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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, Informative) by HiThere on Monday September 30 2019, @10:52PM (2 children)
Nobody could be innocent enough to think that there wouldn't be cheating if it were easy in essentially anonymous financial transactions, so that summary has got to be wrong. It's essentially a quote from the first part of the article, but that was wrong, too.
IIUC this system is more like each participant voting about whether any particular transaction is trustworthy. I can see applications for that kind of system, but they aren't financial. So I'm assuming that I'd need to dig deeper if I wanted to see any actual rationale. But the second half of the article sounds as if the system would have certain uses, where the first two paragraphs make it seem totally foolish.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Tuesday October 01 2019, @01:02AM
I could see this working for microtransactions, if the expected cost of the miner fee attached to a transaction outweighs the risk of a doublespend. If the gamble is $0.50, it could make sense. If it's $50,000... nope, gimme that sweet Earth-destroying PoW!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Tuesday October 01 2019, @03:28AM
The web site looks like someone is trolling for grant money and potential suckers^winvestors. It's the current economic model - you don't need a reasonable expectation that something will work, just people greedy enough to want to believe. And cryptocurrency, by its nature, attracts people who really, really want to believe.
Even bullets will be a more stable currency than cryptocurrency. And I'm saying that as someone who is in favour of gun control laws.
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