Re: [bitcoin-dev] A Small Modification to Segwit

[Erik Aronesty <erik@q32.com>]

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Curious: I'm not sure why a serious discussion of POW change is not on the
table as a part of a longer-term roadmap.

Done right, a ramp down of reliance on SHA-256 and a ramp-up on some of the
proven, np-complete graph-theoretic or polygon manipulation POW would keep
Bitcoin in commodity hardware and out of the hands of centralized
manufacturing for many years.

Clearly a level-playing field is critical to keeping centralization from
being a "defining feature" of Bitcoin over the long term.   I've heard the
term "level playing field" bandied about quite a bit.   And it seems to me
that the risk of state actor control and botnet attacks is less than
state-actor manipulation of specialized manufacturing of "SHA-256 forever"
hardware.   Indeed, the reliance on a fairly simple hash seems less and
less likely a "feature" and more of a baggage.

Perhaps regular, high-consensus POW changes might even be *necessary* as a
part of good maintenance of cryptocurrency in general.   Killing the
existing POW, and using an as-yet undefined, but deployment-bit ready POW
field to flip-flop between the current and the "next one" every 8 years or
or so, with a ramp down beginning in the 7th year....  A stub function that
is guaranteed to fail unless a new consensus POW is selected within 7
years.

Something like that?

Haven't thought about it *that* much, but I think the network would respond
well to a well known cutover date.   This would enable rapid-response to
quantum tech, or some other needed POW switch as well... because the
mechanisms would be in-place and ready to switch as needed.

Lots of people seem to panic over POW changes as "irresponsible", but it's
only irresponsible if done irresponsibly.


On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 9:48 PM, praxeology_guy via bitcoin-dev <
bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Jimmy Song,
>
> Why would the actual end users of Bitcoin (the long term and short term
> owners of bitcoins) who run fully verifying nodes want to change Bitcoin
> policy in order to make their money more vulnerable to 51% attack?
>
> If anything, we would be making policy changes to prevent the use of
> patented PoW algorithms instead of making changes to enable them.
>
> Thanks,
> Praxeology Guy
>
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>

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