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Build a Compact Cryptocurrency System Purely Based on PoS

41 points by YAYERKA 12y ago

josephagoss 12y ago
The paper should be titled "POS Cryptocurrency with no blockchain" as that is the most innovative idea they are talking about. There already exist pure POS coins, Nxt through a concept called transparent forging may be capable of resisting anything up to a 90% attack. I'll have a read of this properly when I get home.
- darkFunction 12y ago
  The Nxt sourcecode is really terribly written, which is a shame.
  - Sambdala 12y ago
    The developer was also very secretive about how it worked as he was scared someone would copy it and release a clone. It was impossible for the longest time (when the price was actually much higher than it is now) to find out how the thing actually worked. Much of this was because there was no white paper or documentation, and when pressed for details beyond the most basic, the developer just told you to read the source code once he open-sourced it.
  - duckingtest 12y ago
    It was bad, but it's drastically better now. The main developer changed from what was probably your last look. https://bitbucket.org/JeanLucPicard/nxt/src/ https://bitbucket.org/JeanLucPicard/nxt/src/
higherpurpose 12y ago
Aren't all PoS systems a "rich get richer" system?
- DennisP 12y ago
  "Rich get richer" would be if people with larger shares of the total money supply tended to increase their share. But with Peercoin, for example, everybody earns annual interest of 1% of their holdings, paid in new coin. Let's say instead we have DennisCoin which pays a whopping 100% and is worth $1 per coin. If you start with 10 coins and I start with 90 coins, then after a year you'll have 20 coins and I'll have 180. I still have nine times as much as you. Since the number of coins has doubled, the currency value drops in half. So in dollar terms, you still have $10 and I still have $90.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
jsmcgd 12y ago
I think most cryptocurrencies will begin to shed their blockchains. They're beginning to get unweildly, especially for Bitcoin (17GB). There's no need to retain a list of all transactions. You only need a consistent set of balances. Also the energy cost of mining is beginning to become a legitimate environmental concern. I think the new slew of proof of stake currencies are going to give the proof of work currencies a run for their money (pardon the pun).
- kolinko 12y ago
  Shedding effectivity depends on the amount of unspent outputs. E.g. If there are 1.5M transactions, and 1.2M addresses still containing money, replacing transactions with account ballances won't give you much. As for the environmental concern - read up about the tragedy of commons. Few people will abandon a better protocol into a worse one if the only benefit is ecological.
im3w1l 12y ago
They suggest an exponentially declining price during the distribution year. Unless I am missing something this will lead to everyone buying on the very last day when the price is the lowest. Why would you want to create those incentives?
- kolinko 12y ago
  I think they say that the distribution should stop at a random, unknown and decided in advance moment within a year. So nobody knows when is the very last day. Btw. The moment can be determined in a secure way (think satoshi-dice style)
  - im3w1l 12y ago
    Ok, so it is basically a complicated and slow way of holding an auction with secret bids?
jeangabriel 12y ago
Unconvincing. The proof of convergence is also not correct. The inequality at the top of p.7 (ever heard of equation numering...?) should be reversed, which effectively establishes that convergence probability is smaller or equal to 1.
Hopka 12y ago
PoS = Proof of Stake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake

41 points by YAYERKA 12y ago

The paper should be titled "POS Cryptocurrency with no blockchain" as that is the most innovative idea they are talking about. There already exist pure POS coins, Nxt through a concept called transparent forging may be capable of resisting anything up to a 90% attack. I'll have a read of this properly when I get home.

darkFunction 12y ago
The Nxt sourcecode is really terribly written, which is a shame.
- Sambdala 12y ago
  The developer was also very secretive about how it worked as he was scared someone would copy it and release a clone. It was impossible for the longest time (when the price was actually much higher than it is now) to find out how the thing actually worked. Much of this was because there was no white paper or documentation, and when pressed for details beyond the most basic, the developer just told you to read the source code once he open-sourced it.
- duckingtest 12y ago
  It was bad, but it's drastically better now. The main developer changed from what was probably your last look. https://bitbucket.org/JeanLucPicard/nxt/src/ https://bitbucket.org/JeanLucPicard/nxt/src/

higherpurpose 12y ago

Aren't all PoS systems a "rich get richer" system?

DennisP 12y ago
"Rich get richer" would be if people with larger shares of the total money supply tended to increase their share. But with Peercoin, for example, everybody earns annual interest of 1% of their holdings, paid in new coin. Let's say instead we have DennisCoin which pays a whopping 100% and is worth $1 per coin. If you start with 10 coins and I start with 90 coins, then after a year you'll have 20 coins and I'll have 180. I still have nine times as much as you. Since the number of coins has doubled, the currency value drops in half. So in dollar terms, you still have $10 and I still have $90.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

jsmcgd 12y ago

I think most cryptocurrencies will begin to shed their blockchains. They're beginning to get unweildly, especially for Bitcoin (17GB). There's no need to retain a list of all transactions. You only need a consistent set of balances. Also the energy cost of mining is beginning to become a legitimate environmental concern. I think the new slew of proof of stake currencies are going to give the proof of work currencies a run for their money (pardon the pun).

kolinko 12y ago
Shedding effectivity depends on the amount of unspent outputs. E.g. If there are 1.5M transactions, and 1.2M addresses still containing money, replacing transactions with account ballances won't give you much. As for the environmental concern - read up about the tragedy of commons. Few people will abandon a better protocol into a worse one if the only benefit is ecological.

im3w1l 12y ago

They suggest an exponentially declining price during the distribution year. Unless I am missing something this will lead to everyone buying on the very last day when the price is the lowest. Why would you want to create those incentives?

kolinko 12y ago
I think they say that the distribution should stop at a random, unknown and decided in advance moment within a year. So nobody knows when is the very last day. Btw. The moment can be determined in a secure way (think satoshi-dice style)
- im3w1l 12y ago
  Ok, so it is basically a complicated and slow way of holding an auction with secret bids?

jeangabriel 12y ago

Unconvincing. The proof of convergence is also not correct. The inequality at the top of p.7 (ever heard of equation numering...?) should be reversed, which effectively establishes that convergence probability is smaller or equal to 1.

Hopka 12y ago

PoS = Proof of Stake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake