Topic: Quark investors - Quark information on cycles and the push to move towards PoS. - page 2. (Read 3173 times)

Thats true... It is like a chicken and egg problem... The value needs to rise so that more hashing power flows in and secure the network.... So I guess these coins are waiting if more adoption happens so that the price rises and become secure... On the other hand PoS cannot be decentralized at any value...

I am sure if these coins become more valuable they can remove the checkpoints....

Ironically, Feathercoin, AuroraCoin and Quarkcoin, all of those PoW coin, have centralized checkpoints.

The point is that you dont need to reverse it twice but only once.

Apart from that you misunderstand what a decentralized autonomous corporation like bitcoin means. There are certain rules and all clients follow those rules. The rule is to work on the longest chain aka most cumulative stake for PoS and most work for PoW.

 If you have the stake in your history you can reverse it 2,3,5 and as many times as you like if you want. Noone stops you from that only human intervention aka centralized checkpoints.


You only need to own the keys at some point in the past. For example, a person who deposits/withdraws multiple times from exchanges (think of exchanges using multiple addresses) can get the keys for a lot of stake ownership in the blockchain history and use it to create an alternate chain. Exchanges own a lot of stake in their history... Pools do the same.... and many other services...


https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Altcoin#Proof_Of_Stake

Because you cannot reverse public blockchain using your one secret longer blockchain twice.


It do cost to attack Pos coin. You have to buy 5% coin from market.


Please describe the more severe attack in detail.

Why would the network without human intervention not accept my second chain? It perfectly follows the rules... The other attack you are describing is the nothing at stake problem where you can keep trying double send without any cost. I am talking about a more severe attack that will force the network to become centralized or investors/exchanges/reputation take massive losses....

To make a profit you need to reverse the current chain by showing more cumulative stake after you sell your PoS coin to bitcoin. Then you can get bitcoin and PoS coin at same time. However, to move 5% PoS coin to exchange, you have to publish your secret longer blockchain to public. Then your secret longer blockchain becomes to public chain and you lose the ability to reverse the public blockchain.

The clients accept the longest chain. Once you sell you withdraw say bitcoins you dont need to go back to the current chain at all to make a profit....

It doesn't make sense at all. To do this kind of attack, you need generate a parallel secret chain using your 5% coin first. To sell your 5% coin on exchange you need to synchronize to the publick blockchain. Then your blockchain is not secret at all and you can't go back after you sell your coin.

In PoS, you use your stake to determine the longest chain thus total cumulative stake on a chain is the one to make nodes follow that chain. Say currently 5% of the stake is used to secure the network. An early adopter/exchange/group of people/stake pool with more stake (more than 5%) at some point in the coins history (the people might have sold long time back) can create a parallel secret chain and reverse the current chain by showing more cumulative stake. How do you get the current chain with this decision mechanism? Cannot be decentralized... No matter what is the approach the attackers can repeat the steps of any PoS approach...  Does it make sense?

Could you provide any other theoretical evidence to support your claim if it had never happened in practice?

None definitively although more than one POS coin has been 51% attacked.  Many of them have stake requirements which are negligible so often cheap attack is easier than a more sophisticated nothing at stake attack.  No POS coin has extensive history in the field other than PPC and it avoids an attack by using 100% centralized checkpoints.   Still you don't really believe that "hasn't happened" = "can't happen"?  Bitcoin has never been 51% attacked therefore you believe an attack is impossible?

Can you claim that quark is more secure than bitcoin based on the current network hashrate?

Please tell us which PoS coin has been attacked by so called "nothing at risk" problem.

That isn't true. Feathercoin also has advanced check-pointing. Even quarkcoin has automatic checkpoint.

I worry that changing Quark to PoS would make it complicated to newcomers. To the average consumer, PoW is hard enough to understand, but I think it makes sense at least. I think that Quark has the bare bones of something great--fast transactions, secure network, best distribution model around. We don't need to reinvent the wheel; we just need to put some air back in the tires.

I think working on getting mining pools set up (great work by Cashmen) is where we should focus our efforts. Vic had some great ideas on reddit. Orm also had some excellent ideas, which I will quote here.


I know I don't have a lot of posts on this forum, but I'm pretty sure most people know who I am so whatever. It's hard enough keeping up with reddit, IRC, Trello, Email without having to follow forums as well.

1 and 3 are wrong. Does not provide additional security for reasons DAT stated... Also there is no economical stimulus to maintain a full node people will use pools like Pools like PoW. the misinformation in this subforum is insane!

^ Strongly agree

Kolin, I agree on the point, that one shouldn´t act based on a short term emotion, but I strongly disagree with your opinion that everything is as it should be:

1. Currently we have a low hashrate which makes the coin susceptical for 51% attacks. Changes of difficulty will affect the hashrate but since the price is low it won´t lead to real improvements.
2. In fact, we aren´t a decentralized community: More than 51% of the hashrate is centered in one pool. Technical issues or abuse would affect Quark directly
3. There is no public long-term plan for core development, while there are some innovative concepts out there with development backing

What the community lacks is perspective and we won´t build that by pretending that things are fine. Even if Quarks´ core is solid and advanced I don´t think that this will be enough in the competition we currently
have in crypto. As you know, even good ideas won´t survive just for the sake of it, people need to adopt them and what they need is a smart concept with a convincing vision for the future. I think we need to work on the latter and we need to work on additional features like sidechains, smart contracts, colored coins. They may be gadgets right now, but they will be part of cryptos future.

What we should do in my opinion

1. Discuss POS/POW hybrid solutions that will allow us to keep a constant inflation and don´t give huge advantages for large wallets (maximum reward was mentioned, there are other possible solutions)
2. Find competent and dedicated developers who are willing to work with us for at least 2 years. Quark has much to offer when it comes to promotion and networking, I think we are way beyond the vast mayority of all coins. Combined with good developers this will allow for a major rise in adoption so there is a mutual interest.
3. Find ways to give the community full control and transparency with regard to the process of development. This will boost trust in long term support.

I agree that the major problem is not the code but the trust in the currency. We need to back the trust with some real assets. I say, let´s do it.

So we are waiting till next bubble?