Comment by drcode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by drcode | Hacker News Reader

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I see where your coming from, but I think you are wrong: The problem right now is that Bitcoin is a very hard system to upgrade or expand, and because of this cryptocurrency innovation is starting to stagnate (in a similar way that the traditional banking system has stifled innovation in the last 50 years.)

The concerning part of Vitalik's posts is that right now they build unproven ideas on top of other unproven ideas, because we lack empirical evidence to test these kinds of things, because Bitcoin isn't a general-purpose infrastructure for trying out new cryptoeconomic models... it seems kind of unfair for knocking a guy though for trying to analyze them anyway.

However, in 2015, with the launch of Ethereum 1.0 and other competing systems, we'll get a lot more hard data than ever to find out which of these kinds of ideas are good- Both because these systems themselves test these ideas, and because they allow ideas like this to be built on top of them.

So you may be right that there are bad ideas here (As a fan of POS I disagree on that one with you, however) but they are not "fractal" and we will know in the near future with empirical data which ones need to be tossed away.

>The concerning part of Vitalik's posts is that right now they build unproven ideas on top of other unproven ideas

Not only are they unproven, but there are mounds of evidence that it isn't possible.

>it seems kind of unfair for knocking a guy though for trying to analyze them anyway.

I'm knocking him because he is dangerously misinformed and is implementing and promoting broken cryptographic systems.

>However, in 2015, with the launch of Ethereum 1.0 and other competing systems, we'll get a lot more hard data than ever to find out which of these kinds of ideas are good- Both because these systems themselves test these ideas, and because they allow ideas like this to be built on top of them.

We already have seen that amateur cryptographers cannot make their unworkable ideas workable. You don't need another broken altcoin (Ethereum) to know this, you need to understand what the blockchain accomplishes to know this. I'm sure once Ethereum fails there will be a new next big thing and people will get sucked into another broken system, but you can actually understand what is a good idea if you try to understand the blockchain. You don't need to cross items from the near-infinite list of possible bad ideas to know what's a bad idea.

I'm not sure what you mean by "Ideas like this to be built on top of them." If you already have Ethereums PoW consensus system, what the hell would having a PoS consensus system on top of that accomplish?

>but they are not "fractal" and we will know in the near future with empirical data which ones need to be tossed away.

They are certainly fractal. One could recursively say why each of those fixes have problems, and eventually you would end up with a fully centralized system that masquerades itself as being decentralized and PoS or a completely broken system that is attackable for near-free.

> there are mounds of evidence that it isn't possible.

The paper you referenced from early 2014 isn't really considered very relevant anymore, though I agree the proponents of "weak subjectivity" (the solution to the problem listed in your paper) haven't made a strong case yet to defend their position.

> I'm sure once Ethereum fails there will be a new next big thing and people will get sucked into another broken system

It's kind of hard to have an argument of this subject with you, given that you seem to be complaining about PoS when ethereum 1.0 will be a 100% PoW system, so I don't quite understand what your specific complaint is.

I think the near future is pretty clear though: The cryptocurrency community is going to probably bitterly divided on the question of PoW vs PoS and two primary currencies will arise around each approach (whatever they end up being.) The PoW guys will keep complaining that the PoS systems "aren't secure enough" and the PoS guys will happily use them anyway.

Of course, it's possible that the above scenario happens but that the PoS currencies crash and burn for technical reasons- Clearly I'm a PoS fan and don't think that'll happen.

>The paper you referenced from early 2014 isn't really considered very relevant anymore

It is relevant and discusses fundamental problems with PoS, it is a very strongly reasoned paper and there hasn't been anything reasonable countering it so far.

It isn't considered relevant to scamcoiners, of course, since their goal isn't making a secure cryptocurrency, rather transferring money from a fools hand to theirs.

>t's kind of hard to have an argument of this subject with you, given that you seem to be complaining about PoS when ethereum 1.0 will be a 100% PoW system

So because I complain about PoS, I cannot argue that software is broken for any other reason? I don't have a specific complaint, they have such a complicated system that I have a myriad of complaints including Ethereums multiple consensus implementations, ASIC resistance, incredibly small block times, using insecure crypto in their illegal IPO, their system being basically useless, etc.

>The PoW guys will keep complaining that the PoS systems "aren't secure enough" and the PoS guys will happily use them anyway.

Since "PoS guys" appear to be fine with centralization and the obvious harmed security from that, they probably will be happy with other forms of broken security.

>Clearly I'm a PoS fan and don't think that'll happen.

There is basically no debate among cryptocurrency researchers that PoS doesn't work, it is mostly promoted among noobies and scammers. You can be a "fan" of it all you want, but it isn't like being a fan of Republicans or a fan of C++, it's like being a fan of md4 for cryptography.

> Since "PoS guys" appear to be fine with centralization...

Ah I see, you consider the current PoS systems that rely on getting the initial state for a new client from some trusted source to be "centralized". Yes, this is going to be the big debate in the cryptocurrency space for the near future I think. (Though you'd probably argue there's no debate, because someone disagreeing with your position isn't a "real researcher".)

>Ah I see, you consider the current PoS systems that rely on getting the initial state for a new client from some trusted source to be "centralized".

No, that component is just broken. If anyone trusted is a bad actor and gives you a bad blockchain, you are not in consensus, thus any system using this cannot be considered a consensus system. The centralization I was referring to was other mechanisms commonly employed by PoS systems.

>Though you'd probably argue there's no debate, because someone disagreeing with your position isn't a "real researcher".

No, someone not doing real research isn't a real researcher. Someone who understands consensus and security (not Vitelik) and creates a paper describing a system and its security model clearly is a real researcher.

It isn't my fault that that hasn't happened yet.

> If anyone trusted is a bad actor and gives you a bad blockchain, you are not in consensus, thus any system using this cannot be considered a consensus system.

If anyone trusted is a bad actor and gives you a bad [BITCOIN WALLET CLIENT], you are not in consensus, thus [BITCOIN] cannot be considered a consensus system.

Bitcoin wallets can have their source code audited. A blockchain that you accept regardless of the fact that there is a taller one is not audited by definition.

> The paper you referenced from early 2014 isn't really considered very relevant anymore.

Andrew's proof of stake paper was vetted by many core developers and people with a great deal of experience in bitcoin-like consensus systems. To my knowledge nothing in the paper has been refuted to date. It would be nice if you would be so kind as to provide a reference.

https://blog.ethereum.org/2014/11/25/proof-stake-learned-lov...

That isn't a refutation of the paper, it is a proposal for an unworkable idea along with mumbo jumbo (weak subjectivity) justifying adding centralized mechanism.

The fundamental reason his punitive system doesn't work is because of the nothing at stake problem. More specifically, in this case he assumes that he can punish people making forks, but you cannot punish people who are no longer part of the system (or have anonymized and separated themselves from their funds) nor can you punish someone who makes a fork and attempts to attack, but is unsuccessful and doesn't broadcast.

Once again, this isn't a refutation. A refutation would involve going through the logic of the nothing-at-stake paper and saying why it is wrong.

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