Author: Peter Todd 2014-01-10 17:22:06
Published on: 2014-01-10T17:22:06+00:00
The discussion revolves around decentralized consensus systems competing for market share and the potential for attacks from miners of established systems. The survival of cryptocurrencies such as Devcoin and Ixcoin can be attributed to their luck in getting the support of reasonably big mining pools, leading to concerns over PR for attackers. However, the cost of attack is high for Bitcoiners defending their currency against local currency or barter clubs, making it unlikely. The debate extends to the issue of merge mining being insecure and whether harm caused to participants in the old system would outweigh the benefits of the new system. The distribution of harm among participants is discussed, and it is noted that running namecoind involves effort and bandwidth on the part of miners. Providing security for a chain does not increase its utility or demand, but the operation costs do not cause value either. The conversation ends with different opinions about the usefulness and value of a secure chain.
Updated on: 2023-06-07T23:18:23.000507+00:00