Proof-of-Work Coins will end in Communism
I believe in the long-long run all POW coins will end up in communism, once the poor people take it over. The only way to maintain private property, is through the right of self-defense. This is just basic sociology.
Do you want to live in an egalitarian world, or a hierarchic world?
- If it's egalitarian, then everyone steals from one another in order for nobody to be above. But if anyone wants to be better, he will not be allowed. So this society will collapse, into a lazy, nihilistic, poor society, where innovation and "self-improvement" is not allowed.
- If it's hierarchic, then you have private property, free market, wealth creation, and competition for more resources, and through it, you create massive innovation, and make things better for everyone. But to sustain this system, you must have the right of self defense. And that means, keeping poor people at bay, and stopping them from robbing richer people, and instead incentivizing them to become wealthy.
Now you can't have both, and a mixture of the two is a disaster, so you have to choose one or the other. I would choose Capitalism, in a free and voluntary society, where property rights are honored. I'm an individualist.
Blockchain
How this works in Blockchains? It's very simple. You have Bitcoin. Which is our store of value. Even though Bitcoin has a wealth inequality (as early investors have made a lot of money), poor investors made money too. This is Capitalism, where everyone makes money, rich and poor, they all increase their standards of living.
But Bitcoin is now bringing in people from 3rld world countries, whom are very poor, and from leftist countries as well. So it's only a question of time until Communist ideas will start to be spread.
Bitcoin might defend against a network attack, but it can't defend against Communism, because it used POW algorithm, and nodes.
It would be very simple, there are 5000 nodes, probably less in the future. A bunch of 3rld world poor people just download a modified software, let's say a coordinated event of 50,000 people, and they will just hardfork money out of your wallet. Since they will be in 90% majority, and the nodes have the final authority, not the miners, it will be successful.
And it will be this easy to steal from rich people. And there is nothing on Earth that would stop this kind of attack on Bitcoin. Just like that, everyone who has a lot of coins will lose all their money. In protests, 100,000 people can be mobilized just like that. So what makes you think that you can't mobilize 50,000 poor people to steal money from the rich?
This is the single most biggest vulnerability of Bitcoin and all POW coins. Communism.
So I believe the only coins that have a future is POS coins, where the coin owners have a stake. Yes not all coin owners would mint coins, so you need a sort of delegation system (like NXT's staking system, or even Steem), where others would "mine" for you, and split the profits. But it should be the wealthy that control the network, because otherwise we end up with a lot of poor people trying to loot and sack our cryptocurrencies.
Sorry folks, an oligarchy is inevitable. Either that or you get a flood of 3rld world poor people looting and sacking all cryptocurrencies.
Sources:
http://www.acting-man.com
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I don't believe you.
@profitgenerator, you make it sound like free markets are delicate little flowers that wither at the first challenge to their existence when in fact they exist in the face of outright bans - in which case they're referred to as black markets.
What's more, if you wrote this sober, your understanding of the security of cryptography as it applies to crypto currencies belies a very poor grasp on the subject and I'll be much less inclined to value what you have to say on the topic.
It has nothing to do with it. It's just tragedy of the commons.
Poor people outnumber rich people, so it's only a question of time until they start stealing, because there is nothing stopping them.It's worst than a bank security, since at least the bank has a vault door, stopping the mob. Bitcoin doesn't.
They just download modified software, and overwrite the consensus that easily.
Do you really think that if Bitcoin could be stolen en-masse that it wouldn't have happened already? Do you think that thieves aren't already adequately motivated?
The average thieves have low resources. This kind of theft requires a large organized coordinated attack, which hasn't came yet, but it could in the future. Economies getting worse, while people are getting savvy enough to learn online mischiefs. Expect this attack to happen in the next 5-10 years if the community doesnt do anything against it.
How is anyone sign a transaction without the private key for that particular account?
Good question, that many guys on the forum cant comprehend.
By changing the entire protocol to allow the coins from your address to be moved with the private key of the attacker, and not yours. It is possible. And the majority of nodes can do it.
Or a less complicated method is to just change the bitcoin inflation, from 12.5 BTC to 12500 BTC/ 10 minutes, and hardcode that to a way that the BTC goes to the attacker address instead of a miners.
If changing the protocol were a trivial thing it would already have been done - why do you think there's such a contentious a blocksize debate? Also, your assertion about nodes being able to sign transactions out of accounts for which they don't possess the private keys is wrong - to the point of being nonsense.
This seems quite a negative take on things.
I am new to cryptocurrencies, but in my mind it is much easier to make 50 000 people angry enough to take to the streets and burn stuff than it is to get them to download modified software, set it all up and then carry out the attack.
Most internet access in 3rd world countries (in Africa anyway) is through mobile devices.
Granted this may change in the far future, but the skill level required to carry this out will remain high I think.
Interesting read though :)
It doesn't necessarly have to happen from Africa, it can happen from any developed world (who have more leftists as a % of population).
Like EU leftists or US leftists, they are more cunning than 3rld word leftists. However I just said that as an example.
Fair enough, I just cannot wrap my mind around how a person (or group) would get a significantly large number of people to carry this out.
Now planting software via a virus, that I can imagine happening.
"Hello there starving people from Ghana,Somalia,Congo,Liberia,Ethiopia, would you like to earn 10 virtual currencies that you can exchange for 1000$? All you need to do is just go to WEBSITE-A, and download this software, let it run, and when the synch finishes, you get automatically 10,000$ worth of coins ,that you can use to feed your 50 children, for a long long time, whatcha say?"
(no offense intended toward africans)
That is an insult to all Africans and racist in nature! I am disappointed and concerned that you can condescend so low and take to name calling, which I must say was premeditated because only few posts above, you asserted this was something for EU or US leftist, only to turn around to say African can't feed their countless number of children unless they take to stealing.
What an effrontery, I personally would have landed you a very hot slap if you were within reach , because you're a benefactor of the daylight robbery and rape that was colonialism and now it has swollen your head and given you wings to see yourself as rich and super human!
Hey there chill out, I just gave a hypothetical example there.
I would imagine EU or US leftist would do the same, in fact the probability of them doing this vs the probability of the Africans doing this is much higher.
This was not intended to insult africans, but rather to examine the reality that all people, mostly the leftist, that could pose this threat to POW systems.