See the criticisms at http://www.reddit.com/r/CryptoCurrency/comments/1do96b/any_alternative_cryptocurrency_that_wants_to/c9s8vpt
Ok i’m not a dev for PPCoin so SunnyKing would be the one to answer fully this or correct me if I am wrong… but my understanding is…
PPCoin uses both POS and POW for security not just POS as suggested by the post in ur link.
Secondly I would like to point out as I was there at the time of PPCoin’s launch, and it was the most innovative alt currency released at the time… and in some ways still is… LTC was a hashing algorithm change, and PPCoin actually was the first developed currency that had POS which was worked on by sunnyking for some 8-12 months before the actual coin release. Only Freicoin after PPCoin actually offers anything new and different in the altcoins for new developments with demurging… all others are copies with variations on minor variances like block times etc
but this just my thoughts and info i have got from posts I have read… i see that killerstorm takes his analysis further so i guess this is where we wait for a response from SunnyKing… he has though stated many many times that this is a development project and we should all manage our investments accordingly
FuzzyBear
The OP from that post linked on Reddit claims to be one of the few people to have read through the source code of PPcoin in another post, I get the feeling he isn’t just blindly throwing around criticisms…however, we can’t know that until there is a response from PPC. Note, Sunny in part addressed this with his most recent update on bitcointalk.org
Generally speaking I refrain from responding to people with known extreme prejudice, that would give them too much credit, especially those who love to make personal attacks and smear campaigns. killerstorm is someone particularly deceiving to new users as he is a programmer with ego and likes to pose as some sort of authority on the matter. I have spent quite some time in the past to communicate the ideas to him, but he proved to be very prejudiced and couldn’t even agree to some of the basic principles of proof-of-stake, as described in the bitcoin wiki. That particular wiki page isn’t even ppcoin-friendly, as it only describes vaporware designs that failed to materialize to compete against ppcoin in the market.
Double spending is not costless under proof-of-stake, it’s not a free game for the rich stake owners. They are attacking their own holdings when they attempt double-spending. This is a simple principle both killerstorm and Jutarul failed to grasp. I don’t think they are the only ones that have read the source code. I get the feeling that our community is very technical inclined and plenty of users have good understanding of the principles behind proof-of-stake.
As the system matures, it would become harder and harder for anyone to attempt double-spending even if he is just a madman that wants to take down the network together with his own holdings.
Thanks for that response, Sunny. You’re right, its difficult when users throw jargon around to really see what they are talking about and it can be confusing.
You do not need to be a developer to see the reddit poster is bluffing. First, he starts with making wrong claims (“PPC is PoS only!!11!!”), then he goes on to attack method of communication by Sunny King … other claims are also “Fair and Balanced” like on Fox News channel. His speech reminds me of the Hannity show there, inflammatory, part-truths and outright lies.
I found the PPC design to be very elaborate, completely contrasting to the claims of “diletantism” on the Reddit post. Also, the reddit post hates something that is simply not there, just as Sunny King posted above.
Oh, you want more? Let’s troll!
“They ARE NOT developed by people who are truly capable of developing new cryptocurrencies.” - Oh, really? How about that retard Thomas Alva Edison? Should I not call him a retard? Why not? He was born with brain fever during a harsh winter and was very cruel to his parents too. All he did was to compete and work hard. He was the one “not truly capable” of anything great. So what he lacked in brains and in genius, he replaced by exceptionally hard work, strict work criteria, by being demanding to himself and the others and by doing elaborate research of papers and own experiments. Also, he cooperate only with the best of the best people.
Simply, the opening statement of the argument “major problem is that these alt-chains are developed by mediocre programmers” is faulty in so many ways! Edison did not have a single scientific patent invented by him, all his inventions were made by his employees. And yet many people celebrate that person as a genius, while in fact he was only a BOFH. {{citation needed}}
Then he (k.s.) goes on to argue things that do not correspond to the current reality in the slightest. What he says might have been true many months ago… but, never mind that, if you stop to kick every dog that barks at you, you won’t get anywhere. (Quite on the contrary, the dog keeps barking more and others will only join.)
If anybody desires fame here, it is the killerstorm, the envy of what other people, even the “mediocre programmers” achieved, from the article is obvious.
In closing statement: if I did not see PPC and useful, would I ask you for gifts in it? Many thanks.
If I’m understanding correctly, the given criticism is that “25% of active stake is required to be able to do a double-spend once per month.” The rebuttal is that “double spending is not costless,” or rather, without risk. The risk in this case would be the devaluation of the currency due to a double spend scandal. Is that correct?
