining was PoS based, but then some clever miner started mining many possible histories and finding ones where he magically got lucky and his coins were the selected stake for all the blocks.

by runeks 13y ago

maxerickson 13y ago

There's no proof that you need a distributed system to have a reliable public ledger. There is at least some chance that a big awful corporation is more trustworthy than a plurality of miners.

runeks 13y ago
> There is at least some chance that a big awful corporation is more trustworthy than a plurality of miners. Definitely. But it's about central points of failure, not trustworthiness. The trustworthiness of a company is irrelevant if the government decides to confiscate all its assets.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  For people doing transactions, I'm pretty sure trustworthiness is what it is about. Very few people in the US or EU have concerns about the government seizing assets held on their behalf (you can reply that they should have such concerns, but as a practical matter they do not).

foobarqux 13y ago

Peercoin (eventually) uses proof of stake.

runeks 13y ago
Bitcoin developer gmaxwell disagrees: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6798997 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6798997 > In PoW when you attempt to mine you must expend energy and so you should only mine on a consensus which is likely to be the surviving one if you want your work to not be wasted. In PoS the same is not true, and an optimally rational PoS miner will attempt to concurrently mine all forks which he does not hate. > Originally the signed blocks in PPC were supposed to be a bootstrap mechanism until most of the mining was PoS based, but then some clever miner started mining many possible histories and finding ones where he magically got lucky and his coins were the selected stake for all the blocks.