(script draft) Peercoin Primer #2: Security

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

These videos are designed to be watched in any order, so feel free to jump directly to what most interests you. Today, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?


First, we should define some terms. In a proof of work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called Mining, but in proof of stake, it’s called Minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof of stake, that scarce resource is time, not electricity. Basically, the older the coins that you own are, the more time they’ve accumulated, which means the more power they have to participate in securing the network.

Let me explain. Let’s say you own 100 Peercoins, you’ve had them for 30 days, and you want to start minting. By the way, if you send them to another address, that timer starts over – they have to be holding still in order to start building up this “time”. So, after 30 days, your have 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old, so that’s 100 times 30, or 3000 days. Those coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. More coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your Peercoins before they can start minting, so that’s good to keep in mind. After your wallet is about one month old, it can start minting, but before that, nothing is going to happen. And after 90 days, the coins hit their maximum minting power. That’s actually a security feature – it keeps an attacker from storing up for years, and then having an overwhelming amount of minting power to take over the network. If you keep waiting after 90 days, you aren’t becoming more likely to produce a block, but your reward for minting, in terms of number of Peercoins you get, does still grow. We’ll get into that in more detail in the Economics video in this series.

One thing I really like about Proof of Stake is that you have to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to, say, Bitcoin Cash, which uses a mining algorithm called SHA 256. Anyone who has bitcoin mining equipment can use it to mine on Bitcoin Cash, or Bitcoin, or any other SHA 256 blockchain. But this means that the miners might not really care about securing Bitcoin Cash. They could choose to attack it at any time, and if it suffers, no problem, they can just switch to any other SHA 256 proof of work blockchain to keep making money with their equipment.

Not so with Peercoin. The only way to participate in securing Peercoin is by actually owning Peercoins, and that leaves you with a vested interest in the network. If anyone were to use their Peercoins to try to damage the network, they’d be hurting their own investment! This aligns the security of the network with its ownership, ensuring that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

Proof of Stake does have its critics, but there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into Proof of Stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of Proof of Stake.


If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

1 Like

Security

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

These videos are designed to be watched in any order, so feel free to jump directly to what most interests you . In this video , we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof of work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called Mining, but in proof of stake, it’s called Minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof of stake, that scarce resource is time, not electricity. Basically, the older the coins that you own are, the more time they’ve accumulated, which means the more power they have to participate in securing the network.

Let me explain. Let’s say you own 100 Peercoins, you’ve had them for 30 days, and you want to start minting. By the way, if you send them to another address, that timer starts over – they have to be holding still in order to start building up this “time”. So , After 30 days, you have 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old, so that’s 100 times 30, or 3000 days. Those coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. More coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Comment: the above paragraph uses 30 days as the example, and then the paragraph below refers to the 30-day minimum time. I wonder whether this dual use of 30 days is potentially confusing. Perhaps in the above example, we could start Let’s say you own 100 Peercoins, and you’ve been minting them for a couple of weeks - fourteen days and proceed from there.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your Peercoins before they can start minting, After your wallet is about 30 days old, it can start minting, but before that, you must wait until the 30 days has elapsed, so keep that in mind. If you send them to another address, that timer starts over and you have to wait another 30 days. This 30-day wait is a security feature because [ insert explanation ]. After your wallet is about 30 days old, it can start minting, but before that, nothing is going to happen .

Comment: it would be great to insert a line explaining how the 30-day wait is a security feature.

And after 90 days, the coins hit their maximum minting power. That’s also a security feature – it keeps an attacker from storing up coin age for years, and then having an overwhelming amount of minting power to attack the network. If you keep waiting after 90 days, you aren’t becoming more likely to produce a block, but your reward for minting, in terms of number of Peercoins you get, does still grow. We’ll get into that in more detail in the Economics video in this series.

