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I am looking for some feedback on, Radpool https://radpool.xyz , a new design to resist mining centralisation by building a syndicate of nodes acting as mining service providers, or MSPs. These MSPs are similar to P2Pool servers.
The design decentralises template generation away from a centralised pools while reducing payouts for miners in a scalable manner.
Independent Block Templates and Stratum Services
MSPs independently build blocks and can follow any policies for building block templates. MSPs can run stratum v1 or v2 servers, where miners build the templates. A radpool node implementation will provide this optionality out of the box by using FOSS community implementations where possible. All MSPs can be seen as mini centralised pool that are collaborating using Radpool mining syndicate to reduce all their miner's payout variance.
Payout Mechanism With Unilateral Exit
The MSPs fund DLC contracts to pay miners based on their miner's hashrate. These contracts are settled at fixed, well known intervals. MSPs with enough hashrate generate attestations using FROST threshold signatures to settle these DLC contracts. The MSPs in turn get the payout from the coinbase of the pool's blocks using PPLNS. The MSPs thus absorb the risk of variance in block discovery and earn a yield for providing this service to the miners. Most importantly MSPs can't bail out of their contract as the syndicate will publish an attestation anyway to pay the miner for it's work. This results in guaranteed payouts for miners as long as the syndicate is operational and the miner can connect to at least one MSP. See [Payout Mechanism](https://www.radpool.xyz/1/payout-mechanism.html) for details.
Yield for MSPs
Anyone with capital for funding DLC contracts can run an MSP - they need to attract miners to earn a yield though. As the network grows, the miner's variance reduces and the MSP's return on their capital increases. We believe this does two things 1) creates an open market for pool fees and 2) encourages MSPs to grow the network. This is a classic network effect - each additional MSP or miner increases the utility for everyone else on the network.
Design Space
The Radpool design sits in the middle of centralised pools on one end, and p2p pools on the other end where miners have to run services at the network edges. Instead, with Radpool, MSPs run an open syndicate and miners connect to an MSP just like they would connect to a centralised pool. See FROST Membership https://www.radpool.xyz/1/frost-federation.html#_membership section for details.
The Key Features of Radpool
1. Block template construction is decentralised as each MSP builds an independent blocktemplate for their miners.
2. MSPs pay miners over futures contract built using DLCs. Miners get paid for their hashrate at fixed intervals - think of this as decentralised FPPS.
3. Radpool acts as an oracle where a threshold number of MSPs generate the attestation required to settle DLCs.
4. MSPs earn a yield in exchange of locking capital that funds miner payouts.
5. Share accounting is transparent to anyone who connects to receive data, making the pool fully auditable.
6. The payout mechanism allows unilateral exits for miners and MSPs.
7. Switching to Radpool from current centralised pools has zero friction for miners - i.e. miners don't have to run any additional
services if they don't want to.
Progress
We are tracking progress on Radpool github project https://github.com/users/pool2win/projects/13/).
My current focus is on the FROST Federation https://github.com/pool2win/frost-federation for providing the federation of MSPs.
We have a Discord https://discord.gg/SUbYfBzq5g , if you want to come chat. We'd like to discover as many attacks possible as early as possible
Thanks
The design decentralises template generation away from a centralised pools while reducing payouts for miners in a scalable manner.
Independent Block Templates and Stratum Services
MSPs independently build blocks and can follow any policies for building block templates. MSPs can run stratum v1 or v2 servers, where miners build the templates. A radpool node implementation will provide this optionality out of the box by using FOSS community implementations where possible. All MSPs can be seen as mini centralised pool that are collaborating using Radpool mining syndicate to reduce all their miner's payout variance.
Payout Mechanism With Unilateral Exit
The MSPs fund DLC contracts to pay miners based on their miner's hashrate. These contracts are settled at fixed, well known intervals. MSPs with enough hashrate generate attestations using FROST threshold signatures to settle these DLC contracts. The MSPs in turn get the payout from the coinbase of the pool's blocks using PPLNS. The MSPs thus absorb the risk of variance in block discovery and earn a yield for providing this service to the miners. Most importantly MSPs can't bail out of their contract as the syndicate will publish an attestation anyway to pay the miner for it's work. This results in guaranteed payouts for miners as long as the syndicate is operational and the miner can connect to at least one MSP. See [Payout Mechanism](https://www.radpool.xyz/1/payout-mechanism.html) for details.
Yield for MSPs
Anyone with capital for funding DLC contracts can run an MSP - they need to attract miners to earn a yield though. As the network grows, the miner's variance reduces and the MSP's return on their capital increases. We believe this does two things 1) creates an open market for pool fees and 2) encourages MSPs to grow the network. This is a classic network effect - each additional MSP or miner increases the utility for everyone else on the network.
Design Space
The Radpool design sits in the middle of centralised pools on one end, and p2p pools on the other end where miners have to run services at the network edges. Instead, with Radpool, MSPs run an open syndicate and miners connect to an MSP just like they would connect to a centralised pool. See FROST Membership https://www.radpool.xyz/1/frost-federation.html#_membership section for details.
The Key Features of Radpool
1. Block template construction is decentralised as each MSP builds an independent blocktemplate for their miners.
2. MSPs pay miners over futures contract built using DLCs. Miners get paid for their hashrate at fixed intervals - think of this as decentralised FPPS.
3. Radpool acts as an oracle where a threshold number of MSPs generate the attestation required to settle DLCs.
4. MSPs earn a yield in exchange of locking capital that funds miner payouts.
5. Share accounting is transparent to anyone who connects to receive data, making the pool fully auditable.
6. The payout mechanism allows unilateral exits for miners and MSPs.
7. Switching to Radpool from current centralised pools has zero friction for miners - i.e. miners don't have to run any additional
services if they don't want to.
Progress
We are tracking progress on Radpool github project https://github.com/users/pool2win/projects/13/).
My current focus is on the FROST Federation https://github.com/pool2win/frost-federation for providing the federation of MSPs.
We have a Discord https://discord.gg/SUbYfBzq5g , if you want to come chat. We'd like to discover as many attacks possible as early as possible
Thanks
⭐ Merited by NotATether (1)
Started work on specifying layer two bitcoin contracts using TLA+. The first goal is of course LN. However, writing LN contracts first requires specifying a bitcoin transactions module.
Repo: https://github.com/pool2win/bitcoin-contracts-tlaplus
BitcoinTransactions module: https://github.com/pool2win/bitcoin-contracts-tlaplus/blob/main/BitcoinTransactions.pdf
LNContracts module (soon to start using BitcoinTransactions module): https://github.com/pool2win/bitcoin-contracts-tlaplus/blob/main/LNContracts.pdf
I'll keep you posted on the progress. We already have the commitment transactions speced and next step is to spec the HTLC outputs in the commitment transactions.
Repo: https://github.com/pool2win/bitcoin-contracts-tlaplus
BitcoinTransactions module: https://github.com/pool2win/bitcoin-contracts-tlaplus/blob/main/BitcoinTransactions.pdf
LNContracts module (soon to start using BitcoinTransactions module): https://github.com/pool2win/bitcoin-contracts-tlaplus/blob/main/LNContracts.pdf
I'll keep you posted on the progress. We already have the commitment transactions speced and next step is to spec the HTLC outputs in the commitment transactions.
I recently learned about TLA+ and are asking myself if Satoshi used this for the design of concurrent and distributed systems like BitCoin?
http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/tla.html
http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/hyperbook.html
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/lamport-spec-tla-plus.pdf
http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/tla.html
http://lamport.azurewebsites.net/tla/hyperbook.html
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/lamport/pubs/lamport-spec-tla-plus.pdf
Are all pools running non open source stratum implementations?
I was kind of expecting to find some open source implementations of Stratum servers.
Seems like all pools are running some proprietary closed source servers. Is that really the case? I hope I am missing something here.
The only FOSS implementations is from Slush, but the last commit is from Dec 2016. https://github.com/slush0/stratum-mining
The other one is from braiins (slush again). https://github.com/braiins/braiins/tree/bos-devel/open/protocols/stratum/src/v1. Is this used by any pools in production?
Any pointers will be really helpful.
Thanks
Seems like all pools are running some proprietary closed source servers. Is that really the case? I hope I am missing something here.
The only FOSS implementations is from Slush, but the last commit is from Dec 2016. https://github.com/slush0/stratum-mining
The other one is from braiins (slush again). https://github.com/braiins/braiins/tree/bos-devel/open/protocols/stratum/src/v1. Is this used by any pools in production?
Any pointers will be really helpful.
Thanks
⭐ Merited by TimeTeller (1)
I like the idea,but building a game from scratch isn't easy at all.
