1/ Nice to see more in-depth articles investigating the extremely important role randomness plays in blockchains
h/t @aparnalocked
However, IMO this analysis of randomness is incomplete
https://www.tokendaily.co/blog/randomness-in-blockchains …
2/ This analysis only focuses on the superficial role of randomness in Nakamoto consensus: solving the leader-election problem. But solving the leader-election problem is only half the battle.
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3/ There’s a much, much bigger role randomness plays in Nakamoto consensus beyond leader election: "unforgeable costliness". h/t
@NickSzabo4 again for the term.Show this thread -
4/ Randomness is what allows PoW mechanism to approximate energy burnt in the creation of blocks. This burnt energy secures the chain from past AND future attacks. I explored this role randomness plays in Bitcoin in my recent article:https://medium.com/@hugonguyen/bitcoin-chance-and-randomness-ba49a6edf933 …
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5/ Bitcoin is past-proof because it would cost an attacker an enormous amount of energy & money to forge an alternative chain with a higher cumulative difficulty. Thanks to randomness-based PoW.
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6/ Bitcoin is future-proof because it would provide an automated way for network nodes to come to consensus in the case of a network split, whether it's intentional or accidental (e.g., a network partition). Thanks again to randomness-based PoW.
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7/ Naive randomness mechanisms in PoS protocols do not give you either of these protections. PoS inevitably requires the intervention of trusted 3rd parties and significantly increases the social attack surface. In other words, PoS is nowhere near as trust-minimized as PoW.
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8/ In summary, randomness in PoW solves *two* crucial problems: a/ Leader-election b/ Unforgeable costliness Leader-election is only half the battle, arguably the less important half.
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9/ P.S. For a list of my writings on the problems with PoS:https://twitter.com/hugohanoi/status/1021831408489136128 …
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End of conversation
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Yes, this is a multi part article. The goal of this article was to solely focus on randomness for leader election in PoS. PoW is more an example, less the main focus of the article.
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