Topic: Decrits: The 99%+ attack-proof coin - page 15. (Read 45353 times)

Having now read a bit more about this, my primary question is this: Is anyone working on actually coding this?

I work in a software company, and I know from experience that it can be a long road from the drawing board to the product release.

I understand the importance of the drawing board. But, you know the old saying about "the proof of the pudding...".

Very interesting. Need to study the entire thread. Posting this so that I get notification of new posts.

Charming Japan maybe just started her race into the abyss.JGB yields are rising.Japanese MOF
 bought up to 70% of freshly printed JGB notes.
Think about this year crash, not about 2014.

So what ? nobody can't develop this faster
 than several months for prototype...

This is a well developed idea... has given me many ideas. Thanks.

How does one learn something by making a statement? There is not a single question asked in that post.

As a casual observer, I don't believe he's been making barbed one-liners. Rather, he's making an intelligent effort to understand your proposal, because he'd like to develop it. You might do better by adopting rather than admonishing....

This is a big part of section 2. I have many subtle ideas that should make it difficult for anyone to peg where transactions or transaction blocks are coming from. I originally had designed it where shareholders were also the connection points, but this is a DoS vulnerability. That is why they are completely separate systems now.


Well you have not revealed many details of your hard disk proof, so I can't really say much. Except that:

1) Shares can only be purchased after money is created. This means it is impossible to attack a fledgling network without investing a lot of resources in it first. You mention yourself several times how easy and accessible hard drives are.
2) Shares do not require dedicated hardware, period.
3) From your proposal, it sounds like proof of hard disk has the same vulnerabilities and probably a lot of similar bad mechanics that come along with proof of work.


And in bitcoin, there is no incentive whatsoever for regular nodes to propagate the consensus. They do not get paid and only do it out of the kindness of their hearts. In decrits, they get paid 50% of all transaction fees.


"The most transactions" is a meaningless metric that can be easily gamed. There are not competing consensuses in decrits. There are not several tragedy of the commons scenarios that arise in decrits like there are due to the odd properties of the bitcoin protocol. There *is* the possibility that the network propagators (CNPs) could delay TBs that they believe have intentionally not included valid transactions. It is a mechanic that could be developed if it worries you so greatly.


How, pray tell, do you plan on distributing new currency? Would you prefer banks created it as credit? Would you prefer creating empires by enriching those who hold the currency above all else? What is your master plan? It is not socialism and it is not gambling. It is more akin to dropping money from a helicopter, but only when it has been determined to be necessary by the people to keep a reasonably stable value. Is a currency controlled by the people socialism? If so, and you believe this socialism is a failure, then again I ask, where will the value go? Banks? The wealthy? The pure destruction of resources to convert into currency?


It is impractical in a currency that does not use a pyramidal distribution scheme. How long will it take to convert $60 of hard disk or electricity into drugs? A year? Two? A lot less if the people trying to do this are willing to spend hundreds or thousands on hardware, but now those drugs cost hundreds or thousands, not $60.


That's probably why I said it's a dangerous proposition. But, with the idea already out there and tied to this thread, all it takes is someone to make a clone with it included. One way or another it will happen.


A currency in its diapers will not be able to address these problems, should they actually exist. But perhaps a more constructive way to achieve such a lofty goal is, as I have previously suggested you do, start asking questions instead of making blanket implications and barbed one-liners. Do you want to progress in your knowledge of decrits, or do you want to take your ball and go home?

You probably don't, but care to elaborate?

@mcrimson
 "Decrits are not credits !", i guess...
If you have good name for it - post it here.

I am over-optimistic.
So, i say we can have working Proof_of_Concept
(of some parts of it)
 about six months from now.

It can't generate anti-money laundering anonymity for everyone simultaneously although it is available to everyone, and everyone doesn't need it nor willing to pay for it. Those who need it can pay for enough resources to get it and this option is open to everyone, at least in proof-of-work or proof-of-harddisk.


Giving every user perfect anonymity (if feasible) is dangerous because the entire currency can be targeted as a money laundering system.


