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Topic: Creating a fair alternative to Ripple (Read 3511 times)

Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
May 24, 2013, 08:47:06 PM
#54
While I believe this can be made to work from a technical angle, I'm very nervous about how well it will work in the real world because of the incentives it creates. We want validators to have a strong incentive to broaden their UNL to avoid a network split. In this scheme, each validator you add to your UNL costs you money, and there's a much greater risk that the set of validators will be a small group that refuses to listen to anyone outside the group and presents a "take it or leave it" choice to the outside world.
Understood. This may be needlessly long.
TL;DR Summery: The KNL/UNL should optimally be the "non-anonymous" subset of non-malicious nodes.

See below for details. Especially the end where it mentions "fidelity bonds".
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In my original "known-nodes-list" concept the KNL served more as a sanity check. If all your friends disappeared, you are probably forked (5b). Stop transacting and figure out where everyone went. Possibly even notify the HUMAN operator.

The role of UNL you describe, is actually handled by the validator "candidate set". That's where every time you add someone to the candidate set it splits the pie into smaller slices. Theoretically, it should have a set of well define rules that all other validators are required to follow. (i.e. 1) If they've been present, and 2) they are randomly chosen, and 3) their block validates, then 4a) everyone has to accept it.) <-- BitCoin style consensus.

So, if more people show up to validate you, theoretically, have to accept them. Those who don't accept a valid block are supposed to be presumed MALICIOUS (badly written 4b). The trouble of course is at the edges. What about transaction mismatches. Are those accidental (5c3-4) or malicious?. Certainly, if someone doesn't included a "slam-dunk" previously missed transaction (5c6) it should be considered malicious.

Assuming you want the mining rate to be relatively fixed, every node except the one that "mines" a block now has an incentive to prevent a consensus being reached on that block because that's one more reward it won't get rather than a chance at that reward. Bitcoin doesn't have this problem because every miner has a strong incentive to build on the longest chain. I'm not sure how you could replicate that in this scheme.
Here you are talking about the (4b) malicious node case. You are certainly right, my description is hand wavy on what to do about deliberately non-compliant nodes. Believe it or not I was attempting to SIMPLIFY the description. Smiley

The set of non-malicious validating nodes is the "candidate set of validators" minus your personally known malicious nodes. (4b, 5c6) Your KNL/UNL should optimally be the "non-anonymous" subset of non-malicious nodes.

The set of anonymous validator nodes needs to be policed using a forfeitable fidelity bond. In this case a fidelity bond is a transaction that sends a predefined amount of a validator's coins to an output claimable by "ANYONE". No non-malicious node should allow anyone to claim those coins, except for three specific circumstances.
1) The sending validator can claim his own coins. This results in him taking himself out of the validator candidate set.
2) If the chosen validator (2) produces a non-validating or DoS block, the next-chosen non-anonymous validator can claim the FAILED validator's fidelity bond.
3) If a validator fails to come to consensus and "announce" within the next (Y) blocks, the next-chosen non-anonymous validator can claim his fidelity bond.

There is no automated mechanism to anonymously reclaim a lost fidelity bond. The bond can only be claimed by a human personally appealing to a human consensus of non-anonymous validators.
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1012
Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack.
Sometimes I think you are taunting me...
I actually came up with an algorithm for this when discussing [SteadyCoin] consensus building. It's somewhere back in my post history. Ripple's consensus building is slightly different but I can summarize my original logic. Maybe it can be modified for ripple.
...
While I believe this can be made to work from a technical angle, I'm very nervous about how well it will work in the real world because of the incentives it creates. We want validators to have a strong incentive to broaden their UNL to avoid a network split. In this scheme, each validator you add to your UNL costs you money, and there's a much greater risk that the set of validators will be a small group that refuses to listen to anyone outside the group and presents a "take it or leave it" choice to the outside world.

