{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","title":"Zac Greenwood [ARCHIVE] wrote","author_name":"Zac Greenwood [ARCHIVE] (npub1gy…dvff7)","author_url":"https://yabu.me/npub1gymmksd9tgwzc5w33umlx08sc2ggys3v2cucmpvl7yy9720wh49s8dvff7","provider_name":"njump","provider_url":"https://yabu.me","html":"📅 Original date posted:2021-05-18\n📝 Original message:Hi ZmnSCPxj,\n\nPlease note that I am not suggesting VDFs as a means to save energy, but\nsolely as a means to make the time between blocks more constant.\n\nZac\n\n\nOn Tue, 18 May 2021 at 12:42, ZmnSCPxj \u003cZmnSCPxj at protonmail.com\u003e wrote:\n\n\u003e Good morning Zac,\n\u003e\n\u003e \u003e VDFs might enable more constant block times, for instance by having a\n\u003e two-step PoW:\n\u003e \u003e\n\u003e \u003e 1. Use a VDF that takes say 9 minutes to resolve (VDF being subject to\n\u003e difficulty adjustments similar to the as-is). As per the property of VDFs,\n\u003e miners are able show proof of work.\n\u003e \u003e\n\u003e \u003e 2. Use current PoW mechanism with lower difficulty so finding a block\n\u003e takes 1 minute on average, again subject to as-is difficulty adjustments.\n\u003e \u003e\n\u003e \u003e As a result, variation in block times will be greatly reduced.\n\u003e\n\u003e As I understand it, another weakness of VDFs is that they are not\n\u003e inherently progress-free (their sequential nature prevents that; they are\n\u003e inherently progress-requiring).\n\u003e\n\u003e Thus, a miner which focuses on improving the amount of energy that it can\n\u003e pump into the VDF circuitry (by overclocking and freezing the circuitry),\n\u003e could potentially get into a winner-takes-all situation, possibly leading\n\u003e to even *worse* competition and even *more* energy consumption.\n\u003e After all, if you can start mining 0.1s faster than the competition, that\n\u003e is a 0.1s advantage where *only you* can mine *in the entire world*.\n\u003e\n\u003e Regards,\n\u003e ZmnSCPxj\n\u003e\n-------------- next part --------------\nAn HTML attachment was scrubbed...\nURL: \u003chttp://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210518/abd8b876/attachment.html\u003e"}