Topic: Complete dezentralisation of mining possible ? - page 3. (Read 7298 times)

I'm not thinking about your design tbh - just random ideas that I've been mulling over for a while

You are getting closer to my design. But you are still missing far too many radical epiphanies to realize how to crack the nut.

I don't think you can split it, so there needs to be a way for the sender to select their difficulty/block reward at send time, while also making sure that global difficulty adjusts correctly... maybe you make sender's difficulty = global difficulty at 1.0 coins of block reward, and have it be proportional for all other block reward values.

Obviously chain selection then has to follow the chain with the most work done, rather than simply the longest.

I think it depends.
If mining for new coins must remain an intensive operation and transaction mining can be split out into a simpler, easier operation even for something like Raspberry Pis, then the miners keep the rewards as it is. The clients' reward is zero transaction costs and convenient transactions. The pre-requisit of that participation is they mine transactions even if they cannot generate new coins.

If they cannot be split, then it is a harder problem and reduced mining difficulty all round is probably the only way forward unless there are other ideas. I have read about a few of those and like the ideas being floated here.

The trouble is, how do you deal with the block reward? If the difficulty adjusts due to hash rate, then it is possible that a low power machine would be unable to send a transaction (since they must be mined by the sender).

One solution would be to make the block reward a parameter (which is proportional to difficulty) such that even weak miners can still mine their own transaction by specifying a tiny reward.

This is just the sort of discussion I've been  hoping for. Decentralisation is a requisite, IMO and I'm extremely excited by the work being done here.

I'll ease myself in slowly, so to speak  

I think we need to think outside of just the game theory for incentives. You can spot the almost religious fervour by phrases such as rational miners. Whilst there is some merit in the ideas, people are not rational - as Nash finally accepted after he had done his stint in a mental institution. If game theory did work as taught then advertising wouldn't work and open source software would be an ideal mental exercise.

Participation is a strong driver. You can see this is MMORPG (different kind of game threory   ) and the demand for online games against real people. What if
a) all clients were miners and
b) The incentive for running a full node was the ability to send and receive transactions at almost zero cost.

Hang on though. Didn't we already have that a while ago?
Yes we did until the block chain file got too big and to mine you had to have warehouses full of specialist machinery.

I'm very excited that we are talking about the mining being on every client again - where it needs to be. That means that everyone is a miner and everyone can put transactions on the block chain. I'm not interested in the mining for new coins, only in the ability to place transactions in the block chain.

If we can separeate the new coins generation from the inclusion in the block chain or make mining a reality on resource restricted platforms, then from there, we get to single transactions in a block which makes the current block war moot and seconds for confirmations given enough client connections.

Yes, also a good idea is to mine with a fixed small hashrate.

No, centralization is impossible if you use a wifi mesh network like netsukuku, you can use your full speed of your wi-fi 150 or 300 Mbps to mine coins without limitation and providers.

Complete decentralisation:

* Single transaction blocks
* Sending a transaction produces a block
* Only you can mine blocks you produce

There are a number of problems with this, but that is one way to have complete decentralisation.

i dont say its anarkik idea but sure its very low rules of hieraquy that the world usually does rules i mean same equal pwoer for every one in number? seems a bit fuzzy.

IMO the key to total decentralisation would be a mining revard system which pays equal reward to each miner, no matter how much hash the miner contributes. Of course there should be a minimum hashrate to get rewards.

This would kill the arms race, but I dont think its possible.

Damn I thought I was flying below the radar.  

No, as it will centralize it into the hands of tier-1 providers, network operators, etc. It also doesn't secure a blockchain like cryptographic PoW does.

Sure. Who could forget:-?

Hi tromp. Remember me? AnonyMint.

I designed Cuckoo Cycle to be a low-power PoW that spends the majority of runtime waiting
for random memory access latency (almost like Proof-of-Wait).

https://github.com/tromp/cuckoo offers several bounties for disproving its claims of being an ideal memory bound PoW.

It could easily run on smartphones while they charge overnight, with no fear of overheating.

The more people are able to mine (including botnets that will still be vastly outnumbered) and willing to do so at a loss, the less commercial mining can survive.

Bitcoin would have to introduce an alternative PoW very slowly;
p*CPU + (1-p)*ASIC where p rises from 0 to 1 (or 0.5) over many years.

You've got one aspect of it. Of course Bitcoin's full node requirements are too onerous as you point out. If they aren't full nodes then you really don't have decentralization.

If you can market it as a lottery, it may work.  If a billion people spend 10 $/month (on average; richer people spend more, poorer people less) for mining with the tiny chance of 1 in 20000 per year to win a block that pays them a million $, then commercial mining would mine at a loss, but people may still have the incentive to do that.  Especially if you tell them that these 10 $ are for a good purpose (to keep their Bitcoins safe).  This would also eliminate the need for mining pools.

Not sure if this works out, though.  Say half of the cost would be necessary to run a full node (otherwise you don't get decentralization) and the other half would be maintaining costs and electricity to run the hashing asics.  Any variation of prices for electricity or on the price of low power asics can mean that commercial miners make some profit (because they would only have the costs for the asics).  And 5$/month for a full node may not be enough.

Yes, it is possible if you change the mining method. Mining with bandwidth is a good idea for that.

I think of 21Inc.  Why?  Maybe free phones and laptop equipment that has the ability to run just the same or better than off the shelf components, except its given away freely. The terms and conditions of giving away would mandate that whenever plugged in it would run a mining program subroutine to mine for BTC.  That would eventually allow the devices, if used steadily to incrementally mine btc to be collected and perhaps distributed to the users of the phones, the employees of the phone company (in this case, 21inc), and the ability to pay vertical companies, such as quallcomm or intel to provide the chips for said subsidized phones.