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 19:57:36 -0500

I know Ethereum had an outlandishly large percentage of nodes running on
AWS, I heard the same thing is for Bitcoin but for mining. Had trouble
finding the article online so take it with a grain of salt. The point
though is that both servers and ASIC specific hardware would still be able
to benefit from the cryptography upgrade I am proposing, as this was in
relation to the disinfranchisemet point.

That said, I think the best way to move forward is to submit a BIP pull
request for a draft via GitHub using BIP #2's draft format and any
questions people have can be answered in the reqeust's comments. That way
people don't have to get emails everytime there is a reply, but replies
still get seen as opposed to offline discussion. Since the instructions say
to email bitcoin-dev before doing a bip draft, I have done that. Since
people want to see the draft beforehand and it isn't merged manually
anyways, I think it is the easiest way to handle this.

I'm also okay w/ continuing the discussion on bitcoin-dev but rather form a
discussion on git instead given I don't want to accidentally impolitely
bother people given this is a moderated list and we already established
some interest for at least a draft.

Does that seem fine?

Best regards, Andrew

On Fri, Mar 5, 2021, 7:41 PM Keagan McClelland <[email-masked]>
wrote:

> > 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.
>
> My instincts tell me that this is an outlandish claim. Do you have
> supporting evidence for this?
>
> Keagan
>
> On Fri, Mar 5, 2021 at 3:22 PM Lonero Foundation via bitcoin-dev <
> [email-masked]> wrote:
>
>> 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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