I have an Idea for a random source:
Lets take the previous blockhash and the Grain adress of the miner and hash it.
something like this: hash(previous_block_hash + Grain_adress).
The greedy miner would first have to search for a proper Grain adress for his miner in order to receive the nex superblock.
Maybe you can design it to be very difficult to find the next proper adress for the superblock, like:
if hash(previous_block_hash + Grain_adress) contains "99999" = superblock
You could also add a superblock difficulty:
if no superblocks are found for a long time, the superblockdifficulty goes down, lets say from must_contain = "99999" to must_contain to "9999".
You could make it very very hard for a block to be a superblock, but every single block could be a superblock and the greedy miner would be fucked.
lets call it: "Proof of luck".
You can't do this, as the computation needs to be exactly the same for all clients, that's where the network agree and form the blockchain. So you can't take Grain address into it.
Every client in the network can read the adress of the blockfinder from the transaction in the block or not?
You would verify a block by checking the adress of the blockfinder from the coinbase transaction and not by your own adress.
And you need to check the transactions. If not, then a miner could add any amount of coins to the coinbase transaction.
You can do that with the last transaction, related to the block creation. But there's no diff than you do it with last block hash. It's just a random number hash, you combine different values or not, no difference there. Anyone who want to write a program to check that can do exactly what you do in the client. No additional protection or encryption.
There is a difference, vecause every miner has a different adress.
The greedy miner cant just start to mine, if the last block was lucky, because the blocks are no longer lucky, the miner adress is now lucky or unlucky.
He must have a lucky adress in order to generate a valid coinbase transaction with x64 amount of coins.
In order to to generate a valid x64 coinbase transaction everytime, he first needs to search for a lucky adress.
The normal miner will just mine with the same adress everytime and be hoping to get lucky.
If you made it very hard to find a valid proof of luck, then the greedy miner cant profit from his permanent search for the lucky adress.
If searching for a adress, that can solve
if hash(previous_block_hash + Grain_adress) contains "99999" = superblock (or something like this) would take longer, than the average block time, then the search for the lucky adress would be pointless.
The verificaton could work like this:
0. Current block is #230000.
1. Miner has adress
9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj2. Miner generates
his proof of luck:
proof_of_luck_hash = hash(hash of block_#23000 +
9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj)
3. Miner checks for superblock: if
proof_of_luck_hash contains "99999" = superblock // in this case the
proof_of_luck_hash containes the string "99999" so the proof of luck is valide, if not, then the miner can only create a valid transaction with 1x amount of coins, not x64 to the adress
9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj.
4. Miner makes
coinbase transaction with 64x amount coins to adress
9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj and generates PoW.
5. Miner finds block #230001 and broadcasts it.
6. Client A receives the block #230001.
7. Client A generates the proof of luck for the block #23001 to be verified:
proof_of_luck_hash = hash(hash of block_#23000 +
adress of coinbase transaction_of_block_#230001) //
adress of coinbase transaction is
9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj8. Client A verifies the superblock: if
proof_of_luck_hash contains "99999" = superblock // the
proof_of_luck_hash containes the string "99999", so it is verified as a superblock and the transaction is valid.
If the coinbase transaction would have only the normal 1x amount of coins and
proof_of_luck_hash would not cointain "99999" (proof of work invalid), then the block would be also valid.
If
proof_of_luck_hash would not cointain "99999" and the coinbase transaction would have 64x amount of coins (superblock), then the block would be invalid.
I am not a mathematician in a pure meaning of this term, so I might be mistaken but I see no statistical difference between the present algorithm and the one proposed by you. In your proposal the greedy miner need to do only two extra computations per block: the addition and hashing. He need not to find any lucky address but he would use the same address all the time. Then he get the same number of bonus blocks as he has now.
Every miner has a different adress, but the hash of the last block is the same for everybody.
Lets take these two adresses 9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj and 9ECPZJBtbMHyfGikdUzQuf9Z8t6gGbWh5s.
If we compute hash(previous_block_hash + Grain_adress) with each of them, we get a different result (hash) for every single adress.
If we define a requirement for the proof of luck like: result hash must contain seven "9" or result hash must contain five "9" in a row ("99999"), then only a few adresses can generate a hash with a valid proof of luck.
Lets say 9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj would have a valid proof of luck hash from hash(previous_block_hash + Grain_adress) for the upper requirement and 9ECPZJBtbMHyfGikdUzQuf9Z8t6gGbWh5s not, only the miner with the adress 9T5x6h164qpqk3s3Lunq7uAVLapQNCF7wj woulb be able to create a superblock with a x64 amount of coins transaction, the miner with the adress 9ECPZJBtbMHyfGikdUzQuf9Z8t6gGbWh5s could only create a transaction with x1 amount
for this round. Other clients could verify this.
This means, that each miner can generate a normal block with any adress, but only a few miner with a lucky adress can generate a superblock for a round.
The hash of the last block differs with each round (block), because the last block is differnt, so that in the next round a different adress may be lucky.
We can check the coinbase transaction to verify the miner adress.
And you cant just easiely generate a adress that is lucky (valid proof of luck) for the current round, because:
- You first have to generate a private key in order to generate a public key (grain adress)
- You cant generate a lucky public key first (you could, the you dont have the private key to acces this adress)
- You cant know if proof of luck is valid for this adress for this round, before you hash it with hash(previous_block_hash + Grain_adress) and test the result.
The difference to the current algorithm:
current algorithm: if the last blockhash was lucky and you find the nex block, then you find a superblock -> depends only on the previous blockhash
my algorithm: each round a few miners (or none) can get a superblock, if they mine with a adress that solves proof of luck -> depends on the previous hash and the adress in the coinbase of the current block.
With proof of luck, a miner cant just start to mine, after the last blockhash was lucky in order to find a superblock.
Every round can result with a superblock, if the miner with the lucky adress finds the adress, but it would be unlikely, that a adress would be lucky for several round.
A greedy miner could try two things:
- test each round if his adress is lucky and only PoW mine if this happens
- each round try to find a lucky adress by generating new adresses and only PoW mine if he finds one
I think, that Grain with proof of luck would be very less profitable for miners, that only PoW mine in order to get the superblocks.
