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Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

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Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#21

Post by alistproducer2 »

jcfrei wrote: post #19
alistproducer2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In distributed ledgers, it doesn't matter who the leader is. The system only has to ensure that leadership is distributed in such a way that it is statistically infeasible or economically unprofitable to rewrite history. PoW distributes the leadership (block creation) via crypto puzzles. PoS tries to use economic incentives to make bad behavior more expensive than good. There's work being done (which I personally bel…

> There's work being done (which I personally believe is the right way to go) in using a leader election-based system that works like a lottery (Algorand[0] is an example). Probably what you meant but I still wanted to mention it: Bitcoin (or most PoW schemes) work like a lottery. Think of each attempt at generating a nonce below the required difficulty as a lottery ticket. The more nonces you generate (the more hash…

Yes and no. A true lottery predictably periodic - it happens in rounds. PoW puzzles are async and so the chain can fork. The second property of the crypto puzzle kicks in here - the statistically predictable number of hashes necessary to solve the puzzle which can then be used to calculate an average time necessary to create a valid block. With a forking chain, it's this time gap that secures the chain against rewrites. So yes, PoW is used to distribute block creation among the network but it differs from a true lottery system in that it is not synchronized into rounds.

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#22

Post by skinner_ »

avdempsey wrote: post #17
bradleyjg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the problem with random selection, that if there's very little cost to enter then a bad actor can flood lottery with entries?

My understanding is they try to mitigate this by having a minimum account balance to participate.

That's one way to introduce proof-of-stake.

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#23

Post by jcfrei »

nullstyle wrote: post #12
desireco42 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know their api is really nice and I was surprised how easy was to work with it, whether it is a test net or public.

Thanks for the kind words! (disclosure: I designed most of the API) We're not done yet. IMO it's still not easy enough to build great software on top of our work.

Are there future plans to add smart contracts (with a "Turing-complete" virtual machine) to Stellar? I think that the Stellar consensus protocol with its speed would be perfect for overcoming the current limitations of Ethereum.

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#24

Post by jcfrei »

alistproducer2 wrote: post #21
jcfrei wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's work being done (which I personally believe is the right way to go) in using a leader election-based system that works like a lottery (Algorand[0] is an example). Probably what you meant but I still wanted to mention it: Bitcoin (or most PoW schemes) work like a lottery. Think of each attempt at generating a nonce below the required difficulty as a lottery ticket. The more nonces you generate (the more hash…

Yes and no. A true lottery predictably periodic - it happens in rounds. PoW puzzles are async and so the chain can fork. The second property of the crypto puzzle kicks in here - the statistically predictable number of hashes necessary to solve the puzzle which can then be used to calculate an average time necessary to create a valid block. With a forking chain, it's this time gap that secures the chain against rewrit…

Ah, I see now how the terminology is applied. Thanks for the clarification.

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#25

Post by [deleted] »

jcfrei wrote: post #23
nullstyle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the kind words! (disclosure: I designed most of the API) We're not done yet. IMO it's still not easy enough to build great software on top of our work.

Are there future plans to add smart contracts (with a "Turing-complete" virtual machine) to Stellar? I think that the Stellar consensus protocol with its speed would be perfect for overcoming the current limitations of Ethereum.

[deleted]

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#26

Post by jsmthrowaway »

jcfrei wrote: post #23
nullstyle wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the kind words! (disclosure: I designed most of the API) We're not done yet. IMO it's still not easy enough to build great software on top of our work.

Are there future plans to add smart contracts (with a "Turing-complete" virtual machine) to Stellar? I think that the Stellar consensus protocol with its speed would be perfect for overcoming the current limitations of Ethereum.

I hope not. Stellar's appeal is its simplicity, and shipping a full programming environment with all the baggage of maintenance over time seems overly complex, and prone to causing issues down the line. There's very likely a way to achieve similar smart contracts, albeit without network consensus à la Ethereum, in the current Stellar world.

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#27

Post by zeroxfe »

cantrip wrote: post #20
zeroxfe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This paragraph does not explain how they are different from Ripple's approach only that they are in fact different. I think the last line sums it up: "SCP is the first Byzantine agreement protocol to give each participant maximum freedom in choosing which combinations of other participants to trust." As opposed to Ripple, where the trust is heavily biased towards the starter membership list, making it more centrali…

How exactly does that work? To me, the statement says essentially "you can trust us more than Ripple" with no explanation as to why.

The explanation is in the PDF. OP was just pointing out the high-level description of how it's different. Obviously, the devil's in the details.

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#28

Post by [deleted] »

cantrip wrote: post #20
zeroxfe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This paragraph does not explain how they are different from Ripple's approach only that they are in fact different. I think the last line sums it up: "SCP is the first Byzantine agreement protocol to give each participant maximum freedom in choosing which combinations of other participants to trust." As opposed to Ripple, where the trust is heavily biased towards the starter membership list, making it more centrali…

How exactly does that work? To me, the statement says essentially "you can trust us more than Ripple" with no explanation as to why.

[deleted]

Re: Stellar Protocol: A Federated Model for Internet-Level Consensus (2016) [pdf]

#30

Post by [deleted] »

cantrip wrote: post #8
neuronexmachina wrote: post #2

I was curious about how this was different from Ripple's approach, I thought this was interesting: > Generally, membership in Byzantine agreement systems is set by a central authority or closed negotiation. Prior attempts to decentralize admission have given up some of the benefits. One approach, taken by Ripple, is to publish a “starter” membership list that participants can edit for themselves, hoping people’s edit…

What part of this is interesting to you? This paragraph does not explain how they are different from Ripple's approach only that they are in fact different.

[deleted]
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