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Topic: Proof of Work Squared: Combining useful and arbitrary work in blockchains (Read 206 times)

member
Activity: 322
Merit: 54
Consensus is Constitution
POW seems sufficient, Why is the useful work part necessary and what is the benefit?

PoW is sufficient to send payment.  But usually if we are sending a payment remotely, we also want a product delivered to us back remotely too right?  Typically people use fedex, ups, usps etc.  Well what if we could decentralize this shipment?  This is what this idea would allow.  The blockchain would enforce independent shippers to trustfully deliver the item to you.  There are many other possible uses but this is the most apparent to me.  For more info read my previous post.

You presented your idea as a different way to do consensus, but it seems like you are really proposing a block chain that can be used to prove that a service was provided.

Hmm maybe it does seem that that I was proposing a consensus method and that is my fault.  But the intention is how to incorporate useful work/services into a blockchain to be enforced by the blockchain.

The "second" proof of work is is proving that useful work was completed in addition to proving that consensus work as completed. That is where the "squared" comes in.

So it is kind of a play on words.
legendary
Activity: 4298
Merit: 3209
POW seems sufficient, Why is the useful work part necessary and what is the benefit?

PoW is sufficient to send payment.  But usually if we are sending a payment remotely, we also want a product delivered to us back remotely too right?  Typically people use fedex, ups, usps etc.  Well what if we could decentralize this shipment?  This is what this idea would allow.  The blockchain would enforce independent shippers to trustfully deliver the item to you.  There are many other possible uses but this is the most apparent to me.  For more info read my previous post.

You presented your idea as a different way to do consensus, but it seems like you are really proposing a block chain that can be used to prove that a service was provided.
member
Activity: 322
Merit: 54
Consensus is Constitution
POW seems sufficient, Why is the useful work part necessary and what is the benefit?

PoW is sufficient to send payment.  But usually if we are sending a payment remotely, we also want a product delivered to us back remotely too right?  Typically people use fedex, ups, usps etc.  Well what if we could decentralize this shipment?  This is what this idea would allow.  The blockchain would enforce independent shippers to trustfully deliver the item to you.  There are many other possible uses but this is the most apparent to me.  For more info read my previous post.
legendary
Activity: 4298
Merit: 3209
POW seems sufficient, Why is the useful work part necessary and what is the benefit?
member
Activity: 322
Merit: 54
Consensus is Constitution
So the reality of this idea is that it would probably require an infinite supply of coins, but this figure could diminish over time if you want sort of like monero or logarithmic growth.  The reason for this is you do need PoW miners to be verifying transactions forever.  This would replace the bitcoin model where once the max coin supply is reached fees are what keep miners mining.

The real innovation here is how to couple real life work into the cryptocurrency and reward it with "fees" as I will illustrate below.

The example case I'm thinking of is a shipping service.

So it may work like this:
Someone emails me wanting to buy something from my website.  We agree on a price.  He goes to send me the payment using "cryptoship" coin.  The payment will be verified by Cryptoship miners using PoW like normal.  However then comes the shipping logistics, which is built into the app or program or wallet or whatever.  Cyptoship miners, or anyone else running a node (not sure if it would require full node or what) can enter some details if they want to be an independent shipper.  A radius that they can drive/bike/walk and it's GPS coordinate center.  When the buyer goes to send his payment to me it calculates a route that independent shippers could take the shipment.  it shows the buyer how much each shipper will charge as a fee for this service for shipper A to drop off to shipper B and B to drop off to C, etc.. until it reaches him with the product.  So the buyer sends the amount of Cryptoship coin plus the total fees for all the shippers.  The predetermined fees are given to each shipper as they hand off the product to the next shipper.  Once the next shipper and previous shipper both verify they have made the exchange, the blockchain then records that ownership has changed hands.  Each shipper would be a "masternode" of sorts and would have a certain number of coins staked as "insurance" if they stole or lost the package.

does that make more sense?
newbie
Activity: 19
Merit: 0
... let me know what you think! ...

From your website:
Quote
This new method would separate the fee generation from the creation of new coins.

I like this idea. When PoW coin creation is seperated from a task that always has to run, this could save energy. Is the term "fee" here coming from Bitcoin? Or is it more general?

Quote
A human (or animal or anything including AI) doing useful mental/physical/spiritual or any other type of useful work will be used to generate fees.

I wonder what the interface is between someone with an opinion that valuable human work has been done, and the computers getting this input. Is it some sort of voting?
member
Activity: 322
Merit: 54
Consensus is Constitution
A new proof of work is described where fee generation and generation of new coins is separated so that useful work will be rewarded in a system.  This can unlock the next generation of cryptocurrency where computational work will be side by side with useful work.  Just imagine decentralized ride hailing services, decentralized shipping systems, decentralized food delivery, decentralized 3D printing, etc. where anyone with a node can be self employed, not just by maintaining a mining farm, but by actually executing work for people.

Here is the whitepaper let me know what you think! (wayback machine archive so no need to worry about virus' or whatnot.)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180603045346/http://www.naturehackerproducts.com/2018/06/proof-of-work-squared-new-method-of.html
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