<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">2018-02-06 18:49 GMT+03:00 Phillip Hallam-Baker <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:phill@hallambaker.com">phill@hallambaker.com</a>></span>:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">
<h3 name="4524" class="gmail-m_6477531129679874712gmail-graf gmail-m_6477531129679874712gmail-graf--h3"><span style="font-weight:normal"><div style="font-size:small;display:inline"><a href="https://medium.com/@hallam/proof-of-work-is-the-worst-way-to-do-a-blockchain-ff3e0c802049">https://medium.com/@hallam/<wbr>proof-of-work-is-the-worst-<wbr>way-to-do-a-blockchain-<wbr>ff3e0c802049</a></div><br></span></h3><h3 name="4524" class="gmail-m_6477531129679874712gmail-graf gmail-m_6477531129679874712gmail-graf--h3">Proof of Work is the worst way to do a BlockChain ...</h3></div></blockquote><div>
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">2018-02-07 2:38 GMT+03:00<span> </span></span><span dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><<a href="mailto:jamesd@echeque.com" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">jamesd@echeque.com</a>></span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">:</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><span class="gmail-">On 06/02/2018 23:49, Phillip Hallam-Baker wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">But no, the BitCoiners insist. We must obsess about this one particular threat to the exclusion of all else because gubermints and the bankers are evul and untrustworthy<span> </span><br></blockquote><br></span>Actually governments and bankers are evil and untrustworthy, and the burdens of using trust mediated by bankers and governments to do business are rapidly becoming intolerable. Accounting and HR have become vast and onerous bureaucracies, burdensome tentacles of the state in every business, making businesses larger than a family and smaller than giant multinational corporation with a skyscraper full of Harvard lawyers each drawing $300 per hour, increasingly impractical<span class="gmail-"><br><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">and we should instead trust the security of a scheme with a hole big enough to swallow it whole.<br></blockquote><br></span>Yes, proof of work is a terrible idea.<br><br>But we need to replace it with something better than bankers and government.<br><br>I have been working on it, but the result always implies pre-mining, that existing owners of currency are like shareholders in an existing business, which is politically unpopular right now, though I may well go right ahead with it anyway.</blockquote><div> <br></div></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">I am working on a protocol called Proof of Prophecy to
kill PoW/PoS etc. in the crypto asset context as you may have read on several
posts of mine, recently. However, I am a professional developer, prisoned to
coding on another domain by the company I founded, all day/everyday because of
our tight schedules which got tighter for my PoP paper work. I had recently
decided to stop following this list which seduces me to my PoP paper. I had to
prohibit myself Gmail access to resist the temptation of the list. This morning
I came early to the office. Took my espresso and could not resist opening my Gmail
with the seducing hope of finding something cursing at PoW and the trolling
fanaticism of the cyrpto world: BINGO!!!<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Please kindly read my posts about DAG, Proof of
Prophecy protocol, decentralization, etc. Please note that I had been heavily criticizing
Bitcoin/PoW/PoS/etc. when the market cap was rising tremendously. A summary of
my thoughts is repeated below:<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span> </span></span></p>
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">2018-01-29 0:37 GMT+03:00 Ersin Taskin<span> </span></span><span dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><<a href="mailto:hersintaskin@gmail.com" target="_blank" style="color:rgb(17,85,204)">hersintaskin@gmail.com</a>></span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">:</span><br style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:small;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-size:12.8px">Pow, pos, dpos, etc. all have the same problem when it comes to security. When you are in the ocean, you cannot anchor to something made of or convertible to water. If you anchor to an iceberg, the attackers just melt it. In a financial system, you cannot anchor to anything made of or convertible to money. Pos, pow, etc suffer because stake is made of money, electricity is convertible to money. So all the cryptocurrencies are vulnerable to a super-rational attack involving enough stake/power. I call this the AR Theorem (Anchorlessness-Robustness) in my paper. I show that you cannot achieve both Anchorlessness and Robustness at the same time. I define Robustness with components like efficiency, super-rational attack resilience, etc. Funnily, we have an anchorage that we amazingly ignore. An anchorage you cannot buy, bribe, corrupt. An anchorage that everybody on this list trust. An anchorage that can be used to randomly create and use secret keys that secures the system. It is right there next to us. We just don't see it because we don't raise our heads. And we keep paying an amazingly huge technical debt to get vulnerable and poor systems:) This is a manifestation of the importance of skepticism, the fuel of science. </span>Zero tolerance to fanaticism.<span style="font-size:12.8px"> We, the scientists, should never give up being skeptical about the things that we believe the most. That is the essence of paradigm shifts, which brought humanity here, whose frequency needs to increase.</span><br></div></div></blockquote>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">Let me put down some bullet points from my work, which
I hope to share with you guys hopefully soon:<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">1. PoW can be good to fight against SPAM/DOS attacks
where you distribute the load to the endpoint/user rather than concentrate it
on the system. So a tiny load per sender of the mail/request instead of a huge
amount of load on the shoulders of the system helps build an unfair race
against the adversary. In Bitcoin PoW is on the shoulders of the system rather
than the users and relies on a fair race between the adversary and the honest.
