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Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

gridcoin.us

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Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#61

Post by DavidHilbert »

jl2718 wrote: post #14

This may be misunderstanding the function of PoW. Bitcoin PoW provides three things: selection, security, and incentive. The compute resource burn is an externality, although, it also ends up providing an important function, economic distribution. For PoW to work,it has to be hard to produce, easy to verify, and most importantly, attest to one and only one state of the blockchain. The last part is where this fails as…

> The solution to a puzzle is meaningless if the same solution can be shown as the result of two different inputs.

This isn't true. There are an infinite number of inputs that result in the same solution for bitcoin (or any hash)

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#62

Post by noxer »

roboticmind wrote: post #53

For those that are wondering how this works, Gridcoin uses PoS - not PoW - and then rewards for research on top of it. It is not locked into any algorithm because it's not PoW. There are currently 18 different BOINC project [1] that it rewards. New projects can be voted in or can be voted off. To try to reduce the centralization, there is a system of oracles that gathers the stats from each project and the nodes veri…

Whats the use for the coin? Its an incentive obviously but its only so because it has a price tag. Who should buy the coin from me if I "mined" one and what would he do with it?

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#63

Post by jl2718 »

DavidHilbert wrote: post #61
jl2718 wrote: post #14

This may be misunderstanding the function of PoW. Bitcoin PoW provides three things: selection, security, and incentive. The compute resource burn is an externality, although, it also ends up providing an important function, economic distribution. For PoW to work,it has to be hard to produce, easy to verify, and most importantly, attest to one and only one state of the blockchain. The last part is where this fails as…

> The solution to a puzzle is meaningless if the same solution can be shown as the result of two different inputs. This isn't true. There are an infinite number of inputs that result in the same solution for bitcoin (or any hash)

Okay let’s see an example. ;)

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#64

Post by noxer »

wyldfire wrote: post #26

For most cryptocoins, you want a proof-of-work to be: (1) easy for a computer to verify, (2) hard for a computer to perform, (3) impossible to predict for a given 'block' and (4) decentralized and untrusted. If it's a novel scientific problem it won't be all of these. An interesting exception is prime numbers. Primecoin [1] has a useful proof-of-work: it finds Cunningham chains of primes. If you don't like the energy…

Instead of PoS there are FBA (federated byzantine agreement) chains who are older than PoS thus better tested and arguably without any of the flaws PoS has. PoS is really a step backward and not the real successor to PoW.

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#65

Post by powerbutton65 »

jl2718 wrote: post #63
DavidHilbert wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The solution to a puzzle is meaningless if the same solution can be shown as the result of two different inputs. This isn't true. There are an infinite number of inputs that result in the same solution for bitcoin (or any hash)

Okay let’s see an example. ;)

Like it or not they are technically correct. SHA-256 is a one way compression and furthermore the PoW for bitcoin doesn't require a match for the entire hash.

There's loads of examples of this in the bitcoin network whenever there's been a fork and eventually orphaned blocks.

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#66

Post by jl2718 »

roboticmind wrote: post #48
jl2718 wrote: post #14

This may be misunderstanding the function of PoW. Bitcoin PoW provides three things: selection, security, and incentive. The compute resource burn is an externality, although, it also ends up providing an important function, economic distribution. For PoW to work,it has to be hard to produce, easy to verify, and most importantly, attest to one and only one state of the blockchain. The last part is where this fails as…

The coin is proof of stake based. The rewards for BOINC come on top of staking. Each BOINC project that is rewarded has its stats looked up by a system of oracles and each node verifies that the oracles match up. The project themselves can be removed if they act up and there's a system for voting on which project to add and remove If you have any more questions feel free to ask me or check out the Gridcoin website ht…

The website appears to represent it accurately, and exciting for all the reasons that BOINC is.

The Wikipedia article says:

“Gridcoin attempts to address and ease the environmental energy impact of cryptocurrency mining through its proof-of-research and proof-of-stake protocols, as compared to the proof of work system used by Bitcoin.”

I don’t see this implementation as having any relevance to cryptocurrency mining in general. Hopefully you can find a way, but the Wikipedia statement seems inaccurate.

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#67

Post by deeeeplearning »

noxer wrote: post #62
roboticmind wrote: post #53

For those that are wondering how this works, Gridcoin uses PoS - not PoW - and then rewards for research on top of it. It is not locked into any algorithm because it's not PoW. There are currently 18 different BOINC project [1] that it rewards. New projects can be voted in or can be voted off. To try to reduce the centralization, there is a system of oracles that gathers the stats from each project and the nodes veri…

Whats the use for the coin? Its an incentive obviously but its only so because it has a price tag. Who should buy the coin from me if I "mined" one and what would he do with it?

>Whats the use for the coin? Its an incentive obviously but its only so because it has a price tag. Who should buy the coin from me if I "mined" one and what would he do with it?

This is the same for any crypto coin. Certainly not unique to Gridcoin.

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#68

Post by jl2718 »

powerbutton65 wrote: post #65
jl2718 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay let’s see an example. ;)

Like it or not they are technically correct. SHA-256 is a one way compression and furthermore the PoW for bitcoin doesn't require a match for the entire hash. There's loads of examples of this in the bitcoin network whenever there's been a fork and eventually orphaned blocks.

Those are different solutions to the puzzle. Nobody has ever published a sha-256 hash collision. It has happened once with sha-1.

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#69

Post by roboticmind »

lappa wrote: post #59
roboticmind wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The coin is proof of stake based. The rewards for BOINC come on top of staking. Each BOINC project that is rewarded has its stats looked up by a system of oracles and each node verifies that the oracles match up. The project themselves can be removed if they act up and there's a system for voting on which project to add and remove If you have any more questions feel free to ask me or check out the Gridcoin website ht…

In that case, why have proof of stake at all? Wouldn't it be simpler to just have the set of oracles alone facilitate the currency, since they already effectively have the power to?

The oracles don't have the power to completely run everything. With the current split for rewards, 25% of new coins is from just staking. As well, because new blocks are made only proof of stake, a 51% type attack would be also be much tougher for the oracles conspire and to pull off. Even if they tried to redirect 100% of research rewards (28750 GRC/day) to one address, it would take over 900 days to even reach the same amount as the address with the largest balance (~6% of current coin supply) [1].

Further, there's also more resiliency. If the oracles somehow broke or conspired and all said everyone did zero work, the network would still run. Now granted it would not be great that only previously pending research and PoS rewards would be given out, but you could still send coins, run polls, etc.

[1] https://main.gridcoinstats.eu/address/ (excluding the very largest one (the foundation) because it's multisig and can't stake. In its case it would take 1000 days to reach)

Re: Gridcoin: An open-source cryptocurrency that rewards volunteer computing

#70

Post by deeeeplearning »

Not to be that guy but did anyone read the 2 sentence wiki?

"Gridcoin attempts to address and ease the environmental energy impact of cryptocurrency mining through its proof-of-research and proof-of-stake protocols"

Feels like a quarter of the comments are complaining about PoW ...

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