Assuming you want the mining rate to be relatively fixed, every node except the one that "mines" a block now has an incentive to prevent a consensus being reached on that block because that's one more reward it won't get rather than a chance at that reward. Bitcoin doesn't have this problem because every miner has a strong incentive to build on the longest chain. I'm not sure how you could replicate that in this scheme.
Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
We have tried to come up with a way to do this and failed. If anyone has any suggestions for a way to do this, I'd love to hear it. The basic problem is that there's no good way to figure out who is "really" a validator in a way that everyone can agree on.
Sometimes I think you are taunting me...
I actually came up with an algorithm for this when discussing [SteadyCoin] consensus building. It's somewhere back in my post history. Ripple's consensus building is slightly different but I can summarize my original logic. Maybe it can be modified for ripple.

The validation/consensus logic was a variant of BitCoin's block consensus absent the PoW calculation. Each node executes a sequence of deterministic steps:
1) Generate a "candidate set" of validators.
2) Choose a primary validator from the set using a distributed random number generator.
3) Broadcast the primary validator's block to the other validators for confirmation.
4) Each confirming validator broadcasts an "Announce" transaction signaling they are now building upon this new block.
5) Each validator listens for Announce transactions from others on its personal known-nodes-list (Ripple's UNL) to confirm consensus has been reached.

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1) A validator is in the candidate set if its "Announce" transaction is present in the current building block and in each of the preceding (N) blocks. [Good validators are consistent]

2) At each block interval (X seconds), each node chooses its primary validator by:
  a) Ordering and hashing all received transactions since the previous block.
  b) Comparing that hash to candidate set nodes using a distance function.
  c) The closest node becomes the primary validator.

3) If a node calculates itself to be the primary validator, it completes its block by generating any coinbase transactions and broadcasts its signed block hash.

(Theoretically, if every node was well connected and persistent they would all receive the same transactions, calculate the same primary validator, and be able to complete the final block according to pre-specified coinbase rules.)

4a) If the proper hash arrives from your expected primary validator, then "Announce" your confirmation by issuing a signed transaction that builds upon that block.
4b) If the proper hash doesn't arrive (or is invalid) presume the primary validator to have FAILED in its duties. Remove its "announce" transaction from your current building block set [(N) block candidate-validator penalty] and repeat 1-4.

5a) If a majority of the nodes on your personal known-nodes-list "announce" on the same block as you, all is well.
5b) If a majority of announcements aren't receive, then you are partitioned from the main network. STOP external trading.
5c) If, however, a majority "announce" on a block you are not expecting, then you must presume either you have FAILED (missed some transactions) or something malicious is happening.
  c1) Request the majority block and validate it.
  c2) Identify transaction differences between yours and the majority block.
  c3) If you missed transactions, announce on the majority block and continue.
  c4) If the majority block is missing transactions, announce on the majority block, re-broadcast the excluded transactions, and continue.
  c5) If there a double spends or conflicting transactions, Broadcast malicious user WARNING and halt any related external transactions.
  c6) If re-broadcasted transactions (c4) fail to confirm in the next block, Broadcast validator DoS WARNING.

Because of its (UNL) equivalent the system converges similarly to Ripple.
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CoinBase reward/mining transactions can be assigned to validators using any pre-agreed upon rule set.

[StableCoin] dynamically adjusts the generation amount and distributes new coins to combat price instability. It doesn't have a default reward for validators.

BitCoin could use its "winner take all" rule to award all 25 BTC to the primary validator. The randomness of (2) above would spread the coins around over time.

Alternately, each new block reward could be spread among all the candidate validator nodes mining pool style.

Sybil validator attacks could be mitigated by either 1) requiring candidate validators to be non-anonymous (i.e. Ripple's UNL), or by 2) requiring candidate validators to put up a forfeitable (4b) fidelity bond.

  
member
Activity: 98
Merit: 10
Milkshake
Hashcash that scales with Moore's law would be a solution in my opinion.
cox
newbie
Activity: 10
Merit: 0
I wold really like to see a fair alternative to ripple,

repost from newbie area

In my mind what makes Bitcoin beautiful is not just the genius crypto, it is just as much the balance of the different incentives that encourages community participation. Lets take a look at these:

1 .Mining incentivices participation in network infrastructure creation and participation, both now and in the future. Now mostly for the reward of finding new blocks 25 Btc, but also in the future for claiming the spent fees as a reward for finding the next block.