If the game isn't entertaining enough,nobody would bother playing (even if it's really informative).
A game with asking and answering questions seems really boring.Kids and teenagers simply won't be interested into such game. Do you have any concepts about the game design?
Will you outsource this to a game developer?Do you have a budget?How do you plan to fund this project?
If the game isn't entertaining enough,nobody would bother playing (even if it's really informative).
A game with asking and answering questions seems really boring.Kids and teenagers simply won't be interested into such game. Do you have any concepts about the game design?
Will you outsource this to a game developer?Do you have a budget?How do you plan to fund this project?
I am self funding this for now. I am a developer, and have picked up Unity2D just for this project.
I am commissioning an artist to provide artwork. I do think the getting the artwork right will be key.
Self funding for now. I am hoping to get the first few missions out and then look for some donations to continue to the advanced levels.
This is a good idea! But why would an ordinary person want to install this app? Especially if this person believes that fiat money is better than cryptocurrency.
I agree with you, installing apps is a big friction point.
That is why I am undecided if I should deliver it as a mobile app or a in browser experience. I am using unity2d and for now working hard to support both mobile and mouse/keyboard inputs.
A game that would teach others about BTC is a good idea but the difficulty would be sharing it with the people that need it most.
People on Herr already know about BTC at some extend so that hardest part of the project is reaching the right audience and getting them to play the game?
How do you suggest or how do you plan on doing this?
People on Herr already know about BTC at some extend so that hardest part of the project is reaching the right audience and getting them to play the game?
How do you suggest or how do you plan on doing this?
Marketing is always a challenge.
My plan is to spread the word amongst people who know about bitcoin and want to help their friends and family understand bitcoin a little bit.
That is why feedback and game testing from people who know about a bitcoin, for example the people here, is important part of my development plans.
As a fallback, I plan to approach bitcoin exchanges and sell them the idea of making the game available to their users or use the game as a tool for acquiring new users.
The fallback plan is really a plan to use in case everything else fails. I would love to see the community finding the tool/app/game I am developing to be a useful thing.
I would go with anonymity and privacy. As you said, the goal consumer of this game is just normal people that do not know what bitcoin or crypto currencies are and they prefer to keep their personal information to themselves. I think only a group of people will be interested in a story-driven game that you are planning if you ask me you should aim for something addicting, simple but addicting games. Though that would be hard to pair with anonymity and privacy, I don't know. Here's the thing, I played a game in the past where you buy something and while you leave the game the profit is going up and up. I don't remember that game but that is amazing since while you have a lot of money or profit, you could upgrade your house, your PC, your room, etc.
In that game, you could start the player as one wanting to mine bitcoin and maybe 100 to 200 sats are enough profit of it per hour. Then there is this upgrades in his PC where it would speed up his earnings or profit. He could upgrade his PC, his house, he can even buy a miner to more develop his earnings. He could switch to solar so he could reduce his payment in electrical bills. You could add a feature where a hacker can hack his computer, if you will be doing it online, you could match up to other players hacking their PC in that game with a simple mini-game. This is just an idea of mine, hope it gives you something helpful.
In that game, you could start the player as one wanting to mine bitcoin and maybe 100 to 200 sats are enough profit of it per hour. Then there is this upgrades in his PC where it would speed up his earnings or profit. He could upgrade his PC, his house, he can even buy a miner to more develop his earnings. He could switch to solar so he could reduce his payment in electrical bills. You could add a feature where a hacker can hack his computer, if you will be doing it online, you could match up to other players hacking their PC in that game with a simple mini-game. This is just an idea of mine, hope it gives you something helpful.
Some really nice feedback. Thanks. To be honest, I started last year to think about a bitcoin game that looked like what you are saying. However, I changed my mind over the year. I'll try to explain why.
The persistent online games you describe do make the game studios a LOT of money. When I set out to design such a game, I found it got very complicated for a game designer and even for players. I wanted something that my friends who are not into fantasy games to be happy to engage with what I am building.
The second game you describe, kind of exists, but I found it not informative at all. The description of them game calls it an "idle clicker".
There's another one that helps you build a mining operation. However, I think it focusses on one aspect of bitcoin.
In contrast, I really want to build a tool that solves the problem I have. The problem to let my friends understand at a high level, what is bitcoin and why bitcoin is such a useful thing to have.
