Ok, it’s time to stop developing software, get some Verilog books, and go after them coins. That’s what we need to do people. :)
On a serious note, one thing the author didn’t mention that might reduce barrier to entry are structured ASIC’s. They use a bit more energy, they’re a bit slower, and have much lower cost to develop/deploy. The main company doing it is eASIC with their Nextreme’s. I remember their 90nm option had prototyping of fifty to sixty grand for a pile of chips at one point. Get it working on an FPGA designed for a conversion. Then, see if they can put it on a Nextreme.
It’s not China, but people of influence in China who are extracting money from China (which has currency controls).
The electricity is cheap because the ‘right’ people are being paid off (ever wondered how electronics ordered on Amazon, that comes from China, has zero postage?)
There are PoW-less cryptocurrencies being developed. If these gain traction and turn out to be secure, then we can leave behind the first generation of cryptos based on PoW.
They’re based on new architectures that enable to dispense with the concept of miner, providing the services that these gave in different manners. For example, Nano uses proof of stake. When there are two conflicting transactions i.e. a double spend, the network votes to resolve the conflict and each node has a voting stake proportional to the the amount of currency it holds, or the amount of accounts that delegate their vote to that particular node. Thus conflicts are resolved through vote. Iota uses a DAG architecture where the cost of making a transaction is doing PoW in the form of “confirmations”. The transactions that are more robust are those with the larger number of confirmations. Both currencies have a set supply so no new coins will be produced ever, this means that all the coins that will exist were generated in the first block.
The problem with proof of stake is that once an entity has 51% they own the currency forever. With proof of work, it is a continual effort to own 51% (this is covered in the linked to article).
A quick look at IOTA (not knowing anything about it), and it does not involve a blockchain and it’s not on Wikipedia.
I see both PoW and PoS as protocols depending on the rationality assumption. Those that hold the power will act rationally, thus will want to preserve the value of their investment and as a consequence protect the network. Without the rationality assumption, we could have the top N miners combining their hashing power to destroy the network. What stops them from doing this?
Whether IOTA or Nano are blockchain or not isn’t important I think, what matters is that they satisfy (theoretically, and Nano somewhat practically) certain properties that allow them to function as decentralized cryptocurrencies.
What a disheartening read.
At least with a paperclip-maker mindlessly optimizing you get paperclips.
Ok, it’s time to stop developing software, get some Verilog books, and go after them coins. That’s what we need to do people. :)
On a serious note, one thing the author didn’t mention that might reduce barrier to entry are structured ASIC’s. They use a bit more energy, they’re a bit slower, and have much lower cost to develop/deploy. The main company doing it is eASIC with their Nextreme’s. I remember their 90nm option had prototyping of fifty to sixty grand for a pile of chips at one point. Get it working on an FPGA designed for a conversion. Then, see if they can put it on a Nextreme.
It’s an interesting situation. Essentially China is extracting wealth from the world with this lock on asic production (Bitmain) and cheap hydro.
It’s not China, but people of influence in China who are extracting money from China (which has currency controls).
The electricity is cheap because the ‘right’ people are being paid off (ever wondered how electronics ordered on Amazon, that comes from China, has zero postage?)
The anecdote about how ASICs for supposedly “ASIC-resistant” coins are produced and used for stealth mining was eye-opening…
There are PoW-less cryptocurrencies being developed. If these gain traction and turn out to be secure, then we can leave behind the first generation of cryptos based on PoW.
Would you provide some more detail here/a URL perhaps?
These are the two I know of, which also seem to have serious teams backing them up.
Nano: https://nano.org/en Iota: https://www.iota.org/
They’re based on new architectures that enable to dispense with the concept of miner, providing the services that these gave in different manners. For example, Nano uses proof of stake. When there are two conflicting transactions i.e. a double spend, the network votes to resolve the conflict and each node has a voting stake proportional to the the amount of currency it holds, or the amount of accounts that delegate their vote to that particular node. Thus conflicts are resolved through vote. Iota uses a DAG architecture where the cost of making a transaction is doing PoW in the form of “confirmations”. The transactions that are more robust are those with the larger number of confirmations. Both currencies have a set supply so no new coins will be produced ever, this means that all the coins that will exist were generated in the first block.
The problem with proof of stake is that once an entity has 51% they own the currency forever. With proof of work, it is a continual effort to own 51% (this is covered in the linked to article).
A quick look at IOTA (not knowing anything about it), and it does not involve a blockchain and it’s not on Wikipedia.
I see both PoW and PoS as protocols depending on the rationality assumption. Those that hold the power will act rationally, thus will want to preserve the value of their investment and as a consequence protect the network. Without the rationality assumption, we could have the top N miners combining their hashing power to destroy the network. What stops them from doing this?
Whether IOTA or Nano are blockchain or not isn’t important I think, what matters is that they satisfy (theoretically, and Nano somewhat practically) certain properties that allow them to function as decentralized cryptocurrencies.