<oembed><type>rich</type><version>1.0</version><title>Michael Dubrovsky [ARCHIVE] wrote</title><author_name>Michael Dubrovsky [ARCHIVE] (npub1az…s82dq)</author_name><author_url>https://yabu.me/npub1az38dr3qvm8fqky7g6ercqwvk9utve5j55gr6hwlrry5hqv5rmwqws82dq</author_url><provider_name>njump</provider_name><provider_url>https://yabu.me</provider_url><html>📅 Original date posted:2021-05-19&#xA;📝 Original message:Folks, I suggest we keep the discussion to PoW, oPoW, and the BIP itself.&#xA;PoS, VDFs, and so on are interesting but I guess there are other threads&#xA;going on these topics already where they would be relevant.&#xA;&#xA;Also, it&#39;s important to distinguish between oPoW and these other&#xA;&#34;alternatives&#34; to Hashcash. oPoW is a true Proof of Work that doesn&#39;t alter&#xA;the core game theory or security assumptions of Hashcash and actually&#xA;contains SHA (can be SHA3, SHA256, etc hash is interchangeable).&#xA;&#xA;Cheers,&#xA;Mike&#xA;&#xA;On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 4:55 PM Erik Aronesty via bitcoin-dev &lt;&#xA;bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org&gt; wrote:&#xA;&#xA;&gt; 1. i never suggested vdf&#39;s to replace pow.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; 2. my suggestion was specifically *in the context of* a working&#xA;&gt; proof-of-burn protocol&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; - vdfs used only for timing (not block height)&#xA;&gt; - blind-burned coins of a specific age used to replace proof of work&#xA;&gt; - the required &#34;work&#34; per block would simply be a competition to&#xA;&gt; acquire rewards, and so miners would have to burn coins, well in&#xA;&gt; advance, and hope that their burned coins got rewarded in some far&#xA;&gt; future&#xA;&gt; - the point of burned coins is to mimic, in every meaningful way, the&#xA;&gt; value gained from proof of work... without some of the security&#xA;&gt; drawbacks&#xA;&gt; - the miner risks losing all of his burned coins (like all miners risk&#xA;&gt; losing their work in each block)&#xA;&gt; - new burns can&#39;t be used&#xA;&gt; - old burns age out (like ASICs do)&#xA;&gt; - other requirements on burns might be needed to properly mirror the&#xA;&gt; properties of PoW and the incentives Bitcoin uses to mine honestly.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; 3. i do believe it is *possible* that a &#34;burned coin + vdf system&#34;&#xA;&gt; might be more secure in the long run, and that if the entire space&#xA;&gt; agreed that such an endeavor was worthwhile, a test net could be spun&#xA;&gt; up, and a hard-fork could be initiated.&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; 4. i would never suggest such a thing unless i believed it was&#xA;&gt; possible that consensus was possible.  so no, this is not an &#34;alt&#xA;&gt; coin&#34;&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&gt; On Tue, May 18, 2021 at 10:02 AM Zac Greenwood &lt;zachgrw at gmail.com&gt; wrote:&#xA;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt; Hi ZmnSCPxj,&#xA;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt; Please note that I am not suggesting VDFs as a means to save energy, but&#xA;&gt; solely as a means to make the time between blocks more constant.&#xA;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt; Zac&#xA;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt; On Tue, 18 May 2021 at 12:42, ZmnSCPxj &lt;ZmnSCPxj at protonmail.com&gt; wrote:&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; Good morning Zac,&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt; VDFs might enable more constant block times, for instance by having a&#xA;&gt; two-step PoW:&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt; 1. Use a VDF that takes say 9 minutes to resolve (VDF being subject&#xA;&gt; to difficulty adjustments similar to the as-is). As per the property of&#xA;&gt; VDFs, miners are able show proof of work.&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt; 2. Use current PoW mechanism with lower difficulty so finding a block&#xA;&gt; takes 1 minute on average, again subject to as-is difficulty adjustments.&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; &gt; As a result, variation in block times will be greatly reduced.&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; As I understand it, another weakness of VDFs is that they are not&#xA;&gt; inherently progress-free (their sequential nature prevents that; they are&#xA;&gt; inherently progress-requiring).&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; Thus, a miner which focuses on improving the amount of energy that it&#xA;&gt; can pump into the VDF circuitry (by overclocking and freezing the&#xA;&gt; circuitry), could potentially get into a winner-takes-all situation,&#xA;&gt; possibly leading to even *worse* competition and even *more* energy&#xA;&gt; consumption.&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; After all, if you can start mining 0.1s faster than the competition,&#xA;&gt; that is a 0.1s advantage where *only you* can mine *in the entire world*.&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt;&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; Regards,&#xA;&gt; &gt;&gt; ZmnSCPxj&#xA;&gt; _______________________________________________&#xA;&gt; bitcoin-dev mailing list&#xA;&gt; bitcoin-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org&#xA;&gt; https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/mailman/listinfo/bitcoin-dev&#xA;&gt;&#xA;&#xA;&#xA;-- &#xA;Michael Dubrovsky&#xA;Founder; PoWx&#xA;www.PoWx.org &lt;http://www.powx.org/&gt;&#xA;-------------- next part --------------&#xA;An HTML attachment was scrubbed...&#xA;URL: &lt;http://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/attachments/20210519/1da2c85a/attachment.html&gt;</html></oembed>