The design mistake here is amazing! I acknowledge and appreciate the motivation
which served well at the birth phase. But Pow must go now. We thank him for
taking us here. Security strength is directly proportional to the unfairness of
the race against the adversary. PoS/dPoS, etc. all suffer the "anchor to water" problem and thus cannot escape the AR dilemma. (Tony, the intrinsic interest
segregation between the delegates and the voters is the common trust
communication problem of democracy which cannot be resolved by dPoS. You are subject
to propaganda by candidates that promise you good incentives for you to vote
for them. The delegates have their own interests and u cannot guarantee knowledge
to all of them. To make things worse voters have distinct interests. Plus you can always be deceived by a super-rational attacker.
In fact, the super-rational attacker has an advantage over the honest candidate
who lacks outside benefits.)<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">2. Asymmetric encryption provides a means for an
unfathomably un-fair race against the adversary. We should focus on it to find
a solution to the double spend problem. Once we have the anchorage required,
the system becomes much more powerful in terms of efficiency, flexibility,
security, privacy, regulation, government-people relations to the satisfaction
of both sides, etc. A new system beyond the dreams of everyone in the crypto
ecosystem today. Such a system is absolutely destined to be THE SYSTEM of the
future on which all other systems rely.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">3. We must focus on the anchorage problem and use the
super-rational attack scenario as an example to make it understandable and as a
component metric to judge the Robustness of the system. I have been waiting for
the right way and time to explain the anchorage. My paper aims that purpose.<span></span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">4. We need a system that can be implemented TODAY and
evolve in the course of time. We have to admit that state/government is a reality TODAY.
Some part of is bad but some part of it is good (at least as of today). <a href="https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/911307/Bitcoin-price-live-gunpoint-heist-rising-falling-ripple-ethereum-blockchain">https://www.express.co.uk/finance/city/911307/Bitcoin-price-live-gunpoint-heist-rising-falling-ripple-ethereum-blockchain</a> . We have
to acknowledge the legitimate parts of the state and design a fair system that
collaborates with that part of the state. No body would be able to succesfully object to a
crypto-system that shakes hands with the legitimate and fair part of the state.
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.3333px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">Mobilizing the state has enormous power.</span><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.3333px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"> </span>
Why not use it? As long as our
anchorage has nothing to do with and cannot be controlled by the state. It will
be to the benefit of the state to mobilize this new powerful system. Such a
win-win situation is possible and necessary if we want to be fair and
practical. That is one of the key advantages of the anchorage. It puts us as an
independent and powerful organism on the table with the state.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)">5.
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.3333px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">Plus no bank has robbed me, served me poorly with my money deposited on them in my entire life. I am talking about basic financial services. I trust my banks more than I trust everyone in the cryptocurrency system including Tether which
<span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.3333px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">ultimately<span> </span></span>managed to become the most trusted cryptocoin, via relying only on our trust in our banks. Yes, I am aware of the corrupt and unfair part of the financial system. However, this should not blind me to the fact that we have banks out there, that we can trust for basic financial services.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.3333px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline"><br></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin:0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;line-height:normal;background:white;font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(34,34,34)"><span style="color:rgb(34,34,34);font-family:Arial,sans-serif;font-size:13.3333px;font-style:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;text-align:start;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;word-spacing:0px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">Finally, the misbelief buble that we would have a totally decentralized, trustless cash system with zero need to talking to the governments and banks, is about to burst. Let us get to work to find a solution before it's too late.</span></span></p></div></div></div>