Greater than 6 months is unacceptable to me. After Sept 2015, the world goes into confiscation mode. Europe and/or Japan may start collapsing in 2014.

This sounds similar to the idea I floated to employ the MUTE anonymity concept:

http://mute-net.sourceforge.net/howPrivacy.shtml

I was thinking all mining+transaction processing peers would pass through communications, so it isn't clear where the communications are originating from.

I am pondering I am more comfortable with harddisk-proof-of-share, so we simply allocate what we already own, no need to go invest in a share. However proof-of-share may be technically more simplified.


With Bitcoin there is a penalty for not propagating the consensus, because otherwise you end up doing useless work yourself while you are trying to compute the next solution in a race against all others.

Our alternative designs must incentivize idle peers to propagate the consensus with the most transactions, and penalize those who did not. So far, I don't see how this can be done.


I agree strongly with the PM's point.


This is an external to the design of a decentralized digital currency.

There are many possible ways for external services to improve upon the storage and retrieval of private keys.


I did not understand the linked post.


Socialism is fail.

Gambling lotteries are an orthogonal service to a decentralized currency. Leave the kitchen sink out of my currency please.

The "hidden meaning" is nothing earth-shattering. It is a portmanteau of democratic credits. Socially equal futuristic money tokens. I had to come up with something other than *coin, because it is anything but *coin. I am not unwilling to change it, but someone would have to come up with something inventive.


*All* of them? Hell no. The ones that are absolutely necessary? (which is a lot of them) I don't know--this project is way above my pay-grade. A unit test that demonstrates the proof of concept as Ukigo mentions--the proof of consensus mechanism with an ideal, simulated network? Maybe 6 months is possible. It could be sooner depending on how many parts I skip. Every stage can move more quickly though with a few more people on board.

Earliest actual launch possibility would probably be at least 2 years out. It is possible it could be a lot less though. Satoshi even said somewhere that designing bitcoin took much longer than coding...

Etlase,

What does Decrits mean? To me, I don't like the name, its not catchy, there's obviously an underlying meaning though so what is it?

Do you have any idea when you could implement all your ideas and launch this crypto?

Newly created funds cannot be used as a consistent source of anonymity. This is impractical. Many people *should* have the capability to mine because it is required for decentralized control of the monetary system.

I have described in this post in another thread how this post could be extended to allow for a complete coin-mixer as part of the protocol without much overhead. It is a dangerous proposition though.

Replying to a PM here...


I am hoping that the psychology of "free money for anyone who accepts it" will be a powerful motivator. Once many smart people have agreed that the security seems "secure enough", not everyone needs to understand it. Just like very few people really understand bitcoin's security, but they still use it. Same goes for the network dynamics in part 2. The monetary system, at its most basic level, is fairly easy to understand.

And while there may be edge-cases, none of them are critical failures such as the 51% attack. And the network has the ability to coordinate changes via section 4. I don't know how it will work out in reality, but I envision an adaptable system that can only get better over time. I don't want to give up just because it's hard, and there might be problems. I want to try something that has the chance of being fricken amazing, and if it has a few hiccups along the way, it will be fixed. It's not worth the time spent being afraid.


Though brenzi has been challenging the deeper aspects of the currency distribution scheme, you are the first to question the most basic, human part of it. There are two reasons why I kind of dropped the "interest" mechanism, because I did actually have this as the noted design for a long time.

1) A *lot* of accounts have to be updated at one time. This could be detrimental to the operation of the network if everyone has to stall for a long period figuring out where money needs to go and applying it to the balance. If you don't update them all at once based on the same set of data, then you are required to keep data longer to keep that state of the network available to continue to award the proper interest over time. It would also be more complex to determine that state as time goes on because you have to walk backwards through history to find it.
2) It won't be a very meaningful amount of money. Sure, interest is great, but if all you're getting is a couple of decents, how does that really incentivize using or accepting the currency?

