Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: incentivize fragmentation of mining pools to mitigate threat of 51% attack?
by
BTCtrader71
on 28/01/2015, 22:40:57 UTC
There is no way that any of this is going to be implemented in Bitcoin.  It would be nearly impossible to get a consensus on such a scheme (identifying nodes, changing the inflation schedule, etc).  I assume at this point, you're trying to design a Bitcoin replacement alt-coin?

I am just trying to solve an interesting and significant problem. I have no aspirations to create an alt-coin of my own. I'd be happy for anyone to implement it as they see fit -- bitcoin, some alt coin, whoever wants it. But of course it is premature for me to speculate who might want to implement something that I am still merely brainstorming. Ultimately you may be right that my scheme would require drastic changes to the bitcoin protocol and would only be feasible for an alt, but I would strive to require as few changes to the existing bitcoin protocol as are absolutely necessary.

Nodes are not identified.  There is no centralized control that can identify anything about a node at all.  The network is entirely peer-to-peer.

Perhaps the destination address of the block reward could be used as a proxy to distinguish different nodes? This would require reusing the same destination address so an individual node could maintain its identity over time. (Of course this requires that a single node has an incentive to maintain a recognizable identity that is stable over time, and that is the whole point of my scheme so far. I need to learn more about the structure and inner workings of the blockchain to know if any of this makes sense and I apologize if this is coming out as nonsensical blather ... ).

Also, I would strive not to change the inflation schedule. Perhaps the extra reward I am talking about could be carved out of the existing reward?? ...

OR: perhaps the ante would involve, not only a PoW, but also a small payment in bitcoin, and that is what is used to fund my whole scheme. No change in the inflation schedule necessary!