[quote=“brian, post:7, topic:81”]If I’m understanding correctly, the given criticism is that “25% of active stake is required to be able to do a double-spend once per month.” The rebuttal is that “double spending is not costless,” or rather, without risk. The risk in this case would be the devaluation of the currency due to a double spend scandal. Is that correct?[/quote] I am really keen to find out whether this statement is true or false? “25% of active stake is required to be able to do a double-spend once per month”. And if this is true, is there any chance Sunny would redesign PPC or make any necessary improvement.
See, I don’t think this is a risk. This is an incentive to devalue the currency and fuck with the network the second any exchange allows PPC shorting.
In all honesty I can’t see how this coin WON’T be attacked by rational actors, especially those who hold the most and are capable of performing the most network-undermining attacks. It will be trivial for them to make a boatload of money by attacking and it’s very uncertain that they will make money by holding and perserving the integrity of the coin.
Correct me if I’m wrong.
See, I don’t think this is a risk. This is an incentive to devalue the currency and fuck with the network the second any exchange allows PPC shorting.
In all honesty I can’t see how this coin WON’T be attacked by rational actors, especially those who hold the most and are capable of performing the most network-undermining attacks. It will be trivial for them to make a boatload of money by attacking and it’s very uncertain that they will make money by holding and perserving the integrity of the coin.
Correct me if I’m wrong.[/quote]
If holding mature, stake-able coins was the only variable, I might agree with you. However, even if you’ve got a supra-minority or majority of the peercoins in existence, stringing together enough blocks to successfully double-spend isn’t a sure thing. Because each minter you are competing with has a shot to mint a block, regardless of how small their stake is, I just don’t see a string going in your favor. Take a look at the latest blocks that have been solved at www.peerchain.net; you’ll notice that the there are strings of blocks solved with stakes that are < 100 PPC in size. I know that there are many people attempting to mint right now with substantially larger stakes, so if it was a sure thing, they would always beat out those smaller stakes – but they aren’t.
Throw in the assurance that at least once every 10 - 120 minutes you’ll see a proof-of-work block solved on the network, and I just don’t see it as a realistic possibility (given my understanding of the protocol*) for someone to attack Peercoin using a 51% attack.
* Which, admittedly, isn’t deep enough yet that I can completely rule out the attack, but it appears to be on at least an order of magnitude higher difficulty than attacking a pure-PoW or pure-PoS scheme.
It’s not the difficulty of the attack you need to worry about. It’s the fact that it’s free to keep attempting it until it succeeds.
Yes somebody can keep trying to double spend with each block and at some point may succeed, but that doesn’t have to be problem if chances are low enough. Look this way, somebody also can keep guessing someone’s private key and eventually might succeed?
Important thing to notice is that chances decrease exponentially with each block!
If somebody can double spend once a month with 25% stake (I think much less is needed) chaining 6 blocks and doing double spend. Then how much time he would need to make 16 blocks long chain for double spend? It would be 1024 months. Or for 26 blocks 1 million months! So this isn’t real issue peercoin has much greater problems and is far far away from perfect but let’s hope Sunny will fix them in time.
See, I don’t think this is a risk. This is an incentive to devalue the currency and fuck with the network the second any exchange allows PPC shorting.
In all honesty I can’t see how this coin WON’T be attacked by rational actors, especially those who hold the most and are capable of performing the most network-undermining attacks. It will be trivial for them to make a boatload of money by attacking and it’s very uncertain that they will make money by holding and perserving the integrity of the coin.
Correct me if I’m wrong.[/quote]
The cost of a double spends are that you do not get your minting reward, if the attack does not go through. Imagine you have 25% of the active stack (maybe this is half the coin supply) and you accumulated coindays for 1 month. Then your minting reward is approximately 0.2521,173,5401/20.011/12~2000 PPC. Just imagine a future, where a Peercoin is worth 1000$, then this would be a big amount of money.
By the way, if one would own 25% of all Peercoins, one could make so much money by pumping and dumping, that one would never even consider doublespending!
I think this is a very interesting and valid point
Fuzzybear
See, I don’t think this is a risk. This is an incentive to devalue the currency and fuck with the network the second any exchange allows PPC shorting.
In all honesty I can’t see how this coin WON’T be attacked by rational actors, especially those who hold the most and are capable of performing the most network-undermining attacks. It will be trivial for them to make a boatload of money by attacking and it’s very uncertain that they will make money by holding and perserving the integrity of the coin.
