A proposal for up-front payments.



Summary:

The discussion is about the equivalence of requiring a fee and proof-of-work (PoW) in terms of incentives. The argument is that PoW can be bought, which makes it equivalent to paying someone to spend electricity. A brand-new PoW has to be created for each intermediary under this particular PoW proposal, making them unusable for later payments. The author argues that different spam-prevention schemes result in different resource utilization and proceeds from fees. By changing whether anti-spam PoWs or fees are used, economically rational behavior changes. The University of Edinburgh is mentioned as the author's affiliation.


Updated on: 2023-06-02T21:17:21.570385+00:00