Folks, I suggest we keep the discussion to PoW, oPoW, and the BIP itself. PoS, VDFs, and so on are interesting but I guess there are other threads going on these topics already where they would be relevant.Also, it's important to distinguish between oPoW and these other "alternatives" to Hashcash. oPoW is a true Proof of Work that doesn't alter the core game theory or security assumptions of Hashcash and actually contains SHA (can be SHA3, SHA256, etc hash is interchangeable).Cheers,MikeOn Tue, May 18, 2021 at 4:55 PM Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev <bitcoin-dev@lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:1. i never suggested vdf's to replace pow.
2. my suggestion was specifically *in the context of* a working
proof-of-burn protocol
- vdfs used only for timing (not block height)
- blind-burned coins of a specific age used to replace proof of work
- the required "work" per block would simply be a competition to
acquire rewards, and so miners would have to burn coins, well in
advance, and hope that their burned coins got rewarded in some far
future
- the point of burned coins is to mimic, in every meaningful way, the
value gained from proof of work... without some of the security
drawbacks
- the miner risks losing all of his burned coins (like all miners risk
losing their work in each block)
- new burns can't be used
- old burns age out (like ASICs do)
- other requirements on burns might be needed to properly mirror the
properties of PoW and the incentives Bitcoin uses to mine honestly.
3. i do believe it is *possible* that a "burned coin + vdf system"
might be more secure in the long run, and that if the entire space
agreed that such an endeavor was worthwhile, a test net could be spun
up, and a hard-fork could be initiated.
4. i would never suggest such a thing unless i believed it was
possible that consensus was possible. so no, this is not an "alt
coin"
On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 10:02 AM Zac Greenwood <zachgrw@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi ZmnSCPxj,
>
> Please note that I am not suggesting VDFs as a means to save energy, but solely as a means to make the time between blocks more constant.
>
> Zac
>
>
> On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 12:42, ZmnSCPxj <ZmnSCPxj@protonmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Good morning Zac,
>>
>> > VDFs might enable more constant block times, for instance by having a two-step PoW:
>> >
>> > 1. Use a VDF that takes say 9 minutes to resolve (VDF being subject to difficulty adjustments similar to the as-is). As per the property of VDFs, miners are able show proof of work.
>> >
>> > 2. Use current PoW mechanism with lower difficulty so finding a block takes 1 minute on average, again subject to as-is difficulty adjustments.
>> >
>> > As a result, variation in block times will be greatly reduced.
>>
>> As I understand it, another weakness of VDFs is that they are not inherently progress-free (their sequential nature prevents that; they are inherently progress-requiring).
>>
>> Thus, a miner which focuses on improving the amount of energy that it can pump into the VDF circuitry (by overclocking and freezing the circuitry), could potentially get into a winner-takes-all situation, possibly leading to even *worse* competition and even *more* energy consumption.
>> After all, if you can start mining 0.1s faster than the competition, that is a 0.1s advantage where *only you* can mine *in the entire world*.
>>
>> Regards,
>> ZmnSCPxj
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