Comment: I think the final two sentences (from “If you keep waiting”) are a little too complex. I would conclude it slightly differently: Once your peercoins have been in your wallet 30 days and start producing blocks, your minting reward will be new Peercoins, but we’ll get into that in more detail in the Economics video in this series.

One thing I really like about The fundamental reason why Peercoin’s Proof of Stake is a better security model than coins that rely on Proof of Work for security is that you have to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to, say, Bitcoin Cash, which uses a mining algorithm called SHA 256. Anyone who has bitcoin mining equipment can use it to mine on Bitcoin Cash, or Bitcoin, or any other SHA 256 blockchain. But this means that the miners might not really care about securing Bitcoin Cash. If Bitcoin Cash runs into trouble, or ceases to be profitable, miners can just switch to any other SHA 256 proof of work blockchain to keep making money with their equipment.

Comment: Does this problem not apply to Bitcoin and all POW coins? I think it would be better to make the argument against POW as a category, perhaps citing several prominent POW coins as examples.

Not so with Peercoin. The only way to participate in securing Peercoin is by actually owning Peercoins, which means those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a key difference between miners and minters - minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network . If anyone were to use their Peercoins to try to damage the network, they’d be hurting their own investment! By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof of stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

Comment: I suggest separating out the point about attackers hurting their own investment, because it raises a “what if?” scenario, and needs a paragraph of its own. Perhaps the question can be raised: “How would someone attack Peercoin?”. As I understand it, someone buying 51% of minting power is the POS equivalent of a 51% attack in bitcoin, so it can be said that Peercoin addresses this vunerability by listing the following: the 90-day cap on minting power, plus Peercoin’s fair distribution at origin, plus ongoing distribution via its mining (thanks to the combined POS-POW model - see previous video) - all of this works to prevent ownership by a single entity. The only other way is for an entity to buy most of the minting coins, which would push the price to astronomical levels, thereby preventing purchase. Perhaps a comparision can be made to someone trying to buy all bitcoin or all gold - possible, but not very likely! And if they did, they would destroy their own investment.

Proof of Stake does have its critics, but there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into Proof of Stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of Proof of Stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

My lengthy comment on the “what if?” attack scenario is a bit garbled, so I’ll have another go. I think a separate paragraph answering the question “How does Peercoin resist attack" is a great opportunity to re-iterate and summarise what has been said on the security model. Pulling the threads together.

I think the point for the video to get across is not so much that Peercoin has security features, but that Peercoin is secure by design - it had security built in from Day One with fair distribution to decentralise ownership of the network - and this decentralisation is maintained by the trickle of newly mined coins, discussed in the first video, and by the 90-day cap on minting power. That means an attacker can only proceed by buying the network, which would be about as plausible as someone buying most bitcoin or gold - and any attempt to do so would create the additional defence of a sharply rising price.

I’m not sure we should say, it would “destroy their own investment” because that would be conceding it would be possible for an attacker to get that far.

Security

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

In this video, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called mining, but in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, it’s called minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, that scarce resource is time, not electricity. Basically, the older your coins are, the more time they’ve accumulated sitting in your wallet. Coins with a higher time accumulation have more power to participate in securing the network.

Let me explain. Let’s say you own 100 peercoins, and you want to start minting new blocks. After sitting in your wallet for 30 days, you will have accumulated 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old. So that is 100 times 30, which equals 3000 days. These coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. Accumulating more coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your peercoins before they can become eligible to start minting, so keep that in mind. If you send your coins to another address, that timer will start over and you’ll have to wait another 30 days. This 30 day wait is actually a security feature that prevents a minter from being able to consistently produce blocks one after another, over and over again. Every time a block is minted, you will earn new peercoin as a reward and the age of the participating coins will reset to zero, instituting another 30 day wait time.

After 90 days, peercoins will hit their maximum minting power. This is also a security feature as it prevents an attacker from being able to store up coin age for years, which would allow them to accumulate such an overwhelming amount of minting power that they may be able to attack the network. After this 90 day period of time however, a minter’s stake reaches maturity and their chances of minting a new block are maxed out, preventing the possibility of such an attack.

