public inbox for bitcoindev@googlegroups.com
 help / color / mirror / Atom feed
From: Jefferson Carpenter <jeffersoncarpenter2@gmail.com>
To: Bitcoin Protocol Discussion <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] Upgrading PoW algorithm
Date: Fri, 19 Jan 2018 14:54:52 -0600	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <374ee97c-dae9-786f-5fc6-6fb6920360cb@gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <58fa85b8-cba3-ee34-8c96-41c6c7bfbf9c@gmail.com>

Actually here's something we could possibly do:

Fork off a blockchain that accepts Bitcoin blocks with strictly less 
than max difficulty.  Because it does not accept max-difficulty blocks, 
it is a soft fork.  Additionally, if difficulty of a block is set to 
max, then the difficulty field is extended so that it represents a 
higher max difficulty under a different hashing function, maybe SHA512. 
Because this blockchain also accepts differently-formatted blocks, it is 
also a hard fork.

The idea is that this blockchain is identical to Bitcoin until the 
difficulty goes too high, at which point it diverges.

Transitioning from the current SHA256 to a higher-difficulty hashing 
function could be difficult, since they might be solvable at 
proportionally different hashrates.  In other words, max difficulty for 
SHA256 might be significantly faster than forcing the first 256 bits of 
a SHA512 hash...

On 1/17/2018 4:31 PM, Jefferson Carpenter wrote:
> Bitcoin's difficulty will be maxed out within about 400 years, by 
> Moore's law.  (After that - supposing the software does not crash when 
> difficulty overflows - block time will start decreasing, and it will not 
> take long before blocks are mined faster than photons can be sent across 
> the planet).
> 
> Bitcoin is the dominant cryptocurrency today, as the first mover: the 
> perfectly fair worldwide game of inventing the cryptocurrency has been 
> played and won.  However, unfortunately, it has a built-in end date: 
> about 400 years from now.  After that, it won't necessarily be clear 
> what the dominant cryptocurrency is.  It might be a lot like VHS vs 
> Betamax, and a lot of people could lose a lot of money.  It seems to me, 
> this could be mitigated by planning today for what we are going to do 
> when Bitcoin finally breaks 400 years from now.
> 
> Are there any distinct plans today for migrating to a PoW supporting an 
> even higher difficulty?


  parent reply	other threads:[~2018-01-19 20:55 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
2018-01-17 22:31 [bitcoin-dev] Upgrading PoW algorithm Jefferson Carpenter
2018-01-18 16:36 ` Peter Todd
2018-01-19 20:54 ` Jefferson Carpenter [this message]
2018-01-20  6:30   ` nullius
2018-01-20 18:36 ` Melvin Carvalho
2018-01-21 15:29   ` Glen Peterson

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

  Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style

* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
  switches of git-send-email(1):

  git send-email \
    --in-reply-to=374ee97c-dae9-786f-5fc6-6fb6920360cb@gmail.com \
    --to=jeffersoncarpenter2@gmail.com \
    --cc=bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org \
    /path/to/YOUR_REPLY

  https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html

* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
  via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox