Post
Topic
Board Bitcoin Discussion
Re: Annual 10% bitcoin dividends if mining were Proof-of-Stake
by
Siegfried
on 24/04/2014, 05:57:14 UTC
What you do is create a PoS "spin-off" from the bitcoin blockchain and try to legitimize it using your influence and economic power.  

The market will decide whether is succeeds or fails.  

I independently had a similar idea before I learned you were yet again ahead of me.

Here is the sort of similar idea. Clone all the Bitcoin source code to create XCoin. Cleanly add PoS as an option to PoW but turn off PoS. After sufficient testing, e.g. on a testnet, release XCoin clients in lock step with Bitcoind and Bitcoin Core clients. Operate on the existing blockchain where XCoin peers are otherwise indistinguishable from Bitcoin peers. I propose that XCoin clients inform users as to how much dividend they could receive if there were enough of them.

Spin-off the new PoS network by forking the blockchain given an overwhelming number of XCoin clients as compared to validating Bitcoin clients.



I was recently invited to give a talk on this very idea at Trader Steve's online bitcoin conference in June (http://gobc.co) and I intend to do so.  It is an exciting idea.    

I'd like to see us build infrastructure to take "snap-shots" of the unspent outputs in the bitcoin blockchain, and to create awareness around how one can use their existing bitcoin private keys to claim their share of any pre-mine in a "spin-off" coin.  This would make it much easier to create spin-offs (such as your 10% dividend PoS idea) to experiment with new methods of achieving consensus, and it would provide a Plan B in the extremely unlikely event that the network comes under unrelenting 51% attacks.  

This is one of the best ideas I have heard.