One of the fundamental reasons why Peercoin’s proof-of-stake is a better security model than blockchains that rely on proof-of-work is that you need to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to, say, any of the different versions of Bitcoin, which use a mining algorithm called SHA 256. Anyone who has bitcoin mining equipment can use it to mine on, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, or any other SHA 256 blockchain.

However, since miners are mainly invested in their equipment rather than the coins of a specific cryptocurrency, the miner may lack loyalty for any individual network, causing them to not really care about which blockchain they secure as long as they’re making money. Mining is a business after all, and its main goal is earning a profit. If Bitcoin Cash for example runs into trouble, or ceases to be profitable, miners can just switch to any other SHA 256 proof-of-work blockchain to keep making money with their equipment. The possibility of a blockchain losing its security over time if it doesn’t keep its miners happy is inherently built into the proof-of-work security model.

Not so with Peercoin. The only way to participate in securing Peercoin is by actually owning peercoins, which means those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a key difference between miners and minters. Proof-of-stake minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network. By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof-of-stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

So how does Peercoin resist attack? The resetting of coin age and the 30 day wait prevents continuous minting by the same people. The 90 day cap prevents stockpiling large amounts of coin age. Continuous proof-of-work rewards provide a slow trickle of newly mined coins that help decentralize ownership of the network over time. Essentially, the only way an attacker can proceed is by attempting to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible as it would cost the attacker a staggering amount of money and put their entire investment at risk. As you can see, Peercoin is secure by design, as it was built with a number of mechanisms that help discourage minters from attaining a monopoly over its security process.

And there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into proof-of-stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of proof-of-stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

1 Like

@RobertLloyd I think I may be done with this script. Please review my post above. It took me about 6 minutes and 30 seconds to read it out loud, but I’m not used to doing this, so maybe Chronos can make better time. I don’t think we should add anything else to it, as it would extend the time of the video.

I changed the wording slightly so it sounds less harsh, simply that it would cost a staggering amount of money and put their entire investment at risk.

Ok I lied. I made one more pass through the script with the goal of shortening it. I was able to delete a number of non-vital words or sentences. It should help shave off maybe 30-45 seconds from the clock.

I think I understand all minting process by reading those lines!
Good job really great and simple explanation! 90-days maxed out was not easy to understand at first but with network security example it helps making the connection between the two and why it’s necessary. Comparing electricity and time for PoW and PoS consensus is also very good.

I’m really looking forward those videos.

Keep it up!

1 Like

Once again, here is the updated version with included edit formatting.


Security

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

In this video, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called mining, but in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, it’s called minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, that scarce resource is time, not electricity. Basically, the older your coins are, the more time they’ve accumulated sitting in your wallet. Coins with a higher time accumulation have more power to participate in securing the network.

Let me explain. Let’s say you own 100 peercoins, and you want to start minting new blocks. After sitting in your wallet for 30 days, you will have accumulated 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old. So that is 100 times 30, which equals 3000 days. These coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. Accumulating more coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your peercoins before they can become eligible to start minting, so keep that in mind. After your wallet is 30 days old, it can start minting, but before that, you must wait until the 30 days has elapsed, so keep that in mind If you send your coins to another address, that timer will start over and you’ll have to wait another 30 days. This 30 day wait is actually a security feature that prevents a minter from being able to consistently produce blocks one after another, over and over again. Every time a block is minted, you will earn new peercoin as a reward and the age of the participating coins will reset to zero, instituting another 30 day wait time.

[I added the part about earning a reward from minting to the paragraph above. Previously it was after the 90 day wait explanation]

And After 90 days, peercoins will hit their maximum minting power. This is also a security feature as it prevents an attacker from being able to store up coin age for years, which would allow them to accumulate such an overwhelming amount of minting power that they may be able to overpower the network. After this 90 day period of time however, a minter’s stake reaches maturity and their chances of minting a new block are maxed out, preventing the possibility of such an attack.

