Subject: Re: [bitcoin-dev] BIP Proposal: Consensus (hard fork) PoST Datastore for Energy Efficient Mining

From: Lonero Foundation <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 2021 16:21:12 -0500

Actually I mentioned a proof of space and time hybrid which is much
different than staking. Sorry to draw for the confusion as PoC is more
commonly used then PoST.
There is a way to make PoC cryptographically compatible w/ Proof of Work as
it normally stands: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof_of_space
It has rarely been done though given the technological complexity of being
both CPU compatible and memory-hard compatible. There are lots of benefits
outside of the realm of efficiency, and I already looked into numerous
fault tolerant designs as well and what others in the cryptography
community attempted to propose. The actual argument you have only against
this is the Proof of Memory fallacy, which is only partially true. Given
how the current hashing algorithm works, hard memory allocation wouldn't be
of much benefit given it is more optimized for CPU/ASIC specific mining.
I'm working towards a hybrid mechanism that fixes that. BTW: The way
Bitcoin currently stands in its cryptography still needs updating
regardless. If someone figures out NP hardness or the halting problem the
traditional rule of millions of years to break all of Bitcoin's
cryptography now comes down to minutes. Bitcoin is going to have to
eventually radically upgrade their cryptography and hashing algo in the
future regardless. I want to integrate some form of NP complexity in
regards to the hybrid cryptography I'm aiming to provide which includes a
polynomial time algorithm in the cryptography. More than likely the first
version of my BTC hard fork will be coded in a way where integrating such
complexity in the future only requires a soft fork or minor upgrade to its
chain.

In regards to the argument, "As a separate issue, proposing a hard fork in
the hashing algorithm will invalidate the enormous amount of capital
expenditure by mining entities and disincentivize future capital
expenditure into mining hardware that may compute these more "useful"
proofs of work."

A large portion of BTC is already mined through AWS servers and non-asic
specific hardware anyways. A majority of them would benefit from a hybrid
proof, and the fact that it is hybrid in that manner wouldn't
disenfranchise currently optimized mining entities as well.

There are other reasons why a cryptography upgrade like this is beneficial.
Theoretically one can argue BItcoin isn't fully decentralized. It is few
unsolved mathematical proofs away from being entirely broken. My goal
outside of efficiency is to build cryptography in a way that prevents such
an event from happening in the future, if it was to ever happen. I have
various research in regards to this area and work alot with distributed
computing. I believe if the BTC community likes such a proposal, I would
single handedly be able to build the cryptographic proof myself (though
would like as many open source contributors as I can get :)

Anyways just something to consider. We are in the same space in regards to
what warrants a shitcoin or the whole argument against staking.
https://hackernoon.com/ethereum-you-are-a-centralized-cryptocurrency-stop-telling-us-that-you-arent-pi3s3yjl

Best regards,  Andrew

On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 4:11 PM Keagan McClelland <
[email-masked]> wrote:

> It is important to understand that it is critical for the work to be
> "useless" in order for the security model to be the same. If the work was
> useful it provides an avenue for actors to have nothing at stake when
> submitting a proof of work, since the marginal cost of block construction
> will be lessened by the fact that the work was useful in a different
> context and therefore would have been done anyway. This actually degrades
> the security of the network in the process.
>
> As a separate issue, proposing a hard fork in the hashing algorithm will
> invalidate the enormous amount of capital expenditure by mining entities
> and disincentivize future capital expenditure into mining hardware that may
> compute these more "useful" proofs of work. This is because any change in
> the POW algorithm will be considered unstable and subject to change in the
> future. This puts the entire network at even more risk meaning that no
> entity is tying their own interests to that of the bitcoin network at
> large. It also puts the developers in a position where they can be bribed
> by entities with a vested interest in deciding what the new "useful" proof
> of work should be.
>
> All of these things make the Bitcoin network worse off.
>
> Keagan
>
> On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 1:48 PM Lonero Foundation via bitcoin-dev <
> [email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> Also in regards to my other email, I forgot to iterate that my
>> cryptography proposal helps behind the efficiency category but also tackles
>> problems such as NP-Completeness or Halting which is something the BTC
>> network could be vulnerable to in the future. For sake of simplicity, I do
>> want to do this BIP because it tackles lots of the issues in regards to
>> this manner and can provide useful insight to the community. If things such
>> as bigger block height have been proposed as hard forks, I feel at the very
>> least an upgrade regarding the hashing algorithm and cryptography does at
>> least warrant some discussion. Anyways I hope I can send you my BIP, just
>> let me know on the preferred format?
>>
>> Best regards, Andrew
>>
>> On Fri, Mar 5, 2021, 10:12 AM Lonero Foundation <
>> [email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi, this isn't about the energy efficient argument in regards to
>>> renewables or mining devices but a better cryptography layer to get the
>>> most out of your hashing for validation. I do understand the arbitrariness
>>> of it, but do want to still propose a document. Do I use the Media Wiki
>>> format on GitHub and just attach it as my proposal?
>>>
>>> Best regards, Andrew
>>>
>>> On Fri, Mar 5, 2021, 10:07 AM Devrandom <[email-masked]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Ryan and Andrew,
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 5:42 AM Ryan Grant via bitcoin-dev <
>>>> [email-masked]> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>   https://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/
>>>>>     "Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work"
>>>>>     on | 04 Aug 2015
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Just to belabor this a bit, the paper demonstrates that the mining
>>>> market will tend to expend resources equivalent to miner reward.  It does
>>>> not prove that mining work has to expend *energy* as a primary cost.
>>>>
>>>> Some might argue that energy expenditure has negative externalities and
>>>> that we should move to other resources.  I would argue that the negative
>>>> externalities will go away soon because of the move to renewables, so the
>>>> point is likely moot.
>>>>
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>