However, the decision about point 1 was made with a less-developed system in mind--I think it could be accomplished with the current level of design. I never really came up with an "interest for money used" system in the way you describe. It has interesting implications. However, I think it has the problem of point 2. I like the lottery idea because it keeps the "small guy" on a more level playing field with the bigger guys. I think this will be important for the propensity to use decrits in less developed countries. It also means that just an every day person might have a greater propensity to use it. Or an every day business.

No huge investment in the currency is required to start seeing dividends. I think this will foster its adoption by a multitude of people and will help debase the current monetary infrastructure. Because let's face it, it needs to be debased. Replacing it with a whole new infrastructure of powerful people is not an acceptable alternative.


After some delays, I think the wiki software being hosted by Ukigo is almost ready. But it is going to be quite awhile before it will have all of the information at all levels. Getting a lot of this discussion out of my notes and into something a little more formal has been very helpful though.

This is also very important to me. Unfortunately I've been simultaneously distracted by life issues.

I think the most important improvement we can make is that everyone can mine with existing PC without buying specialized hardware (so they can side-step AML laws and increase anonymity).

Increase anonymity in several ways.

Beyond that, we harden against cartelization.

Beyond that is low priority in the 80/20 (such further aspirations are technically and market-reality dubious).

I was thinking more along the lines of a banking system layered on top of the currency. Or if people figure out how to make secure transactions with a physical medium.


By "an intermediate run" do you mean people start buying in heavily? Transaction volume can't rise too sharply with the same amount of coins. The very deflation caused will cause transactions to be for smaller amounts. Don't forget that people will be well aware of the properties of the system, and buying when coins are priced too high is not a good idea unless the alternatives are very poor, in which case those alternatives are unlikely to fix themselves any time soon, and the result will likely be a permanent increase in the decrits economy.

Any bubble that occurs knowing the properties of the system would be real demand, not speculative demand. There isn't much incentive to hoard to increase the price when minters can just start creating money. Although there is definitely some incentive to cause initial hoarding/speculation when the mint block awards 5-10x during the bootstrap, but I think this is a necessary part of the bootstrap process.

If real demand outpaces the ability of the decrits network to create it, then there will be periods of deflation. But at the same time, money is being given freely away. The key is to make sure that the process of absorbing the world's economy does not create monolithic empires or cause economic catastrophes. Even if coin production overshoots, the vast majority of that money was given away freely and at random. What does it matter if bread that cost 1.00 yesterday costs 1.02 today if you got a free decrit for buying it? Maybe a bread maker who didn't sell bread for decrits yesterday will start today because he knows that decrits will probably go slightly up in value soon because no more can be profitably created for some time.

It is impossible to create a totally stable system that can rapidly adapt to whatever the world economy wants to throw at it. There are billions of variables to account for. There are, however, two major goals we can try to achieve:

1) Make the process of switching the world over to a new currency as painless as possible. It will not be completely pain-free.
2) Make the system perform as stably as possible when whatever portion of the world that adopts it is going to adopt it (at least for now).

That is the viewpoint from which I see the design of the system.


Yes, this is a caveat of the system. Quick adaptation is much more likely to result in mistakes. Slow adaptation with the knowledge that it will adapt could create quite a lot of interest. Temporary deflation is just what the doctor ordered for this scenario, especially as all people using the system will be rewarded, not just those that "got in early" or are direct beneficiaries of corrupted governments. Free decrits are being given away and the guy down the street is taking decrits and getting free coins, and you're sitting there with a devaluing fiat currency? I think this could be a powerful motivator. There is never a bad time to start taking decrits.

Price high? Free coins are being given away. Price low? You're getting decrits for less than their (mostly) verifiable cost to produce.


I have mostly focused on the transaction side of the free money, but I have always proposed giving free money away to accounts too, 5x to transactions, 5x to accounts. This is sort of a crutch to prevent EvilCorp from inflating away savings by minting at big losses. I guess it's not really a crutch, it's just a massive disincentive to manipulating the supply. And unless the network has transacted many multiples of the total money supply in the last 30 CDs, the transaction money will still be much more significant in terms of % of volume, so hoarding will not be as relevant as participating in the economy.