One of the fundamental reasons why Peercoin’s proof-of-stake is a better security model than blockchains that rely on proof-of-work for security is that you need to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to, say, any of the different versions of Bitcoin, which use a mining algorithm called SHA 256. Anyone who has bitcoin mining equipment can use it to mine on, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash, Bitcoin SV, or any other SHA 256 blockchain.

However, since miners are mainly invested in their equipment rather than the coins of a specific cryptocurrency, the miner may lack loyalty for any individual network, causing them to not really care about which blockchain they secure as long as they’re making money. Mining is a business after all, and its main goal is earning a profit. If Bitcoin Cash for example runs into trouble, or ceases to be profitable, miners can just switch to any other SHA 256 proof-of-work blockchain to keep making money with their equipment. The possibility of a blockchain losing its security over time if it doesn’t keep its miners happy is inherently built into the proof-of-work security model.

Not so with Peercoin. The only way to participate in securing Peercoin is by actually owning peercoins, which means those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a key difference between miners and minters. Proof-of-stake minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network. By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof-of-stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

So how does Peercoin resist attack? The resetting of coin age and the 30 day wait prevents continuous minting by the same people. The 90 day cap prevents stockpiling large amounts of coin age. Continuous proof-of-work rewards provide a slow trickle of newly mined coins that help decentralize ownership of the network over time. Essentially, the only way an attacker can proceed is by attempting to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible as it would cost the attacker a staggering amount of money and put their entire investment at risk. As you can see, Peercoin is secure by design, as it was built with a number of mechanisms that help discourage minters from being able to attain a monopoly over its security process.

And there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into proof-of-stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of proof-of-stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

This one is way too long. It’s gonna need some reworking almost no matter what, so I may as well wade into it a little.

Maybe you can do this with just one sentence and an equation animation that appears on the screen? Or a whiteboard or pen and paper or something?

It might be good to mention here that you might want to split up your coins into multiple outputs to avoid moving them. There may be a more eloquent way to do this whole paragraph, using the word ‘outputs’.

You might be able to delete this whole section. Saying it reaches maximum minting power to prevent an attacker from storing up for years might be enough. Don’t use ‘maturity’, as the wallet software uses the word mature to mean the 30-day interval.

‘Proof-of-stake is secure because…’
You already talk about comparing it to bitcoin. Also, you can probably combine the two mining sentences here by removing the word ‘SHA256’ and just saying ‘Compare this to the different versions of Bitcoin like Cash or SV where anyone with bitcoin mining equipment can easily jump from one network to the other’.

Replace this paragraph with something simpler about how miners are a third-party organization and not out for the benefit of the chain.

The various aspects of Peercoin’s protocol require an attacker to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible at best and impossible if the stakeholders will not sell. Peercoin is secure by design and was built to prevent any one party from gaining a monopoly over its consensus protocol.

Thanks @Nagalim. You’re right. It is too long. I’m currently looking into implementing some of your feedback to shorten it.

Here is an updated and shortened version.


Security

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

In this video, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called mining, but in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, it’s called minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, that scarce resource is time, not electricity. Basically, the older your coins are, the more time they’ve accumulated sitting in your wallet. Coins with a higher time accumulation have more power to participate in securing the network.

Let me explain. Let’s say you own 100 peercoins, and you want to start minting new blocks. After sitting in your wallet for 30 days, you will have accumulated 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old. So that is 100 times 30, which equals 3000 days. These coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. Accumulating more coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

[I think the point is made clearly in the previous sentence without having to actually do the math problem. Removing it shortens the text some]

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your peercoins before they can become eligible to start minting, so keep that in mind. After your wallet is 30 days old, it can start minting, but before that, you must wait until the 30 days has elapsed, so keep that in mind If you send your coins to another address, that timer will start over and you’ll have to wait another 30 days. This 30 day wait is actually a security feature that prevents a minter from being able to consistently produce blocks one after another, over and over again. Every time a block is minted, you will earn new peercoin as a reward and the age of the participating coins will reset to zero, instituting another 30 day wait time.

