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2634d
Emin Gün Sirer talks about the 3 different types of consensus protocols, including an exciting new one released by an anonymous group last year called Avalanche

Watch here:
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replied 2633d
Interesting video. Helped me understand avalanche a little more. One confusing thing though, is he said a few times "there is no mining." I think he means, no mining to validate TXs.
replied 2633d
But the TXs will still get mined into the BCH blockchain, right? Avalanche is just a pre-filter on the TX to try and prevent double spends attempts by "locking-in" the 1st seen TX.
replied 2633d
It's not sufficient itself to maintain the chain. Also, it was a little confusing when he was talking about randomly picking red an blue. In the real system, it's not random.
replied 2633d
There's a True correct choice, the real 1st seen TX, & it's very unlikely a double spend attempt will win the metastable race. So once you see your TX accepted by avalanche
replied 2633d
You can trust more that it is the one that will end up on the block chain. This made me feel better about Avalanche as I was a bit skeptical before.
replied 2633d
I heard that too. I believe what Emin meant by no mining is no conventional mining i.e. "brute-force solve a difficult puzzle", it needs far less energy to "interview 5 nodes".
replied 2632d
Apparently PoW should still be in there. Something was "missing in translation" here...

https://medium.com/@chrispacia/avalanche-pre-consensus-making-zeroconf-secure-ddedec254339
replied 2631d
I think they're 2 different things though, Emin is building a new coin from the ground up just using Avalanche, Chris is using avalanche for preconsensus on bch
replied 2630d
I just saw your video interviewing Chris Pacia.

Now I get it. Thank you!
replied 2630d
For BCH, it is an add-on pre-consensus method on top of existing PoW algorithm.

AVA instead uses it as a consensus method, as opposed to Nakamoto's, coupled with PoS algorithm.
replied 2630d
I believe Pacia and some other devs were talking about basing Avalanche participant selection on PoW over the past ~100 blocks so it's still critical for gaining control of the network
replied 2630d
Yes and no. Basically the old benefit of 51% is "few confirmations" accommodating a split for a double-spend. With Avalanche, network control can cause a sway. But remains _not_ split.
replied 2630d
I understand that, I'm saying they were proposing using PoW over the last 100 blocks as a selection mechanism for Avalanche instead of PoS
replied 2630d
Apologies, I seemed to have missed your point.

So what are you implying with "it's still critical for gaining control of the network" before?
replied 2630d
Just that centralization or any kind of attack would still rely upon gaining a large majority of hashrate on the network. Lots of people were irked by the idea of PoS Bitcoin
replied 2630d
Now there's an alternative: adjust to zero-conf PoW, or adopt PoS rejuvenated/perfected with Avalanche.

The issue with PoS was when it is coupled with Nakamoto consensus, isn't it?
replied 2631d
I guess I should also check check out the video of Emir in Ava, because truth be told I haven't gone through that one.
replied 2631d
Yeah after I saw the second video I started figuring that out. Definitely skeptical about an avalanche only coin, but interesting to investigate it.
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Yeah I'm not sure either, but I'm curious to ask him some more questions and looking forward to seeing it launch
replied 2633d
You think he meant that Avalanche would replace hash mining and not just supplement it? I didn't think that was the plan. I would not be in favor of that.
replied 2633d
Now that you mentioned it, I think it is just as susceptible to 51% attacks, and such attack may become easier to deploy because participation no longer requires expensive power.
replied 2633d
If that's the case, hopefully that is only a minor setback that can be ironed out quickly.
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That's my understanding. Satoshi's consensus method relies on whichever chain is the longest, backed by hashing power. Avalanche was depicted as needing no such "enormous energy".
replied 2633d
Maybe you can convey a follow-up question to Emin? If Avalanche needs low hashing power, what is stopping me from posing as 100,000 individuals, effectively carrying out a 51% attack?
replied 2633d
These are great points, I will reach out to him to see if I can clear things up!
replied 2632d
Sharing the lines from the interview that tickles my brain…

https://memo.cash/post/9c963b2776011388de97ffee4a3d4c0cc1543c3c3288dcc51d8505359f7b85c8
replied 2631d
Thanks!
replied 2633d
Thank you for sharing, this is phenomenal! It made a lot of sense, and is a great candidate for adoption by practically all blockchain operations.
replied 2633d
Thanks so much for watching :)
Bitcoin Cash Activist
replied 2634d
replied 2634d
Ah, that explains why I'm getting so much hate on twitter about my Emin interview 😂🤦‍♀️
Bitcoin Cash Activist
replied 2634d
that would explain it alright lol, crazy what goes on.