Topic: Is Bitcoin not decentralized anymore? (Read 6981 times)

no, that's wrong. 50% is a magic number. with less than that, a malicious miner and only undo a few blocks at a time when they run lucky, but the rest of the network will overtake them if they don't publish their side-mined chain asap. but with 50%+1 they can mine in secret knowing they will be guaranteed to have the longest chain if they mine long enough. so with 49% of the network, they can undo maybe 5 or 10 blocks at a time, and they have to publish them right away or risk the network overtaking them. with 51% then can undo 10000 blocks whenever they want without worry. it is a BIG difference and it most certainly IS a magic number.

no, that's wrong. 50% is a magic number. with less than that, a malicious miner and only undo a few blocks at a time when they run lucky, but the rest of the network will overtake them if they don't publish their side-mined chain asap. but with 50%+1 they can mine in secret knowing they will be guaranteed to have the longest chain if they mine long enough. so with 49% of the network, they can undo maybe 5 or 10 blocks at a time, and they have to publish them right away or risk the network overtaking them. with 51% then can undo 10000 blocks whenever they want without worry. it is a BIG difference and it most certainly IS a magic number.

The article is wrong in general simply because there is no specific number that is important. It is a gradual change.

PoA is not PoS. read the paper. Activity (run a full node) is the matter for which the full node receive a portion of the reward sometimes. not only the strongest ones also the not so strongest ones. and this will help to develop the network of full nodes. otherwise it will turn to centralization in the next time because there is no incentive to run a full node with little hash power. little hash power will go into pools as the situation is since years. it is time to change the minting process. now!

Then, you might enlighten us with your definition of decentralization.

It's still decentralised. Anyone who thinks differently doesn't know what decentralisation is.

Nope, not gonna happen, for we will take action.

So, we wait until some Altcoin takes over?

No, not impossible. Just not a good idea if you want some consistency in the experiment called Bitcoin.

This is one area where altcoins are actually useful: they can try out new mining algorithms without disrupting everybody.

No, not impossible. Just not a good idea if you want some consistency in the experiment called Bitcoin.

This is one area where altcoins are actually useful: they can try out new mining algorithms without disrupting everybody.

No, not impossible. Just not a good idea if you want some consistency in the experiment called Bitcoin.

This is one area where altcoins are actually useful: they can try out new mining algorithms without disrupting everybody.

Changing the mining process is impossible, right?

No, no, no, no.

PoS is a great way to shell out lots of coins to those who already have lots of coins, or the world's greatest pre-mine scamming system ever.

Sure, it may eliminate PoW issues, but giving out the coins is far worse than mining them at a high difficulty. I'd rather have the community mine then have them sit there and collect coins for no reason. And, guess what! Few coins with PoS have been very successful in terms of adoption...

Money supply

With pure Proof of Stake cryptocurrencies, distributing the coins to the interested parties in fair manner is
less straightforward than with PoW cryptocurrencies. For example, it is informative to observe the hardships
that Ripple runs into as it handles the initial distribution of its built-in coin [38].

With PoA, we have the benet of the PoW aspect that is incorporated into the system, which can be
used for handling the initial distribution of the coins. However, if the PoA protocol species that the block
reward subsidy is divided about equally between the miner and the N lucky stakeholders, starting from the
genesis block, then this is likely to enable the rich to get richer in an unfair manner. One alternative is to
use a pure PoW protocol until the first block reward halving after 4 years, and only then roll out the full
PoA scheme. Another alternative is to always give the entire reward subsidy to the PoW miner who solved
the block, and share the transaction fees between this miner and the N lucky stakeholders. This may imply
that users will have to pay nontrivial transaction fees starting from the genesis block, in order to incentivize
stakeholders to run full online nodes. However, it is reasonable to expect that the fees paid to stakeholders
would not be excessive. This should mean that the added incentive to hoard will be small, i.e. the fees can
be a nice added bonus if the stakeholder wishes to save the coins anyway, but if she has alternative uses for
the wealth then these fees will not be enough to make her hold.

The apportionment can be specied according to certain constants. The portion that goes to the N^th
stakeholder should be relatively big, unless perhaps if all the N lucky stakeholders must maintain the UTXO
set (see Section 3.2.2). E.g., with N = 3 the protocol can dictate that 1/2 of the reward goes the miner, 1/4
goes to the 3rd stakeholder, and 1/8 goes to each of the two other stakeholders. The apportionment can also
be dynamic, in accordance with Section 3.2.1.

@Yakamoto
Not that we need yet another PoS vs PoW discussion. But to clarify: With fiat, you buy mining rigs to mine BTCs or to buy BTCs directly. With BTC, you buy other coins like PoS coins. So, in the end, the rich stay rich.

Proof of Activity: Extending Bitcoin’s Proof of Work via Proof of Stake

http://eprint.iacr.org/2014/452.pdf