[I added the part about earning a reward from minting to the paragraph above. Previously it was after the 90 day wait explanation]

And After 90 days, peercoins will hit their maximum minting power. This is also a security feature as it prevents an attacker from being able to overpower the network by storing up coin age for years.

One of the fundamental reasons why Peercoin’s proof-of-stake is a better security model than coins that rely on proof-of-work for security is that you Peercoin is secure is because you need to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to, say, Bitcoin Cash, which uses a mining algorithm called SHA 256. Anyone who has bitcoin mining equipment can use it to mine on Bitcoin Cash, or Bitcoin, or any other SHA 256 blockchain. Compare this to the different versions of Bitcoin like Cash or SV where anyone with bitcoin mining equipment can easily jump from one network to another, without showing any loyalty. Miners are third party organizations which exist separately from the blockchains they are securing. Their primary motivation is not looking out for the benefit of the network, but earning a profit. If Bitcoin Cash for example ran into trouble, or ceased to be profitable, miners would have no qualms about abandoning it and switching their equipment over to another more profitable network.

Not so with Peercoin. The only way to participate in securing Peercoin is by actually owning peercoins, which means those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a key difference between miners and minters. Proof-of-stake minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network. By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof-of-stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

Ultimately, Peercoin is able to resist attack so well because the various aspects of its protocol require an attacker to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible at best and impossible if the stakeholders will not sell. Peercoin is secure by design and was built to prevent any one party from gaining a monopoly over its consensus protocol.

And there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into proof-of-stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of proof-of-stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

Also, here is a version without the formatting so you can more clearly see how long it is.


Security

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

In this video, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called mining, but in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, it’s called minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, that scarce resource is time, not electricity. Basically, the older your coins are, the more time they’ve accumulated sitting in your wallet. Coins with a higher time accumulation have more power to participate in securing the network.

Let’s say you own 100 peercoins, and you want to start minting new blocks. After sitting in your wallet for 30 days, you will have accumulated 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old. These coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. Accumulating more coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your peercoins before they can become eligible to start minting, so keep that in mind. If you send your coins to another address, that timer will start over and you’ll have to wait another 30 days. This 30 day wait is actually a security feature that prevents a minter from being able to consistently produce blocks one after another, over and over again. Every time a block is minted, you will earn new peercoin as a reward and the age of the participating coins will reset to zero, instituting another 30 day wait time.

After 90 days, peercoins will hit their maximum minting power. This is also a security feature as it prevents an attacker from being able to overpower the network by storing up coin age for years.

One of the fundamental reasons why Peercoin is secure is because you need to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to the different versions of Bitcoin like Cash or SV where anyone with bitcoin mining equipment can easily jump from one network to another, without showing any loyalty. Miners are third party organizations which exist separately from the blockchains they are securing. Their primary motivation is not looking out for the benefit of the network, but earning a profit. If Bitcoin Cash for example ran into trouble, or ceased to be profitable, miners would have no qualms about abandoning it and switching their equipment over to another more profitable network.

Not so with Peercoin. The only way to participate in securing Peercoin is by actually owning peercoins, which means those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a key difference between miners and minters. Proof-of-stake minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network. By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof-of-stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

Ultimately, Peercoin is able to resist attack so well because the various aspects of its protocol require an attacker to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible at best and impossible if the stakeholders will not sell. Peercoin is secure by design and was built to prevent any one party from gaining a monopoly over its consensus protocol.

And there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into proof-of-stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of proof-of-stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

1 Like

By the way, I did not add the output language, because without an explanation of what an output is, the beginners watching this video will be confused. We’re trying to shorten the text, so there is no room to fit in additional explanations.

