
Build a Compact Cryptocurrency System Purely Based on PoS - YAYERKA
http://eprint.iacr.org/2014/330
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josephagoss
The paper should be titled "POS Cryptocurrency with no blockchain" as that is
the most innovative idea they are talking about.

There already exist pure POS coins, Nxt through a concept called transparent
forging may be capable of resisting anything up to a 90% attack.

I'll have a read of this properly when I get home.

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darkFunction
The Nxt sourcecode is really terribly written, which is a shame.

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Sambdala
The developer was also very secretive about how it worked as he was scared
someone would copy it and release a clone. It was impossible for the longest
time (when the price was actually much higher than it is now) to find out how
the thing actually worked.

Much of this was because there was no white paper or documentation, and when
pressed for details beyond the most basic, the developer just told you to read
the source code once he open-sourced it.

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jeangabriel
Unconvincing.

The proof of convergence is also not correct. The inequality at the top of p.7
(ever heard of equation numering...?) should be reversed, which effectively
establishes that convergence probability is smaller or equal to 1.

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jsmcgd
I think most cryptocurrencies will begin to shed their blockchains. They're
beginning to get unweildly, especially for Bitcoin (17GB). There's no need to
retain a list of all transactions. You only need a consistent set of balances.

Also the energy cost of mining is beginning to become a legitimate
environmental concern. I think the new slew of proof of stake currencies are
going to give the proof of work currencies a run for their money (pardon the
pun).

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kolinko
Shedding effectivity depends on the amount of unspent outputs. E.g. If there
are 1.5M transactions, and 1.2M addresses still containing money, replacing
transactions with account ballances won't give you much.

As for the environmental concern - read up about the tragedy of commons. Few
people will abandon a better protocol into a worse one if the only benefit is
ecological.

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Hopka
PoS = Proof of Stake

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-
stake](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proof-of-stake)

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higherpurpose
Aren't all PoS systems a "rich get richer" system?

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DennisP
"Rich get richer" would be if people with larger shares of the total money
supply tended to increase their share.

But with Peercoin, for example, everybody earns annual interest of 1% of their
holdings, paid in new coin. Let's say instead we have DennisCoin which pays a
whopping 100% and is worth $1 per coin.

If you start with 10 coins and I start with 90 coins, then after a year you'll
have 20 coins and I'll have 180. I still have nine times as much as you.

Since the number of coins has doubled, the currency value drops in half. So in
dollar terms, you still have $10 and I still have $90.

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im3w1l
They suggest an exponentially declining price during the distribution year.
Unless I am missing something this will lead to everyone buying on the very
last day when the price is the lowest. Why would you want to create those
incentives?

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kolinko
I think they say that the distribution should stop at a random, unknown and
decided in advance moment within a year.

So nobody knows when is the very last day.

Btw. The moment can be determined in a secure way (think satoshi-dice style)

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im3w1l
Ok, so it is basically a complicated and slow way of holding an auction with
secret bids?

