Topic: Proposal: An Alternative Currency that doesn't "waste" energy (Read 4877 times)

https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/encoin-proposal-v40-scads-of-technical-details-now-with-a-wiki-49683

doesn't waste energy because energy isn't required to secure the network, but rather a system of merchant reputation. I have other ideas that never made it in to the wiki because of lack of interest

Yeah but the H/c (hashes per calorie) really sucks.

I still like the idea of embedding bitcoin ASICs into mass-produced, standalone 1kW baseboard heaters, giving the heaters away for free to homes that have WiFi, then splitting the mining profits to defray the costs of the electric bills.  People are consuming GWh on electric heaters right now: might was well do something useful with those electrons.

Howabout an AbacusCoin? That would certainly not take any electricity. We could just employ child labor in China to run the calculations. 

Sorry for the late response. Subject to temporary ban for trolling libertarians.

Gavin's question about the initial distribution should not be a sticking point. There are many possible answers. Here is one.

I suggested that mixed proof of work and proof of stake may be a promising option.
 
In a mixed work-stake implementation, the initial distribution system could resemble other cryptocurrencies. Proof-of work could operate similar to bitcoin, with the key exception that difficulty criteria would be individual specific. An individual's target difficulty would be a decreasing function of that individual's stake. However, system rules would specify a finite difficulty target even for individuals with zero stake. Initially, there would be no stakeholders, so everyone would share the same difficulty target. Over time, people would accumulate stakes based on their historical mining and trading behavior. This would generate inequality in difficulty targets across individuals. Stakeholding would then become an important determinant of mining ability.
 

I would propose that you could destroy some Bitcoin in exchange for coins in the new currency.  It easy to create a blackhole address such that you can be certain that no one will have the private key.

But that's exactly what the Fed does, taking over the USD chain through proof of stake, having the largest reserves and control, and just printing money to lend. Who cares if I am making my money worthless bit by bit, as long as I can keep converting it into other assets? It's not like others will just dump all their money because it's slowly losing value. They wont have a choice but to keep using it if it is sufficiently established.  They already do that with USD.

I'll release a currency (not a bitcoin fork, no premining etc..., there will be a beta period) mixing proof-of-work and proof-of-stake early 2012, many problems have been solved, i'm working alone for the moment but i'll open once implementation is stable, stay tuned.

Awesome although it is good enough to inline (the author approves and even supports inlining).

http://xkcd.com/927/ ....................

... or, even worse, invalidate competing proof-of-stakes.

I might like proof-of-stake schemes better if somebody has a good plan for how to get them started-- you've got a genesis block, so the creator starts with 100% stake.

Now what, exactly, happens to create block number 2 for proof-of-stake systems?

I've not seen any way to resolve the problems with my original proposal; it seems too easy to use a large amount of cash to reach back arbitrarily far in the block chain to re-write history (and hence, invalidate transactions where you spent money).

I also don't like the proposals where participants have to wage a continuous battle to reinforce a disputed block with additional escrow balances.

Unless someone can come up with a brilliant way to salvage this, it seems currently to be unworkable (to me).

But I've enjoyed the discussion and the help poking holes in my proposal.

Got logic?

Yeah escrowing tens of thousands of coins for months at a time into perpetuity is going to be popular. 

Bingo. And if you think that the attacker has any chance of extricating himself quickly without losing money (I don't), then you could just require escrow of coins in the blockchain for 10k blocks (two months) instead of just 1 block (ten minutes). It would then be 2 months before the attacker could recover his coin horde and try to sell it off.


If the attack hasn't been discovered and reduced coin prices after two months, then can you really call it an attack?

Rassah: there's a problem with your reasoning
if you have 1,000,000 bitlesscoins by taking over the chain and doublespending and stuff, the price of bitlesscoins will plummet and your bitlesscoins will be worthless unless you are able to exchange them for another currency before people notice the hacking

that is, if you are able to doublespend and get more than 1,000,000 bitlesscoins and exchange all of them for BTC (at a good rate too, better than what you bought them for) to pull off an attack then it will be successful

if the volume on the exchange is not great enough, then it will be too cost-prohibitive to buy 1,000,000 BLC just to exchange 500,000 and kill the network and have 500,000 useless coins

Which part needs debunking? Now I'm confused because Rassah's description seems to make sense. Could you write a similarly concise pro and con list?

I shall remain so, though primarily because the initial proposition was not logical enough either.

No sorry. someone else will have to debunk this. Or you can remain confused.

OK, I'll try to construct this logically:

Proof of Work

Needed for successful attack: mining hardware.
Uses for attack assets: Useless for anything other than mining. No reason to acquire unless intending to mine or attack.
Benefit from successful attack: double spending. Possible inflation, though other miners can reject new coins.
Cost of successive attacks: lots and lots of electricity.

Proof of Stake

Needed for successful attack: lots of money. Will be acquired from normal business operations anyway.
Uses for attack assets: it's money. Everyone will have incentive to acquire it anyway.
Benefits of successful attack: double spending. Possible inflation, and continued inflation, since having highest stake means you continue to control the block chain.
Cost of successive attacks: nothing as long as you still have the highest amount of coins

Reasons for Inflation

Money is not wealth, it's just a measure of it. Someone with power of inflation can borrow money to acquire wealth, such as real estate, and then use their power to inflate away the debt or print money to pay off the loan directly, and keep growing their physical wealth at the expense of every other money holder suffering from inflation.
Worse, inflating your own money guarantees you can continue to hold the Proof of Stake power that lets you buy stuff with inflated currency.

I hope this was straightforward and logical enough.