My read through of the updated version took exactly 5 minutes, which is pretty much exactly where we want to be.

I have copied-pasted the above text, with suggested amendments below in the usual way.

+++

Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Legacy

In this video, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin, creating new blocks is called are created by mining, but in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, new blocks are created by it’s called minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, that scarce resource is not electricity, but time not electricity . Basically, the older your coins are, the more time they’ve accumulated sitting in your wallet. Coins with a higher time accumulation have more power to participate in securing the network.

Let’s say you own 100 peercoins, and you want to start minting new blocks. After sitting in your wallet for 30 days, you will have accumulated 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old. These coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. Accumulating more coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your peercoins in your wallet before they can become eligible to start minting, so keep that in mind. If you send your coins to another address, that timer will start over and you’ll have to wait another 30 days. This 30 day wait is actually a security feature that prevents a minter from being able to consistently continually produce blocks, one after another, over and over again . This helps decentralise minting power . Every time a block is minted, you will earn new peercoins as a reward and the age of the participating coins will reset to zero, instituting another 30 day wait time.

Note: I think the part commencing “This 30 day what is actually a security feature” is in the wrong place. This explanation should at the end of the paragraph (after the sentence starting “Every time a block is minted”).

After 90 days, peercoins will hit their maximum minting power. This is also a security feature as it prevents a potential attacker from being able to overpower accumulate power in the network by storing up coin age for years over an extended period .

Note: we’ve gone from general prevention of centralisation to “preventing an attack”, which is quite a sharp escalation. The above change in wording seeks to blend in this transition.

One of the fundamental reasons why Peercoin is secure is because you need to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to the different versions of Bitcoin like Cash or SV where anyone with bitcoin mining equipment can easily jump from one network to another, without showing any loyalty.

Note: if technically correct, I am wondering if we can widen this point by changing “ … different versions of Bitcoin like Cash or SV where anyone with bitcoin mining equipment can…” to “… different versions of proof of work like Bitcoin or Litecoin where anyone with proof of work mining equipment can…”

Miners are third party organizations which exist separately from the blockchains they are securing. Their primary motivation is not looking out for the benefit of the network, but earning a profit. If Bitcoin Cash for example ran into trouble, or ceased to be profitable, miners would have no qualms about could abandon in g it and switch ing their equipment over to another a different and more profitable network.

Not so with Peercoin The only way to participate in securing Peercoin which is secured by actually owning peercoins, which means meaning that those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a key fundamental difference between miners and minters. Proof-of-stake minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network. By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof-of-stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

Ultimately, Peercoin is able to resist attack so well because the various aspects of its protocol requires an attacker to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible at best and impossible if the stakeholders will not sell. Peercoin is secure by design and was built to prevent any one party from gaining a monopoly over its consensus protocol.

Note: I think the above paragraph needs to be swapped around: Ultimately, Peercoin is able to resist attack because it is secure by design - designed to prevent any one party from gaining a monopoly over its consensus protocol. This means any attacker is forced to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible at best, and impossible if the stakeholders do not sell.

And there’s one more simple fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself just by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into proof-of-stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of proof-of-stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

1 Like

Edits by @RobertLloyd look excellent, including the italic comments. Additional suggestions below.

Simplify pronoun.

Improve verb tense.

Remove phrase:

Remove reference to political fork:


Looking good!

2 Likes

Can make this point, but without referring to the Lindy Effect by name?

I think that’s cute piece of trivia.

Here is the finalized version of script 2. I’ve implemented most of the feedback. @Chronos you are ok to move forward with recording.


Hi, I’m Chronos, and welcome to Part 2 of the Peercoin Primer. Peercoin is one of the world’s most established cryptocurrencies, and each video in this series will explore a different aspect of it.