2. Participation and use of Bitcoins incentivises the increased use of fees for transactions, the genius of having a block interval of approx 10 minutes. Increases the likelihood of people spending fees to speed up the transaction witch again supports the incentives in point 1. Taking Litecoin where transactions are much faster, I see the potential problem that incentives for paying fees will not be there in the same way witch in turn could weaken the incentives for keeping the infrastructure up.

3. For a bitcoin holder there is also the self preserving incentive to participate just to protect the value of your bitcoins. This holds true I guess for many if not all crypto currencies, but I have a feeling that the influence of this effect will be affected by the strength and success of the other incentives.

When it comes to ripple I can only see the influence of point 3 witch effect in turn is minimized by the lack of incentives 1 and 2. This will in my opinion likely be leading to tipping the balance of incentives in the direction of OpenCoin, witch already from the beginning needs to build most of the infrastructure to get it up and running. If this assumption holds true this will definitely increase the likelihood of OpenCoin gaining way to much control of the infrastructure.     

legendary
Activity: 2142
Merit: 1009
Newbie
legendary
Activity: 1596
Merit: 1012
Democracy is vulnerable to a 51% attack.
You could just award the mining transactions to the nodes validating the transactions.
We have tried to come up with a way to do this and failed. If anyone has any suggestions for a way to do this, I'd love to hear it. The basic problem is that there's no good way to figure out who is "really" a validator in a way that everyone can agree on.
sr. member
Activity: 406
Merit: 250
It would be pretty great if you would pull this off. I've had the same idea but I have nowhere near the ability to pull it off.
I support Ripple because, hats off to them, they are making something necessary actually happen.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 251
COINECT
April 26, 2013, 10:01:39 PM
#46
There is already a fair alternative.
It's called Bitcoin  Grin Wink

Bitcoin is a currency. Ripple is a payment network. There's a huge difference.
full member
Activity: 145
Merit: 100
April 26, 2013, 04:05:23 AM
#45
yeah i tiink is an scam, i dont know how the people are spending BTC on it, soon there will be worthless
Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
April 25, 2013, 10:40:03 PM
#44

Thanks for the link. I was presuming there was earlier discussion on this forum.

It's all good. I've been researching Ripple technical specs and it is f***ing awesome. Ripple has already implement most of BitCoin's wish list.

No I'm not referring to monetary policy. Just the technical under pinnings. You could fork the ripple code base and recreate the existing bitcoin transaction tree inside it. You could create exactly the same BitCoin rules with added internal exchange trading. No more MtGox. Oh yeah, and you wouldn't need to burn up CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, ASICs. You could just award the mining transactions to the nodes validating the transactions.
full member
Activity: 223
Merit: 100
April 25, 2013, 07:15:09 PM
#43
There is already a fair alternative.
It's called Bitcoin  Grin Wink
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 251
COINECT
April 25, 2013, 06:03:11 PM
#42
Ripple's basic protocol seems fairly sound in this manner.

Can you link me to this discussion please? Want to see if they do it the way I presume they do it.

https://ripple.com/wiki/Consensus
Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
April 24, 2013, 09:42:08 PM
#41
Ripple's basic protocol seems fairly sound in this manner.

Can you link me to this discussion please? Want to see if they do it the way I presume they do it.
sr. member
Activity: 476
Merit: 251
COINECT
April 24, 2013, 08:56:53 PM
#40
I'm sure that by now most of you know about Ripple, an idea created by Ryan Fugger for an open, decentralized payment network...

When a new decentralized currency/payment network is developed the very 1st question should be asked (and answered):

How to reach a consensus?

So, how r u going to reach a consensus when different nodes contradict each other?

Ripple's basic protocol seems fairly sound in this manner.

Quote from: Red
Oh, it turns out that problem is pretty easy. They've already solved it. You will never notice a single consensus problem with Ripple. That's what the XRP are for.

XRP has to do with preventing the network from being overloaded by transactions. It has nothing to do with reaching consensus.

