Ethereum founder talks about the history and the state of Casper
In a tweet storm yesterday, Vitalik Buterin recounted the history and status of Casper, a new Proof of Stake consensus mechanism for Ethereum. The thread is long and fairly comprehensive. Although the tweets are plagued with jargon and acronyms, Vitalik does offer a good primer on how key design issues in Casper evolved over time.
2. Ethereum proof of stake research began in Jan 2014 with Slasher (https://t.co/ENIJsun6zn). Though the algorithm is highly suboptimal, it introduced some important ideas, most particularly the use of penalties to solve the nothing at stake problem (https://t.co/CbMXgQt0TI).
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018
...
75. What's left now? On the FFG side, formal proofs, refinements to the specification, and ongoing progress on implementation (already started by >=3 teams!), with an eye to safe and speedy deployment. On the CBC side, much of the same. Onward and upward!
— Vitalik Non-giver of Ether (@VitalikButerin) August 16, 2018
Criticisms on the trust assumptions Vitalik referenced in the tweet storm
Stop reading right here lol. Wrong on so many levels.
— Hugo Nguyen (@hugohanoi) August 16, 2018
(i) level of trust in PoW vs PoS is nowhere the same in terms of both magnitude & frequency
(ii) "small" is relative & can turn "big" quickly in worst-case scenarios. very dangerous thinking. I call it engineering-by-hope. 😛 https://t.co/huw6Uyeaxy
Technical Updates
Commentary thread on how LN may enable micropayments
A lot of people have theorized that micropayments have too much cognitive load to be useful. But prior to Lightning there were almost no systems capable of actually testing this in the real world.
— Peter Todd (@peterktodd) August 16, 2018
Possible that Lightning will prove that theory wrong!https://t.co/qf39BWCQWh
Thread on how transactions in DLT systems end up forming part of the global ledger
1/ Let's have a look today at how transactions initiated by users in DLT systems end up forming part of the global ledger.
— Michel Rauchs (@mrauchs) August 16, 2018
All figures are taken from our new report Distributed Ledger Technology Systems: A Conceptual Framework (available here: https://t.co/vZF8mhPWOT).
Decred for custody providers
(Noah)
"Implementing custodial voting requires more engineering effort compared to just custodial storage, but there are many developers that can help with advice and some software already exists that can be used as a starting point."
Speculation on ASIC machines for Grin
(Source: Grin Gitter)
Nothing personal, it's just mining: business models overview
(Hackernoon, by Kirill Shilov)
"To sum everything up, the rapid development of the crypto market has generated a variety of business models. Both centralized giants like Bitmain and cloud-mining projects seem to have serious flaws in transparency and profitability for the simple user. This is why the visible crowdfunding model appears to be the most effective one from this perspective."
Intel's 10nm Cannon Lake chip gets another outing in new NUC mini PC
(arsTechnica, by Peter Bright)
"Intel's 10nm process is fraught with difficulties—the company isn't expecting volume 10nm production until the second half of next year. That Intel is using this chip in new systems suggests that its yields may slowly be improving and that it has more of the processors available than it once did."
"3D tech could give a performance boost so big that chips built at SkyWater Technology’s 90-nm foundry could beat those built using today’s most advanced 7-nm tech"
News & Commentary
Bitcoin, stock & flow
(Hugo Nguyen)
"Bitcoin, in essence, is protected by (i) the fees today and (ii) a stream of fees in the future (manifested in the mining equipment). A combination of stock & flow."
AT&T sued for $224 million after phone hackers rob crypto investor
(CoinDesk, by Anna Baydakova)
"In a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles litigation firm Greenberg Glusker on August 15, Terpin claimed that AT&T's employees have been complicit in a SIM swap fraud. In this type of scam, criminals pose as the owners of their victims' mobile phone numbers, convincing telecom providers to grant them access to their phones."
Not much is less secure than SMS for 2FA. SMS can be arbitrarily rerouted by proper phone goons. Authy, Google Auth, and all the other front ends to TOTP or HOTP add a second secret that buys you (the user) a hell of a lot of time against an adversary. Still finite.
— lossy compression (@lssycmprssn) August 16, 2018
Bitcon contracts upgrade live now with a premium discount
(Genesis Mining)
"Unfortunately, Bitcoin went into a downward trend around January. This trend combined with the heavily rising difficulty around April and May reduced mining outputs even further. As a result, some user contracts are now mining less than the daily maintenance fee requires to be covered, and thus they entered the 60 days grace period, after which open-ended contracts will get terminated."
Nvidia gives lackluster outlook on cratering crypto sales
(Bloomberg, by Ian King)
"Nvidia said it had expected about $100 million in sales of chips bought by currency miners in the fiscal second quarter. Instead, the total was $18 million and the company projects no revenue from those customers in the future."
Why Turkey's crisis feels familiar for emerging markets: it's the debt
(NYT, by Landon Thomas Jr.)
"Analysts at the B.I.S., especially its top economist, Hyun Song Shin, have been warning about this phenomenon for years. Their main point is this: When interest rates rise in the United States, increasing the value of the dollar, foreign corporations and governments will have trouble repaying these debts in their depreciating national currencies — precisely what is happening in Turkey right now."