Author: Moral Agent 2017-06-19 20:32:23
Published on: 2017-06-19T20:32:23+00:00
The idea presented in a Reddit post from February 2017 suggests creating a sidechain for Bitcoin that is secured with Proof of Stake (POS) and would reduce the incentive to delay broadcast of solved blocks. The steps include soft forking Bitcoin to enable side chains, creating a side chain that mints one POS-block after each POW-block on the main chain, and penalizing POW-blocks which do not point to the prior POS-block by doubling the difficulty necessary for them to be valid. Advantages of this approach include allowing people who do not control ASICs to influence which transactions happen and which chain gets extended, reducing the incentive to selfish mine, reducing the effective block interval while reducing the incidence of stale blocks, empty blocks and SPV mining, and essentially having the same security characteristics as the main chain. Users can opt into the POS sidechain, and it can fully prove itself in production before there is any attempt to anchor the main chain back to it. No hard fork is required, and this soft fork could be deployed even if the miners do not consent to it. A hybrid POS system is recommended over simply changing POW algorithms in the face of miners abusing their power. Additionally, unlike a pure POS system, a cabal of early stake holders cannot cheaply hatch an alternate history. The mere existence of such a chain could deter tomfoolery on the part of POW miners, lest they galvanize the community into throwing the switch.
Updated on: 2023-06-12T02:46:26.917654+00:00