Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Coinbase reallocation to discourage Finney attacks

From: Alex Mizrahi <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 2014 01:06:48 +0300

>
> These sorts of proposals are all just ways of saying block chains kind of
> suck and we should go back to using trusted third parties.
>

No.
Different approaches have different trade-offs, and thus different areas of
applicability.

Proof-of-work's inherent disadvantage is that it takes some time until
transaction becomes practically irreversible. On the other hand, it has
advantages like neutrality, censorship-resistance, high degree of security,
etc.

TTP can be very efficient, but doesn't have advantages mentioned above.

It is possible to combine several different approaches into one hybrid
systems. For example, classic Bitcoin PoW blockchain can be used for
settlements, large transactions, savings and so on. While TTP-based payment
system will be used for small-value transaction like buying coffee.

In this case you get benefits of both approaches. Censorship-resistance is
irrelevant when one buys a cup of coffee with his pocket money, isn't it?

For some reason, instead of considering these hybrid solutions (which can
also address scalability problems), you want to make PoW-based system more
complex to be applicable for real-time transaction too.

This will, likely, weaken advantages provided by PoW, and also it won't
provide any hard guarantees, and, if implemented, will undermine
development of alternative solutions.