0xfoobar

5 ms·

1.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Agreed that conceptual simplicity is always best, and the current Casper FFG + LMD-GHOST doesn't have provable guarantees yet (though seems to be working in practice). I'm excited to see slight modifications to the consensus/
2.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Indeed! :)
3.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
For those interested in understanding the tech rather than the typical bashing things as beneath them, I wrote up a detailed technical explainer of how Ethereum PoS works: https://0xfoobar.substack.com/p/ethereum-proof-
4.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Great question, it's not timestamps but attestations (signed validator votes for pairs of checkpoint blocks) that determines the canonical chain head. This fork choice rule, known as LMD-GHOST, is different from PoW which has a "g
5.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
The Solend drama was at the app-layer rather than the protocol-layer. Solana also runs PoS but its variant is a bit more handwavy and weaker imo, slashing rules are applied in a post-hoc human decision-making process rather than clear rules
6.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Great question, PoS actually has stronger guarantees against double-spending than PoW does. For PoW you just need to temporarily rent enough hashpower to do a mild reorg. PoS has a concept called "block finality", where once a blo
7.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Article author here. PoS validators have the power to propose new blocks and attest to the chain head. They cannot change the state transition function to allow false payments, just as BTC miners cannot use their block proposal power to min
8.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Article author here. The tradeoffs between centralized control and permissionless primitives are better explored elsewhere, but the dangerously high costs of depending on a fickle intermediary for all transactions should be clear to any inf
9.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Article author here. Supermajority attestations and block finalization, as well as withdrawal queues, prevent long-range attacks. To attempt to reorg a finalized block (blocks are generally finalized after 6 minutes) you have to commit to l
10.
by 0xfoobar 4y ago
Article author here. Great questions, should have explored the randomness beacon more. Ethereum uses [RANDAO]( https://github.com/randao/randao ), which is a distributed commit-reveal scheme where participants in the gen