Author: Erik Aronesty 2021-05-18 18:52:51
Published on: 2021-05-18T18:52:51+00:00
In a conversation between Zac Greenwood and ZmnSCPxj, they discussed the possibility of using a "burned coin + vdf system" to replace proof of work. This suggestion was made in the context of a working proof-of-burn protocol and would involve using vdfs only for timing, blind-burned coins of a specific age to replace proof of work, and a competition to acquire rewards that would require miners to burn coins well in advance. The point of burned coins is to mimic the value gained from proof of work without some of the security drawbacks. The miner risks losing all of his burned coins, and new burns can't be used while old burns age out. Other requirements on burns might be needed to properly mirror the properties of PoW and the incentives Bitcoin uses to mine honestly.ZmnSCPxj believes that it is possible that a "burned coin + vdf system" might be more secure in the long run, and if the entire space agreed that such an endeavor was worthwhile, a test net could be spun up, and a hard-fork could be initiated. However, he would never suggest such a thing unless he believed it was possible that consensus was possible, so this is not an "alt coin. "In another email, Zac Greenwood suggested using VDFs to make the time between blocks more constant, but ZmnSCPxj pointed out that VDFs are not inherently progress-free and could lead to even worse competition and more energy consumption if miners focus on improving the amount of energy they can pump into the VDF circuitry.
Updated on: 2023-06-14T20:50:58.358671+00:00