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EPFL Researchers Invent Low-Cost Alternative to Bitcoin:
The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is limited by its astronomical electricity consumption and outsized carbon footprint. A nearly zero-energy alternative sounds too good to be true, but as School of Computer and Communication Sciences (IC) Professor Rachid Guerraoui explains, it all comes down to our understanding of what makes transactions secure.
To explain why the system developed in his Distributed Computing Lab (DCL) represents a paradigm shift in how we think about cryptocurrencies -- and about digital trust in general -- Professor Rachid Guerraoui uses a legal metaphor: all players in this new system are "innocent until proven guilty."
This is in contrast to the traditional Bitcoin model first described in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, which relies on solving a difficult problem called "consensus" to guarantee the security of transactions. In this model, everyone in a distributed system must agree on the validity of all transactions to prevent malicious players from cheating -- for example, by spending the same digital tokens twice (double-spending). In order to prove their honesty and achieve consensus, players must execute complex -- and energy-intensive -- computing tasks that are then verified by the other players.
But in their new system, Guerraoui and his colleagues flip the assumption that all players are potential cheaters on its head.
What do you guys think? Will this replace Bitcoin?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday October 01 2019, @05:47PM (4 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday October 02 2019, @02:14AM (3 children)
For the US government, not for you.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday October 06 2019, @01:30PM (2 children)
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday October 07 2019, @03:24AM (1 child)
The US government is the government in question. And despite the breezy assurances to the contrary they retain ultimate control over both the US dollar currency and the derived classes of securities considered to near equivalent.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday October 07 2019, @10:42PM
The government also has no effective control over the value of stocks or if money, or companies would never go bust (angers voters who are shareholders or employees) and commodities would have fixed prices in relation to the currency. That's just reality.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.