The target player is not an engineer or an economist, but a person on the street that still believes fiat is good and that we are fine with money controlled by the state.
When you decide to create a game, so the target surely the game lovers and a few people that may be interested in it. This is not a bad idea but I assume it won't involve significant numbers of people. Moreover, not all gamers always try a new game, some of them just play with their favorite games and stuck on them. So, how to handle this fact?I think the trick will be to not target game lovers. Instead, I'll target some of those millions of people that have a coinbase account. They have put their money into some cryptocurrency. In theory, they will be interested in learning more about bitcoin.
Going through the discussion here, I am thinking maybe I shouldn't even call this a game at all anymore, but an educational app with elements borrowed from game design and gamification.
For example:
1. Complete the first task where you discover the emission schedule of bitcoin.
2. Get a screen that says, "Well done you are now at Level 1".
3. The user/player goes to the next screen where the conversation is about, "How do I actually use bitcoin? Do I need a special credit card?"
4. At the screen in 3., there is a text telling the player their current level. Something like:
https://www.cheatcc.com/imagesds/radianthistoria_0b.jpg
The levelling screen in 2. and the current level in 4 are the "game" parts here.
~
The game is designed as a series of conversations between two people, one asks questions and the other responds. The responses almost always include a mini game where the player solves a simple task to understand the concept.
~
The game is designed as a series of conversations between two people, one asks questions and the other responds. The responses almost always include a mini game where the player solves a simple task to understand the concept.
~
I'm wondering how that will work without making the game itself pretty boring. By "conversations between two people" are you talking about a design similar to Seen?
To promote the game to a higher extent and make it more likely to become popular, I'd add a game inside your app with weekly winners. The game would only become unlocked if you pass 1/2 of the courses, but only practice mode. If you want to win the prizes, you have to finish all the courses beforehand.
Say there's a trading game in there and you have to guess if the price of BTC is going to fall or rise within the next 30 minutes. If you get it right, you get a point. The more you get right, the more points you earn. If you miss a prediction, 2 points are deducted OR your score resets. The winner at the end of the week (with the highest points) would be rewarded a little prize ($10?).
I know there's a quite large number of people willing to spend their time on apps to earn even a few cents. If you're going to make a little competition, more will be interested to join.
Kids vs adults shouldn't be a concern. Kids learning about BTC and financial freedom is a great idea. They should grow up with decentralization in mind imo. Fuck the state-controlled worthless paper money. Adults who are interested to learn more about BTC (or, if the idea above turns into reality, even those interested in trading only) will download your app if the design is user-friendly and fun enough.
Best of luck with the development, make sure you leave some updates here every now and then!
I was thinking more about something like this:
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_gfs_107557_2_30_6046.jpg
Some brilliant suggestions here. The weekly rounds is something I have been thinking about too. I was thinking of a mining competition, but really left this all for phase 2 or 3. I just want to focus on a tool that I can give to a friend and they come back saying thanks, now they get a bit more about bitcoin than they did before trying the game.
Hi all,
Thanks for this excellent feedback. This is exactly what I was looking for. I'll address the concerns raised until now.
1. Adults vs kids.
The target of the game remains people who are curious about bitcoin, but don't have time or energies to read books. The impact of Bitcoin and how it can be used is pretty tough to grasp. By breaking down concepts and letting people engage with a single concept at a time will help them understand more.
I personally read the white paper and was sold. However, I found out more and more as I kept reading and engaging with the community. My hope is to convince some of my friends who aren't convinced about the importance of bitcoin. They are very smart people, but lead a busy life and don't have 2-8 hours to read a book etc.
My aim is break the game into small nuggets, so each session is a couple of minutes and the player walks away with that single concept. Slowly over 15-20 sessions, with 15-20 mini-games, the player would have understood a lot of small concepts and hopefully sees the bigger picture.
2. Distribution
My goal is to make the game useful and interesting enough experience so that people here can point their friends to it. You know those smart friends of ours who are being too lazy to read the books/articles/videos we keep sending them.
I am building this in Unity2D and am aware of apple's reluctance to accept bitcoin related apps. So I am being careful and developing both for webGL and mobile. I might just have to distribute it via web.
3. Play testing
I will definitely need a lot of help play testing and gathering feedback. So everyone here who would like to help me with testing will definitely get free access to the game.
To be honest, I would love to give the game away for free so that there is no friction for people anywhere in the world to play it and get started on understanding bitcoin. However, this depends on sponsorships I can get once the game is ready.