Correct me if I’m wrong.[/quote]
The cost of a double spends are that you do not get your minting reward, if the attack does not go through. Imagine you have 25% of the active stack (maybe this is half the coin supply) and you accumulated coindays for 1 month. Then your minting reward is approximately 0.2521,173,5401/20.011/12~2000 PPC. Just imagine a future, where a Peercoin is worth 1000$, then this would be a big amount of money.
By the way, if one would own 25% of all Peercoins, one could make so much money by pumping and dumping, that one would never even consider doublespending![/quote]
Forget doublespending. We’re talking about shorting.
I’m just saying asking people to behave rationally is asking them to try to undermine this coin the second there’s a reliable market in which to short-sell. No matter what the price of the coin. I seriously can’t picture a scenario where a rational person wouldn’t do this because if they don’t do it first someone else will and then they will be on the short end of the stick.
edit: not to mention that this is going to require constant vigilance from ppc users who are posting stake to ensure that some random day there’s not some guy with 25% or more of all staked coins and bam, he double spends and fucks everything up for everyone. Right now you could have some weather event on the east coast, an earthquake in san francisco, a fucking terrorist attack at a data centre and the internet turns off in half the country. Oh no you are now at the mercy of some evil peercoin madman.
At least with large POW networks you’re obligated to mine the right fucking chain to get back all the various costs you’ve sunk into it. Ppc - who cares? Do whatever you want; if it works, fine, if it doesn’t, fine.
[quote=“Fusticator, post:15, topic:81”]Forget doublespending. We’re talking about shorting.
I’m just saying asking people to behave rationally is asking them to try to undermine this coin the second there’s a reliable market in which to short-sell. No matter what the price of the coin. I seriously can’t picture a scenario where a rational person wouldn’t do this because if they don’t do it first someone else will and then they will be on the short end of the stick.[/quote]
Isn’t that a concern with any form of asset that sees a consolidation into the hands of a few? How is Peercoin, specifically, more vulnerable to this type of attack? I agree with your assessment, but I’m not sure why this comes as a surprise, so I’m hoping that I’m not missing something obvious.
[quote=“Ben, post:16, topic:81”][quote=“Fusticator, post:15, topic:81”]Forget doublespending. We’re talking about shorting.
I’m just saying asking people to behave rationally is asking them to try to undermine this coin the second there’s a reliable market in which to short-sell. No matter what the price of the coin. I seriously can’t picture a scenario where a rational person wouldn’t do this because if they don’t do it first someone else will and then they will be on the short end of the stick.[/quote]
Isn’t that a concern with any form of asset that sees a consolidation into the hands of a few? How is Peercoin, specifically, more vulnerable to this type of attack? I agree with your assessment, but I’m not sure why this comes as a surprise, so I’m hoping that I’m not missing something obvious.[/quote]
Because it costs nothing to try.
With proof-of-work, you’ve already sunk a bunch of money into equipment, power, and time. There actually is a point where it’s simply not worth it to try even if you could accumulate enough hashing power.
Peercoin is vulnerable to someone who spent one week mining the first blocks and owns a massive amount of peercoin. He will never have to invest more money into the system; he will always have a chance of disrupting the system whenever it is convenient. If someone like Satoshi wants to disrupt the bitcoin ecosystem all he can do is dump coins and crash the market. His stake cannot be used to short without negating his ownership of all of his bitcoin.
I just found a quite interesting idea at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=354573.0:
In order for a 51% attack to be successful in a Proof-of-Work system, the attacker must keep their alternative chain secret. Once they have locked in the profits from their first spend, they can broadcast the longer secret block chain which will invalidate the original transaction. Keeping solved blocks secret is also used in the selfish-mining attack which can be effective with much less than 51% of the hashing power.In order to prevent this kind of behavior we must make it impractical for miners to maintain secret block chains. If every transaction that is broadcast contains the hash of a recent block and the block chain enforces the rule that the transaction can only be included in block chains that build off of that block then no one will be able to build secret block chains […]
[quote=“Fusticator, post:15, topic:81”]to ensure that some random day there’s not some guy with 25% or more of all staked coins and bam, he double spends and fucks everything up for everyone. Right now you could have some weather event on the east coast, an earthquake in san francisco, a fucking terrorist attack at a data centre and the internet turns off in half the country. Oh no you are now at the mercy of some evil peercoin madman.
At least with large POW networks you’re obligated to mine the right fucking chain to get back all the various costs you’ve sunk into it. Ppc - who cares? Do whatever you want; if it works, fine, if it doesn’t, fine.[/quote]
My head hurts with the excessive profanity. Is it really necessary Fusticator?
I agree, the swearing is aggressive. Let arguments be settled on their merit