GetConsecutiveMBlocks would be a function that determines how many mint blocks have been created "in a row" to determine the additional multipliers above 5x. "In a row" might mean that if MB 2 starts within 10 CDs of MB 1, it is considered a consecutive block. Maybe 30 CDs. It requires a lot of discussion. I do believe that the multiplier should be capped, but at what point is a big decision because it has big implications on how the currency can react to something like doubling within a year, or ultimately taking over as the world's currency. But if tx volume keeps increasing, the MB awards will get bigger without the multipliers having to be bigger because NGDP is increasing.



I have told you that the system does not rely on it. When minting is unprofitable, minting will stop. The currency does not lose value or utility because new value is not entering the system. It might lose some speculative fervor, but you must remember that it will be competing with currencies that have terrible foundations, and that includes bitcoin. Cycles will happen in those currencies, and value will be drawn to the decrits system. Whereas bitcoin kicks out a large portion of its adopters after they lose the house, decrits will make sure they never want to leave or feel as if they have been defrauded, even if the value does dip (they made coins along the way).

The principle of the system is a sound, fair way to both upset the current monetary infrastructure and empower the people. There is no need for a multitude of clones to draw back the power of the heavily manipulated bitcoin. Everyone who creates, sends, accepts, and stores decrits benefits from the system during expansion. There is no one group that benefits vastly more than the others. I think it is going to be hard to get people to run away from that system once they're in and they get it. And if the wealthy start manipulating the supply way down the road, the people are always free to create more to diminish that power that is being misused or abused, and no government will be able to intervene. In the case of bitcoin, people would create a clone. In the case of decrits, they will just make more money. You will not stop the people, you can only make it more difficult or more easy for them. Decrits chooses to make it more easy.


I'm not sure what assumption you're under of how the system works. What is it do you think would be a better way? Max_consensus_year does not have to keep increasing, it just won't go down. Why would it need to go down? That would imply that money needs to be created in a system with a declining transaction volume, on or off chain. Off chain transactions will still have an effect on the valuation of the currency, so if tx volume is declining due to that, new money will still be in sufficient demand to be created by the system.

I'm just not sure I see what problem you have with a monotonically increasing money supply. The price does not have to be rock hard ridiculously stable at one point. Destroying currency only reduces the impact of price stickiness. But remember, if the currency is undervalued, it is an opportunity for new people to accept it. And undervalued is not some vague notion as it is with bitcoin, it is something that people will have a lot of real information on.


I think you might be overly concerned with the very early stages of the network. The solution is to have an economic bootstrap design that makes sense to protect the network from ridiculous swings early on. One of the easiest ways to do that is to ramp up some variables (like max_gdp) ahead of their time. Paypal is a good starting point to think about how to design the economic bootstrap so that the currency can grow into itself a bit. I just haven't gone much into this side because I'm trying to make the bigger picture clearer first before delving into the minutiae.

lol

I don't think it is a good idea to bet on constant growth. Decreasing transaction volume does not necessarily mean that people loose interest in the currency. During a financial crisis transaction volume might explode just because of volatile prices. As soon as the volatility caused by the crisis calms down, so does transaction volume.
You have more than one of these "one-way" assumptions in your design. GDP(MAX_CONSENSUS_YEAR) is only one of them. Monotonically increasing money supply is another.

GetNetworkGDP? In an earlier post you "defined" GDP as on-network transaction volume, right?

I guess by off-network txes you mean things like 'gox redeemable codes?
What happens if there's an intermediate run on DCR? If your money supply algo is not 99% perfect, there might be deflationary times and a bubble might rise. Transaction volume goes up for a limited amount of time. Your all-time GDP goes up. The bubble bursts and transaction volume is back on a fraction. So in addition to the bursting bubble you're making it worse by inflating money supply.

alright, this might calm things. But it also slows adaption to changing circumstances.

I need some naming guidance. AcctFreeMoney?

What is GetConsecutiveMBlocks()?


further.