Show overview onscreen:

  • Part 1: Launch
  • Part 2: Security
  • Part 3: Benefits
  • Part 4: Economics
  • Part 5: Mission

In this video, we’re going to take a deep dive into the security model of Peercoin: what is Proof of Stake, and how exactly does it work on the Peercoin blockchain?

First, we should define some terms. In a proof-of-work blockchain like Bitcoin, new blocks are created by mining, but in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, new blocks are created by minting. With mining, participants use processing power to create new coins, and electricity is the scarce resource that is used to secure the network. But in Peercoin’s proof-of-stake, that scarce resource is not electricity, but time. Basically, the older your coins are, the more time they’ve accumulated sitting in your wallet. Coins with a higher time accumulation have more power to participate in securing the network.

Let’s say you own 100 peercoins, and you want to start minting new blocks. After sitting in your wallet for 30 days, you will have accumulated 3000 “coin days”, because each of those 100 coins is 30 days old. These coin days are the actual minting power of your coins. You can think of your coin days as kind of like your hash rate from traditional mining. Accumulating more coin days means you’re more likely to produce a new block on the chain.

Now, 30 days is actually the minimum time you need to hold your peercoins in your wallet before they can become eligible to start minting, so keep that in mind. If you send your coins to another address, that timer will start over and you’ll have to wait another 30 days. Every time a block is minted, you will earn new peercoins as a reward and the age of the participating coins will reset to zero, instituting another 30 day wait time. This 30 day wait is actually a security feature that prevents a minter from being able to continually produce blocks, one after another. It helps decentralize minting power.

After 90 days, peercoins hit their maximum minting power. This is also a security feature as it prevents a potential attacker from being able to accumulate power in the network by storing up coin age over an extended period.

One of the fundamental reasons why Peercoin is secure is because you need to be invested in the network in order to participate. Compare this to the different versions of Bitcoin, like Bitcoin Cash, where anyone with bitcoin mining equipment can easily jump from one network to another, without showing any loyalty.

Miners are third party organizations which exist separately from the blockchains they are securing. Their primary motivation is not the benefit of the network, but earning a profit. If Bitcoin Cash for example ran into trouble, miners could abandon it and switch their equipment over to a different and more profitable network.

Not so with Peercoin, which is secured by actually owning peercoins, meaning that those with responsibility for maintaining the network are the coin holders themselves, rather than a separate party, such as miners. This is a fundamental difference between miners and minters. Proof-of-stake minters have a vested interest in maintaining the network. By aligning the security of the network with its ownership, proof-of-stake ensures that those who keep the Peercoin blockchain secure have its best interests in mind.

Ultimately, Peercoin is able to resist attack because it is secure by design - designed to prevent any one party from gaining a monopoly over its consensus protocol. This means any attacker is forced to buy the network from current stakeholders, a task which is implausible at best, and impossible if the stakeholders do not sell.

And there’s one more fact to consider: Peercoin is thriving. At the time of this recording, the Peercoin network has been going strong for almost seven years. That’s really old for a blockchain! There’s actually a name for this phenomenon: the Lindy Effect. It says that the longer something lasts, the longer it can be expected to last, because it has been proving itself by surviving. For things that don’t wear out, like ideas, or governments, or blockchains, that really makes sense when you think about it.

Anyway, if you want to dig deeper into proof-of-stake, I definitely recommend you to take a look at the Peercoin University at university.peercoin.net. It has a lot of great articles with a ton more detail on the topic. In the meantime, let’s jump to the next video, the Benefits of proof-of-stake.

If you have any questions or comments, post below the video. I’m Chronos. Thanks for watching!

I did not implement this because Bitcoin and Litecoin run on different mining algorithms. Litecoin is scrypt mining, so miners cannot simply switch from Bitcoin to Litecoin.

I am unsure what to do about this part @Chronos, since video 3 will not be immediately available for them to jump to. I’m just letting you know in case you have a good solution for it.