[Cryptography] I am not against good cryptocurrencies. I just don't think you can build one with a block chain protocol.

[Simun]

Hi,

On Sat, 2021-01-02 at 13:34 +0000, Ben Laurie wrote:
> Also, proof of work is the stupidest idea ever.

Your opinion about PoW remembered me a paper[*] from Leonard Adleman.
In his paper, Leo generalized the PoW idea to a new idea called "power
cryptography or Proof of Power: using computational power to create
novel cryptographic systems and protocols". 


>From his paper:
> Bitcoin is a very sophisticated system, and an excellent example of
> the application of computational power. I am quite skeptical about
> using the current systems for currencies, but I am optimistic that
> computational power will be the bases for many important applications
> in the future.
> 
> Bitcoin is largely controlled by the powerful. It is an oligarchy,
> and there seems little to prevent a state actor, or other agent with
> great computational power, from making it a monarchy.
> 
> Must a system like Bitcoin be based on computational power? Roughly
> speaking, can a workable, non-altruistic, system (using only data
> channels) be designed where influence is independent of computational
> power? I suspect that the answer is no.


[*] https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.usc.edu/dist/4/121/files/2018/0
3/20180227-projecting-computational-power-1ae5egk.pdf


Simun