So there is a computer virus cat-and-mouse game, where viruses always get better, and antivirus software and new computer languages always get better. So what in your logic, does that somehow display "how flawed" computers in general are? We are still going to use them because we need them, and some people are still going to keep using PoW until that is the only viable method to achieve a decentralized trustless ledger.
There are decentralized ledgers that do not use PoW or PoS see for example XRPL.org/consensus.html
"Trust less" however is a matter of definition. You allays need to trust "something" outside of you control like for example the majority of validator nodes or miners or those in control of the mining pools etc. and on a lower level thous in control of the internet hardware like undersea cables and thous in control or power grids etc. etc.
You need to trust them all that they don't turn off the nodes or collude and disconnect the nodes form each other etc.
However you need no trust to verify that what they already did so far on the ledger/chain is correct you can locally check that and verify for yourself that the current state of the ledger is correct (sill need to trust the code ofc but you could theoretically write you own code to do the verification).
For the most part you only need trust less verification of the past/present and reasonable certainty that there will be correct forward progress. However BTC for example can not deliver that because although you can verify the past/present state you have no way to assure that you will not see a different and longer chain later on that is also verifiable and correct and thus would change "your assumed correct past state".
Well yes, and you are stretching that definition really far, if you are presenting Ripple as a "trustless" platform. They are very far from Satoshi's cypherpunk vision (which while is perhaps extreme in some ways, a lot of people really like, and most importantly, it actually works in practice, in PoW chains). Ripple's "trustlessness" is about as trustless as the SWIFT network.
you have no way to assure that you will not see a different and longer chain later on that is also verifiable and correct and thus would change "your assumed correct past state".
Yes, you do, you wait for 6 confirmations. This has been, i fact, working in practice for all of the history of Bitcoin. This principle, in the context of the Bitcoin network has historically had less outage time than any one of the world's stock exchanges or banks.
I have never even mentioned Ripple. Ripple is a company like Google or Apple. They have have a service called RippleNet which is kinda like SWIFT. Nothing about that is relevant to what I said because I did not talk about Ripple and also not about RippleNet. The XRPL is NOT controlled by that company or any company. Again XRPL.org/consensus.html if you are interested in how the XRPL works.
Yes, you do, you wait for 6 confirmations.
That exactly what I said. You can not rely on the present state even if you can validate it and "know" it's "correct" it doesn't have to be the longest correct chain. Waiting 6 blocks may be the real world workaround but it does not change that fact. Also 6 blocks is arbitrary why not 7? or 21? Longer is obviously better but there is no certainty it just gets exponentially more certain the longer you wait.
Bitcoin network has historically had less outage time than any one of the world's stock exchanges or banks.
That's kinda a nonsense statement, the bitcoin network can not really have an outage because as long as there is one miner it technically still running. Or if large part of the network go offline it still keeps going for the rest there could be accidental forks and very long block times and what not but it can't be down. Since transaction take forever anyway because you need to wait many blocks, no one relies on it "being there" every second of the day. Its not like an stock exchange where at any second data has to be processed and any delay is "downtime". You just send your Tx into the network and it has plenty time to spread and eventually be included in the next block.
BTW the XRPL went online (completely centralized back then) in 2013 and since has never had any outages. In the early days there where some time synchronization problems which resulted in larger block times but they where still an order of magnitude shorter than bitcoins median block time.
The point is that it encourages centralisation, and where mining is centralised, miners can play games like blacklisting wallets if they want to. Particularly if, say, most of the mining capacity ends up somewhere with an authoritarian government that might take an interest.
(I am willing to admit here I don't know enough about monero in particular to grok whether the mining blacklist thing would work on that chain. I'm pretty sure it could for BTC)
Comments
So there is a computer virus cat-and-mouse game, where viruses always get better, and antivirus software and new computer languages always get better. So what in your logic, does that somehow display "how flawed" computers in general are? We are still going to use them because we need them, and some people are still going to keep using PoW until that is the only viable method to achieve a decentralized trustless ledger.
There are decentralized ledgers that do not use PoW or PoS see for example XRPL.org/consensus.html
"Trust less" however is a matter of definition. You allays need to trust "something" outside of you control like for example the majority of validator nodes or miners or those in control of the mining pools etc. and on a lower level thous in control of the internet hardware like undersea cables and thous in control or power grids etc. etc. You need to trust them all that they don't turn off the nodes or collude and disconnect the nodes form each other etc.
However you need no trust to verify that what they already did so far on the ledger/chain is correct you can locally check that and verify for yourself that the current state of the ledger is correct (sill need to trust the code ofc but you could theoretically write you own code to do the verification).
For the most part you only need trust less verification of the past/present and reasonable certainty that there will be correct forward progress. However BTC for example can not deliver that because although you can verify the past/present state you have no way to assure that you will not see a different and longer chain later on that is also verifiable and correct and thus would change "your assumed correct past state".
Well yes, and you are stretching that definition really far, if you are presenting Ripple as a "trustless" platform. They are very far from Satoshi's cypherpunk vision (which while is perhaps extreme in some ways, a lot of people really like, and most importantly, it actually works in practice, in PoW chains). Ripple's "trustlessness" is about as trustless as the SWIFT network.
Yes, you do, you wait for 6 confirmations. This has been, i fact, working in practice for all of the history of Bitcoin. This principle, in the context of the Bitcoin network has historically had less outage time than any one of the world's stock exchanges or banks.
I have never even mentioned Ripple. Ripple is a company like Google or Apple. They have have a service called RippleNet which is kinda like SWIFT. Nothing about that is relevant to what I said because I did not talk about Ripple and also not about RippleNet. The XRPL is NOT controlled by that company or any company. Again XRPL.org/consensus.html if you are interested in how the XRPL works.
That exactly what I said. You can not rely on the present state even if you can validate it and "know" it's "correct" it doesn't have to be the longest correct chain. Waiting 6 blocks may be the real world workaround but it does not change that fact. Also 6 blocks is arbitrary why not 7? or 21? Longer is obviously better but there is no certainty it just gets exponentially more certain the longer you wait.
That's kinda a nonsense statement, the bitcoin network can not really have an outage because as long as there is one miner it technically still running. Or if large part of the network go offline it still keeps going for the rest there could be accidental forks and very long block times and what not but it can't be down. Since transaction take forever anyway because you need to wait many blocks, no one relies on it "being there" every second of the day. Its not like an stock exchange where at any second data has to be processed and any delay is "downtime". You just send your Tx into the network and it has plenty time to spread and eventually be included in the next block.
BTW the XRPL went online (completely centralized back then) in 2013 and since has never had any outages. In the early days there where some time synchronization problems which resulted in larger block times but they where still an order of magnitude shorter than bitcoins median block time.
The point is that it encourages centralisation, and where mining is centralised, miners can play games like blacklisting wallets if they want to. Particularly if, say, most of the mining capacity ends up somewhere with an authoritarian government that might take an interest.
(I am willing to admit here I don't know enough about monero in particular to grok whether the mining blacklist thing would work on that chain. I'm pretty sure it could for BTC)
Blacklisting addresses is not possible in Monero due to the use of stealth addresses, so this particular concern doesn't exist.
It is definitely a major flaw in Bitcoin and all other transparent blockchains.