Quote from: ooeygooeygold
Watch the facebook page.... https://www.facebook.com/Rippln  click the likes and look when it started getting promoted 2 weeks ago already 12k likes and 11k people talking about it...having no idea what rippln is they just know its going to be the "next big thing" and invite all your friends look at them now....rippln has hit 200k people just waiting for an app they have no idea about and what it is capable of...

Your response has nothing to do with his question. Please quit using this thread to spam your bullshit.
full member
Activity: 465
Merit: 100
April 24, 2013, 07:05:56 PM
#39
What is Rippin? Is that a project of yours?

Weren't they paying people in XRP for likes?
Where's that link?

Edit: http://slickdeals.net/f/5963306-300-Ripples-XRP-free-with-Like-on-Facebook-page-Ripple-is-virtual-currency-similar-to-Bitcoins?

Damn, I don't have a facebook account either.


Thanks for sharing that link hopefully they send me my 300 XPRs for my like I will post if they do

and lol no i wish rippln was my project I just stumbled upon it from some of my friends promoting it who really have no clue on what is it they don't even know what a XPR is yet they will find out soon enough though
Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
April 24, 2013, 06:51:36 PM
#38
What is Rippin? Is that a project of yours?

Weren't they paying people in XRP for likes?
Where's that link?

Edit: http://slickdeals.net/f/5963306-300-Ripples-XRP-free-with-Like-on-Facebook-page-Ripple-is-virtual-currency-similar-to-Bitcoins?

Damn, I don't have a facebook account either.
full member
Activity: 465
Merit: 100
April 24, 2013, 06:43:09 PM
#37

When a new decentralized currency/payment network is developed the very 1st question should be asked (and answered):

How to reach a consensus?

So, how r u going to reach a consensus when different nodes contradict each other?

Watch the facebook page.... https://www.facebook.com/Rippln  click the likes and look when it started getting promoted 2 weeks ago already 12k likes and 11k people talking about it...having no idea what rippln is they just know its going to be the "next big thing" and invite all your friends look at them now....rippln has hit 200k people just waiting for an app they have no idea about and what it is capable of...
Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
April 24, 2013, 06:20:44 PM
#36
Transaction history. Balances. Ownership. Whatever.

Oh, it turns out that problem is pretty easy. They've already solved it. You will never notice a single consensus problem with Ripple. That's what the XRP are for.

Red
full member
Activity: 210
Merit: 111
April 24, 2013, 06:14:38 PM
#35
Way back in 2010 I proposed that BitCoin's intention was to be a Global kind of LETS system.

There has been much discussion on this site about how best to describe bitcoin to the uninitiated. Some people, favor currency metaphors, others alude to commodity metaphors. Others caution either of these as dangerous taunts to authority.

I posted the following in another thread and there was a suggestion that I write an extended article about my simile. It seems likely that my suggestion is as polarizing as any other. So to avoid any unnecessary aggravation, I'm soliciting comments in advance.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

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I'd like to submit that I think the most apt description of bitcoin is that it is most like a Global Exchange Trading System (GETS) which is a variation on the LETS concept that isn't for hippies.

Descriptively it differs because it's community is loosely knit and global rather than an intertwined small-town. As such, there can be no commonly trusted party to operate and monitor the system, so that function is trusted to redundancy and mathematics. (block list)

LETS communities can rely on "local knowledge" of peoples historical behavior and intentions. As such it is perfectly reasonable for them to advance credit to people (negative balances) in certain situations. In a GETS community advanced knowledge of all parties and intentions is not practical or even preferred. As such, GETS operates on a zero credit policy. (no negative balances)

Also, since GETS trade globally, there is no "national currency" that can be used for equivalence. As such, GETS defines it's own unit for accounting purposes. Since this currency must necessarily vary against some national currencies, the LETS strict "no interest" principle cannot be preserved.

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I think if people understood LETS they would intuitively understand GETS. The rest of the bitcoin details are just one possible GETS monetary policy.

Now, Ripple is proposing itself to be THE global exchange trading system. I think that has significant consequences for BitCoin.
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