Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Long-term mining incentives

From: Gavin Andresen <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 May 2015 11:41:16 -0400

On Tue, May 12, 2015 at 7:48 PM, Adam Back <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I think its fair to say no one knows how to make a consensus that
> works in a decentralised fashion that doesnt weaken the bitcoin
> security model without proof-of-work for now.
>

Yes.

> I am presuming Gavin is just saying in the context of not pre-judging
> the future that maybe in the far future another innovation might be
> found (or alternatively maybe its not mathematically possible).
>

Yes... or an alternative might be found that weakens the Bitcoin security
model by a small enough amount that it either doesn't matter or the
weakening is vastly overwhelmed by some other benefit.

I'm influenced by the way the Internet works; packets addressed to
74.125.226.67 reliably get to Google through a very decentralized system
that I'll freely admit I don't understand. Yes, a determined attacker can
re-route packets, but layers of security on top means re-routing packets
isn't enough to pull off profitable attacks.

I think Bitcoin's proof-of-work might evolve in a similar way. Yes, you
might be able to 51% attack the POW, but layers of security on top of POW
will mean that won't be enough to pull off profitable attacks.

-- 
--
Gavin Andresen