3. I like the suggestions to include other things like how mining makes money for miners. The mini-game for miner profits is probably not too hard to build too. Thanks @pawanjain for the suggestion.
4. Thanks @pakhitheboss for the suggestion about a questionnaire. Reminds me of quizzes on coursera. That could actually work. Super suggestion. Let me see if can fit that in without breaking the continuity.
Once again, thanks everyone for all the encouragement and also for a healthy dose of skepticism.
I hope to start sharing some screenshots soon. Just need to get the artist to deliver some art work!
Thanks for this excellent feedback. This is exactly what I was looking for. I'll address the concerns raised until now.
1. Adults vs kids.
The target of the game remains people who are curious about bitcoin, but don't have time or energies to read books. The impact of Bitcoin and how it can be used is pretty tough to grasp. By breaking down concepts and letting people engage with a single concept at a time will help them understand more.
I personally read the white paper and was sold. However, I found out more and more as I kept reading and engaging with the community. My hope is to convince some of my friends who aren't convinced about the importance of bitcoin. They are very smart people, but lead a busy life and don't have 2-8 hours to read a book etc.
My aim is break the game into small nuggets, so each session is a couple of minutes and the player walks away with that single concept. Slowly over 15-20 sessions, with 15-20 mini-games, the player would have understood a lot of small concepts and hopefully sees the bigger picture.
2. Distribution
My goal is to make the game useful and interesting enough experience so that people here can point their friends to it. You know those smart friends of ours who are being too lazy to read the books/articles/videos we keep sending them.
I am building this in Unity2D and am aware of apple's reluctance to accept bitcoin related apps. So I am being careful and developing both for webGL and mobile. I might just have to distribute it via web.
3. Play testing
I will definitely need a lot of help play testing and gathering feedback. So everyone here who would like to help me with testing will definitely get free access to the game.
To be honest, I would love to give the game away for free so that there is no friction for people anywhere in the world to play it and get started on understanding bitcoin. However, this depends on sponsorships I can get once the game is ready.
3. I like the suggestions to include other things like how mining makes money for miners. The mini-game for miner profits is probably not too hard to build too. Thanks @pawanjain for the suggestion.
4. Thanks @pakhitheboss for the suggestion about a questionnaire. Reminds me of quizzes on coursera. That could actually work. Super suggestion. Let me see if can fit that in without breaking the continuity.
Once again, thanks everyone for all the encouragement and also for a healthy dose of skepticism.
I hope to start sharing some screenshots soon. Just need to get the artist to deliver some art work!
Hi all,
I recently started working on an educational game that informs the player about some of the important concepts about bitcoin and am looking for some feedback.
The target player is not an engineer or an economist, but a person on the street that still believes fiat is good and that we are fine with money controlled by the state.
The game is designed as a series of conversations between two people, one asks questions and the other responds. The responses almost always include a mini game where the player solves a simple task to understand the concept.
For example, the first game is a simple "scratch the screen" game to reveal the bitcoin emission schedule.
Here's a list topics for which I am currently developing mini games:
Would love to get any input on the list if topics. Is there something I am missing as the first introduction to someone new to bitcoin? Is there something I should take out?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.
I recently started working on an educational game that informs the player about some of the important concepts about bitcoin and am looking for some feedback.
The target player is not an engineer or an economist, but a person on the street that still believes fiat is good and that we are fine with money controlled by the state.
The game is designed as a series of conversations between two people, one asks questions and the other responds. The responses almost always include a mini game where the player solves a simple task to understand the concept.
For example, the first game is a simple "scratch the screen" game to reveal the bitcoin emission schedule.
Here's a list topics for which I am currently developing mini games:
- Inflation hedge. Digital Gold.
- How to pay using Bitcoin. No need for Credit Cards or banks.
- How payments work - mining intro.
- Double spending is almost impossible.
- Censorship resistance.
- Fleeing a war zone with bitcoin.
- Keeping it safe. Secret sharing.
- Purity of bitcoin vis a vis gold purity tests.
- Address the fear of losing coins.
- Anonymity and privacy.
- No banks or state or single miner or developer regulates Bitcoin. Essentially, "no one" regulates Bitcoin.
Would love to get any input on the list if topics. Is there something I am missing as the first introduction to someone new to bitcoin? Is there something I should take out?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts.